Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, to the church of God the Father and of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is at Philadelphia, having obtained mercy in love and being established in the concord of God, and rejoicing without wavering in the passion of our Lord Jesus, and fully assured in his resurrection with all mercy; which church I greet in the blood of Jesus Christ—a church that is eternal and abiding joy.
especially if they are at one with the bishop and with the presbyters and deacons who have been appointed according to the will of God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his own purpose firmly established his church upon the rock, a spiritual building not made with hands, against which the winds and the rivers dashed but had no power to overthrow it; nay, may the spiritual forces of wickedness never have power, but may they be brought to nothing by the power of Jesus Christ our Lord.
I. Having beheld your bishop, I knew that it was not of himself nor through men that he was counted worthy to be entrusted with the ministry that pertains to the common good, nor according to vainglory, but in the love of Jesus Christ and of God the Father, who raised him from the dead—whose forbearance has struck me with wonder, who by his silence is able to do more than those who talk much.
For he is attuned to the commandments of the Lord and to his ordinances, as the strings to the lyre, and he is blameless no less than Zacharias the priest. Therefore my soul calls blessed his mind that is set toward God, recognizing it to be virtuous and perfect, his steadfastness and his freedom from anger in all the forbearance of the living God.
As children, then, of the light of truth, flee from the division of unity and from the evil teachings of the heretics, from whom a defilement has gone out into all the earth.
But where the shepherd is, there follow as sheep; for many wolves, clad in sheepskins, by wicked pleasure take captive those who run the race toward God; yet in your unity they shall find no place.
Abstain, therefore, from the evil weeds which Jesus Christ does not cultivate, but the man-slaying beast, because they are not a planting of the Father but the seed of the evil one. It is not because I found any division among you that I write these things, but I am securing you beforehand as children of God.
For as many as are Christ's, these are with the bishop; but as many as turn aside from him and embrace fellowship with the accursed, these shall be cut off together with them; for they are not Christ's tillage, but the sowing of the enemy. From whom may you always be delivered by the prayers of the shepherd who presides over you, the most faithful and most gentle. I exhort you therefore in the Lord: as many as, having repented, come to the unity of the church, receive them with all gentleness, that through kindness and forbearance they may recover their senses out of the snare of the devil, and, having become worthy of Jesus Christ, may obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of Christ.
Brethren, do not be deceived: if anyone follows one who makes a schism from the truth, he shall not inherit the kingdom of God; and if anyone does not depart from a herald of falsehood, he shall be condemned to Gehenna. For one must neither depart from the godly nor associate with the ungodly.
If anyone walks in an alien opinion, this one is not of Christ, nor a partaker of his passion, but is a fox, a corrupter of the vineyard of Christ. With such a one do not mingle, lest you perish together with him, even if he be father or son or brother or kinsman. For "your eye," it says, "shall not spare him."
Those, then, who hate God, you also ought to hate, and to be consumed with grief over his enemies—yet not indeed to strike or persecute them, as do the nations that do not know the Lord and God, but rather to regard them as enemies and to separate yourselves from them, while admonishing them and exhorting them to repentance, if perhaps they will listen, if perhaps they will yield.
For our God is a lover of mankind, and wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Therefore he makes his sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and sends rain upon the just and the unjust. Of whose kindness the Lord, willing that we too should be imitators, says: "Be perfect, even as your heavenly Father also is perfect."
I am confident concerning you in the Lord, that you will think nothing otherwise. Therefore also I write boldly to your love that is worthy of God, exhorting you to use one faith and one preaching and one eucharist; for one is the flesh of the Lord Jesus, and one is his blood that was poured out for us (for one loaf was broken for all and one cup was distributed to all), one altar for the whole church, and one bishop together with the presbytery and the deacons, my fellow-servants.
since indeed there is one unbegotten, God and Father, and one only-begotten Son, God the Word and man, and one Paraclete, the Spirit of truth; and one is the preaching, and the faith is one, and the baptism is one, and one is the church, which the holy apostles founded from end to end of the earth in the blood of Christ, by their own sweat and toils.
You also, therefore, as a peculiar people and a holy nation, ought to accomplish all things in Christ in concord. Wives, be subject to your husbands in the fear of God; virgins, to Christ in incorruption, not abhorring marriage, but reaching after the better thing, not in slander of wedlock, but for the sake of practising the law. Children, obey your parents and love them as fellow-workers with God in your begetting. Slaves, be subject to your masters in God, that you may become Christ's freedmen. Husbands, love your wives as fellow-servants with you of God, as your own body, as partners of life and helpers in the bearing of children. Virgins, have Christ alone before your eyes, and his Father in your souls, being enlightened by the Spirit.
