Frazer MacDiarmid demonstrates how 'memory' provides an interpretative key to unlock Ignatius of Antioch. The author proves that Ignatius' rich literary legacy shows the martyr to be at once one who remembers, one aspiring to be worthy of remembrance, and one who is indeed remembered.
The concept of 'memory' provides remarkable insight into the early second-century bishop and martyr Ignatius of Antioch. In this work, Frazer MacDiarmid seeks to explore the nature of this insight and unpack its significance. Ignatius' rich literary legacy and personal preoccupation with remembering make him uniquely suited among early Christians to be unlocked by the key of memory. As is becoming increasingly recognised, remembering in community is central to the development of the early church, its theology and self-understanding. This volume is structured around three related questions: What is the nature of the memories inherited by Ignatius and his communities, and how are they engaged in the rhetorical and polemical context of his letters? How does Ignatius construct himself as a figure to be remembered by Christian interpreters? And how was Ignatius in fact memorialised in early Christian history?
Table of contents:
Part I: The Remembering Ignatius
Chapter 1: Patriarchs, Prophets and Israel: Remembered and Reconstructed
Chapter 2: Ignatius' Inheritance of 'Extra-Christian' Memory
Part II: 'Memory Poiesis' - Ignatius as a Forger of his own Memorialisation
Chapter 3: θυσία θεοῦ: Ignatius' Self-Construction as Sacrifice
Chapter 4: The Girardian Ignatius
Part III: The Early Christian Memory of Ignatius
Chapter 5: Authenticity and Forgery in Literary Remembrance
Chapter 6: Ignatius in the Long Recension
Chapter 7: The Ignatian Cult: Martyrology and Material Culture
