Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part VIII

The rich provinces that extend from the Euphrates to the Ionian
Sea were the principal theatre on which the apostle of the
Gentiles displayed his zeal and piety. The seeds of the gospel,
which he had scattered in a fertile soil, were diligently
cultivated by his disciples; and it should seem that, during the
two first centuries, the most considerable body of Christians was
contained within those limits. Among the societies which were
instituted in Syria, none were more ancient or more illustrious
than those of Damascus, of Berea or Aleppo, and of Antioch. The
prophetic introduction of the Apocalypse has described and
immortalized the seven churches of Asia; Ephesus, Smyrna,
Pergamus, Thyatira, 154 Sardes, Laodicea, and Philadelphia; and
their colonies were soon diffused over that populous country. In
a very early period, the islands of Cyprus and Crete, the
provinces of Thrace and Macedonia, gave a favorable reception to
the new religion; and Christian republics were soon founded in
the cities of Corinth, of Sparta, and of Athens. 155 The
antiquity of the Greek and Asiatic churches allowed a sufficient
space of time for their increase and multiplication; and even the
swarms of Gnostics and other heretics serve to display the
flourishing condition of the orthodox church, since the
appellation of heretics has always been applied to the less
numerous party. To these domestic testimonies we may add the
confession, the complaints, and the apprehensions of the Gentiles
themselves. From the writings of Lucian, a philosopher who had
studied mankind, and who describes their manners in the most
lively colors, we may learn that, under the reign of Commodus,
his native country of Pontus was filled with Epicureans and
_Christians_. 156 Within fourscore years after the death of
Christ, 157 the humane Pliny laments the magnitude of the evil
which he vainly attempted to eradicate. In his very curious
epistle to the emperor Trajan, he affirms that the temples were
almost deserted, that the sacred victims scarcely found any
purchasers, and that the superstition had not only infected the
cities, but had even spread itself into the villages and the open
country of Pontus and Bithynia. 158

154 (return) [ The Alogians (Epiphanius de Hæres. 51) disputed
the genuineness of the Apocalypse, because the church of Thyatira
was not yet founded. Epiphanius, who allows the fact, extricates
himself from the difficulty by ingeniously supposing that St.
John wrote in the spirit of prophecy. See Abauzit, Discours sur
l’Apocalypse.]

155 (return) [ The epistles of Ignatius and Dionysius (ap. Euseb.
iv. 23) point out many churches in Asia and Greece. That of
Athens seems to have been one of the least flourishing.]

156 (return) [ Lucian in Alexandro, c. 25. Christianity however,
must have been very unequally diffused over Pontus; since, in the
middle of the third century, there was no more than seventeen
believers in the extensive diocese of Neo-Cæsarea. See M. de
Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiast. tom. iv. p. 675, from Basil and
Gregory of Nyssa, who were themselves natives of Cappadocia.
Note: Gibbon forgot the conclusion of this story, that Gregory
left only seventeen heathens in his diocese. The antithesis is
suspicious, and both numbers may have been chosen to magnify the
spiritual fame of the wonder-worker.—M.]

157 (return) [ According to the ancients, Jesus Christ suffered
under the consulship of the two Gemini, in the year 29 of our
present æra. Pliny was sent into Bithynia (according to Pagi) in
the year 110.]

158 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 97.]

