Early Christianity

a fixed formula. 2.They [the Christians] must not be hunted

out; if they are brought before you and convicted, they must

be punished, excepting, however, anyone who denies that

he is a Christian and makes this fact clear, by offering

prayers to our gods, he is to be pardoned as a result of his

repentance, however suspect his past conduct may be. But

pamphlets (libelli) circulated anonymously ought to have no

part in any accusation. For they are the worst sort of prece-

dent (exemplum) and are not in keeping with the spirit of

our age.

(Pliny the Younger, Letters10.97,

adapted from Radice 1969)

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of these letters.

They give the earliest account of Christianity, and a reasonably

detailed one at that, as seen by pagan outsiders. But how are

we to interpret them? There are various possibilities. Here I will

begin by looking at what specific details can be gleaned from the

letters themselves. Then I will look at the broader contexts in

which they can be located.

Legal process and cultural bias

The overriding impression given by the letters is of some

perplexity on the part of Pliny in particular. Even so, his descrip-

tion of the manner of his investigation is quite detailed. At two

points in his letter (§§ 1 and 8) Pliny explicitly describes the legal

procedure against the Christians as a cognitio. This term literally

means an ‘inquiry’, and was not a trial by jury. Rather, the process

took place in front of a magistrate – the emperor or his repre-

sentative at Rome, the governor in the provinces – and the

outcome largely depended on the whim of that magistrate (Millar

1992: 517–32). In Pliny’s case, however, his ability to act on his

own initiative was circumscribed because of his lack of experi-

ence of similar investigations into the activities of Christians; the

very fact that he mentions that he had never attended such an

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