rought to justice under the plea of impiety or Judaism. The answer
given by Trajan to Pliny the younger, when governor of Bithynia, is
famous in the annals of persecutions. To the inquiries made by the
governor, as to the best way of dealing with those "adoring Christ for
their God," Trajan replied, that the magistrate should not molest them
at his own initiative; but if others should bring them to justice, and
convict them of impiety and atheism, they deserved punishment.[147]
These words contain the solemn recognition of the illegality of
Christian worship; they make persecution a rule of state. The faithful
were doomed to have no respite for the next two centuries, except what
they could obtain at intervals from the personal kindness and
tolerance of emperors and magistrates. Those of the Jewish religion
continued to enjoy protection and privileges, but Christianity was
either persecuted or tolerated, as it happened; so that, even under
emperors who abhorred severity and bloodshed, the faithful were at the
mercy of the first vagrant who chanced to accuse them of impiety.

Strange to say, more clemency was shown towards them by emperors whom
we are accustomed to call tyrants, than by those who are considered
models of virtue. The author of the "Philosophumena" (book ix., ch.
11) says that Commodus granted to Pope Victor the liberation of the
Christians who had been condemned to the mines of Sardinia by Marcus
Aurelius. Thus that profligate emperor was really more merciful to the
Church than the philosophic author of the "Meditations," who, in the
year 174, had witnessed the miracle of the Thundering Legion. The
reason is evident. The wise rulers foresaw the destructive effect of
the new doctrines on pagan society, and indirectly on the empire
itself; whereas those who were given over to dissipation were
indifferent to the danger; "after them, the deluge!"

At the beginning of the third century, under the rule of Caracalla and
Elagabalus, the Church enjoyed nearly thirty years of peace,
interrupted only by the short persecution of Maximus, and by
occasional outbreaks of popular hostility here and there.[148]

In 249 the "days of terror" returned, and continued fiercer than ever
under the rules of Decius, Gallus, and Valerianus. The last
persecution, that of Diocletian and his colleagues, was the longest
and most cruel of all. For the space of ten years not a day of mercy
shone over the _ecclesia fidelium_. The histor