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The Silence of Bishops in Ignatius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Henry Chadwick
Henry Chadwick
Affiliation:
Queens' College, Cambridge, England
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Extract

Among the many remarkable features of Ignatius' letters there is perhaps nothing more curious than his peculiar ideas about the value attaching to silence. There is something almost comic in his insistence that when a bishop is saying nothing he is then to be regarded with special awe. It is apparently his firm conviction that the best thing a bishop can do is to refrain from speech altogether. The purpose of this brief note is to attempt an interpretation of the passages where he brings forward this notion, and to suggest that the explanation of them in the standard commentators upon Ignatius' epistles is not satisfactory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , April 1950 , pp. 169 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1950

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References

1 An allusion to Paul, Gal. i. 1.

2 Lightfoot, J. B., The Apostolic Fathers, Part II, 2nd ed. (1889) ii p. 69Google Scholar.

3 Bauer, W. in the Ergaenzungsband to Lietzmann's Handbuch zum Neuen Testament (1920) p. 206Google Scholar: “versteht sich am besten von der Annahme aus, dass dem Bischof von Ephesus die Rednergabe versagt war.”

4 See his article ‘An Approach to Ignatius,’ in the Harvard Theological Review XXIX (1936) at p. 35Google Scholar. The point is also made by Ehrhardt, A., ‘The Beginnings of Monepiscopacy’ in the Church Quarterly Review CXL (1945) pp. 113–126Google Scholar.

5 The Primitive Church (1929) p. 170.

6 Compare the remark of Dr.Knox, W. L. in his recent book, The Acts of the Apostles (1948) p. 48Google Scholar n. 1: “Ignatius' Greek is largely made up of … reminiscences of the N.T.; the rest comes from pagan religion and astrology.”

7 Cf. Irenaeus, adv. Haer. 1.11.1; 2.12.2. Clement, Exc. Theod. 29.

8 Papyri Graecae Magicae iv.559, ed. Preisendanz i p. 92. Further material is collected by H. Schlier, Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den Ignatiusbriefen (= Z.N.W. Beiheft 8, 1929) p. 37 f. I have not seen Bartsch, H. W., Gnostisches Gut und Gemeindetradition bei Ignatius von Antiochien (1940)Google Scholar.