Trajan succeeded to the empire in A. D. 98. During his reign, which continued to A. D. 117, what proof there is on the subject tends to show that Christians had not yet returned to the capital. So little did Trajan know about them, that Pliny, in writing to him for advice as to how he should deal with them, is compelled to describe to him their doctrines, practices and forms of worship. Had there been any in Rome at the time, there would have been no necessity for this; and besides, had there been any there, the mode of treatment of them by the emperor would afford a precedent for Pliny without calling for special instructions. But we can affirm with confidence that no Christian dared live in Rome during this reign, which continued for nineteen years, for the reason that to be one during this time was a crime punishable by death. In answer to Pliny's letter, in speaking of Christians, Trajan writes: "If they be brought before you, and are convicted, let them be _capitally_ punished, yet with this restriction, that if any one will renounce Christianity and evince his sincerity by supplicating our gods, however suspected he may be in the past, he shall obtain pardon for the future on his repentance." It is not at all astonishing that Pliny, in writing Trajan about his mode of treating Christians, had to tell him who they were, and describe the way in which they conducted themselves. From A.D. 64, when Tacitus speaks of them in connection with the great fire, and their sufferings at the time, no historian makes any mention of them, as dwellers in Rome, to the end of the century. The obscure allusion to them by Juvenal and Martial, in a satirical vein, relates solely to their conduct under torture, inflicted by Nero at the time Rome was burned. Suetonius, who was secretary to the Emperor Adrian, wrote the life and times of the Emperors from Augustus to Domitian; and if we except the doubtful allusion to them in the reign of Claudius, he does not even make use of the word Christian, or speak of anything in connection with them. During the time of which we have been speaking, lived and wrote Quintilian, Juvenal, Statius, and Martial. CHAPTER XVIII. The office of Bishop foreign to churches established by Paul, which were too poor and too few in number to support the order.--Third chapter of the second Epistle to Timothy, and the one to Titus, forgeries.--The writings of the Fathers corrupted.