Archaeological Evidence of pre-Constantinian Christianity

[ficino]

But then one must ask. What was being a practicing Christian all about then??? Was it simply performing arcane rigmarole rituals in secret 'worshipping', while hiding out in a mortal fear of being found out by government authorities?
Was it not based upon believing in, boldly publicly preaching, and in publicly acting upon things they read within the Gospels and Epistles???

Yes, good call on the contradiction within the standard picture, Sheshbazzar. The standard picture wants the Gospel Jesus cult to burst out of the starting gate, racing throughout the empire, boldly challenging all authorities, AND to hide from the persecuting Romans unnoticed in obscure house churches or underground vaults.

[Leucius Charinus]

The best I can think of at the moment is the "early Christians" [Gospel Jesus cult] were some sort of "underground school". Hence it might be theorised that this organisation had a very low (or non-existent) archaeological footprint ante pacem. Once the school was elevated to the purple by Constantine the manuscript and archaeological evidence explode upon the scene.

Things get a bit tricky with two or more competing "underground schools" of early Christians (i.e. canonical and non canonical Gospel Jesus cults). We would then have multiple organisations which had very low (or non-existent) archaeological footprints ante pacem.

LC

[ficino]

And I was being vague when I tossed out the term, "standard picture." I think that informed Christian scholars do not generally hold that persecution was constant in the first century of the movement. For example, Rodolfo Amedeo Lanciani, in his Pagan and Christian Rome

https://archive.org/details/paganandchristi01lancgoog

speaking of the city of Rome and environs, says that fear was not the reason why the early Christians started burying their dead in catacombs. He makes it clear that they enjoyed freedom except under persecutions that he thinks were intermittent and idiosyncratically motivated: under Claudius (who L. thinks expelled them together with Jews but apparently didn't execute anyone), Nero and Domitian.

I profited from Lanciani's chapter on six types of early church building. In roughly the order in which he thinks they arose, they are:
house churches
scholae
oratories and churches built over tombs of martyrs and confessors
houses of confessors and martyrs
pagan monuments converted into churches
memorials of historical events

Lanciani cites traditions recorded in the Liber Pontificalis that the house of Pudens (cf. II Timothy 4:21) and the house of Priscilla and Aquila were places where Peter and Paul conducted services. By the third century there were decorations made in houses that were reputed to be these. He doesn't cite any evidence from the first 100 years of the cult.

By scholae he means buildings erected by burial societies, collegia funeraticia, which were legal, regulated, common, and appealed to people of different religions. Since not many people may know about these, I'll summarize what he says (pp. 116-117):

These funeral collegia provided members with a funeral, burial place and subsequent memorial feasts. Special buildings called scholae were erected for these feasts and meetings. Benefactors would endow them or endow burial grounds. Christians took advantage of the freedom accorded burial colleges and formed similar associations, where they also had their agapae, "love feasts". This helped them get through the “stormy times” of the second and third centuries. Two scholae have come down to us, one above the Catacombs of Callixtus and the other above those of Soter.
The first is built over the part of the catacomb which was excavated at the time of Pope Fabianus (236-250), who is said to have created cemeteries. Its style of masonry is that of the early third century. Lanciani doesn't describe the schola above the catacombs of Soter.

I also note that Lanciani says that when, under Constantine and later, Christians built churches over the traditional sites of martyrdoms, they destroyed thousands of other graves that had been located near the reputed spots of the martyrdoms or the burial places of the martyrs. The large number of tombs - some Christian, some not - beneath parts of St. Peter's seems to me to support the assumption that some churches were built over earlier burial grounds.

Another argument suggests itself for the thesis that the Gospel Jesus cult existed betw 30 and 130, though we don't have remains: sc. "we would have remains if fourth-century and later Christians hadn't destroyed them in order to build lavish churches on those sites."

Unfalsifiability again, don't know how to use such an argument in a constructive inquiry.

