ABSTRACT
Although the conversion of the Emperor Constantine to the Christian religion in AD312 undoubtedly accelerated the growth of the church, the extraordinary expansion that took place in the next two centuries, which saw the numbers of christians grow from roughly half a million in the second century to roughly ftve million by the end of the fifth, was, in fact, slow and uneven. If Augustine is to be believed, Rome itself was more pagan than Christian until the 390s, when the balance began to change.6 By the beginning of the fifth centuty non--Christians still made up a very large minority, perhaps even half the population, to judge by the numbers of centres still awaiting a bishop at that date? The decisive change, therefore, which saw the huge explosion in the number of conversions, postdates A0400.8
By the same token, Christianity in Gaul was equally slow in establishing itself. Despite ancient beginnings, at Lyons, for example, in the days of Irenaeus and the second-<:entury persecutions, and later consolidation, due to imperial support, at Aries and Trier, there was no known bishop at Poitiers before Hilary (c. AD365) and Tours had no bishop before c. AD337, no church until c. AD350. Writers like Ausonius (who traced his ancestry proudly back to druids) and Sidonius Apollinaris (t c. AD480) show us a society still in the process of gradual Christianization, in which pagan values and traditions were being only slowly replaced.9 Sulpicius Severns, the biographer and older
3. See, e.g., Carney 1973, a collection of the authors earlier publications on the subject. 4. Byrne 1973, p. 12. 5. The best modem treatment, Hughes 1966, gives only eleven pages to the missionary period and makes only passing referenL'e to Palladius. The same criticism can be made of Sharpe 19B4a, pp. 230-70. 6. Augustine, Conf VIII 2,3, cited by MacMullen 1984a, p. 155 n. 34. I am much indebted in what follows to this thought-provoking book. 7. MacMullen 1984a, p. 83. 8. MacMullen 1984a, p. 156. 9. W.B. Anderson, Sidonius's translator, remarks that his subject was no theologian:
contemporary of Bishop Martin of Tours, writes as though paganism still flourished in northern Gaul in the 370s.10 It is possible, then, to exaggerate the degree of Christianizatlon that had taken place in Gaul in the years immediately preceding the missions to Ireland.
