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Library › The Church Fathers › Ignatius of Antioch › Ignatius to the Trallians › Chapter 3

Ignatius of Antioch

Epistle to the Trallians

Chapter 3

Honour the deacons, etc.

In like manner, let all reverence the deacons as an appointment1 of Jesus Christ, and the bishop as Jesus Christ, who is the Son of the Father, and the presbyters as the sanhedrim of God, and assembly of the apostles. Apart from these, there is no church.2 Concerning all this, I am persuaded that ye are of the same opinion. For I have received the manifestation3 of your love, and still have it with me, in your bishop, whose very appearance is highly instructive,4 and his meekness of itself a power; whom I imagine even the ungodly must reverence, seeing they are5 also pleased that I do not spare myself. But shall I, when permitted to write on this point, reach such a height of self-esteem, that though being a condemned6 man, I should issue commands to you as if I were an apostle?

Notes

  1. Literally, “commandment.” The text, which is faulty in the MS., has been amended as above by Smith.↩
  2. Literally, “no church is called.”↩
  3. Or, “pattern.”↩
  4. Literally, “great instruction.”↩
  5. Some here follow a text similar to that of the longer recension.↩
  6. Both the text and meaning are here very doubtful; some follow the reading of the longer recension.↩

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.