Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

318 THE THIRD AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.seven full generations have passed since the day ofPentecost. In this time a people has been formed.Already a hundred and fifty years before an eyewitnessamong themselves had observed the natureof this people. " Christians are not distinguishedfrom other men either by country, or bylanguage, or by customs: for they have no citiespeculiar to themselves, nor any language differentfrom others, nor singularity in their mode of life..... But they dwell both in Greek and in barbarouscities, as the lot of each may be, followinglocal customs as to raiment and food, and the restof their life, but exhibiting withal a polity of theirown, marvellous and truly incredible. They dwellin their own country, but it is as sojourners; theyshare in everything as citizens, yet suffer everything as strangers. Every foreign land is to thema country, and every country a foreign land. . . .In a word, what the soul is in the body, that Christiansare in the world. The soul is diffused throughall the limbs of the body, and Christians throughall the cities of the world. . . . The soul is shutwithin the body, of which it' is the bond, andChristians are like a garrison in the world, whichthey hold together."5Here a writer, calling himself a disciple ofApostles, describes to us, at the beginning of thesecond century, what the apostolic age of seventyyears had wrought. He puts his finger just upon6 Ep. ad Diognetmi, 5, G.