HEATHEXISM AXD CUEISTIAXITY. 



161 



■were sacrificed, not for the common weal, but to 

 the cruel caprice of an individual.'' He admits 

 that they were not guilty of the crime attributed 

 to them, that their being put to death on this 

 ground was judicial murder, and the manner of 

 it an abomination, but he regards them as a sect 

 so depraved and dangerous that their extermi- 

 nation was demanded by the public interest. 



The prejudices against the Christians must 

 have taken very deep root, and the contempt 

 with which the educated classes regarded this 

 new form of Oriental superstition must have been 

 very general, before the greatest historian whom 

 Rome has produced could accept, at the begin- 

 ning of the second century, the notions of the 

 masses and the misdeeds of the Christians as 

 facts, without even taking the trouble to sift into 

 their truth. Under these circumstances, the 

 real facts could not be ascertained about the 

 crimes of which the Christians were accused, 

 and to which even a Tacitus gave credit; nor 

 could the cause of the Christians, which went 

 against them under Nero, be fairly judged, until it 

 should be tried again under a better government 

 and by more just judges. This happened even 

 during the lifetime of Tacitus, and but a few 

 years after he wrote of them as above. The 

 greatest of the Ctesars, Trajan, amid the multi- 

 tude of affairs to be regulated in his vast em- 

 pire, found it necessary to interest himself with 

 the Christians and their relation to the state ; 

 and the younger Pliny, one of the noblest and 

 most cultivated men of that day, was commis- 

 sioned to investigate the accusations against 

 them. In the west of Asia Minor, and especial- 

 ly in Bithynia, the province over which Pliny 

 ruled, the Christian religion had found so much 

 favor that in many places, in the cities and even in 

 the country, the temples of the gods were de- 

 serted, the festivals were not celebrated, the flesh 

 of the sacrifices scarcely found purchasers. The 

 embitterment of the heathen at this success of 

 their enemies led to complaints. At first indi- 

 viduals, and soon increasing numbers, were in- 

 formed against to Pliny, as adherents of the 

 Christian sect, a pretext for which was afforded 

 by a recent prohibition of all societies not rec- 

 ognized by the state. Pliny was perplexed ; 

 there were then no leijal enactments against the 

 Christians, and no method of procedure had 

 been established in practice ; at any rate, Pliny, 

 as he himself wrote to Trajan, had never been 

 present at a trial of Christians. Such trials 

 after the great persecution under Nero, had 

 taken place but rarely under Domitian, and since 

 11 



his assassination there had been none. But, 

 like a true Roman, he looked at the subject from 

 a simple, straightforward, political point of view. 

 Let Christianity be what it might, as soon as it 

 asserted its peculiarities in opposition to the re- 

 ligion of the state and the acts of worship con- 

 nected with political life, it became dangerous to 

 the state. On this principle Pliny acted. The 

 persons informed against as Christians were sum- 

 moned to appear, and were asked whether they 

 were such or not. If they confessed it, they 

 were required under pain of death to renounce 

 their faith ; if they refused, they were executed, 

 or if, like Paul, they were Roman citizens, they 

 were sent to Rome to be tried. "For I had no 

 doubt," says Pliny, " that their obstinacy and 

 unyielding contumacy demanded punishment, 

 whatever the religion might be that they pro- 

 fessed." He who denied that he was a Christian 

 or recanted, after he had shown his reverence 

 for the statues of the gods and of the emperor 

 and cursed Christ, was released. It was cer- 

 tainly a very summary proceeding. The gov- 

 ernor, however, took the opportunity of obtain- 

 ing more precise information as to the religion 

 and lives of the Christians, partly from those 

 who denied Christianity, and partly from two 

 Christian deaconesses whom he subjected to this 

 painful examination. But none of them had 

 anything to tell him of the crimes and horrors 

 of which report accused them ; they told him of 

 their religious assemblies, their love-feasts, their 

 adoration of Christ, their moral principles. 

 Pliny wrote that he had discovered nothing in 

 the confessions of the tortured deaconesses but 

 a foolish and boundless superstition. But, wide- 

 ly as it had spread, he hoped to uproot it by 

 severity against those who persisted in it, and 

 showing favor to those who renounced it. This 

 report of Pliny to Trajan undoubtedly shows 

 more knowledge and a more correct view of 

 Christianity than what is said by Tacitus. He 

 gave credit to the slanderous reports of the vices 

 of the Christians, while Pliny does not ; he has 

 convinced himself that they are not necessarily 

 connected with Christianity. This accusation is 

 thenceforth confined to the lower classes ; it is 

 no longer repeated by contemporary authors. 

 But Christianity is still held to be a strange and 

 absurd superstition, and tolerant as imperial 

 Rome was, in general, of superstition of every 

 kind, in this case toleration was limited by the 

 peculiarities of the Christian religion. All other 

 religious usages were compatible with the estab- 

 lished public worship ; the Christian religion 



