Primary source · Latin

Pliny and Trajan on the Christians (Letters X.96–97)

Pliny the Younger · Emperor Trajan · c. AD 112, Bithynia

What this text is

The earliest pagan administrative file on the church: a governor unsure what exactly to punish, and an emperor's rescript — do not hunt them; punish the denounced; accept recantation; ignore anonymous accusations.

Profile of Pliny the Younger →

Interlinear passages

Word-for-word glosses of the original; the complete public-domain translation is linked below.

Pliny, X.96 — the opening
SollemneCustomaryestit ismihi,for medomine,my lordomniaall thingsdeaboutquibuswhichdubitoI doubtadtoteyoureferreto refer
Trajan, X.97 — the rescript
ConquirendiTo be hunted outnonnotsunt;they aresiifdeferanturthey are denouncedetandarguantur,convictedpuniendito be punishedsuntthey are

Public-domain translations

William Melmoth (1746)

They affirmed the whole of their guilt was that they met on a stated day before it was light, and sang responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god… (Trajan:) They are not to be sought out; if brought before you and convicted, they must be punished — but anonymous informations ought not to be received in any prosecution: it is a very bad precedent, and unworthy of our age.

Manuscript witnesses

Book X tradition (from the lost Parisinus)

ancient codex, lost after 1508

The correspondence with Trajan survives via a single ancient manuscript that vanished after the Aldine edition was set from it.

LOST WITNESS

Aldine edition (Venice)

1508

Effectively the manuscript: the first complete printing of Book X.

PRINTED PROXY

Provenance

Bithynia-Pontus, c. AD 111–112 — the governor's file on the Christians

Editions & scholarship

Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.

Figures named in this text (3)