From his letter to the Romans: “Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings, breakings, and dislocations of bones; let cutting off of members; let shatterings of the whole body; and let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ.”

Background

Nothing is known of Ignatius' life apart from what may be inferred internally from his letters, except from late spurious traditions. It is said Ignatius converted to Christianity at a young age. Tradition identifies Ignatius, along with his friend Polycarp, as disciples of John the Apostle. Later in his life, Ignatius was chosen to serve as Bishop of Antioch; the fourth-century Church historian Eusebius writes that Ignatius succeeded Evodius. Theodoret of Cyrrhus claimed that the Apostle Peter himself left directions that Ignatius be appointed to the episcopal see of Antioch. Ignatius called himself Theophorus (God Bearer). A tradition arose that he was one of the children whom Jesus Christ took in his arms and blessed, although if he was born around 35 AD, as supposed, then Christ had ascended approximately five years prior.

Ignatius' own writings mention his arrest by the authorities and travel to Rome to face trial:

>From Syria even to Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and sea, by night and by day, being bound amidst ten leopards, even a company of soldiers, who only grow worse when they are kindly treated.— Ignatius to the Romans, 5.

Ignatius' transfer to Rome is regarded by scholars as unusual, since those persecuted as Christians would be expected to be punished locally. If he were a Roman citizen, he could have appealed to the emperor, but then would usually have been beheaded rather than tortured. Allen Brent has suggested that Ignatius was involved in conflict with other Christians and was executed for the capital crime of disturbing the peace.

During the journey to Rome, Ignatius and his entourage of soldiers made a number of stops in [Asia Minor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Don't get me wrong. Every novel's first chapter obviously introduces key characters and sets up the plot that follows. However, what sets ACoD apart for me, is the level to which Toole takes this, managing to endow what feel like random, chaotic events of the first chapter with the necessary groundwork for everything that follows.

I don't want to go into too much detail so as not to spoil the book, but by the time the first chapter is over, the tensions, burdens, and drives of nearly every main character have already been fundamentally established while the reader is focused on Ignatius and his mother causing the reader to not realize they are main characters at all. By the time you finish the book, nearly every character that tangentially orbits Ignatius in Chapter 1 has gone on to pivotally impact the chain of events he is subjected to or be pivotally impacted by him, from characters that hadn't even interacted with him at all (i.e. Mr. Jones - a guy who just met a guy who met Ignatius) to characters who appear as very small asides (i.e. the homosexual at the bar or the bar owner). The personalities and roles of these characters already apparent in the tiny descriptions or behaviors they exhibit initially, and yet the circumstances of their eventual resurgence into Ignatius's life (like the policeman that tried to arrest him) is thoroughly unexpected.

He milked every word of that first chapter for what it was worth, and each subsequent re-read is all the more entertaining because of it.