Now a contemporary of Antoninus declares that in his time, that is, about the year 150, there was no race of men, either barbarians or Greeks, none even of Scythian nomads roaming in waggons, or of pastoral tribes dwelling in tents, among whom prayers and thanksgivings were not offered to the Father and Creator of the universe in the name of the crucified Jesus.(150) Thus, in a hundred and twenty years the Church had outstripped the limits of the empire. The germ which in the time of S. John was rooted in the chief cities, had spread out thence and increased, taking more and more possession of the soil in all directions. Still we must consider the Christian Church in each place of its occupation as a small minority of the people: nor is there any reason to doubt the statement made by Celsus, that at the period when he wrote, the middle of the second century, the Christian Faith counted few of the educated, distinguished, and rich among its adherents;(151) for Origen, in replying to him, alleges no specific example to the contrary. Yet, here too we must consider the justice of Origen’s remark,(152) that these classes are everywhere few in proportion to the poor and ignorant, and that Christianity being the day-star arising on every soul took of all classes alike. So much, then, as to the Church’s material extension: now as to its internal growth. As this period opens, comrades of the Apostles still abound in the churches. We know of several instances wherein such persons hold eminent rank. At Rome, S. Clement is the third successor of S. Peter; and S. Irenæus,(153) recording him as such eighty years afterwards, specially notes that he had seen and lived with Apostles, and had their preaching still sounding in his ears, and their tradition before his eyes; at Antioch, S. Ignatius, second after the same S. Peter; in the See of Jerusalem, S. Simeon, the brother of James, still survives; at Smyrna, S. John’s disciple Polykarp is bishop. Many more such S. Irenæus declares that there were. This would prepare us for the strength with which the principle of authority and tradition was held, and show how completely the sense of a spiritual government, of cohesion, and continuity of moral life, and of a common doctrine and teaching, the foundation of these, prevailed. But we are not left to inferences, we have the clearest statements on this point about fifteen years after S. John’s death. It has been remarked above how in the Apocalypse our Lord himself, addressing the seven churches, gathers them up in their bishops, and speaks of them each collectively as of one person. In the year 116, as is supposed, Ignatius still after forty-eight years bishop of one of the three great mother churches, all of them Sees of Peter, and types and models of church government, whence missions went forth, and the layers of apostolic teaching were propagated, in his seven extant epistles conveys the same idea as that presented by those divine words which S.