[cienfuegos]

And I was being vague when I tossed out the term, "standard picture." I think that informed Christian scholars do not generally hold that persecution was constant in the first century of the movement. For example, Rodolfo Amedeo Lanciani, in his Pagan and Christian Rome

https://archive.org/details/paganandchristi01lancgoog

speaking of the city of Rome and environs, says that fear was not the reason why the early Christians started burying their dead in catacombs. He makes it clear that they enjoyed freedom except under persecutions that he thinks were intermittent and idiosyncratically motivated: under Claudius (who L. thinks expelled them together with Jews but apparently didn't execute anyone), Nero and Domitian.

I profited from Lanciani's chapter on six types of early church building. In roughly the order in which he thinks they arose, they are:
house churches
scholae
oratories and churches built over tombs of martyrs and confessors
houses of confessors and martyrs
pagan monuments converted into churches
memorials of historical events

Lanciani cites traditions recorded in the Liber Pontificalis that the house of Pudens (cf. II Timothy 4:21) and the house of Priscilla and Aquila were places where Peter and Paul conducted services. By the third century there were decorations made in houses that were reputed to be these. He doesn't cite any evidence from the first 100 years of the cult.

By scholae he means buildings erected by burial societies, collegia funeraticia, which were legal, regulated, common, and appealed to people of different religions. Since not many people may know about these, I'll summarize what he says (pp. 116-117):

These funeral collegia provided members with a funeral, burial place and subsequent memorial feasts. Special buildings called scholae were erected for these feasts and meetings. Benefactors would endow them or endow burial grounds. Christians took advantage of the freedom accorded burial colleges and formed similar associations, where they also had their agapae, "love feasts". This helped them get through the “stormy times” of the second and third centuries. Two scholae have come down to us, one above the Catacombs of Callixtus and the other above those of Soter.
The first is built over the part of the catacomb which was excavated at the time of Pope Fabianus (236-250), who is said to have created cemeteries. Its style of masonry is that of the early third century. Lanciani doesn't describe the schola above the catacombs of Soter.

I also note that Lanciani says that when, under Constantine and later, Christians built churches over the traditional sites of martyrdoms, they destroyed thousands of other graves that had been located near the reputed spots of the martyrdoms or the burial places of the martyrs. The large number of tombs - some Christian, some not - beneath parts of St. Peter's seems to me to support the assumption that some churches were built over earlier burial grounds.

Another argument suggests itself for the thesis that the Gospel Jesus cult existed betw 30 and 130, though we don't have remains: sc. "we would have remains if fourth-century and later Christians hadn't destroyed them in order to build lavish churches on those sites."

Unfalsifiability again, don't know how to use such an argument in a constructive inquiry.

It doesn't seem likely that all such remains would have been uniformly destroyed. Surely, some would have fallen into disuse for one reason or another and have escaped the upgrade. It might also be the case that such ancient sites are hard to identify. I think this would be a case of the exception would prove the rule. If we found some first century remains, we could ask why aren't there more and the explanation that they were upgraded would be more convincing.

[ficino]

I am interested in the Eutychius inscription because De Rossi put it in the beginning of the second century and declared it Christian. It has the word dormitioni, it has what he says are fish at the bottom, and it was found in the cemetary of Lucina/Commodilla, where he says there are other Christian inscriptions.

I won't repeat what we've said about De Rossi's conclusions. After I do some more work, if there's anything more to report, I'll report.

Having spent a week poking around among published inscriptions and works about inscriptions, here are my non-expert conclusions about the Eutychius inscription.

An drawing of it can be found on p. 186 of Giovanni Battista de Rossi's La Roma sotteranea cristiana (1864):

http://books.google.com/books?id=C5pZAA ... &q&f=false

This drawing is taken from the drawing made by Giovanni Marangoni in the century before de Rossi. The actual inscription has been lost; we only have the drawing.

I. Date.
De Rossi dated it early 2nd cent. because the dead youth is named by:
a. praenomen, nomen, and cognomen. Showing the praenomen is a usage that fades out starting in second century
b. the nomen Flavius, which d-R attaches to people who gained freedom under the Flavian dynasty (Vespasian, Titus, Domitian)
c. Boldetti in 18th century found two inscriptions, from 107 and 110, in the same cemetery of Lucina. Not known whether those were Christian.

