To Diognetus 3.5 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Sacrifices to God are no better than offerings to idols.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:356

οἱ δέ γε θυσίας αὐτῷ διʼ αἵματος καὶ κνίσης καὶ ὁλοκαυτωμάτων ἐπιτελεῖν οἰόμενοι καὶ ταύταις ταῖς τιμαῖς αὐτὸν γεραίρειν, οὐδέν μοι δοκοῦσι διαφέρειν τῶν εἰς τὰ κωφὰ τὴν αὐτὴν ἐνδεικνυμένων φιλοτιμίαν· τῶν μὲν μὴ δυναμένοις τῆς τιμῆς μεταλαμβάνειν, τῶν δὲ δοκούντων παρέχειν τῷ μηδενὸς προσδεομένῳ.

English · Claude translation

But those who think they perform sacrifices to him with blood and the smoke of fat and burnt offerings, and honor him with these honors, seem to me to differ in no way from those who show the same zeal toward deaf things: the one to things unable to share in the honor, the other thinking to offer to him who needs nothing.

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Source

Lake, LCL 25:356 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2, LCL 25 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1913), 350–379 · Greek text: K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (LCL, 1912-1913), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and published by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Lake (LCL 25, 1913); made independently of existing English translations.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 25:356

English · Claude translation

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