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The Letters of St. Ignatius
St. Ignatius of Antioch · image, public domain
Arrested and taken under guard to Rome to face the beasts, the bishop of Antioch wrote seven letters to the churches. He begs them to stay united around the bishop, to hold to the Eucharist, and not to stand in the way of his martyrdom.
“I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts.” Few writings bring you closer to the first Christians.
Contents
About this edition
From the Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (1885), edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. The printed edition sets a shorter and a longer version side by side; we give the shorter, which scholars take to be what Ignatius wrote.
This translation is in the public domain. We took the text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library and left out the editors’ footnotes.
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