Be pleasing to him whose soldiers
you are, from whom you also receive your wages; let none of you be found a
deserter. Let your baptism serve as (your) arms; your faith as (your) helmet;
your love as (your) spear; your endurance as (your) panoply; your works are
your deposits that you may have the savings you deserve. Be patient, then, with
one another in gentleness, as God is with you. May I always benefit from you.
(Ignatius, To Polycarp, 6:2)
baptism provides the basic
protection and corresponds to the "arms" (οπλα) by which the soldier
is protected; faith and love represent the fundamental Christian virtues (see
on Eph. 1.1; 14.1) and correspond more particularly to the two important
weapons named; finally, endurance corresponds to the whole armor (πανοπλια
"panoply") because it must characterize the exercise of all the
previously mentioned arms if they are not to fail. Endurance is probably
treated as the climax here because Ignatius seeks to confirm the Smyrnaeans in
their unity and their support for his cause . . . (William R. Schoedel, Ignatius
of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch [Hermeneia-A
Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible; Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1985], 276)
