Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the church of God that has obtained mercy in faith and patience and unfeigned love, which is at Philippi: mercy and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those who believe.
Remembering your love and your zeal in Christ, which you showed toward us, we deemed it fitting to write to your brotherly soul-love which is according to God, to remind you of your course in Christ, that you may all speak the same thing, being of one soul, minded as one, walking by the same rule of faith, even as Paul also admonished you.
For if there is one God of all, the Father of Christ, of whom are all things; and one Lord also, our Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, the Lord of all, through whom are all things; and one Holy Spirit also, who wrought in Moses and the prophets and the apostles; and one baptism also, which is given unto the death of the Lord; and one elect church also—
—the faith that is according to Christ ought also to be one. For there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
There is therefore one God and Father, and not two nor three; one who is, and there is none besides Him, the only true One. For 'the Lord thy God,' He says, 'is one Lord'; and again: 'Did not one God create us? Is there not one Father of us all?'
And there is also one Son, the Word, who is God. For He says, 'the only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father'; and again: 'One Lord Jesus Christ'; and in another place: 'What is His name, or what is His Son's name, that we may know?'
And there is also one Paraclete. For He says, 'and one Spirit,' since 'we were called in one hope of our calling'; and again: 'We were all made to drink of one Spirit,' and so forth. And all these gifts, that is, the spiritual graces, one and the same Spirit works.
There are therefore neither three Fathers, nor three Sons, nor three Paracletes, but one Father and one Son and one Paraclete. Wherefore also the Lord, when He sent forth the apostles to make disciples of all nations, commanded them to baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—not into one having three names, nor into three who became incarnate, but into three of equal honour.
For one became incarnate—neither the Father nor the Paraclete, but the Son alone—not in semblance, not in phantasm, but in truth; for 'the Word became flesh,' for 'Wisdom builded herself a house.'
And God the Word was begotten as a man, with a body, of the Virgin, without the company of a man; for 'the virgin shall conceive in her womb and bear a son.' Truly therefore was He begotten, truly did He grow, truly did He eat and drink, truly was He crucified and died and rose again.
He who believes these things, as they are and as they came to pass, is blessed; he who believes them not is accursed, no less than those who crucified the Lord. For the ruler of this world rejoices whenever anyone denies the cross; for he knows the confession of the cross to be his own destruction. For this is the trophy raised against his power, which when he beholds he shudders, and when he hears he is afraid.
And before the cross took place, he was eager that it should come about, and he wrought in the sons of disobedience—he wrought in Judas, in the Pharisees, in the Sadducees, in the elders, in the young men, in the priests. But when it was about to come to pass, he is thrown into confusion and casts repentance upon the traitor, and shows him a noose and teaches him to hang himself; and he also frightens the woman, troubling her in dreams.
And he tries to put a stop to the things concerning the cross, he who pulls every rope toward its undoing—not because he repented of so great an evil (for if so, he would not have been wholly wicked), but because he perceived his own destruction; for the cross of Christ was to him the beginning of condemnation, the beginning of death, the beginning of ruin.
Wherefore also in some he works to make them deny the cross, to be ashamed of the passion, to call the death a semblance, to cut away the birth from the Virgin, to slander nature itself as abominable. With the Jews he allies himself for the denial of the cross, with the Greeks for the false charge of sorcery, with the heretics for the doctrine of phantasm.
For the general of wickedness is manifold—a thief of minds, unstable, contrary to himself, putting forward one thing while showing another; for he is wise to do evil, but what the good might be he knows not at all, being filled with ignorance through wilful madness. For how is he not such a one, who does not even see his own reasoning before his feet?
For if the Lord be a mere man, of soul and body, why do you cut away the birth that belongs to the common nature of men? And why, as though the passion were something strange happening to a man, do you call it a semblance, and reckon the death of a mortal to be mere appearance?
