Thanks for pointing me to this, Peter.
On TedM's HJ thread I said that a glance made it appear as though there weren't material remains from c. 30-130 CE that are securely dated and securely identified as Christian. It looks as though the earliest (though I may have missed something) is an inscription from the Catacombs of Lucina/Commodilla, near San Paolo fuori le Mura. It is the epitaph of a youth, Eutychius, who died in his 19th year. There are two loaves and two fishes carved below the epitaph. The fact that the youth's praenomen, Titus, is given suggests a date before the Antonine period, when praenomina started to fall out of use. Nearby inscriptions bear consular dates of 107 and 110. Northcote and Brownlow, the authors of
Roma Sotteranea, or an Account of the Roman Catacombs, p. 115, think that the praenomen puts this inscription at the end of the Flavian period, i.e. late first century - though one might deem it early second. They say it's the earliest Christian inscription. They declare that its location in the cemetary "where, less than forty years before, had been deposited the body of the Apostle Paul... may be taken as certain proofs that a catacomb was begun here not long after his martyrdom."
see link:
https://archive.org/stream/romasotterra ... rch/second
I'm not sure what to make of the eponymous "patron?" of the catacomb, i.e. Lucina, since that is the name of the Roman goddess of childbirth. What little I've read suggests that early Christian burials were in cemetaries also used by pagans.
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the
Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies
http://books.google.com/books?id=0-ovhY ... es&f=false
says that the earliest Christian inscription is on the tombstone of Eutyches. The one to which they refer is from Asia Minor and bears a date of 179/180:
http://www.thesis.bilkent.edu.tr/0002162.pdf
It's discussed by W.M. Calder, "Early-Christian Epitaphs from Phrygia,"
Anatolian Studies 5 (1955) 25-38: 34. The photo shows the image of the dead man holding grapes in one hand and a round object marked with a cross in the other. Calder admits that it can't be proved that this inscription is Christian. He says that although the round boss, the cross, and the grapes also appear in pagan decoration, here the round thing must be a loaf of bread, which with the grapes recalls the Eucharist. He acknowledges these are the only features by which he identifies the stele as Christian, since nothing in the inscription does so.
Roger Pearse has put up links to some collections of early Christian inscriptions:
http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2012 ... ae-online/
Northcote and Brownlow (vid. supra, p. 214) talk about a Christian inscription from the year 72 (or 71). This is in
Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae, tome 1 page 1 (accessible via Roger's link). That inscription says nothing to identify it as Christian, and I don't have the time now to work through the arguments by which the editor, Giov.-Batt. de Rossi, thinks he can show its Christian provenance. It just says, as far as I can make out:
]VC VESPASIANO III COS
]IAN
