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PLINY, TRAJAN, HADRIAN and the CHRISTIANS* in the Seventh Book

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PLINY, TRAJAN, HADRIAN AND THE CHRISTIANS* In the seventh book of his work de officio proconsulis, Ulpian collected legal rulings concerning the Christians. The compilers of Justinian's Corpus Juris naturally omitted this material. The Church Fathers again were not interested in copying "the abominable rescripts" which instructed the Roman authorities "by which penalties should be affiicted those who acknowledged that they were worshippers of God. 1 " Eusebius himself, when describing "the martyrdoms of our own time," does not reproduce the anti-Christian ordinances of the Tetrarchs, though he quotes in full the decrees of Galerius, Maximinus, Licinius and Constantine on behalf of the Church. Again, he copies Gallienus's letter to some bishops (of Egypt?) on restoration of Church property, but not the edict of Valerian on confiscation of this property. 2 In other words, the Christian tradition, quite naturally, preserved documents which attested "the gracious and favoring interposition of God, 3 " and did not care to retain the memory of the imperial legislation against the Church. 4 Thus, only two imperial rescripts on trials of Christians have come down to us verbatim : a letter of Trajan to Pliny, and a letter of Hadrian. 5 * A review article of Rudolf Freudenberger, Das Verhalten der romischen Behorden gegen die Christen im 2. Jahrhundert dargestel(t am Brief des Plinius an Trajan und den Reskripten Trajans und Hadrians (Miinchener Beitriige zur Papyrusforschung und antiken Rechtsge­ schichte, 52. Heft). Miinchen, 1967, C.H. Beck, X + 258 pp. In this edition, the observations on Freudenberger's work have been omitted. Some abbreviations: Abbott-Johnson = F. F. Abbott, A. Ch. Johnson, Municipal Admini­ stration in the Roman Empire, 1926; Dessau = H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae; Knopf-Kriiger = R. Knopf, G. Kriiger, Ausgewiihlte Miirtyrerakten, 3rd ed., 1929; Ricco­ bono = S. Riccobono, Leges (Fontes Juris romani antejustiniani, I), 1941. 1 Lact. Div. inst. V, II : Domitius de officio proconsu/is /ibro septimo rescripta principum nefaria co/legit ut doceret quibus poenis adfici oporteret eos qui se cu/tores dei confiterentur. The compilation of Ulpian is mentioned as a source in a letter of a governor of Asia, cf. L. Robert, RPh. 1967, 46. 2 Eus. h.e. I, 1, 2. Gallienus: ib. VII, 13,2; Galerius: ib. VIII, 17,3 = Lact. de mort. pers. 34; Sabinus: ib. IX, 1,3; Constantine and Licinius: ib. X, 5 = Lact. ib. 48; Maximinus II: Eus. ib. IX, 9a; a collection of Constantine's orders : ib. X, 5-7. 3 Eus. h.e. VIII, 16,1. It is true that Eusebius (IX, 7,3) also reproduces a letter of Maximinus II which encourages the cities to present anti-Christian petitions. But Eusebius omits to quote the part of the letter which attacked the Christians directly and quotes the rest to show that the hopes of the "tyrant" were thwarted by Heaven. 4 There are, of course, many references to anti-Christian enactments of Roman emperors and governors. See e.g. Eus. h.e. VI, 28; VI, 41,10; VII, IO; VIII, 30;19; A·cta Cypriani ap. Knopf-Krueger, p. 62; Cypr. Ep. 80,1; SHA, Sept. Sev. 17,1. 5 It is curious that P.R. Coleman-Norton in his "collection of legal documents," entitled Roman State and Christian Church, 1966, without warning and without naming the original PLINY, TRAJAN, HADRIAN AND THE CHRISTIANS 153 The rescript of Trajan has been transmitted in the collections of Pliny's letters. Tertullian refers to it in his Apology for Christians. He also mentions a (spurious) letter of Marcus Aurelius in favor of Christians. It is worthwhile to note that Eusebius, who studiously collected evidence concerning the early Church, knew these Latin documents only from Tertullian's Apology. 6 The textual history of Hadrian's letter, as we shall see later, was more complex. 7 Justin appended this Latin letter to his First Apology written in Greek. Addressed to a proconsul of Asia, the rescript of Hadrian remained unknown to Tertullian who wrote in Africa. Eusebius, writing in Palestine, had known the rescript only from hearsay until he read it in Justin. He turned the Latin text quoted by Justin into Greek for his Ecclesiastical History. 8 When Latin became unintelligible in the East, some copyist sub­ stituted Eusebius' Greek version for theLatin rescript in Justin's manuscripts. On the other hand, Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History reproduced a (forged) letter of Antoninus Pius concerning the Christians. Again, some copyist of Justin, attributing this letter to Marcus Aurelius, added it to Hadrian's letter in Justin's Apology. 9 Lastly, the unique extant manuscript of Justin, copied in 1364, adds a third imperial document: a Greek version of the spurious Latin letter of Marcus Aurelius referred to by Tertullian. 10 The manuscript of Justin consulted by Eusebius did not exhibit this forgery. This Greek version, made after 311, was still unknown to Eusebius. We do not know how and when this spurious text became added to the Apology of Justin. sources, reproduces two spurious documents after the old compilation of Haenel. In fact, the alleged letter of Maximinus (no. 6) comes from the Passio S. Sabini and the letter of "Aurelian" (no. 5) from the Passio S. Symphoriani. As Ruinart already noted "Aurelian" is here a mistake of a copyist, and the alleged author of the document was supposed to be Marcus Aurelius. Certainly, it may be of interest to collect Christian forgeries of Roman documents, but in this case the letter of Marcus Aurelius, reproduced in Justin's manuscript (see n. 10) or, let us say, the letter of Marcus Aurelius, invented by the author of the Life of Abereius (c. 48) should be included. The Christians, of course, were not alone in fabricating imperial rescripts in their favor. Cfr. L. Wenger, Die Quellen des roemischen Rechts, 1953, 431. 6 Tert. Apo!. 2,6; 5,6. Cfr. Eus. h.e. III, 33 (quoting Tertullian). Cfr. A. Cameron, CQ, N.S. XV, 1965, 291; ibid., N.S. XVII, 1967, 421. 7 Cf. W. Schmid, Festschrift Th. Klauser, 1964, 312. 8 h.e. IV, 9,1-3. 9 Eus. h.e. IV, 13. Note that even jurists could disagree about the authorship of an imperial rescript. The same letter to the Commonalty of Thessaly was attributed to Hadrian by Callistra­ tus (Dig. V, 1,37) and to Antoninus Pius by Marcianus (Dig. XLVIII, 6,5,1). 10 The spurious letter of Marcus Aurelius is reproduced in PG, VI, 436, in J.B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (2nd ed.) II, I, 1889, 485 and in the Loeb edition of Fronto II, 300. It is interesting to note that Eusebius was not certain of the existence of this letter. Chr. Pasch. p. 487 : t..tynm Iii; co<; Kai i:mcrtot..ai q,tpovtu1 Map1<ou toi:i PucriAtco<; K.t.A. A. Harnack, Sitz.-Ber. Preuss. Akad. 1894, 382 has shown that the forger of the letter had used Galerius' edict ap. Eus. h.e. VIII, 17,9. Further cf. T.D. Barnes, JRS, 1968, 37; R. -Freudenberger, Historia, 1968, 251. -.
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