ance by Christians of some of the very same socio-economic spheres that
Tertullian defines as arenas of full co-participation with pagans. At issue for
Judaizing Gentile Christians were likely meat, oil, and wine sold in pagan
shops. In light of Philip Harland’s work (chapter 2), one might also add that
some aspects of Christian belief and life may have limited, or were per-
ceived to limit, a Christian’s participation in benefaction of his or her city,
and that Tertullian seeks in his argument to gloss over this issue.
Such conflict is confirmed by the remainder of Apology42, in which Ter-
tullian admits to the accuracy of pagan claims that Christians do not par-
ticipate in a number of aspects of life in the ancient urban setting. Tertullian
manages the resulting resentment experienced by members of his com-
munity by showing that Christians economically compensate their non-
Christian neighbours in other ways.
A third example is the early second-century CEwork,Diognetus.^1 I
strongly sense that similar social conflicts lie behind the following pas-
sage:
The difference between Christians and the rest of mankind is not a mat-
ter of nationality, or language, or customs. Christians do not live apart
in separate cities of their own, speak any special dialect, nor practise
any eccentric way of life....They pass their lives in whatever township—
Greek or foreign—each man’s lot has determined; and they conform to
ordinary local usage in their clothing, diet, and other habits....Never-
theless, the organization of their community does exhibit some features
that are remarkable, and even surprising. For instance, though they are
residents at home in their own country, their behaviour is more like
transients; they take their full part as citizens, but they also submit to any-
thing and everything as if they were aliens. For them, any foreign coun-
try is a motherland, and any motherland is a foreign country (Diogn. 5).The author of Diognetusappears to be addressing pagan perceptions of
Christians as inappropriately non-participatory in, and self-distancing from,
a number of spheres of the ordinary social world. The apologist deals with
this perception by asserting that Christians have a kind of dual nature,
worldly and otherworldly, at one and the same time. Presumably, the author
ofDiognetushad confidence that this type of explanation would serve, at the
very least, his Christian readers’ need to justify and to appreciate their way
of mapping the social world and their place in its various spheres. Whether
he would have mollified the views of pagan critics is another matter.
104 PART I •RIVALRIES?
1 For Diognetusnot as an apology but as an example of logos protreptikos,see Steve Mason
(chapter 7).