Ignatius was born about AD 35 in Syria and died about AD 107 in Rome, executed by being thrown to wild beasts in the Coliseum. Ignatius was a leader of the Christian church at Antioch, Syria during the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan. This places his ministry in the last decade of the first century and the first decades of the second (AD 98-117). Ignatius is remembered because of his courage as he faced martyrdom and for the seven episcopal letters he composed as he journeyed towards Rome to die for Christ. In his letters, Ignatius presented a nascent Trinitarianism which is the matrix from which his proclamation of Jesus Christ proceeds and which serves as the structure for his vision of the church as the people of God. Eusebius remembered Ignatius as “a man of eminence” whose letters attested to the theological tradition of the apostles. The wide acceptance of Ignatius’ letters signifies that his thought represented the consensus of the post-apostolic church and provided a trajectory for the further development of Christian teaching and ecclesial life.
