In my Writing the History of Early Christianity (CUP 2019, 301-302), I claim that "reference is made to the ‘name’ of Ignatius; he is called ‘holy’, ‘blessed’,
‘divine’, ‘the glorious martyr’, the ‘martyr’, the ‘apostolic man’, the ‘bishop
of Antioch’ etc." without mentioning Chrysostom's homily on Ignatius, the martyr (PG 50, 587-596) explicitly, but indirictly - ‘the glorious martyr’, the ‘martyr’, the ‘apostolic man’ refer to this homily, and then add that "the first to call him θεόφορος is Severus of Antioch in the
years 518–513 CE".
Recently, the argument was made that before Severus, Chrysostom in the mentioned homily had called Ignatius "Theophorus". This, however, is not as straightforward as a short look into PG 50 seems to suggest.
The title of the homily (see PG 50) is: εἰς τὸν ἱερομάρτυρα Ἰγνάντιον. The further subtitle with 'theophorus' is only preserved in one of the two manuscripts.
That the shorter title of the one Ms is the older and correct one, while the second Ms shows an enlargement of the title in light of the 13 Letter Collection, particularly, as “discovery of the Ignatian relics and the redaction of the long recension belong together” (Gilliam, Ignatius, 190), derives from the homily itself.
Chrysostom's homily widely deals with Ignatius, the martyr, even talks about the triple designation of Ignatius (martyr, bishop, apostle), then Chrysostom adds four more crowns by which he praises Ignatius - but nowhere does he touch once at the (later) title of Theophoros that is indicated in the subtitle of one manuscript.
If the subtitle of the homily had been part of the original title of this homily, why would Chrysostom avoid praising Ignatius for a title that features so prominently in the subtitle and could have helped him to claim Ignatius for the Nicenes (against the Neo-Arians), particularly as he seems to make use of the 'middle recension' (so Gilliam, Ignatius, 209-210). The more likely answer seems to be that the subtitle was added to the original, short title that correctly describes the content of the homily, when Ignatius had become known through the 13 letter collection in the long version as the 'theophoros' and that this title of Ignatius had also been entered in the version of the 7 letter collection.
Hence, the homily in its content and textual transmission is rather proof than counter-proof of what I have stated in my Writing of Early Christian History, and claims for an earlier use of the title is part of the hagiographical repositioning of the second century martyr.
