mountainman

I have subsequently obtained this book and have reviewed
its claims and the evidence it presents. IMO there is no
compelling evidence in this book for the unambigous existence
of pre-nicene christianity, and in due course I will post an
article on this matter.

However, in the eventuality that the sense of humour is still
intact, I can report a very startling fact, disclosed by the
author, and that is, in at least two inscriptions, chizzled out
of stone in the Greek language, the reference 'Christians for
Christians' , is clearly recognised to have been added by
a later hand.

Great! Interpolated Phrygian gravestones!
I would never have believed this if I had not
read it in this book.

Full report in a few days;
and then I'll be moving on.

mountainman

A full report has since been posted at this address:
www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_074.htm

The Christians for Christians Inscriptions of Phrygia:
a review of data presented by Elsa Gibson

DougWeller

In fact, Michael Ivanovitch Rostovtzeff was Sterling Professor of Ancient History and Archaeology and nothing to do with the Divinity School. His interests were mainly economic history and agriculture.

The excavations were sponsored by Yale University, not the Divinity School, and the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles–Lettres. I can't find any evidence for the Divinity School being involved in the excavations at all and I suggest that this is a red herring.

Doug (coming in late because MountainMan pointed me here and I wanted to correct this misconception).

DougWeller

Artefacts are rarely shared in the way you suggest, nor are original notes and sketches. There are some massive reports from the excavations (although funding ran out and WWII intervened and not everything was published).
Access to these of course will always have been possible, just not sending them out to other departments. Yale even has a reconstruction of a room from the 'house church' with original frescoes in it that can be seen publicly.

Why hasn't anyone mentioned the report on the 'house church' by Kraeling? That's the relevant publication.
Doug

youngalexander

The absence of Christian archeology until the very end of the second century is clearly amplified by an apparent sudden flowering at the beginning of the third. It would seem unlikely that the motivation for producing such artifacts would spontaneously arise, particularly when they take the form of funerary art in the Callixtus catacombs of Rome. More likely is a sudden change in some social condition which allowed the expression of such deep psychological requirements. In fact, it is not difficult to find this change at Rome, and later elsewhere.

Thus the question posed above really has two parts. Why has no Christian archeology been found before the very end of the second century, and what change occurred to allow for the survival of Christian archeology from the beginning of the third century?

Art historians have put forward a variety of major and minor reasons for this absence. No one reason suffices on its own, but the combined effect produces a convincing matrix of explanations. There are three major reasons:

1. Initially Christians numbers were tiny. Although they grew rapidly it was not until the beginning of the third century, in a population dense Rome, that a sufficient critical mass was reached to produce a visible culture.

2. The vast majority of Christians were poor, illiterate and generally of lower social strata. They could either not afford many of the distinguishable artifacts of the kind which tend to be preserved, or left them in locations and under circumstances which made them vulnerable to destruction.

3. Christians lived within a pagan milieu. The minutiae of their daily circumstances were very much dictated by the surrounding culture such that their sociological and economic activities were, for the most part, indistinguishable from those of pagans.

Tiny beginnings: a long tale of exponential growth
Origen says in Against Celsus 3.10, “That Christians at first were few in number … is undoubted”. Stark, The Rise of Christianity, (1997, p5), assumes that Christians numbered about 1000 in the year 40. He further assumes an annual growth rate of 40%, and an empire total of 60 million, which provides the following interesting Table 1.1, p7.

Year.......................# Christians.......................% Pop
40.............................1,000.............. ..............0.0017
50.............................1,400.............. ..............0.0023
100.............................7,530............. ...............0.0126
150...........................40,496.............. ..............0.07
200........................217,795...........................0.36
250.......................1,171,356............... .............1.9
300.......................6,299,832............... ...........10.5
350.....................33,882,008................ ...........56.5

Anyone unfamiliar with exponential growth might observe the burgeoning Christian population of the 4th century and project back linearly to assume a much greater community than was in fact the case. Even by 200 C.E. Christians constituted only about a third of one percent of the pagan population. Except of course in Rome. Stark accepts a population of 700,000 for Rome and 1% Christian, giving a converted community of some 7,000. These are all clearly ballpark figures, yet based upon the best estimates available, and surely not too far from the mark.

As far as Christian archeology is concerned, Stark sums up;

“The lack of anything surviving from prior to 180 must be assessed on the basis of the tiny number of Christians who could have left such traces”.

Yet, even given these minimal numbers, surely something should have survived?


plerique pauperes: “the majority of us are poor” – Minucius Felix, Oct. 36.3
So quotes Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus, (2003, p138-42). (Oct. 12.2) Of Christians,

“the larger and better portion--are in want, are cold, are labouring in hard work and hunger”,

(Oct. 8.3) and are

“from the lowest dregs the more unskilled, and women, credulous and, by the facility of their sex, yielding”, “half naked themselves, they despise honours and purple robes”.

Lampe continues by pointing out that

“innumerable poor and slaves in Rome were buried without epitaphs in public cemetries (puticili). There is no doubt that lower social strata are underrepresented in the inscriptions because of their poverty”.

Lampe also quotes Horace concerning the fate of slave burial grounds on the Esquiline which were soon forgotten and overplanted with gardens.

Urban renewal in the early centuries CE was considerable as cities were ravaged by conflict, fire, flood and pestilence, grew or expanded or were altered at the behest of ruling elites with scant consideration for those with little economic or political power. This renewal has continued throughout the centuries until the present time, leaving little that was not specially protected in some manner. Thus it is not surprising that the first recognisably Christian archeology is from Callixtus catacombs which were likely private property, under church control and most importantly underground. The combined effect of these factors was that when they were eventually abandoned in the sixth century, they lay undisturbed until rediscovery in the last few centuries. Similarly, the only (until perhaps recently) discovered ‘House Church’ at Duros-Europas was deliberately buried as part of fortifications, and thus lay preserved until modern times.

