and of the poor, who were maintained by the
oblations of the faithful, amounted to fifteen hundred. From reason,
as well as from the analogy of Antioch, we may venture to estimate the
Christians of Rome at about fifty thousand. The populousness of that
great capital cannot perhaps be exactly ascertained; but the most
modest calculation will not surely reduce it lower than a million of
inhabitants, of whom the Christians might constitute at the most a
twentieth part.

The western provincials appeared to have derived the knowledge of
Christianity from the same source which had diffused among them
the language, the sentiments, and the manners of Rome. In this more
important circumstance, Africa, as well as Gaul, was gradually fashioned
to the imitation of the capital. Yet notwithstanding the many favorable
occasions which might invite the Roman missionaries to visit their Latin
provinces, it was late before they passed either the sea or the Alps;
nor can we discover in those great countries any assured traces either
of faith or of persecution that ascend higher than the reign of the
Antonines. The slow progress of the gospel in the cold climate of Gaul,
was extremely different from the eagerness with which it seems to have
been received on the burning sands of Africa. The African Christians
soon formed one of the principal members of the primitive church. The
practice introduced into that province of appointing bishops to the most
inconsiderable towns, and very frequently to the most obscure villages,
contributed to multiply the splendor and importance of their religious
societies, which during the course of the third century were animated
by the zeal of Tertullian, directed by the abilities of Cyprian, and
adorned by the eloquence of Lactantius. But if, on the contrary, we turn
our eyes towards Gaul, we must content ourselves with discovering, in
the time of Marcus Antoninus, the feeble and united congregations
of Lyons and Vienna; and even as late as the reign of Decius, we are
assured, that in a few cities only, Arles, Narbonne, Thoulouse, Limoges,
Clermont, Tours, and Paris, some scattered churches were supported by
the devotion of a small number of Christians. Silence is indeed very
consistent with devotion; but as it is seldom compatible with zeal,
we may perceive and lament the languid state of Christianity in those
provinces which had exchanged the Celtic for the Latin tongue, since
they did not, during the three