This article is composed to give some clues for researching Corpus Ignatianum continuing since 1960s through interpreting the letter to Romans. It contains some unique and special points, namely martyrdom as the main theme, not monepiscopacy. About the martyrdom of Ignatius only one letter says, that is Polycarp’s letter to Philippians. But in this letter Ignatius appears not only as dead(9, 1) but as living.(13, 1) It could make so interpret, that the unknown person Ignatius has somehow found the Polycarp’s letter and disguised himself as Ignatius. That means the Corpus Ignatianum. is pseudonymous. It’s terminus post quem must lie later than Polycarp’ letter. And seeing the praising Polycarp so many times in almost every letter we could believe, that the Corpus Ignatianum had to be composed after the dead of Polycarp as martyr, namely A.D. 165. Then the insist of some experts ‘the Corpus Ignatianum appears during the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius’ could be acceptable. So, the end of the letter to Romans, in which the pseudo-Ignatius who might have not died did hope so eagerly to die for God as demanding the Romans not to prevent his martyrdom, is not to hope a martyrdom, but to confirm the authority of the author of the Corpus Ignatianum. Ignatius wrote the letter to Romans in order to realize the idea of the Corpus Ignatianum, that is, monepiscopacy. Then man must accept the idea the seven letters couldn’t be sent to the addressees in every letter, but to one. For example in the letter to Polycarp he talks in the beginning to Polycarp, but from chapter 6 to the Church Smyrna. More than this, in the letter to Smyrna the name of the renowned bishop Polycarp is astonishingly not mentioned. In this researching situation the church in Rome has been called the addressee(Schmithals), because of no mentioning the names of bishop and the members. But this fact couldn’t be the master key into the solving the problem, because it is of nature, that the person coming to Rome for the first time does not know their names. On the contrary, the letter to Smyrna deliver in the thank and farewell address several names clearly, but first in a name of some Philon of Cilicia and then in his own name. It says, that Ignatius knows the milieu and persons in the church Smyrna very well. Every letter has some relation with the name Smyrna. Moreover regarding no mentioning Polycarp in the letter man could so speculate, that the Corpus Ignatianum is composed to subside the accurately unknown problems in the Smyrna after the martyrdom of Polycarp. Though the monepiscopacy against some heresies, especially the docetism of gnosticism, is persuaded unanimously in every letter, the chief concern of the Corpus Ignatianum is to earn the stability of the church Smyrna.

• 공성철(대전신학대학교) | Kong, Seong Cheol