Chapter 1

Since I see, most excellent Diognetus, that you are exceedingly eager to learn about the religion of the Christians and are making very clear and careful inquiries about them—what God they trust in and how they worship him, so that they all disregard the world and despise death; why they neither recognize those regarded as gods by the Greeks nor observe the superstition of the Jews; what affection they have for one another; and why this new people or way of life has entered human life now and not before—I welcome this eagerness of yours. And I ask God, who grants us both speaking and hearing, that I may be enabled to speak in such a way that you may become better by hearing, and that you may hear in such a way that the speaker may not be disappointed.