Chapters
Epistles of Ignatius
Chapters
More
Chapter 3: Examples of Youthful Devotion
MOREOVER: the wise Daniel, while still a young man, judged certain vigorous old men, showing them to be abandoned wretches, and not worthy to be called elders, and that, though Jews by birth, they were Canaanites in practice. And Jeremiah, when he declined the role of a prophet given to him by God because of his youth, was told: “Do not say, I am a youth; for you shall go to all those to whom I send you, and you shall speak according to all that I command you; because I am with you.” And the wise Solomon, at just twelve years old, had the wisdom to resolve the important issue about the children of the two women, when it was unknown to whom they belonged; so that the whole people were astonished at such wisdom in a child, and revered him as not merely a youth, but a full-grown man. He also solved the difficult questions of the queen of the Ethiopians, which had benefits as the streams of the Nile bring fertility, so much so that the woman, wise as she was, was beyond measure astonished.