“Sed periit, postquam cerdonibus esse timendus cœperat” ...
(Juvenal, iv. 151–4).
The word cerdones included the poorest and humblest artisans. The word is commonly translated “cobblers”—French savetiers; it is usually applied to the slave class, or to those engaged in the poorest industries.
Allard (Histoire des Persécutions, i. 11, chap. iv.) considers that the disgust and pity of the populace when they saw the horrible cruelties practised in the celebrated games of Nero in A.D. 64, were partly owing to the indignation of the people when they perceived that so many of their own class were among the tormented Christians in that horrible massacre.
Aubé, too, in his Histoire des Persécutions, calls special attention to these lines of Juvenal. He connects the murder of Domitian closely with the indignation aroused among the people by this bitter persecution, and suggests that the plot which resulted in the assassination of the tyrant originated in a Christian centre. This is, however, in the highest degree improbable.
[18] The full official title of Pliny the Younger in this governorship was “Legatus proprætore provinciæ Ponti et Bithyniæ consulari potestate.” That eminent statesman was entrusted with this province mainly on account of its needing special attention at that time.
[19] Tertullian, Apologeticum, 2; Eusebius, H. E. III.[xxxii. 33.]
[20] Lightfoot well observes (Apostolic Fathers, part ii. vol. i., S. Ignatius, pp. 54–6) that these two famous letters cannot be separated from the collection of Pliny’s Letters in which they appear. Renan in Les Évangiles writes: “On ne croira jamais qu’un faussaire Chrétien eut pu si admirablement imiter la langue précieuse et raffinée de Pline.”
Lightfoot further asks, what Christian writer, if bent on forgery, would have confessed that crowds of his fellow-believers had denied their faith ... that the persecution was already refilling the heathen temples which before were nearly empty, and that there was good hope, if the same policy of persecution was pursued, of a general apostasy from Christianity ensuing? Several, too, of the statements concerning the practices of Christians betray only a very imperfect knowledge of the practices referred to.
The passage which, however, has excited the greatest suspicion and animosity is that which relates to the great numbers of the Christians; but it must be remembered that Tacitus had already spoken of “a vast multitude” as suffering at Rome in the persecution of the Emperor Nero.