ecome, under external disadvantages of all sorts." (Lardner,
vol. vii. p. 380.) This at least is certain, that, throughout the whole
transaction hitherto, the great seemed to follow, not to lead, the public
opinion.

It may help to convey to us some notion of the extent and progress of
Christianity, or rather of the character and quality of many early
Christians, of their learning and their labours, to notice the number of
Christian writers who flourished in these ages. Saint Jerome's catalogue
contains sixty-six writers within the first three centuries, and the
first six years of the fourth; and fifty-four between that time and his
own, viz. A. D. 392. Jerome introduces his catalogue with the following
just remonstrance:--"Let those who say the church has had no
philosophers, nor eloquent and learned men, observe who and what they
were who founded, established, and adorned it; let them cease to accuse
our faith of rusticity, and confess their mistake." (Jer. Prol. in Lib.
de Ser. Eccl.) Of these writers, several, as Justin, Irenaeus, Clement
of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Bardesanes, Hippolitus, Eusebius,
were voluminous writers. Christian writers abounded particularly about
the year 178. Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, founded a library in that
city, A.D. 212. Pamphilus, the friend of Origen, founded a library at
Cesarea, A.D. 294. Public defences were also set forth, by various
advocates of the religion, in the course of its first three centuries.
Within one hundred years after Christ's ascension, Quadratus and
Aristides, whose works, except some few fragments of the first, are
lost; and, about twenty years afterwards, Justin Martyr, whose works
remain, presented apologies for the Christian religion to the Roman
emperors; Quadratus and Aristides to Adrian, Justin to Antoninus Pins,
and a second to Marcus Antoninus. Melito, bishop of Sardis, and
Apollinaris, bishop of Hierapolis, and Miltiades, men of great
reputation, did the same to Marcus Antoninus, twenty years
afterwards; (Euseb. Hist. lib. iv. c. 26. See also Lardner, vol. ii. p.
666.) and ten years after this, Apollonius, who suffered martyrdom under
the emperor Commodus, composed an apology for his faith which he read in
the senate, and which was afterwards published. (Lardner, vol. ii. p.
687.) Fourteen years after the apology of Apollonius, Tertullian
addressed the work which now remains under that name to the governors of
provinces in the Roman empir