The Epistle to Diognetus

The Epistle to Diognetus

Since I see, most excellent Diognetus, that you are deeply eager to learn the religion of the Christians—who their God is, and how they worship him, so that they look down on the world and despise death, neither reckoning as gods those whom the Greeks suppose, nor keeping the superstition of the Jews; what affection they have for one another; and why this new people has entered the world now and not before—I welcome your eagerness and ask God, who enables us to speak and to hear, that I may speak so as to make you better, and you hear so as to give the speaker no cause for grief.

Come, then, clear your mind of its assumptions and look afresh. Are not the things you call gods stone like the stones we walk on, bronze no better than the vessels we use, wood already rotting, silver needing a guard against theft, iron eaten by rust? Are they not the work of craftsmen, shaped by hammer and fire? Could not any of you make the like? The one of stone is blind, the one of clay has no breath, the one of silver cannot see, the one of iron is corroded. To these you offer sacrifices—yet if they have no senses, you mock them; and if they do, you insult them, honoring them with offerings as though they could be hurt by neglect. This is not reverence; it is folly.

As for the Jews: though they rightly worship one God and Maker of all, yet when they offer to him as though he needed it, they are no wiser than those who give to the deaf idols; for he who made heaven and earth and all that is in them, and supplies us with everything we need, can himself need nothing. And their fuss over foods, and superstition about Sabbaths, and pride in circumcision, and watching of months and days—these are too absurd to deserve discussion. Let this be enough of the errors of the others.

Now learn the mystery of the Christians’ own way. They are not marked off from the rest of humanity by country, language, or customs. They live in cities of Greeks and of barbarians, each as his lot is cast, following the local customs in dress and food and manner of life; yet they show forth the wonderful and confessedly strange order of their own citizenship.

They dwell in their own homelands, but as sojourners; they share all things as citizens, and endure all things as strangers. Every foreign land is their homeland, and every homeland a foreign land. They marry like all others and bear children, but they do not expose their offspring. They share a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live according to the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the appointed laws, and in their own lives they surpass the laws. They love all, and by all are persecuted. They are unknown, yet condemned; put to death, yet made alive. They are poor, yet make many rich; lacking everything, yet abounding in all. They are dishonored, and in their dishonor glorified; slandered, and proved righteous; reviled, and they bless; insulted, and they show respect. Doing good, they are punished as evildoers; and being punished, they rejoice, as though brought to life.

In a word: what the soul is in the body, that the Christians are in the world. The soul is spread through all the members of the body, and the Christians through the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, yet is not of the body; the Christians dwell in the world, yet are not of the world. The unseen soul is kept in a visible body; the Christians are seen in the world, but their reverence remains unseen. The flesh hates the soul and wars against it, though wronged in nothing, because it is forbidden its pleasures; and the world hates the Christians, though wronged in nothing, because they set themselves against its pleasures. The soul loves the flesh that hates it, and the Christians love those who hate them. So great is the office to which God has appointed them, which it is not lawful for them to decline.

For it was no earthly invention that was handed to them, nor any mortal device they so guard, nor a stewardship of human mysteries. The Almighty himself, the Maker of all, the unseen God, established among them the truth and the holy word from heaven, and fixed it in their hearts—sending to them not, as one might suppose, a servant or angel or ruler, but the very Maker and Fashioner of all, by whom he made the heavens, by whom he set the sea its bounds, whom all the elements obey. Him he sent to them. In gentleness and meekness he sent him, as a king sending a son who is king; he sent him as God, yet sent him to men as one saving and persuading, not compelling; for compulsion is no attribute of God. He sent him to call, not to pursue; in love, not in judgment—though he will yet send him in judgment, and who shall stand at his coming?

This is he who was from the beginning, who appeared as new and was found to be of old, and is forever born new in the hearts of the saints—the eternal one, today accounted a Son. By him the church is enriched, and grace, unfolding, is multiplied among the saints, granting understanding, opening mysteries, telling seasons, rejoicing over the faithful, and given to those who seek her without breaking the bounds of faith or overstepping the limits set by the fathers.

Then is the fear of the law sung, and the grace of the prophets known, and the faith of the gospels set fast, and the tradition of the apostles kept, and the joy of the church leaps high. Grieve not this grace, and you will understand what the Word speaks, through whom he wills, when he wills. For whatever we have been moved by the will of the commanding Word to utter with much labor, out of love for the things revealed to us we share with you.