other · 155 · Rome
Justin had been a professional philosopher and did not stop being one; he kept the cloak, and taught in a room above a bathhouse in Rome. The Apology is addressed to Antoninus Pius, to his sons and to the Roman senate, and its argument is that the charges are absurd on their own terms — atheists who will not deny God, cannibals who will not eat blood, revolutionaries whose kingdom is not of this world. Then, almost as an aside and to prove there is nothing to hide, he describes what actually happens: the washing in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; the bread and the cup and the water brought to the president; the thanksgiving and the people's Amen; the deacons carrying it to those absent; and the collection for orphans, widows, the sick and prisoners. On the day called Sunday, he says, all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read as long as time permits. It is the earliest description of a Christian liturgy that exists, and it survives because he was explaining himself to an emperor.
To ask an emperor who prided himself on reason to apply it: to judge Christians for what they are shown to have done rather than for the name.
The fullest picture of what a second-century congregation actually did on a Sunday morning, written down for an outsider and preserved because of it.