Apostolic Fathers quotes

Maxwell Staniforth translation (Penguin)

Clement of Rome: 1 Clement

2: The reward was a deep and shining peace, a quenchless ardour

for well-doing, and a rich outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon you all.

13: Let us forget our self-assertion and braggadocio and stupid

quarrelling, and do what the Bible tells us instead.

30: Self-assertion, self-assurance and a bold manner are the marks

of men accursed of God.

33: Let us be earnestly, even passionately eager to set about any

kind of activity that is good.

35: Unto the wicked God says, ‘Why do you recite my statutes?’

38: To Him we owe everything, and therefore on every count we are

under the obligation to return thanks to him.

39: Men who have no intelligence or understanding, men who are

without sense or instruction, make a mock of us and ridicule us, in
their wish to raise themselves in their own esteem… What force is
there in anyone born of this earth?

46: Why must there be all this quarrelling and bad blood, these
feuds and dissensions among you? Have we not all the same God,
and the same Christ?

49: If there is true Christian love in a man, let him carry out the
precepts of Christ.

56: O my friends, do let us accept correction; it is something

nobody ought to resent.

Polycarp of Smyrna: Epistle of Polycarp

1: “Though you never saw Him for yourselves, yet you believe in
Him in a glory of joy beyond all words (which not a few others would
be glad to share), well knowing that it is by his grace you are saved,
not of your own doing”
2: “He that raised Him from the dead will raise us also, if we do His
will and live by His commandments, and cherish the things He
cherished”
…“all things in heaven and earth have been made subject to Him;
everything that breathes pays Him homage”

3. “I am as far as anyone else of my sort from having the wisdom of

our blessed and glorious Paul.”
…“even after his departure [from Philippi] he still sent letters which,
if you study them attentively, will enable you to make progress in
the faith”
…“let a man’s mind be wholly bent on these [Faith, Hope and the
Love of God and Christ and neighbour], and he has fulfilled all the
demands of holiness; for to possess Love is to be beyond the reach
of sin.”

5. “we know that ‘God is not mocked’, and therefore we owe it to

ourselves to behave in a manner worthy of His precepts and His
glory.”
…Deacons should remember “that they are ministers of God and
not of men… they must be men utterly self-disciplined, humane and
hard working”
…“our younger men, like the deacons, must be unspotted in all
respects, making purity their first care and keeping a strict curb on
any tendencies to loose living.”
…“in this world it is a good thing to make a clean break with all our
carnal desires; because ‘all the lusts of the flesh are up in arms
against the Spirit’”

6. “As for the clergy… any show of temper, partiality, or prejudice is

to be scrupulously avoided; and eagerness for money should be a
thing utterly alien to them.”
…“if we pray to the Lord to forgive us, we ourselves must be
forgiving”
…“Let us have a real ardour for goodness, taking every care to
avoid giving offence”
…refuse association with “false brethren and those hypocritical
bearers of the Lord’s name who only lead empty heads astray”

7. “to pervert the Lord’s words to suit our own wishes, by asserting
that there are no such things as resurrection or judgement, is to be
a first-begotten son of Satan. So let us have no more of this
nonsense from the gutter”
…gnosticism… christological heresies
even in c.100 AD, polycarp was saying “turn back again to the Word
originally delivered to us”.

8. “Let us imitate that patient endurance of His; and if we do have

to suffer for His Name’s sake, why then, let us give glory to Him.”

9. “I appeal now to every one of you to hear and obey the call of
holiness, and to exercise the same perfect fortitude that you have
seen with your own eyes in the blessed Ignatius, and Rufus, and
Zosimus; and not in them alone, but in a number of your own
townsmen as well – to say nothing of Paul himself and the other
Apostles. Be very sure that the course of these men was not run in
vain… they have now reached a well-earned place at the side of the
Lord whose pains they shared.”

10. “When it is in your power to do a kindness, never put it off to

another time, for charity is death’s reprieve.”
…“Let everyone respect his neighbour’s rights, so that the heathen
may have no occasion to find fault with your way of life. By so doing
you will not only earn approval for the good you do, but you will
avoid bringing the Lord into any disrepute. Woe betide anyone who
does bring the Lord into disrepute”

11. “It moves me to warn you earnestly against any excessive

fondness for money… You must keep yourselves from the slightest
taint of wrong. If a man has no control over himself in matters of
this sort, how can he possibly preach it to anyone else?”
…about pastors etc. going astray: you “must not be over severe
with them, for people of that kind are not to be looked on as
enemies; you have to restore them, like parts of your own person
that are ailing and going wrong, so that the whole body can be
maintained in health.”

12. May God “help you to grow in faith and truth, in unfailing
gentleness and the avoidance of all anger, in patience and
forbearance, and in calmness and purity.”

13. Ignatius’ letters “are enclosed herewith; you will be able to

derive a great deal of benefit from them, for they tell you all about
faith, and perseverance, and all the ways of self improvement that
involve our Lord.”
Ignatius of Antioch: Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians

3: I am by no means perfect in Jesus Christ as yet; I am only a

beginner in discipleship.

4: A completely united front will help to keep you [all] in constant

communion with God.

6: Any speaker who goes beyond the simple truth about Jesus Christ
is refused a hearing.

10: Regarding the rest of mankind, you should pray for them
unceasingly… Give them a chance to learn from you, or at all
events from the way you act. Meet their animosity with mildness,
their high words with humility, and their abuse with your prayers.
But stand firm against their errors, and if they grow violent, be
gentle instead of wanting to pay them back in their own coin.
…Let us… try to imitate the Lord by seeing which of us can put up
with the most ill-usage or privation or contempt

13: When you meet frequently, the powers of Satan are

confounded.

