CHAPTER V

THE FALSE ACTS

HAVING forged, therefore, certain acts of Pilate, respecting our Saviour, full of every kind of blasphemy against Christ, these, with the consent of the emperor, they sent through the whole of the empire subject to him, commanding at the same time by ordinances in every place and city, and the adjacent districts, to publish these to all persons, and to give them to the school-masters to hand to their pupils to study and commit to memory, as exercises for declamation. Whilst these things were doing, another commander, whom the Romans call Dux, in Damascus, a city of Phœnicia, caused certain infamous females to be seized from the forum, and threatening to inflict torture upon them, he forced them to make a formal declaration, taken down on record, that they had once been Christians, and that they were privy to the criminal acts among them; that in their very churches, they committed licentious deeds, and innumerable other slanders, which he wished them to utter against our religion; which declarations he inserted in the acts, and communicated to the emperor, who immediately commanded that these documents should be published in every city and place.