Abstract
Rufinus’ account of Pliny the Younger’s correspondence with Trajan regarding the treatment of Christians (Ep. 10.96–7) differs from Eusebius’ in three important ways: linking persecution to internal divisions within the Church; accentuating Pliny’s compassion for the Christian dead; and removing his skepticism regarding the Christian worship of a divine Christ. This article analyses these changes in light of Rufinus’ early fifth century context, especially the development of the cult of martyrs in northern Italy, and the Theodosian use of Trajan in imperial representations.
1 Introduction
In ca. 112CE Pliny the Younger, the Roman governor of Bithynia-Pontus, wrote a letter to the Emperor Trajan (Ep. 10.96) requesting advice as to how to treat the Christians in his province.1 Pliny describes how Christians who have confirmed their faith when asked on three occasions have been condemned while those who were Roman citizens have been sent to Rome, but he is less clear as to what he should do with those who have recanted their Christianity and proven that they have recanted by engaging in the offering of incense and wine to the emperor’s image.2 Trajan’s response (Ep. 10.97) indicates that Christians should not be sought out, but those identified should be punished if they failed to recant.3 These letters offer an early example of how Roman authorities managed Christians, one which subsequent authors, especially Tertullian, Eusebius, and Rufinus of Aquileia looked to in support of their claim that persecuting Christians for their faith was unjustified.4
Nearly a century after Pliny’s letter, 197CE, Tertullian composed his defence of Christianity, the Apologeticum.5 In the second chapter he offers a selective paraphrase of Pliny’s letter and Trajan’s response, arguing that they created the legal precedent that Christians should not be sought out for punishment.6 When Eusebius of Caesarea came to write his ecclesiastical history following the ‘great persecution’ of the early fourth century, he looked to Pliny and Trajan’s correspondence as an early example of how Roman authorities interacted with Christians in the early empire.7 In the absence of Pliny and Trajan’s original correspondence, Eusebius turned to Tertullian’s selective paraphrase, which he embellished by providing a version of Pliny’s correspondence with Trajan that labelled the Christians put to death in second century Bithynia-Pontus as martyrs, and asserted that Pliny was motivated to contact Trajan for advice because of the vast number being killed—not the complex question of the legality of their faith and the sensitivities Pliny needed to navigate in a province with a recent history of trying to censor its former governors.8
In the early fifth century (ca. 402) Rufinus of Aquileia produced his Latin version of Eusebius’ history, combining the ninth and tenth book into a single book, and adding two more of his own.9 Rufinus had access to both Tertullian and Eusebius’ versions of Pliny’s correspondence with Trajan, but not Pliny’s and Trajan’s actual letters.10 He thus was in a good position to recognise how Eusebius had embellished Tertullian’s version, which was likely the inspiration for Rufinus’ own embellishment of Eusebius’ account, as he set about creating a version of Pliny’s correspondence with Trajan that is noticeably different from Eusebius’. This article explores the three key ways that Rufinus embellishes Eusebius’ version, by linking persecution to internal divisions within the Church; accentuating Pliny’s compassion for the Christian dead; and removing his skepticism regarding the Christian worship of a divine Christ. It then situates Rufinus’ changes in the context of the early fifth century, especially the development of the cult of martyrs in northern Italy, and the Theodosian use of Trajan in imperial representation.
2 Synoptic Table
Citation: Vigiliae Christianae 76, 2 (2022) ; 10.1163/15700720-bja10044
3 Rufinus, Eusebius and Tertullian’s Versions
By framing the persecution of Christians by imperial authorities as an external threat, paralleled by the internal threat of heresy, Rufinus draws an equivalency between the physical threat to Christians, and the damage that false teaching may cause the faith. This framing is lacking in Eusebius’ version, which moves from the emergence of internal disputes in the church, following the death of the first followers of Christ, to an account of the persecution without specifically linking the two.