May I have joy of your holiness, as of Elijah, as of Joshua the son of Nun, as of Melchizedek, as of Elisha, as of Jeremiah, as of John the Baptist, as of the beloved disciple, as of Timothy, as of Titus, as of Euodius, as of Clement, who departed this life in purity.
Not that I disparage the rest of the blessed because they entered into marriage—it is of these that I have just made mention (for I pray that, being found worthy of God, I may be found at their footsteps in the kingdom, like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, like Joseph and Isaiah and the other prophets, like Peter and Paul and the other apostles who entered into marriage)—but out of the eagerness of my mind concerning the matter, I have had those others in my thoughts.
Fathers, bring up your children in the discipline and admonition of the Lord, and teach them the sacred Scriptures and crafts, that they may not delight in idleness. "Well," it says, "does a righteous father bring them up; over a wise son his heart shall rejoice." Masters, attend kindly to your servants, as the holy Job taught; for there is one nature and one race of humanity; for in Christ there is neither slave nor free.
Let the rulers obey Caesar, the soldiers their rulers; the deacons the presbyters as priests; the presbyters and the deacons and the rest of the clergy, together with all the people and the soldiers and the rulers and Caesar, [be subject] to the bishop; the bishop to Christ, as Christ to the Father; and thus unity is preserved through all.
Let the widows also be not gadabouts, not gluttons, not running about, but as Judith the most reverent, as Anna the most chaste. These things I do not enjoin as an apostle (for who am I, or what is my father's house, that I should call myself of equal honour with those?), but as a fellow-soldier of yours, holding the rank of an under-prompter.
My brethren, I am poured out exceedingly in my love for you, and rejoicing greatly I secure you; yet not I, but through me the Lord Jesus, in whom, being bound, I rather fear; for as yet I am unperfected. But your prayer toward God will perfect me, that I may attain that to which I was called, having fled for refuge to the gospel as to the flesh of Jesus, and to the apostles as to the presbytery of the church.
And I love the prophets too, as those who proclaimed Christ, as having partaken of the same Spirit of which the apostles also partook. For just as the false prophets and the false apostles drew one and the same evil and deceitful and people-deceiving spirit, so also the prophets and the apostles received from God, through Jesus Christ, one and the same Holy Spirit, good and governing, true and instructive—an upright Spirit.
For there is one God of the Old and New Covenant; one Mediator of God and men, both for the creation of things spiritual and sensible and for a fitting and suitable providence; and one also is the Paraclete, who wrought in Moses, and in the prophets and the apostles.
All the saints, therefore, accomplished their works in Christ, hoping in him and awaiting him, and through him they obtained salvation, being saints worthy of love and worthy of admiration, attested by Jesus Christ in the gospel of our common hope.
If anyone preaches one God of the Law and the prophets, but denies that Christ is the Son of God, he is a liar, just as his father the devil is also, and such a one is a pseudo-Jew of the circumcision that is below.
If anyone confesses Christ Jesus as Lord, but denies the God of the Law and the prophets, saying that the Maker of heaven and earth is not the Father of Christ, such a one does not stand in the truth, just as his father the devil also; and such a one is a disciple of Simon Magus, but not of the Holy Spirit.
If anyone says indeed that there is one God, and confesses also Christ Jesus, but supposes the Lord to be a mere man, and not God the only-begotten and Wisdom and Word of God, but supposes him to be of soul and body only, such a one is a serpent, preaching deceit and error unto the destruction of men; and such a one is poor in understanding, as he who is surnamed Ebion.
If anyone confesses these things, but calls the lawful union and the begetting of children a corruption and defilement, or calls certain foods abominable, such a one has the dragon, the apostate, dwelling within him.
If anyone confesses the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and praises the creation, but calls the incarnation a mere appearance and is ashamed of the passion, such a one has denied the faith no less than the Christ-slaying Jews.
If anyone confesses these things, and that God the Word dwelt in a human body, being in himself the Word, as a soul in a body, because God indwelt it and not a human soul, but says that unlawful unions are something good and sets pleasure as the goal of happiness—such as the falsely-named Nicolaitan—this man can be neither a lover of God nor a lover of Christ, but is a corrupter of his own flesh, and on this account empty of the Holy Spirit and a stranger to Christ.
