A you also do yourselves, having been taught by the Spirit. For the memorable presbytery, worthy of God, is so harmonized with the bishop, as the strings to a lyre; being thus bound together by concord and harmonious love, of which Jesus Christ is the leader and guardian. And do you, man by man, become a single chorus, that being harmonious in concord, having taken the concord of God in unity, you may become one in harmony, to God the Father and his beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord. For, he says, "Holy Father, give to them, that as I and thou are one, they also may be one in us." It is useful therefore for you, being joined to God in blameless unity, to be imitators of Christ, of whom also you are members.
V. For if I in a short space of time had such familiarity with your bishop, which was not human but spiritual, B how much more do I count you happy who are attached to him, as the Church to the Lord Jesus, and the Lord to God and his Father, that all things may be at one in unity? Let no one be deceived. If anyone is not within the altar, he is deprived of the bread of God. For if the prayer of one and another has such power that it places Christ among them, how much more shall the prayer of the bishop and of the whole Church, being harmonious, ascending to God, prevail to have granted to them all the things they have asked for in Christ? Therefore, he who separates himself from such, and does not assemble in the council C of sacrifices and the church of the firstborn who are written in heaven, is a wolf in sheep's clothing, displaying a gentle form. Strive, beloved, to be subject to the bishop and the presbyters and the deacons; for he who is subject to these obeys Christ, who appointed them; but he who disobeys them, disobeys Christ Jesus. But he who disobeys the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him. For he is self-willed and contentious and proud, who does not yield to his superiors. For "God," he says, "resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." And, "The proud deal very D wickedly." And the Lord also says to the priests: "He who hears you, hears me,"
and he who hears me, hears the Father who sent me. He who rejects you, rejects me; and he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me."
VI. B The more, therefore, you see the bishop keeping silent, the more you should reverence him. For whomsoever the master of the house sends to manage his own household, we ought to receive him as we would the one who sent him. It is manifest, therefore, that we should look upon the bishop as the Lord Himself, standing in the Lord's presence. But it is necessary for a man who is observant and sharp in his deeds to stand before kings, and not to stand before slothful men. As for Onesimus himself, he speaks in the highest terms of your order in God, because you all live according to the truth, and because no heresy dwells among you; no, you do not even listen to anyone other than Jesus Christ, the true Shepherd and Teacher; and you are, as Paul wrote to you, one body and one spirit, because you have been called in one hope of the faith. Since there is also one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. You are indeed such as these, having been instructed by such teachers: Paul, the Christ-bearer, and the most faithful Timothy.
VII. C But certain very wicked persons are accustomed to carry about the name [of Christ] in wicked craftiness, while doing things unworthy of God and holding opinions contrary to the doctrine of Christ, to their own destruction and that of those who are persuaded by them; whom you ought to avoid, as you would wild beasts. For "the righteous man who flees saves himself for the age to come," but "the destruction of the ungodly is sudden and joyous." For there are dumb dogs, not able to bark, rabid, and biting in secret, whom you must be on your guard against; for they suffer from an incurable disease. But our Physician is the one only true God, the unbegotten and inaccessible, the Lord of all, the Father and Begetter of the Only-Begotten. We have also as a physician our Lord God, Jesus Christ, the Only-Begotten Son and Word before the ages, but later also man from Mary the Virgin. For the Word became flesh; the incorporeal in a body, the impassible in a passible body, the immortal in a mortal body, Life in corruption, so that He might deliver our souls from death and corruption, and heal them when they were sick with impiety and wicked desires.
VIII. D Therefore, let no one deceive you, just as you also do not let yourselves be deceived.
A For you are wholly God’s. For when there is no desire in you that can defile you and bring torture upon you, then you live according to God, and you are Christ’s. I am the offscouring of you and of the most holy Church of the Ephesians, which is most famous and to be praised in the ages, for you cast out carnality. Carnal men cannot do spiritual things, nor can spiritual men do carnal things; just as faith cannot do the things of unbelief, nor does unbelief do the things of faith. But you, being full of the Holy Spirit, do nothing carnal, but perform all things spiritually. You are made perfect in Christ Jesus, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.
IX. I know, however, that some have passed through you, having the corrupt doctrine of a strange and evil spirit; to whom you did not give passage to sow tares, B stopping your ears so as not to receive the error which they preach; for you are persuaded that such a spirit is a seducer of the people, not of Christ, but speaking its own things, for it is a liar. But the Holy Spirit speaks not its own things, but those of Christ, and not from itself, but from the Lord; just as the Lord also declared to us the things which He received from the Father. For the word, He says, which you hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me. And concerning the Holy Spirit: He will not speak, He says, from Himself, but whatever He shall hear from me. And concerning Himself, He speaks to the Father: I, He says, have glorified Thee upon the earth; the work which Thou gavest me, I have finished; I have manifested Thy name to men. And concerning the Holy Spirit: He shall glorify me, C because He receives of mine. But that erring and false spirit preaches itself, speaks its own things, for it is self-pleasing; it glorifies itself, for it is full of pride; it is a liar, deceitful, fawning, flattering, and treacherous.
A a prattler, a deceiver, a gabbler, dissonant, verbose, fickle, fearful; from whose influence may Jesus Christ deliver you, who founded you upon the rock, as chosen stones, fitted together into the divine building of the Father, B raised up into the heights by Christ who was crucified for our sake, using the Holy Spirit as a rope, and being drawn up by faith, and lifted up from earth to heaven by love, C traveling together with those who are blameless. For blessed, he says, are the blameless in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. The way, which is free from error, is Jesus the Christ; for "I," he says, "am the way and the life." And this way leads to the Father; for "No one," he says, "comes to the Father, except through me." Blessed therefore are you, who are God-bearers, spirit-bearers, temple-bearers, bearers of holiness, in all things adorned with the commandments of Jesus Christ; a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for possession, for whose sake I have been deemed worthy, rejoicing, to converse through those things which I write with the saints who are in Ephesus, who are faithful in Christ Jesus. I rejoice therefore over you, that you do not attend to vanity; and that you love nothing in a carnal manner, but according to God.
A X. And pray also without ceasing for other men; for there is hope of repentance for them, that they may attain to God. For does he who falls not rise again? Or does he who turns away not return? Therefore, turn them B to be instructed by you. Be then ministers of God, and the mouth of Christ. For the Lord says: "If you bring forth the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth." Be you humble against their anger; oppose their insults with intense and continuous prayers; while they go astray, remain you firm in the faith; overcome their wild behavior with gentleness, and their irascibility with mildness. For "Blessed are the meek": and Moses was meek above all men; and David was very meek. Wherefore Paul exhorts, saying: "The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, patient, with modesty correcting those who resist." Do not be eager to avenge yourselves upon those who do you wrong. For "If I have rendered," he says, "to those who render me evil." Let us make them our brothers through kindness. Say, then, to those who hate you: You are our brothers, that the name of the Lord may be glorified; and let us imitate the Lord, who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return; when he was crucified, he did not answer back; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he prayed for his enemies: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." C If anyone, having been wronged further, endures more, this man is blessed; if anyone is defrauded, if anyone is set aside for the name of the Lord, this man is truly of Christ. See that no herb of the devil be found among you; for it is bitter and salty. Watch and be prudent in Christ Jesus.
XI. The times are now the last; let us reverence and fear the long-suffering of God, lest we despise the riches of his goodness and patience. For either D
A let us fear the wrath to come, or let us love the present joy in this life; but let the present and true joy be this: to be found only in Christ Jesus, for the sake of living truly. Without him, do not even desire to breathe. For he is my hope, he my boast, he my unfailing riches; for whose sake I bear about my bonds from Syria to Rome, these spiritual pearls, in which may it be granted me to be perfected by your prayer, to become a partaker of the sufferings of Christ, and a companion of his death, and of his resurrection from the dead, and of his life that faileth not; which may it be granted me to attain, that I may be found in the lot of the Christians of Ephesus, who have always been with the apostles in the power of Jesus Christ—with Paul, with John, and with the most faithful Timothy. B XII. I know who I am, and to whom I write. I am Ignatius, the least, and one who stands in similar peril and condemnation; but you have obtained mercy and are firmly established in Christ. I have indeed been delivered up, yet I am the least of those who have been slain for Christ, from the blood of Abel the righteous down to the blood of Ignatius. You are the fellow-initiates of Paul, who was sanctified and bore witness that he was a chosen vessel; at whose feet may it be granted me to be found, as also at the feet of the rest of the saints, when I shall have attained to Jesus Christ, who in all his prayers is mindful of you. XIII. Give diligence, therefore, to meet more frequently for the thanksgiving of God, and for his glory; for when you meet frequently in the same place, the C powers of Satan are overthrown, and his D fiery darts directed against sin are rendered ineffective.
For your concord and harmonious faith are his destruction, and the torment of his armor-bearers; there is nothing better than the peace in Christ, in which every war of aerial and earthly spirits is brought to nothing. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, and against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” B
XIV. Therefore, no thought of the devil will escape you, if, as Paul says, you have perfectly in Christ faith and love, which are the beginning of life and the end. The beginning of life is faith; the end, however, is love. And these two, when they come together in unity, make a man of God. All other things are consequent to goodness. No one who professes faith ought to sin; nor, when possessing love, should he hate his brother. For he who said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” also said, “And thy neighbor as thyself.” Those who profess to be of Christ are known not only by what they say, but also by what they do. For the tree is known by its fruit. C
XV. It is better to be silent and to be, than to speak and not to be. “The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.” With the heart it is believed, but with the mouth confession is made; by the former unto justice, by the latter unto salvation. It is good to teach, if he who speaks also does. For he who shall do and teach, the same shall be great in the kingdom. Our Lord... D
A and God Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, first did, and then taught, as Luke testifies, whose praise is in the Gospel through all the Churches. Nothing escapes the Lord, but even our hidden things are near to Him. Let us therefore do all things as though He were dwelling in us, that we may be His temples, and He may be God in us. Let Christ speak in us, even as He did in Paul; let the Holy Spirit teach us to speak the things of Christ, in like manner to him.
XVI. Do not err, my brethren, the corrupters of households shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But if those who corrupt the homes of men are condemned to death, how much more shall those deserve eternal punishment who attempt to corrupt the Church of Christ, for which the Lord Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, endured the Cross and death? He who has set at naught His teaching, being fattened and greased, shall go into hell. In like manner also every man who has received from God the power of discernment B shall be punished, if he has followed an ignorant shepherd, and has accepted a false opinion as the truth. What fellowship has light with darkness? Or Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? Or the temple of God with idols? And I say also: What communion has truth with falsehood? Or righteousness with unrighteousness? Or glory with vain-glory?
XVII. For this cause the Lord received ointment on His head, that the Church might breathe forth incorruption. For ointment, He says, is Thy name poured forth; therefore have the maidens loved Thee, they have drawn Thee, after Thee in
the odor of Thy ointments we will run. A Let no one be anointed with the foul odor of the doctrine of this age; let the holy Church of God not be taken captive by his craftiness, as the first woman was. Why, being rational, do we not become prudent? Why, having received from Christ the faculty innate in us to judge concerning God, do we fall into ignorance, and through sloth, not acknowledging the gift which we have received, do we foolishly perish?
XVIII. The Cross of Christ is to the unbelievers indeed a stumbling block; but to the believers, salvation and eternal life. B Where is the wise? Where is the disputer? Where is the boasting of those who are called mighty? For the Son of God, who was begotten before the ages, and established all things by the will of the Father, He was carried in the womb by Mary, according to the dispensation of God, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Spirit: For behold, He says, the Virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a son, and He shall be called Emmanuel. This One was born, and was baptized by John, C that He might ratify the ordinance D entrusted to the prophet.
A XIX. And the prince of this world was unaware of the virginity of Mary, and her childbearing, and likewise the death of the Lord: three mysteries of cry, which were wrought in silence, but were made manifest to us. A star in heaven 98 shone brighter than all that were before it; and its light was ineffable, and its newness provided astonishment to those who beheld it. And all the other stars, together with the sun and the moon, became a chorus to the star; but it, by its brightness, surpassed them all; and there was perturbation, whence this new appearance came. Hence, worldly wisdom was infatuated, sorcery was nonsense, and magic was a laughingstock; every bond of wickedness was abolished, the darkness of ignorance was dissipated, and the tyrannical dominion was destroyed, God appearing as man, and man [as] God working 99. But neither was the former a mere appearance, nor the latter a mere humanity; but the one was truth, and the other was B arrangement [(oeconomia)]. And it received a beginning 1 from that which was perfected by God. Hence, all things were moved together, because the abolition of death was being meditated.
XX. Stand fast, brothers, firm in the faith of Jesus Christ, and in His love, in His passion and resurrection.
A And all of you, together, should assemble in grace by name, in one faith of God the Father, and of Jesus Christ His only-begotten Son, and the firstborn of all creation, but according to the flesh of the lineage of David, being led by the Paraclete; obeying the bishop and the presbytery with an undistracted mind; breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, the antidote against dying, but rather for living in God through Jesus Christ, a purgative that expels evil.
XXI. May I be an expiatory sacrifice B for you, and for those whom you sent to the honor of God into Smyrna; whence also I write to you, giving thanks to the Lord, loving Polycarp as I also do you. Remember me, as Jesus Christ also remembers you, who is blessed unto the ages; pray for the Church of the Antiochians which is in Syria, from where, as a prisoner, I am being led to Rome, being the least of the faithful there, whom yet I was deemed worthy to be granted the honor of wearing these chains C for the sake of God. Be strong in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ, our common hope, in the Holy Spirit. Fare you well. Amen. Grace. D
To the Ephesians of Ignatius
TO THE MAGNESIANS
A Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, to the Church blessed by the grace of God the Father, in Christ Jesus our Savior, in whom I salute the Church which is at Magnesia, near the Maeander, and I pray for you in God the Father, and in Christ Jesus our Lord: in whom may you have much joy.
I. Having learned of your love, well-ordered according to God, I rejoiced and determined to address you in the faith of Jesus Christ. For having been deemed worthy of a divine and desirable name, in the bonds which I wear, I praise the Churches; in which I pray for union of the flesh and spirit of Jesus Christ: who is the Savior of all men, but especially of those who believe; by whose blood you have been redeemed; by whom you have known God, or rather have been known by Him; in whom, if you endure, you shall escape all the malice of this present age. For He is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted beyond what you are able.
II. Since, therefore, I have been deemed worthy to see you through Damas, your most worthy bishop, and your God-worthy presbyters Bassus and Apollonius, and my fellow-servant, the deacon Sotion, of whom I would that I might have joy, because he is subject to the bishop and to the presbytery by the grace of God, according to B the law of Jesus Christ.
III. And it is fitting for you also not to despise the age of the bishop, but according to the will of God the Father, to accord him all reverence, as I have known the holy presbyters to do; not looking upon the apparent youthfulness, but having regard to the wisdom in God C as to the faith of those who are... D
older. A For not the long-lived are wise, nor do the elders understand prudence, but there is a spirit in men. For Daniel, that wise man, when he was twelve years of age, became possessed of the divine Spirit, and he refuted those elders who bore their grey hairs in vain—men who were informers and lovers of another’s beauty. And Samuel, being but a little child, brought to the test Eli, who was ninety years old, because he preferred his own sons to God. Similarly, Jeremiah hears from God: Say not that I am a youth. And Solomon, and Josiah; the former, having begun to reign at twelve years of age, rendered that terrible and difficult judgment concerning the infants to the women; and the latter, having started to rule when he was eight years old, tore down the altars and the shrines, and burned the groves; for they were consecrated to demons, not to God; and he slaughtered the false priests as being corruptors and deceivers of men, and not worshippers of the Divinity. B Adolescentia therefore is not to be despised, provided it be dedicated and consecrated to God: but he is to be despised who is of a depraved mind, even though he be inveterate in evil days. The Christ-bearer Timothy was a youth; but listen to what the teacher writes to him: Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the faithful, in word, in conversation. It is fitting, therefore, that you also should obey your bishop, and in nothing contradict him; for it is a terrible thing to contradict such an one; for he who does so does not deceive the one who is seen, but he insults the invisible One, who cannot be deceived by anyone. And such a thing as this is not referred to man, but to God. For God says to Samuel: They have not deceived thee, but me. C And Moses says: For our murmuring is not against us, but against the Lord God. No one has remained unpunished who has set himself against D
those who were greater. For Dathan and Abiron did not gainsay the Law, but Moses; and they were swallowed up alive into Hades. And Core and those two hundred and fifty who conspired with him against Aaron were consumed by fire. A Absalon, having become a parricide, hung upon a tree, and was pierced with lances because of the wicked counsels he fabricated in his heart. Abeddadan was in like manner beheaded for a similar cause. Ozias was struck with leprosy for daring to trespass against the priests and the priesthood. Saul was dishonored because he did not wait for the high priest Samuel. It is necessary, therefore, that you also reverence your superiors.
