THE CITY

The City
second century under Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines.
It is interesting to observe that the language of atheism appears in
one of the letters of Ignatius, though not in reference to Christians.
In two places in his letter to the church of Tralles Ignatius speaks of
the godless:
I am sure that you agree with me regarding these matters, for
I received a living example of your love and still have it with
me in the person of your bishop, whose very demeanor is a
great lesson and whose gentleness is his power; I think that
even the godless [atheoi] respect him (Trallians 3:2).
Later in his letter, in reference to the Docetists who deny the reality
of the bodily incarnation, Ignatius asks: “But if, as some atheists
[atheoi], that is, unbelievers, say, he suffered in appearance only...,
why am I in chains?” (ibid. 10:1). In the first passage Ignatius uses
the word atheos as we have already seen many times. He has called
pagans atheoi in the sense that they are “without God.” We see this
in other Christian writings (e.g., Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogos
3.11.80; Ps.-Clement, Homilies 15.4; Sibylline Oracles 8:395).
But the meaning of atheos in the second passage in the letter to the
Trallians is harder to determine. Its use is admittedly ambiguous,
meaning either those who are without God or those who deny
the very existence of God. If the latter was Ignatius’s intent (and
I suspect it was), then it represents a sharp polemical thrust, for
Docetists believed in the existence of God. But to deny the reality
of the incarnation was, in the mind of Ignatius and many other early
Christians, tantamount to the denial of God and so in a sense could
be called a form of atheism.
A few decades later Polycarp himself is faced with the prospects of
martyrdom. As had Ignatius before him, Polycarp refuses to confess
the divinity or lordship of the emperor. Standing before his judges
he is asked:
‘Why, what harm is there in saying, ‘Caesar is Lord [kurios
kaisar],’ and offering incense’ (and other words to this effect)
‘and thereby saving yourself ?’ Now at first he gave them no
answer. But when they persisted, he said: ‘I am not about to
do what you are suggesting to me’ (Mart. Poly. 8:2).
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