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Ignatius of Antioch

Epistle to the Smyrnaeans

Chapter 6

Unbelievers in the blood of Christ shall be condemned.

Let no man deceive himself. Both things which are in heaven, and the glorious angels,1 and rulers, both visible and invisible, if they believe not in the blood of Christ, shall, in consequence, incur condemnation.2 “He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”3 Let not [high] place puff any one up: for that which is worth all is4 faith and love, to which nothing is to be preferred. But consider those who are of a different opinion with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are to the will of God. They have no regard for love; no care for the widow, or the orphan, or the oppressed; of the bond, or of the free; of the hungry, or of the thirsty.

Notes

  1. Literally, “the glory of the angels.”↩
  2. Literally, “judgment is to them.”↩
  3. Matt. xix. 12.↩
  4. Literally, “the whole is.”↩

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.