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The Epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians
Chapter 9
The priests indeed are good, but the High Priest is better; to whom the holy of holies has been committed, and who alone has been trusted with the secrets of God. He is the door of the Father, by which enter in Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the prophets, and the apostles, and the Church. All these have for their object the attaining to the unity of God. But the Gospel possesses something transcendent [above the former dispensation], viz., the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, His passion and resurrection. For the beloved prophets announced Him, but the Gospel is the perfection of immortality. All these things are good together, if ye believe in love.
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Text. Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Roberts and Donaldson, 1885. Public domain by age. The Ignatian letters follow the shorter recension, the seven letters generally accepted as genuine. These texts carry no verse numbers in the original; chapter divisions are the editors'.