[squirt]

there was another Roman, called Pliny the Younger, who also referred to Christianity in his writings, he was the nephew of Pliny the Elder, the famous encyclopedist who died in the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, Pliny the Younger became governor of Bithynia in northwestern Turkey, much of his correspondence with his friend, Emperor Trajan, has been preserved to the present time, in book 10 of these letters he specifically refers to the Christians he has arrested ...

I have asked them if they are Christians, and if they admit it, I repeat the question a second and third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them, if they persist, I order them to be led away for execution; for, whatever the nature of their admission, I am convinced that their stubbornness and unshakable obstinancy ought not to go unpunished ... they also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately amongst themselves in honor of Christ as if to a god, and also to bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but to abstain from theft, robbery and adultery ... this made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from 2 slave-women, whom they called deaconesses, I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths ...

this reference was written about AD 111, and it attests to the rapid spread of Christianity, both in the city and in the rural area, among every class of persons, slave women as well as Roman citizens, since he also says that he sends Christians who are Roman citizens to Rome for trial, and it talks about the worship of Jesus as God, that Christians maintained high ethical standards, and that they were not easily swayed from their beliefs