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.