and even of both sexes, who are invited to incur the danger, and will
still be invited. For the infection of this superstition has spread
through not only cities, but also villages and the country, though it
seems possible to check and remedy it. At all events it is evident that
the temples, which had been almost deserted, have begun to be
frequented, and the sacred solemnities, which had been intermitted, are
revived, and victims are sold everywhere, though formerly it was
difficult to find a buyer. It is, therefore, easy to believe that a
number of persons may be corrected, if the door of repentance be left
open" (Ep. 97).

It is urged by Christian advocates that this letter at least shows how
widely Christianity had spread at this early date; but we shall later
have occasion to draw attention to the fact that the name "Christian"
was used before the reputed time of Christ to describe some
extensively-spread sects, and that the worshippers of the Egyptian
Serapis were known by that title. It may be added that the authenticity
of this letter is by no means beyond dispute, and that R. Taylor urges
some very strong arguments against it. Among others, he suggests: "The
undeniable fact that the first Christians were the greatest liars and
forgers that had ever been in the whole world, and that they actually
stopped at nothing.... The flagrant atopism of Christians being found in
the remote province of Bithynia, before they had acquired any notoriety
in Rome.... The inconsistency of the supposition that so just and moral
a people as the primitive Christians are assumed to have been, should
have been the first to provoke the Roman Government to depart from its
universal maxims of toleration, liberality, and indifference.... The use
of the torture to extort confession.... The choice of women to be the
subjects of this torture, when the ill-usage of women was, in like
manner, abhorrent to the Roman character" ("Diegesis," pp. 383, 384).