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BOOK 5  (from: _Apostolic Fathers,_ Kirsopp Lake, 1912 (Loeb Classical Library))

                          IGNATIUS to the Ephesians

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CHAPTER 0
 0:0  Greeting
 0:1  |Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, ^1 to
the Church, worthy of all felicitation, which is at
Ephesus in Asia, -- blessed with greatness by the
fulness of God the Father, predestined from eternity
for abiding and unchangeable glory, united and chosen
through true suffering by the will of the Father and
Jesus Christ our God, -- abundant greeting in Jesus
Christ and in blameless joy.

== small type on ==
 ^1  _i.e._ "The God-bearer." In the third century _Acts of Ignatius_
the Emperor asks "And who is Theophorus?" and Ignatius replied "He
who has Christ in his heart."
== small type off ==

CHAPTER 1
 1:0  The fame of the Ephesians -- The bishop, Onesimus
 1:1  |I became acquainted through God with your much
beloved name, which you have obtained by your righteous
nature, according to faith and love in Christ Jesus our
Saviour. You are imitators of God, and, having kindled
your brotherly ^1 task by the blood of God, you
completed it perfectly.
 1:2  For when you heard that I had been sent a
prisoner from Syria for the sake of our common name and
hope, in the hope of obtaining by your prayers the
privilege of fighting with beasts at Rome, that by so
doing I might be enabled to be a true disciple, you
hastened to see me.
 1:3  Seeing then that I received in the name of God
your whole congregation in the person of Onesimus, a
man of inexpressible love and your bishop, I beseech
you by Jesus Christ to love him, and all to resemble
him. For blessed is he who granted you to be worthy to
obtain such a bishop.

== small type on ==
 ^1  Or "natural," "congenial," as Lightfoot suggests: the
translation given is that of Zahn.
== small type off ==

CHAPTER 2
 2:0  Other members of the Ephesian church
 2:1  |Now concerning my fellow servant, Burrhus, your
deacon by the will of God, who is blessed in all
things, I beg that he may stay longer, for your honour
and for that of the bishop. And Crocus also, who is
worthy of God and of you, whom I received as an example
of your love, has relieved me in every way, -- may the
Father of Jesus Christ refresh him in like manner, --
together with Onesimus and Burrhus and Euplus and
Fronto, in whose persons I have seen you all in love.
 2:2  May I ever have joy of you, if I be but worthy.
It is, therefore, seemly in every way to glorify Jesus
Christ, who has glorified you, that you may be joined
together in one subjection, subject to the bishop and
to the presbytery, and may in all things be sanctified.

CHAPTER 3
 3:0  Exhortation to Unity
 3:1  |I do not give you commands as if I were some one
great, for though I am a prisoner for the Name, I am
not yet perfect in Jesus Christ; for now I do but begin
to be a disciple, and I speak to you as to my fellow
learners. For I needed to be prepared ^1 by you in
faith, exhortation, endurance, long-suffering.
 3:2  But since love does not suffer me to be silent
concerning you, for this reason I have taken upon me to
exhort you that you live ^2 in harmony with the will of
God. For Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is the
will of the Father, even as the bishops, who have been
appointed throughout the world, are by the will of
Jesus Christ.

== small type on ==
 ^1  Literally "anointed." The allusion is to the preparation of a
gymnast or gladiator.
 ^2  Literally "run."
== small type off ==

CHAPTER 4
 4:0  Obedience to the Bishop
 4:1  |Therefore it is fitting that you should live in
harmony with the will of the bishop, as indeed you do.
For your justly famous presbytery, worthy of God, is
attuned to the bishop as the strings to a harp.
Therefore by your concord and harmonious love Jesus
Christ is being sung.
 4:2  Now do each of you join in this choir, that being
harmoniously in concord you may receive the key ^1 of
God in unison, and sing with one voice through Jesus
Christ to the Father, that he may both hear you and may
recognise, through your good works, that you are
members of his Son. It is therefore profitable for you
to be in blameless unity, in order that you may always
commune with God.

