Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp & others · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Greetings to you, my brothers and sisters, in the name of the Lord who has loved us, in peace. Since the just decrees of God toward you are great and abundant, I am overjoyed - beyond all measure - at your blessed and glorious dispositions: so deeply rooted is the grace of the spiritual gift given to you. For this I congratulate myself even more, in the hope of being kept safe, since I truly perceive a spirit poured out upon you from the Lord's abundant fountain. I was so struck with wonder at seeing you, a sight I had longed for intensely. Trusting in this, and aware within myself that I understand a great deal in speaking among you - because the Lord has walked with me on the path of righteousness - I am entirely driven to love you more than my own life, since a great faith and love dwell within you, founded on the hope of the life he gives. Considering this, then: that if I take pains to share with you a portion of what has been granted to me, it will count toward my recompense for serving spirits of such a kind, I have hurried to dispatch these writings to you piece by piece, so that alongside your faith you might likewise attain complete knowledge. The Lord's decrees, then, number three: hope for life - which stands as the starting point and the goal of our faith; righteousness - the starting point and the goal of judgment; and love - the witness borne through joyful and glad deeds of righteousness. For the Master has revealed to us, by means of the prophets, both what has already happened and what is happening now, and has granted us an early taste of what is yet to come; and observing these things unfold one after another, exactly as he foretold, we are obligated to draw nearer to fearing him, ever more richly and profoundly. But I - not acting as a teacher, but as one among you - will point out a handful of matters that should bring you joy given your present state.
Since, then, our days are wicked, and the one who exercises power is himself at work, we are obligated to be watchful of ourselves and search out the Lord's just decrees. The helpers of our faith, then, are fear and patient endurance, while what fights on our side are long-suffering and self-mastery. As long as these remain undefiled in their relation toward the Lord, wisdom, understanding, insight, and knowledge join together in rejoicing with them. For through all the prophets he has disclosed to us that he desires neither sacrifices nor whole-burnt offerings nor other oblations, saying at one point: "What good are all these countless sacrifices of yours to me? declares the Lord. I have had my fill of burnt offerings, and I take no delight in the fat of lambs, nor in the blood of bulls and he-goats - not even when you come into my sight. For who has demanded such things from your hands? Stop trampling through my courtyard. Should you bring me fine flour, it is worthless; incense is detestable to me; I cannot endure your new-moon feasts and your sabbaths." These, then, he did away with, so that the fresh law given through our Lord Jesus Christ, free from any yoke of constraint, would not carry an offering fashioned by human hands. And once more he says to them: "Was it a command I gave your ancestors, when they were leaving the land of Egypt, to bring me burnt offerings and sacrifices? No - what I commanded them was this: let no one among you hold malice against his neighbor in his heart, and do not cherish a false oath." We ought, then, being people of some understanding, to grasp our Father's good intention in these words, since he wants us not to wander astray as they did in seeking how to come near him. So he tells us instead: "A sacrifice pleasing to the Lord is a crushed heart; a fragrant offering to the Lord is a heart that praises the one who shaped it." We are obligated, then, brothers, to be careful about our salvation, so that the evil one does not smuggle deceit in among us and hurl us away from our life.
So again, concerning these very things, he says to them: "Why do you fast for my sake, says the Lord, when your voice today is heard only in shouting? This is not the fast I selected, says the Lord - not a person merely bowing his head, nor curling your neck like a ring and dressing in sackcloth while strewing ashes beneath yourselves; not even by such means will you call it a fast that pleases me." But to us he says instead: "Here is the fast I have chosen, says the Lord: release every unjust bond, undo the cords of oppressive agreements, let the broken go free, and tear apart every wrongful contract. Divide your bread among the starving, and clothe anyone you see without garments; welcome the homeless under your own roof, and if you notice someone brought low, do not turn away from him, not even one from your own household. Then your light will burst forth like the morning, your healing will spring up quickly, righteousness will walk ahead of you, and the splendor of God will surround you on every side. Then you will call out, and God will answer you; while the words are still on your lips he will say: Here I am - if you set aside from yourself the yoke and the accusing finger and every word of complaint, and give your bread to the hungry from your very soul, and show compassion to a soul brought low." It was for this reason, brothers, that the patient one - having foreseen the sincerity with which the people he had made ready within his beloved would come to believe - made all this known to us ahead of time, so that we would not go crashing, like raw newcomers, against their law.
