Introduction

Summary

THE MEANING OF CARMEN CHRISTI IN EARLY CHRISTIAN WORSHIP

The Roman official Pliny held office as governor of the province of Pontus and Bithynia in Asia Minor for a period of fifteen months or so in a.d. 111–12. During that time he corresponded with the emperor Trajan. One piece of extant correspondence is of great interest to the student of Christian history.

Pliny had sought to enforce an edict which proscribed the profession of Christianity. But he was uncertain as to the correctness of the procedure he had adopted. He wrote, therefore, to Trajan seeking guidance. He explained the method of procedure he had hitherto followed; and in the course of his letter he related some information about Christian practices which he had received from certain Christian apostates.

They asserted that this was the sum and substance of their fault or their error; namely, that they were in the habit of meeting before dawn on a stated day and singing alternately a hymn to Christ as to a god, and that they bound themselves by an oath, not to the commission of any wicked deed, but that they would abstain from theft and robbery and adultery, that they would not break their word, and that they would not withhold a deposit when reclaimed. This done, it was their practice, so they said, to separate, and then to meet together again for a meal, which however was of the ordinary kind and quite harmless.

(Epp. x, 96–7: Lightfoot's translation.)