The Archaeological Quest for the Earliest Christians
Part two of a two-part series
Douglas Boin
February 01, 2018
17 Comments
19416 views
This is the second of two posts written by Dr. Douglas Boin on new archaeological and historical research in the study of early Christianity, drawn from his book Coming Out Christian in the Roman World: How the Followers of Jesus Made a Place in Caesar’s Empire (Bloomsbury Press, 2015). Click here to read part one.
The quest continues. Expert historians and armchair archaeologists are abuzz with news of a first-century A.D. copy of Mark’s gospel. If true (and let’s be blunt, no one has laid eyes on this mythical creature yet), it will give many believers the joy of beholding some of the first words ever written down in Christian Scripture.
This earthenware bowl was found in a Roman catacomb on the Via Appia. On the exterior (left) is the sign of “Christ,” the “Messiah.” On the inside (right) are the apostles Peter and Paul. The bowl dates to the mid-fourth century, the period when Christians began to mark cups, bowls and dinnerware with Christian signs. Prior to then, even fancy dishes from wealthier Christian homes—like the silver used in Clement of Alexandria’s day—lacked explicit Christian signs or symbols. Images: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Open Access, inventory number 52.25.1.
It also might confirm an inconvenient truth which many historians have been preaching about for decades: Jesus’ followers were much more educated and far wealthier than we’ve been taught to believe.
That’s a part of history which usually gets swept back into the dirt during these archaeological treasure hunts. But wealth and influence can’t be left out of the story of the early church. They may even shed new light on the struggle by which Christians won their rights in Rome.
In part one of this series, I debunked the idea that the Christian fear of making objects or images grew out of the Second Commandment of the Hebrew Bible. In this post, I challenge the idea that Christians left so few archaeological traces behind because they couldn’t afford to make them. While the church’s mission to the poor and disenfranchised may be one of Christianity’s most ethically admirable stances today, in antiquity, not all of Jesus’ followers were part of a shiftless underclass.
Paul, a prolific pen pal to people around the Aegean Sea and the earliest person to provide us any information from inside the group, supplies crucial evidence on this point.
Reading, writing and the gear that went with it (ink, stylus, scrolls, tablet) were an expensive part of Roman life. These skills opened doors; they also placed people in the top ten percent of society, our best estimate for the extent of ancient literacy. By the end of the first century A.D.—the time when Mark’s gospel was composed; its earliest surviving copy dates at least a century later—one couple in Pompeii was justly proud of their ability to communicate with people around them. They put a portrait in their home showing themselves with a pen, scroll and writing pad.
Paul’s correspondents were from these same cultured circles. We know from the letters he wrote to them, which follow standard letter-writing conventions and suggest a familiarity with elite social practices. Striking the right tone was important, too. His contact Chloe in Corinth hosted meetings in her home (1 Corinthians 1:11). So did Phoebe at Corinth’s harbor town (Romans 16:1), as well as Prisca and her husband, Aquilla (Romans 16:3–4).
In the free eBook Paul: Jewish Law and Early Christianity, learn about the cultural contexts for the theology of Paul and how Jewish traditions and law extended into early Christianity through Paul’s dual roles as a Christian missionary and a Pharisee.
We don’t need to assume these men and women were among the top one-percent of their day to own property of their own. A cautious estimate would place them in the top quarter of the socio-economic ladder. We also don’t need precise census data to see that, when they met, economic divisions among Jesus’ followers could be fierce.
After Paul left Corinth, he heard that many group members were treating the Lord’s Supper like a luxurious dinner party. The privileged few wined and dined, going home drunk, while members of the lower-class went home hungry (1 Corinthians 11: 20–22). Certainly not an egalitarian community!
These economic divisions wouldn’t be resolved with the passage of time. A century later, wealthy Christians in Alexandria were celebrating the Lord’s Supper “with fatty meat and fine sauces,” Clement, the Bishop of Alexandria, said at the end of the second or beginning of the third century A.D (The Teacher 2.1). Exquisitely crafted plates of gold and silver were being used at Jesus’ fellowship meal (see images above), yet these people dared to call it agape, the Lord’s Supper, Clement said in exasperation.
