Before the end of this reign we meet with a strong proof of the spread of Christianity in Egypt.  The number of believers made it necessary for the Bishop of Alexandria to appoint three bishops under him, to look after the churches in three other cities; and accordingly Demetrius, who then held that office, took upon himself the rank, if not the name, of Patriarch of Alexandria.  A second proof of the spread of Christianity is the pagan philosophers thinking it necessary to write against it.  Celsus, an Epicurean of Alexandria, was one of the first to attack it.  Origen answered the several arguments of Celsus with skill and candour.  He challenges his readers to a comparison between the Christians and pagans in point of morals, in Alexandria or in any other city.  He argues in the most forcible way that Christianity had overcome all difficulties, and had spread itself far and wide against the power of kings and emperors, and he says that nobody but a Christian ever died a martyr to the truth of his religion.  He makes good use of the Jewish prophecies; but he brings forward no proofs in support of the truth of the gospel history; they were not wanted, as Celsus and the pagans had not considered it necessary to call it into question.

Another proof of the number of Egyptian Christians is seen in the literary frauds of which their writers were guilty, most likely to satisfy the minds of those pagan converts that they had already made rather than from a wish to make new believers.  About this time was written by an unknown Christian author a poem in eight books, named the Sibylline Verses which must not be mistaken for the pagan fragments of the same name.  It is written in the form of a prophecy, in the style used by the Gnostics, and is full of dark sentences and half-expressed hints.

Another spurious Christian work of about the same time is the Clementina, or the Recognitions of Clemens, Bishop of Rome.  It is an account of the travels of the Apostle Peter and his conversation with Simon Magus; but the author’s knowledge of the Egyptian mythology, of the opinions of the Greek philosophers, and of the astrological rules by which fortunes are foretold from the planets’ places, amply prove that he was an Egyptian or an Alexandrian.  No name ranked higher among the Christians than that of Clemens Romanus; and this is only one out of several cases of Christian authors who wished to give weight to their own opinions by passing them upon the world as his writings.

Marcus Aurelius, who died in 181 A.D., had pardoned the children of the rebel general Avidius Cassius, but Commodus began his reign by putting them to death; and, while thus disregarding the example and advice of his father, he paid his memory the idle compliment of continuing his series of dates on his own coins.  But the Egyptian coinage of Commodus clearly betrays the sad change that was gradually taking place in the arts of the country; we no longer see the former beauty and variety of subjects; and the silver, which had before been very much mixed with copper, was under Commodus hardly to be known from brass.