the letter of Aristides to Hadrian Caesar, explaining the Christian religion

“But Christians… show kindness to those near them; and whenever they are judges, they judge uprightly… they do good to their enemies… if one of them have bondsmen and bondswomen or children, through love towards them they persuade them to become Christians, and when they have done so, they call them brethren without distinction. They do not worship strange gods, and they go their way in all modesty and cheerfulness. Falsehood is not found among them; and they love one another… And he who has, gives to him who has not, without boasting. And when they see a stranger, they take him in to their own homes and rejoice over him as a very brother… And if they hear that one of their number is imprisoned or afflicted on account of the name of their Messiah, all of them anxiously minister to his necessity… And if there is any among them that is poor and needy, and they have no spare food, they fast two or three days in order to supply to the needy their lack of food… Such, O King… is their manner of life… And verily, this is a new people, and there is something divine in the midst of them.”