MYSTERY REVEALED

5. Comparison with other interpreters. This is a comparison of “the tentative
interpretation derived from the four steps above with the work of other interpreters.” 25
Ad Diognetum has attracted the interest of many scholars, and it is a privilege to invite
many of them into the conversation on how to understand verses, sections and parts of
Ad Diognetum and the work as a whole. Even more important is to be able to compare
the interpretative results with scholars contemporary with the unknown author of Ad
Diognetum. These scholars and interpreters of the Christian faith during the second 26
century were known as the apologists. Some of them were Aristides, Justin the Martyr,
Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch and Clement of Alexandria, and in chapter
two, I give an account of their main works rather extensively. The purpose is to
compare their apologies with Ad Diognetum. In this way, I will be able to point out
similarities and dissimilarities and better understand the uniqueness of Ad Diognetum
and its Revelational Theology. It is also of importance to get a broad picture of the
achievements of the apologists as a frame of reference for understanding Ad Diognetum.
6. Application. Virkler and Ayayo define application as the “step of translating the
meaning a biblical text had for its original hearers into the significance it has for
believers in a different time and culture.” 27 They are stressing the necessity of
significance. The interpretative task is not accomplished only by stating the intention of
the author or a reasonable interpretation of the text in the past. The text must be present
and generate significance. Virkler and Ayayo admit that a translation of this kind and
application are often excluded from hermeneutics.
Step 6 - transmission and application of the biblical message from one time an culture to
another - is not always considered to be an integral part of hermeneutics per se, but is
included in this text because of its obvious relevance for the twenty-first-century believer
so widely separated by both time and culture from the original recipients of Scripture. 28
This statement is as important as it is relevant. Modern hermeneutics can not only be
limited to the disciplines of isagogics and exegetics. It is much more than so. In this
Inquiry, I emphasize the importance of taking the text into our own time. In order to do
so, and fulfill this ultimate goal, I have included two principal parts. In the second part
of chapter one, I present a hermeneutic of signification and significance. As a
25 Ibid.
26 With most scholars I take for granted that Ad Diognetum was written during the second century.
(Lona, An Diognet, pp.65-66).
27 Virkler and Ayayo, Hermeneutics, p.80.
28 Ibid., p.81.
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