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Ignatius of Antioch

Epistle to the Trallians

Chapter 6

Abstain from the poison of heretics.

I therefore, yet not I, but the love of Jesus Christ, entreat you that ye use Christian nourishment only, and abstain from herbage of a different kind; I mean heresy. For those1 [that are given to this] mix2 up Jesus Christ with their own poison, speaking things which are unworthy of credit, like those who administer a deadly drug in sweet wine, which he who is ignorant of does greedily3 take, with a fatal pleasure,4 leading to his own death.

Notes

  1. The ellipsis in the original is here very variously supplied.↩
  2. Literally, “interweave.”↩
  3. Or, “sweetly.”↩
  4. The construction is here difficult and doubtful.↩

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.