“Grant this to me: I know what benefits me. Now I am beginning to be a disciple. May nothing visible or invisible show any envy toward me, that I may attain to Jesus Christ. Fire and cross and packs of wild beasts, cuttings and being torn apart, the scattering of bones, the mangling of limbs, the grinding of the whole body, the evil torments of the devil–let them come upon me, only that I may attain to Christ. Neither the ends of the world nor the kingdoms of this age will benefit me in the least. It is better for me to die in Jesus than the rule the ends of the earth.
The ruler of this age wished to snatch me away and corrupt my mind which is directed toward God…My passion has been crucified [Gal 6:14] and there is no burning love within me for material things; instead there is living water [John 4:10, 14] which also is speaking in me, saying to me from within: “Come to the Father.”
Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, writes to the Church in Rome having arrived in Rome under Trajan (98-117), with his martyrdom at the mercy of the beasts in the Coliseum imminent, he wrote this letter To The Romans, and this excerpt is from 5.3-6.1, 7.1-2.