nd false accusers also must be
punished. Antoninus Pius is said to have published rescripts to the same
effect. The terms of Hadrian's rescript seem very favorable to the
Christians; but if we understand it in this sense, that they were only
to be punished like other people for illegal acts, it would have had no
meaning, for that could have been done without asking the emperor's
advice. The real purpose of the rescript is that Christians must be
punished if they persisted in their belief, and would not prove their
renunciation of it by acknowledging the heathen religion. This was
Trajan's rule, and we have no reason for supposing that Hadrian granted
more to the Christians than Trajan did. There is also printed at the end
of Justin's first Apology a rescript of Antoninus Pius to the Commune of
([Greek: to koinon tes Asias]), and it is also in Eusebius (E.H. iv.
13). The date of the rescript is the third consulship of Antoninus
Pius.[C] The rescript declares that the Christians--for they are meant,
though the name Christians does not occur in the rescript--were not to
be disturbed unless they were attempting something against the Roman
rule; and no man was to be punished simply for being a Christian. But
this rescript is spurious. Any man moderately acquainted with Roman
history will see by the style and tenor that it is a clumsy forgery.

[A] We have the evidence of Justinus (ad Diognetum, c. 5) to
this effect: "The Christians are attacked by the Jews as if
they were men of a different race, and are persecuted by the
Greeks; and those who hate them cannot give the reason of their
enmity."

[B] And in Eusebius (E.H. iv. 8, 9). Orosius (vii. 13) says
that Hadrian sent this rescript to Minucius Fundanus, proconsul
of Asia after being instructed in books written on the
Christian religion by Quadratus, a disciple of the Apostles,
and Aristides, an Athenian, an honest and wise man, and Serenus
Granius. In the Greek text of Hadrian's rescript there
is mentioned Serenius Granianus, the predecessor of Minucius
Fundanus in the government of _Asia_.

This rescript of Hadrian has clearly been added to the Apology
by some editor. The Apology ends with the words: [Greek: ho
philon to Oeo, touto genestho]

[C] Eusebius (E.H. iv. 12), after giving the beginning of
Justinus' first Apology, which contains the address to T.
Antoninus and his two adopted sons,