08 — Rome and Its Honor
The Letter to the Romans — unique among the seven in begging the Roman Christians not to prevent his martyrdom — and the single most contested phrase in the Ignatian corpus: that the Roman church “presides in love” (προκαθημένη τῆς ἀγάπης). This section sets out the letter’s exceptional tone of honor toward Rome and then presents, even-handedly and with sources, both the Roman-primacy reading and the Orthodox reading of the phrase.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostolic Father)
The Letter to the Romans is the one letter that warns of no heresy and exhorts to no bishop; its whole burden is Ignatius’s fear that the Roman Christians, out of love, will use their influence to spare him. Its salutation is also the most laudatory of any of the seven, and its phrase “presiding in love” has become a crux in the centuries-long discussion of Roman primacy. Following METHODOLOGY §4, this section presents the contested reading with both-tradition sourcing and without polemic.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Letter to the Romans | The letter’s unique character; its date (24 August, Rom. 10) and place of writing; the laudatory prescript and its honorifics for the Roman church; the fear that their love might “harm” him by rescue; the text-critical oddity of its separate transmission in the Martyrium Ignatii. |
| Presides in Love | Sensitive (METHODOLOGY §4). The phrase προκαθημένη τῆς ἀγάπης and προκάθηται… χωρίου Ῥωμαίων; both readings presented with sources — the Roman-primacy reading (Fortescue, Quasten) and the Orthodox reading of a primacy of honor/love, not jurisdiction (Afanasiev, Meyendorff); the philology; what both traditions grant. |
See Also
- Wheat of God — the martyrdom theology that fills the letter
- The Road Through Asia — the letter written from Smyrna
- The Corpus — the Letter to the Romans among the seven
- The Pre-Schism Church — the early Church within which Rome’s honor is read
References
- Lightfoot, J. B. The Apostolic Fathers, Part II: S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1885.
- Quasten, Johannes. Patrology, Vol. 1: The Beginnings of Patristic Literature. Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1950.
- Afanasiev, Nicholas. “The Church Which Presides in Love.” In The Primacy of Peter, ed. John Meyendorff. Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1992.