His efforts to effect conver sions by argument. Women converts in the early and geography. He further urged the University of Paris to endow chairs of Greek, Arabic and Tartar. He visited Rome three times, and Avignon once, in order to press upon the Pope the need of systematic Missions to Moslems, and he advocated the founding of monasteries the special purpose of which should be to promote the study of languages with a missionary intent. If, however, he agreed with the modern missionaries in emphasizing the supreme importance of securing a sympathetic understanding of the life and thought of those whom he desired to convert, he differed, alike from them and from his contemporaries, in believing that their conversion could and would be effected by the employment of philosophical disputation. He himself wrote over two hundred massive Latin folios on philosophy and theology, believing that their study would help to convert the Saracens. The history of Christian Missions in early medieval and modern times affords no support for Lull's contention that complacuit Deo in dialectica salvare hominem." At the same time we cannot but remember with gratitude and admiration the efforts which Lull made to put a stop to forcible conversions and to base the appeal to non-Christian races upon a sympathetic study of their own teachings, sealed as they were by his heroic life and death. In 1311 four years before his own death the Council of Vienne, moved apparently by Lull's appeal, decreed the establishment of professorships of oriental languages in various places of learning. 66 It is interesting to note the appeal which Christian Missions made to women and the influence exerted Church by women converts in the early Church. It would appear to be the case that in all countries in which the status of women has been a high one, the number of women converts and the influence which these converts have exerted have been great. In India and in other less civilized countries where the position of women is or has been relatively low the proportion of men converts has been large. During the early centuries of the Christian Era women converts attained considerable prominence. This was specially the case in the more civilized parts of the Roman Empire. In the Gospels we read of the ministering women who accompanied our Lord from place to place. According to a very early gloss which appears in Marcion's text and two Latin MSS. our Lord was charged by the Jews before Pilate with misleading women.1 St. Paul's directions to the Corinthian Christians in regard to the conduct and dress of women in church. suggest that they formed an important part of the Christian community. In the last chapter of the Epistle to the Romans St. Paul sends greetings to fifteen women who were apparently of some standing in the Church.2 The second Epistle of St. John was addressed to a woman. Irenæus also states that Marcus the pupil of Valentinus consecrated women as prophetesses and thereby led many astray in Gaul and that his followers deluded many women in the Rhone districts. increasing restrictions which the Church placed upon the freedom of women to act as Christian teachers was in part due to its anxiety to oppose the spread of 1 The gloss occurs in the text of St. Luke xxii. 2, ἀποστρέφοντα τὰς γυναῖκας καὶ τὰ τέκνα. * For a discussion of the position The occupied by Christian women in New Testament times see Harnack, Exp. of C. ii. 65-69. 3 i. 13-17. The spread of Christianity prior to 325. Gnosticism and Montanism, the followers of which Until the rise of monasticism the influence exerted by women in the service of the Church tended steadily to increase and mention is made of prominent Christian women in nearly all the writings dating from the second century. In the majority of cases the women referred to were resident in Asia or Africa. In Greece and Italy the proportion of influential women converts would appear to have been smaller. Marcellina the Carpocratian is said by Irenæus to have taught and to have led many astray in Rome. 1 Before proceeding to discuss the beginning of missionary work in the several countries of Europe, it may be well to refer to the four categories in which Harnack has suggested that the countries within or adjacent to the Roman Empire might be placed in the third decade of the fourth century. At the time to which Harnack's these categories refer, the total Christian population of the world was about 4,000,000 of whom less than half would have been resident in Europe. Harnack reckons that about the year 312 there were from 800 to 900 bishoprics in the Eastern portion of the Roman Empire and from 600 to 700 in the western portion. four cate gories. 1 Iren. i. 25, "multos exterminavit." 66 "1. Those in which Christianity numbered nearly one-half of the population and represented the most widely spread, or even the standard, religion. "2. Those in which Christianity formed a very important section of the population, influencing the leading classes and the general civilization of the people, and being capable of holding its own with other religions. "3. Those in which Christianity was thinly scattered. 4. Those in which the spread of Christianity was extremely slender, or where it was hardly to be found at all." 1 Under 1. he places "the region of Thrace opposite Bithynia" and the island of Cyprus. Under 2. are placed Rome, Lower Italy and the coastal districts of Middle Italy. The Christian population, he writes, "would be denser wherever Greeks formed an appreciable percentage of the inhabitants, i.e. in the maritime. towns of Lower Italy and Sicily, although the Latinspeaking population would still remain for the most part pagan." Under the same category are placed Spain, the maritime parts of Achaia, Thessaly, Macedonia, the Mediterranean islands and the southern coast of Gaul. Under 3. come the interior of Achaia, Macedonia and Thessaly, together with Epirus, Dardania, Dalmatia, Moesia and Pannonia, the northern districts of Middle Italy and the eastern region of Upper Italy. Under 4. come Western Upper Italy, Middle and Upper Gaul, Belgica, Germany, Rhætia and the north and north-west coasts of the Black Sea.2 1 Exp. of C. ii. 327. ture to pronounce any opinion at all 2 Harnack writes, "I do not ven- on Britain and Noricum." CHAPTER II IRELAND IN a volume that deals with the work of Christian missionaries in the various countries of Europe Ireland may claim to engage the early attention of the reader, and this for two reasons. A first ground of claim is furnished by the missionary activities of its own There is no country which in proportion to the training sons. ground extent of its population sent out so many of its sons for missionaries. to serve as missionaries in other European countries. Ireland as a We shall have occasion to note later on that there is hardly any large district in northern or central Europe which did not share in the spiritual benefits that missionaries from Ireland poured forth with a lavish hand and during a long series of years. In the second place, Ireland has a unique interest from a missionary standpoint because it is the only country in Europe that can claim no Christian martyrs. The Christian faith, by martyrs in whomsoever introduced, was gradually accepted without any outbreak of intolerance leading to the death of a missionary or of other Christians. What little we know of the development of Christianity in Ireland affords a pleasing contrast to the story of the violent and forcible conversions which took place in other lands. No Christian Ireland. Yet another reason for assigning an early and important place to the evangelization of Ireland is afforded |