Library › Greek: Early Christian Writings › Letter to the Common Assembly of Asia
The Letter to the Common Assembly of Asia is an imperial rescript transmitted under the name of the emperor Antoninus Pius, addressed to the provincial council of Asia. It forbids the harassment of Christians merely for being Christians and orders that accusers who bring such charges be punished. The text survives only appended to Justin Martyr's First Apology and in Eusebius' Church History (4.13), where its heading gives the titles of Marcus Aurelius. Most scholars regard it as a Christian forgery or a heavily reworked document.
Whatever its origin, the letter shows how early Christians used real or claimed imperial rulings in defending themselves against persecution. It is an important text for the study of Christian apologetic and of Roman legal attitudes toward Christianity in the 2nd century AD.
About this edition. The Greek text comes from the Eulogikon open corpus of public-domain editions (standard reference: Appendix to Justin, 1 Apology; cf. Eusebius, HE 4.13). Every word has been analyzed with odyCy, a neural language model for Ancient Greek — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from the Liddell–Scott–Jones Greek–English Lexicon (LSJ). This rescript favouring Christians survives only appended to Justin's Apology and in Eusebius (HE 4.13, under Marcus Aurelius), and most scholars regard it as a Christian forgery or a heavily reworked document.