Folia Theologica 17. (2006)
Uwe Michael Lang: Early Christian Latin as a Liturgical Language
126 U. M. LANG lished tradition of Christian Latin speaking and writing, which was at some distance from common Latin in late antiquity. It has even been argued that this distance was an obstacle for the diffusion of Christian authors among a pagan readership, especially during the first three centuries. The Latin Christian writer Tertullian testifies to this, when he writes in the late second century: 'Far less do men agree with our writings, to which no one comes unless he is a Christian already'.* 4 This was not just a matter of doctrine; it was also a matter of language. The comparison with the linguistic situation in the Greek-speaking parts of the Roman Empire instructive. In the Greek world, Christian discourse was not as intellectually and socially distinct from ordinary discourse. Christian Greek was never as different from general use as Christian Latin was.5 If we want to understand why this was so, we need to go back to the origins of Latin Christianity. e letteratura, 103), Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1965 (ristampa anastatica, 1979), pp. 13-24 (originally published in Vigiliae Christianae 1 [1947], pp. 1-12); sec R. L. WILKEN, ‘The Church’s Way of Speaking’, in First Things 154 (August/September 2005), pp. 27-31, as well as his ‘The Church as Culture’, in First Things 142 (April 2004), pp. 31-37. 4 Tertullian, De testimonio animae, 1: tanto abest, ut nostris litteris annuant homines, ad quas nemo venit nisi Christianus. 5 MOHRMANN, ‘Le latin commun et le latin des chrétiens’, p. 24, concludes: ‘En résumant nous pouvons dire que les chrétiens aussi bien que les païens étaient conscient de l’existence d’une langue spéciale des chrétiens. Cette différenciation linguistique flattait d’une part le sentiment de solidarité des chrétiens, mais d’autre part elle n’était pas propre à faciliter un rapprochement des chrétiens et des païens. Au quatrième siècle la distance entre la langue commune et l’idiome des chrétiens était encore assez grande et elle ne sera pas éliminée par une infiltration lente de la part de la langue spéciale, mais par le fait historique de la victoire définitive du christianisme sur le paganisme’. Cf. also A. von HARNACK, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, trans, and ed. J. MOFFATT, London: Williams & Norgate, 1908, vol. I, p. 370: ‘In the Latin West, although Minucius Felix and Cyprian (ad Donatum) wrote in a well-bred style, Christian literature had but little to do with the spread of the Christian religion; in the East, upon the contrary, it became a factor of great importance from the third century onwards’.
