The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Early Christian Letter to a Seeker

A Letter From a Disciple of the Apostles to Diognetus, an Inquirer About the Ways of Christians

All the letters found in the New Testament, the letter to the Hebrews and the letters of the apostles Peter and Paul, are addressed to Christians. As far as I know, the letter to Diognetus is the only known letter from early Christianity that is addressed to a non-Christian inquirer. The letter has been assigned the date A.D. 130. No one knows just who the writer was, nor the recipient either for that matter. However, the writer does identify himself as “a disciple of the apostles.” How wonderful that this letter is still available to read in our day! The letter has been divided into chapters, and the quote below is Chapter 5 in its entirety.

Very good. Where can we find the entire thing?

Just do a search on the web for “Diognetus” and you’ll find the whole letter.

By the way, it is this same writer to Diognetus who said in Chapter 6, “Violence has no place in the character of God.”

Some of the writer’s statements may seem odd to our way of thinking.

It seems that he had adopted the Greek philosophical view that each of us has a “soul” that is separate from but somehow hinged to our body as long as we are living.