Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/147

 OF TII1<: KOMAN EMPIRE. 1^>9 studied mankind, and wlio describes their manners in CIIAP, the most hvely colours, we may learn that, under the ^^' reign of" Commodus, his native country of Pontus was filled with Epicureans and christians^. Within four- score years after the death of Christ 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 super- stition had not only infected the cities, but had even spread itself into the villages and the open country of Pontus and Bithynia ". Without descending into a minute scrutiny of the The church c, .• c lA •<. 1 of Anlioch. expressions, or or the motives, or 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, how- ever, has been fortunately preserved, which seems to cast a more distinct light on this obscure but inter- esting subject. Under the reign of Tbeodosius, after Christianity had enjoyed, during more than sixty years, the sunshine of imperial favour, the ancient and illus- trious church of Antioch consisted of one hundred thousand persons, three thousand of whom were sup- ported out of the public oblations The splendour and dignity of the queen of the east, the acknowledged populousness of Cassarea, Seleucia, and Alexandria, and the destruction of two hundred and fifty thousand souls very unequally diffused over I'ontus ; since in the middle of the third cen- tury there were no more than seventeen believers in the extensive diocese of Neo-Caesarea. See M. de lillemont, Memoires Kcclesiast. torn, iv. p. 675. from Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, who were themselves natives of Cappadocia. ' According to the ancients, Jesus Christ suffered under the consulship of the two Gemini, in the year 29 of our present era. Pliny was sent into Bithynia, according to Pagi, in the year 1 10. " Plin. Epist. X. 97. '^ Chrysostom. Opera, torn. vii. p. 658. 810., VOL. II. K
 * Lucian in Alexandre, c. '25. Christianity, however, must have been