|
|
Letters
Contents:
Show Summary
Hide Summary
General SummaryPLINY (about 61–113 A. D.), called the Younger, to distinguish him from his famous uncle, the Elder Pliny, was a Roman gentleman fitted by birth and education for a brilliant public career. He filled many offices of state, traveled extensively, knew everybody worth knowing, and lived a happy, useful life, surrounded by his books and his friends. Of his letters more than three hundred have been preserved. They do not rise to a very high level as literature; Pliny’s letters seem stilted and artificial when compared with the animated correspondence of Cicero. But there are few works by ancient authors which make pleasanter reading. Moreover, they afford us an attractive picture of Roman society during the most interesting period of the Early Empire.
114. Pliny to Trajan Regarding the Christians1
It is my custom, Sir, to refer to you in all cases where I do not feel sure, for who can better direct my doubts or inform my ignorance?2 I have never been present at any legal examination of the Christians, and I do not know, therefore, what are the usual penalties passed upon them or the limits of those penalties, or how searching an inquiry should be made. . . . In the meantime, this is the plan which I have adopted in the case of those Christians who have been brought before me. I ask them if they are Christians. If they say they are, then I repeat the question a second and a third time, warning them of the penalties it entails, and if they still persist, I order them to be taken away to prison. For I do not doubt that, whatever the character of the crime may be which they confess, their pertinacity and inflexible obstinacy certainly ought to be punished. There were others who showed similar mad folly whom I reserved to be sent to Rome, as they were Roman citizens.
As is usually the way, the very fact of my taking up this question led subsequently to a great increase of accusations, and a variety of cases were brought before me. A pamphlet was issued anonymously, containing the names of a number of people. Those who denied that they were or had been Christians and called upon the gods in the usual formula, reciting the words after me, those who offered incense and wine before your image . . . all such I considered should be discharged, especially as they cursed the name of Christ. This is something, it is said, which those who are really Christians cannot be induced to do. Others, whose names were given me by an informer, first said that they were Christians and afterwards denied it, declaring that they had been but were so no longer, some of them having recanted many years before, and more than one as long as twenty years back. They all worshiped your image and the statues of the deities, and cursed the name of Christ.
But they declared that the sum of their guilt or their error only amounted to this, that on a stated day they had been accustomed to meet before daybreak and to recite a hymn among themselves to Christ, as though he was a god. They added, that so far from binding themselves by oath to commit any crime, their oath was to abstain from theft, robbery, adultery, and from breach of faith, and not to deny trust money placed in their keeping when called upon to deliver it. When this ceremony was concluded, it had been their custom to depart and meet again to take food, but it was of no special character and quite harmless, and they had ceased this practice after the edict in which, in accordance with your orders, I had forbidden all secret societies. I thought it the more necessary, therefore, to find out what truth there was in these statements by submitting two women, who were called deaconesses, to the torture, but I found nothing but a debased superstition carried to great lengths. So I postponed my examination, and immediately consulted you.
The matter seems to me worthy of your consideration, especially as there are so many people involved in the danger.
Many persons of all ages, and of both sexes alike, are being brought into peril of their lives by their accusers, and the process will go on. For the contagion of this superstition has spread, not only through the free cities, but into the villages and the rural districts, and yet it seems to me that it can be checked and set right. It is beyond doubt that the temples, which have been almost deserted, are beginning again to be thronged with worshipers, that the sacred rites which have for a long time been allowed to lapse are now being renewed, and that the food for the sacrificial victims is once more finding a sale, whereas, up to recently, a buyer was hardly to be found. From this it is easy to infer what vast numbers of people might be reclaimed, if only they were given an opportunity of repentance.
1 Pliny, , x, 98.
2 This letter was written to the emperor Trajan, when Pliny was acting as governor of the province of Pontus and Bithynia in Asia Minor. The year was probably 111 A. D.
Contents:
Chicago: "Pliny to Trajan Regarding the Christians," Letters in Readings in Early European History, ed. Webster, Hutton (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1926), 251–252. Original Sources, accessed December 26, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=97BULB91QQM9JY7.
MLA: . "Pliny to Trajan Regarding the Christians." Letters, Vol. x, in Readings in Early European History, edited by Webster, Hutton, Boston, Ginn and Company, 1926, pp. 251–252. Original Sources. 26 Dec. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=97BULB91QQM9JY7.
Harvard: , 'Pliny to Trajan Regarding the Christians' in Letters. cited in 1926, Readings in Early European History, ed. , Ginn and Company, Boston, pp.251–252. Original Sources, retrieved 26 December 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=97BULB91QQM9JY7.
|