Malalas is
the first who, by his variation, proves that he had another and
different authority before him, and in abandoning the martyr-journey to
Rome, his account has infinitely greater apparent probability. Malalas
lived at Antioch, which adds some weight to his statement. It is
objected that so also did Chrysostom, and at an earlier period, and yet
he repeats the Roman story. This, however, is no valid argument against
Malalas. Chrysostom was too good a churchman to doubt the story of
Epistles so much tending to edification, which were in wide circulation,
and had been quoted by earlier Fathers. It is in no way surprising that,
some two centuries and a half after the martyrdom, he should quietly
have accepted the representations of the Epistles purporting to have
been written by the martyr himself, and that their story should have
shaped the prevailing tradition.
The remains of Ignatius, as we are informed by Chrysostom and Jerome,
long remained interred in the cemetery of Antioch, but finally--in the
time of Theodosius, it is said--were translated with great pomp and
ceremony to a building which--such is the irony of events--had
previously been a Temple of Fortune. The story told, of course, is that
the relics of the martyr had been carefully collected in the Coliseum
and carried from Rome to Antioch.
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