IV.
To the Magnesians
And it is fitting not only to be called Christians, but also to be Christians. For it is not the saying, but the being, that makes one blessed. If some indeed call one a bishop, but do everything without him, B to such persons will say He who is also the true and first Bishop and the only High Priest by nature: Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? For such men appear to me not to be of a good conscience, but to be hypocrites and actors.V. Since, therefore, things have an end, and there is set before us life which arises from obedience, and death which arises from disobedience, and each one of those who have been chosen C is about to depart to the place of his finding, let us flee from death and choose life. For I say that two characters are to be found in men: one of the coinage, and the other of the counterfeit. The pious man is coinage struck by God; the impious man is D falsely-named coinage.
not made by God, but produced by the devil. I do not mean to say that there are two natures of men, but that there is one man who is now of God, and now of the devil. If any one studies piety, he is a man of God; but if any one acts impiously, he is a man of the devil, not becoming so by nature, but by his own will. The unbelievers bear the image of the prince of wickedness; the believers bear the image of the prince, God the Father, and Jesus Christ, through whom, if we do not willingly choose to die for the truth into his passion, his life is not in us. B
VI. Since, therefore, I have contemplated the whole multitude in the aforementioned persons in faith and charity, I exhort you to study to do all things in the concord of God; the bishop presiding in the place of God, and the presbyters in the place of the apostolic senate, and the deacons, most sweet to me, to whom has been entrusted the ministry of Jesus Christ; who was begotten before the ages by the Father, was God the Word, the only-begotten Son; and in the consummation of the ages, the same remains. For of his kingdom there shall be no end, says the prophet Daniel. Therefore, let us all with harmonious spirits love one another; and let no one look upon his neighbor according to the flesh, but in Christ Jesus. Let there be nothing among you that can divide you; but be united to the bishop, being subject to God through him in Christ. C
VII. Therefore, just as the Lord does nothing without the Father: For I can do nothing of myself, he says; so also you [do nothing] without the bishop; neither presbyter, nor deacon, nor layman. Nor let anything seem reasonable D to you that is contrary to his judgment; for such a thing is unlawful and hateful to God. All of you follow the bishop, as Jesus Christ followed the Father. And let the deacon wait upon him, as Christ upon the Father; and let him minister to him in all things blamelessly, as Christ, doing nothing of himself, always does the things that are pleasing to the Father. For as Christ does nothing without the Father, so neither does a deacon without the bishop, and as the Son is not without the Father, so neither is a deacon without the bishop. All things indeed let the deacon refer to the bishop, as Christ to the Father; but as much as he can, let him regulate by himself, having received the authority from the bishop, as the Lord received from the Father the power of creating and of providing.
A Let nothing seem reasonable to you, apart from his judgment; for that which is such is unlawful and hostile to God. All of you, come together into the same place for prayer; let there be one common supplication, one mind, one hope in charity, in faith that is blameless, which is in Christ Jesus, than whom nothing is more excellent. All of you, as one, run into the temple of God, as to one altar, as to one Jesus Christ, the high priest of the unbegotten God.
VIII. Do not be led astray by heterodoxies, nor be entangled by B fables and endless genealogies, and Jewish vanity. The old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. For if until now we live according to the Jewish law and the circumcision of the flesh, we confess that we have not received grace. For the most divine prophets lived according to Jesus Christ; for this reason they were also persecuted, inspired by grace, C that the unbelieving might be fully convinced that there is one God Almighty, who manifested himself through Jesus Christ his Son, who is his Word, not uttered, but substantial; for it is not the voice of articulated speech, but the begotten substance of divine efficacy, who in all things pleased him who sent him.
IX. If, therefore, those who were conversant with ancient scriptures D attained unto the newness of hope, expecting Christ; as the Lord teaches, saying: If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. And: Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my day, and he saw it, and was glad.
A For if Abraham is "I am," how shall we be able to live without him? Whose servants the prophets being, they foresaw him in the Spirit, and awaited him as a teacher, and expected him as Lord and Savior, saying: "He shall come, and will save us." B Let us, therefore, no longer sabbatize in the Jewish fashion and rejoice in holidays; "for he who does not work, let him not eat." "In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread," the oracles say; but let each of you sabbatize spiritually, rejoicing in the meditation of the law, not in the relaxation of the body, admiring the work of God, not eating old food and drinking lukewarm, and walking in prescribed distances, and delighting himself in dances and senseless applause. C And after it would have avoided the omission of the Baliolensis copyist, he judged that a negation should be inserted: "for a hope not in vain." Our interpreter rendered it more correctly: "into the newness of hope," from whence we have restored *kainoteta*; though we were not unaware that *neoteta* is read in the Nydpruccianus manuscript. USSER. Anglican: "For this reason, because they rightly expected, he raised them up from the dead," with respect to the history of Matt. xxvii, 52. From a comparison of this version, it appears below that a great transposition of sentences was made here. ID. ... *kai argiais chairontes*. Thus the Augustan and Nydpruccian codices, but the Latin Vulgate edition: "Let us not therefore sabbatize (for which Jacobus Faber wrongly published 'baptize') in the Jewish fashion, as rejoicing in holidays," and hence Morelius and others after him restored the Greek text here. See Prolegomena, chap. ii, and add, then, the twenty-ninth canon of the Council of Laodicea: "That Christians ought not to Judaize, and to be idle on the Sabbath, but to work on that same day, but preferring the Lord's Day, to remain idle, if they can, as Christians." Then that narrative, though apocryphal, added to verse 5 of chapter vi of Luke, in the most ancient Greek-Latin codex of the Gospels (which, received from the monastery of St. Irenaeus among the Lyonnais monks, Theodore Beza donated to the Cambridge Academy): "On the same day, Jesus seeing someone working on the Sabbath, said to him: Man, if indeed you know what you are doing, you are blessed; but if you do not know, you are cursed and a transgressor of the law." ID. ... the Nydpruccian and the Latin Vulgate edition: but the word above *sabbatize* seemed to demand that *heothion* (old-eating) be read: Morelius says here. ID. ... is prescribed in Exod. xvi, 23, that what is to be cooked should be cooked the day before the Sabbath, and whatever remained should be put away for the next day, and in chapter xxxv, verse 3, it is forbidden to kindle a fire through the houses on the Sabbath. Therefore, it was the custom of the Jews to prepare water, food, broth, and pottage on the Preparation Day, and to keep them tepid or warm for the Sabbath. This is taught, along with the Rabbis, by the Scholiast of Juvenal on Sat. vi, v. 540, and to this D points the passage of Jerome on Isaiah lviii, 4, concerning the Jews: "They were devouring with greedy jaws the 'yesterday's broth,' which the Greeks call *eōlon*." And likewise the Jewish penance in Morinus, that nothing hot is to be eaten, except on Sabbaths and feast days. Hence in those things in Justin Martyr's *Dialogue with Trypho*, page 246: "And do not think it a grave and unworthy thing that we drink hot things on the Sabbaths." *Thermon* (hot) should not be taken of every hot drink, but only of that which has contracted the heat of an immediate fire, which can also be gathered from the homily *De Semente*, in Athanasius, tom. I, p. 1071. Consult the Jew Philo, in the book *De Vita Contemplativa*, p. 900. COT. ... the Vulgate interpreter: "not eating all things (and thus *ola* if he had read *ola*) and drinking lukewarm, when the custom of the Jews is noted here, who used food cooked the day before and wine prepared the day before on the Sabbath." Jerome, lib. XVIII Commentary on Isaiah, chap. 65: "They were devouring with greedy jaws the 'yesterday's broth,' which the Greeks call *eōlon*." See the Talmudic tract *De Sabbato*, where it treats of the oven; in which hot foods are kept. USSER. ... measure of cubits: as is clear from the Talmud, in the tract *Perek* Maimoni, tract. *Shabbat* Perek 27. Targum in Ruth 1, 16 and Origen in book IV *On First Principles*; whose Greek words are cited in the Philocalia as follows: "Some babble, searching for meanings, bringing forward cold traditions, just as they also say about the Sabbath that there is a place for each person of two thousand cubits," which Rufinus translated in Latin as: "They invent certain empty and frivolous fables, bringing forward I know not what traditions about the Sabbath, saying that each person's place (beyond which they forbidden to go on the seventh day) is reckoned within two thousand cubits." Jerome in Epistle 151 to Algasia, quest. 10, says the Jews are accustomed to say: "Rabbi Akiba, and Simeon, and Hillel, our masters, have handed down to us that we may walk two thousand feet on the Sabbath," where he has incorrectly interpreted "cubits" as "feet." ID. ... custom, on Sabbaths, feasts, and fasts: among whom the same word *hagg* signifies to celebrate a feast and to dance. That custom is indeed praised by Philo where he speaks of the Therapeutae; but it is argued against by the holy Fathers; I speak of Chrysostom in his oration *Against the Jews*, Prudentius in his *Apotheosis* verse 421, Augusti... the interpreter has "now" [nunc], as if he had read *nyn* for *noun*. ID.
A And after the Sabbath, let every lover of Christ keep the Lord’s Day as a festival, the resurrection day, the queen and the highest of all the days, which the Prophet was awaiting when he said: *Unto the end, for the eighth*, in which also our life sprang up, and victory over death was won in Christ; which the children of perdition deny, the enemies of the Savior, whose god is their belly, who mind earthly things; lovers of pleasure, and not lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; merchants of Christ, adulterating the word, and selling Jesus; corrupters of women, and coveters of other men’s goods; whirlwinds of money, from whom may you be delivered by the mercy of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
B Let us not, therefore, be insensible to His kindness. If He should mark our iniquities as we do, we should no longer exist. For if Thou, Lord, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, who shall stand? Let us therefore be—
A worthy of the name which we have received. For whoever is called by any other name than this, this man is not of God. For he has not received the prophecy which speaks concerning us: "That he shall be called by a new name, which the Lord shall name him, and it shall be a holy people." This has been fulfilled first in Syria; for in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians, when Paul and Peter were laying the foundation of the Church. Cast off, therefore, the evil leaven, which has become old and rotten, and be changed into the new leaven of grace. Abide in Christ, that the stranger may not have dominion over you B. It is absurd to speak of Jesus Christ with the tongue, and yet have the abolished Judaism in the mind. For where there is Christianity, there is not Judaism; for Christ is one, in whom every nation that has believed, and every tongue that has confessed, has been gathered unto God; and they who were of a stony heart have become children of God and friends of Abraham; and in his seed all those destined for eternal life in Christ have been blessed.
XI. These things, however, my beloved, B I have not perceived in any of you to be so; but as one who is less than you, I wish to be a guard to you, that you may not fall into the hooks of vain glory, but be fully assured in Christ, who before all ages was begotten by the Father, but was born later of Mary the virgin without the intercourse of man; and who lived holy...
A and healed every disease and infirmity among the people, and performed signs and wonders for the benefit of men, and to those who had fallen into polytheism, announced the one and only true God, His Father; and who endured the passion, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate the governor and Herod the king, and suffered the cross, and died, and rose again, and ascended into the heavens to Him who sent Him, and sat at His right hand B, and is coming at the end of the ages with paternal glory to judge the living and the dead, and to render to each according to his works. Whoever knows these things in full assurance, and believes, is blessed; just as you are now also lovers of God and lovers of Christ in the full assurance of our hope, from which may it not befall any of us to turn aside.
XII. I would delight in you in all things, if I were worthy. For although I am bound, I am not comparable to one of you who are free. I know that you are not puffed up; for you have Jesus in yourselves. And all the more when I praise you, C I know that you feel abashed; as it is written: The righteous man is his own accuser; and: Say thou thy sins thou first, that thou mayest be justified; and: When you have done all the things that are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants. For that which is exalted among men is an abomination before God. For God, he says, be merciful to me a sinner D〗. Therefore those great ones Abraham and Job, and Jacob, [accounted themselves] as earth and ashes before
God, and called themselves [such] A. And David: "Who am I before you, O Lord, that you have glorified me until now?" And Moses, the meekest of all men, says to God: "I am slow of speech and slow of tongue." Be humble-minded, therefore, even you, that you may be exalted. For he who humbles himself shall be exalted, and he who exalts himself shall be humbled.
XIII. Study, therefore, to be confirmed in the doctrines of the Lord and of the apostles, so that all things, whatsoever you do, may prosper, in flesh and in spirit, in faith and in love B, with your most worthy bishop, and with the worthily braided and spiritual crown of your presbytery, and with the deacons who walk according to God. Be subject to the bishop, and to one another, as Christ was to the Father; that there may be a union among you according to God.
XIV. Since I know that you are filled with every good thing, I have exhorted you briefly in the love of Jesus Christ. Be mindful of me in your prayers, that I may attain to God; and of the Church which is in Syria, of which I am not worthy to be called bishop. For I have need of your united prayer and love in God, that the Church in Syria may deserve, through your good discipline, to be pastured in Christ.
XV. The Ephesians from Smyrna, whence I also write to you, salute you, who are present for the glory of God, just as you are also, who have in all things refreshed me C, along with Polycarp.
A And the other Churches, in honor of Jesus Christ, salute you. Fare you well in concord, possessing an inseparable spirit, in Christ Jesus, by the will of God.
TO THE TRALLIANS
Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, to the Church beloved by God the Father and Jesus Christ, the holy [Church] which is in Tralles, elected and worthy of God, peaceably possessing [life] in the flesh and spirit of Jesus Christ our hope, through the passion which was by his cross and death, and in his resurrection: which also I salute in the fullness [of God], in the apostolic character, and pray that you may rejoice greatly.
I. B I have learned that you have a mind [that is] blameless and unwavering in patience, not according to habit, but according to possession; as Polybius, your bishop, revealed, who arrived at Smyrna by the will of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ His Son, with the cooperation of the Spirit, and who so rejoiced with me in my bonds in Christ Jesus, that I beheld your whole multitude in him. Having, therefore, received your godly benevolence through him, I gloried in finding you to be imitators of Jesus Christ the Savior.
II. Be subject to the bishop as to the Lord; for he keeps watch for your souls, as one who must render an account to God. C Therefore, you appear to me to be living not according to man, but according to Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, believing in his death, by baptism you might become participants in his resurrection. It is therefore necessary, as [has been] your custom, that you do nothing without the bishop. D
A And be subject also to the presbytery, as to the apostles of Jesus Christ, our hope, in whom, if we live, we shall be found in him. It is necessary also that the deacons, being ministers of the mysteries of Jesus Christ, please in every way; for they are not ministers of food and drink, but servants of the Church of God. It is necessary, therefore, that they avoid faults as one avoids a burning fire. Let them, then, be such.
III. B And do you reverence them as Jesus Christ, whose deputies they are; as the bishop also is a figure of the Father of all; but the presbyters are as the council of God and the bond of the apostles of Christ. Without these there is no chosen Church, no congregation of saints, no gathering of holy ones. But I am persuaded that you are so disposed. For I have received the exemplar of your love, and I have it with me in your bishop; whose very demeanor is a great lesson, and his gentleness is power; C whom I believe even the ungodly reverence. Because I love you, I refrain from writing more strictly, so that I may not seem to some to be harsh or lacking. I am indeed a prisoner for the sake of Christ, but I am not yet worthy of Christ: if I am perfected, perhaps I shall be worthy. I do not command you as an apostle.
A IV. But I measure myself, lest I perish by boasting. For it is good to boast in the Lord. Even if I am strengthened in the things of God, I ought to fear the more, and not heed those who inflate me in vain. For those who praise me, scourge me. But I do not know if I am worthy: for the zeal of the enemy is not visible to many, but it wars against me. I need, therefore, meekness, in which the prince of this age, the devil, is brought to nothing.