II. is it christian?
a. It starts with "Dormitioni", lit. "for sleeping," a phrase found in Christian inscriptions but not pagan.
b. d-R said the two round things at the bottom are loaves of bread
c. d-R said the goofy squiggly creatures below those are fish
d. I add that It does not start out with Diis Manibus ("for the divine spirits of the dead"), as most pagan inscriptions do.
e. Found in 18th century in the cemetary of Lucina, where there were many Christian graves.
f. On each side of inscription is an image of Hermes ("Erma" in the Italian drawing in the linked book).

To keep this post as short as I can:

I. a: not anywhere near conclusive. There are many sepulchral inscriptions with all three names well into the third century and beyond.
b. same deal, a good number of inscriptions of a Flavius into third century. And, the dead youth could be a descendent of someone who had taken the nomen Flavius at an earlier time.
c. 18th century diggers of artefacts (Boldetti, Marangoni) did not do any stratigraphic analysis. They only wanted to dig up things to bring back as decoration, and to find references to martyrs. So we don't know whether this inscription was from the same level as those of 107 and 110. Boldetti shows evidence of pagan tombs at that cemetery. Dating from nearby tombs therefore not helpful.

II. a. a strong argument. I have seen examples of pagan tombs with similar language, like somno aeternali ("for eternal sleep"). I have not found any examples of identifiable pagan tombs with forms of dormitio ("sleeping"). There might be some tombs with forms of dormitio that have for that reason been classified as Christian but were not. That caveat, however, does not constitute evidence. As far as I can tell, dormitioni is a strike in favor of a Christian provenance.
b. non starter. the round things could be bosses as found on pagan tombs.
c. scholars have suggested eels (Franz Joseph Dölger), snakes (Mariani). The latter would suggest a pagan tomb, since snakes represented spirits of the dead. They don't look like snakes to me. Upshot: goofy squiggly things not clear.
d. lack of Diis Manibus not decisive, since I've found pagan inscriptions without it. But most of them have it. Probability inclines toward non-pagan. (And nothing suggests it's a Jewish inscription.)
e. Boldetti gives example of two pagan stone inscriptions that were turned backwards by Christians and used as panels in their own tombs. So there were pagan inscriptions on site. But yes, many Christian graves there, of later times. Access to cemeteries tended to be controlled; Lucina was reputed to have been a Christian. Slight tick toward Christianity.
f. Hermes images don't fit Christianity. Still, some funerary memorials show traditional pagan death images along with Christian ones. And the stone may have had the Herms on it already at the stonecutter's, before the donor purchased it and had the inscription carved. Moderate tick against Christianity.

Upshot: trying to weigh all factors, I incline to think the Eutychius inscription is Christian, perhaps paid for by someone not very schooled in sharply apologetic Christianity. My interest was, are there materials remains from 30-130 that testify to the gospel jesus cult? There is no reason to place this inscription that early; it could be third century.

Evaluation: against various Christian writers of handbooks of Roman catacombs etc., this inscription cannot with any confidence be adduced as "archaeological confirmation" of Christianity for the purported first 100 years of its existence. IF the images at the bottom are loaves and fishes, we MAY have an allusion to the gospel story.

Significance: since at this point I see no reason to reject Suetonius' praise of Nero for "afflicting/affecting with punishment" the sect of Christians, and I see no reason to reject Pliny. I accept the existence of a group known as Christians/Chrestians in Rome from the mid first century and elsewhere in the second. I just don't know of solid material evidence to confirm these sketchy literary references. And I don't know whether these "Christians" of the first 100 years worshiped a Jesus as depicted in the Gospels. I can only say that we don't have actual evidence of a group of Christians/Chrestians who did NOT hold some narrative of Jesus' life in those years. So the parsimonious hypothesis would seem to be one that identifies the objects of Suetonius' and Pliny's contempt with gospel Jesus cultists.

