The Henson Journals

[395]

Tuesday, January 10th, 1905.

Kirschbaum accompanied me to Norwood, where the poor little body of my dead child was buried without other liturgy than its father's grief.

[396]

To the Dean of Westminster

January 12th 1905

Dear Dean,

I am re-considering the passage in Pliny's Letter, with respect to which you were good enough to point out what you conceived to be the error of the common rendering, which I adopted in my lectures last Lent. You will have it that 'quod ipsum' refers to the whole statement of the renegades, and not merely to the last clause. But would it not have been 'quae ipsa'? Ought we not to suppose, in any case, that the renegades are not speaking in that character, but as witnesses to Christian practice? The statement is that 'they' had given up something 'post edictum meum'. Pliny had been probably about a year in office at the time he wrote to Trajan, so that his promulgation of the edict against 'hetaeriae' could not have affected the action of men who declared that they had abandoned Christianity 'quidam ante triennium, quidam ante plures annos, non nemo etiam ante viginti'. I incline therefore to revert to the common view that the Christians did surrender their agapai [397] in deference to the State. But I would be grateful for an expression of your views before I finally make up my mind.

Yours ever,

H. Hensley Henson.

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Issues and controversies: stillborn son