Forged Memoirs of Pilate

So they forged Memoirs of Pilate and of our Savior, full of every kind of blasphemy against Christ, and with the approval of the one above them sent them throughout the whole realm under him, with proclamations ordering that they be posted openly for everyone to see in every place, in country and city, and that the schoolteachers give them to the children to study and learn by heart in place of their lessons. [a] While this was going on, another commander, whom the Romans call a dux, had some disreputable women seized from the marketplace at Damascus in Phoenicia and threatened to torture them, forcing them to declare in a written statement that they had once been Christians and knew of the Christians’ unlawful deeds: that in their very churches they did licentious things, and whatever else he wished them to say to slander our teaching. He had their words taken down in an official record and passed it on to the emperor, who ordered these documents too to be published in every place and city. [c]