" [Page 81. Sec. 5.]
In his Epistle to the Romans he speaks to them of his own prayer to God,
and repeatedly implores them {90} to pray for him. "Pray to Christ for
me, that by these instruments [the teeth of the wild beasts] I may
become a sacrifice of God. I do not, as Peter and Paul, command you:
they were Apostles, I am a condemned man. They were free; but I am still
a servant. Yet if I suffer, I shall become the freedman of Jesus Christ,
and shall rise again free: and now in my bonds I learn to covet
nothing." [Page 28. Sec. 4.] Again he says, "Remember the Church in Syria
in your prayers." [Page 30. Sec. 9.] He prays for his fellow-labourers in
the Lord: he implores them to approach the throne of grace with
supplications for mercy on his own soul. Of prayer to saint or angel he
says nothing. Of any invocation offered to them by himself or his
fellow-believers, Ignatius appears entirely ignorant.
* * * * *
SAINT POLYCARP.
The only remaining name among those, whom the Church has reverenced as
apostolical fathers, is the venerable Polycarp. He suffered martyrdom by
fire, at a very advanced age, in Smyrna, about one hundred and thirty
years after his Saviour's death. Of Polycarp, the apostolical bishop of
the Catholic Church of Smyrna, only one Epistle has survived. It is
addressed to the Philippians.
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