The Apostolic Age · c. 73; date disputed, possibly 2nd–3rd century
Letter to His Son
Mara bar Serapion
What it is
A Stoic prisoner writes to his son about the folly of killing wise men: the Athenians killed Socrates and were struck by famine, the Samians burned Pythagoras and were buried by sand, and the Jews executed their wise king and lost their kingdom in the same hour.
Why it lasted
Possibly the earliest reference to Jesus by someone who was neither Jewish nor Christian — and notable for what it does not say, since the wise king lives on only through the laws he gave.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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