[Footnote 137: Addrest to the Emperor Trajan while proconsul in Pontus
and Bithynia. The Melmoth translation revised by Bosanquet. This
letter and the passage in Tacitus printed elsewhere in this volume,
are the only genuine contemporary references to the early Christians
to be found in ancient writings. Pliny's letter was preserved by the
Christians themselves as evidence of the purity of their faith and
practises. Early writers of the Church frequently appeal to it against
calumniators. It was written within forty years of the death of St.
Paul.]
[Footnote 138: Trajan's reply to this letter was as follows: "You have
adopted the right course, my dearest Secundus, in investigating the
charges against the Christians who were brought before you. It is not
possible to lay down any general rule for all such cases. Do not go
out of your way to look for them. If indeed they should be brought
before you, and the crime is proved, they must be punished; with the
restriction, however, that where the party denies he is a Christian,
and shall make it evident that he is not, by invoking our gods, let
him (notwithstanding any former suspicion) be pardoned upon his
repentance. Anonymous information ought not to be received in any sort
of prosecution. It is introducing a very dangerous precedent and is
quite foreign to the spirit of our age."]
[Footnote 139: The translation of William Melmoth, revised by F. C. T.
Bosanquet. Pliny wrote two letters to Tacitus on this subject, each at
the request of the historian. Both are given here.]
[Footnote 140: Pliny the elder was his uncle.]
[Footnote 141: In the Bay of Naples.]
[Footnote 142: About six miles distant from Naples. This eruption of
Vesuvius, in which Herculaneum and Pompeii were buried, happened A.D.
79, in the first year of the emperor Titus.]
[Footnote 143: Now called Castellammare, in the Bay of Naples, about
fifteen miles southeast of the city of Naples.]
[Footnote 144: The paragraphs from this point to the end are from
Pliny's second letter to Tacitus.]
[Footnote 145: The island near Naples, now called Capri.]