conviction thus produced was no more than accommodation to human weakness. The flesh was in reality no reality, merely appearance. In short, the heretics held the doctrine commonly labelled ‘docetism’ (from dókesis, appearance). Ignatius’ reaction was vehement against a doctrine which in his eyes simply destroyed his hope of salvation. In strident terms he affirmed the utter physical reality of Christ’s human birth and death, and loved to express his faith in a powerful series of paradoxes: There