Library › St Polycarp of Smyrna › To the Philippians
To the Philippians
St Polycarp of Smyrna, Lake, Loeb 1912
Chapter 11
Valens
I am deeply sorry for Valens, who was once made a presbyter among you, that he so little understands the place which was given to him. I advise, therefore, that you keep from avarice, and be pure and truthful. Keep yourselves from all evil.
Against avarice
For how may he who cannot attain self-control in these matters enjoin it on another? If any man does not abstain from avarice he will be defiled by idolatry, and shall be judged as if he were among the Gentiles who “know not the judgment of God.” Or do we “not know that the saints shall judge the world?” as Paul teaches.
But I have neither perceived nor heard any such thing among you, among whom the blessed Paul laboured, who are praised in the beginning of his Epistle.1 For concerning you he boasts in all the Churches who then alone had known the Lord, for we had not yet known him.
The treatment of Valens
Therefore, brethren, I am deeply sorry for him [i.e. Valens] and for his wife, and “may the Lord grant them true repentance.” Therefore be yourselves also moderate in this matter, and “do not regard such men as enemies,” but call them back as fallible and straying members, that you may make whole the body of you all. For in doing this you edify yourselves.
Notes
- The Greek was perhaps τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐπιστολαῖς αὐτοῦ, and ought to be rendered “who were his epistles in the beginning,” with a reference to II Cor. 3, 2.