Without descending into a minute scrutiny of the expressions or
of the motives of those writers who either celebrate or lament
the progress of Christianity in the East, it may in general be
observed that none of them have left us any grounds from whence a
just estimate might be formed of the real numbers of the faithful
in those provinces. One circumstance, however, has been
fortunately preserved, which seems to cast a more distinct light
on this obscure but interesting subject. Under the reign of
Theodosius, after Christianity had enjoyed, during more than
sixty years, the sunshine of Imperial favor, the ancient and
illustrious church of Antioch consisted of one hundred thousand
persons, three thousand of whom were supported out of the public
oblations. 159 The splendor and dignity of the queen of the East,
the acknowledged populousness of Cæsarea, Seleucia, and
Alexandria, and the destruction of two hundred and fifty thousand
souls in the earthquake which afflicted Antioch under the elder
Justin, 160 are so many convincing proofs that the whole number
of its inhabitants was not less than half a million, and that the
Christians, however multiplied by zeal and power, did not exceed
a fifth part of that great city. How different a proportion must
we adopt when we compare the persecuted with the triumphant
church, the West with the East, remote villages with populous
towns, and countries recently converted to the faith with the
place where the believers first received the appellation of
Christians! It must not, however, be dissembled, that, in another
passage, Chrysostom, to whom we are indebted for this useful
information, computes the multitude of the faithful as even
superior to that of the Jews and Pagans. 161 But the solution of
this apparent difficulty is easy and obvious. The eloquent
preacher draws a parallel between the civil and the
ecclesiastical constitution of Antioch; between the list of
Christians who had acquired heaven by baptism, and the list of
citizens who had a right to share the public liberality. Slaves,
strangers, and infants were comprised in the former; they were
excluded from the latter.

159 (return) [ Chrysostom. Opera, tom. vii. p. 658, 810, (edit.
Savil. ii. 422, 329.)]

160 (return) [ John Malala, tom. ii. p. 144. He draws the same
conclusion with regard to the populousness of antioch.]

161 (return) [ Chrysostom. tom. i. p. 592. I am indebted for
these passages, though not for my inference, to the learned Dr.
Lardner. Credibility of the Gospel of History, vol. xii. p. 370.
* Note: The statements of Chrysostom with regard to the
population of Antioch, whatever may be their accuracy, are
perfectly consistent. In one passage he reckons the population at
200,000. In a second the Christians at 100,000. In a third he
states that the Christians formed more than half the population.
Gibbon has neglected to notice the first passage, and has drawn
by estimate of the population of Antioch from other sources. The
8000 maintained by alms were widows and virgins alone—M.]

The extensive commerce of Alexandria, and its proximity to
Palestine, gave an easy entrance to the new religion. It was at
first embraced by great numbers of the Theraputæ, or Essenians,
of the Lake Mareotis, a Jewish sect which had abated much of its
reverence for the Mosaic ceremonies. The austere life of the
Essenians, their fasts and excommunications, the community of
goods, the love of celibacy, their zeal for martyrdom, and the
warmth though not the purity of their faith, already offered a
very lively image of the primitive discipline. 162 It was in the
school of Alexandria that the Christian theology appears to have
assumed a regular and scientific form; and when Hadrian visited
Egypt, he found a church composed of Jews and of Greeks,
sufficiently important to attract the notice of that inquisitive
prince. 163 But the progress of Christianity was for a long time
confined within the limits of a single city, which was itself a
foreign colony, and till the close of the second century the
predecessors of Demetrius were the only prelates of the Egyptian
church. Three bishops were consecrated by the hands of Demetrius,
and the number was increased to twenty by his successor Heraclas.
164 The body of the natives, a people distinguished by a sullen
inflexibility of temper, 165 entertained the new doctrine with
coldness and reluctance; and even in the time of Origen, it was
rare to meet with an Egyptian who had surmounted his early
prejudices in favor of the sacred animals of his country. 166 As
soon, indeed, as Christianity ascended the throne, the zeal of
those barbarians obeyed the prevailing impulsion; the cities of
Egypt were filled with bishops, and the deserts of Thebais
swarmed with hermits.

162 (return) [ Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. 2, c. 20, 21, 22,
23, has examined with the most critical accuracy the curious
treatise of Philo, which describes the Therapeutæ. By proving
that it was composed as early as the time of Augustus, Basnage
has demonstrated, in spite of Eusebius (l. ii. c. 17) and a crowd
of modern Catholics, that the Therapeutæ were neither Christians
nor monks. It still remains probable that they changed their
name, preserved their manners, adopted some new articles of
faith, and gradually became the fathers of the Egyptian
Ascetics.]

163 (return) [ See a letter of Hadrian in the Augustan History,
p. 245.]

