c. 7.)
and, which is more material than the extent of the institution, the
number of Christians in the several countries in which it prevailed is
thus expressed by him: "Although so great a multitude, that in almost
every city we form the greater part, we pass our time modestly and in
silence." (Ad Scap. c. iii.) A Clemens Alexandrinus, who preceded
Tertullian by a few years, introduced a comparison between the success
of Christianity and that of the most celebrated philosophical
institutions: "The philosophers were confined to Greece, and to their
particular retainers; but the doctrine of the Master of Christianity not
remain in Judea, as philosophy did in Greece, but is throughout the
whole world, in every nation, and village, and city, both of Greeks and
barbarians, converting both whole houses and separate individuals,
having already brought over to the truth not a few of the philosophers
themselves. If the Greek philosophy he prohibited, it immediately
vanishes; whereas, from the first preaching of our doctrine, kings and
tyrants, governors and presidents, with their whole train, and with the
populace on their side, have endeavoured with their whole might to
exterminate it, yet doth it flourish more and more.
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