issued by Pliny forbidding 'hetaeriae'; (II) to test the truth of this statement, Pliny put two servants, or possibly deaconesses, to the torture, but discovered nothing beyond 'superstitio prava immodica '; (12) he consults Trajan, owing to the number of those accused; for (13) all ages, all ranks of society, town and country, are affected by the contagion; (14) the temples are almost deserted; but (15) his plan of allowing recantation to avert punishment has already begun to check the evil, and he sees reason to hope that crowds of men will abjure Christianity if the procedure is confirmed by Trajan.

Several of these statements raise questions which it is not altogether easy to answer, but the main difficulty is, that whereas at the end of Domitian's reign there is nothing to show either that the Christians were recognised as an independent sect, or regarded as dangerous to public order either in Rome or the provinces, we have here not only a recognition of their existence, but to a certain extent an understanding of their position; and yet Pliny has felt himself justified in executing men for no other reason than the refusal to deny their Christianity. The state of things which Pliny describes has not suddenly come about in Bithynia, for he talks of religious ceremonies which have long been neglected; but Pliny's method of dealing with them is not a continuation of any procedure taken by the proconsuls of the province, for the whole letter implies that the policy of interference is a new one. Nor is it possible to suppose that Trajan had issued a general edict against the Christians in accordance with which Pliny had acted, for such an edict would certainly have been mentioned in the letter, and indeed would have rendered much of it unnecessary. Again, when Pliny asserts that he had never been present at any Christian trials, does he imply that such trials had taken place, and, if so, when and where? If the view taken above of the events in Domitian's reign is a correct one, he cannot allude to any trials at Rome, for there no Christians had been tried as such, and in any case we cannot conceive that Pliny, who was interested in every detail of the law courts, should have remained ignorant of them and of their procedure if they had taken place. It seems to me that the solution of the whole question must be found in the position of the oriental provinces generally, and perhaps of Bithynia in particular, in

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relation to the Christians. In all these provinces the Jewish population was very considerable, while it is easy to believe, even apart from the evidence of Pliny, that the Christians were also becoming numerous, and in view of the bitter hatred which existed between Jews and Christians since the Jewish war, it must have become impossible for the Roman governors any longer to confuse the two. But the Jews were probably still the most numerous, and as their religion was still tolerated, there seemed no reason for special measures against the Christians, and it would be deemed sufficient to check with a firm hand any riotous behaviour on the part of either. This, it is probable, was the state of things up to the end of Domitian's reign. The Christians, though increasing in number, were still mainly members of the lower classes, as is proved almost certainly from the fact that up to and beyond this period all the Christian bishops are shown by their names to be peregrini; but they were gradually being forced upon the attention of the provincial governors partly by their numbers, but much more so perhaps by the accusations which their Jewish enemies would make against them. That the scandalous stories commonly believed about the Christians were the result of Jewish information and Jewish malevolence is extremely probable; and both in the other oriental provinces and in Bithynia, where the Jews, even from the time of Cicero (pro Flac. cap. 28), had been exceptionally numerous, it is likely that Christians may for some years have been charged by the Jews, and occasionally brought before the tribunal of the governors, on some charge of impiety or sacrilege, or possibly even maiestas. It is to cognitiones of this sort before the provincial tribunals that I believe Pliny to refer when he states, 'cognitionibus de Christianis interfui nunquam.' Up to the date of his letter, however, they had not attracted much attention, nor had the real difference between Jews and Christians yet fully penetrated to Rome. But many things which had passed almost unnoticed. under the lax régime of the senatorial proconsuls, at once would attract the attention of Pliny, and by him be brought under the notice of Trajan. Among other things the existence of collegia or sodalitates, always liable to abuse, had, in certain of the cities of Bithynia especially, led to factions and disturbances (ad Trai. 34). For this reason Trajan refuses even to allow

a fire-brigade to be formed at Nicomedeia; and it appears, from Pliny's letter about the Christians, that a general edict had been issued forbidding in Bithynia hetaeriae of all sorts, 'post edictum meum quo secundum mandata tua hetaerias esse vetueram.' Viewed in the light of this edict, the charges brought before Pliny, as before previous proconsuls, against the Christians would assume a more important aspect. Inquiry would show that in many respects the organisation of the Christian congregation was similar to that of the various collegia, which, primarily intended as benefit societies or funeral clubs, each had, as the Christians also had, their common treasury, their common cult, and their fixed religious celebrations. Looked at as individuals charged with ill-will or disaffection to established usages and rites, the Christians might be regarded as misanthropes, as haters of the human race; they might even be suspected of various enormities at their secret meetings: but once regard these misanthropes as members of a body, and their corporate ill-will to the usages of the ruling people becomes no longer misanthropy, but conspiracy. This is what would strike Pliny more than anything else, when the ordinary accusations were brought before him. On the one hand were more or less trumpery charges brought against the Christians; on the other was the fact already placed before him, that the accused formed a society, and in some respects a secret society, described by a common name. Which was he to regard as the more important, the 'nomen' or the 'crimina nomini cohaerentia'? This question Pliny refers to the emperor, but meanwhile assumes, what indeed Trajan's rescript confirms, that it is the 'nomen,' the profession, the membership in the society, which is the serious charge; and as such membership, after the edict referred to, involved direct disobedience, as it further was accompanied by a refusal to worship the state gods, or to do homage to the emperor's statue, Pliny considered that, leaving out of account the details charged against them, he had no choice but to visit this obstinacy with the extreme penalty. He however punishes them not as members of a religious sect, but as members of a suspicious and at any rate forbidden association. It is clear that this severe course, necessary as it seemed to Pliny in the circumstances, did not quite commend itself to his humanity, because (1) certain inquiries which he

