Abstract
Tabbernee’s latest volume is a veritable treasure trove of fascinating source material and deep insights into early Christianity, presented with crisp writing and lavish illustrations. There is much to praise in this rich and stimulating book. The contents are arranged geographically in ten major sections, illustrating early Christianity in the Roman Empire and beyond. The book focuses on the origins of Christianity in each region and its cultural interaction and contributions in the locales that are discussed. Many of the sections are multi-authored, with contributors providing expertise in textual analysis, epigraphy, archaeology, art history, and various other fields.
The ten regions that are described are the Roman Near East, beyond the Eastern Frontier, the Caucasus, Asia, the world of the Nile, Roman North Africa, Asia Minor and Cyprus, the Balkan Peninsula, Italy and Environs, and the Western Provinces and beyond. Section Seven, written by Tabbernee and dealing with Asia Minor and Cyprus, exemplifies many of the features found elsewhere in the volume. This chapter is arranged in four sub-sections. In the introduction, Tabbernee notes that Asia Minor was a crucial location for the spread of early Christianity, a point illustrated by appeal to the texts of the New Testament. Next, the region’s subjection to Rome and the inception of Christianity in the area are described. The history of Christianity is traced down to the period of Constantine, with the presence of Christianity being highlighted through epigraphic and archaeological sources. The next sub-section on Asia Minor first treats Phrygia, discussing fascinating funerary inscriptions and other epigraphical evidence. This is followed by discussions of the regions encapsulating the ‘seven churches in Asia’, then Galatia, Lydia-Pamphylia, Bithynia-Pontus, and lastly Cappadocia. The third sub-section focuses on Cyprus, again in the pre-Constantinian period, and the chapter is rounded off with an overview of the nature of early Christianity in the region (pp. 315–319). Tabbernee notes the structural development among Christian communities during the movement’s early centuries. In contrast to the first and second centuries, when the movement consisted of geographically separated and isolated communities, ‘by the end of the fifth century even the most remote or mountainous regions of Asia Minor and Cyprus has Christian churches, linked to one another through bishops or chorepiscopi’ (p. 318). In this way, the insights based on the various strands of evidence are drawn together in order to appreciate the larger dynamics within early Christianity in the region.
Each section provides similar careful analysis. The book also offers a corrective to the tendency towards regional specialism without a wider appreciation of the larger forces and social dynamics at work in the growth of Christianity. The various treatments highlight the diversity of expression and understanding in the early centuries of Christianity. This is an excellent and essential book that should be read by all scholars and students of the Christian movement in the late antique period.