== small type on ==
 ^1  _i.e._ in the musical sense of the word.
== small type off ==

CHAPTER 5
 5:0  The necessity of subordination to the bishop
 5:1  |For if I in a short time gained such fellowship
with your bishop as was not human but spiritual, how
much more do I count you blessed who are so united with
him as the Church is with Jesus Christ, and as Jesus
Christ is with the Father, that all things may sound
together in unison!
 5:2  Let no man be deceived: unless a man be within
the sanctuary he lacks the bread of God, for if the
prayer of one or two has such might, how much more has
that of the bishop and of the whole Church?
 5:3  So then he who does not join in the common
assembly, is already haughty, and has separated
himself. ^1 For it is written "God resisteth the
proud:" let us then be careful not to oppose the
bishop, that we may be subject to God. ^2

== small type on ==
 ^1  There is a curious mixture of tenses in the Greek: Lightfoot
takes the final aorist as gnomic: but it is possible that Ignatius
is, at least in part, referring to some special instance.
 ^2  Or, with the alternative reading, "by our submission we may
belong to God."
== small type off ==

CHAPTER 6
 6:0  The silence of the bishop
 6:1  |And the more anyone sees that the bishop is
silent, the more let him fear him. For every one whom
the master of the house sends to do his business ought
we to receive as him who sent him. Therefore it is
clear that we must regard the bishop as the Lord
himself.
 6:2  Indeed Onesimus himself gives great praise to
your good order in God, for you all live according to
truth, and no heresy dwells among you; nay, you do not
even listen to any unless he speak concerning Jesus
Christ in truth.

CHAPTER 7
 7:0  Warning against heretical preachers
 7:1  |For there are some who make a practice of
carrying about the Name with wicked guile, and do
certain other things unworthy of God; these you must
shun as wild beasts, for they are ravening dogs, who
bite secretly, and you must be upon your guard against
them, for they are scarcely to be cured.
 7:2  There is one Physician, who is both flesh and
spirit, born and yet not born, who is God in man, true
life in death, both of Mary and of God, first passible
and then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord.

CHAPTER 8
 8:0  Praise of the Ephesians
 8:1  |Let none therefore deceive you, and indeed you
have not been deceived, but belong wholly to God. For
since no strife is fixed among you which might torture
you, you do indeed live according to God. I am
dedicated ^1 and devoted to you Ephesians, and your
Church, which is famous to eternity.
 8:2  They who are carnal cannot do spiritual things,
neither can they who are spiritual do carnal things,
just as faith is incapable of the deeds of infidelity,
and infidelity of the deeds of faith. But even what you
do according to the flesh is spiritual, for you do all
things in Jesus Christ.

== small type on ==
 ^1  Literally "The refuse of": the word was used of criminals and
others whose death was regarded as a piacular sacrifice, and so it
came to mean a sacrifice of this kind. Ultimately it lost its
meaning so far as to become merely a form of epistolary politeness.
== small type off ==

CHAPTER 9
 9:0  Their abstinence from heresy
 9:1  |I have learnt, however, that some from elsewhere
have stayed with you, who have evil doctrine; but you
did not suffer them to sow it among you, and stopped
your ears, so that you might not receive what they sow,
seeing that you are as stones of the temple of the
Father, made ready for the building of God our Father,
carried up to the heights by the engine of Jesus
Christ, that is the cross, and using as a rope the Holy
Spirit. And your faith is your windlass and love is the
road which leads up to God.
 9:2  You are then all fellow travellers, and carry
with you God, and the Temple, and Christ, and holiness,
and are in all ways adorned by commandments of Jesus
Christ. And I share in this joy, for it has been
granted to me to speak to you through my writing, and
to rejoice with you, that you love nothing, according
to human life, but God alone.

