emperor, from which we learn that in Bithynia the temples were almost forsaken, that there was no sale for sacrificial victims, and that the Christians were in a majority of the population. Pliny as proconsul had prosecuted inquiries into this serious condition of his province, putting two deaconesses to the torture, to extract from them the secrets of the sect; but ho could ascertain nothing against them. Still, he regarded Christianity as a " depraved and immoderate superstition," and he had condemned many of its adherents to death. Being a humane man and not selfreliant, Pliny was perplexed at the problem that faced him. He shrank from the drastic measures that would be involved in the attempt to stem the popular movement;[1] yet this movement was illegal. In fact, it was now doubly obnoxious to the law, because Trajan had recently issued a rescript forbidding the existence of secret societies, and the churches appeared to be such societies. Ultimately this difficulty was got over by the enrolment of them as burial societies, since an exception was made in favour of those serviceable clubs. Trajan's brief, decisive answer to Pliny's inquiry as to how he should treat the Christians is highly significant.[2] There is to be no police hunt for these people, and informers are not to be encouraged. But when Christians are actually prosecuted they must be punished. We can have no question as to what that means; the penalty is death. Dr. Lightfoot regarded this as a merciful rescript; and no doubt it was merciful in intention. Nevertheless, now for the first time—as far as we are aware—Christianity as such is declared to be a capital crime. Previously it was this constructively; henceforth it is to be so explicitly, on the authority of the emperor.
The second case in which we have a gleam of light thrown on the state of the Church in the reign of Trajan is that of the seven Ignatian letters now widely accepted in their shorter Greek form.[3] Ignatius, the bishop of
