Epistles

Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the[*](Greetings) Holy Church which is at Tralles in Asia, beloved of God the Father of Jesus Christ, elect and worthy of God, having peace in the flesh and in the Spirit through the passion of Jesus Christ, who is our hope through our resurrection unto him. Which Church I also greet in the Divine fulness after the apostolic fashion, and I bid her abundant greeting.

I have learned that you possess a mind free[*](The virtue of the Trallians) from blame and unhesitating in endurance, not from habit, but by nature, as Polybius your bishop showed me, when he visited me in Smyrna by the will of God and of Jesus Christ, and so greatly rejoiced with me, prisoner for Jesus Christ as I was, that I saw your whole congregation in his person.

I received therefore your godly benevolence through him, and gave God glory that I found you, as I had learnt, imitators of God.