The First Apology
Chapter XI.—What kingdom Christians...: Chapter XI.—What kingdom Christians look for.
Chapter XI.—What kingdom Christians look for.
And when you hear that we look for a kingdom, you suppose, without making any inquiry, that we speak of a human kingdom; whereas we speak of that which is with God, as appears also from the confession of their faith made by those who are charged with being Christians, though they know that death is the punishment awarded to him who so confesses. For if we looked for a human kingdom, we should also deny our Christ, that we might not be slain; and we should strive to escape detection, that we might obtain what we expect. But since our thoughts are not fixed on the present, we are not concerned when men cut us off; since also death is a debt which must at all events be paid.
Edition and rights
ANF01. The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. Historical English edition; series volume first published 1885.
Marcus Dods and George Reith
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: viii.ii.xi · Text SHA-256: f648c9f752213959288d7c79b69b5e0019f1b2cad5e987b074d3f1c9f5a0a0c4