Jews had survived opposition for over a thousand years and, in spite of that opposition, had spread throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. Rome respected Judaism because the religion was ancient and enduring. In the end, Rome’s religion was Rome itself. Most religions of this kind, especially Christianity, were considered by definition anti-Roman. It had the most trouble with the religions that demanded exclusive commitment to one God and to one way of life. It exhibited an amazing capacity to absorb new religions into its pantheon, assuming that adherents, whatever they believed and however they lived, would be subservient to Rome and swear allegiance to the divine status of the emperor. Rome was tolerant, pluralistic, and syncretistic. Worship was supposed to bring benefits, especially to the empire. Their religion was based on ritual observance more than doctrinal belief and ethical behavior. Romans honored the gods and goddesses, and they expected those gods and goddesses to respond in kind. Rome’s religious system was largely transactional. They observed these and other rituals largely to secure Rome’s prosperity, and their own as well. Above all, they swore allegiance to the emperor as a god. People worshiped and sacrificed to the gods they visited temples, shrines, and monuments they participated in pagan feasts and festivals they kept and cared for household deities at the family altar they experimented with and sometimes joined mystery cults. Public officials were responsible for managing the religious affairs of a community, including maintenance of temples and performance of various rituals. The first, as Diognetus would have known, was the Roman way, which organized life around Greco-Roman civil religion and was the most ubiquitous and popular of the three.Ĭivic life and religious life were virtually inseparable in the Roman world. Of course a third way implies a first and second way. “You must become like a new man from the beginning, since, as you yourself admit, you are going to listen to a really new message.” THE FIRST WAY
He exhorted him to clear out his old thoughts about religion. The author warned Diognetus that he was going to be surprised by what he learned. The early Christian movement was anything but that.ĭiognetus was familiar with the phrase, implying that it might have been coined by the Romans themselves to categorize three distinct and different religious ways of life: Roman, Jewish, and Christian. I have chosen to use “Third Way” for two reasons: first, because it strikes me as less charged than “race” or “clan” or “tribe” and second, because early on, Christians were known as followers of “the way.” This translation fits well enough, but only if we understand it as conveying a larger meaning than merely following a new and trendy way of life that is here today and gone tomorrow. The Christian movement was forming a new community of people who claimed to believe in a new kind of God and to follow a new way of life. It could be rendered “race,” “tribe,” “clan,” “stock,” “family,” “life,” or even “people.” It implied a deep kinship connection, a sense of belonging to a people and, as a people, living in a distinct way, which Diognetus and other Roman officials had observed to be true of Christians. The Greek word the author uses- genos-Is difficult to translate. He then referred to the Christian movement as a “new race” or “third race,” which I have chosen to identify as the Third Way. He commended Diognetus’s curiosity and assured him that he would do his best to answer his questions about Christianity. The author-we don’t know his name or identity-wanted to describe the peculiar nature of Christianity to a member of the Roman elite. To my knowledge it first appeared in a second-century letter written to a Roman official, a certain Diognetus. The phrase comes from the early Christian period.
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