istian history. I
purpose in the present paper extending this investigation to the
Churches of Gaul. The Christianity of Gaul was in some sense the
daughter of the Christianity of Asia Minor.

Of the history of the Gallican Churches before the middle of the second
century we have no certain information. It seems fairly probable indeed
that, when we read in the Apostolic age of a mission of Crescens to
'Galatia' or 'Gaul' [251:1], the western country is meant rather than
the Asiatic settlement which bore the same name; and, if so, this points
to some relations with St Paul himself. But, even though this
explanation should be accepted, the notice stands quite alone. Later
tradition indeed supplements it with legendary matter, but it is
impossible to say what substratum of fact, if any, underlies these
comparatively recent stories.

The connection between the southern parts of Gaul and the western
districts of Asia Minor had been intimate from very remote times. Gaul
was indebted for her earliest civilization to her Greek settlements like
Marseilles, which had been colonized from Asia Minor some six centuries
before the Christian era; and close relations appear to have been
maintained even to the latest times. During the Roman period the people
of Marseilles still spoke the Greek language familiarly along with the
vernacular Celtic of the native population and the official Latin of the
dominant power [252:1]. When therefore Christianity had established her
head-quarters in Asia Minor, it was not unnatural that the Gospel should
flow in the same channels which had already conducted the civilization
and the commerce of the Asiatic Greeks westward.

At all events, whatever we may think of the antecedent probabilities,
the fact itself can hardly be disputed. In the year A.D. 177, under
Marcus Aurelius, a severe persecution broke out on the banks of the
Rhone in the cities of Vienne and Lyons--a persecution which by its
extent and character bears a noble testimony to the vitality of the
Churches in these places. To this incident we owe the earliest extant
historical notice of Christianity in Gaul. A contemporary record of the
martyrdoms on this occasion is preserved in the form of a letter from
the persecuted Churches, addressed to 'the brethren that are in Asia and
Phrygia' [252:2]. The communities thus addressed, it will be observed,
belong to the district in which St John's influence was predominant, and
which produced al