Most excellent Diognetus: I can see that you deeply desire to learn how Christians worship their God. You have so carefully and earnestly asked your questions about them: What is it about the God they believe in, and the form of religion they observe, that lets them look down upon the world and despise death? Why do they reject the Greek gods and the Jewish superstitions alike? What about the affection they all have for each other? And why has this new group and their practices come to life only now, and not long ago?
I cordially welcome this desire of yours, and I implore God, who enables us both to speak and to hear, to grant to me so to speak, that, above all, I may hear you have been edified, and to you so to hear, that I who speak may have no cause of regret for having done so.