if any "edict," in the strict sense of the word, was promulgated by the Emperor Nero; and this he deduces from the famous correspondence which took place between Pliny, the governor of Bithynia, and the Emperor Trajan, some fifty years after the events just related in the days of Nero.
The words of Pliny when he asked for more definite directions from Trajan in the matter of Christian prosecutions, apparently indicate that he considered the Christian question not as one coming under some definite law, but as a matter of practical administration.
The more general opinion, however, held by modern Church historians is that an edict against the Christians was promulgated by Nero, and that Domitian specially acted upon the edict in the course of the severe measures taken against the sect in the later years of his reign; the words of Melito of Sardis (second century), of Tertullian (beginning of third century), of the Christian historians writing in the fourth century and early years of the fifth century Sulpitius Severus and Lactantius, being quoted in support of this view.
The expressions used by Sulpitius Severus here are certainly very definite in the matter of the imperial edict. This historian founds his account of the persecution under Nero on "Tacitus," and then comments as follows: "This was the beginning of severe measures against the Christians. Afterwards the religion was forbidden by formal laws, and the profession of Christianity was made illegal by published edicts" (Chron. ii. 29).
It is not, however, of great importance if the profession of Christianity was formally interdicted, or if a persecution was a matter of practical administration, the profession of the faith being considered dangerous to law and order, and deserving of death—as Ramsay supposes. The other conclusion is of far greater moment. It is briefly this:
The first step taken by the imperial government in persecution dates certainly from the reign of Nero, immediately after the scenes in the Vatican games, when a Christian was condemned after evidence had been given that he or she had committed some act of hostility to society—no difficult task to prove. Subsequent to Nero's reign, a further develop-
