Excerpt from The Early Years of Christianity: A Comprehensive History, of the First Three Centuries of the Christian Church This Volume, like the preceding, has been specially prepared for the English Edition. Divided into three sections, it yet forms one whole, for its one theme is the great conflict of Primitive Christianity with Paganism. The first section gives the narrative of the missions and persecutions of the Church; the second treats of its most illustrious representatives, and brings out their distinctive characteristics; it is entitled The Fathers of the Church of the Second and Third Centuries. The third section describes the great controversial conflict of Christianity, and contains a complete outline of the Apology of the Early Church. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.