Golden Epistles of the Ancient Christians

appealed to a public and authentic document original: documentum publicum und authenticum in their defenses against the heathens. For Tertullian an early Christian author from Carthage (c. 155 – c. 220 AD) writes of it in his Apology near the beginning, Chapter 2: We find, however, that the inquiry original: Inquisition; here meaning a legal or judicial investigation against us has been forbidden. For when Pliny the Younger original: Plinius Secundus governed the province, and some Christians had been condemned and others dismissed from their positions, he became startled by the sheer number of them. He then consulted with the Emperor Trajan as to what should be done further, and noted that—aside from their stubbornness in refusing to offer sacrifices—he had learned nothing else regarding their worship except that they met before daybreak to sing to Christ as a God. He added that they bound themselves to a code of good discipline original: Zucht, by which they forbade murder, adultery, fraud, breach of trust, and other vices. In response, Trajan replied in writing original: rescribirt that while such people should not be sought out through an inquiry, they should nonetheless be punished if they were brought forward. Regarding this rescript an official imperial response to a legal query, Tertullian judges quite emphatically based on the principles of law original: principiis Juris, as will be shown below following the text itself in the section on its application.

3. Many other Christian writers also refer to this letter and use it for all sorts of useful observations. Among these is Eusebius known as the "Father of Church History" (c. 260 – 339 AD) in his Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Chapters 32 and 33. He recounts from this how the persecution somewhat subsided following this event, though not entirely, because permission still remained for enemies to bring the Christians to...