To the Philadelphians 9.1 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Christ the High Priest is the door through which all God's people enter.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:248

Καλοὶ καὶ οἱ ἱερεῖς, κρεῖσσον δὲ ὁ ἀρχιερεὺς ὁ πεπιστευμένος τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων, ὃς μόνος πεπίστευται τὰ κρυπτὰ τοῦ θεοῦ· αὐτὸς ὢν θύρα τοῦ πατρός, διʼ ἧς εἰσέρχονται Ἀβραὰμ καὶ Ἰσαὰκ καὶ Ἰακὼβ καὶ οἱ προφῆται καὶ ἀπόστολοι καὶ ἡ ἐκκλησία. πάντα ταῦτα εἰς ἑνότητα θεοῦ.

English · Claude translation

The priests too are good, but better is the High Priest who has been entrusted with the Holy of Holies, who alone has been entrusted with the hidden things of God. He is the door of the Father, through which Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the prophets and the apostles and the church enter. All these are for the unity of God.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 24:248 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1, LCL 24 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1912), 172–277 · Greek text: K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (LCL, 1912-1913), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0

Also in

PG 5:704b–705a (found by text match)

Text

As printed in Lake, LCL 24. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Lake (LCL 24, 1912); made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Scripture

Heb 4:14 · echo, medium confidence
Heb 9:7 · echo, medium confidence
John 10:9 · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Christology

Cite this passage

Ign. Phld. 9.1 (PG 5:704b–705a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/ign-philadelphians/9/1/).

Plain text

Ign. Phld. 9.1 (PG 5:704b–705a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/ign-philadelphians/9/1/).