Chapter 5
1 If in so short a time I have acquired such familiarity with your bishop—not a human one, but a spiritual one—how much more do I count you blessed, you who are so mingled with him as the Church is with Jesus Christ, and as Jesus Christ is with the Father, so that all things may be in harmony in unity?
2 Let no one be led astray. If anyone is not within the altar, he lacks the bread of God. For if the prayer of one or two has such power, how much more that of the bishop and the whole Church?[1]
3 So whoever doesn’t come to the common assembly is already showing pride and has cut himself off. For it is written: God resists the proud. Let us be eager, then, not to resist the bishop, so that we may be subject to God.