Ignatius of Antioch

In his own words on Matthew

• Matthew 1:18

  For what reason did God, deciding that the Savior should be born from a virgin, not choose a virgin who was not betrothed? Might it have been, then, an economy for her to conceive while having a betrothed, so that it might not appear as a disgrace upon her body for her to conceive? For it is rightly written in one of the letters of a certain martyr—I mean Ignatius, the second bishop of Antioch after the blessed Peter, who fought with beasts in Rome during the persecution—"and the virginity of Mary escaped the notice of the ruler of this age." So, if it had not been for what seemed to be a marriage, it would not have escaped his notice, but the ruler of this age would have known that Mary, having never slept with a man, conceived, and thus the conception must be divine. The Savior wished through the entire economy to elude the devil, and indeed ordered the disciples not to make him manifest.

  Origen's Homilies on Luke

• Matthew 27:52

  If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death-whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master-how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead.

  Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians