mountainman

Who first mentions/cites Pliny's references to christians and when?

spin

While we're at it, who first mentions/cites Pliny's correspondence with Tacitus and when?

andrewcriddle

IIUC Tertullian in chapter 2 of the Apology
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-03/...htm#P253_53158

date c 197 CE

Andrew Criddle

spin

But that's a christian source, so it was written by Eusebius...


spin

mountainman

The problem I have with Tertullion as a witness to anything with integrity
are the other writings for which he vouches. Joseph Wheless
charges Tertullion thus:

Father Tertullian vouches, too, with the other Fathers,
for the bogus official Report of Pilate to Caesar, and for
Pilate's conversion to Christianity, saying: "All these things
Pilate did to Christ; and now in fact a Christian in his own
convictions, he sent word of Him to the reigning Caesar,
who was at the time Tiberius. Yes, and even the Caesars
would have believed on Christ, if either the Caesars had
not been necessary for the world, or if Christians could
have been Caesars." (Apol. ch. xxi; ANF. iii,. 35.)

Father Tertullian gives fall credence to the fable of the
Septuagint, and assures the Emperors: "To this day, at
the temple of Serapis, the librariis of Ptolemy are to be seen,
with the identical Hebrew originals in them." (Apology, to
the Rulers of the Roman Empire, I, xviii; ANF. iii, 32.)

And, as all the other Fathers, he gives full faith and credit
to the Pagan gods, as "effective witnesses for Christ"; --
"Yes, and we shall prove that your own gods are effective
witnesses for Christ ... "Yes, and we shall prove that your
own gods are effective witnesses for Christ. ... Against the
Greeks we urge that Orpheus, at Piera, Musaeus at Athens,
(etc.) imposed religious rites. ... Numa Pompilius laid on the
Romans a heavy load of costly superstitions. Surely Christ,
then, had a right to reveal Deity." (Apol. ch. xxi; ANF. iii, 36.)

Like the other Fathers, Tertullian is also in the ranks of patristic
forgers of holy fables, being either the author or the publisher
of "The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas",
the fabulous Martyrdom of two of the Church's most celebrated
bogus Saints, annexed to his accredited works. (ANF. iii, 699-706.)

If Tertullion has been made to affirm the existence of known forgeries
then it seems reasonable to be prepared for the possibility that everything
written by this same source has been fabricated, and to further then
ask the question who forged Tertullion, and for what purpose.

And so the thick plottens.



Pete Brown