Excerpt from The Epistles of St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, Vol. 1 of 2
The present translation of the epistles of St. Ignatius is intended to set before English readers, in an accessible form, the writings of one of the most important characters in the Church history of the period succeeding the age of the Apostles. In these epistles we have the key to the right understanding of the character of the Church at the beginning of the second century. The two facts to which they bear witness are, on the one hand, the significance of the Incarnation for Christians of that generation as the central truth of Christianity, and, on the other, the importance attached to the visible unity of the Church as expressed in the organization of the Christian societies under bishops, presbyters and deacons. The striking personality of the writer of the epistles, and the controversy which has gathered round them, combine to make them one of the most interesting products of early Christian times.
Bishop Lightfoot's great work (Ignatius and Polycarp, 1885) has exhaustively treated of most of the critical questions which are connected with the text and the exposition of the epistles.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comwww.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.