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.

for, just as there are two coinages,[*](This is perhaps a reference to Mt. xxii. 19.) the one of God, the other of the world, and each has its own stamp impressed on it, so the unbelievers bear the stamp of this world, and the believers the stamp of God the Father in love through Jesus Christ, and unless we willingly choose to die through him in his passion, his life is not in us.

Seeing then that I have looked on the whole congregation[*](Exhortation to harmony) in faith in the persons mentioned above, and have embraced them, I exhort you:—Be zealous to do all things in harmony with God, with the bishop

presiding in the place of God and the presbyters in the place of the Council of the Apostles, and the deacons,[*](The sentences seem to be unfinished: the Apostolic Constitutions ii. 26 say Let the Deacon be honoured as a type of Holy Sprit.) who are most dear to me, entrusted with the service of Jesus Christ, who was from eternity with the Father and was made manifest at the end of time.