But if He is God and man, why do you call the Lord of glory a lawbreaker, He who is by nature unchangeable? Why do you call the Lawgiver a transgressor, He who has no human soul? 'The Word became flesh'—the Word is man, not having dwelt in a man.
And how is this one a magician—He who of old, by the will of the Father, fashioned all sensible and intelligible nature, and in the incarnation healed every disease and infirmity?
And how is this one not God—He who raises the dead, who sends away the lame made whole, who cleanses lepers, who gives eyes to the blind, who either multiplies or transforms existing things, as the five loaves and the two fishes, and the water into wine, and who by a word alone puts your army to flight?
And why do you malign the nature of the Virgin and call the members shameful—you who of old paraded these things and commanded men to strip naked, males before the sight of females, and females unto the unbridled lust of males?
Now these things are deemed shameful by you, and you pretend to be reverent—you, the spirit of fornication—not knowing that something becomes shameful only when it is defiled by transgression, but when sin is absent, nothing of what has been made is shameful, nothing is base, but all things are very good; and you, not seeing, malign them.
And how, on the other hand, does Christ no longer seem to you to be of the Virgin, but rather the God who is over all, the Existent One, the Almighty? Who then is it that sent Him? Tell me. Who is His Lord? By whose will did He obey, of what laws did He become a fulfiller—He who yields neither to anyone's will nor to any authority?
And while taking Christ out of His birth, you legislate that the unbegotten was begotten, and that the One without beginning was nailed to a cross. By whose permission—that I cannot say.
But indeed you have not escaped me, you turncoat, nor am I ignorant that you walk crookedly and double. But you yourself do not know who He is that was begotten—you who pretend to know everything.
For many things escape you: the virginity of Mary, the marvellous birth, who it was that was in the body, the star that led those in the east, the magi who brought the gifts, the salutation of the archangel to the virgin, the marvellous conception of the betrothed virgin, the proclamation of the forerunner child concerning Him who was from the virgin, and the leaping in the womb at Him who was foreseen.
The hymns of angels over Him who was born, the good tidings to the shepherds, Herod's fear at the loss of his kingdom, the command to slay the infants, the flight into Egypt, the return thence to these parts, the infant's swaddling-clothes, the human enrolment, the nursing with milk, the name of a father who did not beget Him, the manger because there was no room, no human preparation at all, the advance in growth, human words, hunger, thirst, journeying, weariness, the offering of sacrifices—since there was also circumcision.
The baptism, the voice of God over Him who was being baptized—who and whence He was—the witness of the Spirit and of God from above, the voice of John the prophet signifying the passion by the title of the Lamb, the workings of diverse signs, manifold healings, the rebuke of the Master commanding the sea and the winds, the evil spirits put to flight, yourself being tortured, tormented by the power of Him who appeared, having nothing you could do.
Beholding these things you grew dizzy, and that she who bore Him was a virgin you knew not; but the hymn-singing of the angels astonished you, the worship of the magi, the rising of the star. You run back into ignorance because of the lowly things; for the swaddling-clothes seem trifling to you, the manger, the circumcision, the nursing with milk—these appear to you unworthy of God.
Again you saw a man who remained forty days and nights without tasting human food, and angels ministering to Him—at which you shuddered—having first seen Him baptized like a common man and not knowing the reason. But after the fast, when He hungered, you again took courage and tempted Him as a common man, not knowing who He was.
For you said: 'If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.' For the 'if you are the Son of God' is a mark of ignorance; for if you had truly known, you would have understood that for the Creator it is equally possible both to make what is not and to transform what is.
And through the belly you tempt Him who nourishes all who have need of food, and you tempt the Lord of glory, having forgotten, out of your malice, that 'man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'
For if you had known that He was the Son of God, you would have understood that He who for forty days and an equal number of nights made the corruptible body free from want could have done this perpetually. Why then does He hunger? That He might show that He had truly assumed a body subject to the same passions as men. By the former He showed that He is God, and by the latter that He is also man.
