Objection · Case 04 · The Trinity
Pliny says they sang to Christ “as to a god.” Romans sang hymns to emperors and heroes too. Isn’t this just honoring a founder?
One objection from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Response
The Latin (quasi deo) is genuinely open, and it should not be overstated. The context helps. Pliny was investigating whether Christians were guilty of a crime, and the test he applied was whether they would curse Christ and offer worship to the emperor’s image. Real Christians refused, which shows that Christ held the place in their devotion that the gods held for everyone else. Whatever the exact force of the phrase, Pliny understood Christian devotion to Christ as religious worship of the kind Romans gave to deities, not admiration of a teacher.
About this exhibit
This objection is to Pliny the Younger, Letter 10.96.
Pliny the Younger was a Roman governor. Around 112 AD he wrote to the emperor Trajan asking how to handle Christians in his province. He reports that they met before dawn and sang “a hymn to Christ,…
Under Claim 12: The divinity of Jesus was not invented at the Council of Nicaea; Christians worshiped Jesus as divine long before any council met.