V. For could I not write to you of more mystical things? But I fear lest, being infants, I might bring upon you harm; and forgive me, lest, not being able to receive the energy, you should be strangled. For I myself, not because I am bound can I understand heavenly things, B and the angelic ranks, and the changes of the angels and of [the heavenly] hosts, the differences of powers and lordships, the variations of thrones and authorities, and the greatness of the ages, I am indeed longing to suffer.
A Knowing these things, I am not yet altogether perfect, nor am I a disciple such as Paul and Peter are; for many things are wanting to me, that I may not be left behind by God.
VI. I beseech you, therefore—not I, but the love of Jesus Christ—that you all say the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you; but be joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For there are some vain talkers and deceivers, not Christians, but sellers of Christ B (Christ-merchants), who carry the name of Christ about in deceit and who corrupt the word of the Gospel, and who interweave the poison of error with their sweet speech. Just as if one were to mix aconite with honey-wine, so that he who drinks, deceived by the sweetness of the savor, may unguardely meet his death. A certain one of the ancients advises: "Let no one be called good, who mixes evil with good." For they speak of Christ, not that they may preach Christ, but that they may condemn and reject Christ; and they bring forth [the law], not that they may establish the law, but that they may preach things contrary to the law. For they alienate Christ from the Father, and similarly the law from Christ; they slander the birth from the Virgin; being ashamed of the cross, they deny the passion, and do not believe in the resurrection; they introduce an unknown God; C they deem Christ to be unbegotten; and they do not even confess that the Holy Spirit exists. And some...
D
of them say that the Son is a mere man; and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same; and that creation is the work of God, not through Christ, but by some other alien power.
VII. A Guard yourselves, therefore, against such persons, that you may not bring a snare upon your own souls; and set your life as an offense to no man, that you may not become a trap to the watch-tower, and like a net spread out. For he who does not heal himself in his own works is a brother of him who destroys himself. If, therefore, you also cast off conceit, arrogance, pride, and haughtiness, it is possible for you to be inseparable from God. For He B is near to those who fear Him; and, "Upon whom," He says, "shall I look, but upon the humble and quiet, and him who trembles at my words?" Reverence also your bishop, even as Christ, as the blessed apostles have instructed you. He who is within the altar is clean; wherefore he also is obedient to the bishop and the presbyters; but he who is without is he who does anything apart from the bishop and the presbyters and the deacons; such a one is defiled in his conscience, and is worse than an unbeliever. For what else is a bishop than a man who holds every principality and power, surpassing all, as far as it is possible for a man to hold authority, being made an imitator of the Christ of God according to his power? And what is the presbytery, but a holy assembly, the counselors and assessors of the bishop? And what are the deacons, but...
INTERPOLATED EPISTLES. - TO THE TRALLIANS
angelic powers; rendering to him a pure and blameless ministry, as the holy Stephen did to James the blessed, and Timothy and Linus to Paul, and Anencletus and Clement to Peter? Whoever, therefore, disobeys these would be altogether godless, and impious, and one who sets aside Christ, and diminishes His ordinance.
VIII. I write these things to you, not that I have known any such persons among you, but far be it from God that such a thing should ever reach my ears, He who did not spare His own Son for the sake of the holy Church; but foreseeing the snares of the Wicked One, I protect you with these admonitions, as my beloved and faithful children in Christ; pouring out for you a medicine that preserves against the pestilent disease of the insubordinate, from which disease you B avoid, by the good pleasure of Christ our Lord. You, therefore, taking up meekness, become imitators of His sufferings, and of the love with which He loved us, who gave Himself for us C as a price of redemption, that by His blood He might cleanse us from ancient impiety, and grant us life, who were already on the point of perishing because of our own wickedness. Let no one of you, therefore, hold anything against his neighbor. For forgive, says our Lord, and it shall be forgiven you. Do not give handles to the heathens, so that for the sake of a few foolish people the word and the doctrine may not be blasphemed. For woe, says the prophet, as from the person of God, through whom my name is blasphemed among the heathens.
IX. Be deaf, therefore D, whenever anyone speaks to you without Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was born of David, who is of Mary; who was truly born and from
God and from the Virgin, yet not in the same manner; for God and man are not the same thing. He truly assumed a body: for "the Word became flesh," and lived among men without sin. "For who of you," He says, "brings a charge of sin against Me?" A He truly ate and drank; He was crucified and died under Pontius Pilate; He was crucified and died truly, and not in mere opinion, while the heavenly, earthly, and subterranean beings looked on; the heavenly, B as being incorporeal natures; the earthly, as the Jews and Romans and the men then present at the time when the Lord was being crucified; and the subterranean, as the multitude of those who rose again with the Lord. For many bodies of the sleeping saints were raised, He says, the tombs having been opened; and He descended into Hades alone, but He ascended with a multitude; and He broke the hedge which was from eternity, and loosened its middle wall; and He rose again after three days, the Father having raised Him; and having spent forty days with the apostles, He was taken up to the Father, and sat at His right hand, waiting until His enemies be put under His feet. Therefore, on Friday, at the third hour, He received the sentence from Pilate, the Father permitting it; at the sixth hour He was crucified; at the ninth He gave up His spirit; before the sunset He was buried; on the Sabbath He remained under the earth in the tomb, in which Joseph of Arimathea had placed Him; at the breaking of the Lord's Day He rose from the dead, according to what He had said: "As Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights." The Friday, therefore, contains the passion; the Sabbath, the burial; the Sunday, C the resurrection. X. If, however, as some who are atheists, that is to
A say unbelievers, say, that he was born, suffered, and died only in appearance, B why then am I in bonds, and why do I pray to fight with beasts? In vain, then, do I die! Therefore, I am bearing false witness against the cross of the Lord; and the prophet spoke in vain: "They shall look upon him whom they pierced, and shall mourn for themselves as for a beloved one." These, then, are no less unbelievers than those who crucified him. But as for me, I have my hope not in appearance in him who died for me, but in reality. For falsehood is alien to the truth. C Truly, then, did Mary bring forth a body, having God dwelling within, and truly was the Word of God born of the Virgin, putting on a body subject to the same passions as us; truly was he conceived in the womb, he who fashions all men in the womb; and he made for himself a body from the seeds of the Virgin, save only that it was without the intercourse of a man; he was carried in the womb, as we are, through certain periods of time; and he was truly born, as we are; and he was truly nourished with milk, and with common food and drink, so that he might nourish us all. D
A And after completing thirty years of life, he was baptized by John, truly and not in appearance. And having preached the Gospel for three years, and having performed signs and wonders, by the false Jews and Pilate the governor, he was judged as a judge, he was scourged, he was slapped upon the cheek, he was spat upon, he wore a crown of thorns and a purple robe, he was condemned, he was truly crucified, not in appearance, not in phantasy, not in deceit; he truly died and was buried, and rose from the dead, as he prayed somewhere, saying: "But you, O Lord, raise me up, and I will repay them." And the Father, who always hears him, answering, says: "Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you will inherit among all the nations." Therefore, the Father who raised him will also raise us through him, without whom no one will attain true life. For he says: "I am the life; he who believes in me, even if he die, he shall live; and everyone who lives and believes in me, even if he die, shall live forever." Flee, therefore, from the godless heresies; for they are inventions of the devil, of that first-evil serpent, who through the woman deceived Adam, the father of our race.
XI. Flee also from his wicked offshoots; Simon, his first-born son, and Menander, and Basilides, and his whole mob of B wicked men. Moreover, he was truly born, as we are.
[Regarding the text and critical notes:] The *Fasti Siculi* add that first part truly, but the old vulgate interpreter entirely omits it. Most of this, however, the interpolator borrowed from the Epistle to the Ephesians. (above.) Usser.
*Fasti Siculi* C say "by slaves." But for "cheek," "temple" would be more correctly read. ID.
...interprets, "voluntarily pleasing." ID.
...and both old Latin interpreters, not, as Augustine, "will gather," i.e., "he will collect," or "he will gather together." It is to be noted, however, that in our interpreter these words are placed after the words, "him whom the Father raised," in this way: "Who also truly rose from the dead, the Father of him raising him, and according to the likeness, his Father will thus, in Christ Jesus, raise us who believe in him; without whom we have no true life." Then follow those things posited above: "If, however, as some godless ones, that is to say, unbelievers, say." ID.
...interprets Ignatius, and from the very text of the Gospel, John xi, 26, where even for "will die," which follows here, it is read "will not die." ID.
...In this place, the often-mentioned James Ussher and his follower, John Daillé, note a chronological error; because Basilides is mentioned, who began to spread his heresy after the death of Ignatius under the reign of Hadrian. I, however, first notice that it was a sin on the part of the interpolator against the criterion [of historical accuracy], while he mentions the Alexandrian Basilides and omits his fellow-disciple Saturninus the Antiochene, whom Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, would more willingly have joined to Menander, "being in Antioch," so that, as the error of Justin in chronology has been noted, I have departed into this opinion, that it is not so certain and evident concerning the origin of the Basilidian heresy as it seems to learned men. For it is from Epiphanius, heresy 31, chap. 2, that Valentinus is made later in time than Basilides; but above we showed that Valentinus can be held to be a contemporary of Ignatius. Furthermore, Jerome clearly, in the *Altercation of a Luciferian and an Orthodox*, chap. 8, mixes Basilides with the heretics of the apostolic times. For what else, I ask, do these words mean: "While the apostles were still living in the century, while the blood of Christ was still recent among the Jews, the phantom, the body of the Lord, was asserted, etc." Then Simon Magus, and Menander his disciple, asserted themselves to be powers of God. Then Basilides commented on the supreme God Abraxas with three hundred and sixty-five editions. Then Nicolaus, who was one of the seven deacons, doing marriages day and night, dreamed of obscene and, even to the hearing, blush-worthy acts of intercourse. Finally, in John of Damascus, *Parallelorum* 12, it is read: "When the impious Basilides had once greeted the evangelist John, and said: 'Do you recognize us?' without any delay, 'I recognize thee,' said the holy man, 'as the first-born of Satan.'" He who wrote this, although he erred, telling concerning John and Basilides what Irenæus reports concerning Polycarp and Marcion, thought, however, that the heresy of Basilides had emerged while John the apostle was living. But let us see the arguments to the contrary. Clement of Alexandria, toward the end of *Stromateis* VII, page 764; Eusebius, *Hist. Eccl.* lib. IV, chap. 1, and in the *Chronicon*; Theodoret, lib. 2 of *Heretical Fables*, chap. 11, and many after them, attribute the heresy of Basilides to the times of Hadrian. I respond that Clement uses doubtful words, invalid for proving the matter in question: "Around the times of the Emperor Hadrian, those who invented the heresies came into being, and they extended as far as the age of Antoninus the elder, just as..."
A those whom Jeremiah the prophet calls accursed. Flee also the impure Nicolaitans, men of false name, lovers of pleasure, slanderers. Flee furthermore [those] offshoots of the Wicked One, Theodotus and Cleobulus, who produce deadly fruit." B
Who for this reason called the Nicolaitans *pseudonymoi* [falsely named], as if assuming for themselves a mendacious name; since they falsely boasted of being the offshoot of Nicolaus the deacon (of whom see Acts vi, 5), to whose continence, however, Clement of Alexandria bears this testimony in the third book of the *Stromata*: "I learn that Nicolaus, with no other woman than the one he married, used- [them]; and of his children, the females bloomed into old age as virgins, and the son remained incorrupt," which (as Rufinus translates in Eusebius, *Eccl. Hist.* lib. III, cap. 29): "For it is established to me that Nicolaus knew no woman at all, except her whom he had taken in marriage. His children, moreover—the females indeed lasted in chaste virginity until extreme old age; the son, however, also himself kept the sanctity of an incorrupt body." "From which they are not least convicted," says Theodoret (*Hær. Fab.* lib. III), "falsely styling themselves by his name, who practice the aforementioned licentiousness." From all of which Stephen Gobarus concludes in Photius’ *Bibliotheca*, num. 232: "Ignatius the Theophorus, and Clement the Stromatist, and Eusebius of Pamphilus, and Theodoret of Cyrus, condemn the heresy of the Nicolaitans, but deny that Nicolaus himself was such." C
You see indeed that Basilides existed around the times of Hadrian: under that prince the heresy did by no means begin. Nor are the Eusebian [arguments] firmer, or more express for fixing the beginning of the said error; especially since in his *History* Eusebius discourses about the Ebionites, Cerinthians, and Nicolaitans under Trajan, whose origin no one doubts to be earlier. But Theodoret in the cited chapter says thus: "Both were under Hadrian the Caesar;" just as in chapter 5: "And these also, while Hadrian was ruling, strengthened their wicked heresies." "Under Hadrian, however, these also confirmed their nefarious heresies." They existed, they did not take their beginning; they confirmed, they did not originate. The words of Firmilian at Cyprian, epist. 75, p. 158, are also objected: "But the time of Valentinus and Basilides is manifest, that they themselves also, after the apostles and after a long age, rebelled against the Church of God with their wicked lies." Truly this "long age," without doubt, ought to be considered an oratorical exaggeration; because between the end of the Apostle John and the beginning of the Emperor Hadrian, twenty years do not intervene. It is shameful to expend labor and time in refuting the third argument, gathered from that which Irenæus lib. III, cap. 3, says: that the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians is older than the heretics who imagine another God above the Creator. As if between Clement’s—I do not say epistle, but—death, and the letters sent by Ignatius to the Trallians, the Basilidian plague could not have arisen. The last objection, a passage also from Irenæus lib. V, cap. 20, does not conclude any more: "All those heretics," says Irenæus, "are very much later than the bishops to whom the apostles handed down the Churches: and this we have manifested with all diligence in the third book." For it is to be understood concerning the time that churches were committed by the apostles to apostolic men, not the time in which those bishops ceased to live. D For Polycarp, as is clear from Irenæus lib. III himself, and from other ecclesiastical monuments, having been constituted bishop of Smyrna by the apostles, lived with Basilides, Valentinus, Marcion, and other heresiarchs.
A and Cleobulus, who produce deadly fruit, of which if any one tastes, he dies immediately, not a temporal but an eternal death. These are not the planting of the Father, but a cursed progeny. B But every plant, the Lord says, which my heavenly Father has not planted, shall be rooted up. For if they were branches of the Father, they would not be enemies of the cross of Christ, but of those who killed the Lord of glory. But now, while they deny the cross and are ashamed of the passion, they cover the iniquity of the Jews, the God-fighters, the Lord-killers; for it is a small thing to call them murderers of the prophets.
b. III himself, and from other ecclesiastical monuments, having been constituted bishop of Smyrna by the apostles, lived with Basilides, Valentinus, Marcion, and other heresiarchs. The fact that he was called by other names (as some say, "Byzantine"), and Valentinus (said by some manuscripts to be absent), and regarding the "Byzantine" reading—is it not sufficiently clear that men of such character wrote volumes full of wisdom? Ought it not to have moved such a grave man that even Jerome was maligned? Did Jerome see the Ignatian interpolations, which Daillé supposed to have been fabricated as late as the sixth century, along with Ussher? And indeed, since all those named by Jerome wrote against Ebion, why should not Irenæus, who lived at the same time, or some other of those many apostolic and eloquent men, have sharpened his style against Theodotus? Verily, Gaius and Victor of Rome were (I think) apostolic men, just as Justin Martyr and Irenæus: by the latter, Pope Victor, Theodotus was excommunicated; by the former, Gaius, he was refuted along with Artemon. But leaving Daillé, let us turn our attention to the most learned father Theodoret, and purify the flaws of his text. The authors of the heresy: Cassianus, Theodotus, etc. Cassianus should be restored, from Clement, Stromata I, 320; III, 465, 466; Eusebius, Præparatio evangelica X, 12; Hist. eccl. VI, 13; Jerome, De viris illustribus ch. 38, and Sophronius where mentioned above. Eusebian History: Clement mentions in his Stromata Tatian's discourse "To the Greeks," and Cassianus, as having also written a chronology. Rufinus: He also makes mention of ancient writers, of one Tatian and Cassianus, as if they had written Chronicles. Nicephorus IV, 33: He makes mention in these of Tatian's discourse "To the Greeks," and of Cassianus, as recording also the times and his succession. Jerome: He makes mention in his Stromata of Tatian's volume "Against the Gentiles," of which we have spoken above, and of a chronology of a certain Cassianus, which work I have not been able to find. By all, it is carelessly handled, for the passage of Clement of Alexandria p. 320: "It has been said of these things precisely by Tatian in his 'Against the Greeks'; it has been said also by Cassianus in the first of his Exegetica." And concerning those things (about the times of Moses), and that the philosophy of the Hebrews is the most ancient of all, it was accurately said by Tatian in his oration against the Gentiles. But it was also said by Cassianus in the first book of the Exegetica. Through which passage, namely, it is affirmed solely concerning Julius Cassianus, the prince of the Docetic heresy, that a Chronography had been inserted by him into his Exegetica, or (as it seems) his Explanations of the Scriptures, just as by Tatian in his celebrated oration.