I don't think any of what I've posted about material remains helps answer the question, did the "Christ" adored by these cultists find origin in a real-life Palestinian preacher, crucified by Pilate? Even if the Eutychius inscription does intend to recall the gospel story of loaves and fishes, we can't get back behind that story to answer the question, whether Christianity began with a real-life man or with belief in a (semi)divine figure that came into the lower regions of space a la Doherty/Carrier (or some other version of the "mythicist" hypothesis).

The stuff on this thread is the best I can do with the scant material remains we have.

[Leucius Charinus]

Thanks for this analysis of the Eutychius inscription ficino. This should be added to any index of possible "Early Christian archaeology". If you have no objections I'd like to use some of your material on the Eutychius inscription for this purpose.


The actual inscription has been lost; we only have the drawing.

Analogously, the same may be said about the Pliny reference. The question is how much weight are we to attribute to the integrity of the "church organisation" out of which such records (literary attestations to Christians) seem to "suddenly appear" and just as "suddenly disappear"? This does not necessarily mean that these references are to be accepted as being fabricated by the church. OTOH this also does not necessarily mean that these references are to be accepted as genuine either.

Nevertheless, between these two extremes the historical truth must somewhere rest.

Thanks for your interest in the archaeology!


LC

[ficino]

Hi LC, yes, sure, I would be honored if you make use of my "non-expert" researches. Since I'm not an epigrapher, I doubt I'll ever try to publish on this inscription.

It was a lot of fun to dip into this material. It's so frustrating that the 18th-century chaps dug up so many objects at a time before scientific archaeology was developed, so that they didn't consider site analysis at all. It would be significant if the Eutychius inscription were very close to, and at the same level as, the inscriptions from 107 and 110. But it could have been from a totally different time period in the site.

------------------------------------------------------
Adding: for example of the tendency of Christian writers on the catacombs to claim the Eutychius inscription as very early evidence, cf. Northcote and Brownlow's revision of De Rossi, pp. 114-15. They want it to be late first century:

http://books.google.com/books?id=h0XbWI ... ow&f=false

[Leucius Charinus]

Hi LC, yes, sure, I would be honored if you make use of my "non-expert" researches. Since I'm not an epigrapher, I doubt I'll ever try to publish on this inscription.

Thanks very much ficino. It was an inscription which I had not yet read about. I have cast my reading net as wide as possible in the current literature, but some of these seem to have fallen through the net. It's good to collect them together.

It was a lot of fun to dip into this material. It's so frustrating that the 18th-century chaps dug up so many objects at a time before scientific archaeology was developed, so that they didn't consider site analysis at all. It would be significant if the Eutychius inscription were very close to, and at the same level as, the inscriptions from 107 and 110. But it could have been from a totally different time period in the site.

Scientific archaeology of inscriptions appears to have been an 19th century papal initiative. A fact which should engender a pause in any objective consideration. I might be seen as way too sceptical of the integrity of the "church organisation" but I have my reasons for being so.

Adding: for example of the tendency of Christian writers on the catacombs to claim the Eutychius inscription as very early evidence, cf. Northcote and Brownlow's revision of De Rossi, pp. 114-15. They want it to be late first century:

http://books.google.com/books?id=h0XbWI ... ow&f=false

I feel pretty sure that there is certainly a very subjective "confirmation bias" at work in the claims of investigators - in the 19th, 20th and even 21st centuries. There may be another explanation for the continuous stream of citations which are essentially unfalsifiable, as you yourself have noted. But if so, I don't know it.

The general trend in archaeology, "Christian textual and manuscript traditions", palaeography (although not so much recently) and all other chronological assessments in this field (Christian origins) is a push for an early date. It should be very obvious why. Everyone want to find some evidence in the 1st century. 4th century evidence is far too common and far too late to be of any use to the "Origins Story". 3rd and 2nd century evidence is still poor cousin material. The jackpot is reserved for 1st century claims. Hence this period is the target of the many fabrications, such as the James Ossuary, the Shroud, the Cross, the Nails, the Bones, etc.



LC