Those who denied the corporality of
Christ in Ignatius's day denied also the corporality of the means of salvation. Those who deny
the corporality of these means in our own time, and view salvation as a spiritual affair,
implicitly deny also the corporality of Christ, as is evidenced, for instance, by their
removal of the corpus from the cross.
Ignatius warns against the
docetists, the protestants of his day… “unbelievers who maintained that Christ only
seemed to suffer” (Ch. 2), i.e., that he only appeared to have a body.
[You Philippians] are perfected in… faith, as if you were nailed to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, both in the flesh and in the spirit, and are established in love through the blood of Christ, being fully persuaded with respect to our Lord, that He was truly of the seed of David according to the flesh… born of a virgin… baptized by John… nailed [to the cross] for us in His flesh…” (Ch. 1)
He takes up bodily suffering.
But if these things were done by our Lord only in appearance, then am I also only in appearance bound. And why have I also surrendered myself to death, to fire, to the sword, to the wild beasts? But, [in fact,] he who is near to the sword is near to God… (Ch. 4)
Christianity and martyrdom are the
same thing. Martyrdom is not just the death of a Christian for the sake of
Christ, as though the fact of it were incidental to the salvation of the
Christian.
Ignatius then turns his attention
to the Eucharist.
Let no man deceive himself… if they believe not in the blood of Christ, shall, in consequence, incur condemnation. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it… But consider those who are of a different opinion with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are to the will of God. (Ch. 6)
Ignatius draws an explicit
connection between the denial of the Eucharist and the denial of the
corporality of Christ.
They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death… give heed to the prophets, and above all, to the Gospel, in which the passion [of Christ] has been revealed to us, and the resurrection… proved. (Ch. 7)
The docetists apparently understood
the connection between these things. Today the connection is missed altogether, although the implications are there. A fine gentleman
told me that the heretic will always present and believe himself to have a fine and noble reason, whereas
the true beginnings of the evil are always subterranean and clouded.
DSMW
