but "You," so he writes to Tacitus, "so strong was the affinity of our natures, seemed to me at once the easiest to imitate, and the most worthy of imitation. Now we are named together; both of us have, I may say, some name in literature; for as I include myself, I must be moderate in my praise of you."
In the midst of these striking pictures of the day and of the society of the quiet and comparatively happy times of the Emperor Trajan—in the last and perhaps the least interesting Book of his correspondence—the one generally known as the tenth Book, which contains his semi-official Letters to the Emperor, and some of Trajan's replies,—stands out the great Christian episode in his government of Bithynia and Pontus, by far the most valuable notice that we possess of the numbers and of the influence of the Christian sect in the first years of the second century, only a few years after the death of S. John.
The reference in Tacitus to the cruel persecution of Nero, and the yet briefer notices in Suetonius, are, of course, of the highest value; but the detailed story of Pliny, where he tells the Emperor actually what was taking place in the province of which he was governor, and gives us his own impressions of the works and days of the Christians, is and ever will be to the ecclesiastical historian the most precious testimony of a great pagan to the position which the Christians held in the Roman Empire some eighty years after the Resurrection morning.
We have already, it will be remembered, dwelt at some length on what was evidently in Pliny's mind on the subject—on the impressions, after a careful and lengthy investigation, which this unpopular sect made upon him. He tells his imperial friend and master exactly what he thought; and it is clear that the great Emperor was strangely moved by Pliny's words, and framed his famous rescript upon the report in question on the gentler lines we have dwelt upon above.
The value of such a picture of very early Christian life, painted by an eminent pagan statesman and scholar in the midst of such a work, so carefully arranged, so thought out, prepared, as we have seen, for posterity, as the Letters of Pliny were, can never be too highly valued.
