apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

PERSECUTION OF TRAJAN. 69
The Acts of Sharbil and of Barsamya were first published in Cureton's posthumous
work, Ancient Syriac Documents (London 1864), where also they are translated.
From his translation the above extracts are taken. Cureton used two Mss,
Brit. Mils. Add. 14,644, and Brit. Mtis. Add. 14,645, the former written in an
Edessene hand of the vth or vith century, the latter dated A.G. 1247 (=A.D. 936);
see Wright's Catal. of Syr. MSS pp. 1083, 11 11. A Latin translation of them was
given by Moesinger, Acta SS. Martyritin Edesscnoniin (Oenoponti 1874), where also
he adds a Latin version of the Armenian Acts published by Aucher. The Armenian
Acts appear to be merely a free abridgment from the Syriac.
It seems unnecessary to attempt a serious refutation of their authenticity.
They carry their own condemnation on their face, as will have appeared from the
extracts and abstracts given above. The gross exaggerations, the flagrant anachronisms,
and the inexplicable historical situations, all combine to denounce them
as a crude forgery.
The wholesale cruelty of the first edict, and the wholesale
protection of the second, are alike alien to the age and temper of Trajan. Nevertheless
Moesinger argues at length in favour of their genuineness, and even Cureton
comments on them as if they were trustworthy history. The latter even goes so
far as to say (p. 186) that 'we have here probably the most authentic copy of the
edict of Trajan, respecting the stopping of the persecution of the Christians.' 'In
'
these Acts,' he proceeds, we have, as it would appear, the words of the edict
itself, as they were taken down by the notaries at the time.' If this were so,
the history of the early persecutions would have to be rewritten. What Christian
father ever heard of this edict, not of toleration, but of protection Constantine
himself did not go so far in this respect, as Trajan is here represented to have gone.
The spuriousness of this edict is shown by F. Gorres Kaiser Trajan u, die Christliche
Tradition p. 39 sq in the Zeitschr. f. Wissensch. Thcol. xxi (1877). The whole story
indeed, like the parallel narrative of Tiberianus in John Malalas, is founded on the
correspondence of Pliny and Trajan, and is disfigured by the worst exaggerations of a
debased hagiology.