His letters also serve as an example of early Christian theology, and address important topics including ecclesiology, the sacraments, and the role of bishops.

Brent insists, contrary to some, that "it was normal practice to transport condemned criminals from the provinces in order to offer spectator sport in the Colosseum at Rome.

"[23]: 15 Stevan Davies rejects this idea, reasoning that: "if Ignatius was in some way a donation by the Imperial Governor of Syria to the games at Rome, a single prisoner seems a rather miserly gift.

Under Roman law, only the governor of a province or the emperor himself could impose capital punishment, so the legate would have faced the choice of imprisoning Ignatius in Antioch or sending him to Rome.

[21]: 177–178 Christine Trevett calls Davies' suggestion "entirely hypothetical" and concludes that no fully satisfactory solution to the problem can be found: "I tend to take the bishop at his word when he says he is a condemned man.

Davies argues that Ignatius' circuitous route can only be explained by positing that he was not the main purpose of the soldiers' trip and that the various stops in Asia Minor were for other state business.

[2] However, Jonathon Lookadoo argues that John Malalas and the Acts of Martyrdom's accounts of Ignatius are independent from Eusebius and they still place his death under Trajan.

[2] British classicist Timothy Barnes has argued for a date in the 140s, on the grounds that Ignatius seems to have quoted a work of the Gnostic Ptolemy, who became active only in the 130s.

[3] Étienne Decrept has argued from the testimony of John Malalas and the Acts of Drosis that Ignatius was martyred under the reign of Trajan during Apollo's festival in July 116, and in response to the earthquake at Antioch in late 115.

[28] Ignatius wrote that he would be thrown to the beasts; in the fourth century, Eusebius reports a tradition that this did happen,[29] while Jerome is the first to explicitly mention lions.

[22][29] According to a medieval Christian text titled Martyrium Ignatii, Ignatius' remains were carried back to Antioch by his companions after his martyrdom.

[31] It is presented as an eye-witness account for the church of Antioch, attributed to Ignatius' companions, Philō of Cilicia, deacon at Tarsus, and Rheus Agathopus, a Syrian.

The Martyrium presents the confrontation of Bishop Ignatius with Emperor Trajan at Antioch, a familiar trope of Acta of the martyrs, and many details of the long journey to Rome.

[3]: 119 In 1886, Presbyterian minister and church historian William Dool Killen published a long essay attacking the authenticity of the epistles attributed to Ignatius.

He argued that Pope Callixtus I, bishop of Rome, forged the letters around 220 AD to garner support for a monarchical episcopate, modeling Saint Ignatius after his own life to give precedent for his own authority.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the scholars Robert Joly,[41] Reinhard Hübner,[42] Markus Vinzent,[43] and Thomas Lechner[44] argued forcefully that the epistles of the Middle Recension were forgeries from the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161–180).

We have also as a Physician the Lord our God, Jesus the Christ, the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin.

And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead.This passage has provoked textual debate since the only Greek manuscript extant read Κατα κυριακήν ζωήν ζωντες which could be translated "living according to the Lord's life".

[52] Ignatius is the earliest known Christian writer to emphasize loyalty to a single bishop in each city (or diocese) who is assisted by both presbyters (elders)[53][54][note 1] and deacons.

Thus, whatever is done will be safe and valid.Anglican bishop and theologian Joseph Lightfoot states the word "catholic (καθόλου)" meant "universal" to Ignatius, as that term was commonly used at the time by classical and ecclesiastical writers.

In 1892, Daniel Völter sought to explain the parallels by proposing that the Ignatian epistles were in fact written by Peregrinus, and later attributed to the saint, but this speculative theory has failed to make a significant impact on the academic community.