We are obligated, then, to investigate thoroughly the matters now before us, and to search out what is capable of saving us. Let us run far away from every deed of lawlessness, so that lawless deeds do not seize hold of us; and let us despise the deception of this present age, so that we may be embraced by love in the age to come. Let us not grant our own soul such freedom that it has license to keep company with sinners and wicked people, or we may end up resembling them. The consummate trap is close upon us, as Enoch has written concerning it. For this very reason the Master has shortened the seasons and the days, so that his beloved could hurry and reach his inheritance quickly. The prophet, too, speaks along the same lines: "Ten kingdoms will reign over the earth, and after them a little king will rise up, who will humble three of the kings at a single stroke." Daniel says something similar about this same matter: "I watched the fourth beast, cruel and powerful, more savage than any of the sea's other beasts, and I saw how ten horns grew out from it, and from among them a small horn sprouted, and how it humbled three of the great horns at once." You ought, then, to grasp this. I ask one more thing of you, as someone from among you, though I love every one of you more than my own life: watch over yourselves from this point on, and do not resemble those who pile sin upon sin by claiming that the covenant belongs equally to them and to us. It belongs to us; but they threw it away completely, and this happened even though Moses had already taken possession of it. For scripture tells us: "Moses remained on the mountain, going without food for forty days and forty nights," and there he obtained the covenant from the Lord - stone tablets inscribed by the very finger of the Lord's hand. But when they turned back toward idols, they threw it away. For the Lord speaks thus: "Moses, Moses, descend at once, since your people, the ones you led out of Egypt, have acted lawlessly." And Moses understood what had taken place, and flung the two tablets down from his grip, so that their covenant lay shattered on the ground - all so that the covenant belonging to the beloved Jesus could instead be stamped upon our hearts, resting on the hope his faith brings. Although I wished to write at greater length, I have been careful to write only as suits one who loves you and does not wish to withhold what we possess, not acting as a teacher but as a devoted servant of yours. Let us, then, be attentive during these final days, since the entire span of our faith will do us no good unless, in this present age of lawlessness and amid the coming pitfalls, we now hold our ground as sons of God ought to, so that the dark one finds no opening. Let us run from every worthless thing, let us despise entirely the deeds that belong to the evil path. Do not shut yourselves away and live in isolation as if you were already justified, but gather in one place and consult one another about the shared good. For scripture says: "Doom awaits those who consider themselves wise and think themselves clever by their own judgment." Let us become spiritual, let us grow into a complete temple fit for God. To whatever degree lies within us, let us cultivate the fear of God and make every effort to guard his commandments, so that his just decrees may bring us joy. The Lord will judge the world showing no favoritism: each person will be repaid according to what he has done. If his deeds are good, his righteousness goes ahead of him; if they are wicked, the payment for wickedness goes ahead of him - so that, even though we feel secure as though already summoned, we might not doze off over our sins, allowing the wicked ruler to seize power over us and cast us out of the Lord's kingdom. Consider this further too, my brothers: when you observe that even after such tremendous signs and wonders took place in Israel, the people were still forsaken - let us be on guard, in case we should be found to be what scripture warns of: many summoned, but few chosen.
It was for this reason that the Lord submitted to giving his flesh over to ruin, so that through the forgiveness of sins we might be purified - a purification that comes by the sprinkling of his blood. For scripture contains sayings about him, some directed toward Israel, some toward us, worded this way: "He was pierced on account of our transgressions, and weakened because of our offenses; by his wound we ourselves were healed. He was brought like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb, silent before the one shearing it." We are therefore obligated to give overflowing thanks to the Lord, since he has disclosed to us both what has already occurred and given us understanding of what is happening now - and regarding what is yet to come, we are not left ignorant either. And scripture says: "Nets are not spread out against birds without cause." What this means is that a man is justly ruined when, having knowledge of the path of righteousness, he nonetheless drags himself off onto the path of darkness. There is this further point too, my brothers: if the Lord submitted to suffering on behalf of our souls, even though he is Lord over the entire universe, the one to whom God said before the world's foundation, "Let us fashion humankind according to our own image and likeness" - how, then, did he submit to suffering at human hands? Understand this: the prophets, having received grace from him, spoke prophetically about him; while he himself, wanting to bring death to nothing and demonstrate the resurrection from among the dead, submitted to it - since it was necessary for him to be revealed in the flesh - so that he might repay to the fathers what had been promised them, and so that, by getting ready a new people for himself, so that, while still present on earth, he could show that it is he himself, the very one who accomplished the resurrection, who will act as judge. Beyond that, while teaching Israel and performing such extraordinary wonders and signs, he proclaimed his message and loved that people intensely. Yet when he selected his own apostles, the very ones who would proclaim his good news - men who were more lawless than every other kind of sinner - he did this to show that he came to summon not the righteous but sinners; it was then that he revealed himself as God's Son. For had he not come in the flesh, there would have been no way for people to be saved by looking upon him, given that even when they look at the sun - a mere object destined for destruction, a product of his own hands - they cannot stare directly into its rays. So then, it was for this very purpose that God's Son entered into flesh: to bring the full tally of sins to completion against those who had hounded his prophets to death. It was, then, for this that he submitted. For God speaks of the wound to his flesh as coming from his own people: "When they strike down their shepherd, then the flock's sheep will be scattered and lost." Yet he himself chose to suffer in just this manner, since it was necessary that his suffering happen upon a tree. For the one who prophesies concerning him declares: "Rescue my soul away from the blade," and again: "Drive nails into my flesh, since bands of evildoers have risen up to oppose me." And again he says: "See, I have offered my back to be struck, and my cheeks to be beaten; and I have made my face like solid stone."
