Chapter 1

I have learned that you possess a mind free from blame and unhesitating in endurance, not from habit, but by nature, as Polybius your bishop showed me, when he visited me in Smyrna by the will of God and of Jesus Christ, and so greatly rejoiced with me, prisoner for Jesus Christ as I was, that I saw your whole congregation in his person. I received therefore your godly benevolence through him, and gave God glory that I found you, as I had learnt, imitators of God.