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John

About this book
Chapter 15

1 “I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. 2 He takes away every branch that does not bear fruit in me. He prunes every branch that bears fruit so that it will bear more fruit. 3 You are clean already because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me—and I in him—bears much fruit because apart from me you can accomplish nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown out like a branch and dries up; and such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire and are burned up.⁠ 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is honored by this, that you bear much fruit and show that you are my disciples. 9 “Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you; remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. 11 I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete. 12 My commandment is this—to love one another just as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this—that one lays down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I no longer call you slaves because the slave does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends because I have revealed to you everything I heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that remains, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. 17 This I command you—to love one another. 18 “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you do not belong to the world, but I chose you out of the world, for this reason the world hates you.⁠ 20 Remember what I told you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they obeyed my word, they will obey yours too. 21 But they will do all these things to you on account of my name because they do not know the one who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. But they no longer have any excuse for their sin. 23 The one who hates me hates my Father too. 24 If I had not performed among them the miraculous deeds that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen the deeds and have hated both me and my Father. 25 Now this happened to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without reason.’ 26 When the Advocate comes, whom I will send you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me, 27 and you also will testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

Texts in conversation

Compare John 15:19 and Epistle to Diognetus 6:5

New Testament · Early Christian

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Summary

In Diognetus, the world's hatred for Christians is compared to the flesh hating the soul. In John 15, Jesus says the world hates his followers because he chose them out of it, language that Diognetus may echo.

Passages

John 15:19

New Testament
18 “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you do not belong to the world, but I chose you out of the world, for this reason the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they obeyed my word, they will obey yours too. 21 But they will do all these things to you on account of my name because they do not know the one who sent me.
90–110 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in John

Epistle to Diognetus 6:5

Early Christian
5 The flesh hates the soul and wages war with it, though it receives no wrong, because it is forbidden to indulge in pleasures; so the world hates Christians, though it receives no wrong from them, because they set themselves against its pleasures. 6 The soul loves the flesh which hates it, and the members: so Christians love those that hate them. 7 The soul is enclosed in the body, and yet itself holds the body together; so Christians are kept in the world as in a prison-house, and yet they themselves hold the world together. 8 The soul though itself immortal dwells in a mortal tabernacle; so Christians sojourn among perishable things, while they look for the imperishability which is in the heavens.
150–250 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Epistle to Diognetus

References

“... The apologist for Christianity in Diogn. 6. 5 says, ‘The flesh hates the soul and wages war against it . . . also the world hates the Christians’; Jesus in John 15: 18–19 says, ‘If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.’ In his appropriation of the ‘typiquement johannique’ theme of the hatred of the world for Christians (see also 2. 6; 5. 11, 17) this author foreshadows the Epistle of Vienne and Lyons (HE 5. 1. 16). ...”
Charles E. Hill, The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 363.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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John 15:19 and Epistle to Diognetus 6:5

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