This fresco from the baptistry at Dura-Europos depicts Jesus as the Good Shepherd. It’s a motif drawn from Hebrew Scripture, one which the Gospel of John also evokes. What few realize is that the image of a shepherd caring for his sheep was the classical personification of good will toward all. In their first attempt at Christian art, Christians had depicted an idea which non-Christians valued, too. Image: Yale University Art Gallery, Public Domain, inventory number 1932.1200.
The bishop wasn’t happy, but many Christians had their own ideas about how to follow Jesus—and it involved making connections with people in town. By the middle of the third century A.D., on the Euphrates River in Syria, one community had actually convinced a local resident to knock down walls in his own home. The result was a new open floor plan for Christian meetings. The owner even installed a baptistry (see image right).
Christians felt so comfortable in their neighborhood, they had finally decided to make some noise. So they renovated a home. It’s the earliest example of Christian architecture that we have. It also comes from a period when most people think Christians were being “persecuted” throughout the empire. Yet the Dura house predates the legalization of Christianity by a half-century. This gradual, rising profile in the archaeological record should change the way we think about Christian history.
Christianity may not have been legally recognized, but Christians themselves were hardly hiding. In effect, Christianity’s political triumph may not have been rooted in its superior “spiritual” message. It may have been the product of something much more mundane: a few well-placed allies and the right financial support. Now might be the perfect time to go back and rethink what it means when we say that the Roman Empire “converted” to Christianity.
This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on March 4, 2015.
Photo by Jerod Quinn
Douglas Boin is the author of Coming Out Christian in the Roman World: How the Followers of Jesus Made a Place in Caesar’s Empire (Bloomsbury Press, 2015), from which this post is adapted. He is an assistant professor of history at Saint Louis University.
Follow him on Twitter @douglasboin and on his blog Religious Dirt.
Related reading in Bible History Daily:
Is the Earliest Image of the Virgin Mary in the Dura-Europos Church?
When Did Christianity Begin to Spread?
The Split of Early Christianity and Judaism
Alternative Facts: Domitian’s Persecution of Christians by Mark Wilson
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This earthenware bowl was found in a Roman catacomb on the Via Appia. On the exterior (left) is the sign of “Christ,” the “Messiah.” On the inside (right) are the apostles Peter and Paul. The bowl dates to the mid-fourth century, the period when Christians began to mark cups, bowls and dinnerware with Christian signs. Prior to then, even fancy dishes from wealthier Christian homes—like the silver used in Clement of Alexandria’s day—lacked explicit Christian signs or symbols. Images: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
This was never a symbol for the followers of the Hebrew Messiah, this was an emblem of the Roman Army. The P in the middle of the cross represented the “Pontiff.” The two figures were Herodotus and Pilate.
Ryan, your assertion is clearly untrue. The symbol is clearly the chi rho, which was used beginning in the fourth century as a symbol for the name of Christ. I have never seen this image used in relation to the Pontifex Maximus or the Roman Army, and I have twenty years’ experience in the field.
And why would a fourth century Roman cup have the image of an obscure first century procurator of Judea coupled with that of a Greek historian who lived four centuries before Christ? Oh, maybe you mean Herod, who was a contemporary of Pilate’s. Either way, it would make no sense for a fourth century Roman cup to have their images on it.
“After Paul left Corinth, he heard that many group members were treating the Lord’s Supper like a luxurious dinner party. The privileged few wined and dined, going home drunk, while members of the lower-class went home hungry (1 Corinthians 11: 20–22). Certainly not an egalitarian community!
These economic divisions wouldn’t be resolved with the passage of time. A century later, wealthy Christians in Alexandria were celebrating the Lord’s Supper “with fatty meat and fine sauces,”
With respect, there is confusion, here, between the Lords Supper (Communion) – which was the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine as symbols of the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus (see I Cor.11:23ff) – and the accompanying ‘agape meal’. It was the latter that was the problem in Corinth and, presumably, in Alexandria. However, as the sacramental aspect was included in the whole, Paul does not differentiate by name. http://www.crazyrev.blogspot.com
Can anyone explain to me how there is a discovery of a first century Gospel but no one “has laid eyes on it”?
