Christmas Approaches

About the year 130 A.D., a letter was addressed to a certain Diognetus who is otherwise unknown. Diognetus was evidently a pagan and the letter explains Christianity in a way likely to make sense to one of Diogetus' station.\

"For Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by
country or language or customs. They do not live in cities of their own; they do
not use a peculiar form of speech; they do not follow an eccentric manner of
life... "They live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They have a
share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every
foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign
land. They marry, like everyone else, and they beget children, but they do not
cast out their offspring... "They obey the established laws, but in their
own lives they go far beyond what the laws require. They love all men, and by
all men are persecuted. They are unknown, and still they are condemned; they are
put to death, and yet they are brought to life. "They are poor, and yet
they make many rich; they are completely destitute, and yet they enjoy complete
abundance. "To put it simply: What the soul is in the body, that Christians
are in the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and
Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in
the body, but does not belong to the body, and Christians dwell in the world,
but do not belong to the world... "The world hates Christians, even though
it suffers no wrong at their hands, because they range themselves against its
pleasures. The soul loves the flesh that hates it, and its members; in the same
way, Christians love those who hate them. "The soul is shut up in the body,
and yet itself holds the body together; while Christians are restrained in the
world as in a prison, and yet themselves hold the world together. "The
soul, which is immortal, is housed in a mortal dwelling; while Christians are
settled among corruptible things, to wait for the incorruptibility that will be
theirs in heaven."