Epistles

Ignatius of Antioch

Ignatius of Antioch. The Apostolic Fathers, Volume 1. Lake, Kirsopp, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1912.

Now for other men pray unceasingly, for[*](Exhortation to prayer and lowliness) there is in them a hope of repentance, that they may find God. Suffer them therefore to become your disciples, at least through your deeds.

Be yourselves gentle in answer to their wrath; be humble minded in answer to their proud speaking; offer prayer for their blasphemy; be stedfast in the faith for their error; be gentle for their cruelty, and do not seek to retaliate.

Let us be proved their brothers by our gentleness and let us be imitators of the Lord, and seek who may suffer the more wrong, be the more destitute, the more despised; that no plant of the devil be found in you but that you may remain in all purity and sobriety in Jesus Christ, both in the flesh and in the Spirit.