The Baliol manuscript has "Theododum": which has something in common with that Theodorus mentioned by Clement of Alexandria in book VII of the Stromata; whom the heretic Valentinus says was the teacher of the Apostle Paul. For Theodotus, or Coriarius, or Trapezita, his disciple, was later than Ignatius. Whether this was Theododus or Theodadus has already been mentioned. But concerning that other one, that passage of Epiphanius in his Heresy 51 of the Alogi came to mind; where among those who, with Ebion and Cerinthus, asserted that Christ was a mere man, he counts Cleobius, or Cleobulum, mention of which Cleobius or Cleobulus I find made both in Hegesippus (cited by Eusebius, book IV History, ch. 22), and in pseudo-Clement (or rather that same interpolator, both of his work and of our Ignatius) in book VI of the Apostolic Constitutions, ch. 8 and 16, and in the letter which is borne among the Armenians to the Apostle Paul, written in the name of the Corinthians. For in it Stephanus, and with him the presbyters Neminus and Bulvus, Theophilus and Nomeson (I know not who) signify to the blessed Paul that Simon and Cleobius had disseminated their detestable dogmas at Corinth. Of what kind those dogmas were, they narrate one by one. They say that the prophets are not to be read, that God is not omnipotent, that there will be no future resurrection of the body. They deny entirely that man was created by God, and they do not acknowledge that Jesus Christ was born of the body of the Virgin Mary; nor do they want the world to have been created by God, but by certain angels. The Armenian copy of this letter, written at Smyrna, together with the apocryphal response of the blessed Paul (bearing the title of the third epistle to the Corinthians), resides with Gilbert North, a man well known to us for both the nobility of his lineage and his great gifts. Id.
A and Christ invites you to his own incorruptibility, through his passion and resurrection, being as you are his members.
XII. I salute you from Smyrna, together with the Churches of God which are with me, whose leaders have refreshed me in every way, both in flesh and in spirit. My bonds, which I carry about for the sake of Jesus Christ, exhort you to pray that I may attain unto God; remain in mutual concord and in prayer. For it is fitting for you, individually, and especially for the presbyters, to refresh the bishop, in honor of the Father and in honor of Jesus Christ and the apostles. I pray that you may hear me in love, that I may not, by writing this, be a testimony against you. And do you pray for me, who have need of your love in the mercy of God, that I may be counted worthy of the lot which I am bound to attain, that I may not be found a castaway.
XIII. The love of the Smyrneans and Ephesians salutes you. Remember the Church which is in Syria, from whence I am not worthy to be called, for I am the last of those there. Fare you well in the Lord Jesus Christ, being subject to the bishop, and likewise to the presbyters and to the deacons; and do you, man by man, love one another with an undivided heart. My spirit salutes you B, not only now, but also when I shall attain unto God; for I am still in danger, but the Father of Jesus Christ is faithful, that He will fulfill my petition and yours; in whom may we be found without spot. May I have joy of you in the Lord! C
TO THE ROMANS
A Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, to the Church which has received mercy in the greatness of the Most High God the Father, and of Jesus Christ His only-begotten Son, sanctified and illuminated by the will of God who created all things which are according to the faith and charity of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior: which also presides in the place of the region of the Romans, worthy of God, most decent, most blessed, most praised, most worthy to obtain [her desires], most chaste, and presiding in charity, holding the name of Christ, and the name of the Father, and of the Spirit; whom I salute in the name of God Almighty, and of Jesus Christ.
[Note: The remaining text on this page consists of scholarly apparatus and commentary regarding the variants and authenticity of the superscription to the Epistle to the Romans, which are here omitted as per instructions to skip apparatus.]
A of the Son of God himself: according to the flesh and spirit, and united by every commandment of his, filled with all the grace of God without division, and purged of every foreign color, [I wish you] the greatest of joy in God and the Father, and in our Lord Jesus Christ, blamelessly.
I. Having prayed to God, I have obtained the desire to see your divine countenances; which indeed I was greatly beseeching to obtain. For being bound in Christ Jesus, I hope to salute you, if it be the will [of God] that I be judged worthy to reach the goal. For the beginning is well ordered, if so be that I attain grace, so that I may receive my lot unto the end without hindrance. For I fear your love, lest it should do me injury. For to you it is easy B to do what you wish; but to me it is difficult to attain God, if you do not spare me, under the pretext of carnal friendship.
II. For I do not wish you to please men, but to please God, even as you do please him. For neither shall I ever have such an opportunity to attain God; nor have you, if you remain silent, the power to be inscribed into a better work. C D
A If you remain silent concerning me, I shall become God’s; but if you love my flesh, I shall again be one who runs. But you can grant me nothing more than to be sacrificed to God, while the altar is still ready; so that being formed into a choir in love, you may sing B to the Father in Christ Jesus, because God has deigned that the bishop of Syria be found in the West, having been summoned from the East, a witness of his own sufferings. It is a good thing to depart from the world to God, that I may rise in Him.
III. You have never envied anyone; you have taught others; but I desire that what you teach when you act as disciples be kept firm. Only ask for me power from within and from without, that I may not only speak, but also will; that I may not only be called a Christian, but also be found one. For if I am found one, I can also be called one; and then I shall be faithful when I am no longer visible to the world.
A Nothing that is seen is everlasting. "For the things that are seen are temporal; but the things that are not seen are eternal." The Christian is not the work of persuasion, but of greatness; when he is hated by the world, he is loved by God. "For if you were of this world," saith He, "the world would love its own: but now you are not of the world, but I have chosen you: abide with me."
IV. I write to all the Churches, and I command all, that I die willingly for God, if only you do not hinder me. I beseech you, do not be an unseasonable benevolence to me. Permit me to be food for the wild beasts, through whom it is possible to attain unto God. I am God's B wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of God. Nay rather, coax the wild beasts, that they may become my tomb, and may leave nothing of my body, that, when I have fallen asleep, I may not be found a burden to anyone. But then shall I be a true disciple of Jesus Christ, when the world shall not even see my body. Entreat the Lord for me, that through these instruments I may be found a sacrifice to God. Not as Peter and Paul do I command you; they were apostles, I am a condemned man; they were free, but I am even until now a slave. But if I suffer, I shall be a freedman of Jesus C Christ, and I shall rise again free in Him. Now in my bonds I am learning to desire nothing.
APPENDIX TO THE GENUINE EPISTLES OF ST. IGNATIUS
[alt-version omitted]
This golden sentence of Ignatius is cited by Irenaeus, book 5, chapter 28, where in the Greek (as produced by Eusebius, book 3, History, chapter 36) the name of God is omitted in the latter part, which however exists in the most ancient Latin interpretation of Irenaeus; just as it is also read in the old vulgate version of Ignatius: "That I may be found the pure bread of God"; or, as we have edited from the Pelavian and Magdalen manuscripts: "That I may be found the bread of God." The Metaphrast has: "and our interpreter of Ignatius likewise: 'That I may be found the bread of Christ'"; nay, even Rufinus himself, translating those things of Irenaeus D apud Eusebius: "'That I may be made pure bread for Christ,' he translated." The Greeks in their Menaion, Dec. 20, concerning Ignatius: "I am the pure wheat of God, thou saidst, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts; that I may become bread, through grinding, for the Beloved, and be purified for God. O men of Rome, spectators of this struggle, I do not suffer these things because of any base action or reproach, but because of piety: for I am the wheat of God, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may become pure bread." O men of Rome, and ye present spectators of my struggle, it is not for any base thing that these things befall me, nor am I paying the penalty for wicked deeds; but in order to attain unto God, whom I love and insatiably yearn for. For I am His wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may become pure bread for Him.
A I do not issue commands to you as Peter and Paul did: they were apostles of Jesus Christ, but I am the least; they were free, as servants of God, but I am even now a servant. Yet if I suffer, I shall become a freedman of Jesus Christ, and I shall rise again in Him free. Now I am learning, while bound in Him, not to desire anything worldly or vain.
B From Syria even unto Rome I fight with beasts, by land and by sea, by night and by day, being bound to ten leopards, which is a military company: who even when treated with kindness become worse. But I am the more instructed by their injuries; yet am I not thereby justified. May I have joy of the beasts that are prepared for me; and I pray that they may be found prompt for me; and I will coax them, that they may devour me quickly, not as they have been with some, whom they have feared to touch. But even if they should not be willing of their own accord, I will force them. Forgive me: what is expedient for me, I know; now I begin to be a disciple.
A Let nothing of things visible and invisible envy me, so that I may attain to Jesus Christ. Let fire and cross, and the onset of beasts, and tearings, and severings 71, breakings of bones, and cuttings off of members, and shatterings of the whole body, and the evil torments of the devil, come upon me, only that I may attain to Jesus Christ.
VI. Nothing shall profit me, neither the ends 75 of the world, nor the kingdoms of this age; it is good for me to die for Jesus Christ 76, rather than to reign over the ends of the earth. For what is a man profited, if he should gain the whole world, but lose his own soul? B I desire the Lord, the Son of the true God and Father, Jesus Christ.
On the Epistles of St. Ignatius, Genuinely: Appendix
B ...by Jerome; that is, the "breaking," as Sophronius expressed it from him. *Alasmon* in the Augustan copy is what Morelius calls "constriction" (referring back to the origin of the word *halysis*, that is, a chain); while Vairlenius (followed simply here by Mæstræus and Vedelius) translates it with a meaning that is clearly the opposite, "solution." But what it truly is, Galen, explaining that passage of Hippocrates in his *Prognostics*, explains: and in his Hippocratic Lexicon he interprets it; and: such a suffering in Achilles, who, at the slaughter of his Patroclus, was at conflict with himself, as the prince of poets most elegantly describes at the beginning of the last book of the *Iliad*:
C ...and Juvenal imitated him in his Satire: *He suffers the night of a mourning friend, The son of Peleus; he lies on his face, and then presently [he lies] on his back.* Eustathius says of that Homeric passage, and in the fifth book of the *Iliad* also, regarding the wounded Venus, the same poet sings: [He] said, and the *alysous* departed. Instead of being at a loss and agitated, *alyousa* signifies being distressed: if they are *alyssonte*, they are being distressed, or suffering, or being utterly maddened and having an insane state. Id.
D Let the punishments of the devil come upon me. Euseb.: Let the punishments of the devil come upon me. Similarly the Metaphrast, except that he retains the conjunction with our books, and binds them "upon me." Our Ignatian interpreter (and with him Robert Grosseteste, *Commentary on the Divine Names of Dionysius*, ch. 4) says: "May the evil punishments of the devil come upon me." The ancient Vulgate: "And the condemnation of the devil; may all things come upon me" (for thus the manuscript codices read; not, as Jacob Faber published: "May the scourges of the devil all come upon me"). Rufinus, in Gildas: "And may all the torments of the devil, devised by his art, be heaped upon me alone." Jerome: "And may the torments of the devil come upon me," and from him Sophronius: Id.
(75) The ends. So also our interpreter: but the Metaphrast, "delights." Id.
(76) To die for Jesus Christ. The Metaphrast: "To die in Christ Jesus"; with which the ancient Vulgate Ignatian interpreter agrees; for our Anglican followed the former reading. Id.
A true God and Father, Jesus Christ. I seek Him who died for us and rose again. Forgive me, brethren; do not hinder me from attaining to life. For Jesus is the life of the faithful. Do not wish me to die; for it is death to live without Christ. Since I wish to be God's, do not give me over to the world. Let me obtain pure light. Arriving there, I shall be a man of God. Allow me to be an imitator of the passion of my God, Christ; if anyone has Him within himself, let him understand what I desire, and let him sympathize with me, knowing what constrains me.
B The prince of this world wishes to carry me off, and to corrupt my intent toward my God. Let none of you who are present, therefore, aid him; but rather be mine, that is, be God's. Do not speak of Jesus Christ and yet set your minds upon the world; let not envy dwell among you; nor, even if I should be present and entreat you, do not yield to me, but rather believe those things which I write to you. For I write to you while living, yearning to die for Christ. My love has been crucified, and there is not in me any fire that loves [material things]; but there is in me living water, leaping up within me, saying to me from within: Come to the Father. I take no delight in corruptible food, nor in the pleasures of this life.
vitæ; panem Dei volo, panem cœlestem, panem vitæ, qui est caro Christi Filii Dei, qui factus est A posterioribus temporibus ex semine Davidis et Abrahæ; ac potum volo, sanguinem illius, qui est charitas incorruptibilis, et vita æterna.
VIII. Nolo amplius secundum homines vivere: id autem fiet, si vos velitis. Christo confixus sum cruci: vivo autem, jam non ego, quandoquidem vivit in me Christus. Brevibus litteris oro vos, ne mihi negetis; credite mihi, quod Jesum amo pro me traditum. Quid retribuam Domino pro omnibus quæ retribuit mihi? Ipse autem Deus et Pater, et Dominus Jesus Christus, manifestabit vobis hæc, quod vere dicam. Atque vos una mecum orate, ut scopum attingam in Spiritu sancto. Non secundum carnem vobis scripsi, sed secundum Dei arbitrium. Si patiar, B adamastis me: sin rejiciar, odistis.
IX. Memores este in precibus vestris Ecclesiæ quæ est in Syria, quæ pro me, Domino pastore utitur, qui dixit: Ego sum pastor bonus; et solus ipsam curabit vice episcopi, ac vestra in ipsum charitas. Me vero pudet de illorum numero dici: nec enim dignus sum, cum novissimus eorum sim et abortivus; sed per misericordiam Dei obtinui, C si D Deo placuerit, ut ad ipsius fruitionem perveniam. [alt-version omitted]
A My spirit greets you, as does the charity of the Churches that received me in the name of Jesus Christ, not as a passer-by; for those that did not lie on my path, they escorted me from city to city.
X. I write these things to you from Smyrna, through the most blessed Ephesians. There is also with me, among many others, Crocus, a name much desired. Concerning those who came from Syria to Rome for the glory of God, I believe you have learned; to whom you should also reveal that I am near; for all are worthy of God and of you; whom it is proper for you to refresh in all things. I wrote these things to you on the day before the ninth of the Kalends of September. Fare you well for all time, in the patience of Jesus Christ.
