rallel between the civil
and the ecclesiastical constitution of Antioch; between the list of
Christians who had acquired heaven by baptism, and the list of citizens
who had a right to share the public liberality. Slaves, strangers,
and infants were comprised in the former; they were excluded from the
latter.

[Footnote 159: Chrysostom. Opera, tom. vii. p. 658, 810, (edit.
Savil. ii. 422, 329.)]

[Footnote 160: John Malala, tom. ii. p. 144. He draws the same
conclusion with regard to the populousness of antioch.]

[Footnote 161: Chrysostom. tom. i. p. 592. I am indebted for these
passages, though not for my inference, to the learned Dr. Lardner.
Credibility of the Gospel of History, vol. xii. p. 370. * Note: The
statements of Chrysostom with regard to the population of Antioch,
whatever may be their accuracy, are perfectly consistent. In one passage
he reckons the population at 200,000. In a second the Christians at
100,000. In a third he states that the Christians formed more than half
the population. Gibbon has neglected to notice the first passage, and
has drawn by estimate of the population of Antioch from other sources.
The 8000 maintained by alms were widows and virgins alone--M.]

The extensive commerce of Alexandria, and its proximity to Palestine,
gave an easy entrance to the new religion. It was at first embraced by
great numbers of the Theraputae, or Essenians, of the Lake Mareotis,
a Jewish sect which had abated much of its reverence for the Mosaic
ceremonies. The austere life of the Essenians, their fasts and
excommunications, the community of goods, the love of celibacy, their
zeal for martyrdom, and the warmth though not the purity of their faith,
already offered a very lively image of the primitive discipline. [162] It
was in the school of Alexandria that the Christian theology appears to
have assumed a regular and scientific form; and when Hadrian visited
Egypt, he found a church composed of Jews and of Greeks, sufficiently
important to attract the notice of that inquisitive prince. [163] But the
progress of Christianity was for a long time confined within the limits
of a single city, which was itself a foreign colony, and till the
close of the second century the predecessors of Demetrius were the only
prelates of the Egyptian church. Three bishops were consecrated by
the hands of Demetrius, and the number was increased to twenty by his
successor Heraclas. [164] The body of the natives, a people dist