LO 2.1: Interpreting historical documents

One aspect of this course has been to do primary source analysis, that is, critically engaging a primary source text.  I have included such an analysis from early in the course, based on the Pliny-Trajan correspondence of the early second century.  Pliny was the Roman governor of Bithynia-Pontus, and Trajan was Emperor of Rome.  Pliny wrote to Trajan to ask his guidance on how to deal with stubborn Christians in his domain. 

Why did Pliny write to Trajan at this point, in particular?  To distract from other, more serious issues in the province of Bithynia? Or was it a serious request for guidance?

-          It is possible that Pliny was facing a growing call to control the “Christian uprising” as shown by his reference to the “contagion of this superstition” spreading rapidly throughout the cities and countryside, and was seeking the emperor’s opinion on how best to do so.

  Despite being governor, and therefore judge in Bithynia, Pliny claims to have never attended any trial of a Christian.  How is this possible?

-          It is possible that Pliny “was never present at any trial of Christians” in Rome, where Trajan had his court, and therefore had never witnessed the emperor’s judgment in such a case.

Pliny states that the punishment for “pertinacity and inflexible obstinacy” should be capital punishment, in the case of Christians refusing to recant.  Was capital punishment the standard punishment for insubordination in that time and place? How were Christians treated differently from other sects?

-          Trajan’s response to Pliny indicates that Pliny took “the right line” in his treatment of Christians.  It is possible that Rome’s ideal was to quash any uprising or dangerously “contagious” sect through strict punishment, and therefore fear.  However, it is strange that Trajan advised that punishment be meted out if Christians were brought to Pliny’s attention, but that they should be otherwise ignored.  In other words, Trajan called on Pliny to treat Christians as criminals only if they had been denounced as such – Christianity in itself was not seen as a threat, but the unrest it caused was.  This seems much more in keeping with Roman tradition.

What purpose is served for Rome by punishing Christians, who have vowed to refrain from criminal behaviour, as criminals?

-          It is possible that Rome sought only to make examples of those insubordinate to its laws; in this instance, the “crime” of citizens refusing to recant their beliefs at the order of their governor.  Pliny did seek Trajan’s guidance in whether the “name [of ‘Christian’] itself, even if innocent of crime, should be punished, or only the crimes attaching to that name,” which shows Pliny’s desire to find a general rule of some sort to follow.

Pliny states that people are “imperilled” by accusations of being Christian, but what danger faced them except his own sentences?  What threat, in particular, did Christians pose to his domain?

-          It is possible that the quick spread of Christianity alarmed Pliny, and that the rapid denunciation of persons “of all ages and classes and of both sexes” threatened to undermine what peace existed in the region.  Again, it would seem that Pliny was not threatened by the beliefs of Christianity, which he discovered through the torture of two “maidservants” of the faith, but was rather confused in how to govern a “depraved and extravagant superstition.”