Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

[Ulan]

At best, he proves that Christians existed.

... and that there was a story in his day that a Christ was crucified in Judaea under Pontius Pilate.

EDIT: "executed"

That's right, he's talking about some tale. Nobody doubts that Christians spread tales about a crucified Christ. That was sort of their thing.

[Secret Alias]

something as: the people call them the "Good ones"

It was also an established term for the 'elite' of ancient Athens. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/55216/summary

[neilgodfrey]

... which gives Pliny ample opportunity to share his knowledge on Christians. I think it would be fair to say he knows more than what was put in a letter, given he did interrogate Christians and such.

What are your objections to Tuccinardi's analysis?

My biggest issue with Tuccinardi's article (and I am more than happy to change my position on this if more research is published on the matter) is that while Tuccinardi may find non-Plinian elements in the text, we are not told where the elements occur. And without knowing that, it does not seem particularly helpful. The reason being, since Pliny in the text is reporting on a tradition he has not reported on elsewhere, and therefore using terms he hasn't elsewhere, of course there will be a larger degree of non-Plinian style and language in the text. He never talks of Christians elsewhere, and as he is reporting what he gathered from interrogating Christians, we would expect non-Plinian language. So, where the interpolations supposedly occur in the text based on stylometric analysis is important. If it occurs in the sections where he broadly reports on Christianity, then it may not be an indication of interpolation at all, but of borrowed language from those he interrogated.

Which leads to me to another problem which is that we have proven that author's can consciously alter their style (in fact a very interesting study was published on adversarial techniques to undermine stylometric analysis, see https://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~sadia/p ... ometry.pdf) and also their styles change over time and under various influences. So, I am actually unsure about the entire presupposition of Tuccinardi's paper that "each author owns distinctive writing habits, independent of his/her will, and [...] the author cannot intentionally alter these features."

I think that Tuccinardi's analysis is a really intriguing start for interpolation theories, but until more work is published on the matter, I remain unconvinced of interpolation so far.

On the other hand, Pliny's requests to Trajan for advice etc are in multiple instances something new for him to ask about. If across the board in that case one type of query seems an outlier in style, then we must wonder.

An interesting work on subtleties of style -- you may already have read it -- is James Pennebaker's The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us.

We can and do change our styles for different purposes of writing, as we know. But eliminating certain personal traits requires some effort and often several drafts.

[Chrissy Hansen]

On the other hand, Pliny's requests to Trajan for advice etc are in multiple instances something new for him to ask about. If across the board in that case one type of query seems an outlier in style, then we must wonder.

An interesting work on subtleties of style -- you may already have read it -- is James Pennebaker's The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us.

We can and do change our styles for different purposes of writing, as we know. But eliminating certain personal traits requires some effort and often several drafts.

Very true. It is essentially why my position on Tuccinardi's work is that we just need more studies in this line done on Pliny. I would also be curious to see future studies expand the sample size to include Books I-IX as well.

[Peter Kirby]

Pliny is connected with/related to certain of the earliest Christian names/figures in Ostia.

I'm curious.. what are the details here?

[Secret Alias]

Sorry I am flying right now but there is the oldest legend from Christianity that connects Pliny to a semi-legendary personality. If you go to my Marcion in Ostia/Portus thread you will see I think.

[Secret Alias]

The Marcellus the senator guy (Marcus Granius Marcellus) from the Acts of Peter is said to be related to Pliny

The Acts of Peter goes out of its way to deny a connection between Marcellus and Paul – even though we know this must have originally existed. The text substitutes the name Marcellus with Demetrius even though the manipulation makes no sense. Peter has explicitly come to Ostia to rescue those originally baptized by Paul but have fallen under the sway of Simon Magus. He arrives at Marcellus’s house for this very purpose even though the text now names the senator Paul visited with as “Demetrius.” It is worth noting that one of the women who gather in Marcellus’s Ostian villa is Chryse – the name of the most beloved saint to the Ostian community. In the official lore of the fourth century Ostian community, their St Chryse was martyred in the third century. But the profiles of the two women very closely align. Moreover Marcellus was known to have passed on property to his nephew Pliny the Elder. Pliny the Younger owned villas in Ostia.

Another thing that was passed on from Marcellus to Pliny the Younger was governorship of Bithynia and Pontus.

[Secret Alias]

https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_HS ... ny-the.htm

Argues for the idea that Pliny knew more than he was letting on.

[Secret Alias]

I think there is something to this Pliny connection with Marcellus the Senator. The Osroene community knows about it and likens their own Marcellus (?) on this first century Marcellus. I think it suggests Christianity existed before the second century.

[Secret Alias]

http://www.keytoumbria.com/Citta_di_Cas ... Villa.html