Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp & others · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Ignatius, known also as Theophorus, sends greetings to the congregation at Magnesia by the Meander, a people favored with the kindness God the Father shows in Christ Jesus our Deliverer. In him I salute this church, and I ask God the Father, together with Jesus Christ, to grant her joy in full measure.
Aware of how well ordered your love for God is, and delighted by it, I decided to address you on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ. Since I have been judged worthy of a name most befitting God, amid these chains I carry I sing the praises of the churches, praying within them for the joining of flesh and spirit that is Jesus Christ — he who is, through and through, our very life — and for the joining of faith and love, than which nothing ranks higher, and, above both, for union with Jesus and the Father. If we endure in him, withstanding every assault of the ruler of this age, and come through it, we shall attain to God.
Since I was counted worthy to see you, represented by Damas, your God-worthy bishop, and by your elders Bassus and Apollonius, men equally worthy, and by my fellow servant the deacon Zotion — may I take joy in him — for his submission mirrors what he owes God's grace in the bishop and what he owes the law of Jesus Christ in the council of elders.
It is fitting for you as well not to exploit your bishop's youthfulness, but, in keeping with the power of God the Father, to show him full respect — just as I have learned that your holy elders too refused to seize on his apparently youthful standing, but instead, as men prudent in God, defer to him — not truly to him, in fact, but to him whose Son is Jesus Christ, the overseer of us all. In honor, then, of the one who willed us into existence, obedience ought to be rendered without any pretense whatsoever; for the one being deceived when someone acts otherwise is not this visible bishop, but rather the invisible one being outwitted. Such a matter is not a question between him and mere flesh, but concerns God, who knows what is hidden.
It is fitting, then, not merely to be called Christians, but to be Christians — just as there are some who call a man bishop, yet do everything apart from him. Such people do not seem to me to have a clear conscience, since they do not gather together securely, in accordance with the commandment.
Since, then, everything is nearing its end, and the two lie before us together — death and life — and each person is heading toward his own destination — since there exist two kinds of currency, one belonging to God, the other to the world, each bearing its own imprint stamped upon it — the disbelieving carry this world's mark, while those faithful in love carry the mark that comes from God the Father by way of Jesus Christ — unless we choose freely to die into his suffering, his life does not dwell within us.
Since, then, I have seen in the people named above your whole assembly, gathered in faith, and have come to love you, I urge you: be zealous to do everything in harmony with God, with the bishop presiding as a figure of God, the elders standing in the place of the apostolic council, and the deacons, who mean the most to me, charged with serving Jesus Christ — he who existed alongside the Father from eternity past and was made manifest at history's close. Having all taken up this one disposition that comes from God, therefore, show one another honor; let no one size up a neighbor by the flesh, but keep loving one another without pause, bound together in Christ Jesus. Allow nothing capable of causing a split to take root among you — hold fast instead to your bishop and those set over you, a living pattern and lesson in incorruption.
Just as the Lord undertook nothing apart from the Father, remaining one with him, whether by himself or working through his apostles, you likewise should undertake nothing apart from your bishop and elders. Do not try to make anything seem reasonable to yourselves on your own; rather, let there be one shared prayer, one plea, one mind, one hope, grounded in love, in that flawless joy which is Jesus Christ, than whom nothing is better. All of you, run as one toward a single sanctuary belonging to God, toward a single altar, toward the single Jesus Christ, who proceeded from the one Father, abides in the one, and has returned to him.
Do not let yourselves be misled by foreign teachings or by old myths that serve no purpose. If we go on living by Jewish practice even now, we admit that grace has passed us by. For the most divinely inspired prophets lived their lives oriented toward Christ Jesus; that is precisely why they suffered persecution, being moved by his grace, so that those refusing to believe might be utterly persuaded that there is a single God, made known through the one whom he sent, his own Son — the Word who emerged out of silence and who pleased the one who dispatched him in every respect.
If, then, people once bound to old customs arrived at a new hope, no longer observing the sabbath but ordering their lives around the Lord's own day — the day on which, through him and through his dying, our life sprang up as well (a fact some refuse to accept, though it is exactly this mystery that gave us the capacity to believe, and it is for this reason that we hold fast, so that we might turn out to be pupils of Jesus Christ, the one teacher we have) — then how could we possibly go on existing apart from him, whom even the prophets, as his pupils in spirit, looked forward to as their instructor? And this explains why the one they rightly anticipated, once he had come, raised them up from among the dead.
Let us, then, not be numb to his goodness. If he treated us the way we treat him, we would be lost. That is why, now that we belong to him as pupils, we must learn to shape our lives after Christ. Anyone known by some other title beyond this one does not belong to God. So set aside the corrupt yeast — stale and gone sour — and take on instead the fresh yeast, Jesus Christ himself. Be seasoned by him, so that no one among you goes bad, since the smell would betray you. To talk of Jesus Christ while living like a Jew makes no sense at all. Christianity, after all, did not come to put its faith in Judaism — Judaism came to believe in Christianity, into which every tongue that trusted in God has been drawn together.
I mention this, dear friends, not out of any knowledge that some of you stand in this condition, but rather because, small as I am next to you, I want to shield you ahead of time, so you do not get caught on the hooks of hollow vanity. Instead, be entirely persuaded about the birth, the suffering, and the resurrection — events that unfolded during Pontius Pilate's term as governor, and that were accomplished truly and certainly by Jesus Christ, in whom our hope rests; may none of you ever be pulled away from it.
May I have joy of you in every way, if indeed I prove worthy of it. For even though I am in chains, I am not equal to even one of you who are free. I know that you are not puffed up; for you have Jesus Christ within yourselves. And even more, when I praise you, I know that you are embarrassed, as it is written, that the righteous man is his own accuser.
Be zealous, then, to grow firm in the teaching handed down by the Lord and the apostles, so that whatever you undertake may succeed — bodily and spiritually, through faith and through love, bound to the Son, bound to the Father, bound to the Spirit, from first moment to last — alongside your most honorable bishop, the elders forming a crown of the Spirit fittingly woven for him, and your deacons who serve God. Yield to the bishop, and to each other, just as Jesus Christ yielded to the Father, and as the apostles yielded to Christ and the Father, so that a joining together, both bodily and spiritual, might exist.
Since I know you overflow with God, my counsel to you has been short. Keep me in mind when you pray, so that I may reach God, and reach also the congregation in Syria, a people whose name I am unworthy to bear; I depend on the combined prayer and love you all hold in God, so that the Syrian church might be granted the honor of being refreshed like dew, through your own community.
The Ephesians greet you from Smyrna, from where I am also writing to you, being present here for the glory of God, just as you also were with me and gave me rest, together with Polycarp, bishop of the Smyrneans. And the rest of the churches, too, greet you in honor of Jesus Christ. Farewell in the harmony of God, possessing an undivided spirit, which is Jesus Christ.
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