Last week in this column I ran an
excerpt from the Roman historian Tacitus with one of the earliest references to
Christianity outside of the Bible itself.
Another of these few secular references to the early Christian movement is
a note sent from Pliny the Younger, the Roman governor of Bithynia, to the
Emperor Trajan c. 112 A. D. Pliny writes
to ask the Emperor’s advice in dealing with the members of “a mad sect” known
as “Christians.” Pliny relays to the
Emperor how he has been dealing with Christians:
In the meantime, I have taken this
course about those who have been brought before me as Christians. I asked them
whether they were Christians or not. If they confessed that they were Christians, I
asked them again, and a third time, intermixing threatenings with the
questions. If they persevered in their confession, I ordered them to be
executed.
Pliny also notes that if any
denied that they were Christians under interrogation, called upon the pagan
gods, made sacrifices to the image of the Emperor, or cursed Christ, then he
let them go, because those who were truly Christians “could not be compelled to
do so.”
Pliny muses that, all in all, the
Christians do seem a bit harmless. With
all his investigation, the best he could discover about them was the following:
That they were wont, on a stated
day, to meet together before it was light, and to sing a hymn to Christ, as to
a god, alternately; and to oblige themselves by a sacrament [or oath], not to
do anything that was ill: but that they would commit no theft, or pilfering, or
adultery; that they would not break their promises, or deny what was deposited
with them, when it was required back again; after which it was their custom to
depart, and to meet again at a common but innocent meal….
Nevertheless, Pliny admits that
his crackdown against this “extravagant superstition” has been successful. The pagan temples “which were almost
forsaken” are now filled again with worshippers.
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
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