TO THE PHILADELPHIANS
B Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, to the Church of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, which is in Philadelphia, in charity that has obtained mercy, and is firmly established in the harmony of God, and exulting in the passion of our Lord Jesus C inseparably, and fully instructed in all mercy by his resurrection: which I salute in the blood of Jesus Christ, which is an everlasting and abiding joy; especially to those who are one with the bishop, the presbyters, and the deacons, appointed by the will of God the Father, through Jesus Christ, who by His own will has firmly established His Church upon the rock, as a spiritual edifice, not made by hand; against which, when winds and rivers rush, they could not overthrow it;
nor indeed shall the spiritual hosts of wickedness ever be able to prevail, but shall be weakened by the power of Jesus Christ our Lord. A
I. Having beheld your bishop, I knew that not of his own will, nor by men, was he judged worthy to take upon himself the ministry pertaining to the common good, nor through vainglory, but in the love of Jesus Christ, and of God the Father who raised Him from the dead; I am astonished at his gentleness, for he, while silent, is more powerful than those who speak much. For he is fitted to the commandments of the Lord, and to the ordinances, as the strings to a lyre; and he is blameless, not less than Zacharias the priest (Luc. I, 6). Wherefore my soul pronounces blessed his resolve toward God, recognizing it to be virtuous and perfect; his immobility, and his freedom from anger in all the gentleness of the living God. B
II. Flee, therefore, as children of light and truth, from the division of unity, and the evil doctrine of heretics, from whom defilement has gone out into all the earth (Jerem. XXIII, 15). Where the shepherd is, there follow as sheep. For many wolves, clad in sheepskins (Matth. VII, 15), take captive through evil pleasure those who are running in the stadium of God; but in your unity they shall have no place. C
III. Abstain, therefore, from noxious herbs, which Jesus does not cultivate, but the man-killing beast, because they are not the planting of the Father, but the seed of the evil one. I do not write this because I have found division among you; but I warn you as children of God. For as many as are of Christ (Gal. I, 1), these are with the bishop; but as many as depart from him, and embrace communion with the accursed, these shall be cut off with them; for they are not the husbandry of Christ, but the seed of the enemy; from whom may you always be delivered by the prayers of your most faithful and most gentle pastor, who presides over you. D I beseech
A you therefore in the Lord, as many as having repented shall come to the unity of the Church, receive them with all gentleness, that by your kindness and forbearance, having recovered their senses from the snare of the devil, and having become worthy of Jesus Christ, they may attain eternal salvation in the kingdom of Christ. Brothers, do not be led astray. If any man follows one who makes a schism B from the truth, he shall not inherit the kingdom of God; and if any man does not depart from the false-speaking preacher, he shall be condemned to hell. For it is not proper to separate from the godly, nor is it right to keep company with the impious. If any man walks in an alien opinion, he is not of Christ, nor is he a participant in his passion; but he is a fox, a destroyer of the vineyard of Christ. To such an one do not associate, that you may not perish with him; even if he be a father, even if he be a son, even if he be a brother, even if he be a domestic. For, He says, your eye shall not spare him. You ought, therefore, to hate those who hate God, and to pine away at his enemies; yet not actually to strike or persecute them, as the nations do who do not know the Lord and God; but to regard them as enemies, and to separate yourselves from them; yet you must admonish them, and exhort them to repentance, if perchance they may hear, if perchance they may yield. For our God is a lover of man, and wills that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth. Wherefore He makes his sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and rains his rain upon the just and the unjust; of whose kindness the Lord, wishing us to be imitators, says: C Be perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect. IV. I am persuaded of you in the Lord, that you will think nothing else. Wherefore I also confidently write to your God-worthy love, beseeching you to use one faith, and one preaching, and one eucharist. For one is the flesh of our Lord Jesus, and one is his blood which was shed for us; one also is the bread broken for all, and one cup has been distributed to all; one altar to the whole Church, D as also one bishop, along with the presbytery, and the deacons, my fellow-servants.
A For there is also one unbegotten, God and Father; and one only-begotten, the Son, God the Word, and man; and one Paraclete, the Spirit of truth; and there is also one preaching, and one faith, and one baptism; and one is the Church, which the holy apostles founded from ends to ends, in the blood of Christ, by their own sweats and toils. It behoves you, therefore, as a chosen people [(52)], and a holy nation, to accomplish all things in concord in Christ. Women, be subject to your husbands in the fear of God; virgins, to Christ in purity; not abominating marriage, but desiring that which is more excellent; not for the sake of slandering their union, but for the sake of the meditation of the law. Children, obey your parents, and love them as coworkers of God for your generation; B slaves, be subject to your masters in God, that you may be freedmen of Christ. Men, love your wives, as fellow-servants to God, as your own body, as partners of life, and fellow-workers in the procreation of children. Virgins, keep only Christ before your eyes, and his Father, in your prayers, being illuminated by the Spirit. May I be granted your self-control, as of Elijah, as of Joshua [(56)] the son of Nun, as of Melchizedek [(57)], as of Elisha, as of Jeremiah, as of John the Baptist, as of the beloved disciple, as of Timothy, as of Titus [(58)], as of Evodius [(59)], as of Clement, who passed through life in purity; yet I do not for this reason [(60)] disparage the other blessed ones, who entered into marriage, of whom [(61)] I made mention just now. C I pray that, having been found worthy of God, I may be found at their feet in the kingdom; just as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as Joseph, and Isaiah, and the rest of the prophets, as Peter and Paul, and the rest of the apostles, who were joined in marriage, and those who were not, whom I have mentioned. I have remembered those who lived in purity, but I do not disparage the rest of the blessed ones, because marriage also is a thing of the law.
A And may they be found in the kingdom, like Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, like Joseph, and Isaiah, and the other prophets; like Peter, and Paul, and the other apostles, who entered into marriages—not however out of a desire for the matter itself, but because of their own reflections on their lineage, they obtained those. Fathers, educate your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord; and teach them the sacred letters, and trades, so that they may not delight in idleness. For it is said well, “A righteous father educates well; his heart will rejoice in a wise son.” B Masters, attend to your servants kindly, as the holy Job has taught. For there is one nature and one race of humanity. For in Christ there is neither bond nor free. Let rulers obey Caesar; soldiers, their commanders; deacons, the presbyters, as being priests; presbyters, deacons, and the rest of the clergy, together with the entire people, with the soldiers, the commanders, and Caesar, the bishop; [alt-version omitted]
EPISODES REGARDING THE MARRIAGE OF THE APOSTLES
(62) Isaiah. It is my desire to purify the author of the *Hebrew Traditions* regarding the books of Chronicles, to book II, chapter 33: The Hebrews relate that the same Manasseh was the son of Isaiah’s daughter: and therefore in this place, although the name of the mother is written, the name of the father of that man is not written; because the pagan king was unworthy of such a grandfather. Is anyone so blind that they do not see that the words "father" and "mother" have swapped places? In the Chronicles, Manasseh’s mother is not named, just as she had been named in 4 Kings XXI; however, the father is called Hezekiah in both places.
(63) And the other prophets. Excepting Daniel with the three children, according to the teaching of the teachers of both the Synagogue and the Church.
(64) And Paul. I embrace the opinion of Clement of Alexandria and certain others, which arose from a perverse understanding of the Pauline texts in Philippians IV, 3 and 1 Corinthians IX, 5, which Eusebius also reports, and does not refute, in *History* book III, chapter 30, as is done modestly by Nicephorus, book II, chapter 44, and which is proposed simply with a contrary opinion by Origen at the beginning of his *Explanations on the Epistle to the Romans*. “Clement,” says someone or other, reported in the preface of Lambert Gruter Venradius to the Clementine writings, “was Peter’s successor in the episcopate: Paul the apostle also used him as his amanuensis; whom, writing to the Philippians, he commended to his own wife because of her singular piety.” But the greatest part of the theologians of every age give praise to Paul’s perpetual virginity; with Chrysostom opposing this, along with a few recent writers.
(65) And the other apostles. From 1 Corinthians IX, 5: *And the rest of the apostles*, whence also Clement of Alexandria, *Stromata* III, page 448; VII, page 741, and Humbert of Silva Candida in the book *Against Nicetas*, wrongly gathered that the apostles lived bound in marriage. And according to St. Basil, who in his *Ascetics*, in the sermon *On the Renunciation of Possessions*, from my own and the manuscript constitution, speaks thus concerning the holy married ones: [original-script column: see facsimile]. This, as you will note, also exists in Cyril of Jerusalem, *Catechesis* 12, page 145. For *Aal* [Lamech] was read instead of *Aad* [Abraham]? It is: "Such as Abraham was in the Old Testament: who, setting God before all things, when he willingly sacrificed his only-begotten son, having overcome the affection of nature, greatly gloried and rejoiced; who also kept the doors of his tent open, prepared to receive hospitably as many as might approach him. For he had not yet heard that saying: 'Sell what you have and give to the poor': and he performed greater things than these. Likewise Job, and many others, and David, and Samuel. In the New Testament, however, such as Peter was, and the rest of the apostles." And Ratramnus C of Corbie in *Against the Greeks* IV, 6, *Spicilegium* vol. II, page 132, holds the same opinion as Basil concerning Peter and the rest of the apostles. To omit the heretic Jovinian, with Eusebius speaking less explicitly in *Demonstratio Evangelica* book III, chapter 5, page 118. Tertullian's words are disjunctive, however: "I find Peter alone to have been married, through his mother-in-law; I presume that he was once-married through the Church, which, built upon him, was about to place every grade of its order from once-married men. As for the other married men I do not find, I must necessarily understand them to be either eunuchs or continent." *On Monogamy*, chapter 8. Now, of the twelve apostles, only John lacked a wife, as our author, who enjoys the wrongly attributed name of Ambrose, asserts in the *Commentaries on Paul*, at 2 Corinthians XI, 2. And some of the apostles are said to have had marriages by Origen in *Romans* XII, 1, and by Chrysostom in his book *On the Compunction of the Heart*, chapter 8. In addition, James the son of Zebedee and John are counted as virgins in the oration of Proclus. Finally, you have Andrew, Matthew, and Bartholomew as married men in Epiphanius, *Heresy* 78, chapter 40. Philip in Clement of Alexandria, *Stromateon* III, in Eusebius, *Hist.* book II, chapter 30, 31, 39, from the same Clement, and from his own opinion, and in Chrysostom, *Homily 4, On the words of Isaiah*, Vol. III (although the first and the last can be excused and taken of Philip the deacon, as will be clear to the one reading what we noted at *Constit.* VI, 7), Judas the brother of James, a kinsman of the Lord, in Eusebius book III, chapters 19, 20, 32, from Hegesippus, in Cedrenus page 154, in Nicephorus book I, chapter 33. In the unpublished little work *On the Apostles*, D which is attributed to St. Epiphanius, codex Regius 1026: *And lately* (Cedren. *Zocher*). And Judas Iscariot, both in Eusebius, *Praeparatio Evangelica* book VI, chapter 41, in the place of Origen, and in *Evang. Demonstratio* X, 3; as well as in Augustine, Theodoret, and Haymo on Psalm CVIII, 9, where the Greek *Catena* should also be seen. Thus far I have collected regarding the marriage of the apostles. Now to
A render to Caesar [what is due to Caesar]; the soldiers to their commanders; the deacons to the presbyters, the high priests (66); the presbyters, and the deacons, and the rest of the clergy, together with all the people, and the soldiers, and the commanders, and to Caesar, to the bishop; the bishop to Christ, as Christ to the Father. And thus unity is preserved through all. And let there be also widows (67) not wandering, not gluttonous, not busybodies; but like that most honest Judith, like that most sober Anna. These things I do not enjoin as an apostle (68); for who am I? or what is my father's house, that I should speak of myself as equal to them? but as your fellow soldier, holding the rank of a sub-chanter (69).
V. My brethren, I am greatly poured out in my love for you, and B rejoicing beyond measure, I make you safe. Yet not I, but the Lord Jesus through me, in whom I am bound, and fear the more. For I am still unperfected; but your prayer to God will perfect me, that I may attain that to which I have been called, taking refuge in the Gospel as the flesh of Jesus Christ, and in the apostles as the presbytery of the Church (72). I also love the prophets, as those who have announced Christ (73), as having partaken of the same Spirit as the apostles. For just as the false prophets and false apostles drew one and the same (74) evil and deceitful and soul-seducing spirit; so also (75) C their celibacy and virginity. Besides what has already been said and alleged, Hegesippus in Eusebius, b. II, c. 23, and Jerome in his *Catalogue*, c. 2; Epiphanius, heresy 30, no. 2; heresy 78, n. 13; and Jerome, *Against Jovinian* 24, bear witness concerning James the brother of the Lord; concerning the other James, the brother of John, Epiphanius LVIII, 4, LXXVIII, 13; concerning Andrew, Metaphrastes in Surius, June; concerning Judas the traitor, Jerome and Euthymius on Ps. CVIII; concerning them all, except Peter, the same Jerome, b. I, *Against Jovinian*, c. 14.
Ibid. Of Paul, and the other apostles. From this passage, see what we have discussed more fully in the Prolegomena, chapter 17. The following sentence, however, has been restored from both the Greek codex and the vulgate Latin interpretation, after they were compared with each other. For the Nydpruccian codex reads thus: Augustanus contracted; which Morelius rendered into Latin thus: "But with zeal and propensity of mind toward the matter, I remembered D them," and Vairlenius: "But with zeal for virginity, of which I speak, they came into my mind," when the old interpreter, more aptly to the mind of the interpolator, rendered the passage thus: "Who, not (whence we substituted οὐκ for ἀλλ' in our Greek) for the sake of lust, but for the sake of procreating offspring, had wives." USHER.
(66) To the presbyters, the high priests. It must be corrected by the vulgate interpreter, and "to the priests" (for so it is read in the Magdalen manuscript), or rather, "as to the priests." For the Baliol and Petavian manuscripts are so; for which Jacob Faber (and with him the other editors) substituted "as to the administrators of sacred things." Concerning that which is immediately subjoined: "that not only the presbyters and deacons, and the rest of the clergy, but also the soldiers and magistrates and Caesar himself, may obey the bishop": see what is noted in the Prolegomena, chap. 16. ID.
(67) Let there be also widows. See Prolegomena, cap. 1. ID.
(68) These things I do not enjoin as an apostle. See ibid. "That I," the "myself," in the Nydpruccian codex is placed here. ID.
(69) Sub-chanter. The vulgate translation, as if it had read "of obedience." Morelius: "succentors." Vairlenius: "monitors; who suspects that it should be read here: which word, he says, in Greek signifies not strictly a prophet or a seer, but him who brings forth an oracle received from another and interprets it to the others. Whence also by Dionysius, in the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, the orders of angels are called 'sub-chanter' ranks (τάξεις ὑποφητικαί), because they hand down through their hands, as it were, to the lower orders what they received from the higher orders, and they in turn announce and communicate them to holy men. So he. ID.
(70) That I may attain that to which I have been called. The vulgate translation: "That I may deserve to obtain that to which I have been called." Anglican: "That in which inheritance I may obtain propitiation." ID.
(71) To the Gospel as the flesh of Jesus. Jerome, or whoever was the author of those Commentaries, on Psalm CXLVII: "I think the Gospel is the body of Christ, the holy Scriptures, his doctrine." Vide Clement of Alexandria, *Pedagogue*, b. I, c. 6. Origen on Leviticus, c. X, homily 7, and Eusebius of Caesarea, b. II, *Ecclesiastical Theology*, against Marcellus of Ancyra. ID.
(72) Of the Church; namely, of the universal Church. See Nicol. Vedelius on this epistle, *Exercitations*, c. 14. Ibid.
(73) As those who have announced Christ. Anglican: "Let us love; and that they themselves announced in the Gospel." ID.
(74) Drew. It was read corruptly in the Augustanus, for which Vairlenius substituted, and the old vulgate interpreter rendered, "they took." ID.
(75) So also. As Jacob Faber edited, "so certainly." ID.
even so the prophets and apostles received one and the selfsame Holy Spirit, good, principal, true, and instructional, from God through Jesus Christ. For there is one God of the Old and New Testament; one mediator of God and men, for the creation of intelligible and sensible creatures, and for providence, fitting and appropriate; one also is the Paraclete, who worked in Moses, and the prophets, and the apostles. All the saints, therefore, were saved in Christ, hoping in him, and waiting for him; and through him they obtained salvation, being holy, worthy of love and admiration, having obtained testimony from Jesus Christ in the Gospel of the common hope.
VI. B If any man declares one God of the law and the prophets, but denies Christ to be the Son of God, he is a liar, just as his father the devil; and such an one is a pseudo-Jew of the circumcision below. If any man confesses Christ Jesus to be Lord, but denies the God of the law and the prophets, saying that the Father of Christ is not the maker of heaven and earth, such an one has not stood in the truth, any more than his father the devil; and such an one is a disciple of Simon Magus, not of the Holy Spirit. If any man says that there is indeed one God, and confesses Christ Jesus, but thinks the Lord is a mere man, and not God the Only-begotten, and Wisdom, and the Word of God, but deems him to consist only of a soul and body, such an one is a serpent, preaching deceit and error for the destruction of men; and such a person is poor in understanding, as he is called Ebion. If any man confesses these things, but calls lawful marriage C and the procreation of children corruption and defilement, he has the apostate dragon as a resident. If anyone calls the Father and...
