The Epistle to Diogentus
Pseudo-Justinus Martyr
The Epistle to Diogentus. The Apostolic Fathers with an English translation by Kirsopp Lake. In Two Volumes. Vol. II. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1913
The soul dwells immortal in a mortal tabernacle, and Christians sojourn among corruptible things, waiting for the incorruptibility which is in heaven.
The soul when evil treated in food and drink becomes better, and Christians when buffeted day by day increase more.
10. God has appointed them to so great a post[*]( There is probably a recurrence of the idea of the church as the militia dei (cf. note on Hermas, Sim. v. i. 1).) and it is not right for them to decline it.
For it is not, as I said, an earthly discovery[*](The Christian revelation) which was given to them, nor do they take such pains to guard some mortal invention, nor have they been entrusted with the dispensation of human mysteries.
But in truth the Almighty and all-creating and invisible God himself founded among
men the truth from heaven, and the holy and incomprehensible word, and established it in their hearts, not, as one might suppose, by sending some minister to men, or an angel, or ruler, or one of those who direct earthly things, or one of those who are entrusted with the dispensations in heaven, but the very artificer and Creator of the universe himself, by whom he made the heavens, by whom he enclosed the sea in its own bounds, whose mysteries all the elements guard faithfully; from whom the sun received the measure of the courses of the day, to whose command the moon is obedient to give light by night, whom the stars obey, following the course of the moon, by whom all things were ordered, and ordained, and placed in subjection, the heavens and the things in the heavens, the earth and the things in the earth, the sea and the things in the sea, fire, air, abyss, the things in the heights, the things in the depths, the things between them—him he sent to them.Yes, but did he send him, as a man might suppose, in sovereignty and fear and terror?