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Ignatius of Antioch

Epistle to the Magnesians

Chapter 5

Death is the fate of all such.

Seeing, then, all things have an end, these two things are simultaneously set before us—death and life; and every one shall go unto his own place. For as there are two kinds of coins, the one of God, the other of the world, and each of these has its special character stamped upon it, [so is it also here.]1 The unbelieving are of this world; but the believing have, in love, the character of God the Father by Jesus Christ, by whom, if we are not in readiness to die into His passion,2 His life is not in us.

Notes

  1. The apodosis is wanting in the original, and some prefer finding it in the following sentence.↩
  2. Or, “after the likeness of His passion.”↩

Translation by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson and Frederick Crombie: The Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. 1: The Apostolic Fathers (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1870).
Text from Project Gutenberg eBook #77576, proofread by Distributed Proofreaders from Internet Archive scans. Public domain.