Flee, therefore, the wicked arts and snares of the spirit that now works in the sons of this age, lest, being afflicted, you grow weak in love; but all of you become one and the same, in an undivided heart and a willing soul, of one mind, thinking the one thing, always holding the same opinions about the same matters, both in ease and in dangers, in sorrows and in joys.
I give thanks to God through Jesus Christ that I have a good conscience among you, and that no one can boast, whether secretly or openly, that I was a burden to anyone, in small things or in great. And for all those to whom I spoke, I pray that they may not take it for a testimony against themselves.
For even if certain men wished to deceive me according to the flesh, yet my spirit is not deceived; for I have received it from God. For it knows whence it comes and where it goes, and it tests the hidden things. For I cried out while I was among you, I spoke with a loud voice (not my word, but God's): "Give heed to the bishop and to the presbytery and to the deacons."
But if you suspect that I say these things as one who had learned beforehand of some men's divisiveness, he is my witness for whose sake I am bound, that I did not learn it from any human mouth. Rather, the Spirit proclaimed to me, saying these things: "Do nothing without the bishop; keep your flesh as a temple of God; love unity; flee divisions; become imitators of Paul and of the other apostles, as they also were imitators of Christ."
I, then, was doing my own part, as a man fitted for unity, adding also this, that where there is division of opinion and anger and hatred, there God does not dwell. To all those who repent, therefore, God forgives, if they run together into the unity of Christ and the council of the bishop. I trust in the grace of Jesus Christ, that he will loose from us every bond of unrighteousness.
I exhort you, therefore: do nothing out of contentiousness, but according to the teaching of Christ. For I heard certain men saying, "Unless I find it in the archives of the gospel, I do not believe." To such I say that for me the archives are Jesus the Christ, to disobey whom is manifest destruction. The inviolable archive for me is his cross and his death and his resurrection and the faith that concerns these things; in which I desire to be justified through your prayer.
He who disbelieves the gospel disbelieves all things at once; for the archives of the Spirit are not at his disposal. It is hard to kick against the goads; it is hard to disbelieve Christ; it is hard to set at nought the preaching of the apostles.
Good indeed are the priests and the ministers of the word, but better is the high priest who has been entrusted with the Holy of Holies, who alone has been entrusted with the hidden things of God. Good are the ministering powers of God.
Good also is the Holy Spirit, who is the holiest of all holy things and the minister of the Word. And above all the holy ones the holiest is the High Priest, who is the angel and minister of the Father, and the commander of the legions of the heavenly host, through whom the Father has made all things and provides for all. He is the way that leads to the Father, the rock, the wall, the key, the shepherd, the sacrificial victim, the door of knowledge, through which entered Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, Moses and the whole choir of the prophets, and the pillars of the world, the apostles, and the bride of Christ, for whom, as a dowry, he poured out his own blood, that he might purchase her. All these tend toward the unity of the one and only true God.
But the Gospel has something distinctive: the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, his passion, and the resurrection itself. For the things the prophets proclaimed, saying, "Until he comes for whom it is reserved, and he himself is the expectation of the nations," these have been fulfilled in the Gospel: "Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Therefore all are good together—the Law, the prophets, the apostles, and the whole assembly that has believed through them—only if we love one another.
Since, in answer to your prayer and to the tender affection which you have in Christ Jesus, it has been reported to me that the church in Antioch of Syria is at peace, it is fitting for you, as a church of God, to ordain a bishop to go there as an ambassador of God's embassy, that they, being gathered together, may rejoice and glorify the name of God.
Blessed is he in Christ Jesus who shall be counted worthy of such a ministry; and you yourselves, being zealous in Christ, shall be glorified. And if you are willing, it is not impossible for any of you, for the sake of the name of God—just as the neighboring churches have always sent bishops, and others presbyters and deacons.
Concerning Philo the deacon, a man from Cilicia of good repute, who even now serves me in the word together with Gaius and Agathopus, a chosen man who follows me from Syria, having renounced this life—they also bear witness to you, and I give thanks to God concerning you, because you received them. May the Lord receive you also. And as for those who dishonored them, may they be redeemed by the grace of Jesus Christ, who does not desire the death of the sinner, but his repentance.
The love of the brethren who are in Troas greets you, from where I am also writing to you by Burrhus, who was sent together by the Ephesians and the Smyrnaeans as a mark of honor. May the Lord Jesus Christ requite them, in whom they hope, in flesh, soul, spirit, faith, love, and concord. Farewell in the Lord Jesus Christ, our common hope, in the Holy Spirit.