To the Ephesians

Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the church blessed with greatness by the fullness of God the Father, predestined before the ages to be always for enduring and unchangeable glory, united and chosen in true suffering by the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ our God; to the church worthy of blessing, which is in Ephesus in Asia: abundant greetings in Jesus Christ and in blameless joy.

I welcomed in God your much-loved name, which you possess by a righteous nature, in accordance with faith and love in Christ Jesus our Savior. Being imitators of God, and rekindled by the blood of God, you have perfectly completed the work that is so natural to you.

For when you heard that I was on my way from Syria in chains for the sake of our common name and hope, hoping through your prayer to succeed in fighting wild beasts in Rome, so that by succeeding I might be able to be a disciple, you were eager to see me.

Since, then, I have received your whole congregation in God's name in Onesimus, a man of love beyond words and your bishop, I pray that you love him according to Jesus Christ and that all of you be like him. For blessed is he who granted you, being worthy, to have such a bishop.

As for my fellow servant Burrhus, your deacon by God's will, blessed in all things, I pray that he may stay with me, to the honor of you and of the bishop. And Crocus too, worthy of God and of you, whom I received as a living example of your love, has refreshed me in every way (may the Father of Jesus Christ likewise refresh him), together with Onesimus and Burrhus and Euplus and Fronto, in whom I saw all of you in love.

May I have joy of you always, if indeed I am worthy. It is fitting, then, in every way to glorify Jesus Christ, who has glorified you, so that, made complete in one obedience and subject to the bishop and the council of presbyters, you may be sanctified in all things.

I do not give you orders as though I were someone. For even if I am in chains for the Name, I have not yet been made perfect in Jesus Christ. For now I am only beginning to be a disciple, and I speak to you as my fellow learners. For I needed to be anointed by you with faith, admonition, endurance, and patience.

But since love does not let me be silent about you, I have taken it on myself to urge you to run in harmony with the mind of God. For Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is the mind of the Father, just as the bishops, who have been appointed throughout the ends of the earth, are in the mind of Jesus Christ.

Therefore it is fitting for you to run in harmony with the mind of the bishop, as indeed you do. For your council of presbyters, worthy of its name and worthy of God, is attuned to the bishop as strings to a lyre. Therefore in your concord and harmonious love Jesus Christ is sung.

Each one of you, join the choir, so that, harmonious in concord and taking up God's key in unity, you may sing with one voice through Jesus Christ to the Father, so that he may both hear you and recognize, through your good deeds, that you are members of his Son. It is profitable, then, for you to be in blameless unity, so that you may always share in God.

For if I in a short time came to have such fellowship with your bishop, not human but spiritual, how much more do I count you blessed who are joined with him as the church is with Jesus Christ and as Jesus Christ is with the Father, so that all things may be harmonious in unity?

Let no one be deceived: if anyone is not within the sanctuary, he lacks the bread of God. For if the prayer of one or two has such power, how much more that of the bishop and the whole church?

So whoever does not come to the assembly is already proud and has separated himself. For it is written, “God opposes the proud.” Let us be eager, then, not to oppose the bishop, so that we may be subject to God.

And the more anyone sees the bishop keeping silent, the more he should fear him. For everyone whom the master of the house sends to manage his own household we must receive as we would the one who sent him. It is clear, then, that we must regard the bishop as the Lord himself.

Indeed Onesimus himself highly praises your good order in God: that you all live according to the truth and that no heresy dwells among you; rather, you do not even listen to anyone unless he speaks truthfully about Jesus Christ.

For some are accustomed to carry the Name about with wicked deceit, while doing other things unworthy of God. You must shun them as wild beasts, for they are mad dogs that bite by stealth. You must be on your guard against them, for they are hard to cure.

There is one physician, both fleshly and spiritual, born and unborn, God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first subject to suffering and then beyond suffering: Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let no one deceive you, then, as indeed you are not deceived, since you belong wholly to God. For when no strife that could torment you has taken root among you, then you are living according to God. I am your humble servant, and I offer myself for you Ephesians, a church famous throughout the ages.

Those who are fleshly cannot do the things of the spirit, nor can those who are spiritual do the things of the flesh, just as faith cannot do the things of unbelief, nor unbelief the things of faith. But even what you do according to the flesh is spiritual, for you do all things in Jesus Christ.

But I have learned that certain people passed through from there with evil teaching, whom you did not allow to sow it among you. You stopped your ears so as not to receive what they were sowing, since you are stones of the Father's temple, prepared for the building of God the Father, hoisted up to the heights by the crane of Jesus Christ, which is the cross, using as a rope the Holy Spirit. Your faith is what lifts you up, and love is the road that leads up to God.

So you are all fellow travelers, God-bearers and temple-bearers, Christ-bearers, bearers of holy things, adorned in every way with the commandments of Jesus Christ. In this I rejoice, since I have been counted worthy to talk with you through what I write and to share your joy, because in your human life you love nothing but God alone.

And pray unceasingly for the rest of humanity as well, for there is hope of repentance in them, that they may attain to God. So let them learn from you, at least from your works.

