It's been awhile since I've written about the Epistle to Diognetus (notes to §3). For the unaware, I consider the Epistle to Diognetus as "blog fodder". This means when the typical fount of ricobloggian blather is running dry, I turn to Diognetus to keep the exercise of writing up. This means that tonight I'm writing on EpDiog 4.

As mentioned in the notes on §3, EpDiog 3 and EpDiog 4 are written to Diognetus (a Greek pagan) to convince him that Christianity is superior to Judaism.

Actually, to me, it sounds more like EpDiog 4 is written against Judaizers and perhaps not necessarily Jews. The same sorts of things the author chastizes the Jews over are strikingly similar to the sorts of things Paul mentions in some of his epistles regarding Judaizers:

The conclusion of the author to Diognetus is much the same as Paul's conclusion.

Is the author confusing Judaizers with Jews? It's possible, but it is also very possible that the Judaizers were emphasizing the same things that Jews emphasized in worship in their synagogues. There is some similarity in the topics that the author emphasizes to Diognetus with what Paul highlighted in instruction to various churches dealing with similar issues.

The author's rhetoric against the Jews in the last verse (EpDiog 4.6) is a bit over the top. Considering his point made, the author bashes his target with one last flourish. Then he ends with this sentence (this is from Ehrman's translation): "But do not expect to be able to learn from any human the mystery of the Christian's own way of worship".

Huh? I lost the author here. I see four views of this sentence.

• View 1: He's lost it. If this is literally true, why is the author even taking time to write the letter?
• View 2: One word: Gnosticism. Think about it: Diognetus can't learn true Christian worship from "any human"?
• View 3: Another word: Rhetoric. Hey, guess what EpDiog 5 is about? And EpDiog 6? That, and it sounds pretty deep, and we all know that the Holy Spirit plays a role in this sort of thing.
• View 4: He's Calvinist, emphasizing the role of the Holy Spirit over the role of man in bringing people to Christ.

What do I think? Well, I think door #3 has some merit. I also know, however, that I only spent about five minutes thinking through this, so I could be wrong on all four counts.

Stay posted for when I hit EpDiog 5, which starts to get into my favorite stretch of chapters of this short epistle.