krosero

***bump***

Gregg

The quote is far too ambiguous to take it that far:

"They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god"

The context must also be considered. Pliny talks about having interrogated, tortured, and executed Christians. However, if they curse Christ and offer devotions to the Roman gods and the Emperor Trajan, he lets them go:

"Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ--none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do--these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ."

Pliny refers to the Roman gods as "the" gods. Despite the relative tolerance of the Romans for other religions and cults (and I'm sure this tolerance waxed and waned over the decades and centuries, and varied from emperor to emperor), Pliny sounds like quite the "fundamentalist" in his letter. So it's not surprising in this context that he refers to the Roman gods as "the" gods and uses language that suggests he doesn't regard Christ as a "real" god.

This passage is interesting:

"Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition."

What did they tell him? He doesn't give any clues. He certainly doesn't tell Trajan the Christians worship a man named Jesus who was executed by Pilate, which would seem to be a quite relevant bit of information.

Chris Weimer

Affirmabant autem hanc fuisse summam vel culpae suae vel erroris, quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire, carmenque Christo quasi deo dicere.

In Latin, the usual word used as a comparative would be "quam", not so much quasi. The translation you supplied missed the crucial word "if".

Yes, context is important. In reality, the problem with Christians isn't that they worshipped Christ, but that they refused to worship the Roman gods. Christianity, then, became labeled a superstitio, which is akin to the Roman "cult". Trajan was not, as you claim, "fundamentalist", as seen in his interest in Isis, another cult in which there were no conflict with the religio Romana.

Why would that be relevant?

Gregg

I still find the phrase too ambiguous. There seem to be plenty of reasons Pliny might be dismissing the godhood of Christ besides being aware that the Christians are singing praises to a crucified man "as if to a god." He clearly has little respect for Christians and the disorder he sees them bringing to Roman society. He is interrogating, torturing, and executing them. That he takes a dim view of their "god" is not surprising.

I was referring to Pliny, not Trajan.

A spreading superstition, which Pliny and Trajan agree must be checked, involving the worship of a man crucified by a Roman governor of Judea. Seems like that would be pretty relevant information. Judea was a troublesome, restive province. The Romans crucified people for sedition. That people were worshiping a crucified man as if he was a god would seem to be cause for concern. Christianity was already seen as undermining society, if it involved the worship of an executed rebel--a martyr--it could be very dangerous.

krosero

I would tend to agree that the fact of the crucifixion, as you've described it, would have been of interest to the Roman authority. If Christ had been crucified by a Roman authority (and as a political rebel), I don’t think that the average pagan need have known or cared about that, but I think the Roman authority would know it.

So how strong is your expectation that Pliny would have told Trajan about this fact -- about a fact that the Roman authorities already knew?

Think about it. If Doherty is correct, and the HJ is a new idea in Pliny’s time, then Pliny might very well be informing the emperor of this new story, especially if the story was starting in his province – though in Doherty’s model, actually, it was not. It was spreading throughout the province of Asia to the west, as far as Rome. Tacitus, per Doherty, heard about it either in Asia or in Rome. It was right under the Emperor’s nose. Is it likely that a governor in faraway Bithynia is going to be the first to tell him about it?

I don’t think so. It looks like Pliny is the last one in a position to give Trajan any new information about Christian origins. He’s never even participated in past interrogations. He’s simply trying to find out for himself what punishable practices there are, and he can find only Christians who protest that their only offenses are perfectly benign things.

This is why I think that Doherty is not systematically comparing two scenarios, but merely working with the assumptions of his own model, when he sets up the expectation that Pliny would surely have INFORMED the emperor of a relevant fact (I recall something to that effect in his book, which I don't have on me). We don’t know it was new; that's the question to be decided. Under the HJ model, it was of course not new, and I think a strong case can be made that the fact (or story) of Christ’s execution would have been known to the Roman emperors sooner and more surely than it would have been known to a new governor in outlying Bithynia.

