Pliny the Younger reports on the Christians
Within eighty years of the crucifixion, a Roman official investigating Christians as a legal problem describes worship of Christ as divine, already established across a distant province.
Citado fora da BíbliaAutor antigoc. AD 112
A Roman provincial governor writes to the emperor Trajan asking how to handle Christians. In explaining what he has learned from interrogation, he describes their practice: meeting before dawn, singing to Christ as to a god, binding themselves by oath not to commit theft, adultery or fraud, and eating together.
They were in the habit of meeting on a fixed day before dawn and singing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and binding themselves by oath not to any wickedness…
- Encontrado
- Transmitted in medieval manuscripts
- Conservado em
- Various manuscript collections
- Língua
- Latin
- Como chegou até nós
- Nunca enterrado — copiado à mão, geração após geração, até à imprensa.
O que mostra
The letter's authenticity is not seriously disputed. It describes practice, not the events of the Gospels.
Como os historiadores o usam
A primary source for Roman legal policy toward Christians, standard in secular Roman history.
Na Escritura
Fontes
- Pliny the Younger on Christians — text and discussion
- Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary (1966)
Por enquanto estes textos estão em inglês. As traduções virão.