e comfort and edification of many churches. Several
Christians of Antioch, taking a shorter way, got to Rome before him,
where they waited his arrival. He was accompanied thither from Syria by
Reus, Philo, a deacon, and Agathopodus, who seem to have written these
acts of his martyrdom. He was guarded night and day, both by sea and
land, by ten soldiers, whom he calls ten leopards, on account of their
inhumanity and merciless usage who, the kinder he was to them, were the
more fierce and cruel to him. This voyage, however, gave him the
opportunity of confirming in faith and piety the several churches he saw
on his route; giving them the strictest caution against heresies and
schism, and recommending to them an inviolable attachment to the
tradition of the apostles. St. Chrysostom adds, that he taught them
admirably to despise the present life, to love only the good things to
come, and never to fear any temporal evils whatever. The faithful {327}
flocked from the several churches he came near, to see him, and to
render him all the service in their power, hoping to receive benefit
from the plenitude of his benediction. The cities of Asia, besides
deputing to him their bishops and priests, to express their veneration
for him, sent also deputies in their name to bear him company the
remainder of his journey; so that he says he had many churches with him.
So great was his fervor and desire of suffering, that by the fatigues
and length of the voyage, which was a very bad one, he appeared the
stronger and more courageous. On their reaching Smyrna, he was suffered
to go ashore, which he did with great joy, to salute St. Polycarp, who
had been his fellow-disciple under St. John the Evangelist. Their
conversation was upon topics suitable to their character, and St.
Polycarp felicitated him on his chains and sufferings in so good a
cause. At Smyrna he was met by deputies of several churches, who were
sent to salute him. Those from Ephesus were Onesimus, the bishop;
Burrhus, the deacon; Crocus, Euplus, and Fronto. From Magnesia in Lydia,
Damas the bishop, Bassus and Apollo, priests, and Sotio, deacon. From
Tralles, also in Lydia, Polybius the bishop. From Smyrna, St. Ignatius
wrote four letters: in that to the church of Ephesus, he commends the
bishop Onesimus, and the piety and concord of the people, and their zeal
against all heresies, and exhorts them to glorify God all manner of
ways: to be subject, in unanimity, to their bishop a