As a rule, writers of sacred history treat the memory of Trajan with great gentleness. The Christian writers in the second half of the second century shrink from seeing in him a persecutor of the Church. They were, of course, biassed in their judgment, being loth to think of a great Emperor like Trajan as a persecutor of their religion. As we have already remarked, the written Acts of Martyrs were very few during the first and second centuries; and the name and memory of the earliest brave confessors of the Name, save in a few very notable instances, quietly and quickly faded away; so the recollections of the second-century Fathers in the matter of the State policy in the past, with regard to Christianity, were somewhat vague and uncertain. Later, in the early and middle years of the fourth century, Eusebius, though in his time the fact of continuous persecution in the past had become generally known, tries to exculpate the memory of Trajan as a persecutor, but with very doubtful success.
This favourable and somewhat generous view of Trajan held its own through the early Middle Ages. A striking and beautiful story illustrative of these estimates is told of Pope Gregory the Great (A.D. 590–604) by both his biographers, Paul the Deacon (close of eighth century) and John the Deacon (close of ninth century). The Bishop of Rome once, walking through the Forum of Trajan, was attracted by a sculptured bas-relief representing the great Emperor showing pity to a poor aged widow whose only son had perished through the violence of the Emperor’s soldiers.
Struck by this proof of the just and loving nature of Trajan, the Pope, kneeling at the tomb of S. Peter, prayed earnestly that mercy might be showed to the great pagan emperor. The prayer, so runs the story, was granted; and it was revealed to Gregory that the soul of Trajan was released from torment in answer to his intercession. The beauty and noble charity which colour the legend are, however, spoiled and marred by the words of the traditional revelation which follow. The generous Pope, while hearing that his prayers were granted, was warned never again to presume to pray for those who had died without holy baptism.
Not a few modern scholars, however, read the famous interposition of Trajan at the time of Pliny’s request for guidance as manifesting a hostile spirit towards Christianity; so, to quote a few of the better-known writers, interpret Gieseler, Overbach, Aubé, Friedlander, Uhlhorn, etc., while Renan (Les Évangiles) perhaps more accurately writes: “Trajan fut le premier persécuteur systématique de Christianisme”; and again, “à partir de Trajan le Christianisme est un crime.”
The truth, however, really lies between these two divergent opinions. The “rescript” of Trajan promulgated no new law on the subject of the treatment of the Christian believers. It evidently presupposed the existence of a law, and that a very stern and very harsh mode of procedure. From it Trajan neither subtracted anything nor added anything; still, as has been very justly said, the humane and upright character of the Emperor and his minister Pliny—Pliny, by his evident, though carefully veiled, advice and suggestions based upon his protracted inquiries into the tenets and customs of the sect; Trajan, by his formal imperial “rescript”—secured some considerable mitigation in its enforcement.
The story of the correspondence between Pliny the Younger and the Emperor Trajan, which was fraught with such momentous consequences to the Christians of Rome and the Empire generally, is as follows:
When Pliny, about the middle of the year 111, came to the scene of his government,—the provinces of Bithynia and Pontus,—apparently somewhat to his surprise he found a very considerable portion of the population members of the Christian community. The religion professed by these people, Pliny was well aware, was unlawful in the eyes of the State, and the sect generally was unpopular; and evil rumours were current respecting its traditional practices.
The new governor knew of the existence of the sect in Rome, but little more. He was clearly aware that these Christians had been the object of many State persecutions and judicial inquiries, “cognitiones” he terms them, and no doubt knew something, too, of the public severity with which these adherents of an unlawful religion had been treated by the State when convicted of the crime of Christianity.
The horrors of the amphitheatre in the case of these condemned ones could not have been unknown to one like Pliny. But the great world in which Pliny lived and moved and worked, cared little for human life or human suffering in the case of a despised and outlawed community.