Does someone claim the discovery but no scholar has seen it, perhaps?
And does one house and one bowl mean that persecution was a myth?
I have always argued that the early Christians were not the poor, down trodden. The father of James and John had two fishing boats and hired others. Peter had his own boat. As this article mentions Paul was an educated man and part of the religious, literate society. Luke was a physician, Matthew was a tax collector and people resented his position and wealth. The Centurion family and friends that Peter preached to and baptized were not poor people. I could go on, but that is the end of my rant for now.
To understand why some Christians could redesign a house in Syria some fifty years prior to Emperor Constantine’s decree of tolerance, the author needs to familiarize himself with the history of the rivalry between the Roman and Persian empires, and with the history of the Church of the East. Many Christians in the border regions, usually east of Antioch, fled the Romans and were afforded protection by the Persians. The Christian population in the western Persian flank (Edessa and the vicinity) during the first three centuries was very educated, prosperous and well-established.
What a myopic sense of history!
Loved reading this second part especially! The early church was more of a “grass roots” movement and didn’t seem to be as interested in building “churches.”
Apostles Die, and Apostasy Develops
When did false Christians begin to disown Christ? Very shortly after Jesus’ death. He himself warned that Satan the Devil would quickly oversow “weeds,” or false Christians, among the “fine seed,” or genuine Christians, that Jesus planted during his ministry. (Matthew 13:24, 25, 37-39) The apostle Paul warned that deceptive teachers were already at work in his day. The fundamental reason for their deviation from the teachings of Jesus Christ, he said, was that they had no real “love of the truth.”—2 Thessalonians 2:10.
The apostles of Jesus Christ acted as a restraint against this apostasy for as long as they lived. After the death of the apostles, however, religious leaders using “every powerful work and lying signs and portents and . . . every unrighteous deception” in order to mislead many turned more and more people away from the truths taught by Jesus and his apostles. (2 Thessalonians 2:3, 6-12) In time, writes English philosopher Bertrand Russell, the original Christian congregation was changed into a religious organization that “would astonish Jesus, and even Paul.”http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200271204
How Early Christians Measured Up: Jesus’ disciples wasted no time in doing what Jesus told them. “Every day in the temple and from house to house they continued without letup teaching and declaring the good news about the Christ.” (Acts 5:42) Preaching was not limited to an elite group. Historian Neander observed that “Celsus, the first writer against Christianity, jeer[ed] at the fact, that wool-workers, cobblers, leather-dressers, the most illiterate and vulgar of mankind, were zealous preachers of the gospel.” In his book The Early Centuries of the Church, Jean Bernardi wrote: “[Christians] were to go out and speak everywhere and to everyone. On the highways and in the cities, on the public squares and in the homes. Welcome or unwelcome. . . . To the ends of the earth.”
Some of the apostles had been disciples of John the Baptizer before becoming Jesus’ disciples. (Joh 1:35-42) Eleven of them were evidently Galileans (Ac 2:7), Judas Iscariot being considered the sole Judean. They were from the working class; four were definitely fishermen by trade; one had been a tax collector. (Mt 4:18-21; 9:9-13) At least two of them appear to have been cousins of Jesus (James and John, the sons of Zebedee). They were men who were viewed by the religious leaders as “unlettered and ordinary,” indicating that their education was elementary and not from the schools of higher learning.
Ms. Collier,
You are right. Christians were not all poor at the time of the early church, just as they were not all wealthy and, as is often the case, resulting problems arose. Significant portions of the NT give evidence of economic class conflict. James’ letter in particular largely addresses conflict between those Christians of means and those who were impoverished (and apparently being treated despairingly).
Many Jewish men of that day knew how to read and write — learned in the synagogues as boys. I would suspect the merchants among them also were literate in Greek and perhaps Latin. Many of those Paul mentions in his letters were Jewish converts like Aquila.
Neither did slavery preclude literacy — Greek doctors were literate and many were slaves to wealthy Romans. Roman society was quite different fm ours in terms of its stratification and literacy rates.