SECTION I.

HISTORY OF THE PLANTING AND GROWTH OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH.



CHAPTER I.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE AT THE TIME OF THE BIRTH OF CHRIST.


Upwards of a quarter of a century before the Birth of Christ, the
grandnephew of Julius Caesar had become sole master of the Roman world.
Never, perhaps, at any former period, had so many human beings
acknowledged the authority of a single potentate. Some of the most
powerful monarchies at present in Europe extend over only a fraction of
the territory which Augustus governed: the Atlantic on the west, the
Euphrates on the east, the Danube and the Rhine on the north, and the
deserts of Africa on the south, were the boundaries of his empire.

We do not adequately estimate the rank of Augustus among contemporary
sovereigns, when we consider merely the superficial extent of the
countries placed within the range of his jurisdiction. His subjects
probably formed more than one-third of the entire population of the
globe, and amounted to about one hundred millions of souls.[Endnote 3:1]
His empire embraced within its immense circumference the best cultivated
and the most civilised portions of the earth. The remains of its
populous cities, its great fortresses, its extensive aqueducts, and its
stately temples, may still be pointed out as the memorials of its
grandeur. The capital was connected with the most distant provinces by