You then, who fell from the highest glory like lightning, dare to say to the Lord: 'Cast yourself down from here'—to Him for whom the things that exist are reckoned as though they were not—and to provoke to vainglory Him who makes no display.
And you pretend to read the Scripture concerning Him: 'For He shall give His angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.' And the rest you pretend, like a thief, to be ignorant of—the things which were prophesied concerning you and your servants: 'You shall tread upon the asp and the basilisk, and you shall trample under foot the lion and the dragon.'
If then you are something to be trampled under the Lord's feet, how do you tempt the One who cannot be tempted, having forgotten the Lawgiver who charges, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God'? But you even dare, most accursed one, to claim God's works as your own and to say that the rule over them was delivered to you; and you hold out your own fall before the Lord, and you promise to give Him His own things, if He should fall down upon the earth and worship you.
And how did you not shudder to utter such a word against the Master, O spirit more wicked than all wicked spirits through your malice? Through the belly you were overcome, and through vainglory you were dishonoured; through love of money and love of dominion you are dragged into impiety.
You, Belial, the dragon, the apostate, the crooked serpent, who departed from God, who separated yourself from Christ, who became estranged from the Holy Spirit, who were thrust out from the choir of the angels, the insulter of the laws of God, the enemy of the ordinances, who rose up against the first-formed and stirred them from the commandment though they had done you no wrong, who raised up the man-slayer Cain against Abel, who waged war against Job—you say to the Lord: 'If you fall down and worship me'?
O the audacity! O the madness! A runaway slave, a slave fit for the lash, who has cast off the good Master—to so great a Master, to the God of all things intelligible and sensible, you say: 'If you fall down and worship me'?
But the Lord is long-suffering, and does not reduce to nothing the one who out of ignorance speaks so insolently; rather, he answers gently: "Get away, Satan!"
He did not say, "Get behind me" (for it was not possible for him to turn back), but "Get away, Satan!"—that is, in the very words you chose: "get away," by which you were provoked through your malice; for I know who I am, and by whom I have been sent, and I understand whom I must worship. For it is written, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve."
I know the One, I understand the Only, from whom you have become an apostate. I am no rival to God; I confess his supremacy, and I do not refuse to worship him whom I know to be the author of my begetting and my Lord and the guardian of my existence; for I live because of the Father.
These things, brethren, out of my affection for you, I have been constrained to write, exhorting you to the glory of God—not as being anyone of importance, but as a brother. Be subject to the bishop, to the presbyters, to the deacons; love one another in the Lord as images of God.
You husbands, love your wives as your own members; you wives, since you are one through your union, love your own husbands. If anyone remains in purity or practises continence, let him not be puffed up, lest he lose his reward.
Do not dishonour the feasts. Do not despise the forty-day fast, for it embodies an imitation of the Lord's manner of life; and do not overlook the week of the Passion. Fast on the fourth day and on the Preparation day, distributing your surplus to the poor. If anyone fasts on the Lord's Day or on the Sabbath—except for the one Sabbath—he is a slayer of Christ.
May your prayers be extended toward the church in Antioch, from where I am being led away as a prisoner to Rome. I greet the holy bishop Polycarp; I greet the holy bishop Vitalius and the sacred presbytery and my fellow-servants the deacons—for whom may I be a ransom.
Further, I join in charging the bishop and the presbyters in the Lord: if anyone keeps the Passover together with the Jews, or receives the symbols of their feast, he is a partner with those who killed the Lord and his apostles.
Philo and Agathopous, the deacons, greet you. I greet the company of the virgins, the order of the widows—of whom may I have joy. I greet the people of the Lord, from the least to the greatest.
I have sent you this letter of mine by the hand of Euphanius the reader, a man honoured of God and most faithful, whom I met near Rhegium as he was setting out by ship. Remember my bonds, that I may be made perfect in Christ.
Fare well in flesh, soul, and spirit, being perfect in mind, turning away from the workers of lawlessness and the corrupters of the word of truth, being strengthened in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.