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.

If then they who walked in ancient customs[*](Life with Christ) came to a new hope, no longer living for the1 Sabbath, but for the Lord’s Day, on which also our life sprang up through him and his death,—though some deny him,—and by this mystery we received faith, and for this reason also we suffer, that we may be found disciples of Jesus Christ our only teacher;

if these things be so, how then shall we be able to live without him of whom even the prophets were disciples in the Spirit and to whom they looked

forward as their teacher? And for this reason he whom they waited for in righteousness, when he came raised them from the dead.[*](This is possibly a proleptic reference to final resurrection, but more probably to the belief, found in many documents of a later date, that Jesus by the descent into Hades set free, and took into Paradise, the righteous dead. Cf. especially the Gospel of Nicodemus or Acta Pilati.)