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growth, its adherents from distinguished families, its spread all over Rome."[1]
The foregoing contemporary witnesses, including the testimony of the Church to the size and numbers of the Christian congregation, speak of the Roman Christians with two notable exceptions—the pagan Pliny and the Christian Tertullian. The others, including Clement of Rome, Hermas, Justin Martyr, Soter, Irenæus, Cornelius, are specially writing of Rome and the Christian portion of its population.
But, as has been already remarked, what was written of Rome in a greater or less degree applies to other great centres of population in the Empire, notably to such centres as Antioch and Ephesus, Alexandria and Carthage.
- ↑ Professor Harnack, Mission and Expansion of Christianity, book iv. chap. iii. sec. 14.
