Sermon Tone Analysis

Peter the apostle.

The recipients of the letter.

Modern day Turkey

Bithynia & Pliny the Younger (AD 110-113)

Pliny the Younger observing the pattern of Christianity in the area:

Pliny Letters 10.96-97

“Meanwhile, in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following procedure: I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed.

For I had no doubt that, whatever the nature of their creed, stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy surely deserve to be punished.

There were others possessed of the same folly; but because they were Roman citizens, I signed an order for them to be transferred to Rome.

They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so.

When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food--but ordinary and innocent food.”

What is the “Diaspora”?