When, then, he had fulfilled the commandment, what does he say? "Who is it that brings judgment against me? Let him take his stand opposing me. Or who seeks to be justified against me? Let him draw near to the Lord's servant. Woe to all of you, for every one of you will wear out like a garment, and moths will devour you." And the prophet speaks again, since he had been set in place like a mighty stone meant for crushing: "Look, I am placing in the foundations of Zion a costly stone, chosen, a cornerstone held in honor." Then what does he add? "And whoever puts his hope in it will live forever." Is our hope, then, resting on a mere rock? Certainly not! Rather, it is because the Lord has anchored his flesh in strength. For he says: "And he set me like solid rock." And again the prophet declares: "The stone the builders threw aside has become the very head of the corner." And yet again he says: "This is the day, magnificent and astonishing, which the Lord brought about." I am writing to you in plainer terms, so you may grasp it: I am wholly devoted to your love. What, then, does the prophet say once more? "A gathering of wicked men surrounded me, they circled around me like bees around a honeycomb," and: "They threw dice for my garment." Since, then, he was going to be revealed in the flesh and to undergo suffering, that suffering was announced beforehand. For the prophet speaks concerning Israel: "Doom upon their soul, since they have plotted a wicked scheme against themselves, saying: Let us tie up the righteous one, since he is a nuisance to us." What does the other prophet, Moses, tell them? "Look, thus speaks the Lord God: Go into the good land that the Lord pledged to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and take possession of it as your inheritance - a land streaming with milk and honey." But what does knowledge itself say? Learn it: Set your hope, it tells us, upon the one who is about to appear to you in flesh - Jesus. For a human being is earth that undergoes suffering, since Adam's formation came from the surface of the earth. What, then, does "into the good land, a land streaming with milk and honey" actually signify? Blessed is our Lord, brothers, who has placed within us wisdom and insight regarding his hidden things. For the prophet speaks a riddle belonging to the Lord: who will grasp it, except someone wise and discerning who loves his Lord? Since, then, having made us new through the forgiveness of sins, he shaped us into a different kind, so that we would possess the soul of little children, as though he were molding us all over again. For scripture speaks about us the way it speaks to the Son: "Let us fashion humankind according to our image and likeness, and let them govern the wild animals of the earth, the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea." And the Lord, seeing how well he had shaped us, said: "Be fruitful, increase in number, and fill the whole earth." That command was directed to the Son. I will show you once more how he addresses us. He carried out a second shaping in the last days. And the Lord says: "Behold, I am making the final things resemble the first." It was to this end that the prophet proclaimed: "Go into a land streaming with milk and honey, and take command over it." See, then, we have been reshaped, just as he states again through a different prophet: "See, declares the Lord, I will remove from these people" - meaning those whom the Lord's spirit had already foreseen - "their hearts of stone, and place hearts of flesh within them instead"; because he himself was going to appear in the flesh and take up residence within us. For our heart's dwelling place, my brothers, is a holy temple belonging to the Lord. For the Lord says again: "And by what means shall I be seen by the Lord my God, and be glorified?" He answers: "I will confess you within the gathering of my brothers, and I will sing to you amid the gathering of the holy ones." We, then, are the ones he led into the good land. What, then, are the milk and the honey? Because an infant is kept alive first by honey, then by milk: so likewise we too, sustained by faith in the promise and by his word, shall go on living, taking command over the earth. And we said earlier, above: "And let them grow and multiply and govern the fish." Who, then, has the ability right now to govern beasts or fish or birds of the sky? We ought to recognize that governing implies authority, so that the one giving commands truly rules. Since, then, this is not happening now, he has certainly told us when it will: whenever we ourselves are brought to completion, becoming heirs of the Lord's covenant.
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