Forget the Dale Carnegie course. Here's how to win skeptical friends and influence pagans. Read the second-century Letter to Diognetus. The author's name is lost to history, but his warm, winsome overture still stands as a model of apologetics — the art of explaining and defending the faith. The Letter is often counted as the last of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers — or the first of the writings of the second-century Apologists. No matter how you shelve it, it's good reading, praised by saints and popes for centuries.
Links
Free online text of The Epistle to Diognetus https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/fathers/view.cfm?recnum=1620
Free audiobook of The Epistle to Diognetus https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/letter-to-diognetus/
An excellent study of apologetics https://www.amazon.com/History-Apologetics-Robert-Cardinal-Dulles/dp/0898709334/
More works by the Fathers https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/fathers/
Mike Aquilina’s website https://fathersofthechurch.com
Donate today! https://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio
Theme music: Gaudeamus (Introit for the Feast of All Saints), sung by Jeff Ostrowski. Courtesy of http://www.ccwatershed.org.
The Gentle Intervention: Frontline Church Discipline
Liturgy and Love: Revolutionary Acts
The First Social-Justice Struggle
2.8 Picture This: Iconoclasm and Second Nicaea
2.7 Third Constantinople: Where There's a Will, There's Two
2.6 Second Constantinople: The Emperor and the Waffling Pope
2.5 Chalcedon: Firm Foundation for the Doctrine of Christ
2.4 Ephesus: The Mother of All Controversies
2.3 First Constantinople: A Capital Council
2.2 The Council of Nicaea: First and Foremost
2.1 Where Councils Come From: An Introduction
Martyrdom and the Mass
Through Hymns, With Hymns, In Hymns: The Fathers & Music
Apocrypha Now! On the Myth of the Lost Gospels
The Paradoxical Prestige of the Deacon in the Early Church
Catena — The Chain That Set Scripture Free
How Clericalism Happened: A Tale of Theodosius
The Healing Imperative: How Christians Invented the Hospital
Women and Children First: Reconfiguring the Roman Family
56—John of Damascus: Last Witness to a Lost World
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