PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY.--The failure of the grand attempt of _Diocletian_ to exterminate Christianity was an indication of its coming triumph. Its progress had been gradual yet rapid, and, in its earlier stages especially, obscure. Of the labors of most of the apostles we know little. On the approach of the Jewish war (p. 180), the Apostle _John_, and other Christians with him, had repaired to Asia Minor. There, at _Ephesus_, this apostle lived until the reign of _Trajan_, and from that center exerted a wide influence, the traces of which are marked and various. The cities were the principal scenes of early missionary work. They were the "strategic points." In them it was easier for Christian preachers to gain a hearing, and in them they were exempt from the hindrance created by strange dialects. Wherever Christians went, even for purposes of trade or mechanical industry, they carried the seeds of the new doctrine. Even with regard to the churches of _Alexandria_ and _Carthage_, which became so flourishing, and in the case of the church at _Rome_ itself, we can not say how they were first planted. The exultant terms in which the ecclesiastical writers at the end, and even as early as the middle, of the second century speak of the increasing number of the converts, proves that the Christian cause was fast gaining ground. Its adherents were sometimes of the higher class, but mostly from the ranks of the poor. PERSECUTIONS.--Persecution from the side of the heathen began among the populace. Always when fire, tempest, or plague occurred, they were ascribed to the wrath of the heathen gods at the desertion of their altars, and the cry was for Christian blood. But Christianity, from the time of _Trajan_, was an illegal religion. Magistrates might at any time require Christians to do homage to the emperor's bust, or to burn incense to the old divinities. To make a proselyte of a Roman citizen, or to meet in private companies for worship, was unlawful. The persecutions by public authority have been said to be ten; but this number is too small if all of them are reckoned, and too large if only those of wide extent are included. The constancy with which even young women and children sometimes endured the torture, excited wonder in the beholders. Among the more noted martyrs are _Ignatius_, bishop of Antioch (116); _Polycarp_, bishop of Smyrna, who had been a pupil of the Apostle John, and was put to death in 155; and _Cyprian_, the aged bishop of Carthage, one of the leading ecclesiastics of the time, who suffered under _Valerian_ in 258.