164 (return) [ For the succession of Alexandrian bishops, consult
Renaudot’s History, p. 24, &c. This curious fact is preserved by
the patriarch Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p. 334, Vers. Pocock,)
and its internal evidence would alone be a sufficient answer to
all the objections which Bishop Pearson has urged in the Vindiciæ
Ignatianæ.]

165 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin. xxii. 16.]

166 (return) [ Origen contra Celsum, l. i. p. 40.]

A perpetual stream of strangers and provincials flowed into the
capacious bosom of Rome. Whatever was strange or odious, whoever
was guilty or suspected, might hope, in the obscurity of that
immense capital, to elude the vigilance of the law. In such a
various conflux of nations, every teacher, either of truth or
falsehood, every founder, whether of a virtuous or a criminal
association, might easily multiply his disciples or accomplices.
The Christians of Rome, at the time of the accidental persecution
of Nero, are represented by Tacitus as already amounting to a
very great multitude, 167 and the language of that great
historian is almost similar to the style employed by Livy, when
he relates the introduction and the suppression of the rites of
Bacchus. After the Bacchanals had awakened the severity of the
senate, it was likewise apprehended that a very great multitude,
as it were _another people_, had been initiated into those
abhorred mysteries. A more careful inquiry soon demonstrated that
the offenders did not exceed seven thousand; a number indeed
sufficiently alarming, when considered as the object of public
justice. 168 It is with the same candid allowance that we should
interpret the vague expressions of Tacitus, and in a former
instance of Pliny, when they exaggerate the crowds of deluded
fanatics who had forsaken the established worship of the gods.
The church of Rome was undoubtedly the first and most populous of
the empire; and we are possessed of an authentic record which
attests the state of religion in that city about the middle of
the third century, and after a peace of thirty-eight years. The
clergy, at that time, consisted of a bishop, forty-six
presbyters, seven deacons, as many sub-deacons, forty-two
acolytes, and fifty readers, exorcists, and porters. The number
of widows, of the infirm, and of the poor, who were maintained by
the oblations of the faithful, amounted to fifteen hundred. 169
From reason, as well as from the analogy of Antioch, we may
venture to estimate the Christians of Rome at about fifty
thousand. The populousness of that great capital cannot perhaps
be exactly ascertained; but the most modest calculation will not
surely reduce it lower than a million of inhabitants, of whom the
Christians might constitute at the most a twentieth part. 170

167 (return) [ Ingens multitudo is the expression of Tacitus, xv.
44.]

168 (return) [ T. Liv. xxxix. 13, 15, 16, 17. Nothing could
exceed the horror and consternation of the senate on the
discovery of the Bacchanalians, whose depravity is described, and
perhaps exaggerated, by Livy.]

169 (return) [ Eusebius, l. vi. c. 43. The Latin translator (M.
de Valois) has thought proper to reduce the number of presbyters
to forty-four.]

170 (return) [ This proportion of the presbyters and of the poor,
to the rest of the people, was originally fixed by Burnet,
(Travels into Italy, p. 168,) and is approved by Moyle, (vol. ii.
p. 151.) They were both unacquainted with the passage of
Chrysostom, which converts their conjecture almost into a fact.]

The western provincials appeared to have derived the knowledge of
Christianity from the same source which had diffused among them
the language, the sentiments, and the manners of Rome.

In this more important circumstance, Africa, as well as Gaul was
gradually fashioned to the imitation of the capital. Yet
notwithstanding the many favorable occasions which might invite
the Roman missionaries to visit their Latin provinces, it was
late before they passed either the sea or the Alps; 171 nor can
we discover in those great countries any assured traces either of
faith or of persecution that ascend higher than the reign of the
Antonines. 172 The slow progress of the gospel in the cold
climate of Gaul, was extremely different from the eagerness with
which it seems to have been received on the burning sands of
Africa. The African Christians soon formed one of the principal
members of the primitive church. The practice introduced into
that province of appointing bishops to the most inconsiderable
towns, and very frequently to the most obscure villages,
contributed to multiply the splendor and importance of their
religious societies, which during the course of the third century
were animated by the zeal of Tertullian, directed by the
abilities of Cyprian, and adorned by the eloquence of Lactantius.

