Clearing Out the Tabs

IggyThe Feast of Ignatius of Antioch

Today, a pot of miscellany.  

1. Like his good bud Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch was a disciple of the Apostle John and was appointed by Simon Peter to lead the church at Antioch after Evodius, who had been one of the Seventy-Two.  Early writers stated that Iggy was the young child in Mark 9:35:

And taking a child, he set him in the midst of them. Whom when he had embraced, he says to them: Whosoever shall receive one such child as this in my name receives me.  And whosoever shall receive me receives not me but him that sent me.

But their reasons for saying so (and we must suppose they had reasons) have been long lost.  Still, it's one of those things that really ought to be true, but Ignatius was probably born about 20 years too late. 

Iggy wrote several letters prior to his death ca. AD 100 that used to be read in the churches: to the Churches of Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, Rome, Philadelphia, and Smyrna; and to his friend Polycarp.  These epistles have sometimes been counted as among the "lost books of the Bible," but of course they had never been lost by the traditional churches -- the Orthodox, the Catholic, et al.  (Other letters read publicly included those of Polycarp and of Clement of Rome.  The Bible, as such, had not yet settled down, and there is at least one such early compendium that includes I Clement (to the Corinthians).)

As an aside, a disciple of his buddy Polycarp was Irenaeus of Lyons, who died in the late 100's; so we see that on the eve of the third century, there was still someone kicking who was connected to the Apostles by two degrees of separation: Irenaeus ← Polycarp ← John ←Jesus. This is why one does not get too excited to learn that, say, Mark's gospel was not written until AD 60!

stem cells, teleology/evolution, anti-science, and Occupy Something