κωφώθητε οὖν, ὅταν ὑμῖν χωρὶς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ λαλῇ τις, τοῦ ἐκ γένους Δαυίδ, τοῦ ἐκ Μαρίας, ὃς ἀληθῶς ἐγεννήθη, ἔφαγέν τε καὶ ἔπιεν, ἀληθῶς ἐδιώχθη ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου, ἀληθῶς ἐσταυρώθη καὶ ἀπέθανεν.
Stop your ears, then, when anyone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ — who was of the line of David, who was of Mary, who was truly born, who truly ate and drank, who was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, who was truly crucified and died.
REF Stop your ears, therefore, when any one speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ — who was of the line of David, who was of Mary, who was truly born, both ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died. (Schaff, ANF I, p. 70, paraphrased)
Notes & Key Terms 3 terms
Key Terms
The single most theologically loaded adverb in Ignatius's anti-docetic vocabulary. The fourfold repetition is the rhetorical-creedal device that anchors the Christological narrative to historical-empirical fact. The opposite is ἐδόκει ('seemed to'), which is the docetic claim Ignatius refutes.
The exact phrase that will appear verbatim in the Apostles' Creed (Latin: passus sub Pontio Pilato) and the Nicene Creed (Greek: ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου). The administrative-historical anchor is the conceptual move that distinguishes Christian Christology from pagan-mythic theogonies — exactly the distinction Justin Dial. 67's Perseus-comparison would test.
The same Davidic-descent claim Ign. Eph. 18:2 (TCR /ignatius-ephesians/18#v2) makes more elaborately. The historical-realism of Christ's incarnation requires real Davidic ancestry; Ignatius's three references in three different letters (Eph. 18:2, Trall. 9:1, Smyrn. 1:1) treat the genealogical claim as creedally non-negotiable.
Translator Notes
- Lightfoot II.2, pp. 174-176 (Ign. Trall. 9:1); Schaff, ANF I, p. 70; accessed via newadvent.org/fathers/0106.htm. The fourfold ἀληθῶς ('truly') is one of the most-cited Ignatian formulas in pre-Nicene Christology. The construction is sometimes counted as a six-fold ἀληθῶς (with born, ate-drank, persecuted, crucified, died, raised — when v2 below is included) but the verbal repetition of the adverb itself appears four times across vv1-2.
- ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου ('under Pontius Pilate') is the same prepositional phrase that the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed both deploy verbatim — passus sub Pontio Pilato / σταυρωθέντα τε ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου. The naming of the specific imperial-administrative magistrate anchors the passion to documented historical reference, which is exactly the anti-docetic, anti-mythic function the formula performs in Ignatius and in the later creeds.
- Cross-reference 1 John 1:1-3 (the canonical anti-docetic preface): ὃ ἀκηκόαμεν, ὃ ἑωράκαμεν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἡμῶν, ὃ ἐθεασάμεθα καὶ αἱ χεῖρες ἡμῶν ἐψηλάφησαν — 'what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and what our hands have handled.' The sensory-empirical insistence is the same conceptual move as Ignatius's six-fold 'truly.' Cross-link via /1-john/1#v1.
- Cross-reference Justin Dial. 67 (TCR /justin-dialogue/67): Trypho's Perseus comparison — accusing Christian Christology of being structurally identical to pagan-mythic theogonies — depends on Christianity NOT having the kind of historical-administrative anchoring Ignatius provides here with the Pilate reference. The fourfold-ἀληθῶς formula is exactly the kind of textual feature Justin would deploy against Trypho's mythic-comparison objection if Justin were arguing from Ignatian precedent rather than from scriptural-prophecy precedent.
- Schoedel 1985 reads Trall. 9 as the chapter where Ignatius's anti-docetic concern moves from polemical-allusive (Trall. 6-8 names 'wild beasts in human form... ravening dogs' for the docetists) to creedal-articulative (Trall. 9-11 gives the positive Christological content that the docetists deny). The pattern recurs in Ign. Smyrn. 1-7 (to be authored in Step 6b).