Primary source · Koine Greek
The Epistle to Diognetus
Anonymous (an unknown Greek apologist) · c. AD 130–200
What this text is
An anonymous apology to an inquiring pagan — the loveliest description of Christian life in the world before Constantine. The sole manuscript, at Strasbourg, was destroyed in the fire of the 1870 siege; the text survives only through copies made beforehand.
Profile of The Epistle to Diognetus (anonymous) →
Interlinear passages
Word-for-word glosses of the original; the complete public-domain translation is linked below.
Public-domain translations
Roberts–Donaldson (ANF, 1885)
For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. …They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. …Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers.
J. B. Lightfoot (1891)
For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind either in locality or in speech or in customs. …They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners; they bear their share in all things as citizens, and they endure all hardships as strangers. Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign.
Manuscript witnesses
Codex Argentoratensis gr. 9 (Strasbourg)
13th–14th c.The single copy, found in a fish-shop bundle at Constantinople, burned with the Strasbourg library in the Prussian bombardment of 1870. The text survives only in early collations.
Stephanus editio princeps (Paris)
1592Henri Estienne's printing — now, with two 19th-century collations, effectively our manuscript.
Provenance
Unknown (Alexandria? Asia?), c. AD 130–200; one manuscript, now ashes
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- À Diognète (SC 33 bis)H.-I. Marrou, 1965The critical edition with French translation.
- The Epistle to Diognetus (with the Fragment of Quadratus)Clayton N. Jefford, 2013Oxford Apostolic Fathers edition and commentary.