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

For God the Master and Creator of the universe, who made all things and arranged them in order was not only kind to man, but also long-suffering.

Nay, he was ever so and is and will be, kindly and good and free from wrath and true, and he alone is good.

And having formed a great and unspeakable design he communicated it to his Child alone.

And so long as he kept it in a mystery and guarded his wise counsel, he seemed to neglect us and to be careless;

but

when he revealed it through his beloved Child, and manifested the things prepared from the beginning, he gave us all things at once, both to share in his benefits and to see and understand, and which of us would ever have expected these things?

Having thus planned everything by himself[*](The plan of Salvation) with his Child he suffered us up to the former time to be borne along by unruly impulses as we willed, carried away by pleasures and lust. Not at all because he delighted in our sins, but in forbearance; not in approval of the time of iniquity which was then, but fashioning the time of righteousness which is now, that we, who at that time were proved by our own deeds to be unworthy of life, may now be granted it by the goodness of God, and that when we had made it plain that it was impossible for us by ourselves to enter into the kingdom of God, we might be made able by the power of God.