CHAPTER 10
 10:0  Exhortation to prayer and lowliness
 10:1  |Now for other men "pray unceasingly," for there
is in them a hope of repentance, that they may find
God. Suffer them therefore to become your disciples, at
least through your deeds.
 10:2  Be yourselves gentle in answer to their wrath;
be humble minded in answer to their proud speaking;
offer prayer for their blasphemy; be stedfast in the
faith for their error; be gentle for their cruelty, and
do not seek to retaliate.
 10:3  Let us be proved their brothers by our
gentleness and let us be imitators of the Lord, and
seek who may suffer the more wrong, be the more
destitute, the more despised; that no plant of the
devil be found in you but that you may remain in all
purity and sobriety in Jesus Christ, both in the flesh
and in the Spirit.

CHAPTER 11
 11:0  The approach of the end: the fear of God
 11:1  |These are the last times. Therefore let us be
modest, let us fear the long-suffering of God, that it
may not become our judgment. For let us either fear the
wrath to come, or love the grace which is present, --
one of the two, -- only let us be found in Christ Jesus
unto true life.
 11:2  Without him let nothing seem comely to you, for
in him I carry about my chains, the spiritual pearls in
which may it be granted me to rise again through your
prayers, which I beg that I may ever share, that I be
found in the lot of the Christians of Ephesus, who also
were ever of one mind with the Apostles in the power of
Jesus Christ.

CHAPTER 12
 12:0  Contrast between himself and his readers
 12:1  |I know who I am and to whom I write. I am
condemned, you have obtained mercy; I am in danger, you
are established in safety;
 12:2  you are the passage for those who are being
slain for the sake of God, fellow-initiates with Paul,
who was sanctified, who gained a good report, who was
right blessed, in whose footsteps may I be found when I
shall attain to God, who in every Epistle makes mention
of you in Christ Jesus.

CHAPTER 13
 13:0  Exhortation to more frequent assemblies
 13:1  |Seek, then, to come together more frequently to
give thanks ^1 and glory to God. For when you gather
together frequently the powers of Satan are destroyed,
and his mischief is brought to nothing, by the concord
of your faith.
 13:2  There is nothing better than peace, by which
every war in heaven and on earth is abolished.

== small type on ==
 ^1  It is probable that there is here an allusion to the Eucharist.
== small type off ==

CHAPTER 14
 14:0  Faith and Love
 14:1  |None of these things are unknown to you if you
possess perfect faith towards Jesus Christ, and love,
which are the beginning and end of life; for the
beginning is faith and the end is love, and when the
two are joined together in unity it is God, and all
other noble things follow after them.
 14:2  No man who professes faith sins, nor does he
hate who has obtained love. "The tree is known by its
fruits": so they who profess to be of Christ shall be
seen by their deeds. For the "deed" is not in present
profession, but is shown by the power of faith, if a
man continue to the end.

CHAPTER 15
 15:0 Speech and silence
 15:1  |It is better to be silent and be real, than to
talk and to be unreal. Teaching is good, if the teacher
does what he says. There is then one teacher who "spoke
and it came to pass," and what he has done even in
silence is worthy of the Father.
 15:2  He who has the word of Jesus for a true
possession can also hear his silence, that he may be
perfect, that he may act through his speech, and be
understood through his silence.
 15:3  Nothing is hid from the Lord, but even our
secret things are near him. Let us therefore do all
things as though he were dwelling in us, that we may be
his temples, and that he may be our God in us. This
indeed is so, and will appear clearly before our face
by the love which we justly have to him.

CHAPTER 16
 16:0  Warning against false teachers
 16:1  |Do not err, my brethren; they who corrupt
families shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
 16:2  If then those who do this according to the flesh
suffer death, how much more if a man corrupt by false
teaching the faith of God for the sake of which Jesus
Christ was crucified? Such a one shall go in his
foulness to the unquenchable fire, as also shall he who
listens to him.

