aa5874

These questions cannot really be answered, until it can be ascertained who this Christ actually was, human or supernatural.

Did Pliny know what a docetist was? When did docetism begin?

To think that there was only one person or supernatural entity ever called Christ is to be completely naive about antiquity.

In addition, the Pliny letters have nothing about Jesus of Nazareth.

EarlDoherty

To answer that we'd have to get inside Pliny's mind. All I am saying is that we can't automatically say it is one of those four, especially one that implies a priori that Christ is not a god and Pliny knows it. But let's consider the implications of each one (in English).

"They honor Christ as if he were a god." This has the implication that the speaker does not consider Christ to be a god, and is somewhat skeptical or unsympathetic to any idea that he was.

"They honor Christ as a god." This implies no more than that Pliny is aware that the entity they honor is named "Christ" and that he is a god. This is pretty neutral, and of the four is the least supportive of an historical Jesus in Pliny's mind.

"They honor Christ as if honoring a god." Not much different from the first one, although perhaps less skeptical and with less critical overtones.

"They honor Christ as they would honor a god." This definitely (to me) has the implication that Christ is not a god.

Like I said, I can't tell what Pliny has in mind. But if "quasi" is not necessarily "supposal" so that it does not necessarily mean that the "if" object is NOT what is claimed, then Pliny's language cannot be used to support the historical Jesus position, or that Pliny in any way means to imply that he knows of, or has accepted on the basis of Christian reporting the existence of, an historical man whom the Christians have deified.

Of course, it is always possible that those Christians did tell him of a historical man whom they believed existed and regarded as a god, and Pliny simply accepted that. Perhaps a lot like Tacitus, who may have been told by Christians, or others reporting Christian beliefs, about a historical man and simply accepted that such a man existed and was executed by Pilate.

Then, as I said before, there is the matter of "Christ" being a distinctive term. It isn't as if Pliny is saying, Christians worship John Smith as a god. John Smith clearly implies the original object of worship was a human being. We don't know if Pliny was familiar with the term "Christ" or what it meant to him, nor can we know what he thought the reader would imagine the term represented. Yet he seems to throw out the term with no explanation, not even to the emperor, as though he expected no problem in understanding. This does not ring true, and is one of the factors which argues for non-authenticity.

Arguments in this whole issue by mythicists are simply designed to undercut the claims of historicists that 'witnesses' like Pliny and Tacitus can or should be taken as reliable indicators, even proofs, that Jesus existed. We simply have to discredit their reliability, or discredit the reliability of historicists' interpretation of them.

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

I have just made a curious observation about the "quasi" passage.

Tertullian, in Apology II.6, refers in some detail to the Pliny letter, virtually a paraphrase of its key part:

Why would Tertullian not reproduce the most important part of the passage as Pliny supposedly wrote it, quasi Deo? We can't really tell if he wrote "et" or "ut", but surely he did not write "quasi" and this was lost from the manuscript transmission of his Apology. I can't quite decide yet whether this could somehow be turned into ammunition for the skeptics who suggest the Pliny letter is not authentic. (Drews makes a brief, unargued suggestion that the passage in Tertullian is itself "doubtful", but I think that's a stretch.)

Perhaps Ben or Roger would have a comment on this? I also understand that the book of Pliny's letters containing this one was not published in Pliny's lifetime. Does anyone know when exactly it was published? (Sometime before Tertullian, of course, but how soon after Pliny's death?)

Earl Doherty

Minimalist

I can't understand why a Christian forger would go to the trouble of forging a document which trashes one of the cherished images of Christians, Earl. Namely that martyrs willingly died for the faith. Pliny makes it clear that most gladly sacrificed to Roman gods and were sent on their way. And Trajan was totally cool with that!

I'm as skeptical as they come but I can't see any reason for a "Christian" forger to make up a story that is so contrary to the tale they wanted told.

mountainman

Do not dismiss the possibilitity that Tertullian is Eusebius. If the 123 literary letters of 'Alciphron' were written in the 2nd century CE as an example of historical fiction purporting to be from the 4th century BC, who is to say the "authors such as Tertullian" presented by Eusebius in the fourth century, to be writing profusely during the second century, in Latin, during the greatest revival of the greek literature, are not of the same genre?

Ancient historical truth does not care about our preconceptions.
Select your postulates with caution.


Best wishes,


Pete

gstafleu

If Pliny was a "pagan," i.e. not a Christian, he probably didn't think that Christ was a god. Could his meaning then simply be something like: "They worshiped Christ as though he were a god, but of course, sir, we all know that he wasn't, because Jupiter et al are the real gods"? Do I understand correctly that Pliny's letter was addressed to the emperor? Given that the emperor was seen to be god-like himself, such a disclaimer might be advisable ("but of course, sir, we all know that he wasn't, you are the local god-on-earth").

[That might perhaps explain why Tertullian changed (if he did) the "quasi" to "ut": that would go less against the Christian grain.]

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

I have this Tertullianic paraphrase, both in Latin and in English, on my page on the Pliny passage.

I think your characterization of it as a paraphrase is spot on. Here is the relevant section; I have tried to translate over-literally to preserve the verbal correspondences as best I can. Tertullian, Apology 2.6:

...nihil aliud se de sacramentis eorum comperisse quam coetus antelucanos ad canendum Christo et [ut?] deo et ad confoederandam disciplinam, homicidium, adulterium, fraudem, perfidiam, et cetera scelera prohibentes.

...he had found out nothing else about their sacraments other than prelight meetings to sing to Christ and [as to?] God and toward a confederate discipline, prohibiting murder, adultery, fraud, perfidy, and other crimes.

Confer the relevant portion of Pliny, epistle 10.96:

...quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire, carmenque Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem, seque sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere, sed ne furta ne latrocinia ne adulteria committerent, ne fidem fallerent, ne depositum appellati abnegarent.

...that they were accustomed to meeting on a certain fixed day before the light, and to saying a song alternately to Christ as if to a god, and to binding themselves by a sacrament, not to crimes, but to commit neither furtive deeds, nor theft, nor adultery, nor to falsify faith, nor to deny a trust when called upon.

I have tried to boldface all the verbal overlaps in the Latin; did I miss any? I could probably get this close myself from sheer memory. Is it possible that Tertullian is doing just that, recalling from memory?

I do not think there is much doubt that the quasi deo part is not the most important part to Tertullian. Surely what matters to him here is the procedure against the Christians (as he writes: In our case no such procedure is followed); the lack of hard criminality on the part of the Christians underlines the necessity for such procedure; the et deo, ut deo, or quasi deo is just a tagalong, so far as Tertullian is concerned.

Ben.

aa5874

So, Christ in this case is a spiritual being. These Christians are singing to him. I would believe they think Christ and /[as a] God can hear them singing.

Roger Pearse

I think so too. After all, no-one in antiquity denied that Jesus existed, however much they hated the Christians. On the contrary, they found him useful, as a reason to deride a group founded by such a man.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

No Robots

It is possible that Tertullian left off the "quasi Deo" part precisely out of orthodox squeamishness about the the implied suggestion therein that Christ is not a god. That is to say that Pliny seems to take it for granted that Christ is a man whom his followers take as something like a god. By the time of Tertullian, the Church was in the process of trying to suppress this kind of outlook. It looks to me that Tertullian is censoring Pliny in order to conceal the evidence that Christ was originally understood by the Romans to have been completely and exclusively human.