made into the doings of the association failed to bring home to the accused anything impious, immoral, or disloyal; and (2) the very numbers of the accused made a continuation of the same course almost impossible. The rescript of Trajan to a great extent relieved him from his difficulty. The emperor at once dismisses the charges of immorality, sacrilege, murder, and what-not made against them by their accusers, and therefore decides that Pliny need take no initiative in the matter (conquirendi non sunt); while the veto on anonymous accusations would no doubt immensely diminish the number of those put forward by spiteful and envious Jews. On the other hand, Trajan commends Pliny's past procedure, and distinctly lays it down that all who are charged by responsible accusers and proved to be Christians, on refusing to deny the name, and, as a test of bona fides, to worship the state gods, are to be executed. This, then, is the first distinct and legal ordinance made respecting the Christians. It amounts, there is no doubt, to an edict of proscription. The profession of Christianity, as such, if proved on satisfactory grounds, was a punishable offence. The effects, however, of this proscription were to a large extent modified by the fact that Christians were not to be searched out, and that anonymous accusations were forbidden. It is clear, on the one hand, that Trajan pays little regard to their religious opinions, since he is perfectly satisfied with a singleinstance of merely outward conformity, 'supplicando diis nostris;' while, on the other hand, it is impossible to suppose that he saw in the Christians a serious political danger, or he would surely have taken effectual means to extirpate the danger, instead of instructing Pliny to abstain from all initiative in the matter. Trajan was probably convinced, as apparently Pliny was, that the Christian society was perfectly harmless, but it was still none the less, or seemed to be, a collegium or hetaeria, and one which had never been licensed. On this ground it was impossible to recognise, and indeed necessary to proscribe it, though, so far as the government was concerned, the proscription might remain practically a dead letter unless the Christians themselves did anything to bring them under the head of latrones or sacrilegi, or unless bona fide accusations were brought against them. That the edict opened out the possibility of a legal persecution there is no doubt, for it was

quite within the competence of the governor to invite accusations though he could not initiate them. That it actually was followed by a persecution there is not the smallest proof, and apart from the question of the martyrdom of Ignatius under Trajan, which is full of inconsistencies and open to the greatest doubt, the only evidence for anything of the kind is to be found in Pliny's own statements of his measures prior to the emperor's edict. It is this double aspect of Trajan's rescript which, while it theoretically condemned the Christians, practically gave them a certain security, that explains the different views which have since been taken of it; but by most of the Church writers, and perhaps on the whole with justice, it has been regarded as favourable, and as rather discouraging persecution than legalising it.

With regard to the application of the edict, I think it is quite clear that it related not to the empire as a whole, but to Bithynia only. Trajan's own words, 'neque in universum aliquid . . constitui potest,' partly imply this, but apart from this, without definite evidence, it would be quite inadmissible to suppose that a rescript given to a particular governor in answer to particular questions could be applied beyond the province about which it was written. That Tertullian and other ecclesiastical writers should attach as much importance to the correspondence as they do is natural enough. Trajan's rescript was called forth by a letter which might well seem an important and a valuable one to the whole Christian body, recognising as it does, not only the number of the sect, but its steadfastness under persecution, and above all its innocence and moral purity; and exaggerated views in consequence sprang up in early times, and have to a certain extent continued since, as to the real importance of the correspondence. Some confirmation of the view taken above, that Trajan's rescript is really little more than a supplement to his previous edict concerning the hetaeriae in Bithynia, and really did not touch Christianity as a religion at all, is perhaps to be found in two statements in the Digest, one of Modestinus, 48, 19-30,—‘si quis aliquid fecerit quo leves hominum animi superstitione numinis terrentur, Divus Marcus huiusmodi homines in insulam relegari rescripsit '; and one of Paulus, 5, 21, 22, 'si quis novas sectas vel ratione incognitas religiones inducat ex quibus animi hominum