CHAPTER 17
 17:0  -- none --
 17:1  |For this end did the Lord receive ointment on
his head that he might breathe immortality on the
Church. Be not anointed with the evil odour of the
doctrine of the Prince of this world, lest he lead you
away captive from the life which is set before you.
 17:2  But why are we not all prudent seeing that we
have received knowledge of God, that is, Jesus Christ?
Why are we perishing in our folly, ignoring the gift
which the Lord has truly sent?

CHAPTER 18
 18:0  True doctrine
 18:1  |My spirit is devoted ^1 to the cross, which is
an offence to unbelievers, but to us salvation and
eternal life. "Where is the wise? Where is the
disputer?" Where is the boasting of those who are
called prudent?
 18:2  For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived by
Mary by the dispensation of God, "as well of the seed
of David" as of the Holy Spirit: he was born, and was
baptized, that by himself submitting ^2 he might purify
the water.

== small type on ==
 ^1  See note on 8:1.
 ^2  Or perhaps "by his suffering"; but the allusion seems to be to
the Baptism, not to the Passion.
== small type off ==

CHAPTER 19
 19:0  The mystery of the Nativity and its manifestation
 19:1  |And the virginity of Mary, and her giving birth
were hidden from the Prince of this world, as was also
the death of the Lord. Three mysteries of a cry which
were wrought in the stillness of God.
 19:2  How then was he manifested to the world? A star
shone in heaven beyond all the stars, and its light was
unspeakable, and its newness caused astonishment, and
all the other stars, with the sun and moon, gathered in
chorus ^1 round this star, and it far exceeded them all
in its light; and there was perplexity, whence came
this new thing, so unlike them.
 19:3  By this all magic was dissolved and every bond
of wickedness vanished away, ignorance was removed, and
the old kingdom was destroyed, for God was manifest as
man for the "newness" of eternal life, and that which
had been prepared by God received its beginning. Hence
all things were disturbed, because the abolition of
death was being planned.

== small type on ==
 ^1  Compare _Ignatius to the Romans_ 2:2. The metaphor is probably
from the chorus or choir which gathered round the altar in heathen
ceremonial, and sang a sacrificial hymn.
== small type off ==

CHAPTER 20
 20:0  Promise of future doctrinal exposition
 20:1  |If Jesus Christ permit me through your prayers,
and it be his will, in the second book, ^1 which I
propose to write to you, I will show you concerning the
dispensation of the new man Jesus Christ, which I have
begun to discuss, dealing with his faith and his love,
his suffering and his resurrection;
 20:2  especially if the Lord reveal ^2 to me that you
all severally join in the common meeting in grace from
his name, ^3 in one faith and in Jesus Christ, "who was
of the family of David according to the flesh," the Son
of Man and the Son of God, so that you obey the bishop
and the presbytery with an undisturbed mind, breaking
one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, the
antidote that we should not die, but live for ever in
Jesus Christ.

== small type on ==
 ^1  This second book was either never written, or at all events is
not extant in the genuine recension: but a later editor has supplied
a "second epistle to the Ephesians" which is undoubtedly not
genuine.
 ^2  This appears to be the only possible translation. But the text
is not improbably corrupt.
 ^3  Or possibly, as Lightfoot thinks, _ex onomatos_ means "every
individual of you." It is in any case a strange phrase.
== small type off ==

CHAPTER 21
 21:0  Final greetings
 21:1  |May my soul be given for yours, and for them
whom you sent in the honour of God to Smyrna, whence I
also write to you, thanking the Lord and loving
Polycarp as I do also you. Remember me as Jesus Christ
also remembers you.
 21:2  Pray for the Church in Syria, whence I am led a
prisoner to Rome, being the least of the faithful who
are there, even as I was thought worthy to show the
honour of God. Farewell in God our Father and in Jesus
Christ, our common hope.