DIOGNETUS, LETTER TO

an early Christian apologetic work probably dating from the 2nd or 3rd century AD. It is often included with the works of the Apostolic Fathers, Greek Christian writers of the late 1st and early 2nd centuries, but it more accurately is associated with the early Apologists (primarily 1st century). Both the person addressed and the author of the work are unknown, although at one time the apologist Justin Martyr was erroneously considered the author. The work survived antiquity in one 13th14th-century manuscript, which was destroyed by fire in Strasbourg, Fr., in 1870. The first 10 chapters of the letter discuss pagan and Jewish religions, the life of a Christian as contrasted with the life of a non-Christian, and a review of the Christian faith as the unique revelation of God. The final two chapters, a sermon, were evidently written by a different author, also unknown.