I for one have no strong expectation that Pliny would have mentioned a fact for which he had no new information, and waste his Emperor's time (or insult his intelligence) by MERELY mentioning it. The specific practices described in the letter, though, are worth mentioning, because it's not likely that the Emperor had enough interest in Christianity to know those things himself, and they make it look as if Pliny has done his homework. Conversely, mentioning the basic fact of the crucifixion without new information about it might look like he's saying that he's just now learning the most basic fact of all.

Pliny's letter indicates that Christians regarded Trajan's ban on political associations as a threat to them, which suggests that the authorities regarded Christianity as a political threat. This fits in with a model in which the Roman authorities -- not the public, but the authorities -- have heard about Christianity beginning in political sedition in Judea. The letter calls Christianity (recent) superstitio, which again fits a model in which the sect is based on recent events. It doesn't exclude mythicism, of course, since the Romans may have simply seen that the sect itself was new (although surely new sects formed all the time in the cultural religious soup, didn't they?), and that its apocalypticism and social criticisms were threatening.

I agree with you, Gregg, that Pliny's evidence is ambiguous. My problem is how Doherty can be certain that Pliny's Christians know of no historical founder.

Kevin

Chris Weimer

But he doesn't call Christ a god.

Usually the administrators act under the influence of the emperor. But regardless, Pliny is famous for being super tolerant - always praising even the worst Roman authors as at least containing some good quality. The Christians are causing trouble, however, so why should he do anything good about them? But cracking down on Christians doesn't make him a "fundamentalist".

Chris Weimer

I think you're right - Tacitus in his Annales writes that Christ was crucified by Pilate, and Pliny and Tacitus maintained close correspondance - even jointly prosecuting Marius Priscus, ex-proconsul of Asia Minor, in 100.

krosero

Here's a test. Doherty argues that Christ's execution in Judea would have been of interest to the emperor. Fair enough. He says that Pliny should have provided this interesting information to the emperor, but since he doesn’t, even after interrogating Christians and ex-Christians, then the safest conclusion is that those interrogated knew of no such execution.

I wrote above that if Doherty is right, then the Romans could have had reasons, other than the political execution of Christ, to regard Christianity as a political association and threat. They could have felt threatened by its apocalypticism (with its talk of a new kingdom) and by its social criticisms.

That seems reasonable to me. But neither of these things is mentioned in Pliny's letter. When summing up what he learned in his interrogations, he mentions only benign ethics and benign food.

So are we to conclude from Pliny's letter that Christianity did not have apocalyptic features or social criticisms? Is Pliny's letter evidence that Christianity did not have these features?

Trajan would surely have found these features interesting. Per Doherty’s model, then, Pliny should be informing him of these things – and if he doesn’t, then the safest conclusion is that the interrogated people knew of no such things.

Chris Weimer

Krosero - you first have to demonstrate that a) Pliny would have understood such things, b) apocalypticism at the time of Pliny's inquiries were prevalent among Christians in Asia, c) the Romans would have been able to extract advanced theology from the Christians (notice exactly what he says the Christians believe and do...) and finally, d) that it would have been relevant enough to tell Trajan.

Chris Weimer

Having gone over Pliny's letters to Trajan, I find nothing in them which is indicative of Pliny needing to inform Trajan of the practices of the Christians. Letters to Trajan fall under these categories:

1) Requesting a favor (usually a recommendation for a friend)
2) Matters concerning slaves
3) Monetary matters (such as building projects)
4) Itinerary plans
5) Foreign relations
6) Public services (such as firefighting)
7) Punishment in difficult situations
8) Laudatory letters for the Emperor
9) Matters concernign citizenship (return from exile, foreign slaves becoming citizens)
10) Military Matters

I stopped once I got to 97, the letter in question, but quickly skimmed the rest. The letter falls under #7 - he is asking Trajan about the proper method's of punishment. He's done this before in the same manner - he doesn't go into detail, but gives the basic overview for Trajan.

In the letter, Pliny is only describing their practices - a specific practice of worship, to be precise. Simply put, there's nothing at all which would make us assume that Pliny would tell Trajan about their "apocalyptic" beliefs, since he doesn't mention beliefs, nor about the nature of Christ's death. Those who argue that Pliny would should provide some actual justification for their argument.