Golden Epistles of the Ancient Christians

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to admit. Furthermore, Jerome a prominent early Christian theologian and historian (c. 347–420 AD) in his Chronicle at the Year of Christ 111, page 76; Nicephorus Nicephorus Callistus, a 14th-century Byzantine church historian in Ecclesiastical History, Book III, chapter 17; Orosius a 5th-century historian and student of St. Augustine in Book VII of his History, chapter 12; Hugo of Fleury a Benedictine chronicler of the 12th century in Book IX of his Roman History, chapter 3; Paul the Deacon an 8th-century Benedictine monk and historian and several others from the following ages. From these, the importance and the antiquity of this epistle a formal letter emerge irrefutably.

4. Some have indeed wished to conclude from this same letter that Pliny wrote this out of affection for the Christians and secretly sided with them—even that he finally became an open Christian. The origin of this claim may have been the so-called Chronicle of Dexter, which scholars prefer to call the Pseudodextrum a famous 17th-century forgery of a late Roman chronicle; this work is rejected as a forgery even by the Papists a historical term for Roman Catholics. (See Cornelius à Lapide, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, p. 12; Philippe Labbe, On Ecclesiastical Writers, Volume II, p. 331; Compare Balthasar Bebel, Antiquities of Strasbourg, p. 125; Johann Georg Dorsche, Diatribe on the Holy Supper, p. 38, etc.) And because Pliny himself in the letter labels the Christian teaching a "wicked and immoderate superstition" original Latin: superstitionem pravam et immodicam, indeed a "contagious plague" original: ansteckende Seuche, a "madness," and an "evil," this fable falls away of its own accord and is not worth further discussion.

5. To make many historical and critical notes about this letter original: Sendschreiben would not suit our purpose, as we seek purely for edification spiritual or moral improvement. Anyone who desires such things can find them in the notes of the scholars: Isaac Casaubon, Caspar von Barth, Henri Estienne, August Buchner, Jakob Thomasius, Claude Mignault listed as Claudius Minois, and others, par-