CHAPTER 1

 1:1  I have learned that ye have a mind unblameable and

stedfast in patience, not from habit, but by nature,

according as Polybius your bishop informed me, who by

the will of God and of Jesus Christ visited me in

Smyrna; and so greatly did he rejoice with me in my

bonds in Christ Jesus, that in him I beheld the whole

multitude of you.

 1:2  Having therefore received your godly benevolence

at his hands, I gave glory, forasmuch as I had found you

to be imitators of God, even as I had learned.