Library › The Church Fathers › Ignatius of Antioch › Ignatius to the Romans › Chapter 1
Through prayer1 to God I have obtained the privilege of seeing your most worthy faces,2 and have even3 been granted more than I requested; for I hope as a prisoner in Christ Jesus to salute you, if indeed it be the will of God that I be thought worthy of attaining unto the end. For the beginning has been well ordered, if I may obtain grace to cling to4 my lot without hindrance unto the end. For I am afraid of your love,5 lest it should do me an injury. For it is easy for you to accomplish what you please; but it is difficult for me to attain to God, if ye spare me.
Notes
- Some read, “since I have,” leaving out the following “for,” and finding the apodosis in “I hope to salute you.”↩
- Literally, “worthy of God.”↩
- Some read, “which I much desired to do.”↩
- Literally, “to receive.”↩
- He probably refers here, and in what follows, to the influence which their earnest prayers in his behalf might have with God.↩
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.