This, and the rest of your post, is entirely baseless.
No it isn't.
Pliny knew what a god was
From another culture? Would Pliny really know the difference between a deus, numen and genius loci seen through a Jews culture lens? Especially in a cult that by 180 CE was a schismed mess?
and he knew what a christ was. His uncle had even studied and published on the topic of Jewish sects. But in any case, so what, even if what you say is true? Christians, and they alone, worship the Messiah as a god.
Again we hit the translation issue. Is Pliny saying as 'to a god' or 'as
if to a god'.
Also way back in 1880 there was
"The angel-messiah of Buddhists, Essenes, and Christians" so the idea of the messiah as an angel (as
if to a god) has been around a long time.
Note that c180 Irenaeus talks of those (Christians?) "who say that Jesus was merely a receptacle of Christ" (Against Heresies 3.16.1)
Irenaeus also talks of Saturninus who "maintained that the God of the Jews
was one of the angels" - Against Heresies (1.24.2)
We then get Basilides who...well best let Irenaeus himself speak on the matter as trying to figure out what he is actually saying makes my head hurt:
"He sets forth that Nous was first born of the unborn father, that from him, again, was born Logos, from Logos Phronesis, from Phronesis Sophia and Dynamis, and from Dynamis and Sophia the powers, and principalities, and angels, whom he also calls the first; and that by them the first heaven was made"
"Those angels who occupy the lowest heaven, that, namely, which is visible to us, formed all the things which are in the world, and made allotments among themselves of the earth and of those nations which are upon it. The chief of them is he who is thought to be the God of the Jews; and inasmuch as he desired to render the other nations subject to his own people, that is, the Jews, all the other princes resisted and opposed him. Wherefore all other nations were at enmity with his nation. But the father without birth and without name, perceiving that they would be destroyed, sent his own first-begotten Nous (he it is who is called Christ) to bestow deliverance on those who believe in him, from the power of those who made the world. He appeared, then, on earth as a man, to the nations of these powers, and wrought miracles. Wherefore he did not himself suffer death,
but Simon, a certain man of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the cross in his stead; so that this latter being transfigured by him, that he might be thought to be Jesus, was crucified, through ignorance and error, while Jesus himself received the form of Simon, and, standing by, laughed at them."
If Pliny was dealing with those or any other "Heresies" then who knows what he was dealing with. Messianic Judaism and Christianity coexisted for a time and given the variety there was in both we can't exclude short lived variants.
