letter written to the emperor trajan by pliny the younger while he was governor of bithynia. it is the first connected account of christ's followers that has come to us from a pagan source.
(from december, 1907, scrap book.)
pliny the younger was a typically cultivated roman of the first and second centuries, anno domini. overeducated, self-conscious, and very firmly convinced of his own importance, he was none the less an amiable and well-meaning man. whenever he wrote a letter, he wrote it with the intention of publishing it at some future time; so that the collection which we now have of his epistles is an amusing example of literary pose. nevertheless, the letters are full of interesting sidelights upon the times in which pliny lived. as a boy, he witnessed from a distance the destruction of pompeii, in which his uncle perished. he beheld the awful excesses of some of the roman emperors. he observed much of human life, and he tells many an interesting tale, ranging from ghost-stories to narratives of historical value.
the emperor trajan gave pliny an official appointment as governor of the province of bithynia. in that office pliny first heard of the new sect called christians. he was told that the christians in reality formed a political organization, masking treason to the emperor under the guise of religion. this was, in fact, the prevalent belief in official circles; and the meetings of the christians were viewed very much as a russian bureaucrat views any private gathering of men and women for an unknown purpose. having made an investigation, however, pliny discovered nothing to justify this feeling; and he wrote a letter to the emperor asking how the christians should be treated. this letter, which is given here, is interesting because it is the first connected account of the christians which we now possess from a pagan source.
it is my habit, your majesty, to refer to you all matters concerning which i am in doubt. for who can better direct my hesitation or inform my ignorance? i have never been present at any trials of christians; therefore i do not know in what way and to what extent it is customary to question or punish them. and i have felt no little hesitation as to whether some allowance should be made for age or whether the weak and delicate should be treated exactly like the more robust, whether pardon should follow retraction, or whether {487} the renunciation of christianity should be of no avail to him who has once professed it; and whether the name of christian itself, without any violation of the law, should be punished or whether violation of the law is considered as inhering in the name. meanwhile, in the case of those who have been accused to me as christians, i have pursued the following plan. i have asked them personally whether they were christians. if they confessed it, i asked them a second and a third time, with the threat of punishment. if they still persisted, i ordered them to suffer the penalty, since i am very sure that whatever it was that they were confessing, stubbornness and unyielding obstinacy ought to be punished. there were some afflicted by this madness who, because they were roman citizens, i remanded to rome.
presently, under this treatment, as is generally the case, the charge began to spread and they were led into more overt acts. anonymous accusations containing many names were sent me. as for those who denied that they either were or had been christians, when at my instigation they called upon the names of the gods and offered wine and frankincense to your statue (which, anticipating this emergency, i had caused to be set up with the images of the deities), and in addition to that had abjured christ—none of which things, they say, those who are really christians can be made to do—i thought that they ought to be let off.
some, whose names had been given to me by informers, said that they were christians and then denied it; that they had once been, but had ceased to be. certain of them said that they had ceased to be christians three years before, others more than that, a few even as long as twenty years ago. all these, too, worshiped both your statue and the images of the gods, and abjured christ.
they declared moreover that this was the sum of their fault or error; that they had been accustomed to meet on a stated day before dawn, and to sing responsively a hymn to christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by a solemn sacrament—not to any crime, but that they should commit no theft, nor adultery, that they should not bear false witness or refuse to give up a trust when it was demanded. when this ceremony was over they said that it had been their custom to depart and to assemble again for the breaking of bread, a common and harmless practice among them.
they further said they had ceased to do even this after my edict, by which, following your commands, i had forbidden all formal assemblies. wherefore i considered it the {488} more necessary to try to get at the truth by torture from two women who were called deaconesses. i found nothing further than a perverse, widespread superstition.
having postponed action, i hastened to seek counsel from you, for it seemed to me that the matter was worthy of consideration, especially on account of the number of persons involved. for many of all ages, of all ranks, and of both sexes even, are under suspicion and will hereafter be under suspicion. the contagion of this superstition has spread, not only in cities but to villages even and farms, though i think that it can be checked and prevented. at any rate, it is pretty evident that the temples of the gods, which were deserted up to a short time ago, have begun to be thronged, the customary sacrifices, long interrupted, to be renewed, and also the pasturing of victims for these sacrifices which had been almost discontinued. from all of which it is my opinion that this body of men can be made to see the error of their ways, if only a chance is given them.
"the lord has sent angels to men at different times since the creation of the world, but always with a message, or with something to perform that could not be performed without."
—wilford woodruff.
"earthly riches are only little things, in comparison to the great principles of eternal lives and exaltation in the kingdom of god; these are the riches of eternity."
—john taylor.
