The Rise of the Mediaeval Church / And Its Influence on the Civilization of Western Europe from the First to the Thirteenth Century

by Alexander Clarence Flick

[73:8] Euseb., v., c. 1.

[74:1] Annales Francorum.

[74:2] Irenæus, Against Her., i., c. 10.

[74:3] Tertullian, Apol., c. 37; Cyprian, Ep., 71, 73; Augustine, On Bap., ii., c. 13.

[74:4] Rom. i., 8.

[75:1] The pagan writer Celsus was familiar with this idea as early as 161 A.D.

[75:2] But nothing could be farther from the truth than Gibbon's statement that the Christians were won "almost entirely" from the "dregs of the populace." See Orr, Neglected Factors.

[75:3] Ramsay in his Church in the Roman Empire, 57, goes so far as to say that the new faith "spread at first among the educated more rapidly than among the uneducated." This statement, however, is probably an exaggeration. See an excellent discussion in Orr, Neglected Factors, 95-163; Merivale, The Romans under the Empire, ch. 54.

[76:1] Phil. iv., 22; Lightfoot, Philippians, 171 ff.; Howson, St. Paul, ch. 26; Weizäcker, Apost. Age, ii., 132; Harnack, Princeton Rev., 1878, p. 257; Euseb., Eccl. Hist., iii., c. 18.

[76:2] Alzog, i., §§ 48, 52, 53; Berington and Kirk, ii., 1-113; Gibbons, Faith of Our Fathers; Cath. Encyc.