But, notwithstanding all the arts of intimidation
and chicanery, the good cause continued to prosper.
In Rome, in Antioch, in Alexandria, and in other great
cities, the truth steadily gained ground; and, towards
the end of the second century, it had acquired such
strength even in Carthage—a place far removed
from the scene of its original proclamation—that,
according to the statement of one of its advocates,
its adherents amounted to a
tenth of the inhabitants.
[280:2] About the same period Churches were to be found
in various parts of the north of Africa between Egypt
and Carthage; and, in the East, Christianity soon
acquired a permanent footing in the little state of
Edessa, [280:3] in Arabia, in Parthia, and in India.
In the West, it continued to extend itself throughout
Greece and Italy, as well as in Spain and France.
In the latter country the Churches of Lyons and Vienne
attract attention in the second century; and in the
third, seven eminent missionaries are said to have
formed congregations in Paris, Tours, Arles, Narbonne,
Toulouse, Limoges, and Clermont. [281:1] Meanwhile
the light of divine truth penetrated into Germany;
and, as the third century advanced, even the rude
Goths inhabiting Moesia and Thrace were partially
brought under its influence. The circumstances
which led to the conversion of these barbarians are
somewhat remarkable. On the occasion of one of
their predatory incursions into the Empire, they carried
away captive some Christian presbyters; but the parties
thus unexpectedly reduced to bondage did not neglect
the duties of their spiritual calling, and commended
their cause so successfully to those by whom they
had been enslaved, that the whole nation eventually
embraced the gospel. [281:2] Even the barriers of
the ocean did not arrest the progress of the victorious
faith. Before the end of the second century the
religion of the cross seems to have reached Scotland;
for though Tertullian certainly speaks rhetorically
when he says that “the places of Britain inaccessible
to the Romans were subject to Christ,” [281:3]
his language at least implies that the message of salvation
had already been proclaimed with some measure of encouragement
in Caledonia.
Though no contemporary writer has furnished us with
anything like an ecclesiastical history of this period,
it is very clear, from occasional hints thrown out
by the early apologists and controversialists, that
the progress of the Church must have been both extensive
and rapid. A Christian author, who flourished
about the middle of the second century, asserts that
there was then “no race of men, whether of barbarians
or of Greeks, or bearing any other name, either because
they lived in waggons without fixed habitations, or
in tents leading a pastoral life, among whom prayers
and thanksgivings were not offered up to the Father
and Maker of all things through the name of the crucified
Jesus.” [282:1] Another father, who wrote shortly
afterwards, observes that, “as in the sea there