宗徒教父安提約基雅的依納爵主教，在他的七封書信作品中大量使用πάθος（páthos）這個字高達15次之多，並全用來指稱耶穌基督的受難，這個作法不僅是新約時代晚期基督徒作品之獨創，更開創後代教父與基督徒們使用這個字（與拉丁文的passio）一字指稱耶穌基督之苦難的傳統。本文主要在藉由整理依納爵主教在書信中使用πάθος（páthos）之特殊方式，進一步釐析依納爵藉著刻意使用此字時意圖表達的「原型正統」神學思想，以及他為所有仍活在憂傷與苦難陰影籠罩下的人們指出的希望與出口。

In his epistles, St. Ignatius of Antioch uses πάθος (páthos) as many as fifteen times, and all of which are referring to the suffering of Jesus Christ, who St. Ignatius calls God and Lord. Ignatius’ particular way of using πάθος (páthos) is extremely rare among the Christian writers in the late New Testament era, and Ignatius is believed to be the one who established this particular Christian tradition using πάθος (páthos), or passio (in Latin) to refer Jesus Christ’s own suffering. The author of this paper, by analyzing Ignatius’ way of using πάθος (páthos) in his epistles, identifies Ignatius’ ‘proto-orthodox’ (Bart D. Ehrman’s word); and they are: Jesus cleansed the water (sanctify the world) by his suffering; the cross of Jesus is the Tree of Life that bears immortal fruit and Christians are ‘from the fruit of the Cross;’ and Jesus is the first subject to suffering thus brings the humanity to beyond suffering. The author contents that Ignatius, by using πάθος (páthos) to refer to Jesus Christ’s own suffering, strongly suggests that Christians’ God, as revealed in Jesus Christ, is a God who is full of compassion and love, and is constantly ‘in love with the human’ even to the point of being suffered by it. The Love of God toward all human compels His divine eros desiring a fully unite with the human that not only let the human to share God’s Life, but also to create new life on earth. For those people who are currently clouded by suffering or sadness, Ignatius invites them to embrace the suffering of Jesus Christ that is the divine páthos of God, in order to have hope and strength.