Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

204 THE FIRST AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.Church was going through was well calculated totest her constitution. It is against the"spread offalse doctrine that S. Ignatius in these epistles soconstantly appeals to the unity of the faithfulamong each other.28 He warns them to use onlv »/Christian nourishment, and to abstain from strangefood, which is heresy.29 The Church was thencontinually receiving into her bosom converts atall ages of life, some from the Jews, many morefrom the Gentiles ; among these, therefore, mindsbrought up in Jewish prejudices, and others whichhad run havoc in eastern superstitions anterns of philosophy. In the course of these sixtyyears she probably multiplied many times over innumber ; and the multiplication was rather bythe accession of adults than by the education ofchildren born of Christian parents. "^^ The Churchwas composed of a small minority of the generalpopulation scattered at wide intervals over an immenseempire ; and, so far from being assisted bythe civil power, was under constant persecutionfrom it. Whatever force her spiritual governmentpossessed could be exercised only by the voluntarysubmission of her members. Let us weigh the factthat, under these circumstances, a number of here-sies arose. Some were of Jewish, some of Gentileparentage. But we are not here concerned eitherwith their cause or with their matter: we dwell atpresent only on the fact of their existence. In28 See Epist. ad Magnes. 13. 29 Ad Trail. 6.