he found at both places “churches,” or congregations of Christians, who received him kindly, ministered to his wants, prayed with him, and showed a warm interest in his welfare.[14483] These communities afterwards expanded.  By the end of the second century after Christ Tyre was the seat of a bishopric, which held an important place among the Syrian Sees.  Several Tyrian bishops of the second, third, and fourth centuries are known to us, as Cassius (ab.  A.D. 198), Marinus (A.D. 253), Methodius (A.D. 267-305), Tyrannion (A.D. 310), and Paulinus (A.D. 328).  Early in the fourth century (B.C. 335) Tyre was the seat of a synod or council, called to consider charges made against the great Athanasius,[14484] who was taxed with cruelty, impiety, and the use of magical arts.  As the bishops who assembled belonged chiefly to the party of Arius, the judgment of the council condemned Athanasius, and deprived him of his see.  On appeal the decision was reversed; Athanasius was reinstated,[14485] and advanced; the cause with which he had identified himself triumphed; and the Synod of Tyre being pronounced unorthodox, the Tyrian church, like that of Antioch, sank in the estimation of the Church at large.

Tyre also made herself obnoxious to the Christian world in another way.  In the middle of the third century she produced the celebrated philosopher, Porphyry,[14486] who, of all the literary opponents of Christianity, was the most vigorous and the most successful.  Porphyry appears to have been a Phoenician by descent.  His original name was Malchus—­i.e.  Melek or Malik, “king.”  To disguise his Asiatic origin, and ingratiate himself with the literary class of the day, who were chiefly Greeks or Grecised Romans, he took the Hellenic and far more sonorous appellation of Porphyrius, which he regarded as a sort of synonym, since purple was the royal colour.  He early gave himself to the study of philosophy, and was indefatigable in his efforts to acquire knowledge and learning of every kind.  In Asia, probably at Tyre itself, he attended the lectures of Origen; at Athens he studied under Apollonius and Longinus; in Rome, whereto he ultimately gravitated, he attached himself to the Neo-Platonic school of Plotinus.  His literary labours, which were enormous, had for their general object the establishment of that eclectic system which Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Jamblichus, and others had elaborated, and were endeavouring to impose upon the world as constituting at once true religion and true philosophy.  He was of a constructive rather than a destructive turn of mind.  Still, he thought it of great importance, and a necessity of the times, that he should write a book against the Christians, whose opinions were, he knew, making such progress as raised the suspicion that they would prevail over all others, and in a short time become universal.  This polemical treatise ran to fifteen books, and “exhibited considerable acquaintance with both the Jewish and the Christian scriptures."[14487]