presidency in the country of the region of the Romans, being
worthy of God, worthy of honour, worthy of felicitation, worthy
of praise, worthy of success, worthy in purity, and having the
presidency of love, filled with the grace of God, without
wavering, and filtered clear from every foreign stain."

"The Epistle to the Romans," says Dr. Lightfoot, "had a wider
popularity than the other letters of Ignatius, both early and
late. It appears to have been circulated apart from them,
sometimes alone." [71:1] It was put forth as a feeler, to discover
how the public would be disposed to entertain such a correspondence;
and, in case of its favourable reception, it was intended to open
the way for additional Epistles. It was cleverly contrived. It
employed the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians as a kind of
voucher for its authenticity, inasmuch as it is there stated that
Ignatius had written a number of letters; and it contained little
or nothing which any one in that age would have been disposed to
controvert. The Christians of Rome had long enjoyed the reputation
of a community ennobled by the blood of martyrs, and they would be
quite willing to believe that Ignatius had contributed to their
celebrity by dying for the faith within their borders. It is very
doubtful whether he really finished his career there: some ancient
authorities attest that he suffered at Antioch; [72:1] and the fact
that, in the fourth century, his grave was pointed out in that
locality, apparently supports their testimony. [72:2] The account
of his hurried removal as a prisoner from Antioch to Rome, in the
custody of ten fierce soldiers--whilst he was permitted, as he
passed along, to hold something like a levee of his co-religionists
at every stage of his journey--wears very much the appearance of
an ill-constructed fiction. But the disciples at Rome about this