Every general change of religious or political ideas bears its quota of crimes.  For whatever the religious or political organization, it always uses every means in its power to perpetuate itself.  This is as true of republics as of monarchies, although the severity of punishment and the amount of heresy permitted change from time to time.  Each age is sure that it has the true religion and the God-given political organization.  In every age the accepted religion is true, and the king and the state can do no wrong.

One thing only seems to be sure.  Human nature does not change.  Whether it was the theological systems of the ancient world fighting to keep Christianity out, or Christianity fighting to preserve itself, the same cruel, bigoted, fanatical majority has been found to do its will, and the same reasons and excuses have served the law from the earliest times down to today.

A letter of the younger Pliny, who was then governor of Bythinia-Pontus, a province of Rome, asking the Emperor Trajan for instructions in dealing with the early Christians shows how persistent are intolerance and bigotry.  This might have been written yesterday to seek advice in the suppression of opinion and punishment for sedition in any of the most advanced governments of the modern world, as it was in the most advanced of the ancient world.  The letter is here reproduced as an interesting exhibit of human nature and it fixity.

Pliny, the younger, was born in 61 A.D. and became governor of the province of Bythinia-Pontus about the year 112 A.D. under the Emperor Trajan.  In the discharge of his duties as governor, Pliny discovered that the conversion of many of his subjects to Christianity had resulted in a falling off of trade in the victims usually purchased for sacrifices at the temples and in other commodities used in connection with pagan worship.  As a good governor, Pliny sought to remedy this economic situation, and his plan was to restore his subjects to their old forms of worship.  Thus he was brought into contact with Christianity.  The following letters, one from Pliny to Trajan, and the other, Trajan’s reply, show the situation.  These documents are from the Tenth Book of Pliny’s Correspondence, Letters 97 and 98.

    Pliny asking instructions of trajan on trials of Christians

It is my invariable rule, Sir, to refer to you in all matters where I feel doubtful; for who is more capable of removing my scruples, or informing my ignorance?  Having never been present at any trials concerning those who profess Christianity, I am unacquainted not only with the nature of their crimes, or the measure of their punishment, but how far it is proper to enter into an examination concerning them.  Whether, therefore, any difference is usually made with respect to ages, or no distinction is to be observed between the young and the adult;