on these letters of the ancients.

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to grant. Furthermore, Jerome Hieronymus (c. 342–420 AD), a prominent scholar and Father of the Church in his Chronicle for the year of Christ 111, page 76; Nicephorus in his Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Chapter 17; Orosius, Book VII of his History, Chapter 12; Hugo Floriacensis a 12th-century Benedictine monk and chronicler in Book IX of his Roman History, Chapter 3; Paul the Deacon and several others from the following ages. From these, the importance and the antiquity of this epistle original: Epistel; a formal letter are undeniably clear.

4. It is true that some have wished to conclude from this that Pliny wrote this out of favor for the Christians and held to them in secret—indeed, that he finally even publicly became a Christian. The origin of this claim may have been the so-called Chronicle of Dexter, which scholars instead call the Pseudo-Dexter original: Pseudodextrum; a reference to a forged historical work; however, this is rejected as a forgery even by the Papists a historical term used by the author for Roman Catholics. (See Cornelius à Lapide, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, p. 12; Philippe Labbe, On Ecclesiastical Writers, Vol. II, p. 331; Compare Bebelius, Strasbourg Antiquities, p. 125; Dorsch, Treatise on the Holy Supper, p. 38, etc.) And because Pliny himself in the letter scolds the Christian teaching as an evil and excessive superstition, even a contagious plague, a madness, and an evil, this fable falls away of its own accord and is not worth further discussion.

5. To make many observations from history and criticism regarding this letter original: Sendschreiben would not be in keeping with our purpose, as we seek solely edification original: Erbauung; the moral or spiritual improvement of the reader. Whoever desires scholarly details can find them in the notes of the learned men Casaubon, Barth, Henry Stephens, Buchner, Jacob Thomasius, Claude Minois, and others—