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.

Let us be proved their brothers by our gentleness and let us be imitators of the Lord, and seek who may suffer the more wrong, be the more destitute, the more despised; that no plant of the devil be found in you but that you may remain in all purity and sobriety in Jesus Christ, both in the flesh and in the Spirit.

These are the last times. Therefore let us be[*](The approach of the end: the fear of God) modest, let us fear the long-suffering of God, that it

may not become our judgment. For let us either fear the wrath to come, or love the grace which is present,—one of the two,—only let us be found in Christ Jesus unto true life.

Without him let nothing seem comely to you, for in him I carry about my chains, the spiritual pearls in which may it be granted me to rise again through your prayers, which I beg that I may ever share, that I be found in the lot of the Christians of Ephesus, who also were ever of one mind with the Apostles in the power of Jesus Christ.