But if, on the contrary, we turn our eyes towards Gaul, we must
content ourselves with discovering, in the time of Marcus
Antoninus, the feeble and united congregations of Lyons and
Vienna; and even as late as the reign of Decius we are assured,
that in a few cities only, Arles, Narbonne, Thoulouse, Limoges,
Clermont, Tours, and Paris, some scattered churches were
supported by the devotion of a small number of Christians. 173
Silence is indeed very consistent with devotion; but as it is
seldom compatible with zeal, we may perceive and lament the
languid state of Christianity in those provinces which had
exchanged the Celtic for the Latin tongue, since they did not,
during the three first centuries, give birth to a single
ecclesiastical writer. From Gaul, which claimed a just
preeminence of learning and authority over all the countries on
this side of the Alps, the light of the gospel was more faintly
reflected on the remote provinces of Spain and Britain; and if we
may credit the vehement assertions of Tertullian, they had
already received the first rays of the faith, when he addressed
his apology to the magistrates of the emperor Severus. 174 But
the obscure and imperfect origin of the western churches of
Europe has been so negligently recorded, that if we would relate
the time and manner of their foundation, we must supply the
silence of antiquity by those legends which avarice or
superstition long afterwards dictated to the monks in the lazy
gloom of their convents. 175 Of these holy romances, that of the
apostle St. James can alone, by its singular extravagance,
deserve to be mentioned. From a peaceful fisherman of the Lake of
Gennesareth, he was transformed into a valorous knight, who
charged at the head of the Spanish chivalry in their battles
against the Moors. The gravest historians have celebrated his
exploits; the miraculous shrine of Compostella displayed his
power; and the sword of a military order, assisted by the terrors
of the Inquisition, was sufficient to remove every objection of
profane criticism. 176

171 (return) [ Serius trans Alpes, religione Dei suscepta.
Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. With regard to Africa, see Tertullian
ad Scapulam, c. 3. It is imagined that the Scyllitan martyrs were
the first, (Acta Sincera Rumart. p. 34.) One of the adversaries
of Apuleius seems to have been a Christian. Apolog. p. 496, 497,
edit. Delphin.]

172 (return) [ Tum primum intra Gallias martyria visa. Sulp.
Severus, l. ii. These were the celebrated martyrs of Lyons. See
Eusebius, v. i. Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. p. 316.
According to the Donatists, whose assertion is confirmed by the
tacit acknowledgment of Augustin, Africa was the last of the
provinces which received the gospel. Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast.
tom. i. p. 754.]

173 (return) [ Raræ in aliquibus civitatibus ecclesiæ, paucorum
Christianorum devotione, resurgerent. Acta Sincera, p. 130.
Gregory of Tours, l i. c. 28. Mosheim, p. 207, 449. There is some
reason to believe that in the beginning of the fourth century,
the extensive dioceses of Liege, of Treves, and of Cologne,
composed a single bishopric, which had been very recently
founded. See Memoires de Tillemont, tom vi. part i. p. 43, 411.]

174 (return) [ The date of Tertullian’s Apology is fixed, in a
dissertation of Mosheim, to the year 198.]

175 (return) [ In the fifteenth century, there were few who had
either inclination or courage to question, whether Joseph of
Arimathea founded the monastery of Glastonbury, and whether
Dionysius the Areopagite preferred the residence of Paris to that
of Athens.]

176 (return) [ The stupendous metamorphosis was performed in the
ninth century. See Mariana, (Hist. Hispan. l. vii. c. 13, tom. i.
p. 285, edit. Hag. Com. 1733,) who, in every sense, imitates
Livy, and the honest detection of the legend of St. James by Dr.
Geddes, Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 221.]

