episcopacy at Athens, also furnishes information on the Church in
(for he does not profess to be giving a direct quotation) has unintentionally paraphrased and interpreted the statement of Dionysius by the light of later ecclesiastical usages. However Athens, like Corinth, did not long remain without a bishop. The same Dionysius, writing to the Athenians, reminds them how, after the martyrdom of Publius their ruler, Quadratus becoming bishop sustained the courage and stimulated the faith of the Athenian brotherhood. If, as seems more probable than not, this was the famous Quadratus who presented his apology to Hadrian during that emperor's visit to Athens, the existence of episcopacy in this city is thrown back early in the century; even though Quadratus were not already bishop when Hadrian paid his visit. 6. The same writer, from whom we learn these particulars about episcopacy at Athens, also furnishes information on the Church in CRETE. He writes letters to two different communities in this island, the one to Gortyna commending Philip who held this see, the other to the Cnossians offering words of advice to their bishop Pinytus . The first was author of a treatise against Marcion: the latter wrote a reply to Dionysius, of which Eusebius has preserved a brief notice. 7. Of episcopacy in THRACE, and indeed of the Thracian Church generally, we read nothing till the close of the second century, when one Publius Julius bishop of Debeltum, a colony in this province, signs an encyclical letter. The existence of a see at a place so unimportant implies the wide spread of episcopacy in these regions. 8. As we turn to ROME, we are confronted by a far more perplexing problem than any encountered hitherto. The attempt to decipher the early history of episcopacy here seems almost hopeless, where the evidence is at once scanty and conflicting. It has been often assumed that in the metropolis of the world, the seat of imperial rule, the spirit which dominated in the State must by natural predisposition and sympathy have infused itself into the Church also, so that a monarchical form of government would be developed more rapidly here than in other parts of Christendom. This supposition seems to overlook the fact that the influences which prevailed in the early church of the metropolis were more Greek than Roman, and that therefore the tendency would be rather towards individual liberty