Son and Holy Spirit, and praises the creation, but calls the incarnation a mere appearance and is ashamed of the passion, such A a one has denied the faith, no less than the Christ-killing Jews. If anyone confesses these things, and that God the Word dwelt in a human body, the Word being in it just as the soul is in the body, because God is the indweller, and not a human soul; but says that unlawful liaisons are a good thing and makes pleasure the end of happiness—as does the falsely named Nicolaitan—this one can be neither a lover of God nor a lover of Christ, but is a corrupter of his own flesh, and for this reason is empty of the Holy Spirit and an alien to Christ. All such are burial pillars and monuments of the dead, upon which are written only the names of dead men. Flee, therefore, the evil arts and snares of the spirit who now works in the sons of this age, lest B by chance, being distressed, you become weak in love; but all of you be of one accord in an undivided heart, and a willing spirit, like-minded, thinking the same thing, always judging the same things concerning the same matters, both in times of relief and in dangers, in sorrows and in joys. I give thanks to God, through Jesus Christ, that I have a clear conscience among you, and no one can boast, either secretly or openly, that I have burdened anyone, whether in small or in great matters. And I pray that all among whom I have spoken will not hold it against me as a testimony.
VII. For although some wished to deceive me according to the flesh, yet my spirit is not deceived. For I have received it from God. For it knows whence it comes and whither it goes, and it convicts secret things. For I cried out while I was in your midst, I spoke with a loud C voice: It is not my word, but God’s. Attend to the bishop, and to the presbytery, and to the deacons. D
If, however, you suspect me, as though I had known beforehand of the dissension of some, witness is He for whom I am in bonds, that I did not know it from any human mouth; but the Spirit proclaimed, saying thus: “Do nothing without the bishop. Keep your flesh as the temple of God. Love unity; flee from divisions. Be imitators of Paul and of the other apostles, just as they also were of Christ.” B
VIII. I, indeed, was doing what was my own part, as a man composed for unity, adding also this: Where there is discord of mind, and wrath, and hatred, there God does not dwell. To all those who repent, therefore, God grants forgiveness, if they return in unity to Christ and the council of the bishop. I trust in the grace of Jesus Christ, that He will loose from you every bond of iniquity. I exhort you, therefore, do nothing out of contention, but according to the discipline of Christ. For I heard some saying, “Unless I find the Gospel in the archives, I do not believe.” But to such I say that for me, Jesus Christ is the archives; His cross, and death, and resurrection, and the faith that is through Him, are the inviolable archives; by which I desire to be justified, in your prayers. He who does not believe the Gospel does not believe anything else. For archives are not to be preferred to the Spirit. It is hard to kick against the pricks, it is hard not to believe in Christ, it is hard to reject the preaching of the apostles. C
A IX. Good indeed are the priests, and the ministers of the Word; but the high priest A is more excellent, to whom the Holy of Holies has been entrusted, who alone has been entrusted with the secrets of God. Good are the administrative powers of God. Holy, however, is the Paraclete; and holy is the Word, the Son of the Father, through whom the Father B made all things, and provides for all. He is the way that leads to the Father, the rock, the barrier, the key, the shepherd, the sacrifice, the door of knowledge, through which entered Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, Moses, and the whole chorus of the prophets, and the apostles, the pillars of the world, and the bride of Christ, for whom, in place of a dowry, He poured out His own blood, that He might redeem her. All these things tend to the unity of the one and only true God. But the Gospel has something pre-eminent; namely, the advent of our Savior Jesus Christ, His passion, and the resurrection itself. For what the prophets announced, saying: "Until He comes for whom it is reserved; and He shall be the expectation of the nations;" these things have been fulfilled in the Gospel: "Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." All things, therefore, are in sum good—the Law, the prophets, the apostles, the whole gathering that has believed through them—provided only that we love one another.
X. Since, according to your prayer and the affections which you have in Christ Jesus, it has been reported to me that the Church of Antioch C in Syria has peace, it is fitting for you, as a Church of God, to elect...
A a bishop, who may fulfill there the embassy of God; that they, being gathered together in the same place, may also glorify the name of God. Blessed is he in Christ Jesus, who shall be deemed worthy of such a ministry; and you also, showing diligence, shall be glorified in Christ. But to you who are willing, it is not altogether impossible, for the name of God; just as also the Churches most near have sent B bishops, and others priests and deacons.
XI. Concerning Philo the deacon, a man of Cilicia, well reported of, who even now ministers to me in the word of God, together with Gaius and Agathopus, an elect man, who accompanies me from Syria, having renounced the world: who also testify to you. And I give thanks to God for you, that C D
you have received them; may the Lord also receive you A. But as for those who treated them with ignominy, may they be redeemed by the grace of Jesus Christ, who wills not the death of the sinner, but his repentance. The charity of the brethren who are in Troas salutes you; from whence also I write to you by Burrus, who was sent with me by the Ephesians and Smyrneans, for the sake of honor: whom the Lord Jesus Christ will reward, in whom they hope, in flesh, soul, spirit, faith, charity, and concord. Fare you well in the Lord Jesus Christ, our common hope, in the Holy Spirit.
TO THE SMYRNEANS
Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, to the Church of God the Father Most High, and of His beloved Son Jesus Christ, which has obtained mercy in every gift, which is filled with faith and charity, lacking in no gift, most worthy of God, and fruitful in holiness, which is in Smyrna of Asia; in an immaculate Spirit and the Word of God, many greetings.
I. I glorify God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, B who through Him has endowed you with such wisdom. For I have known that you are perfected in an immoveable faith, as if you were nailed to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, both in flesh and in spirit; and firmly established in charity in the blood of Christ; fully persuaded in reality in our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the firstborn of every creature, God the Word, the only-begotten Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, of Mary the virgin; baptized by John, that all righteousness might be fulfilled by Him; who lived holy and without sin A, and who, under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch, was truly nailed to the cross for us in the flesh. From whom we also are, because of His divinely blessed passion, that He might lift up a signal B for the ages through His resurrection, for His holy and faithful ones, whether among Jews or among Gentiles, in one body of His Church.
II. For He suffered all these things for our sake; and He truly suffered, and not as in appearance, even as He truly rose. But not as some unbelievers say, who are ashamed of the formation of man, and the cross, and death itself, saying that He took the body from the Virgin by opinion and not in truth, and that He suffered in appearance; forgetting Him who says: "The Word was made flesh." Also: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." And: "If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me." Therefore the Word dwelt in the flesh. For "Wisdom built a house for herself." The Word raised up on the third day His own temple, which had been destroyed by the Christ-fighting Jews. The Word, when His flesh was lifted up, after the likeness of the bronze serpent in the wilderness, drew all men to Himself for eternal salvation.
III. But I do not know Him to have been in the flesh only during His birth and crucifixion; C but I also know Him to be in the flesh after the resurrection, and I believe
A Him to be so. And when He came to those who were B around Peter (54), He said to them: "Take, handle Me, and see, that I am not an incorporeal spirit" (55). "For a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me have" (56). And He said to Thomas: "Reach your finger 33 here (57) into the imprint of the nails, and reach your hand, and thrust it into My side" (58). And straightway they believed (59) that He Himself was the Christ. Wherefore also Thomas says to Him: "My Lord and my God." For it was on this account that they also despised death; for it would have been little to speak of, injuries, and C ...
...induce them to conclude that; nor did Ignatius himself intend for anything of this sort to be signified by those words. For in his Greek text (not only the one we use today, but also the one which Eusebius and Theodoret once used) it is not *eidon* [I have seen], but *oida* [I know], that is read here. Whence also by Rufinus, the ancient interpreter of Eusebius, the passage is expressed thus: "But I know that He was in the flesh also after the resurrection, and I believe"; and by the more recent interpreter of Ignatius, Jerome Vairlenius: "And after the resurrection I know that He was in the flesh, and I believe that He is also now." Hence the most learned Grotius, on Matt. xviii, 17: "If anyone look at the passage of Ignatius with care, he will see that *oida* is the correct reading, and that it does not concern the sense of sight there, but of faith, which he confirms not by his own testimony, but by that of others." To which may be added the authority of Chrysostom, who, having sought out everything that helped to extol Ignatius, nonetheless denies that he had ever beheld Christ: "Neither having seen Him, nor having enjoyed His company" (vol. V edit. Savil., p. 503). USSER.
(54) *When He came to those about Peter.* In the Greek manner of speaking, "those about so-and-so" can signify either the man himself simply, or the man and his retinue, or his company, as Guillaume Budé shows in his *Commentaries on the Greek Language*, citing an example of either signification from Plutarch’s *Demetrius*, the former in the words: "When the general assembly was held, he was proclaimed leader of the Greeks, as Philip and Alexander had been before"; the latter in the words: "But those about the Phalerian, all thinking they would receive the victor, nevertheless sent messengers begging for peace." In the New Testament also, an example of the former can be seen in John x, 9, and of the latter in Acts xi, 13. All the ancient interpreters, however, took this passage in the latter way; as does ours, "those who were around Peter"; the Vulgate, following Jerome (in *Catalogus*), "those who were with Peter"; and Rufinus returning this to "Peter and the rest." That the discourse does not refer to Peter alone is argued by those plural forms: "Take, handle Me, and see," and what is subjoined regarding the event by Eusebius, Rufinus, Jerome, and Theodoret (demptis those intermediates, added by the interpolator from Luke xxiv, 29, and John xx, 27): "And straightway they touched Him, and believed." Id.
(55) *That I am not an incorporeal spirit.* Thus also [do] the Greek exemplars of Ignatius, and those which Eusebius and Theodoret used formerly, as well as our two ancient Latin interpreters of Ignatius. For in like manner did both render it: "I am not an incorporeal demon"; just as Rufinus had done before them both in his version of Origen’s *De Principiis* and Eusebius’s *Ecclesiastical History*; in which latter place Christophorson, with the sense altogether the same, substituted "a spirit devoid of a body"; just as we find *daimonia asarka* named in the *Apostolic Constitutions*, book VI, cap. 25. Baronius (ad ann. 34, § 196), not noticing this enough, pronounces that those words about "an incorporeal demon" are "missing in the later translation of Eusebius"; also adding this jocular comment: "I will not say it could have happened through the oversight of the interpreter, but through the corruption of the codex. St. Jerome has 'incorporeal demon,' in the prologue of book XV on Isaiah as well as in his *Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers*, though here in Sophronius, Jerome's Greek interpreter, *somatikon*, that is 'corporeal,' is wrongly read; just as, at that place, it was annotated by Marianus Victorius: that 'incorporeal' should be read, that is *asomaton*, not 'corporeal', or *somatikon*, as Erasmus read it from the vitiated Sophronius." Both other ancient manuscript exemplars which we have seen, and the sense itself, and the words of the Gospel brought forth to this same sense, teach this, when it is said: "Handle and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me have." For so it follows immediately in our Ignatius. Id.
(56) *As you see Me have.* Which, if I were convinced were genuine to Ignatius, I would have readily conceded to the most learned Vedelius that [this] testimony had been derived from the sense of the words in Luke xxiv, 37, 39. But since it appears manifestly from the parallelism proposed by us in the *Prolegomena*, cap. 4, that these [words], and what follows concerning Thomas, were by no means acknowledged not only by our interpreter, but even by Eusebius, Rufinus, Jerome, and Theodoret; it is not at all to be wondered at that Eusebius either professed not to know whence that testimony had been taken by Ignatius, or that Jerome affirmed it had been drawn from the Gospel recently translated by him, as we indicated in the *Prolegomena* of the same, cap. 2. Jerome understands here the Gospel of which he makes mention in the prologue of book XV of his *Commentary on Isaiah*: "When the apostles thought Him to be a spirit or, according to the Gospel which the Nazarenes read, the Gospel of the Hebrews, an incorporeal demon, He said to them: Why are you troubled?" (as in Luke xxiv, 38, 39). From which account according to the Gospel of the Hebrews, since it is significant that another history had been proposed by Papias, the disciple of the apostle John, that Eusebius (book III of *Ecclesiastical History*, last chapter) indicates this [account] could have been produced by his fellow disciple Ignatius, there is nothing that one should wonder at. Origen, in book I of *De Principiis*, also indicates that this had been discovered in the book of the *Doctrine of Peter* (whether it be the same or distinct from this one). "If anyone (he says) wishes to bring forward to us from that book, which is called the *Doctrine of Peter*, where the Savior is seen to say to the disciples [that] it is not an incorporeal demon, it must be answered to him that that book is not held among the ecclesiastical books; and it must be shown that the scripture is not Peter's, nor of anyone else who was inspired by the Spirit of God." Id.
(57) *Reach your finger here.* Vet., Vulg.: "Reach (or, 'thrust,' as the Magdalen codex has it) your finger." Id.
(58) *Thrust (or 'thrust') into My side.* [He] adds, from John xx, 27: "and do not be incredulous, but faithful." Id.
(59) *They believed.* Eusebius, Rufinus, Jerome.
A wounds. And furthermore, after he had shown himself to them, that he had risen truly and not in mere opinion, he also ate and drank with them for forty full days; and thus in the flesh, while they looked on, he was taken up to him who had sent him, and [he is] to come again with the same flesh in glory and power. For the Oracles say: "This [same] Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in the manner you saw him going into heaven." But if they say that he is to come at the consummation of the age without a body, how then shall they also see him who pierced him, and in recognizing him shall beat their breasts over themselves? For things incorporeal possess neither form, nor character, nor mark B of an animal-like shape, because of the simplicity of their nature.
IV. But I counsel you concerning these things, beloved, knowing that you also hold to this. I warn you against the wild beasts in human shape, whom it is necessary not only to turn away from, but even to flee; only pray for them, if by any means they might repent. For if the Lord existed in a body only in opinion, and was crucified in opinion, I also am bound only in opinion. Why then have I given myself over to death, to fire, to the sword, to the beasts? But it is not in opinion, but in truth that I endure all things for Christ, that I may suffer with him, he himself strengthening me; for I do not have such strength myself.
V. Which some, being ignorant, have denied, and they advocate for the lie rather than the truth; whom the prophecies did not persuade, nor the law of Moses, nor indeed even now the Gospel, C nor even our own individual sufferings. For they think the same thing concerning us. For what good is it to me if anyone praises me
A and yet blasphemes my Lord, by not confessing that He is God-bearing? But he who does not say this, denies Him altogether, and is a corpse-bearer. Their names, being unfaithful, it did not seem good to me to write; nor may it even come to pass that I make mention of them, until they repent.
VI. Let no one be deceived; unless one believes B that Christ Jesus has walked in the flesh, and confesses His cross, and His passion, and the blood which He shed for the salvation of the world, he shall not obtain eternal life, whether he be king, or priest, or ruler, or a private citizen, whether master or servant, or man or woman. Let him who can understand, understand; let him who hears, hear. Status, dignity, and wealth let no man puff up; poverty and lowliness let no man depress. C For the whole consists in faith in God, and hope in Christ, the enjoyment of those good things which we await, and love toward God and our fellow man. For "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself." And the Lord says: "This is eternal life, that they may know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." And: "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another." In these two commandments, D the whole law and the prophets hang. Consider, therefore, those who hold to alien dogmas, how they ordain that the Father of Christ is unknown; how they exercise unfaithful discord among themselves. They have no care for love; they disregard the things hoped for; they consider present things as established; they despise the commandments; they overlook the widow and the orphan, they spurn the afflicted, they laugh at the bound.
A VII. They are ashamed of the Cross, they mock the Passion, they turn the Resurrection into a fable. They are the offspring of the artisan of evil B spirit, he who cast Adam out from the commandment through the woman, who slew Abel through Cain, who warred against Job, who accused Jesus, the son of Josedech, who incited the multitude to ask for Him to be sifted, who even now works in the sons of disobedience; from whom may the Lord Jesus Christ deliver us, He who prayed that the faith of the apostles might not fail—not as though He were unable to guard it Himself, but as one rejoicing in the excellence of the Father. It is fitting, therefore, to abstain from such men, and neither to speak of them in private, nor in public conversation; but to attend to the Law and the prophets, and to those who have announced to us the word of salvation. But C impious [heresies]...