The progress of Christianity was not confined to the Roman
empire; and according to the primitive fathers, who interpret
facts by prophecy, the new religion, within a century after the
death of its divine Author, had already visited every part of the
globe. “There exists not,” says Justin Martyr, “a people, whether
Greek or Barbarian, or any other race of men, by whatsoever
appellation or manners they may be distinguished, however
ignorant of arts or agriculture, whether they dwell under tents,
or wander about in covered wagons, among whom prayers are not
offered up in the name of a crucified Jesus to the Father and
Creator of all things.” 177 But this splendid exaggeration, which
even at present it would be extremely difficult to reconcile with
the real state of mankind, can be considered only as the rash
sally of a devout but careless writer, the measure of whose
belief was regulated by that of his wishes. But neither the
belief nor the wishes of the fathers can alter the truth of
history. It will still remain an undoubted fact, that the
barbarians of Scythia and Germany, who afterwards subverted the
Roman monarchy, were involved in the darkness of paganism; and
that even the conversion of Iberia, of Armenia, or of Æthiopia,
was not attempted with any degree of success till the sceptre was
in the hands of an orthodox emperor. 178 Before that time, the
various accidents of war and commerce might indeed diffuse an
imperfect knowledge of the gospel among the tribes of Caledonia,
179 and among the borderers of the Rhine, the Danube, and the
Euphrates. 180 Beyond the last-mentioned river, Edessa was
distinguished by a firm and early adherence to the faith. 181
From Edessa the principles of Christianity were easily introduced
into the Greek and Syrian cities which obeyed the successors of
Artaxerxes; but they do not appear to have made any deep
impression on the minds of the Persians, whose religious system,
by the labors of a well-disciplined order of priests, had been
constructed with much more art and solidity than the uncertain
mythology of Greece and Rome. 182

177 (return) [ Justin Martyr, Dialog. cum Tryphon. p. 341.
Irenæus adv. Hæres. l. i. c. 10. Tertullian adv. Jud. c. 7. See
Mosheim, p. 203.]

178 (return) [ See the fourth century of Mosheim’s History of the
Church. Many, though very confused circumstances, that relate to
the conversion of Iberia and Armenia, may be found in Moses of
Chorene, l. ii. c. 78—89. Note: Mons. St. Martin has shown that
Armenia was the first nation that embraced Christianity. Memoires
sur l’Armenie, vol. i. p. 306, and notes to Le Beæ. Gibbon,
indeed had expressed his intention of withdrawing the words “of
Armenia” from the text of future editions. (Vindication, Works,
iv. 577.) He was bitterly taunted by Person for neglecting or
declining to fulfil his promise. Preface to Letters to
Travis.—M.]

179 (return) [ According to Tertullian, the Christian faith had
penetrated into parts of Britain inaccessible to the Roman arms.
About a century afterwards, Ossian, the son of Fingal, is said to
have disputed, in his extreme old age, with one of the foreign
missionaries, and the dispute is still extant, in verse, and in
the Erse language. See Mr. Macpher son’s Dissertation on the
Antiquity of Ossian’s Poems, p. 10.]

180 (return) [ The Goths, who ravaged Asia in the reign of
Gallienus, carried away great numbers of captives; some of whom
were Christians, and became missionaries. See Tillemont, Memoires
Ecclesiast. tom. iv. p. 44.]

181 (return) [ The legends of Abgarus, fabulous as it is, affords
a decisive proof, that many years before Eusebius wrote his
history, the greatest part of the inhabitants of Edessa had
embraced Christianity. Their rivals, the citizens of Carrhæ,
adhered, on the contrary, to the cause of Paganism, as late as
the sixth century.]

182 (return) [ According to Bardesanes (ap. Euseb. Præpar.
Evangel.) there were some Christians in Persia before the end of
the second century. In the time of Constantine (see his epistle
to Sapor, Vit. l. iv. c. 13) they composed a flourishing church.
Consult Beausobre, Hist. Cristique du Manicheisme, tom. i. p.
180, and the Bibliotheca Orietalis of Assemani.]