A Solution for Reconciling 'Ignatius' with 'Peregrinus'

[Secret Alias]

Many people - including myself, Parvis, Detering - have sought to reconcile the Church Father Ignatius with the Christian teacher Peregrinus from Lucian of Samosata as well as Polycarp of Smyrna. There have been many ingenious theories. Polycarp went to burn himself alive, Peregrinus wanted to be burned alive, Ignatius means 'fiery one.' But there is another possible agreement which is worth considering. The word "peregrinus" is Latin for a wanderer or stranger. While Ignatius is a very rare name which means 'fiery (one)' there is a well known Latin epithet which means "unknown," "strange," "unacquainted with," or "ignorant of." The name came to me when reading about the Historia Augusta where Ignotus the Good Biographer is deemed to be one of the main sources. Ignotus seems to have some rough agreement with the epithet or name Peregrinus.

[Secret Alias]

Also consider Paul identifying himself as 'ignotus' to the Jerusalem Church

I was unknown (ἀγνοούμενος) by face to the church of Jerusalem

eram autem ignotus facie ecclesiis Iudaeae quae erant in Christo

[Stuart]

Given that Ignatius story is after the great persecution, sure it could have drawn from sources like Peregrinus and Paul,

4th and 5th century literature was big on emphasizing such things. But its a serious stretch to say it represents something even remotely reliable from two centuries or three centuries prior, which is what you seem to be suggesting.

Note: I am willing to concede that Ignatius may well fit the 2nd half of the 3rd century, as the Deican persecution changed the meaning of the term martyr for Christians. And the Ignatius stories seem to reflect an era prior to Nicene. But I would not be willing to go any earlier, as the physical evidence only starts in the mid-4th century.

[arnoldo]

Given that Ignatius story is after the great persecution, sure it could have drawn from sources like Peregrinus and Paul,

4th and 5th century literature was big on emphasizing such things. But its a serious stretch to say it represents something even remotely reliable from two centuries or three centuries prior, which is what you seem to be suggesting.

Note: I am willing to concede that Ignatius may well fit the 2nd half of the 3rd century, as the Deican persecution changed the meaning of the term martyr for Christians. And the Ignatius stories seem to reflect an era prior to Nicene. But I would not be willing to go any earlier, as the physical evidence only starts in the mid-4th century.

FWIW, footnote 34 does list an apparent parallel between Peregrinus and Polycarp however that doesn't exclude the possibility that both are "historical" individuals despite the apparent mythical elements attributed to their deaths.

You can imagine, I expect, how I laughed; for it was not fitting to pity a man so desperately in love with glory beyond all others who are driven by the same Fury. Anyhow, he was being escorted by crowds and getting his fill of glory as lie gazed at the number of his admirers, not knowing, poor wretch, that men on their way to the cross or in the grip of the executioner have many more at their heels.

In that business I assure you, my friend, I had no end of trouble, telling the story to all while they asked questions and sought exact information. Whenever I noticed a man of taste, I would tell him the facts without embellishment, as I have to you, but for the benefit of the dullards, agog to listen, I would thicken the plot a bit on my own account, saying that when the pyre was kindled and Proteus flung himself bodily in, a great earthquake first took place, accompanied by a bellowing of the ground, and then a vulture *, flying up out of the midst of the flames, went off to Heaven, saying, in human speech, with a loud voice:

“I am through with the earth; to Olympus I fare.”

They were wonder-struck and blessed themselves with a shudder, and asked me whether the vulture sped eastwards or westwards; I made them whatever reply occurred to me.

34. At the death of Plato and of Augustus it was an eagle; in the case of Polycarp, a dove.
http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/lucian/peregrinus.htm

[Secret Alias]

But since Peregrinus and Polycarp were both Christians operating in the same region of the world associated with the Ignatian corpus and both had birds alleged to come out of them as they died fiery deaths the likelihood they were separate individuals is considerably lessened. The difference between a dove and a vulture might well be attributable to Lucian's satire (incidentally vulture and eagle are indistinguishable in Hebrew nesher which oddly enough represent three letter nsr which can be viewed as 'one more' than the name 'Mark' (mrq) i.e. m + 1 = n, r + 1 = s, q + 1 = r. Maybe that's why Mark's symbol in Irenaeus is the eagle. More useless information.