The life of St Ignatius the Godbearer
When the Romans arrested him they meant to make an example of him, and sent him overland toward Rome to be thrown to the beasts there. Instead of being silenced he used the journey to strengthen the churches along his road. At Smyrna he stopped and met his friend Polycarp, that city's bishop, and wrote three letters there for others to carry home to their congregations; at Troas he wrote three more, one of them again to Polycarp. Somewhere along the way he learned that the Roman Christians meant to try to have his sentence overturned, and he wrote to ask them not to, telling them that to be ground fine by the teeth of wild beasts was the only way he knew to become the pure bread of Christ. He got his wish, and died in the arena at Rome for it.
