by giving us a piece of earthly information, and by telling us who was at the head of the Church of the Great City in the ninth year of the reign of Trajan.  But the same prudence does not prevail throughout the Epistle.  He here obviously speaks of the Church of Rome, not as she existed a few years after the death of Clement, but of the same Church as she was known after the death of Victor.  In the beginning of the second century the Church of the Syrian capital would not have acknowledged the precedence of her Western sister.  On the fall of Jerusalem, the Church of Antioch was herself the first Christian community in the Empire.  She had a higher antiquity, a more distinguished prestige, and perhaps a more numerous membership than any other Church in existence.  In the Syrian metropolis the disciples had first been called Christians; there, Barnabas and Paul had been separated to the work to which the Lord had called them; there, Peter had preached; and there, prophets had laboured.  But a century had brought about a wonderful change.  The Church of Rome had meanwhile obtained the first place among Christian societies; and, before the middle of the third century, “the See of Peter” was honoured as the centre of catholic unity.  Towards the close of the second century, many persons of rank and power joined her communion, [419:1] and her political influence was soon felt to be so formidable that even the Roman Emperor began to be jealous of the Roman bishop. [419:2] But the Ignatian forger did not take into account this ecclesiastical revolution.  Hence he here incautiously speaks in the language of his own age, and writing “to her who sitteth at the head in the place of the country of the Romans,” he says to her with all due humility—­“I am not commanding you like Peter and Paul” [419:3]—­“Ye have taught others”—­“It is easy for you to do whatsoever you please.”

IV.  Various words in these Epistles have a meaning which they did not acquire until long after the time of Ignatius.  Thus, the term employed in the days of the Apostles to denote purity, or chastity, here signifies celibacy. [419:4] Even in the commencement of the third century those who led a single life were beginning to be considered Christians of a superior type, as contrasted with those who were married; and clerical celibacy was becoming very fashionable. [420:1] The Ignatian fabricator writes under the influence of the popular sentiment.  “The house of the Church” at Antioch, of which Paul of Samosata kept possession after his deposition about A.D. 269, [420:2] seems to have been a dwelling appropriated to the use of the ecclesiastical functionaries, [420:3] and the schemer who wrote the first draft of these letters evidently believed that the ministers of Christ should be a brotherhood of bachelors.  Hence Ignatius is made thus to address Polycarp and his clergy—­“Labour together one with another; make the struggle together one with another; run together one with another; suffer together one with another; sleep together one with another; rise together one with another.”  Polycarp and others of the elders of Smyrna were probably married; [420:4] so that some inconvenience might have attended this arrangement.