Non-Christian Living vs. Christian Living

LETTER TO DIOGNETUS

"Christians are not different from the rest of men in nationality, speech, or customs; . . . They live each in his native land---but as though they were not really at home there. They share in all duties like citizens and suffer all hardships like strangers. Every foreign land is for them a fatherland and every fatherland a foreign land. They marry like the rest of men and beget children, but they do not abandon the babies that are born. They share a common board, but not a common bed. In the flesh as they are, they do not live according to the flesh. They dwell on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the laws that men make, but their lives are better thant he laws. They love all men, but are persecuted by all. They are unknown, and yet they are condemned. They are put to death, yet are more alive than ever. They are paupers, but they make may rich. They lack all things, and yet in all things they abound. They are dishonored, yet glory in their dishonor. They are maligned, and yet are vindicated. They are reviled, and yet they bless. They suffer insult, yet they pay respect. They do good, yet are punished with the wicked. When they are punished, they rejoice, as though they were getting more of life. In a word, what the soul is to the body, Christians are to the world."

ARISTIDES

"[Christians] have the commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself engraved on their hearts, and these they observe, looking for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. They commit neither adultery nor fornication; nor do they bear false witness, nor covet other men's goods: they honor father and mother, and love their nieghbors: they give right judgment. They do not unto others that which they would not have done unto themselves. They comfort such as wrong them, and make friends of them: they labor to do good to their enemies . . . They despise not the widow, and grieve not the orphan. He that has distributes liberally to him that does not have. If they see a stranger, they bring him under their roof, and rejoice over him, as it were their own brother: for they call themselves brethren, not after the flesh, but after the spirit."

MINUCIUS FELIX

"We, on the other hand, prove our modesty not by external appearance but by character; with a good heart we cling to the bond of one marriage; in our desire for offspring we have only one wife or none at all. The banquets we conduct are distinguished not only by their modesty, but also by their soberness. We do not indulge in sumptuous meals or produce good fellowship by drawn out wine bibbing, but hold in check our cheerful spirits by the sobriety of our manners. Chaste in conversation and even more chaste in body, very many enjoy the perpetual virginity of a body undefiled rather than boast of it. In short, the desire of incest is so far from our thoughts that some blush even at the idea of a chaste union."

TERTULLIAN

"Our tongues, our eyes, our ears have nothing to do with the madness of the circus, the shamelessness of the theater, the brutality of the arena, the vanity of the gymnasium."

"The practice of such a special love brands us in the eyes of some. 'See,' they say, 'how they love one another'; (for they hate one another), 'and how ready they are to die for each other.' (They themselves would be more ready to kill each other.)

LACTANTIUS

"Nor is it difficult to show why the worshippers of the gods cannot be good and just. For how shall they abstain from the shedding of blood who worship bloodthirsty deities, Mars and Bellona? Or how shall they spare their parents who worship Jupiter, who drove out his father? Or how shall they spare their own infants who worship Saturnus? How shall they uphold chastity who worship a goddess who is naked, and an adultress, and who prostitutes herself as it were among the gods? How shall they withhold themselves from plunder and frauds who are acquainted with the thefts of Mercurius, who teaches that to deceive is not the part of fraud, but of cleverness? How shall they restrain their lusts who worship Jupiter, Hercules, Liber, Apollo, and the others, whose adulteries and debaucheries with men and women are not only known to the learned, but are even set forth in the theatres, and made the subject of songs, so that they are notorious to all? Among these things is it possible fo rmen to be just, who, although they were naturally good, would be trained to injustice by the very gods themselves? For, that you may propitiate the gods whom you worship, there is need of those things with which you know that he is pleased and delighted. Thus it comes to pass that the god fashions the life of his worshippers according to the character of his own will, since the most religious worship is to imitate."

As quoted in The Teachings of the Church Fathers, John R. Willis, S.J., pp.38-42