Letter to Diognetus
I had just opened the tab to continue working on the 1 Cor 7 follow up, and then, boom! White smoke. And then we were traveling, and then had some family things going on, so it isn’t done. It’s unfortunate, because all of the comments I received are no longer fresh in my memory.
But I came across the Letter to Diognetus today, which I love, and I want to share. I read this first a few years ago in a class called Mission & Ministry, which was more or less a class in the vocation of the laity; I read it again last semester in a class on the Apostolic Fathers.
It is just called the Letter (or Epistle) to Diognetus. It’s not clear who wrote it or who the intended recipient was — Diognetus may have been Marcus Aurelius, or someone else, or possibly “only a fictional character, created to ask the questions that the anonymous author wished to address” (Holmes, 290). The letter dates to anywhere from AD 117 to 313.
I love this because it shows an integration of a life of faith with a life in the world. I’m reading Deus Caritas Est by Pope Benedict XVI, and I was struck by this piece: “If in my life, I fail completely to love others, solely out of a desire to be ‘devout’ and perform my ‘religious duties,’ then my relationship with God will become arid” (par. 18). In Part II of the encyclical, Benedict elaborates on the idea that charity, the Christian love that overflows into care for the needy, is rooted in the relationship that Christians have for God. The Christians described in the Letter to Diognetus seem to embody that same idea. It seems especially pertinent to the laity, because it describes Christians existing in the world and doing all the regular things — but, in a different way, somehow.
Anyway, here’s the excerpt that appeared in today’s Liturgy of the Hours (if I have my ribbons in the right spot):
Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.
And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them.1 They share their meals, but not their wives. They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law.
Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.
To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.
Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body’s hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.
This refers to the horrifying custom in Rome where, after the birth of a child, the paterfamilias (husband/father/head of household) would decide whether or not the baby was acceptable. If not, the baby was exposed — left on a hillside to die, although sometimes the exposed babies were picked up by people who would raise them to be (well, technically it’s more complicated than this but basically) victims of sexual abuse. Early Christians began picking up exposed babies and raising them in the Christian community.