To the Romans 2.1 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:226–228

Οὐ γὰρ θέλω ὑμᾶς ἀνθρωπαρεσκῆσαι, ἀλλὰ θεῷ ἀρέσαι, ὥσπερ καὶ ἀρέσκετε. οὔτε γὰρ ἐγώ ποτε ἕξω καιρὸν τοιοῦτον θεοῦ ἐπιτυχεῖν, οὔτε ὑμεῖς, ἐὰν σιωπήσητε, κρείττονι ἔργῳ ἔχετε ἐπιγραφῆναι. ἐὰν γὰρ σιωπήσητε ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ, ἐγὼ λόγος θεοῦ· ἐὰν δὲ ἐρασθῆτε τῆς σαρκός μου, πάλιν ἕσομαι φωνή.

English · Claude translation

For I do not want you to please people, but to please God, as indeed you do. For neither shall I ever have such an opportunity to attain to God, nor can you, if you keep silent, be credited with any better deed. For if you keep silent about me, I shall be a word of God; but if you love my flesh, I shall again be only a voice.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 24:226–228 · 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 5:688a (found by text match)

Text

As printed in Lake, LCL 24. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; the problem in this passage is discussed in the notes.

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

1 Thess 2:4 · allusion, medium confidence
Gal 1:10 · echo, medium confidence

Topics

Martyrdom

Notes

Translation notes

“A word of God … only a voice”: through his death he will become a true word of God; if they save him, he will be a mere sound. Some manuscripts read “I shall be God's” instead of “I shall be a word of God.” The Ante-Nicene Fathers translation (1885) follows that reading and renders the last clause “I shall again have to run my race.”

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (punctuation slip in the digital text (the sentence continues)): σαρκός μου. πάλιν → σαρκός μου, πάλιν.

Cite this passage

Ign. Rom. 2.1 (PG 5:688a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/ign-romans/2/1/).

Plain text

Ign. Rom. 2.1 (PG 5:688a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/ign-romans/2/1/).