Abstract

AbstractWhile recent scholarship on the Epistle to Diognetus has focused on its rhetoric, little attention has been given to its reliance on the Akedah tradition (Genesis 22). This study investigates how the epistle appropriates the "Son-giving formula"—a Christological motif cluster rooted in Romans 8:32 and John 3:16–17—as a governing theological script. Employing an intertextual framework based on Richard Hays’s concept of metalepsis, the paper argues that the epistle does not merely repeat New Testament language but creatively redeploys its underlying Jewish sacrificial logic.A close analysis of Diognetus 7–10 reveals a dynamic theological progression mirroring the Akedah’s themes of divine initiative and beloved sonship. First, Diognetus 7:4–5 reframes the "sending" of the Son not as coercion (bia) but as persuasion (peitho). Second, Diognetus 9:2 intensifies the substitutionary logic of the Akedah into the "Sweet Exchange," presenting the Son as a ransom. Finally, Diognetus 10:2 transforms this soteriology into an ethical imperative, calling believers to imitate God’s self-giving nature. Consequently, this study demonstrates that the Akedah served as a living paradigm for the early church, bridging the gap between apostolic confession and second-century apologetics. The Epistle to Diognetus thus stands as a testament to a "creative fidelity," retaining the soteriological logic of the New Testament while expressing it through a refined idiom of love and ransom.