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In Diognetus, the claims of the philosophers are set aside because no one has ever seen God, who had to reveal himself, echoing the opening of John 1, where no one has ever seen God and the only Son is the one who has made him known.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
John 1:18
New Testament
14 Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory—the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father. 15 John testified about him and shouted out, “This one was the one about whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is greater than I am, because he existed before me.’” 16 For we have all received from his fullness one gracious gift after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came about through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known.
Epistle to Diognetus 8:5
Early Christian
1 For what man at all had any knowledge what God was, before He came? 2 Or do you accept the empty and nonsensical statements of those pretentious philosophers: of whom some said that God was fire (they call that God, to which they themselves shall go), and others water, and others some other of the elements which were created by God? 3 And yet if any of these statements is worthy of acceptance, any one other created thing might just as well be made out to be God. 4 No, all this is the quackery and deceit of the magicians; 5 and no man has either seen or recognized Him, but He revealed Himself. 6 And He revealed (Himself) by faith, by which alone it is given to see God.
Date: 150-250 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... In Ad Diognetum 8. 5 the speaker declares, ‘No one has either seen or recognized him (ἀνθρώπων δὲ οὐδεὶς οὔτε [εἶδεν] οὔτε ἐγνώρισεν), but he has revealed himself’; in John 1: 18 the Johannine author declares, ‘No one has ever seen God (θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε); the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known’, and John 8: 55; 5: 37 testify that Jesus’ opponents have not heard God’s voice, seen his form, or known him. ...”
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