Ignatius, Ben Douglass, Summary Response Part I

I would like to provide a fairly brief single video in response to the assertions of Ben Douglas in regards to the subject of Ignatius, and specifically his epistle to Smyrnians, and the, I believe, abuse of Ignatius, the eisegetical interpretation of him, so as to insert into his words a developed Roman Catholic concept of Eucharist transubstantiation, et cetera, et cetera.

I believe Ben begins by going backwards in his videos. He asserts that I will simply have none of that, that is the reading of Ignatius in this way. This is not how you start doing serious discussion of what the text itself actually says.

I, of course, could argue the other way, and I think more effectively, if Rome's current dogma actually represents apostolic teaching, which, by the way, many Roman Catholic theologians and scholars are willing to admit using Newman's development hypothesis is not the case, or certainly not necessary to the belief thereof, then Roman Catholic apologists would have nothing to do with Ignatius making any reference to the supper without specifically defining the dogma in plain words, yes?

But this is not serious or weighty argumentation. This is not how you approach the text. Once again, we have to allow the ancient writers to address the topics about which they wish to speak and write in their own context.

And the Aristotelian categories of accidents and substance together with the sacramental concepts of sacrifice, et cetera, are simply absent from Ignatius's context and cannot be eisegetically read back into his words.

Hence, the majority of the first presentation that Ben made is simply really without relevance to the presentation that I had made and the arguments that are mine. It presents all sorts of discussions that has nothing to do with seriously asking what Ignatius actually meant in his anti-Gnostic polemic to the Smyrnians.

Now, it is possible that Mr. Douglas, in accusing me of providing a biased exegesis of Ignatius, is himself anticipating the response, specifically that it is the Roman Catholic who is biased due to the dogmatic force of later Roman definitions and is forced to read back into the early church what the later church demands him to see.

Since I do not have to find in Ignatius or any other early writer anything to add to the completed revelation of scripture, then I do not have to turn the early writers into Reformed Baptists or anything else.

The Meaning of Homologeo in Ignatius

But can this truly be said of Mr. Douglas? This is a point that I've made many, many times before, and I think it needs to be repeated here. Now, Mr. Douglas made much of the fact that the verb that is used in this particular portion, and again, I'm assuming the listener has already listened to my presentation and to Mr. Douglas's at this point, which is post-Overgottu, that the verb that is used is homilageo, and that, of course, is true.

But what he tries to do is to insist on a particular understanding of homilageo without actually substantiating this. He mentions the use of homilageo in the New Testament, but simply citing passages where the term is used is not the same as demonstrating that Ignatius is using it in a confessional form.

Why, Mr. Douglas, does Holmes, Lightfoot, and others in translating the Apostolic Fathers, why do they translate do not acknowledge or do not allow? I would assert to you that those are not only perfectly good translations, but they more clearly reflect the context, which, as we follow the context along, is clearly that of the antinostic polemic.

Ignatius's Anti-Docetic Context in Smyrnaeans 4

In fact, I was looking a little bit earlier in the text, and you can find these texts online, and I was looking a little bit earlier in the Epistle, and I notice in verse four, or section four, for if these things were done by our Lord in appearance only, dachain, then I am in chains, dachain, in appearance only.

This is the very foundation from which we get docetism. This is the very way in which we describe this. This is why we describe it the way that it is. This is what Ignatius is talking about. There is no question, and Mr. Douglas does not argue that he's saying anything other, but in essence, he says, yes, he's doing all this antinostic polemic, but then at this one place, we have to abandon that or allow to expand that out to this entire discussion of something, well, completely different, and that is the indication is of this developed concept of transubstantiation in the very first generation after the apostles.

Hamilal Ghetto is not gonna get you that far. You cannot put that much weight upon it, and certainly, it is very, very clear that as you follow this through in Ignatius's writing to the Smyrnians, all the way through, the context that I have established is substantiated by the fair reading of the text.

It never changes, and so to say, well, then all of a sudden, there's all this other stuff, the burden of proof there is upon the Roman Catholic. You can't simply assume it, and that's what Tim Staples has done.

That's what Steve Ray has done, and I would say that's what Mr. Douglas has done. At least he tries to find a verb to throw in there, recognizes what the verb is, but that doesn't accomplish what is needed.