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.

Therefore it is fitting that you should live in[*](Obedience to the Bishop) harmony with the will of the bishop, as indeed you do. For your justly famous presbytery, worthy of God, is attuned to the bishop as the strings to a harp. Therefore by your concord and harmonious love Jesus Christ is being sung.

Now do each of you join in this choir, that being harmoniously in concord you may receive the key [*](i.e. in the musical sense of the word.) of God in unison, and sing with one voice through Jesus Christ to the Father, that he may both hear you and may recognise, through your good works, that you are

members of his Son. It is therefore profitable for you to be in blameless unity, in order that you may always commune with God.