Pliny the Younger’s Christian Persecution: 3 Lessons for Faith and Endurance

by Bryan Schneider

In about 112 AD, those pesky Christians had become a problem for Rome. Pliny wrote to the Emperor Trajan to get some advice. He had all sorts of questions on how far to go with punishing Christians.

Pliny was determined to stop the spread of Christianity. The temples had been almost deserted, the sacred rites were neglected, and the sacrificial animals were without a buyer. Pliny needed to set things right in the Roman world. So what did he do? And, what lessons can Christians learn from this historical moment?

Lesson #1

Pliny needed to figure out who the genuine Christians were. What litmus test could get at a person’s belief?

Here was his playbook:

1) Ask them if they are a Christian.

• If they answer yes, ask them a second and a third time.

• If they answered yes, threaten them with the death sentence.

• If they persist, sentence them to death.

2) If they deny they are Christians, make them do the following:

• Call upon the gods.

• Do reverence with incense and wine.

• Make sure they do this reverence even to the icon of Caesar himself.

3) Then make them do the final thing:

• Curse Christ—this is a thing which, it is said, a genuine Christian cannot be induced to do.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12:3, “Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” We're also told in Romans 10:9 that "if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

Christian, we must be those who so believe whole heartedly that Jesus is our Lord that we could say with Ignatius when he was going to be fed to lions in the Colosseum:

“Entice the wild beasts, that they may become my sepulchre and may leave no part of my body behind, so that I may not, when I am fallen asleep, be burdensome to anyone. Then shall I be truly a disciple of Jesus Christ… if I shall suffer, then am I a freed-man of Jesus Christ, and I shall rise free in Him. Now I am learning in my bonds to put away every desire.”

Pliny thought that if he destroyed their body, then the message would also be destroyed. But the gospel will not die. The gates of hell shall not prevail. Christian, by the Spirit, endure to the end no matter what may come. The resurrection is real. Your Lord is alive!

Lesson #2

Pliny has given us a playbook for how many governments have tried to stop the spread of the gospel. Killing some of the genuine Christians wasn’t enough. How could he ensure the spread didn’t continue?

• Forbid the Christians from meeting and label them as secret societies.

• Apply torture, even to the women if necessary, to attain more information.

Governments still do this today with anti-conversion laws, banning house churches, imprisoning and torturing, and applying societal pressure to Christians. The history books are filled with the accounts of martyrs facing pressure and persecution from the government. Why? Because Jesus and His kingdom are a threat to the order of this world.

Lesson #3

The “depraved and extravagant superstition” of Christianity, as Pliny called it, was truly for all people.

The gospel had spread “not only in the cities, but in the villages and the rural districts as well.” It was received by many persons “of all ages and classes and of both sexes.”

The good news of Jesus Christ is for Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free. The gospel cannot be bound to one generation. The Kingdom does not belong to Gen Z or Baby Boomers but to Jesus Christ. The Kingdom of the Lamb is for the poor on skid row and the billionaire in Beverly Hills. The message of the kingdom must go out to the ends of the earth to all peoples.