How Rome Described Christian Worship in 112 AD

One of the earliest descriptions of Christian worship outside the Bible doesn't come from a believer at all, but from a hostile Roman governor. Around the year 112, Pliny the Younger wrote to the emperor about what Christians did when they gathered, and his report gives us a rare glimpse into the early church. Before we unpack his description of worship, it helps to know who Pliny and Trajan were. Pliny the Younger was a governor of a region in the Roman Empire in northern Turkey, the same area where Nicaea would host the first ecumenical council 200 years later. He was a prolific writer and hundreds of his letters have survived to this day. One of them written to the emperor Trajan, who reigned from the year 98 to 117 AD, describes how he dealt with Christians in his province. What makes this letter so valuable is that it comes very early in church history, written by an unbelieving persecutor of Christians, so it's not marked by bias in their favor. Instead, it gives us an outsider's view of how the church worshipped. Here's how Pliny summarized what he discovered through interrogating Christians. Not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food, but ordinary and innocent food. From this short letter we learn six important things about early Christian worship. The first is that Christians gathered on a fixed day. Pliny doesn't tell us which, but other sources from that period indicate it was Sunday, the Lord's Day, and they met before daylight sometime between 3 and 6 AM during the Roman fourth watch. Second is they sang hymns, and the Oxford translation says that this was done antiphonally, a call-and-response style with one group singing a line and another group answering. Third is that Pliny noted that they sang to Christ as to a god. As a polytheistic Roman, he didn't write like a monotheist, so he phrased it as a god. But even so, he recognized that believers worship Christ as divine, not a mere man. Jesus is God. This makes his testimony very early evidence for the church's belief in the deity of Christ. The fourth is that Christians bound themselves by oath to live by God's law. This wasn't merely an internal conviction of conscience, but a formal pledge to avoid fraud, theft, adultery, lying, and other sins. We keep the Ten Commandments. Fifth, after the liturgy ended, they departed but later returned to eat a common meal. This likely connects to the love feast Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 11. Sixth, in another part of this letter, Pliny writes, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. This confirms that women served in this role very early in church history, though most scholars see it as a service role rather than a former ecclesiastical office. Pliny meant to accuse, but his words became a witness. Without intending to, he left behind one of the earliest non-Christian accounts of Christian worship. It shows us that even in the early 100s AD, believers gathered faithfully, sang to Christ as God, lived by his law, and shared life together. What Rome tried to suppress only gave us a stronger record of the faith. If you want to learn more about what Christianity looked like in the years right around Pliny's letter, I recommend Christianity at the Crossroads, How the Second Century Shaped the Future of the Church by Dr. Michael Kruger. It shows why the second century was pivotal, explaining how Christians worshipped, what they believed, and how they endured in a hostile world. I've got a link to the book in the video description. Thanks so much for watching. If you learned something new, please click like as a way to say thanks. If you want more content like this in your feed, click subscribe directly below me. See you in the next video.