Answer their anger with gentleness, their boasting with humility, their slanders with prayers, their error with steadfastness in the faith, their savagery with gentleness of manners, not eager to retaliate against them.

Let us be found their brothers by our forbearance, and let us be eager to be imitators of the Lord (who was more wronged, who more defrauded, who more rejected?), so that no weed of the devil may be found among you, but that in all purity and self-control you may remain in Jesus Christ, in flesh and in spirit.

These are the last times. From now on let us be reverent and fear the patience of God, so that it may not become a judgment against us. For let us either fear the wrath to come or love the grace that is present, one of the two; only let us be found in Christ Jesus unto true life.

Apart from him let nothing seem fitting to you. In him I carry my chains, my spiritual pearls, in which may I rise again through your prayer, in which may I always share, so that I may be found in the company of the Christians of Ephesus, who have always been in agreement with the apostles by the power of Jesus Christ.

I know who I am and to whom I am writing. I am a condemned man, you have received mercy; I am in danger, you are secure.

You are the highway for those who are being killed for God's sake; fellow initiates with Paul, who was sanctified, who was martyred, worthy of all blessing, in whose footsteps may I be found when I attain to God, who in every letter remembers you in Christ Jesus.

Be eager, then, to come together more often for the Eucharist of God and for his glory. For when you meet together frequently, the powers of Satan are overthrown, and his destructiveness is undone by the concord of your faith.

There is nothing better than peace, by which all warfare of those in heaven and on earth is abolished.

None of these things escapes you if you have perfect faith and love toward Jesus Christ, which are the beginning and the end of life: faith is the beginning and love is the end. And the two, when they are joined in unity, are God; and all the other things that belong to noble goodness follow from them.

No one who professes faith sins, nor does anyone who possesses love hate. “The tree is known by its fruit.” So those who profess to be Christ's will be seen by what they do. For the work is not a matter of profession now, but of whether one is found in the power of faith to the end.

It is better to be silent and to be than to speak and not to be. It is good to teach, if the one who speaks also does. There is, then, one Teacher, who spoke and it came to be; and even the things he has done in silence are worthy of the Father.

Whoever truly possesses the word of Jesus is able to hear even his silence, so that he may be perfect, so that he may act through what he says and be known through what he does not say.

Nothing is hidden from the Lord; even our secrets are near him. So let us do all things as though he were dwelling in us, so that we may be his temples and he may be our God within us, as indeed he is, and as he will be made manifest before our face; for which reason we rightly love him.

Do not be deceived, my brothers: those who corrupt households will not inherit the kingdom of God.

If, then, those who did these things according to the flesh died, how much more will this be so if anyone by evil teaching corrupts the faith of God, for which Jesus Christ was crucified? Such a person, having become filthy, will go into the unquenchable fire, and so will anyone who listens to him.

For this reason the Lord received ointment on his head, so that he might breathe incorruption on the church. Do not be anointed with the foul odor of the teaching of the ruler of this age, lest he take you captive away from the life that lies before you.

Why do we not all become wise, having received the knowledge of God, which is Jesus Christ? Why do we perish in folly, not recognizing the gift that the Lord has truly sent?

My spirit is a humble offering for the cross, which is a stumbling block to unbelievers, but to us salvation and eternal life. Where is the wise man? Where is the debater? Where is the boasting of those who are called intelligent?

For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived by Mary according to God's plan, of the seed of David and of the Holy Spirit; he was born and was baptized, so that by his suffering he might cleanse the water.

And the ruler of this age was unaware of Mary's virginity and her giving birth, and likewise of the Lord's death: three mysteries to be loudly proclaimed, which were accomplished in the silence of God.

How, then, were they revealed to the ages? A star shone in heaven brighter than all the stars; its light was indescribable and its newness caused amazement. All the other stars, together with the sun and moon, formed a chorus around the star, yet it outshone them all with its light. And there was bewilderment over where this new thing, so unlike them, came from.

From then on all magic was dissolved and every bond of wickedness vanished; ignorance was abolished, and the ancient kingdom was destroyed, when God appeared in human form to bring the newness of eternal life; and what had been prepared by God began to take effect. Hence all things were thrown into commotion, because the abolition of death was being prepared.

If Jesus Christ counts me worthy through your prayer, and if it is his will, in the second little book that I intend to write to you I will explain further the plan I have begun to set out concerning the new man Jesus Christ: his faith and his love, his suffering and resurrection.

Especially if the Lord reveals to me that you are all, each one of you by name, coming together in common in grace, in one faith and in Jesus Christ, who according to the flesh is of David's line, the Son of Man and Son of God, so that you obey the bishop and the council of presbyters with undivided mind, breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, the antidote against dying, so that we may live in Jesus Christ forever.

I am a ransom for you and for those whom you sent to Smyrna for the honor of God, from where I am also writing to you, giving thanks to the Lord and loving Polycarp as I love you. Remember me, as Jesus Christ also remembers you.

Pray for the church in Syria, from where I am being led in chains to Rome, the least of the faithful there, as I have been counted worthy to be found for the honor of God. Farewell in God the Father and in Jesus Christ, our common hope.