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The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans

Chapter 7

They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. But it were better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might rise again. It is fitting, therefore, that ye should keep aloof from such persons, and not to speak of them either in private or in public, but to give heed to the prophets, and above all, to the Gospel, in which the passion[of Christ] has been revealed to us, and the resurrection has been fully proved. But avoid all divisions, as the beginning of evils.

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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'.