The Materiality of Early Christ Devotion

This accessible and highly readable volume takes the reader on a series of four fascinating detective adventures. Through a rich and careful contextualization of often scrappy visual and verbal archaeological remains, Bruce Longenecker makes a compelling case for the significance that can be found even in apparently insignificant material. The result is a vivid reimagining of the lived worlds of specific groups of Christ followers in four different times and places, one that sheds new light on the variety of early Christian experience.

~James B. Rives, Kenan Eminent Professor of Classics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

A gemstone here, a fresco there, a graffito, a mosaic, an inscription – from all these elements, Bruce Longenecker conjures four Christian social worlds in all their vigorous variety. In his pages, "lived religion" truly comes alive. The Materiality of Early Christ Devotion is a bravura performance of disciplined imagination and innovative scholarship.

~Paula Fredriksen, Professor of Classics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Longenecker ranges across the Roman Mediterranean and beyond, uncovering a world of Christian imagery much richer and more diverse than has previously been suspected, in media ranging from elaborate frescoes and intricate gems to subtle graffiti. Christ worshippers are revealed as participants in the same visual cultures as those employed by adherents of many other gods. This book shows how far they remained part of wider Mediterranean cultures of representation in the centuries before emperors and church fathers began to interest themselves in distinctive Christian monumentalities. An enthralling read.

~Greg Woolf, Director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University

The Materiality of Early Christ Devotion is an exciting, up-to-date, and learned account of the earliest Christian material culture and its implications, both religious and theological. It discusses Christian imagery and symbolism in both funerary and liturgical contexts across the eastern and western parts of the Roman empire.  Its outstanding discussion of a very rich range of materials from gems and seals to inscriptions, tombstones, mosaics and wall paintings offers a vivid and excellently illustrated portrait of the beginnings of Christian visual devotion in the era before the religion’s rise to hegemony.

~Jaś Elsner, Professor of Late Antique Art, Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford

This book reveals the ingenuity that early Christ followers put into expressing their devotion and how wide the spectrum of intensity and exclusivity of their commitment can be. Longenecker’s well-informed use of archaeology and material culture, as well as a great sensibility to artistic imagination, makes this new book a captivating read and a great contribution to the field.

~Éric Rebillard, Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities, Cornell University

Whereas students of early/pre-Constantinian Christ followers habitually focus on texts, Longenecker's innovative and challenging book shows that their material and spatial world has been wrongly neglected, which greatly enriches our image of the early Christians.

~Jan Bremmer, Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies, University of Groningen

It is a mistake to let later canonized writings determine everything we know about Christianity in its formative phases. This book expertly and cautiously presents many important and surprising finds from the realm of material culture. These finds have the power to point to what early Christians were actually thinking about on the ground, and they show how Christians were part and parcel of their (Greco-Roman) world.

~M. David Litwa, Independent Scholar and Educator at The Gnostic Archive

Through an in-depth investigation of the material culture of four sites that are key to the study of early Christianity, Bruce Longenecker strongly argues the case for creative strategies that are followed, to varying extents and with diverse methods, by different local groupings to articulate their adherence to the new religion. Applying spatial theory analysis and highlighting the lived experiences of early Christians in the four localities, Longenecker shows the resourcefulness in the way in which religious persuasions could be given expression. This is a book that every student of early Christianity would benefit of engaging with.

~Ted Kaizer, Professor in Roman Culture & History, Durham University

The Materiality of Early Christ Devotion is a fascinating book that challenges the reader to take a fresh and unbiased look at objects and images expressing early Christ devotion. Rightly insisting on the creativity and diversity of Christ followers grounded in local traditions within the first three centuries, it offers intriguing and inspiring new ‘readings’ of the case-study materials.

~Barbara E. Borg, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Scuola Normale Superiore