Both Rufinus’ synopsis and paraphrase—or rather invention—of Pliny’s letter mention the vast numbers of victims (immensae catervae martyrum, innumera hominum milia). This is similar to Eusebius’ emphasis on the vast scope of the persecution and its victims (
Tertullian’s account provides the likely source for Eusebius (and Rufinus’) discussion of the numbers affected, but whereas Tertullian merely remarks that Pliny multitudine perturbatus (“was greatly disturbed at their number”), Eusebius and then Rufinus take an extra interpretative step, assuming that Pliny was disturbed at the number of Christians who had been killed, and not—as Tertullian claims—the number of Christians in the province.12 Indeed, as Cameron has shown, Tertullian’s claim is clearly based on Pliny’s remark “For the situation seemed to me to be worthy of your consultation, especially on account of the number undergoing trial (periclitantium).”13 The participle periclitantium is a gesture at the administrative, logistical and political cost of the trials, rather than Eusebius and Rufinus’ lament at the number of martyrs killed.14
Rufinus’ description of Christian morning hymns has a subtle, but important change to the descriptions by Pliny, Tertullian, and Eusebius. Pliny states “that they [Christians] were accustomed to meet on a specific day before dawn, to sing to Christ as if he were a god (quasi deo).”15 Tertullian maintains Pliny’s ambiguity, if not outright denial, of Christ’s divinity “to sing to Christ as a god (ut deo) during predawn meetings.”16 Eusebius follows Tertullian “they rise at dawn to sing hymns to Christ after the manner of a god (
4 Rufinus and Pliny Ep. 10.96–97?
In his translation of Rufinus’ HE Amidon suggests that Rufinus’ description of the many killed may indicate that he had direct access to Pliny’s letters.23 This suggestion does not rest on any specific verbal connection, but on Pliny’s claim that the imperial trial of Christians risked and would continue to risk individuals of all ages, ranks, and sexes.24 It remains unlikely that Rufinus’ version varies from Eusebius’ and Tertullian’s because he had direct access to Pliny’s letters for three reasons. Firstly, Rufinus rarely missed an opportunity to condemn the persecution of child victims, and while his record on female victims is less clear,25 he makes a point of singling out female martyrs as worthy of praise (in addition to their male counterparts).26 On that basis it seems unlikely that he would have looked past the clear implication in Pliny’s letter that children and women were victims. Secondly, there are no direct lexical parallels in Rufinus’ Latin that cannot be explained without reference to Tertullian’s account. Thus, for example, Pliny uses the prepositional phrase ante lucem, while both Tertullian and Rufinus prefer antelucanos. Lastly, if Rufinus actually had access to Pliny’s letters, he may have had cause to reconsider his sympathetic portrayal of Pliny, who appears far less concerned with the suffering of Christians, and more troubled by the effort involved in subjecting so many to trial and execution, and what Trajan may think of him.27 Moreover, if Rufinus had access to Pliny’s letters, he could reasonably assume that others might too, in which case his creative reimagining of Pliny’s correspondence would likely have provoked criticism. In all likelihood, Rufinus did not have direct access to Pliny’s letters.
5 Tertullian and Eusebius’ Pliny
In a recent article Corke-Webster reexamined Tertullian and Eusebius’ reception of Pliny the Younger, convincingly showing the importance of the correspondence in Tertullian’s Apologeticum and demonstrating that Tertullian engages in sustained intertextuality with Pliny’s letter at both a lexical and structural level.28 Importantly, for this study, Corke-Webster identified that Eusebius “[used Pliny’s] letters in a manner Tertullian would not have recognized … to demonstrate Christianity’s importance on the imperial stage in its earliest days” and reimagine Trajan the “‘best’ emperor … [as] an advocate of Christians.”29 Rufinus similarly reimagines Pliny, and by extension Trajan, presenting Pliny as deeply concerned for the numbers of Christians killed and sympathetic towards their plight, while Trajan’s response is all the worse for his calm response to Pliny’s impassioned plea.
Rufinus’ access to Tertullian and Eusebius’ accounts means that his alterations are all the more knowing, and perhaps even inspired by Eusebius’ changes to Tertullian. That is to say, Rufinus saw how Eusebius altered Tertullian’s account to make the Roman governor seem more kindly disposed towards the Christians in his province, and exacerbated this point, removing Eusebius’ direct praise of Pliny as one of the best governors, which might clue the reader to Eusebius’ pro-Pliny bias, but keeping Eusebius’ removal of Tertullian’s criticism, and then changing his account of Pliny’s remarks to Trajan to make it seem that the governor was intervening on behalf of Christians owing to his compassion for their plight.
