Very early in the second century the power of the State was turned against the gospel.  About A.D. 107, the far-famed Ignatius, the pastor of Antioch, is said to have suffered martyrdom.  Soon afterwards our attention is directed to the unhappy condition of the Church by a correspondence between the celebrated Pliny, and the Emperor Trajan.  It would seem that in Bithynia, of which Pliny was governor, the new faith was rapidly spreading; and that those who derived their subsistence from the maintenance of superstition, had taken the alarm.  The proconsul had, therefore, been importuned to commence a persecution; and as existing statutes supplied him with no very definite instructions respecting the method of procedure, he deemed it necessary to seek directions from his Imperial master.  He stated, at the same time, the course which he had hitherto pursued.  If individuals arraigned before his judgment-seat, and accused of Christianity, refused to repudiate the obnoxious creed, they were condemned to death; but if they abjured the gospel, they were permitted to escape unscathed.  Trajan approved of this policy, and it now became the law of the Empire.

In his letter to his sovereign [289:1] Pliny has given a very favourable account of the Christian morality, and has virtually admitted that the new religion was admirably fitted to promote the good of the community, he mentions that the members of the Church were bound by solemn obligations to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultery; to keep their promises, and to avoid every form of wickedness.  When such was their acknowledged character, it may appear extraordinary that a sagacious prince and a magistrate of highly cultivated mind concurred in thinking that they should be treated with extreme rigour.  We have here, however, a striking example of the military spirit of Roman legislation.  The laws of the Empire made no proper provision for the rights of conscience; and they were based throughout upon the principle that implicit obedience is the first duty of a subject.  Neither Pliny nor Trajan could understand why a Christian should not renounce his creed at the bidding of the civil governor.  In their estimation, “inflexible obstinacy” in confessing the Saviour was a crime which deserved no less a penalty than death.

Though the rescript of Trajan awarded capital punishment to the man who persisted in acknowledging himself a Christian, it also required that the disciples should not be inquisitively sought after.  The zeal of many of the enemies of the Church was, no doubt, checked by this provision; as those who attempted to hunt down the faithful expressly violated the spirit of the imperial enactment.  But still, some Christians now suffered the penalty of a good confession.  Pliny himself admits that individuals who were brought before his own tribunal, and who could not be induced to recant, were capitally punished; and elsewhere the law was not permitted to remain in abeyance.