A33359:48
Diocesan churches not yet discovered in the primitive times
Diocesan churches not yet discovered in the primitive times, or, A defence of the answer to Dr. Stillingfleets allegations out of antiquity for such churches against the exceptions offered in the preface to a late treatise called A vindication of the primitive church, where what is further produced out of Scripture and ancient authors for diocesan churches is also discussed.Diocesan churches not yet discovered in the primitive times, or, A defence of the answer to Dr. Stillingfleets allegations out of antiquity for such churches against the exceptions offered in the preface to a late treatise called A vindication of the primitive church, where what is further produced out of Scripture and antient authors for diocesan churches is also discussed.
London: printed for Thomas Parkhurst, 1682
Diocesan Churches not yet discovered in the Primitive times.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The better to confute Theodoret, who says (for they are his words, not mine) that Alexander with all the Brethren met together, he endeavours to show the state of that Church about the latter end of Constantine, &c. this he does here and after by an undue Application of some passages in Sozomen. For the account which that Historian gives of that City is not confined to Constantine's time, but reaches beyond it, ay, and beyond Julian's too, which appears, as by other passages, so by his mentioning the heathen Temples in the time of that Emperor. And with respect to the time after Constantine must that expression be understood, which makes C. P. to exceed Rome, not only in Riches, but in the number of Inhabitants, otherwise it will be apparently false. For when Chrysostom was Bishop there, about 70 years after (when it is like the number of the Inhabitants were doubled, it cannot be questioned but they were far more numerous) he who best could do it, reckons the Christians then to be an 100000n; our Author will have us look upon the Jews and Heathen there to be inconsiderable but let us count them another 100000. Yet both put together will fall incomparably short of the number in old Rome, which by the computation of Lipsius was at least two millionso. And in Constantine's time new Rome was as far short of the old ⟨p. 11⟩as to its greatness in circuit, for whereas Herodian declares that Severus quite demolished Byzantium for siding with Niger, and reducing it to the state of a Village subjected it to Perinthus, [Greek or Hebrew] pwe cannot in reason suppose it to be extraordinarily spacious; yet as Zosimus reports, all the enlargement which Constantine gave it, was but the addition of 15 Furlongs, [Greek or Hebrew] qNow suppose it was 30 or 40 Furlongs in compass before (and so larger than one City in an hundred) yet this addition will leave it less than Alexandria, which, as Josephus describes it, was 80 Furlongs, that is, ten miles in circumferencer, yet Alexandria was four times less than Rome, for by Vopiscus's account, in Aurelian's time, not long before Constantine, the walls were made by him near 50 miles in circuit. So it will be in comparison of Constantinople when first built, rather like a Nation than a City, as Aristotle said of the other Babylon, [Greek or Hebrew]