Both Eusebius and Rufinus exploit the readers’ difficulty in separating their language from Pliny’s, or in narratological terms, determining what is diegetic (Pliny’s) and what is extradiegetic (Eusebius or Rufinus’ view).30 For example, Eusebius’ remark that Pliny was concerned at the number of martyrs being killed, takes a Eusebian perspective, as Pliny did not refer to the Christian victims as martyrs, (and presumably did not think of them in those terms), but this is not clear to the reader who does not have access to Pliny’s letters. Similarly, Rufinus’ claim that Pliny was motivated by the large numbers being butchered is not Pliny’s language, nor really an accurate description of Pliny’s motivation, but a reflection of how Rufinus, writing in the fifth century, understood or at least wanted to present the persecution of Christians in the early second century. In the case of Christ’s status as a god, this conflation between diegetic and extradiegetic discourse creates the hermeneutic space for a fifth century reader of Rufinus’ account to wonder whether Pliny’s compassion towards Christians was motivated by his sympathy towards their belief in Christ. In this way, Pliny’s correspondence is put to work in the ecclesiastical histories of both Eusebius and Rufinus to form a pro-Christian narrative, that asserts that persecution was contested even as far back as the second century, that Christians were understood to do no wrong, but were punished anyway, and that large numbers were butchered without a legitimate reason.
6 Conclusion
Much has been made of the importance of Trajan as a model for subsequent Roman emperors, especially Theodosius, who like Trajan had Spanish origins and came to the purple following a successful military career.31 The art and literature of Theodosius’ reign capitalized on this connection, from the panegyric by Pacatus to Theodosius, to the statue and column of Theodosius erected in Constantinople.32 This connection continued with the heirs of Theodosius, including Honorius, the Roman Emperor in the West when Rufinus created his Latin version of Eusebius’ HE.33 As Humphries has shown, “In stark contrast to many of the emperors who preceded him, Theodosius showed himself, in Rufinus’s eyes, to be a true champion of Christianity precisely because he was subservient to the church.”34 This point highlights the limits of Trajan’s model for Theodosius; Trajan was after all not a Christian, and while his advice may have seemed compassionate in a second century context, the centuries that followed surely impacted how Christian thinkers would view advice that failed to protect Christians, even if it went some way towards lessening the likelihood that they would fall foul of imperial authorities. The more sympathetic that Rufinus makes Pliny, the more callous Trajan seems, not as bad as the tetrarchic persecutors of the late third and early fourth century whom Rufinus greatly criticized,35 but nowhere near on par with Theodosius.
The cult of martyrs became increasingly important in northern Italy throughout the fourth century as Christian leaders developed the importance of martyrs and commemorated their martyrdom in increasingly complex ways.36 This included Chromatius, the bishop of Aquileia, whose request to Rufinus to translate Eusebius’ ecclesiastical history was the instigation for his work.37 Rufinus’ embellishment of Eusebius and Tertullian’s version of Pliny and Trajan’s correspondence places great emphasis on the brutal suffering of Pliny’s ‘martyrs’ by using vivid language to describe their suffering. In literary terms, this may be considered a result of Rufinus’ taste for the macabre,38 but it also has an important cultural and historical dimension in its establishment of the treatment of Christians in Bithynia-Pontus in the early second century as an important precedent to the Christian martyrs and martyrdoms that followed. Tertullian’s frustration at Trajan’s response, being neither positive nor negative, is played out in Rufinus’ enhanced pathos for the Christian victims and even Pliny, who comes across as the reluctant Roman governor compelled to punish people whose only crimes are to be Christian. For a fifth century reader of Rufinus’ work such a ‘crime’ would have seemed outrageous, especially in the wake of Theodosius’ ban of sacrifice, a ban which his heirs Arcadius and Honorius reiterated.39 Rufinus’ embellishment makes this important, early example of the Roman treatment of Christians all the more gruesome and unfair.
The correspondence took place during Pliny’s governorship of Bithynia-Pontus from 110–112 CE, for which see R. Gibson, Man of High Empire (Oxford 2020), xiv.
Plin. Ep. 10.96 (OCT 338).
Plin. Ep. 10.97 (OCT 340).
Exactly how representative an example has been a matter of some debate, for discussion of which see J. Corke-Webster, “Trouble in Pontus: The Pliny-Trajan Correspondence on the Christians Reconsidered,” TAPA 147.2 (2017): 371–411.
For the date of the Apologeticum see T.D. Barnes, “Tertullian’s Scorpiace,” JTS 20.1 (1969): 105–132, 105.
Tertullian, Apologeticum 2.6–7 (CCSL Tertullian 1, 88), discussed in more detail below.
