ood-will towards me. Suffer me to be the food of wild
beasts, by means of which I may attain to God. I am the wheat of God,
and am ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found the pure
bread of God." Chap. 4. His letter to Polycarp, a fellow bishop, abounds
in precepts for the right discharge of his duties. It is interesting as
showing Ignatius' idea, on the one side, of the office with its high
responsibilities, and, on the other, of the duties which the churches
owe to those who are set over them in the Lord.

7. There are some spurious epistles ascribed to Ignatius which it is
sufficient simply to name. These are: A letter to one Maria a proselyte
of Cilicia in answer to her request that certain young men might be sent
to her people as their spiritual guides; epistles to the church of
Tarsus, of Antioch, and of Philippi--theological dissertations mostly
made up of texts of Scripture; a letter to Hero a deacon, containing
precepts for the right discharge of his office, and abounding, like
those just named, in quotations from Scripture: two pretended letters of
Ignatius to the apostle John; one to the Virgin Mary, with her reply.

Finally, there are some fragments of Ignatius' writings preserved to us
in the quotations of the ancients, which it is not necessary to notice.

III. THE EPISTLE OF POLYCARP.

8. _Polycarp_ was a disciple of the apostle John, and presided over the
church in Smyrna. He suffered martyrdom about the year 166. Of his
writings only one short epistle remains, addressed by him to the
Philippians soon after the martyrdom of Ignatius, who passed through
Smyrna on his way to Rome. This we gather from the letter itself; for in
this he assumes that Ignatius has already suffered (chap. 9), and yet he
has not heard the particulars concerning his fate and that of his
companions. Chap. 14. This brief epistle is marked by a fervor and
simplicity worthy of an apostolic man. The writer commends the
Philippians for the love manifested by them towards the suffering
servants of Christ, exhorts them to steadfastness, reminds them of
Paul's precepts in his epistle to them, and proceeds to unfold and
inculcate the duties belonging to the officers and several classes of
members in the church. The immediate occasion of the letter seems to
have been his transmission to the Philippians, in compliance with their
request, of Ignatius' epistle to himself, with such others of his
epistles as had come into his