Texts in Conversation
In Diognetus, an outsider is told that God loved humanity and sent them his only begotten Son, echoing the language of John 3, where God loves the world and gives his one and only Son so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
John 3:16
New Testament
14 Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” 16 For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. 18 The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.
Epistle to Diognetus 10:2
Early Christian
1 If you also desire this faith, first grasp full knowledge of the Father. 2 For God loved men for whose sake He made the world, to whom He subjected all things that are in the earth, to whom He gave reason and mind, whom alone He permitted to look up to heaven, whom He created after His own image, to whom He sent His only begotten Son, to whom He promised the kingdom which is in heaven, and will give it to those that have loved Him. 3 And when you have attained to this full knowledge, with what joy do you think that you will be filled, or how will you love Him that so loved you before?
Date: 150-250 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... The author of Ad Diognetum speaks of God sending his Son, and ‘when he sent him, he did so as one loving, not judging (ἔπεμψεν ὡς ἀγαπῶν, οὐ κρίνων)’ (7. 5), and later says, ‘For God loved (ἠγάπησε) men . . . to them he sent his one and only Son (πρὸς οὓς ἀπέστειλε τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ)’ (10. 2). The conception and the language seem to be indebted to John 3: 16–17, ‘For God so loved (ἠγάπησεν) the world that he gave his only Son (τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ) . . . For God sent (ἀπέστειλεν) the Son into the world, not to condemn (οὐ . . . ἵνα κρίνῃ) the world, but that the world might be saved through him’ (cf. John 12: 47; 1 John 4: 9). ...”
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