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.

I give glory to Jesus Christ, the God who has[*](The faith of the Smyrnaeans) thus given you wisdom; for I have observed that you are established in immoveable faith, as if nailed to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, both in flesh and spirit, and confirmed in love by the blood of Christ, being fully persuaded as touching our Lord, that he is in truth of the family of David according to the flesh, God’s son by the will and power of God, truly born of a Virgin, baptised by John that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him,

truly nailed to a tree [*](Tree is not expressed in the Greek: but seems to be implied by the fruit in the next sentence, though the exact meaning of the passage is obscure.) in the flesh tor our sakes under Pontius Pilate and Herod the Tetrarch, (and of its fruit are we from his divinely blessed Passion) that he might set up an ensign for all ages through his Resurrection, for his saints and believers, whether among the Jews, or among the heathen, in one body of his Church.