condemned for heresy) Marcion had been a ship-owner on the
Black Sea coast of Asia Minor (Tertullian, Against Heresies30.1);
but it cannot be shown for certainif it was maritime trade that
brought him to Rome (cf. Lampe 2003: 241–4). Perhaps a better
way of viewing the link between trade and Christian expansion
is to think in terms of trade networks and the ways in which they
facilitate the movement of people and ideas (Humphries 1998).
This might explain the presence of numerous Christians in Baetica
in southern Spain by the early fourth century, since this region
was important in Mediterranean-wide trade in olive oil. North
Africa too was an important region in the imperial economy.
Yet traders and trade networks may not explain the presence of
Christians everywhere. In southern Gaul, for example, Christians
seem to have been present at Lyons, inland on the Rhône, before
Massilia (Marseilles), the region’s greatest port. In the case of
Lyons, the early presence of Christianity there can be attributed
to its importance in a variety of social networks, since the city
was the administrative and cultural hub of life in the region.
Surviving literature from the earliest period implies that
Christianity in the west was linked to immigrant populations.
Until the early third century, the language of western Christianity
was Greek, not Latin. Similarly, texts such as the First Epistle of
Clementfrom the Roman Christians to their brethren in Corinth
and the letter (quoted by Eusebius) on the martyrs of Lyons that
was sent from ‘the servants of Christ living in Vienne and Lyons
in Gaul to the brethren in Asia and Phrygia’ (Ecclesiastical
History5.1.3) show that early western Christians saw themselves
as having natural contacts with the eastern provinces.
In some (perhaps many) cases, the spread of Christianity
may have been quite accidental. It has been noted that Paul’s
journey to Rome piggybacked on major trade routes linking the
city with the eastern Mediterranean. While he resumed preaching
when he got to Rome, this was in no sense a formal missionary
journey: he was travelling, after all, as a Roman prisoner. Similar
accidental circumstances led to the first appearance of Christianity
among the barbarian Goths living north of the empire’s Danube
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