On the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans
...in this epistle to the Smyrnaeans, cited above, we have proposed: "They abstain from the Eucharist and prayer, because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father in His goodness raised up." They depart from the Eucharist and prayer, because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins, which the Father raised up in His goodness. Those therefore who oppose this gift of God, die in their disputing. But it would be better for them to love, that they might rise again. These things, which are missing from the common books, are found in our interpreter; whose Glossator interprets this "gift of God" regarding the Eucharist (for the Greeks, he says, call the Eucharist *Dora*; and in Latin it is called *Donum*) and notes that those who are said here to have receded from it were Anthropomorphs—not, however, those who came after Ignatius’s time, the Anthropomorphiani or Anthropomorphitae (about whom Socrates, book VI of the History, ch. 7; Sozomen, book VIII, ch. 12; and John Cassian, Collation 10, ch. 2, [write]), who in their rustic simplicity thought that God had human limbs, such as are written of in the divine books (as Isidore has it, book VIII of the Etymologiae, ch. 5); but those primitive heretics whom Ignatius had already warned were to be avoided in this epistle: "I keep you safe from the beasts in the form of men." I warn you against beasts bearing a human form (which name itself is also attributed to soldiers at the beginning of the Epistle to the Tarsians), or, as our interpreter expressed it: "I warn you against anthropomorph beast-men," that is, says the Glossator, beasts formed outwardly in human figure, but inwardly existing according to irrational affections, such as those heretics are who, according to the Apostle, after the first and second admonition, are to be avoided. So says that Glossator; adding also a little later, that here the heresy of those who say that Christ appeared and suffered in phantasm, and not in truth, is touched upon; for Bellarmine, book I *De sacrament. eucharist.*, ch. 1, rightly noted that this passage is to be understood as referring to the Simonians, Menandrians, and the like, who denied the truth of Christ’s flesh, simultaneously observing also that those most ancient heretics impugned not so much the sacrament of the Eucharist as the mystery of the Incarnation. For this reason, as Ignatius indicates in the same place, they denied the Eucharist to be the flesh of the Lord, because they denied that the Lord had flesh. And when Marcion had renewed this pestiferous heresy after them, we see that Tertullian fought against him with this very argument (lib. IV *contra Marcion*, ch. 40), by establishing the truth of the flesh from the sacrament of the flesh: "He made the bread which He took and distributed to His disciples His own body, saying, 'This is my body'—that is, the figure of my body. But it would not have been a figure, if there were no body of truth. Otherwise a void thing, which is a phantasm, could not take on a figure." Which the interpolator of this same Ignatian epistle also declared regarding an incorporeal thing: that it could not take on a figure. "For of incorporeal things," he says, "there is neither form, nor character, nor sign of a living D shape, on account of the simplicity of their nature."
(87) *They are ashamed of the Cross*, *they mock the Passion*. The common version: "they blush at the cross, they turn the passion to ridicule," as we have restored from the manuscripts: for in the printed editions these things were missing. See Prolegomena, ch. 11. Id.
(88) *Of the artisan of evil*. The old version: "of his long-standing malice," and as is also added in the Magdalen MS, "and most wicked." Id.
(89) *who warred against Job*. See Prolegomena, ch. 11. Id.
(90) *who accused Jesus, the son of Josedech*. Augustan: *who [the son] of Josedech*. Nydpruce: *who resisted Jesus [the son] of Josedech*. The old version: "who also tried to resist Jesus the son of Josedech." Id.
(91) *to ask for*. In the Roman Collection, p. 55: "And the filthy tares are transcribed from the Lord's threshing floor, he says, they are badly transcribed." Cor.
(92) *from whom may He deliver us*. Nydpruce: *us*. See Prolegomena, ch. 11. Usser.
(93) *in the excellence of the Father*. *Patris ὑπεροχήν*. This is not detrimental to equality. Because, as is taught by Gregory Nazianzen, Orations 36 and 40, the Father is greater by reason of cause and principle, the Son is equal on account of the same nature. And consonant with these are the things which Hilary discusses in book IX *De Trinitate* regarding the Father being greater, the Son not being lesser. For although the Father is greater than the Son, it is as Father to Son, by generation, not by genus. Notable words of the same Latin orator of the Rhone, upon Ps. CXXXVII, 6. See here the Epistle to the Philippians, no. 12. Cot.
(94) *with them*. The codex Nydpruccian and the old Latin version: "with these." The Augustan however reads *αὐτῶν*, and our interpreter: "of them." Usser.
A and prophets, and those who have preached the saving word to you. B But the divine will judge those who create schisms, being devoid of the love of God, and seeking their own advantage rather than the unity of the Church, and who for small and trivial causes cut and divide the great and glorious body of Christ; with them, the danger is no ordinary one. Christ Jesus to the Father. Flee from the ill-named heresies and those who create schisms, as from the source of evils. C VIII. All of you follow the bishop, as Christ Jesus followed the Father; and the presbytery as you would the apostles. And reverence the deacons, as those who serve the commandment of God. Let no one do anything that pertains to the Church without the bishop. Let that be considered a valid eucharist which is under the bishop, or to whom he may entrust it. Wherever the bishop appears, there let the multitude be; just as wherever Christ is, there all the heavenly host stands by, as the leader of the host of the Lord, and the dispenser of every intelligible nature. It is not permitted without the bishop either to baptize, or to offer, or to present a sacrifice, or to celebrate the feast; but whatever shall seem good to him, in accordance with the well-pleasing of God, that it may be safe and valid whatever you do. D IX. It is reasonable, then, that we come to our senses while we still have time to repent to God. For in Hades there is no one who confesses. For behold, man, and his work before his face.
A “Honor,” he says, “my son, God and the king.” But I say: Honor God, indeed, as the author of all things and Lord; but the bishop, as a high priest, who bears the image of God: of God, for the sake of his rule; but of Christ, for the sake of his priesthood. And after him, one must also honor the king. For neither is anyone more excellent than God, or any like Him in all things that exist; nor in the Church is there anything greater than a bishop, consecrated to God for the salvation of the whole world; nor is anyone among rulers like the king, who provides peace and good order to those who are subject to him. He who honors the bishop will be honored by God; just as he who brings ignominy upon him will be punished by God. For if he who rises up against kings is justly worthy of punishment, as one who dissolves the common good order, with how much greater punishment do you think he will be deemed worthy, who chooses to do anything without the bishop, and who tears apart unity and confuses good order? B For priesthood is the pinnacle of all good things that are among men; he who rages against it does not dishonor a man, but God, and Christ Jesus, the firstborn, and the only one by nature high priest of the Father. All things, therefore, should be performed by you with good order in Christ. Let the laity submit to the deacons; the deacons, to the presbyters; the presbyters, to the bishop; the bishop, to Christ, as He Himself is to the Father. Just as you have refreshed me, brothers, so may Jesus Christ refresh you. You have loved me in my absence and in my presence; may God, for whose sake you showed these things to His prisoner, reward you. For even if I am not worthy, yet the greatness of your zeal is large. For he who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. C It is manifest and has been demonstrated.
X. Regarding Philo, Gaius, and Agathopus, who have followed me for the word of God, and are deacons of Christ, you did well to receive them as ministers of Christ. They also give great thanks to the Lord on your behalf, for you refreshed them in every way. Nothing of what you did for them shall be reckoned against you. May the Lord grant you to find mercy from the Lord in that day. My spirit A is an offering for you, as are my bonds, which you did not despise nor were ashamed of. Wherefore, neither shall the perfect hope, Jesus Christ, be ashamed of you.
XI. Your prayers have reached the Church of Antioch, and it is at peace; wherefore I, being in bonds, salute all, though I am not worthy to be one of them, being the least of them B. But I was deemed worthy by the will of God, not of my own conscience, but by the grace of God, which I pray may be given to me in perfection, so that through your prayers I may attain to God. In order, therefore, that your work may be perfect on earth and in heaven, it is fitting that your Church, for the honor of God, should elect a sacred legate C; so that when he arrives in Syria, he may congratulate them because they are at peace, and have recovered their own greatness, and their own body has been restored to them. The thing that seemed proper to me is this: that you send one of your own with a letter, so that he may join with them in glorifying God for the tranquility which they have attained in God, and because I have reached the most commodious harbor, Christ, through your prayers. Being perfect, be perfect in your thinking as well. For to those who wish to do well, God is also ready to bestow.
XII. The love of your brethren who are in Troas salutes you; from whence I also write to you by D Burrus, whom you sent with me, together with your Ephesian brethren; he has refreshed me in all things. And would that
A all men might imitate him, seeing he is an exemplar of the divine ministry. The grace of the Lord shall reward him in all things. I salute your God-worthy bishop Polycarp, and the God-beseeming presbytery, and the Christ-bearing deacons, my fellow-servants B, and all of you individually and in common, in the name of Christ Jesus, and of His flesh, and of His blood, and of His passion, and of His resurrection, both corporal and spiritual, in the unity of God and of yourselves. Grace, mercy, peace, and patience be yours always, in Christ.
XIII. I salute the families of my brethren, with wives and children; and the perpetual virgins, and the widows. Fare ye well in the power of the Spirit. Philo, my fellow-deacon, who is with me, salutes you. I salute the house of Gavia, which I pray may be strengthened in faith and in C carnal and spiritual love. I salute Alce, a name most dear to me, and the incomparable Daphnus, and Eutecnus, and all by name. Fare ye well in the grace of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, being filled with the Holy Spirit and with divine and sacred wisdom.
TO POLYCARP
Bishop of Smyrna.Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, who also is a witness D for Jesus Christ, to Polycarp, bishop of the Smyrnæans, who is [crowned] in the flesh.
or rather, who has been overseen by God the Father and Jesus Christ, A many greetings. [I embrace] your mind, established as if upon an immovable rock; I greatly glorify that I have been accounted worthy of your blameless countenance, of which may I have enjoyment in God. I exhort you, by the grace with which you are clothed, [to add to your course], and to exhort all that they may be saved. B Reckon your course; let your work be as a deposit; seek the things which are better. Stand firm in the Spirit, as the athlete of God.
The remainder of the text here—which follows a different style, appearing later in age and authority—is certainly not by Polycarp. In the latter part, these words come first: "Give heed to the bishop, that God may also give heed to you," and the things that follow are more appropriate for subjects than for Polycarp, who was himself a bishop; then, many barbarous words, and those bent from Latin terms, which square more with soldiers than with all others. C *"Be pleasing to Him for whom you serve, from whom also you shall receive your wages. Let no one of you be a deserter. Let your baptism remain as your arms, faith as a helmet, love as a spear, patience as a full panoply; your deposits, your works, that you may receive your works which are worthy of God."* Be pleasing to Him for whom you perform military service, from whom also you shall receive your stipends. Let no one of you be a deserter. Let your baptism remain as arms, faith as a helmet, charity as a spear, patience as all armor. Let your deposits be your works, that you may receive your works worthy of God.
Yet the objections raised by our Vedelius against the latter part of this epistle, the Jesuit attempts to refute for the sake of contradiction (and not without his customary bile). Although, lest the ancient Latin interpreter be thought to have rejected that part of the epistle for no reason (as we already warned in the Prolegomena, ch. 2 and ch. 18, and in the edition itself), we have thought it right to subject the seven Vedelian reasons once more to the judgment of fairer readers.
First, indeed, since Ignatius is writing to a bishop, why would he say: "Obey the bishop"? Has he (as Scultetus rightly says) forgotten that he is writing to a bishop? Second, all these things do not look to Polycarp, but to others, to whom he turns his speech: *[Greek phrase omitted]*; which ought to be admitted, if Ignatius were saying to Polycarp that he should relay these things to the Smyrnæans. In the preceding words this had been done; for when Ignatius wished to warn the Smyrnæan women of their duty, he warns Polycarp that he should set forth those precepts to them: "Tell my sisters that they love the Lord." Here, however, nothing of the sort happens. Third, among other things, the Smyrnæans, it seems, are here warned that they should both go to bed and rise together; which, whether it be understood of the rest of death and spiritual resurrection, or of bodily rest and resurrection, is equally ridiculous. Fourth, the reason which he adds there is also inept. He says: "Go to bed and rise together, as the stewards and assessors and ministers of God." Where fifth, this is inept, because when he names the Smyrnæans the stewards and ministers of God, he also names them His assessors. The faithful can perhaps in some way be called assessors of God in the next life, by allusion to the place in the Gospel where the apostles are said to be about to sit on twelve thrones, that they may judge the twelve tribes (Matt. xix, 28, with Apocalyps. iii, 21). But who would think that the faithful can rightly be called assessors of God here? D Better does Ignatius, *ho gnesios*, in the Epistle to the Ephesians say that a bishop (not to mention others) *to Kyrio parestatai*, which is not to sit as an assessor to the Lord, but to stand by. Sixth, the corruptor wished to imitate Paul, Ephes. vi, 11-13, speaking of spiritual arms; but how? Paul, wishing to clothe the faithful person simultaneously with the arms of all virtues and spiritual gifts, calls all those gifts together a *panoplia*. "For this reason take unto you the full armor (panoplian) of God." The *panoplia* contains within itself diverse arms, which Paul enumerates there. But our inept depravator calls patientia alone a *panoplia*. What? Is patience the entire spiritual armament? Or is patience a genus of virtues, containing all of them under itself as species? Therefore, are faith, truth, justice, the word of God species of patience? Again, Paul attributes the appellation of helmet to salvation, but the corruptor attributes it to faith; when yet Paul attributes the appellation of shield to faith. Seventh, the ineptitudes of the man reveal themselves in the affectation of barbarisms or Latin terms, which it is manifest were inserted here with most foolish intent. "Let no one of you be a *desertor*," etc., "your *deposita*," etc., "your *accepta*," etc. Is the Greek writer, (to speak with Scultetus), so ignorant of the Greek language that he did not know what the Greek tongue calls a *depositum*, what *accipere*, what a *desertor*?
[Regarding the Latin translator's notes on the text:] (45) "And who is a witness for Jesus Christ." The old vulgate interpreter: "Who and martyr of Jesus Christ." That those designated for death and held in custody, even before the struggle is concluded, obtained the appellation of martyrs, is known from Cyprian. However, because Ignatius had not yet suffered martyrdom, Jacobus Faber substituted the name "witness" in the published books instead of martyr; although P. Halloixius suspects that this inscription was added by Polycarp, which would include the praise and title of Ignatius who was already a martyr; which suspicion will finally be proven to him who will allow himself to be persuaded that Polycarp, in supplying the inscription in the name of Ignatius, had been completely oblivious to what was proper. Add that neither in the Medicean Greek codex nor in our Latin interpreter are these words found at all. Ibid.
(47) "Rather overseen by God the Father and Jesus Christ, most abundant greetings." Thus also our interpreter (for these things are absent from the old vulgate): "But rather visited by God the Father and Jesus Christ, to rejoice very much"; where his own Glossator (or he himself) notes the charm of the Greek speech: as if it were said, "to the one visiting, but rather to the one visited," or, "to the bishop, but rather to the one episcopated," which wordplay Vairlenius thought should be expressed thus: "To the inspector, or rather to him who is inspected by God"; but Vedelius thus: "To the bishop, or rather to him who has God as his bishop." But when Halloixius writes here that he has "much suspicion" that S. Polycarp, out of singular modesty, removed the true inscription full of his own praises, and has substituted this in its stead, he ought also to have rendered a reason why he thought that his own praises should be removed from the inscription, but that the epithets *tou axiotheou* sent in the Epistle to his Smyrnæans, and *theomakaristotatou* attributed to him alone in this Epistle, should be retained without any stain on his singular modesty. Ibid.
