101 above, says:--"In this very paragraph Mr.Newman shows that I have _not_ misrepresented him, nor is it true that I overlooked his novel hypothesis.

He says that 'Gibbon is exhibiting and developing the deep-seated causes of the _spread_ of Christianity before Constantine,'-- which Mr.Newman says had _not_ spread.

On the contrary; he assumes that the Christians were 'a small fraction,' and thus _does_ dismiss in two sentences, I might have said three words, what Gibbon had strained every nerve in his celebrated chapter to account for." Observe his phrase, "On the contrary." It is impossible to say more plainly, that Gibbon represents the spread of Christianity before Constantine to have been very great, and then laboured in vain to account for that spread; and that I, _arbitrarily setting aside Gibbon's fact as to the magnitude of the "spread_," cut the knot which he could not untie.
But the fact, as between Gibbon and me, is flatly the reverse.
I advance nothing novel as to the numbers of the Christians, no hypothesis of my own, no assumption.

I have merely adopted Gibbon's own historical estimate, that (judging, as he does judge, by the examples of Rome and Antioch), the Christians before the rise of Constantine were but a small fraction of the population.

Indeed, he says, not above _one-twentieth_ part; on which I laid no stress.
It may be that Gibbon is here in error.