Pliny the Younger (born A.D. 61, died A.D. 115) writes to the Emperor
Trajan, about A.D. 107, to ask him how he shall treat the Christians,
and as Paley has so grossly misrepresented this letter, it will be well
to reproduce the whole of it. It contains no word of Christians dying
boldly as Paley pretends, nor, indeed, of the punishment of death being
inflicted at all. The word translated "punishment" is _supplicium_ (acc.
of _supplicium_) in the original, and is a term which, like the French
_supplice_, derived from it, may mean the punishment of death, or any
other heavy penalty. The translation of the letter runs as follows: "C.
Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, Health.--It is customary with me to refer
to you, my lord, matters about which I entertain a doubt. For who is
better able either to rule my hesitation, or to instruct my ignorance? I
have never been present at the inquiries about the Christians, and,
therefore, cannot say for what crime, or to what extent, they are
usually punished, or what is the nature of the inquiry about them. Nor
have I been free from great doubts whether there should not be a
distinction between ages, or how far those of a tender frame should be
treated differently from the robust; whether those who repent should not
be pardoned, so that one who has been a Christian should not derive
advantage from having ceased to be one; whether the name itself of being
a Christian should be punished, or only crime attendant upon the name?
In the meantime I have laid down this rule in dealing with those who
were brought before me for being Christians. I asked whether they were
Christians; if they confessed, I asked them a second and a third time,
threatening them with punishment; if they persevered, I ordered them to
be led off. For I had no doubt in my mind that, whatever it might be
which they acknowledged, obduracy and inflexible obstinacy, at all
events should be punished. There were others guilty of like folly, whom
I set aside to be sent to Rome, because they were Roman citizens. In the
next place, when this crime began, as usual, gradually to spread, it