earing the
name of Christ, as to those of these martyrs, whose characters they
acknowledged to be blameless, and who sealed their testimony with the
last and highest attestation of sincerity--their blood. Considered
merely as a historian, whether, as regards means of knowledge, or tests
of truthfulness, by every unprejudiced mind, Peter will always be
preferred to Pliny. But because the world will ever love its own, and
hate the disciples of the Lord, there will always be a large class to
whom the history of Tacitus will seem more veritable than that of Luke,
and the letters of Pliny more reliable than those of Peter. For their
sakes we avail ourselves of that most convincing of all
attestations--the testimony of an enemy. What friends and foes unite in
attesting must be accepted as true.

The facts which we shall thus establish are not, in the first instance,
those called miraculous. We are now ascertaining the general character
for truthfulness of our letter writers and historians. If we find that
their general historic narrative is contradicted by that of other
credible historians, then we suspect their story. But if we find that,
in all essential matters of public notoriety, they are supported by the
concurred testimony of their foes, and that the narrative of the
miracles they relate bears the seals of thousands who from foes became
friends, from conviction of its truth, then we receive their witness as
true. Even in Paul's day, heathen Greek writers bore testimony to the
apostles, what manner of entering in they had unto the converts of
Thessalonica; and how they turned to God from idols, to serve the
living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised
from the dead--even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come.
Pliny wrote forty years later.

Pliny, the younger, was born A. D. 61, was praetor under Domitian, consul
in the third year of Trajan, A. D. 100, was exceedingly desirous to add
to his other honors that of the priesthood; was accordingly consecrated
an augur, and built temples, bought images, and consecrated them on his
estates; was, in A. D. 106, appointed Governor of the Roman Provinces of
Pontus and Bithynia[73]--a vast tract of Asia Minor, lying along the
shores of the Black Sea and the Propontis; and including the province
anciently called Mysia, in which were situated Pergamos and Thyatira,
and in the immediate vicinity of Sardis and Philadelphia. Pliny reached
his provi