The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity

by Robert L. Wilken

In the oft-cited passage from the Epistle to Diognetus, a second-century writing, it is said that Christians are distinguished from others neither by nationality (Egyptians or Scythians, for example), nor by language (such as Aramaic or Coptic), nor by customs. They call no country home, they do not live in their own cities, and they observe the mores of the people among whom they live. They are known to honor Christ as God, they shun the gods and goddesses of Greece and Rome, and they gather weekly for a ritual meal. Yet, there is little else that set them apart. When they worship they use the language of the city in which they dwell, they have no temples, in fact no buildings of any kind, nor a religious calendar. During the first two centuries Christianity as a body was largely invisible.