pheming Christ.' As regards their past Christianity—if ever they had practised Christianity—they affirmed that this was the sum and substance of their crime, that they had been accustomed to assemble on a fixed day before sunrise and to repeat alternately a hymn to Christ as God, and to bind themselves by an oath—not to commit any crime, but—to abstain from theft, brigandage, adul- tery, breach of faith, and refusal of any deposit; which done they usually departed and assembled again to take food, which food was taken by all together, and involved no crime. And even this, they said, they had ceased to do after the edict.?
Here, surely, Pliny is concerned only with renegades who proved to him that the Christian faith which they had abandoned had led them into no crimes of which he must take cognisance. Their oath was not proof of conspiracy and their meal was not a cannibal feast, To satisfy himself that their denial of the charges brought against them was well founded, Pliny examined two slaves, who were called deaconesses, under torture. Finding nothing in them but a foul im- moderate superstition, he submitted the case to the Emperor.’
The fact is that the large number of persons involved and the doubt whether those who had repented of their Christianity had thereby deserved free pardon, gave Pliny food for reflexion. Christi- anity had been rampant in his province, but his experience of these apostates gave him good hope that it might be checked. Apostates would naturally be more zealous heathens, and therefore good
1 Pliny to Trajan, xcvi. (xcvii.): ‘‘ Propositus est libellus sine auctore multorum nomina continens. Qui negabant esse se Christianos aut fuisse cum praeeunte me deos appellarent et imagini tuae, quam propter hoc iusseram cum simulacris nomi- num adferri, ture ac vino supplicarent, praeterea male dicerent Christo, quorum nihil posse cogi dicuntur qui sunt se vera Christiani, dimittendos esse putavi. Alii ab indice nominati esse se Christianos dixerunt et mox negaverunt; fuisse quidem, sed desisse, quidam ante plures annos non nemo etiam ante viginti quoque. Omnes et imaginem tuam deorumque simulacra venerati sunt et Christo maledixerunt.”
2 Pliny to Trajan, xcvi. (xcvii.):; ‘“‘ Adfirmabant autem hanc fuisse summam vel culpae suae vel erroris quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire carmenque Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem, seque sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere, sed ne furta, ne latrocinia ne adulteria committerent, ne fidem fallerent, ne depositum appellati abnegarent; quibus peractis morem sibi discedendi fuisse, rursusque ad capiendum cibum, promiscuum tamen et innoxium; quod ipsum facere desisse post edictum meum, quo secundum mandata tua hetaerias esse vetueram ”’.
3 Pliny, ibid.: ‘‘Quo magis necessarium credidi ex duabus ancillis quae minis- trae dicebantur, quid esset veri et per tormenta quaerere. Nihil aliud inveni quam superstitionem pravam immodicam. Ideo dilata cognitione ad consulendum te decucurri ”’.