Suetonius himself restored order in London; and in spite of insurrections, she progressed during the next three centuries to become a centre of such importance, Roman highways spreading in different directions, that the accurate and impartial Ammianus Marcellinus concedes to her (_circa_ 380) the style and title of Augusta. And it was during these three centuries of progress that Christianity obtained a firm footing, but when and how we know not. The picturesque story, which deceived even Bede, how that Lucius, "king of the Britons," sent letters to Eleutherus, a holy man, Bishop of Rome, entreating Eleutherus to convert him and his, must now be put down as a pious forgery.[2] Tertullian (_circa_ 208) says that the kingdom and name of Christ were then acknowledged even in those parts inaccessible to the Romans; and we are probably on the safe side in asserting that missions had been successfully introduced into London by the end of the second century. Neither are we in much doubt or difficulty as to whence they came. Gaul, visited by missionaries from Ephesus, in turn sent others on; and the Church in London, as throughout these Isles, in Romano-British times can be safely described as a daughter of Gaul, and a granddaughter of the Ephesus of St. Timothy. Beyond we know little, if anything at all, more than that a Bishop of London, known by the Latinised name of RESTITUTUS, was one of three British prelates at the Council of Aries (314). And while there is no reason to suppose otherwise than that the bishops, of whom Restitutus could not have been anything like the first, had their principal church erected in the neighbourhood, at least, of St. Paul's churchyard and dedicated to that saint, neither site nor name can ever be authenticated. When the Roman troops retired, so thoroughly did the invading savages destroy all records, that our knowledge of the British Church in London may be compared, not inaptly, to our knowledge of Thornhill's paintings in the concave sphere of the dome. We know that they exist; but even on a bright May day they are invisible from below.
=Saxon, Angle, and Dane.=--In the early years of the fifth century the Romans are stated to have finally abandoned this country. If certain lists are to be credited, Bishops of London of the original British series continued until the flight of Theorus in 586. These lists have now been rejected,[3] although as the taking of London by the East Saxons was not prior to the date above, there is reason in the suggestion that church and bishop were still in existence. In the pages of Bede, writing about a century later, we come across something more definite, which readers interested in St. Paul's may care to have.