Church as institution or walking with Christ’s resurrection life in us
Dear congregation,
Recently I found an article which is from the second century where a wise man writes about the Christians to the King. This was the time just after Acts and before Constantine made it a world religion. I think it is important that this also be read because we as born-again Christians have nothing to do with hatred of people. His own love is poured out in our hearts Rom. 5:5.
Many blessings Johan.
The Apology of Aristides
In 1889, J. Rendel Harris found the complete Syriac text of the apology of Aristides from Athens. Aristides is counted among the early Christian apologists (Handbook of Church History Volume I). A certain Quadratus made his plea for the Christians to the emperor Hadrian.
The text
Now the Christians, O King by going about and seeking have found the truth. For they know and trust in God, the Maker of heaven and earth who has no fellow. From Him they received those commandments which they engraved on their minds, and which they observe in the hope and expectation of the world to come.
For this reason they do not commit adultery or immorality, they do not bear false witness or embezzle , nor do they covet what is not theirs. They honor their father and mother and do good to those who are their neighbors. Whenever they are judged, they judge uprightly. They do not worship idols made in the image of man.
Whatever they do not wish that others should do to them, they in turn do not do; and they do not eat the food sacrificed to idols. Those who oppress them the exhort and make them their friends. They do good to their enemies. Their wives O King are pure as virgins and their daughters are modest.
Their men abstain from all un lawful sexual contact and from impurity in the hope of recompense that is to come in another world. As for their bondmen and bondwomen and their children of there are any they persuade them to become Christians and when they have done so they call them brethren without distinction. They refuse to worship strange gods and they go their way in all humility and cheerfulness Falsehood is not found among them.
They love one another; the widows needs are not ignored and they rescue the orphan from the person who does hum violence. He who has given to him who has not, ungrudgingly and without boasting. When the Christians find a stranger, they bring him to their homes and rejoice over him as a truw brother. They do not call brothers those who are bound by blood ties alone, but rthose who are brethren after the Spirit and in God.
When one of their poor passes away from the world each provides for his burial according to his ability. If they hear of any of their number who are imprisoned or oppressed for the name of the Messiah they all provide for his needs, and if it is possible to redeem him, they set him free. If they find poverty in their midst, and they do not have spare food, they fast two or three days in order that the needy might be supplied with the necessities.
They observe scrupulously the commandments of their Messiah, living honestly and soberly as the Lord their God ordered them. Every morning and every hour they praise and thank God for His goodness to them ; and for their food and drink they offer thanksgiving. If any righteous person of their number passes away from the world, they rejoice and thank God and escort his body as if he were setting out from one place to another nearby.
When a child is born to one of them, they praise God. If it dies in infancy they thank God the more, as for one who has passed through this world, without sins. But if one of them dies in his iniquity or in his sins, they grieve bitterly and sorrow as over one who is about to meet his doom. Such, o King is the commandment given to the Christians and such is their conduct.
The apology of Aristides , translated by Rendel Harris in London Cambridge, 1893.
