Epistle to Diognetus 2

1Come, then, clear your mind of all the preconceptions that occupy it, throw off the habit that leads you astray, and become, as it were, a new person from the beginning—someone ready to hear a new account, just as you yourself confessed. Look not only with your eyes but also with your understanding at the substance and form of those whom you call and regard as gods. Is not one of them stone, like what we tread underfoot, and another bronze, no better than the vessels forged for our use; another wood, which has already rotted; another silver, which needs someone to guard it so that it is not stolen; another iron, which is corroded by rust; and another earthenware, no more attractive than what is supplied for the most dishonorable service? Are not all these made of perishable material? Are they not fashioned by iron and fire? Did not the sculptor make one, the bronze-worker another, the silversmith another, and the potter another? Before they were molded into these shapes by the skills of these various craftspeople, could not each of them have been reshaped and made to resemble these various utensils? Could not the vessels now made from the same material, if they came into the hands of the same craftspeople, be made like these gods? Could not these things that you now worship be made again by human hands into vessels like the rest? Are they not all deaf and blind? Are they not without souls, without senses, and motionless? Do they not all rot and decay? These things you call gods; to these you are servants; these you worship; and you end up becoming altogether like them. Therefore you hate the Christians because they do not consider these things to be gods. For do not you yourselves, who now regard and worship them, despise them much more? Do you not rather mock and insult them by leaving those made of stone and earthenware unguarded, while locking up those made of silver and gold at night and setting guards over them by day to prevent them from being stolen? As for the honors you think you offer them, if they can perceive them, you actually punish them by these honors; but if they cannot perceive them, you reproach them by trying to appease them with the blood and fat of sacrificial victims. Let one of you undergo this treatment; let him submit to having these things done to him. No, not even a single person would willingly submit to such punishment, because he has feeling and reason. But a stone submits because it has no feeling. Therefore you convict its sensibility. Well, I could say much more about the Christians not being enslaved to gods such as these. But if anyone considers what has been said insufficient, I think it unnecessary to say more.