rlogan

thanks Andrew. It is worth looking into how the item is put to use in fleshing out the possibility of forgery.

Tertullian has it in Chapter L: "Christians would gladly avoid suffering, although they cheerfully submit to it"


where it is footnoted (117)as:

I think he means that the Apology contained a copy of the letter.

Interesting that he refers to it as the celebrated letter. Why would such a thing be "celebrated", and by whom?

Christians, obviously, as an example of martyrdom





http://www.tertullian.org/articles/c...er_apology.htm

Ecrasez L'infame

Ah, uh, indeed. Apologies. I stand corrected.

In short, then - about zero chance that P is forged.

Robby

Ben C Smith

I have an English translation of those portions of the Slavonic version most directly related to the testimonium itself posted on my site.

Ben.

Ecrasez L'infame

I agree that does fit the letter. But still

sounds to me like P is doing everything he can to let the Christians off - "look, I don't really want to have to kill you. Please deny Christ and we can all have a cup of tea together" - AND he's telling his boss he's doing that. That is pretty fishy to me - I work as a bureaucrat, I know I sometimes bend the rules, but I sure would never tell my boss that. To me, the only office-politics reading is that P was pleading their case, saying to Trajan (as opposed to his prisoners) that they didn't deserve to die. Dunno, I'm not in love with that theory, but that's the only way I could read it.

Then there's this:

Well, if Pliny had just said they haven't done anything wrong, I'd agree - he's just trying to find the right box to tick. But he's going much further - he's saying the Christians give themselves a religious duty to behave like exemplary citizens. Why are we trying to ban them, the subtext is saying? We should be encouraging this.

(Although P is only reporting what his prisoners have told him, I do find that he believes it - else why report it at all? He doesn't seem to believe, however, that the Christians have given up meeting for meals.)

P goes on to suggest, IIUC, that a better solution is to encourage traditional Roman religion - in a fair market between the two, paganism will win out.

Pliny ends on a brilliant joke or bizarre coincidental choice of words (or final proof of Christian forgery?):

So, in short and assuming the letter is genuine, I think Pliny was suggesting decriminalising Christianity - not making it legal as such, but no longer actively prosecuting it. And Trajan agreed!

But - having said all that, the point isn't really worth that much. Provided the letter is genuine.

Regards

Robert

Amaleq13

I think you make very good points with the possible exception of the triple confession requirement. IIRC from a previous thread, this may have been standard practice to establish it was a genuine confession as opposed to one intended to get them to stop the torture.

Ecrasez L'infame

Thanks. I have to say this is a brilliant thread. Triple confession: in my translation Pliny hasn't started torturing yet - in fact, he says he started to threaten them BECAUSE they confessed to being Christians.

In any case, it's beginning to look like both Tacitus and Pliny are genuine and to be trusted - which sounds like a result to me. It doesn't seem to be very often in this game that you find something that you can say, yes, that's true, you can rely on that 100% (at least until the next awkward fact throws you back into utter darkness).

Regards

Robert

Roger Pearse

I agree. In fact I wonder if legal process is at the heart of all this, because Pliny (and Tacitus) have just lived through the reign of Domitian, with its delatores, making money by informing on wealthy people with claims of 'treason', under which they became entitled to a portion of the condemned man's estate.

Tacitus really lays into Tiberius because he invented this system. Juvenal describes the scene,

"When the last of the Flavians was flaying the half-dying world,
And Rome cowered before a bald-headed Nero."

and talks of the fear of the senators summoned suddenly to Domitian's Alban castle, there to be asked ... what to do with a large fish caught locally! Likewise Pliny discusses with disgust and fear the actions of the delators, and it was an important part of Trajan's policy to draw a line under this, and consign the whole episode to oblivion.

Clearly people are being denounced as Christians. Pliny finds nothing really harmful, so doesn't want to encourage an atmosphere of denunciations for what may be technically a crime but in practice doesn't disrupt anything. Trajan supports this policy; uphold the law, but discourage delatio. This is very much of a piece with the rest of Pliny's letters. That the victims happened to be Christians was more or less incidental.

Just my humble opinion. I'm very fond of the Radice translation of Pliny's letters, in the Penguin edition, and commend it to you all as a book to read and reread.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

andrewcriddle

Today we would probably call it a 'don't ask don't tell' policy.

Andrew Criddle

Johann_Kaspar

So that people will have even less excuse to despise it now...

Johann_Kaspar

By the way, and back to Tacitus (only one copy of the text), the xian copist(s) censured the chapter(s) about Caius... So interesting. So who will trust them at all?