#100 Epistle to Diognetus - Part 2
Chapter 5. — The manners of the Christians
Christians are not marked off from the rest of mankind by country, language, or customs. They do not live in cities of their own. They do not speak a peculiar dialect. They do not follow some strange way of life. Their teaching is not the product of clever speculation, nor are they champions of any merely human school of thought.
They live in Greek and barbarian cities alike, wherever they happen to be born, following the local customs in dress, food, and the rest of life. And yet the way they actually live shows something striking and, frankly, paradoxical.
They live in their own countries, but as resident aliens. They take part in everything as citizens, yet endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their homeland, and every homeland a foreign land. They marry and have children like everyone else, but they do not abandon their offspring (i.e., they do not expose unwanted infants). They share their table, but not their bed. They live in the flesh, but not according to the flesh (2 Corinthians 10:3). They walk on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). They obey the laws of the land, and by their lives they surpass those laws.
They love everyone, and are persecuted by everyone. They are unknown, and yet condemned. They are killed, and yet brought to life (2 Corinthians 6:9). They are poor, yet make many rich; they have nothing, yet possess everything (2 Corinthians 6:10). They are dishonored, yet glorified in their dishonor. They are slandered, and yet vindicated. They are reviled, and they bless (2 Corinthians 4:12). They are insulted, and they return honor. They do good, and are punished as criminals. When punished, they rejoice as though brought to life. The Jews war against them as foreigners; the Greeks persecute them. And those who hate them cannot say why they hate them.
Chapter 6. — The relation of Christians to the world
In a word: what the soul is in the body, that is what Christians are in the world.
The soul is spread through every part of the body, and Christians are spread through all the cities of the world. The soul lives in the body, but is not of the body; Christians live in the world, but are not of the world (John 17:11, 14, 16). The body cannot see the soul, yet the body holds it; the world cannot see the godliness of Christians, yet they live within it.
The flesh hates the soul and wars against it (1 Peter 2:11), though the soul does it no harm — only denies it some pleasures. So the world hates the Christians, though they do it no harm — only refuse its pleasures. The soul loves the flesh that hates it, and loves its members. So Christians love those who hate them. The soul is shut up in the body, and yet holds the body together. So Christians are confined in the world as in a prison, and yet they are what holds the world together. The immortal soul lives in a mortal tent; Christians live as sojourners in perishable bodies, looking for an imperishable home in the heavens. The soul is improved by hunger and thirst; Christians, punished day after day, only multiply.
This is the post God has assigned them, and they are not free to abandon it.
Chapter 7. — The manifestation of Christ
This way of life was not invented on earth, nor is it some human philosophy they cling to, nor a stewardship of merely human mysteries. God Himself — almighty, the Creator of all things, and invisible — sent down from heaven into the midst of men the Truth Himself: the holy and incomprehensible Word. And He has firmly planted Him in their hearts.
He did not, as one might expect, send some servant or angel or earthly ruler, nor any of the powers set over heavenly things. He sent the very Maker and Fashioner of all things — the One by whom He made the heavens, by whom He set the bounds of the sea, whose laws all the stars obey, from whom the sun received the measure of its daily course, whom the moon obeys when commanded to shine at night, whom even the stars follow as they trail the moon. By Him all things were arranged and given their limits — heaven and what is in it, earth and what is in it, sea and what is in it, fire, air, the abyss, the heights, the depths, and everything between.
This is the One God sent. And not, as one might fear, to play the tyrant or to inspire terror — but in mildness and gentleness. As a king sends his son, who is also a king, so He sent Him. He sent Him as God; He sent Him as to men; He sent Him as a Savior; He sent Him to persuade, not to force — for force has no place in God's character. He sent Him calling us, not hunting us; loving us, not judging us. The judgment is yet to come — and who shall endure His appearing then? (Malachi 3:2).
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Do you not see Christians thrown to wild beasts to make them deny the Lord — and remaining unconquered? Do you not see that the more of them are punished, the more their numbers grow? This is not the work of man. This is the power of God, and the proof of His coming.
Chapter 8. — The miserable state of men before the coming of the Word
Before His coming, who among men really understood what God is? Will you trust the empty doctrines of the so-called philosophers? Some said God was fire — calling that God which they themselves were heading toward. Others said water. Others picked some other element. But by that logic, every created thing could be called God. These are the startling errors of deceivers.
No one has seen God or made Him known on his own; He has revealed Himself. And He has revealed Himself through faith — the only way God can be seen.
For God, the Lord and Maker of all, who put each thing in its place, has shown Himself not only kind to mankind but patient. He always was such, and still is, and ever will be: kind, good, free from anger, truthful, the One who alone is good (Matthew 19:17). He formed in His mind a great and unspeakable plan, which He shared with His Son alone.
While He kept this counsel hidden, He seemed to neglect us, to take no care of us. But when He revealed it through His beloved Son — laying open all that had been prepared from the beginning — He poured every blessing on us at once: that we should both share His benefits and be active in His service. Who of us would ever have expected this? He had known all things from the beginning, together with His Son, by the relation that exists between them.