Note 20 — PART III CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN PLINY AND TRAJAN

Lightfoot well observes (Apostolic Fathers, part ii. vol. i., S. Ignatius, pp. 54–6) that these two famous letters cannot be separated from the collection of Pliny’s Letters in which they appear. Renan in Les Évangiles writes: “On ne croira jamais qu’un faussaire Chrétien eut pu si admirablement imiter la langue précieuse et raffinée de Pline.”

Lightfoot further asks, what Christian writer, if bent on forgery, would have confessed that crowds of his fellow-believers had denied their faith ... that the persecution was already refilling the heathen temples which before were nearly empty, and that there was good hope, if the same policy of persecution was pursued, of a general apostasy from Christianity ensuing? Several, too, of the statements concerning the practices of Christians betray only a very imperfect knowledge of the practices referred to.

The passage which, however, has excited the greatest suspicion and animosity is that which relates to the great numbers of the Christians; but it must be remembered that Tacitus had already spoken of “a vast multitude” as suffering at Rome in the persecution of the Emperor Nero.