Jim wrote:
> Women who wear gold ornaments are evidently afraid that without their
> ornaments or stripped of their jewelry they might be taken for slaves.
> True nobility, however, is found in the beauty and substance of the
> soul. It does not recognize the slave by the price he fetches at a
> sale but by his unfree spirit. For us, what corresponds to freedom is
> not a mere semblance, but a being free because God, who even accepted
> us to be his children, is our educator. Therefore we must attain the
> highest degree of freedom in the way we bear ourselves at rest or in
> motion, in the way we walk and dress: in a word, in every part of
> life.
>
> Clement of Alexandria, The Tutor III.11.59.
>
> Bruderhof wrote:
>
>> Must it not be entirely wrong to accept as good one part of what God
>> has created for men’s use, but to reject another part as useless and
>> superfluous?
>>
>> Letter to Diognetus 4.
>>
>
>
Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of humankind by country,
speech, or customs. They do not live in cities of their own; they do not
speak a special language; they do not follow a peculiar manner of life.
Their teaching was not invented by the ingenuity or speculation of men,
nor do they advocate mere book learning, as other groups do. They live in
Greek cities and they live in non-Greek cities according to the lot of
each one. They conform to the customs of their country in dress, food,
and the general mode of life, and yet they show a remarkable, an
admittedly extraordinary structure of their own life together. They live
in their own countries, but only as guests and aliens. They take part in
everything as citizens and endure everything as aliens. Every foreign
country is their homeland, and every homeland is a foreign country to
them. They marry like everyone else. They beget children, but they do not
expose them after they are born. They have a common table, but no common
bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live according to the flesh.
They live on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the
established laws, but through their way of life they surpass these laws.
They love all people and are persecuted by all. Nobody knows them, and
yet they are condemned. They are put to death, and just through this they
are brought to life. They are as poor as beggars, and yet they make many
rich. They lack everything, and yet they have everything in abundance.
They are dishonored, and yet have their glory in this very dishonor. They
are insulted, and just in this they are vindicated. They are abused, and
yet they bless. They are assaulted, and yet it is they who show respect.
Doing good, they are sentenced like evildoers. When punished with death,
they rejoice in the certainty of being awakened to life. Jews attack them
as people of another race, and Greeks persecute them, yet those who hate
them cannot give any reason to justify their hostility.
In a word: what the soul is in the body, the Christians are in the world.
As the soul is present in all the members of the body, so Christians are
present in all the cities of the world. As the soul lives in the body,
yet does not have its origin in the body, so the Christians live in the
world yet are not of the world. Invisible, the soul is enclosed by the
visible body: in the same way the Christians are known to be in the
world, but their religion remains invisible. Even though the flesh
suffers no wrong from the soul, it hates the soul and fights against it
because it is hindered by the soul from following its lusts; so too the
world, though suffering no wrong from the Christians, hates them because
they oppose its lusts. The soul loves the flesh, but the flesh hates the
soul; as the soul loves the members of the body, so the Christians love
those who hate them. The soul is enclosed in the body, yet it holds the
body together; the Christians are kept prisoners in the world, as it
were, yet they are the very ones who hold the world together. Immortal,
the soul lives in a mortal house; so too the Christians live in a
corruptible existence as strangers and look forward to incorruptible life
in heaven. When the body is poorly provided with food and drink, the soul
gains strength. In the same way the number of Christians increases day by
day when they are punished with death. Such is the important task God has
entrusted to the Christians and they must not shirk it.
Letter to Diognetus 5, 6 (end of second century).
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