Excerpts from the Letter to Diognetus (circa year 124)
Christians are indistinguishable from other men because of their nationality, language, or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some eccentric way of life.
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 the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them even their homeland is a foreign country.
Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not abandon the babies that are born. 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, yet all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, yet enrich many. They are defamed, and in their defamation find their glory. They are calumniated, and are 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.
No man has ever seen God or known him, but God has revealed himself to us through faith, by which alone it is possible to see him. God, the Lord and maker of all things, who created the world and set it in order, not only loved man but was also patient with him. So he has always been, is, and will be: kind, good, free from anger, truthful; indeed, he and he alone is good.
He devised a plan, a great and wonderful plan, and shared it only with his Son. For long he preserved this secrecy and kept his own wise counsel. He seemed to be neglecting us, to have no concern for us. But when through his beloved Son he revealed and made public what he had prepared from the very beginning, he gave us all at once gifts such as we could never have dreamt of. He even gave us sight and knowledge of himself.
When our sins had reached their highest point, it became clear that punishment was at hand in the shape of suffering and death. The time then came for God to make known his compassion and power. How immeasurable is God’s generosity and love!
God did not show hatred for us, reject us, or take vengeance.
Instead, he was patient with us, put up with us, and in compassion took our sins upon himself. He gave his own Son as the price of our redemption. The Holy One became the ransom for the wicked, the sinless One for the sinners, the just One for the unjust. The incorruptible One became the price for the corrupt, the immortal One for the mortals.
If you desire to have faith, first learn about God the Father. God loved man; he made the world for man. God subjected to man everything that is on earth. He endowed man with intelligence and reason, so that he would raise his gaze and contemplate Him. He made man to his image, and sent him his only begotten Son. God promised man his kingdom in heaven. Think, therefore, what shall God finally give to those who correspond to his love.
The world is full of deceit and drifting nowhere. You should react and unmask the decay behind worldly life-styles, when you get to know about true life in heaven. Then you will despise what people call death; for real death is that reserved for the damned in the eternal fire, a fire always giving torment to those thrown in. When you get to know about that fire, you will admire and congratulate those who suffer –out of love of God– this momentary fire.