Embassy

Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians (fragment)

Athenagoras of Athens

One leaf of a letter to an emperor. It will amount to more.

Catch rate: 240 / 255
Base research: 44
Stat total: 118

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina30

Contend34

Defend32

Popularity22

Total118

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 30

Very low. A single loose fragment of the Plea, with almost nothing to it yet.

Popularity 22

Very slow. One stray leaf that few people know.

Development

A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.

Embassy→
Lv 4

Athenagoras’ Corpus

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	Embassy	History	Argument	50	100%	20
11	Affirm	—	Status	—	—	1

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“For who are more deserving to obtain the things they ask, than those who, like us, pray for your government, that you may, as is most equitable, receive the kingdom, son from father, and that your empire may receive increase and addition?”
Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians 37 (trans. Pratten, ANF 2, public domain).public domain

Embassy

HistoryArgument · power 50 · 100% accurate

In the gameAthenagoras’ open letter to the emperors: Christians are no atheists — they pray for the state and seek a quiet, obedient life. Rome could ask for no better subjects.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.

Affirm

Status

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

Read it: Let the Name Stand Free

The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in Koine Greek.

“But why — for do not, like the multitude, be led astray by hearsay — why is a mere name odious to you? Names are not deserving of hatred: it is the unjust act that calls for penalty and punishment.”
Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians 1 (trans. Pratten, ANF 2, public domain).

“Let the life of the accused persons be investigated, but let the name stand free from all imputation.”
Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians 2 (trans. Pratten, ANF 2, public domain).

“For we have learned, not only not to return blow for blow, nor to go to law with those who plunder and rob us, but to those who smite us on one side of the face to offer the other side also, and to those who take away our coat to give likewise our cloak.”
Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians 1 (trans. Pratten, ANF 2, public domain).

“For who are more deserving to obtain the things they ask, than those who, like us, pray for your government, that you may, as is most equitable, receive the kingdom, son from father, and that your empire may receive increase and addition, all men becoming subject to your sway?”
Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians 37 (trans. Pratten, ANF 2, public domain).

Notes

This is the opening and the closing of the Plea — the first thing Athenagoras asks of two emperors, and the last thing he says to them.

"Let the name stand free from all imputation." Try the person, not the label. It is a plea for individual judgment, made by a man whose own label could get him killed.

The last passage is the final sentence of the whole work, and the source of this book’s Embassy move: men praying for the increase of an empire that could execute them for praying at all.