A. Louth, “The Date of Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica,” JTS 41.1 (1990): 111–123 argues for a date after the Great Persecution for the first seven of Eusebius’ books. For an earlier date see T.D. Barnes, “The Editions of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History,” GRBS 21.2 (1980): 191–201.
Eusebius, HE 3.33.1 (GCS Eusebius 2.2, 270), discussed in detail below.
On the dating of Rufinus’s HE, see C.P. Hammond, “The Last Ten Years of Rufinus’s Life and the Date of his Move South from Aquileia,” JTS 28 (1977): 372–429, 373.
Jerome, Ep. 5.2 (CSEL 54, 21) notes that Paul wants his copy of Tertullian back from Rufinus. Ambrose and Jerome both had access to some of Pliny’s letters—see e.g. A. Cameron, “The Fate of Pliny’s Letters in the Late Empire,” CQ 15.2 (1965): 289–298, 291–2, revised as A. Cameron, “The Fate of Pliny’s Letters in the Late Empire,” R. Gibson and C. Whitton (eds), Oxford Readings in the Epistles of Pliny (Oxford 2016), 463–481, and A. Cain “Liber Manet: Pliny, Ep. 9.27.2 and Jerome, Ep. 130.19.5,” CQ 58.2 (2008): 708–710. Rufinus’ version of Plin. Ep. 10.96–97 does not exhibit a single feature that is extant in Pliny’s letters which Tertullian did not repeat (discussed in more detail below). Rufinus’ version in fact invents numerous features not found in Pliny’s letters, which suggests that Rufinus did not have direct access to Pliny’s letters.
For Rufinus’ use of violent bloody language see S.A. Robbe, Ecclesiasticam Historiam in Latinum Vertere. Rufino Traduttore Di Eusebio Di Cesarea: Persecuzioni E Martiri (Brescia 2016), 155. S.A. Robbe, “Finalita E Tecniche Della Traduzione: Della Historia Ecclesiastica,” in L’oriente in Occidente. L’opera Di Rufino Di Concordia, ed. M. Girolami (Brescia 2014), 179–200, 182–4. Eusebius, HE 3.33.1 (GCS Eusebius 2.2, 270) “[Pliny was] disturbed at the number of martyrs” [and] reported to the emperor the number of those put to death for their faith”
Tertullian, Apologeticum 2.6–7 (CCSL Tertullian 1, 88).
Pliny, Ep. 10.96.1 (OCT, 338): Visa est enim mihi res digna consultatione, maxime propter periclitantium numerum. Cameron, “The Fate of Pliny’s Letters,” 463–481. The verb periclitor can also mean ‘endangered’ LSJ. s.v. II.B. It remains a matter of interpretation as to whether Pliny’s claim vocantur in periculum provides further detail or simply qualifies his use of periclitantium.
T.D. Barnes, “Legislation Against the Christians,” JRS 58 (1968): 32–50, 36n49. J. Corke- Webster, “Trouble in Pontus,” 375 notes that Pliny’s initial decision to execute Christians who refused to recant “risk[ed] appearing excessively brutal once large numbers ha[d] been similarly accused.” As Corke-Webster clearly shows, Bithynia-Pontus had a recent history of unrest involving frequent recourse to the Roman judicial system.
Pliny, Ep. 10.96.7 (OCT, 339): … quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire, carmenque Christo quasi deo dicere …
Tertullian, Apologeticum 2.6 (CCSL Tertullian 1, 88) … coetus antelucanos ad canendum Christo ut deo …
Eusebius, HE 3.33.1 (GCS Eusebius 2.2, 270) …
Rufinus HE. 3.33.1 (GCS Eusebius 2.2, 273) antelucanos hymnos Christo cuidam canerent deo …
Rufinus HE. 3.33.3 (GCS Eusebius 2.2, 273). The evidentiary weight of Rufinus’ exhortation to the reader to look at Tertullian’s account must be considered carefully as Eusebius, HE 3.33.3 (GCS Eusebius 2.2, 27). makes the same remark (and so Rufinus could be simply repeating Eusebius’ claim).
Jerome, Ep. 5.2 (CSEL 54, 21) discussed above.
