(no subject)
1. From the Letter to Diognetus (apology by an unknown author of the 2nd C.).
They are men like others "Christians are not different because of their country or the language they speak or the way they dress. They do not isolate themselves in their cities nor use a private language; even the life they lead has nothing strange.
Their doctrine does not originate from the elaborate disquisitions of intellectuals, nor do they follow, as many do, philosophical systems which are the fruit of human thinking. They live in Greek or in barbarian (foreign) cities, as the case may be, and adapt themselves to local traditions in dress, food and all usage. Yet they testify to a way which, in the opinion of the many, has something extraordinary about it".
They dwell on earth, but are citizens of heaven "They live in their own countries and are strangers. They loyally fulfil their duties as citizens, but are treated as foreigners. Every foreign land is for them a fatherland and every fatherland, foreign.
They marry like everyone, they have children, but they do not abandon their new-born. They have the table in common, but not the bed. They are in the flesh, but do not live according to the flesh (2 Cor 10,3; Rom 8, 12-15). They dwell on earth, but are citizens of heaven.
They obey the laws of the state, but in their lives they go beyond the law. They love everyone, yet are persecuted by everyone. No one really knows them, but all condemn them. They are killed, but go on living. They are poor, but enrich many (2 Cor 6,9-10). They have nothing, but abound in everything. but in that contempt they find glory before God. Their honour is insulted, while their justice is acknowledged.
When they are cursed, they bless. When they are insulted, they answer with kind words
(1 Cor 4,12-13). They do good to others and are punished like evil-doers. When they are punished, they rejoice, as if they were given life. The Jews make war against them as if they were a foreign race. The Greek persecute them, but those who hate them , cannot tell the reason for their hatred".
They are in the world as the soul is in the body
"In the way the Christians are in the world, so the soul is in the body. As the soul is diffused in all parts of the body, so Christians are spread in the various cities of the earth. The soul lives in the body, but is not of the body; so Christians live in the world, but are not of the world. As the invisible soul is imprisoned in a visible body, so Christians are a reality quite visible in the world, while the spiritual worship they give to God is invisible.
As the flesh hates the spirit and fights against it, though not receiving any offence from it, but only because the spirit hinders it in its savouring of harmful joys and pleasures; so the world hates the Christians who have done it no harm, merely because they oppose a way of life based on mere pleasure.
As the soul loves the body and its limbs, which hate it in return, thus Christians love those who hate them. The soul, though it sustains the body, is enclosed in it. So Christians, though they are a support to the world, are confined in the world as a prison. The immortal soul lives in a mortal tent, so Christians live like strangers among corruptible things, awaiting the incorruptibility of heaven.
By mortifying itself in food and drink, the soul is refined and strengthened; so Christians, maltreated and persecuted, grow in number every day. God has assigned them such a high state that they are never to abandon it" (Sources Chrétiennes 33 bis, 62-67).
It's long but I thought it was interesting.