Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol I:
POLYCARP: Chapter VII.—Avoid the Docetæ, and...

Chapter VII.—Avoid the Docetæ, and persevere in fasting and prayer.

“For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist;” 377 and whosoever does not confess the testimony of the cross, 378 is of the devil; and whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts, and says that there is neither a resurrection nor a judgment, he is the first-born of Satan. 379 Wherefore, forsaking the vanity of many, and their false doctrines, let us return to the word which has been handed down to us from 380 the beginning; “watching unto prayer,” 381 and persevering in fasting; beseeching in our supplications the all-seeing God “not to lead us into temptation,” 382 p. 35 as the Lord has said: “The spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 383

Footnotes

1 John iv. 3.

Literally, “the martyrdom of the cross,” which some render, “His suffering on the cross.”

[The original, perhaps, of Eusebius (Hist. iv. cap. 14). It became a common-place expression in the Church.]

Comp. Jude 3.

1 Pet. iv. 7.

Matt. vi. 13; Matt. xxvi. 41.

Matt. xxvi. 41; Mark xiv. 38.