Huon

I maintain what I wrote in my post #7. Here is the full text of the letter :
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...ap5.html#pliny

Clivedurdle

The keepers of the animals for sacrifice and the priests were complaining that these new fangled xians were destroying trade by not going to the temples and buying stuff to be sacrificed and as Pliny notes - forming illegal political associations.

Well I mean, if you ain't sacrificying and doing yer rituals you are definitely plotting!

And it was easy to turn people back to the proper ways!

Ie from xianity back to the old ways. Julian as well was remarkably successful until he was assassinated by a xian. Which possibly means the way to control this xian contagion is to reinstate the old gods!

(A case at the WTO that xianity is a limit on trade.....)

Amaleq13

You are obviously correct in your reading. Your interlocutor appears to be experiencing more language comprehension difficulties.

aa5874

I also stand by what I wrote in post #1.

Pliny did not write a single word about Jesus. The word Jesus is nowhere in the letter from Pliny to Trajan.


Pliny appear not to know about the superstition of the christians, he had to torture some and, even after torture, none mentioned Jesus.

Based on the NT, Paul should have preached about Jesus 70 years before the Pliny letters and Paul should have preached Jesus all over the Roman Empire before Pliny was even born.

There were supposed to be already installed bishops in Rome and other places like Ephesus, Galatia, and many churches with perhaps thousands of Jesus believers and numerous celebrated martyrs, executed in Rome, like Peter, Paul, Ignatius and Clement by 111 CE, yet Pliny did not appear to know about the superstition of christians.

Pliny did not appear to have read or heard about Jesus.

Now, your position on the last passage of the Pliny letter is in error.

Again, Pliny is claiming that the superstition of christian is spreading.

Pliny to Trajan Romans do not sacrifice animals to Roman gods, it is christians of the circumcision, Jews, or those who believe in Christ as found in Jewish scripture and follow Mosaic laws with temple worship who sacrifice animals to God.

Pliny's Christians were people who believed in Christ and obeyed Mosaic laws including ANIMAL sacrifice.

Tyro

Oh, really?

aa5874

You are absolutely correct, based on the information you provided from the link, that Romans sacrificed animals to Roman gods.

Now can you provide any information to show that Pliny wrote about Jesus and the that Christians in Pliny's letter believed in Jesus or mentioned Jesus, even though some were tortured?

Or can you give any information to show that Tacitus was aware of Jesus or that the christians in Tacitus' Annals were aware of and were followers or believers in Jesus?

It is clear that, according to Tacitus and Pliny, people who believe in Christ or Christus are called Christians during the time of Nero, and from Tacitus it is written that the christian superstition originated in Judaea.

And Jesus was fabricated after Nero.

There was no Jesus before Pliny and Tacitus. They wrote nothing about Jesus.

Clivedurdle

aa

You are confusing two issues.

Yes, Pliny does not mention Jesus - only a - I think heavenly Christ.

He had a multi faceted issue to deal with:

The new xian superstitio was treacherous because they were not sacrificying to the Emperor

They were treacherous because they were a political association

They were effecting trade - people were not buying animals from traders to sacrifice

They were effecting the social .fabric - people were not going to the temples in public and paying for their upkeep and improvement.

However a little rough treatment seemed to be quite able to change the recalcitrants minds, except for a dangerous hard core who technically should be executed but these were "only" mad women.

Probably one of the most important decisions of all time - not to cut out the cancer

Tyro

So you claim, contrary to all established scholarship, that the entire New Testament - the Gospels, the Epistles and Acts -, and also Didache and the letters of Ignatius, were created AFTER Pliny and Tacitus? Not even extreme mythicists claim all that, except from perhaps the Dutch radicals.

aa5874

My position is clear. And Pliny's letter is not confusing.

Pliny's had people brought before him who were called Christians, some he had executed for maintaining they were Christians and some, being Roman citizens, were sent to Rome.

These Christians believed in Christ, and sung hymns to Christ as a god. Some were tortured but nothing else was revealed.

And in the last part of the letter, Pliny claimed the superstition was spreading all over Bythnia.

Pliny is concerned about the number of people involved in the superstition and clearly asked for advice from Trajan. Pliny did not mention Jesus so there is no reason to assume that the christian superstition had anything whatsoever to do with Jesus.

Pliny to Trajan Now, after the fall of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and the War of the Jews with the Romans, when the Jews expected Christ, it maybe that Jews or people who followed Mosaic laws had abandoned temple worship, religious rites and sacrifice with animals and were starting to do so againg during the time of Pliny in Bythnia.

It must be noted that Josephus in Wars of the Jews claimed the reason for the War was that Jews expected a ruler, the Messiah or Christ, from Judaea who would rule over the habitable earth.

Tyro

Which almost deserted TEMPLES or sacred festivals would JEWS have engaged in? And CHRISTIANS? What evidence is there of Christians ever having engaged in sacred festivals or worshipping in temples? Or sacrificing animals? No, this interpretation is stupid. Pliny means that the superstition of the Christiani threatened the old Roman worship, but that the affording of an opportunity for repentance, for the Christiani, would stop this.