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Ignatius
Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church sojourning in Syria, which has obtained mercy from God, and been elected by Christ, and which first[1215] received the name Christ, [wishes] happiness in God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord has rendered my bonds light and easy since I learnt that you are in peace, that you live in all harmony both of the flesh and spirit. “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord,[1216] beseech you, that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,”[1217] guarding against those heresies of the wicked one which have broken in upon us, to the deceiving and destruction of those that accept of them; but that ye give heed to the doctrine of the apostles, and believe both the law and the prophets: that ye reject every Jewish and Gentile error, and neither introduce a multiplicity of gods, nor yet deny Christ under the pretence of [maintaining] the unity of God.
For Moses, the faithful servant of God, when he said, “The Lord thy God is one Lord,”[1218] and thus proclaimed that there was only one God, did yet forthwith confess also our Lord when he said, “The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord.”[1219] And again, “And God[1220] said, Let Us make man after our image: and so God made man, after the image of God made He him.”[1221] And further, “In the image of God made He man.”[1222] And that [the Son of God] was to be made man, [Moses shows when] he says, “A prophet shall the Lord raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me.”[1223]
The prophets also, when they speak as in the person of God, [saying,] “I am God, the first [of beings], and I am also the last,[1224] and besides Me there is no God,”[1225] concerning the Father of the universe, do also speak of our Lord Jesus Christ. “A Son,” they say, has been given to us, on whose shoulder the government is from above; and His name is called the Angel of great counsel, Wonderful, Counsellor, the strong and mighty God.”[1226] And concerning His incarnation, “Behold, a virgin shall be with Child, and shall bring forth a Son; and they shall call his name Immanuel.”[1227] And concerning the passion, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb before her shearers is dumb, I also was an innocent lamb led to be sacrificed.”[1228]
The Evangelists, too, when they declared that the one Father was “the only true God,”[1229] did not omit what concerned our Lord, but wrote: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.”[1230] And concerning the incarnation: “The Word,” says [the Scripture], “became flesh, and dwelt among us.”[1231] And again: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”[1232] And those very apostles, who said “that there is one God,”[1233] said also that “there is one Mediator between God and men.”[1234] Nor were they ashamed of the incarnation and the passion. For what says [one]? “The man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself”[1235] for the life and salvation of the world.
Whosoever, therefore, declares that there is but one God, only so as to take away the divinity of Christ, is a devil,[1236] and an enemy of all righteousness. He also that confesseth Christ, yet not as the Son of the Maker of the world, but of some other unknown[1237] being, different from Him whom the law and the prophets have proclaimed, this man is an instrument of the devil. And he that rejects the incarnation, and is ashamed of the cross for which I am in bonds, this man is antichrist.[1238] Moreover, he who affirms Christ to be a mere man is accursed, according to the [declaration of the] prophet,[1239] since he puts not his trust in God, but in man. Wherefore also he is unfruitful, like the wild myrtle-tree.
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