e bishops were consecrated by the hands
of Demetrius, and the number was increased to twenty by his successor
Heraclas. The body of the natives, a people distinguished by a sullen
inflexibility of temper, entertained the new doctrine with coldness and
reluctance; and even in the time of Origen, it was rare to meet with an
Egyptian who had surmounted his early prejudices in favor of the sacred
animals of his country. As soon, indeed, as Christianity ascended the
throne, the zeal of those barbarians obeyed the prevailing impulsion;
the cities of Egypt were filled with bishops, and the deserts of Thebais
swarmed with hermits.

A perpetual stream of strangers and provincials flowed into the
capacious bosom of Rome. Whatever was strange or odious, whoever was
guilty or suspected, might hope, in the obscurity of that immense
capital, to elude the vigilance of the law. In such a various conflux
of nations, every teacher, either of truth or falsehood, every founder,
whether of a virtuous or a criminal association, might easily multiply
his disciples or accomplices. The Christians of Rome, at the time of the
accidental persecution of Nero, are represented by Tacitus as already
amounting to a very great multitude, and the language of that great
historian is almost similar to the style employed by Livy, when he
relates the introduction and the suppression of the rites of Bacchus.
After the Bacchanals had awakened the severity of the senate, it was
likewise apprehended that a very great multitude, as it were another
people, had been initiated into those abhorred mysteries. A more careful
inquiry soon demonstrated, that the offenders did not exceed seven
thousand; a number indeed sufficiently alarming, when considered as the
object of public justice. It is with the same candid allowance that
we should interpret the vague expressions of Tacitus, and in a former
instance of Pliny, when they exaggerate the crowds of deluded fanatics
who had forsaken the established worship of the gods. The church of Rome
was undoubtedly the first and most populous of the empire; and we are
possessed of an authentic record which attests the state of religion in
that city about the middle of the third century, and after a peace of
thirty-eight years. The clergy, at that time, consisted of a bishop,
forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, as many sub-deacons, forty-two
acolythes, and fifty readers, exorcists, and porters. The number of
widows, of the infirm,