The Apostolic Fathers

To the Philadelphians

v To the Philadelphians DGNATIUS THEOPHORUS to the Church of God the Father and of Jesus Christ in Philadelphia in Asia.1 You have felt God's mercy and are firmly established in union with God and with unduring joy in the passion of our Lord, through abundant mercy you have been given full assurance of His resurrection. ] greet you in the blood of Jesus Christ. Your Church is to me a cause of unending and unbroken joy. It will be even more so, if all continue to be at one with the bishop and with his priests and with the deacons, who have been appointed according to the mind of Jesus Christ. All these are men after His own will and He has confirmed them in stability through His Holy Spirit. (1) I know that your bishop has been given his ministry for the common good, not by any effort of his own or of others nor out of vain glory, but through the love of God the Father and of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am full of admiration for the sweet reasonableness of a man who can do more by his silence than others by speaking. He has been attuned to the commandments like a harp with its strings. And so my soul blesses his determination which is fixed on God. I know how virtuous and perfect it is, how unperturbable and calm, how modeled his life is on the sweet reasonableness of God. (2) You are children of truth; shun schisms and heresies. Follow, as sheep do, wherever the shepherd leads. There are many wolves plausible enough to ensnare the pilgrims of God2 1 Unlike the preceding Letters which were written from Smyrna. this and the following Letters were written from Twas. 2 Literally. 'the runners in God's race: Cf. Gal. 5.7; 1 Cor. 9.24. 113 114 SAINT IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH by evil pleasure. However, the harmony among you will leave no place for them. (3) Keep away from the poisonous weeds which grow where Jesus Christ does not till the soil, for they are not of the planting of the Father. Not that I have found any division among you--except the filtering away of impure elements. For, all who belong to God and Jesus Christ are with the bishop. And those, too, will belong to God who have returned, repentant, to the unity of the Church so as to live in accordance with Jesus Christ. Make no mistake, brethren. No one who follows another into schism inherits the Kingdom of God.3 Noone who follows heretical doctrine is on the side of the passion. (4) Be zealous, then, in the observance of one Eucharist.4 For there is one flesh of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and one chalice that brings union in His blood. There is one altar,5 as th~re is one bishop with the priests and deacons, who are my fellow workers. And so, whatever you do, let it be done in the name of God. (5) Dear brothers, my love for you is full and overflowing , and with immense joy I give you whatever assurance I can; and yet not I, but Jesus Christ for whom I am in chains -for I am more and more afraid that I am far from perfecttion . However, your prayer to God will make me perfect, so that I may gain the inheritance that God's mercy has assigned me, if only I take refuge in the Gospel as in the body of Jesus and in the Apostles as the priests of the Church. Let us likewise love the prophets, for it was they who foretold the 3 Cf. I Cor. 6.9. 4 Mass in the Didache, Chs. 9 and 14 and in the Letter of Clement of Rome, Chs. 40-44. 5 The word here used, thysiasterion, means 'a place for sacrifice.' TO THE PHILADELPHIANS 115 Gospel and hoped in Him and looked for His coming. By their faith and union with Jesus Christ they were saved. They are worthy of love and admiration for their holiness. The:: were approved by Jesus Christ and numbered with us in the good news of our common hope. (6) Still, if anyone preaches a Judaizing system to you, do not listen to him. It is better to listen to Christianity preached by one who is circumcized than to Judaism preached by one who is not. Both alike, if they fail to preach...