Aliens and Sojourners: Self as Other in Early Christianity

3. Outsiders by Virtue of Outdoing: The Epistle to Diognetus

Chapter Three Outsiders by Virtue of Outdoing: The Epistle to Diognetus In the second century, the designation of the Christian as alien and sojourner remained a useful (and indeed prevalent) category for forging and negotiating identity. Scholarship on the topos has tended to treat second-century materials primarily in terms of their relationship to the earlier canonical sources (1 Peter, Hebrews).1 But Christians in the second century had their own reasons for turning to the alien topos, reasons not primarily (or at least not entirely) determined by earlier texts. Rather, the alien topos proved helpful for these Christians in advancing their own projects of identity formation, bound up as they were in particular interests and paraenetic needs. We see evidence of one such project in the Epistle to Diognetus. This is a text that—like Hebrews—puts the trope of alien status to work in order to situate Christian identity very much within the Roman social order. But it also inflects the topos in a particular way, deploying it as part of a larger argument in order to resist explicitly a certain (Roman) construction of that social order and way of thinking about Christians’ place within it. The Epistle to Diognetus is an anonymous apologetic treatise of the later second century preserved in a single thirteenth- or fourteenth-century manuscript (Codex Argentoratensis Graecus 9).2 The codex was housed in Strassburg until it was destroyed by fire in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. Multiple transcriptions of the text made prior to the manuscript ’s destruction mean that Diognetus is still extant today (albeit with some textual problems).3 Most scholars agree that the text is composite, with chapters 11–12 being a secondary addition.4 The text is written in excellent Greek, characterized by Bart Ehrman as “one of the true literary gems of early Christianity.”5 Although labeled an epistle, Diognetus is not in fact a letter but rather a logos protreptikos or “speech of exhortation ,” defined by Helmut Koester as “a literary genre designed as an invitation to a philosophical way of life, directed to all those who were willing to engage in the search for true philosophy and make it the rule for their conduct of life.”6 Thus its paraenetic passages are not overtly directed Outsiders by Virtue of Outdoing: Epistle to Diognetus 65 to Christian insiders (in contrast to what we have seen in 1 Peter and Hebrews). Indeed the text makes extensive use of the third person in its portrayal of Christian life and identity, as well as in its polemics against Jews and Greeks/non-Christians. In fact, chapters 5 and 6 of Diognetus (the relevant portions of the text for study of the alien topos) are written entirely in the third person. Nevertheless, Diognetus’s third person rehearsal of Christian identity still has direct implications for how early Christians thought about themselves . As David Aune argues, “it is probable that both apologetic and protreptic literature played an important internal role in providing selfdefinition for the group within which it arose.”7 Making a similar point, Robert Grant contends that “an apologist’s efforts are likely to produce significant changes in the way the minority [group] looks at itself. As he tries to present its ideas as persuasively as possible, the persuasion is likely to convert the converted and modify their ideas at least in form.”8 While this analysis of Diognetus 5–6 hopes to show that the rhetorical dynamics at play are significantly more complex than simply “converting the converted,” the basic point that both Aune and Grant make remains apposite: even though not addressed to Christians directly, the text’s use of the alien topos has important implications for thinking about varieties of Christian identity in the second century. Turning now to the text itself, we see an extensive development of the Christian self as other in these two chapters: 5.1. For Christians are not distinguished from other people by means of country nor language nor customs. 2. For nowhere do they dwell in their own cities, nor use a peculiar language nor practice a peculiar way of life. 3. Indeed this teaching of theirs has not been discovered by any thought and reflection on the part of inquisitive people, nor do they engage in human doctrine, as some do. 4. But while dwelling in both Greek and barbarian cities, as each one’s lot is cast, and adhering to the local customs in both dress and...