What the pagans saw
How outsiders described the early Christians
We have been reading the story mostly from the inside. But we have some remarkable glimpses of the early church from outside — from people who had no stake in making Christians look good.
Pliny the Younger, as we saw, describes people who meet before dawn to sing and make promises to live honestly. He is puzzled and a little impressed.
The philosopher Celsus, writing a sustained attack on Christianity around 178 AD, complains that Christians recruit among the worst elements of society — the uneducated, women, slaves, children. They prefer the company of the disreputable. A person who says they are a great sinner is more welcome among them than a person who claims virtue. It is an accusation. It is also, accidentally, a description of grace.
Galen, the greatest physician of the ancient world, writes with some admiration that the Christians achieve through instruction what philosophers only manage through elaborate argument: they produce people who actually live according to their principles.
A second-century document called the Letter to Diognetus — author unknown, audience unknown — contains the most beautiful outside description of the early church in existence. Christians, it says, live in their own countries but as foreigners. They share in everything as citizens and endure everything as strangers. Every foreign land is their home and every home a foreign land. They love all men and are persecuted by all.
They love all men and are persecuted by all.
Someone was watching. Someone noticed. Someone wrote it down.
“Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind by country, or by speech, or by dress. But while living in Greek and barbarian cities, as each one's lot was cast, and following the local customs, they display a wonderful and openly paradoxical way of living.”
— Letter to Diognetus, c. 2nd century
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill can't be hid. Neither do you light a lamp, and put it under a bushel basket, but on a stand; and it shines to all who are in the house. Even so, let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
The early church was not impressive by the world's standards. No buildings, no power, no credentials, no significant wealth. What they had was a visible difference in the way they lived — a coherence between what they believed and how they behaved that their neighbors could see and describe, even when those neighbors were hostile.
Celsus meant his description as an insult. He was right about the facts: they did prefer sinners. They were more comfortable with failure than with performance. They did recruit among the disreputable.
Jesus started it. They were continuing it.
If someone who was not a Christian were to observe your community this week — without being told what to think about it — what would they write down?