Even so, would nothing whatsoever have survived? What of the few well to do Christians?


And let our seals be either a dove, or a fish, or a ship scudding before the wind …
Says Clement of Alexandria, Paed. III.59.2. Finney, The Invisible God, (1994, p111) comments thus,

“he instructs his addressees to purchase stones exhibiting generic devices (dove, fish, ship, … intaglios illustrating these subjects survive in large numbers. They represent the second-century stonecutter’s stock-in-trade. There is nothing new or innovative or unusual about second-century intaglios exhibiting these garden-variety devices”.

On the other hand, Tertullian admonishes women (fem. 2.11) for adorning themselves as the gentiles did so as not to draw attention to themselves.

Lampe (p141) points to the legal uncertainty of Christian monuments and grave sites in the first two centuries, resulting in a lack of symbols & inscriptions. He also notes that Christians had pagan names rather than distinctively Christian or biblical until the mid-third century. Thus even when they are encountered there is no Christian identification.

What do these examples point to?
Finney argues that Christians kept a low social profile by practicing selective adaptation. That is, Christians would choose from the existing Greco-Roman culture those aspects which harmonised with their beliefs and avoid those which did not. He concludes (p131) that

“Christians produced nothing materially distinct before the early third century…
The earliest Christians were fully adapted to Greco-Roman material culture, indeed to such a high degree that if their literature did not survive, we would have no way of knowing they ever existed."

It is likely that archeologists have discovered Christian burial sites and dwellings, but they are indistinguishable from the pagan milieu.

Forbidden images, away with luxury, denunciation, and the end of the world!
A number of other explanation have been suggested. In isolation they are very limited, but in conjunction with a combination of the above three points, they certainly may have played a part.

Forbidden images: There is a suggestion that an edict against images was promulgated. The evidence seems rather later than 200 C.E., is uncertain as to precisely what is being forbidden, or where, upon what circumstances etc.. Idol worship is the immediate cry. A vexed issue, by no means clear re Christianity. The evidence, Callixtus funerary art, suggests that it had little effect.

Christian rejection of luxury: There is evidence of wealthy Christians in the first two centuries. Perhaps this had some effect upon their deportment.

Denunciation: This was a serious issue. Min. Fel. 8. reports “a people skulking and shunning the light” and why would you not? Finney argues that there were those bold souls who sought martyrdom, but the majority applied ‘selective adaptation’. We may count this as a highly effective motivation for ‘blending in’.

Finally, ‘the end of the world’: Curiously, as a motivator it would have had maximum impact earlier, when numbers were tiny. As they grew, time passed, and the realities of apocalypse impinged!


In essence then, a very small number of largely impoverished illiterates who possessed no distinctive visible culture left no material evidence of their existence – until a critical mass of believers in Rome took advantage of a social opportunity, and brought forth early Christian art.

PS: Pete, my previous contribution to this thread was a trifle tardy, but not quite the year you accused it of. This effort is late by more than a year.

Like I sed, I'm a slow thinker!

Clivedurdle

What is interesting about the evolution of xianity is the parallels to Wahabism and the Taliban.

A probably Jewish mystery cult decides it has the secret of life universe and everything and is very persuasive, eventually getting to a very powerful Emperor who probably saw advantages to those beliefs!

A later Emperor says hang on a minute this isn't very eclectic and pragmatic and Roman and gets assassinated by a cult follower for his troubles.

And the archaeology backs this - xian symbols are commonly found with classic pagan ones, it was mix and match until someone invented the concepts of heresy and demon inspired religions and eventually got listened to. Strange that two thousand years later our thinking is so polluted by a basically psychotic idea that life can be split into good and evil.


(And it might all be Darius's fault!)

mountainman

Many thanks for the large post Young Alexander.
I have of course trimmed it in response to note
the paradox that the indistinguishable nature of
christian artefacts in the period before Constantine
may be viewed from a theory of political history
which does not recognise any earlier universal
church run by a "nation" of pre-Nicene christians.

Certainly many other earlier churches existed.
Start with the cult of Ascepius, the Healer.
The poor and the sick of the empire knew this cult.

In fact the emblem of this "cult", the staff of
Ascepius, still stands as the predominant emblem
of the world's medical professions.

The priests of Asclepius were known to have been
executed by Constantine, and their temples raised
to the ground by his military supremacist dictates
in the lead-in to the Council of Nicaea.

The picture is not "healthy" with modern hindsight.
Yet I appreciate your review of the data here.

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

youngalexander

It is I who should thank you. If it had not been for your amazing persistence in pursuing your thesis I might not have discovered what a fascinating subject Early Christian Art/Archeology is.

When the thread popped up again the OP gave me an opportunity to gather the 'Why no Archy prior to 180CE' stuff together. Now I can get on with the really interesting 'what happened then'.

For instance, I am currently considering the 'Absence of Naughty Pygmies in Early Christian Funerary Art' - seriously, it is a genuine question.

mountainman

Yes, it appears to be an intensely subjective field.
Perhaps we agree that this is the real problem:
separating our postulates from the evidence.


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

renassault

So Constantine foresaw the future and forged the radio-carbon dating we now see? What's your opinion on the P52 papyrus, an excerpt of John, which is dated to 150 AD at latest?