First Epistle to the Corinthians
Chapter XXXVII.—Christ is our...: Chapter XXXVII.—Christ is our leader, and we His soldiers.
Chapter XXXVII.—Christ is our leader, and we His soldiers.
Let us then, men and brethren, with all energy act the part of soldiers, in accordance with His holy commandments. Let us consider those who serve under our generals, with what order, obedience, and submissiveness they perform the things which are commanded them. All are not prefects, nor commanders of a thousand, nor of a hundred, nor of fifty, nor the like, but each one in his own rank performs the things commanded by the king and the generals. The great cannot subsist without the small, nor the small without the great. There is a kind of mixture in all things, and thence arises mutual advantage. Let us take our body for an example. The head is nothing without the feet, and the feet are nothing without the head; yea, the very smallest members of our body are necessary and useful to the whole body. But all work harmoniously together, and are under one common rule for the preservation of the whole body.
Edition and rights
ANF01. The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. Historical English edition; series volume first published 1885.
Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson
Ancient work and historical English translation: public domain in the United States (published before 1931). Copyright rules vary by country. This is a historical source transcription, not an official Church edition. Modern website material is not reproduced.
Historical footnotes and publisher introductions are omitted. Author-written openings are retained. Paragraph whitespace is normalized. Transcriptions can contain errors; this is not a critical edition. Attribution follows the historical edition, not universal scholarly agreement.
Digitization provenance (not an external reading link): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml
Source section: ii.ii.xxxvii · Text SHA-256: c7510ace187b0ea47a475e886d353e851c6e1ca7bc5f63dfcd160e358989c110