Sophia Scriptura

To Diognetus 8.2

Anonymous · To Diognetus · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · place unknown · Read in context

Traditional ascription rejected: The author is unknown. The only manuscript (destroyed in 1870) placed it among works of Justin Martyr, but the style is not Justin's. The name “Mathetes” sometimes used for the author comes from “a disciple of apostles” in 11.1. Chapters 11–12 probably come from a different work.

Summary: The philosophers' ideas of God are empty.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:366

ἢ τοὺς κενοὺς καὶ ληρώδεις ἐκείνων λόγους ἀποδέχῃ τῶν ἀξιοπίστων φιλοσόφων, ὧν οἱ μέν τινες πῦρ ἔφασαν εἶναι τὸν θεὸν ʽοὗ μέλλουσι χωρήσειν αὐτοί, τοῦτο καλοῦσι θεόνʼ, οἱ δὲ ὕδωρ, οἱ δʼ ἄλλο τι τῶν στοιχείων τῶν ἐκτισμένων ὑπὸ θεοῦ;

English · Claude translation

Or do you accept the empty and nonsensical words of those trustworthy philosophers, some of whom said that God is fire (they call God that to which they themselves are going to go), others water, others some other of the elements created by God?

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 25:366 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2, LCL 25 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1913), 350–379 · Greek text: K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (LCL, 1912-1913), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and published by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Lake, LCL 25. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Lake (LCL 25, 1913); made independently of existing English translations.
Compare
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Notes

Translation notes

  • The author mocks philosophers who identified God with an element: the Stoics with fire (“to which they are going”: they believed the world would end in fire), Thales with water.

Cite this passage

Diogn. 8.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/diognetus/8/2/).

Plain text
Diogn. 8.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/diognetus/8/2/).

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