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Polycarp of Smyrna

Epistle to the Philippians

Chapter 8

Persevere in hope and patience.

Let us then continually persevere in our hope, and the earnest of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ, “who bore our sins in His own body on the tree,”1 “who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth,”2 but endured all things for us, that we might live in Him.3 Let us then be imitators of His patience; and if we suffer4 for His name’s sake, let us glorify Him.5 For He has set us this example6 in Himself, and we have believed that such is the case.

Notes

  1. 1 Pet. ii. 24.↩
  2. 1 Pet. ii. 22.↩
  3. Comp. 1 John iv. 9.↩
  4. Comp. Acts v. 41; 1 Pet. iv. 16.↩
  5. Some read, “we glorify Him.”↩
  6. Comp. 1 Pet. ii. 21.↩

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.