14: Faith is the beginning, and love is the end; and the union of the
two together is God.
…As the tree is known by its fruits, so they who claim to belong to
Christ are known by their actions, for this work of ours does not
consist in just making professions, but in a faith that is both
practical and lasting.

15: Indeed, it is better to keep quiet and be, than to make fluent
professions and not be… No doubt it is a fine thing to instruct
others, but only if the speaker practices what he preaches.
…Whatever we do, then, let it be done as though He Himself were
dwelling within us, we being as it were His temples and He within us
as their God. For in fact, this is literally the case; and in proportion
as we rightly love Him, so it will become clear to our eyes.

21: Remember me, as Jesus Christ remembers you.

Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians

1. It is only by enduring in Him all the prince of this world’s
indignities, yet still eluding his clutches, that we can come to the
presence of God.

4: What it comes to is that we ought not just to have the name of

Christians, but to be so in reality.

6: You must show every consideration for one another, never letting
your attitude to a neighbour be affected by your human feelings,
but simply loving each other consistently in the spirit of Jesus
Christ.

Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians

2: Yours is no worldly manner of life, but that of Jesus Christ himself.

6: don’t “nourish yourselves on anything but Christian fare, and

have no truck with the alien herbs of heresy.”

8: You must give the heathen no loophole, for fear the devout
majority are brought into disrepute for the thoughtlessness of a
few.

Epilogue: Love one another, all of you, with a heart above all
divisions.

Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans

(the martyrdom letter)

2: How good it is to be sinking down below the world’s horizon

towards God, to rise again later into the dawn of His presence!

3: For the work we have to do is no affair of persuasive speaking;

[the object of?] Christianity lies in achieving greatness in the face of
a world’s hatred.

4: I am His wheat, ground fine by the lions’ teeth to be made purest

bread for Christ.
…for the present, these chains are schooling me to have done with
earthly desires.
5: Fire, cross, beast-fighting, hacking and quartering, splintering of
bone and mangling of limb, even the pulverizing of my entire body –
let every horrid and diabolical torment come upon me, provided
only that I can win my way to Jesus Christ.

6: so far as I am concerned, to die in Jesus Christ is better than to

be monarch of earth’s widest bounds.
…He who died for us is all that I seek; He who rose again for us is
my whole desire.

7: Do not have Jesus Christ on your lips and the world in your heart.

8: I want no more of what men call life.

Epilogue: Farewell now until the end, and wait with patience for
Jesus Christ.

Epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians

1: Your bishop’s office… was conferred upon him by the love of God
the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
…He is as utterly in tune with the Divine precepts as a harp with its
own strings

2: see that you hold aloof from all disunion and misguided teaching

3: have nothing to do with such poisonous weeds; they are none of

the Father’s planting, nor have they Jesus Christ for their
husbandman.
(heretics, those who cause schism)
…those who wander in outlandish by-ways of doctrine must forfeit
all part in the Lord’s Passion.

6: Shun such knavish wiles and snares of the prince of this world, or
else his arts will wear you down and weaken your love.
…rather, come all of you to your meetings like one man, without a
thought of disunity in your hearts.

7: that was the preaching of the Spirit itself, telling you never to act
in independence of the bishop, to keep your bodies as a temple of
God, to cherish unity and shun divisions, and to be imitators of
Jesus Christ as He was of his Father.
8: where disunion and bad blood exist, God can never be dwelling.

9: we are fond of the prophets, and they did indeed point forward to
Him in their preaching; yet it is the Gospel that sets the coping-
stone on man’s immortality.

11: They themselves will be honoured by Jesus Christ, on whom

they hope in body, soul and spirit, with faith and love and
singleness of mind.

Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans

1: I have seen how immovably settled in faith you are; nailed body
and soul, as it were, to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ
…You hold the firmest convictions about our Lord; believing Him to
be truly of David’s line in His manhood, yet Son of God by the
Divine will and power; truly born of a Virgin; baptised by John for His
fulfilling of all righteousness; and in the days of Pontius Pilate and
Herod the Tetrarch truly pierced by nails… so that by His
resurrection He might set up a beacon for all time to call together
His saints and believers, whether Jews or Gentiles, in the one body
of His Church.

2: And suffer He did… just as He did verily and indeed raise Himself
again. His Passion was no unreal illusion, as some sceptics aver who
are all unreality themselves.

3: I know and believe that He was in actual human flesh, even after
His resurrection. When He appeared to Peter and his companions,
He said to them, “Take hold of me; touch me, and see that I am no
bodiless phantom.” And they touched Him then and there, and
believed… That was how they came by their contempt for death,
and proved themselves superior to it. Moreover, He ate and drank
with them after He was risen, like any natural man, though even
then He and the Father were spiritually one.
(parallel with Luke 24: 36-43, John 20:27.. appeared to the
disciples)

4: After all, if everything our Lord did was only illusion, then these
chains of mine must be illusory too!
…it is only in the name of Jesus Christ, and for the sake of sharing
His sufferings, that I could face all this; for He, the perfect Man,
gives me strength to do so.
5: So what is the point of my standing well in the opinion of a man
who blasphemes my Lord by denying that He ever bore a real
human body? In saying that, he denies everything else about Him

6: look at the men who have those perverted notions about the
grace of Jesus Christ which has come down to us, and see how
contrary to the mind of God they are. They have no care for love, no
thought for the widow and orphan, none at all for the afflicted, the
captive, the hungry or the thirsty.

7: they will not admit that the Eucharist is the self-same body of our
Saviour Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins, and which the
Father in His goodness afterwards raised up again.

8: obey your clergy too, as you would the Apostles

11: Since you are spiritually quite mature, pray think maturely now;
and if the will to do well is yours, God will be ready enough to
supply the means.