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.
Why these numbers
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
A single loose fragment of the Plea — almost nothing to it yet. The lowest Stamina a book can carry.
One stray leaf, little known — the slowest thing on any shelf.
Development
A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the 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 |
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).
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.