These things, as has already been observed, took place within thirty-one
years after Christ's death, that is, according to the course of nature,
in the life-time, probably, of some of the apostles, and certainly in
the life-time of those who were converted by the apostles, or who were
converted in their time. If then the Founder of the religion was put to
death in the execution of his design; if the first race of converts to
the religion, many of them, suffered the greatest extremities for their
profession; it is hardly credible, that those who came between the two,
who were companions of the Author of the institution during his life,
and the teachers and propagators of the institution after his death,
could go about their undertaking with ease and safety.

The testimony of the younger Pliny belongs to a later period; for,
although he was contemporary with Tacitus and Suetonius, yet his account
does not, like theirs, go back to the transactions of Nero's reign, but
is confined to the affairs of his own time. His celebrated letter to
Trajan was written about seventy years after Christ's death; and the
information to be drawn from it, so far as it is connected with our
argument, relates principally to two points: first, to the number of
Christians in Bithynia and Pontus, which was so considerable as to
induce the governor of these provinces to speak of them in the following
terms: "Multi, omnis aetatis, utriusque sexus etiam;--neque enim
civitates tantum, sed vicos etiam et agros, superstitionis istius
contagio pervagata est." "There are many of every age and of both
sexes;--nor has the contagion of this superstition seized cities only,
but smaller towns also, and the open country." Great exertions must have
been used by the preachers of Christianity to produce this state of
things within this time. Secondly, to a point which has been already
noticed, and, which I think of importance to be observed, namely, the
sufferings to which Christians were exposed, without any public
persecution being denounced against them by sovereign authority. For,
from Pliny's doubt how he was to act, his silence concerning any
subsisting law on the subject, his requesting the emperor's rescript,
and the emperor, agreeably to his request, propounding a rule for his
direction without reference to any prior rule, it may be inferred that
there was, at that time, no public edict in force against the
Christians. Yet from this same epistle of Pli