This is a letter from Pliny (62 - c.113) who was governor of Bithynia to Emperor Trajan, dated around AD 112. It gives valuable historical information about Emperor worship, to aid the understanding of the challenges facing the believers reading the Book of Revelation.
Letter from Pliny to Emperor Trajan
It is my rule, Sire, to refer to you in matters where I am uncertain. For who can better direct my
hesitation or instruct my ignorance? I was never present at any trial of Christians; therefore I do not know what are the customary penalties or investigations, and what limits are observed. I have hesitated a great deal on the question whether there should be any distinction of ages; whether the weak should have the same treatment as the more robust; whether those who recant should be pardoned, or whether a man who has ever been a Christian should gain nothing by ceasing to be such; whether the name itself, even if innocent of crime, should be punished, or only the crimes attached to that name. (infanticide, cannibalism, incest etc.)
Meanwhile, this is the course that I have adopted in the case of those brought before me as
Christians. I ask them if they are Christians. If they admit it I repeat the question a second and a third time, threatening capital punishment; if they persist I sentence them to death. For I do not doubt that, whatever kind of crime it may be to which they have confessed, their pertinacity and inflexible obstinacy should certainly by punished. There were others who displayed a like madness and whom I reserved to be sent to Rome, since they were Roman citizens.
Thereupon the usual result followed; the very fact of my dealing with the question led to a wider
spread of the charge, and a great variety of cases were brought before me. An anonymous pamphlet was
issued, containing many names. All who denied that they were or had been Christians I considered should
be discharged, because they called upon the gods at my dictation and did reverence, with incense and
wine, to your image which I had ordered to be brought forward for this purpose, together with the
statues of the deities; and especially because they cursed Christ, a thing which, it is said, genuine
Christians cannot be induced to do. Others named by the informer first said that they were Christians and then denied it; declaring that they had been but were so no longer, some having recanted three years or more before an one or two as long ago as twenty years. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods and cursed Christ. But they declared that the sum of their guilt or error had amounted only to this, that on an appointed day they had been accustomed to meet before daybreak, and to recite a hymn antiphonally to Christ, as to a god, and to bind themselves by an oath (sacrament), not for the commission of any crime but to abstain from theft, robbery, adultery and breach of faith, and not to deny a deposit when it was claimed. After the conclusion of this ceremony it was their custom to depart and meet again to take food; but it was ordinary and harmless food, and they had ceased this practice after my edict in which, in accordance with your orders, I had forbidden secret societies. I thought it the more necessary, therefore, to find out what truth there was in this by applying torture to two maidservants, who were called deaconesses. But I found nothing but a depraved and extravagant superstition, and I therefore postponed my examination and had recourse to you for consultation.
The matter seemed to me to justify my consulting you, especially on account of the number of those
imperilled; for many persons of all ages and classes and of both sexes are being put in peril by accusation, and this will go on. The contagion of this superstition has spread not only in the cities, but in the villages and rural districts as well; yet it seems capable of being checked and set right. There is no shadow of doubt that the temples, which have been almost deserted, are beginning to be frequented once more, that the sacred rites which have been long neglected are being renewed, and that sacrificial victims are for sale everywhere, whereas, till recently, a buyer was rarely to be found. From this it is easy to imagine what a host of men could be set right, were they given a chance of recantation.
Trajan's reply to Pliny
You have taken the right line, my dear Pliny, in examining the cases of those denounced to you as
Christians, for no hard and fast rule can be laid down, of universal application. They are not to be sought out; if they are informed against, and the charge is proved, they are to be punished, with this reservation - that if any one denies that he is a Christian, and actually proves it, that is by worshipping our gods, he shall be pardoned as a result of his recantation, however suspect he may have been with respect to the past. Pamphlets published anonymously should carry not weight in any charge whatsoever. They constitute a very bad precedent, and are also out of keeping with this age.