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Page:Ante-Nicene Fathers volume 1.djvu/246

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232
THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS
conquered[1] by his artifices,[2] ye grow weak in your love. But be ye all joined together[3] with an undivided heart. And I thank my God that I have a good conscience in respect to you, and that no one has it in his power to boast, either privately or publicly, that I have burdened[4] any one either in much or in little. And I wish for all among whom I have spoken, that they may not possess that for a testimony against them.

does the man who is falsely called a Nicolaitan, this person can neither be a lover of God, nor a lover of Christ, but is a corrupter of his own flesh, and therefore void of the Holy Spirit, and a stranger to Christ. All such persons are but monuments and sepulchres of the dead, upon which are written only the names of dead men. Flee, therefore, the wicked devices and snares of the spirit which now worketh in the children of this world,[5] lest at any time being overcome,[1] ye grow weak in your love. But be ye all joined together[3] with an undivided heart and a willing mind, "being of one accord and of one judgment,"[6] being always of the same opinion about the same things, both when you are at ease and in danger, both in sorrow and in joy. I thank God, through Jesus Christ, that I have

a good conscience in respect to you, and that no one has it in his power to boast, either privately or publicly, that I have burdened any one either in much or in little. And I wish for all among whom I have spoken, that they may not possess that for a testimony against them.

  1. 1.0 1.1 Literally, "oppressed."
  2. Or, "will."
  3. 3.0 3.1 Some render, "come together into the same place."
  4. Apparently by attempting to impose the yoke of Judaism.
  5. Comp. Eph. ii. 2.
  6. Phil. ii. 2.