V. ALEXANDER (A.D. 109-119).* Nothing is known of this prelate. Three of the spurious Isidorian letters are attributed to him. VI. SIXTUS (A.D. 119-127).† Nothing is known of this prelate. Two of the spurious Isidorian letters are attributed to him. VII. TELESPHORUS (A. D. 127–139). Nothing is known of this prelate beyond a statement to be seen in the writings of Irenæus, unsupported however by other testimony, that he was a martyr. One spurious Isidorian letter is attributed to him. VIII. HYGINUS (A. D. 139-142). § Nothing is known of this prelate. Two spurious Isidorian letters are attributed to him. About this time the Gnostic heretics, Valentinus Cerdo and Marcion, came to Rome. || Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 1. † Ibid. 4. § Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 11. See for an account of the doctrines taught by these heretics, Mosheim, "De Rebus Christianorum ante Constantinum Magnum." IX. PIUS (A. D. 142-157).' No account of this prelate's proceedings is preserved. Four of the spurious letters are attributed to him. X. ANICETUS (a. D. 157—168).† Nothing is related of this prelate, beyond a story of an interview between him and Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna. I have doubts about it. The reasons are given in the "Proofs and Illustrations," under the title, "VICTOR." One spurious Isidorian letter is attributed to him. "If a man," it is the language of Gibbon, " were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power under the guidance of virtue and wisdom." Perhaps so far as the wishes of the later emperors (A.D. 138-180) were concerned, this panegyric may not be undeserved. But the deeds of the magistrates did not always correspond with the wishes of the emperors. It was during the episcopate of Anicetus that Justin received at Rome that sentence which has conferred upon him the imperishable name of martyr. In his second Apology, too, he records the following facts as having just occurred in the same city :—“A Roman matron, whose previous life had been dissolute, having been converted to Christianity, would no longer participate in the guilty excesses of her husband. After vain attempts to reform him, she sent him an instrument of divorce. Her husband in revenge denounced her as a Christian. She procured from the emperor a delay of her trial until after she had arranged her private affairs. Her husband then persuaded a centurion to seize one Ptolemy, who had been the means of her conversion, and ask him if he was a Christian. On the man's admitting it, he was put in chains, and at length brought before the city prefect, and on his confession of Christ immediately led to death. A certain Lucius who was present, shocked at this unjust sentence, remonstrated, saying that the man had been guilty of no crime, and that such a sentence was unworthy of the emperors. The judge made no reply, but asked him if he too was a Christian ? and upon his admission of the fact ordered him also to be executed."* XI. SOTER (A. D. 168-177).† Only one fact is stated of Soter, or of his Church during his episcopate. It is contained in a letter professedly written by Dionysius, the cotemporary bishop of Corinth. * 2 Apol. s. 2. † Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 19. Before, however, it is presented, it may be as well to say, that owing to the want of intercourse between the Roman and foreign Churches in the early centuries, were this history to be confined to the mere annals of the Roman Church, the reader would scarcely know anything of the cotemporary Christian communities; and would be utterly unable, when the time shall arrive for relating the interference of Rome in the affairs of the Universal Church, to understand the character of the various Churches and their relative position with Rome; a matter which, from Rome's peculiar pretensions, is part of her history. It will therefore be advisable, now and then, as occasion serves, to introduce some accounts of the other great divisions of the Universal Church, whose differences from the Roman Church and from each other were not merely geographical, but theological. On the introduction, therefore, of the name of Dionysius, bishop of the Church of Corinth, I will shortly lay before the reader an account, which is given in Eusebius, of this bishop, and of the Grecian Churches at the close of the second century. There are difficulties in it, but it may be true. The Church of Corinth had been founded by St. Paul, and had been a special object of his care. He had formed it out of a most sensual and depraved population, and it had consequently many moral hindrances to contend with. The city also, being one of great commercial importance, contained many Jews; and their opposition did not diminish his difficulties.. Amidst fleshly weakness and car nal schisms, the Church's spiritual growth had been sadly impeded; and two most practical and healing epistles had been addressed to it by St. Paul. Although some painful occurrences had taken place after St. Paul's death, which they had communicated to the Roman community, still it may be hoped that those intestine divisions had soon ceased. In the early half of the second century, during the episcopate of Primus, the purity of their faith is favourably spoken of by the historian Hegesippus; consequently a belief may be entertained that the Church was in a flourishing condition under Primus's successor, the Bishop Dionysius, whose letter to the Roman Church has led to the present digression. It is highly probable that in the second century the bishop of the Corinthian Church, it being the only Apostolic Church in Greece, possessed considerable influence over all the Churches both within and without the isthmus. Of the number of these Churches, or of the exact number of their members, we have no means of forming an opinion. Our only knowledge of them is derived from quotations out of certain letters of Dionysius which had fallen under the notice of Eusebius. Whether it was considered part of the duty of his official position to exercise a special oversight over the Grecian Churches, or whether it was the overflowing of a noble zeal for their welfare, or both causes combined, can only be conjectured; but his letters seem to have flown far and wide. The remains of ante-Nicene antiquity present no parallel to his |