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To the Ephesians
St Ignatius of Antioch, Lake, Loeb 1912
Chapter 8
Praise of the Ephesians
Let none therefore deceive you, and indeed you have not been deceived, but belong wholly to God. For since no strife is fixed among you which might torture you, you do indeed live according to God. I am dedicated1 and devoted to you Ephesians, and your Church, which is famous to eternity.
They who are carnal cannot do spiritual things, neither can they who are spiritual do carnal things, just as faith is incapable of the deeds of infidelity, and infidelity of the deeds of faith. But even what you do according to the flesh is spiritual, for you do all things in Jesus Christ.
Notes
- Lit. “The refuse of”: the word was used of criminals and others whose death was regarded as a piacular sacrifice, and so it came to mean a sacrifice of this kind. Ultimately it lost its meaning so far as to become merely a form of epistolary politeness.