Andrew McGowan: Ignatius and the Invention of Sacrifice

The correspondence of Ignatius of Antioch contains significant cultic imagery, as well as a number of important references to Christian meals, and to his own presumed martyrdom, among other aspects of Christian social practice. While Ignatius draws upon cultic images to expound the significance of various Christian rituals and experiences, the significance and extent of the correlations or identifications made remains open to question. The images in Ignatius most commonly-identified by commentators as "cultic" should be acknowledged as ambiguous. Ignatius is not merely as a user or reader of generally-accepted ideas about sacrifice, but as a theorist who inhabits a changing field of meaning, and transforms, as much as he merely borrows, sacrificial ideas.