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 Jesus Christ permit me through your prayers.[*](Promise of future doctrinal exposition) and it be his will, in the second book,[*](This second book was either never written, or at all events is not extant in the genuine recension: but a later editor has supplied a second epistle to the Ephesians which is undoubtedly not genuine.) which I propose to write to you, I will show you concerning the dispensation of the new man Jesus Christ, which I have begun to discuss, dealing with his faith and his love, his suffering and his resurrection;

especially if the Lord reveal[*](This appears to be the only possible translation. But the text is not improbably corrupt.) to me that you all severally join in the common meeting in grace from his name,[*](Or possibly, as Lightfoot thinks, ἐξ ὀνόματος means every individual of you. It is in any case a strange phrase.) in one faith and in Jesus Christ, who was of the family of David according to the flesh, the Son of Man and the Son of God, so that you obey the bishop and the presbytery with an undisturbed mind, breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, the antidote that we should not die, but live for ever in Jesus Christ.