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To the Ephesians

St Ignatius of Antioch, Lake, Loeb 1912

Chapter 4

Obedience to the Bishop

Therefore it is fitting that you should live in harmony with the will of the bishop, as indeed you do. For your justly famous presbytery, worthy of God, is attuned to the bishop as the strings to a harp. Therefore by your concord and harmonious love Jesus Christ is being sung.

Now do each of you join in this choir, that being harmoniously in concord you may receive the key¹ of God in unison, and sing with one voice through Jesus Christ to the Father, that he may both hear you and may recognise, through your good works, that you are members of his Son. It is therefore profitable for you to be in blameless unity, in order that you may always commune with God.

Notes

i.e. in the musical sense of the word.