Rufinus HE. 3.33.1 (GCS Eusebius 2.2, 273) haec Tertullianus in Apologetico suo dicit, ex quo possunt instrui plenius scire cupientes. “Tertullian says this in his Apologeticum, by which those wanting to know more can be instructed.” Rufinus HE. 2.2.5–6 (GCS Eusebius 2.2, 111–13) quotes Tertullian Apologeticum 5.1–2 verbatim, rather than translating Eusebius’ Greek version back into Latin, for which see P.R. Amidon, Rufinus of Aquileia, History of the Church (Washington 2016), 65n12. This confirms Rufinus’ access to Tertullian’s work, a point first made by Mommsen GCS Eusebius 2.3, cclii.
C. Gianollo, Indefinites between Latin and Romance (Oxford 2018), 49–50.
Amidon, Rufinus of Aquileia, 132n92: “It sounds as if Rufinus consulted Pliny’s Ep. 10.96.9 directly.”
Pliny, Ep. 10.96.9 (OCT, 339): “For many of every age, every rank, and even both sexes are called into danger and will continue to be.” Multi enim omnis aetatis, omnis ordinis, utriusque sexus etiam vocantur in periculum et vocabuntur. For child victims see e.g. Rufinus, HE 8.14.5 (GCS Eusebius 2.2, 781); Rufinus, HE 11.24 (GCS Eusebius 2.2, 1030), for discussion of which see M.P. Hanaghan, “Rufinus’ Bloody Pagan Tyrants,” VC 75.1 (2021): 1–21, 2.
E.g Rufinus, HE 5.1.41 (GCS Eusebius 2.2, 419) for discussion of which see Amidon, Rufinus of Aquileia, 193n12 who claims that Rufinus’ account of the martyrdom of Blandina downplays her status. For a dissenting view see Robbe, Ecclesiasticam Historiam, 66–68 who sees in Rufinus’ praise of Blandina a comparison to Eve. E.A. Goodine and M.W. Mitchell, “The Persuasiveness of a Woman: The Mistranslation and Misinterpretation of Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica 5.1.41,” JECS 13 (2005): 1–19 focuses exclusively on Eusebius’ version and so makes no comparison between Eusebius and Rufinus’ accounts of Blandina’s martyrdom.
Rufinus, HE 4.15.48 (GCS Eusebius 2.2, 351).
Pontus-Bithynia had a recent record of prosecuting its governors, and including saeuitia in the charge, for which see Gibson, Man of High Empire, 220 and Corke-Webster, “Trouble in Pontus,” 383–6.
J. Corke-Webster, “The early reception of Pliny the Younger in Tertullian of Carthage and Eusebius of Caesarea,” CQ 67.1 (2017): 247–262, 252–260.
Corke-Webster, “The early reception of Pliny,” 262.
G. Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, Jane E. Lewin (trans.) (Ithaca 1980), 228–231.
C. Ware, “Learning from Pliny: Claudian’s Advice to the Emperor Honorius,” Arethusa 46.2 (2013): 313–331, 316–7.
Pan. Lat. 2(12)4.2–5 (OCT 84–5); Themistius, Oratio 19.229c (Teubner 1, 333). For Theodosius’ connection to Trajan in the Forum Tauri see R. Stichel, “Kaiser Theodosius I. ‚melior Traiano‘—Ein Deutungsversuch zur Ausstattung des Forum Tauri in Konstantinopel (mit einem Exkurs zum Zerstörungsdatum der Theodosius-Säule),” in Zurück zum Gegenstand: Festschrift für Andreas E. Furtwängler I, eds. R. Einicke et al. (Langenweißbach 2009), 151–8, 154–6.
C. Ware, “Learning from Pliny,” 316–7.
M. Humphries, “Rufinus’s Eusebius: Translation, Continuation, and Edition in the Latin Ecclesiastical History,” JECS 16 (2008): 143–64, 156–7.
Hanaghan, “Rufinus’ Bloody Pagan Tyrants.”
Marianne Sághy, “Martyr Cult and Collective Identity in Fourth-Century Rome,” in Identity and Alterity in Hagiography and the Cult of Saints, ed. Ana Marinković and Trpimir Vedriš, Bibliotheca Hagiotheca 1 (Zagreb: Hagiotheca, 2010), 17–35. See also A. Thacker, “Popes, Patriarchs and Archbishops and the Origins of the Cult of the Martyrs in Northern Italy,” Studies in Church History 47 (2011): 51–79, 52–54.
Rufinus HE pref. (GCS Eusebius 2.2, 951).
S.A. Robbe, “Finalita E Tecniche Della Traduzione,” 183.
CTh.16.10.12.1–4; 16.10.13.pref. (Mommsen and Meyer, 900–901).
