Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol I:
POLYCARP: Chapter X.—Exhortation to the...

Chapter X.—Exhortation to the practice of virtue. 391

Stand fast, therefore, in these things, and follow the example of the Lord, being firm and unchangeable in the faith, loving the brotherhood, 392 and being attached to one another, joined together in the truth, exhibiting the meekness of the Lord in your intercourse with one another, and despising no one. When you can do good, defer it not, because “alms delivers from death.” 393 Be all of you subject one to another 394 “having your conduct blameless among the Gentiles,” 395 that ye may both receive praise for your good works, and the Lord may not be blasphemed through you. But woe to him by whom the name of the Lord is blasphemed! 396 Teach, therefore, sobriety to all, and manifest it also in your own conduct.

Footnotes

This and the two following chapters are preserved only in a Latin version. [See Jacobson, ad loc.]

Comp. 1 Pet. ii. 17.

Tobit iv. 10, Tobit xii. 9.

Comp. 1 Pet. v. 5.

1 Pet. ii. 12.

Isa. lii. 5.