joint labours of St. Peter and St. Paul, but the circumstances
of its foundation were very different from those of the Churches of our
own islands. [Sidenote: Difficulties encountered by the Church in
Italy from high civilization] Christianity in Italy had to make its way
amongst a highly civilized people, a nation of deep thinkers and
philosophers, whose opposition to the truths of the Gospel was a far
more subtle thing than the rude ignorance of barbarians. [Sidenote:
and political power.] Besides this, the infant Church in Italy was
brought face to face with the might of the Roman emperors who were at
that time the rulers of the known {77} world; and though their
persecution of their Christian subjects extended more or less to all
parts of the empire, yet Italy was the chief battle-field on which the
first great contest between the Church and the world was fought. Hence
the history of the early Church of Italy is a history of alternating
persecutions and times of peace[1], during which Christianity was
constantly taking deeper root and spreading more widely through the
country, until the conversion of Constantine, A.D. 312, led to the
establishment and endowment of the Church. [Sidenote: Decay of the
Roman empire.] As the Church was growing stronger and taking deeper
root, the worn-out Roman empire was gradually decaying and fading away,
and, practically, it came to an end with the division of East and West,
A.D. 395.

Resistance to the inroads of the barbarians was no longer possible.
Rome was sacked successively by different nations of Central Europe,
and at length the kingdom of the Goths in Italy was established under
Theodoric, A.D. 493. [Sidenote: Arianism of barbarian conquerors.]
These rude nations, though professing Christianity, had received with
it the heretical doctrines of Anus, owing to their teachers having
belonged to those eastern portions of Europe, which, from their
nearness to Asia, were most infected with this heresy.

The CHURCH OF FRANCE was probably founded by St. Paul, but we have no
certain account of its early history. [Sidenote: Asiatic origin of
Early French Bishops,] "Trophimus the Ephesian" is believed to have
been the first Bishop of Arles, and Pothinus, another Greek Asiatic,
occupied the see of Lyons at the time of the persecution under Marcus
Aurelius, A.D. 161-A.D. 180, during which he suffered martyrdom. His
{78} successor was St. Irenaeus, a native, probably, of Smyrna, w