Trajan’s Rule on Christians

So great was the persecution against us in many places at that time that Pliny Secundus, one of the most distinguished of governors, was disturbed by the great number of the martyrs and consulted the emperor about the multitude of those being put to death for their faith. At the same time he reported that he had not found them doing anything unholy or against the laws, except that they rose at dawn and sang hymns to Christ as to a god; that they themselves forbade adultery and murder and the lawless offenses akin to them; and that they did everything in keeping with the laws. [a] In answer, Trajan laid down a decree of this kind: the tribe of Christians was not to be hunted out, but if they were brought in, they were to be punished. By this the threat of persecution, which was pressing most violently, was to some degree quenched. Yet there were pretexts enough left for those who wished to do us harm. Sometimes the common people, sometimes the rulers in various regions, laid plots against us, so that even without open persecutions, local ones flared up province by province, and many of the faithful contended in martyrdoms of various kinds. [c]

Our account is taken from the Latin Apology of Tertullian, which we mentioned earlier. The translation runs this way: “Yet we have also found that seeking us out has been forbidden. Pliny Secundus, when he was governing a province, condemned some Christians and stripped them of their rank. Then, troubled by their great number, and not knowing what he ought to do next, he consulted Trajan the emperor. He said that apart from their refusal to worship idols he had found nothing unholy in them. [d] He reported this too: that the Christians rose at dawn and sang hymns to Christ as to a god, and that, to safeguard their knowledge, they were forbidden to murder, commit adultery, be greedy, defraud, and the like. To this Trajan wrote back that the tribe of Christians was not to be hunted out, but if they were brought in, they were to be punished.” Such were the events of that time. [g]