Sophia Scriptura

To Diognetus 6.1

Anonymous · To Diognetus · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · place unknown · Read in context

Traditional ascription rejected: The author is unknown. The only manuscript (destroyed in 1870) placed it among works of Justin Martyr, but the style is not Justin's. The name “Mathetes” sometimes used for the author comes from “a disciple of apostles” in 11.1. Chapters 11–12 probably come from a different work.

Summary: Christians are to the world what the soul is to the body.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:360

Ἁπλῶς δʼ εἰπεῖν, ὅπερ ἐστὶν σώματι ψυχή, τοῦτʼ εἰσὶν ἐν κόσμῳ Χριστιανοί.

English · Claude translation

To put it simply: what the soul is in the body, that the Christians are in the world.

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 25:360 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2, LCL 25 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1913), 350–379 · Greek text: K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (LCL, 1912-1913), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and published by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Lake, LCL 25. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Lake (LCL 25, 1913); made independently of existing English translations.
Compare
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Cite this passage

Diogn. 6.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/diognetus/6/1/).

Plain text
Diogn. 6.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/diognetus/6/1/).

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