A
endowed, so that you may add to your course, and exhort all so that they may be saved. 50〗 Vindicate your place with all diligence, both bodily and spiritual. 51〗 Have care for unity, than which nothing is better. 52〗 Bear with all, as the Lord also does with you; tolerate all in love, 53〗 as you indeed do; give yourself to unceasing prayers; 54〗 ask for greater understanding than you have; be vigilant, possessing an unsleeping spirit. 55〗 Speak to each man according to the help of God. 56〗 Bear the sicknesses of all, as a perfect athlete; 57〗 as also the Lord of all is. For He Himself, he says, took our infirmities 58〗 and bore our sicknesses. Where there is more labor, there is much gain. 59 60 61
II. If you love good disciples, there is no grace for you; rather, subdue the more pestilent ones with gentleness. B〗 Not every wound is cured by the same plaster. Calm the more vehement attacks of diseases with lotions. C〗 Be wise as a serpent in all things, and simple as a dove forever. For you are imitators of Christ the Lord: just as He bore all our sins upon the tree of the cross, crucified without any fault for those who were worthy of punishment, so also you ought to attribute to yourselves the failings of the people, and take them as your own. For it is said concerning our Savior in Isaiah: He bears our sins, and suffers for us. 62 63 64 65 66
A continually, as the dove. 93 For this reason, you are composed of soul and body, carnal and spiritual, so that you may correct the things that appear to you; but as for the things which are not seen, you should pray that they may be manifested to you, so that you may lack nothing, but abound in every gift. The time demands that you pray. For just as wind is an aid to a helmsman, and as ports are favorable for safety to a ship in a storm, so also is prayer to you, that you may attain to God. Watch like an athlete of God, whose goal is incorruption and eternal life; of which you are also convinced. In all things may I serve as a substitute for your soul, and may my bonds which you have loved B III. Let not those who seem to be worthy of credit, yet teach strange doctrines, terrify you. But stand firm, like an anvil which is being struck. It is the part of a great athlete to be beaten and to win. But especially should we endure all things for God's sake, that He also may endure us in the kingdom. Add more to the zeal in which you are; run more earnestly; discern the opportunities of the time. While you are here, win; for here is the stadium, but there are the crowns. Wait for Christ the Son of God; Him who is timeless in time; invisible C D
A by nature, visible in the flesh; intangible and untouchable, as incorporeal; but for our sake, tangible and touchable in the body; impassible as God, but for our sake passible, as a man; who for our sake endured in every way.
IV. Let not widows be neglected. After the Lord, do you be their curator. Let nothing be done without your judgment; nor do you do anything without the judgment of God, which indeed you do not do. Be steadfast. Let meetings be held more frequently. Seek everyone out by name. Do not treat menservants and maidservants with pride; but let them not be puffed up themselves; rather let them serve more to the glory of God, that they may obtain a better freedom from God. Let them not desire to be set free out of the common treasury, B that they may not be found slaves of desire.
EPISCOPAL OR INTERPOLATED EPISTLES — TO POLYCARP
IV. Let not widows be neglected. After the Lord, do you be their curator. Let nothing be done without your arbitrament; nor do you do anything contrary to the will of God; which indeed you do not do. Be constant. Let congregations be celebrated more often. Inquire after all by name. Do not disdain menservants and maidservants; but let not themselves be puffed up with pride; but let them serve more to the glory of God, that they may obtain a superior liberty from God. Let them not wish to be made free at the common expense, lest they be found slaves of cupidity.
[alt-version omitted] C D
APPENDIX TO THE GENUINE EPISTLES OF ST. IGNATIUS
A V. Flee from evil arts; or rather, do not even make a discourse concerning these. Speak to my sisters that they love the Lord, and be content with their husbands in flesh and spirit. Likewise also command my brothers, in the name of Jesus Christ, to love their spouses, even as the Lord loved the Church. If any one is able to remain in chastity, for the honor of the flesh of the Lord, let him remain in humility; if he shall boast, he has perished. And if he be known to be apart from the bishop, he has been corrupted. It is proper for those who marry and for those who take wives, to make their union with the consent of the bishop, that the marriage may be according to the Lord, and not according to cupidity. Let all things be done to the honor of God.
B VI. Attend to the bishop, that God also may attend to you. I am an exchange for those who are subject to the bishop, the presbyterium, and the deacons. May it be my lot to have a portion with them in God. Labor together for one another, struggle together, run together, suffer together, sleep together, rise together, as stewards of God, and those who sit beside Him, and ministers. Please Him under whose banner you serve, from whom you shall also receive your wages. Let no one among you be found a deserter. Let your baptism remain as arms; faith as a helmet; love as a spear; patience as a full suit of armor. Let your works be your deposits, that you may
among you be found a deserter. Let your baptism remain as arms; faith as a helmet; love as a spear; patience as a full suit of armor. Let your works be your deposits, that you may A receive your worthy rewards from God. Be long-suffering, therefore, with one another in gentleness, and God be with you. May I have joy of you at all times. B VII. Since the Church which is in Antioch of Syria has peace, as I have been informed, through your prayers, I also have become more tranquil in the assurance of God: provided that by suffering I may attain to God, so that I may be found a disciple through your petition. It behooves you, most blessed Polycarp in God, to call a council most pleasing to God, and to elect someone whom you love dearly and who is diligent, who shall be able to be called a God-runner; delegate him to go to Syria, that by going to Syria he may glorify your tireless love to the glory of God. The Christian has not power over himself, but gives his time to God. This is the work of God and of yours, when you shall have completed it. For I trust in the grace, that you are ready for a good work that is fitting for God. Knowing your own zeal for the truth, I have exhorted you in few letters. VIII. Since, therefore, I could not write to all the Churches, because I was to sail suddenly from Troas to Neapolis, as the will of God decrees, you shall write to the Churches that are near, as one who possesses the mind of God, to the end that they also may do the same thing: those who are able, let them send messengers, but others C [epistles/envoys] D
A of those sent by you, that you may be glorified in the eternal work, as is worthy. I salute all by name, and the wife of Epitropus with her whole house and children. I salute my beloved Attalus. I salute him who is to be deemed worthy to go into Syria (24). Grace shall be with him always, and with Polycarp who sends him. I pray that you may always fare well in our God Jesus Christ, in whom may you remain in the unity of God and the office of bishop (26). I salute Alce, a name much desired by me. Amen. Grace (28). Fare you well in the Lord.
(23) *As is worthy*. Jacobus Billius observes in his *Sacred Observations*, book II, last chapter, "whether one should read, *not* as worthy. For this kind of speech is frequent and familiar to Ignatius: but that [other reading] can be found nowhere else." But if, from our interpreter, in what closely precedes, instead of "you may be glorified," we read "you may be glorified," these things can most fittingly be assigned to Polycarp, and not to Ignatius: "that you may be glorified in an eternal work, as one who is worthy." Yet Vossius judges that this very emendation is not at all necessary here. For this expression (he says) is sufficiently solemn among the Greeks, nor is it unusual for Ignatius himself: as he says both elsewhere and at the beginning of the Epistle to the Ephesians: *your much-beloved name, which you have acquired*; which I have found rendered word-for-word in our interpreter thus: *your much-beloved name, which you have acquired*; with this gloss also placed in the margin: "He speaks in the singular [your name], and immediately in the plural [you have acquired]; insinuating the unity of the multitude in faith and love"; although the common reading of both Greek and Latin codices, which exhibits not "your" but "your [plural]" there, has no need of that medicine. *Id.*
(24) *To go into Syria*. That is, to visit the Church of Antioch. *Id.*
(26) *Remain in the unity of God and the office of bishop*. For *remain* (imperative), in the Medicean codex is read *remain* (subjunctive): for *office of bishop*, in the Augustan [codex] is read *bishop*. *Id.*
(28) *Amen. The grace*. This is entirely absent in the Medicean Greek and our Latin interpreter. In the Nydpruccian [codex] is read: *The grace be with us. Amen.* In the Florentine: *Amen. The grace [perhaps, of God be] with you.* Where, just as that inserted critical observation seems to have crept from the margin into the text here; so also that simple *The grace* in others seems to have been added by a hastening scribe for the sake of brevity: as we observe to happen in these most well-known and universally accepted formulas of words of this kind. See also our *Prolegomena* here, chapter 6, with the note on the Epistle to the Ephesians. *Id.*
SUPPOSITITIOUS EPISTLES
MARIA THE PROSELYTE'S EPISTLE TO IGNATIUS To Ignatius, Maria from Cassobelis (30).
Maria, a proselyte of Jesus Christ, to Ignatius the Theophoros, most blessed bishop of the apostolic Church at Antioch, in God the Father and Jesus beloved: we all wish you joy and health in him.
I. Since it has been miraculously made known among us that Christ is the Son of the living God, and in these latter times...
(29) Although I judged this epistle to be supposititious and unworthy to see the light—both because it had hitherto been unpublished and so that the counterfeiter’s artifice might appear therein, since he sought from this epistle the material he inserted for the Magnesians—yet from this it also becomes clear what gave them the occasion for error, namely, those who assumed that Mary the Mother of God wrote to Ignatius, and he in turn to Mary. For it is undoubtedly true that those men, upon hearing something about this epistle, supposed it to be of Mary the Virgin, and from there seized B the occasion to invent another; because this one, which we present, had not reached their hands. But now it appears how mistaken they were, since this woman was not a Hebrew but a Cilician—if, indeed, any such person ever even existed, of whom none of the ancients, so far as I know, has made mention. We had formed the title in this way, guided chiefly by the great Casaubon; whose conjecture this was, I once learned from the Reverend Armachanus. For instead of what is in the vulgate, *Kassoboliten*, he read *Kastabalitin*, from Castabalis, a well-known city of Cilicia. The Florentine book presented: "Ignatius, Maria from Cassobelis." However, some of the ancient interpreters have *Chassaobolorum* or *Chasabolorum*. Perhaps someone might think that Hesychius mentions this place from Aeschylus: *Kasolada*, some say a city, some a village. For it could easily be corrected to *Kasovala*. Yet I would dare affirm nothing. And truly, who can establish anything certain regarding those names of cities to which no location is added, nor where they might be? How habitual this is for grammarians—that to the proper names of men, women, cities, and regions, they add nothing other than "a noun," "a nation," "a city," and the like—is known to no one. And therefore I think those are greatly mistaken who, led by the similarity of such words, strive to determine anything certain about them. But neither can Pliny’s *Cassipolis*, which he lists in Cilicia, have a place here. I would dare to contend that this word is not correct. In all written manuscripts it is read as *Cassiponis*, from which Hermolaus invented what appears generally in the vulgate. But how well he did so, we shall see elsewhere. Either, therefore, Casaubon’s reading is true, or it should be rewritten here, "Maria from C Catabola." Nor do certain ancient interpreters, who take *Chasabolorum* for *Catabolorum*, deviate far from that. Now, *Catabolum* [is a place]... nearly all situate near Alexandria *kat’ iskon*, or *Alexandria Scabrosa*; for I shall show elsewhere that this is the true name of that place. This town is mentioned by Antoninus, in the *Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum*, in the Peutinger Tables, and by an anonymous ancient geographer. Hence the ethnic *Catabolensis*. *Catabola*, however, are called in Greek *staseis*, that is, stations and emporia for ships. Hence also *katabolos*, in place of *emporos*. VOSS. — In the epistle immediately following, which contains the response to this one, the author signifies that this Mary was in Rome during the time of Pope Anacletus. Whence Hieronymus Vairlenius first opined, and Peter Halloixius afterwards asserted, that this is the same woman whom Paul saluted in the final chapter of his Epistle to the Romans with these words: "Salute Mary, who hath labored much in you," or rather "among us," as the Greek context has it. Concerning which we would inquire more fully if it were certain that these epistles were genuine and not fabricated by some trickster; who, as he represents his Mary in the next epistle as a *pansophon gynaika*, or "a most wise woman," so also in his Epistle to Heron the deacon (for we have no doubt that it also came from the same workshop) he commends her to us as *polymathestaten*, or "most learned." USSER.
(30) "From Cassobelis." It pleases [me to read] *from Kastabalitin*. COR. — "From Cassobelis." *Chassoobolorum* is read in the codices of our interpreter. In the Index of the Ignatian Epistles in Greek, which Gulielmus Morelius prefixed to the Paris edition and Christopher Plantin to his Antwerp editions, the next epistle (responding to this one, as has been said) is inscribed *To Maria the Cassobolite*: which epithet is also read as added in the vulgate editions of the old Latin version (for in those manuscripts which we have used, we have not found it). That she was called such because "she cast away all the ornaments of the age, so that she might serve God more perfectly" (from *kato*, which means to adorn, and *ballo*, which signifies to cast away), is the jocular conjecture of Martialis Mæstræus, as a patronymic.
(31) "We all wish you joy." *Malim* [I would prefer] "always," *pantote*, as it was in the interpreter’s codex. In that codex, these words were separated from the epigraph, to which they necessarily belong. VOSS. — "We all." "Always," our interpreter reads. USSER.
A Virgin Mary, B that he was made man from the seed of David and Abraham, according to the oracles concerning him and predicted by him through the choir of the prophets; for this reason we entreat and beseech that there be sent to us, by your sagacity, Maris our intimate, the bishop of Neapolis, which is near Zarbus, and Eulogius, and Sobelus the presbyter, so that we may not be destitute of the protectors of the divine word: just as Moses also says: "Let the Lord God look upon a man who shall lead this people," and "the Congregation of the Lord shall not be as sheep which have no shepherd."
II. But as for them being young, those who have been mentioned, do not fear that C at all, O blessed one. For I would have you know that they despise the flesh and its passions, and, shining in themselves with the fresh youthfulness of the priesthood, they reflect white hair. But examine and call back to your mind, through the spirit of his that was given to you by God through Christ; and you will know that when Samuel was a little child, he was called "the Seer," and in the choir D of the prophets was enrolled—the elder
(32) "According to the oracles predicted... by the choir of the prophets." This reading cannot stand, although the ancient interpreter has followed it. I read: "According to the oracles concerning him, predicted by him through the choir of the prophets." VOSS.
(33) "By him." And our interpreter thus: "from himself," the which Vossius observed to be redundant here. USSER.
(34) "Maris our intimate, the bishop of... Neapolis, which is near Zarbus." Since it is so in the translator’s codex, it is apparent that this wound was not inflicted yesterday or recently. But who does not see that this reading is most absurd? Who has ever heard such a name of a city, and that "Hemelapes Neapolis"? Write "antistitem." Just as elsewhere, by the same craftsman, Hero, deacon of the Antiochenes in Syria, is ordered to visit the Tarsians in Cilicia first, and then to greet this Maris, bishop of Neapolis near Anazarbus, and this most learned Mary, in the name of Ignatius. The words of the Pseudo-Ignatius in that epistle to Hero are these: "Those who are in Tarsus do not neglect, but with more continuous study look to and visit them, confirming them in the Gospel. I greet in the Lord Maris, bishop of Neapolis, which is near Anazarbus. Greet also the most modest Mary, my most learned daughter." Where, instead of "Anazarbus," in every ancient Latin interpreter it is read as "Zarbus," as in this epistle attributed to Mary. For it is certain that Zarbus and Anazarbus are the same. But for that word "nihili" (which our interpreter also retains), Vossius suggests a correction. This correction is favored by the inscription of the following epistle in the Medicean codex: "To Mary, at Neapolis which is near Zarbus," Ignatius. Whence also "Zarbensis" has been attributed to this Mary by Turrianus (Pro Epistolis pontificum, lib. II, cap. 10), and by Bellarmine who followed him (de Romano pontif. libro II, cap. 5 et 31); which, however, the title of the present epistle had indicated might more certainly have been "Castabalensis." Ravennas, the manuscript which we possess, places it at Celenderis. But since this is far distant from Catabolus, or even, if you prefer, from Castabala, I think it is altogether more true that it is that Neapolis which is by Ptolemy called Caesarea near Anazarbus. For Zarbus and Anazarbus are clearly the same. For he who is the founder of the city is Anazarbus, and by others is called Zarbus. VOSS.
Because, at the time of the writer of this epistle, Cilicia was under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Antiochene patriarch, he feigns that the Cilician Mary requests from Ignatius, bishop of Syria (as he calls himself in the Epistle to the Romans), that he send to her *Maris* of Neapolis, not far from the city of Castabala in his own Cilicia. USSER.
(35) "Who shall lead this people." Read "who shall lead."
(36) "Samuel, when he was a little child." This and many following [words], but with many omitted for the sake of brevity, are produced under the name of Ignatius by the monk Antonius in Melissa, lib. II, serm. 19, because this epistle also used to be bound together with the Ignatian ones. For P. Halloixius is mistaken, who (at the end of his chapter of the Apology for the writings of Ignatius) believed that these had been taken from the Epistle to the Magnesians. Indeed, the Greek of Antonius, joined with the Latin of this epistle, can be seen on pages 128 and 129 of our Oxford edition. USSER.