The Cross before Constantine: The Early Life of a Christian Symbol

246 Pages·2015·6.45 MB·English

by  Bruce W. Longenecker

The cross as symbol of the faith L
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Upending a longstanding consensus, Bruce W. Longenecker presents a wide variety of material
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artifacts to illustrate that Christians made use of the cross as a visual symbol of their faith long c
before Constantine appropriated it to consolidate his power in the fourth century. Constantine did k
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not invent the cross as a symbol of Christian faith; for an impressive number of Christians before
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Constantine’s reign, the cross served as a visual symbol of commitment to a living deity in a danger-
ous world.
Praise for The Cross before Constantine
“Never again let it be said that the cross only became a symbol of Christianity after the emperor
Constantine adopted it as a sign of political and religious power in the fourth century CE. Longe-
necker rightly and convincingly disproves this long-held, but incorrect, scholarly cliché . More im-
portantly, the abundance of archaeological and literary material which illustrates and confi rms Lon-
genecker’s position sheds important new light on the way the earliest Christians utilized the cross as
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a tool to ward off the power of evil in their everyday lives as well as in death. If you only read one
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book on early Christianity this year, The Cross before Constantine has to be that book!”
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William Tabbernee
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University of Oklahoma
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“Longenecker lays down an effective barrage on the insuffi ciently-examined position that the cross
was not a Christian symbol prior to Constantine. There may well be objections to his proposals s
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on some specifi c artifacts, but the sheer weight and diversity of the evidence that he gathers here

cannot be denied by anyone ready to consider the matter fairly. With this richly documented work, b
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we have the basis of a new and more evidence-based understanding of how the cross functioned in
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pre-Constantinian Christianity.” o
Larry Hurtado r
Emeritus, University of Edinburgh e

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“It has long been thought that the Christians only began to use the symbol of the cross when Con- o
stantine made it his imperial sign. In Bruce Longenecker’s careful and wonderfully detailed survey, n
this is shown up as a modern myth. This book is revisionist historiography at its best.”
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N. T. Wright
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University of St. Andrews
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t
Bruce W. Longenecker is professor of early Christianity and W. W. Melton Chair of i
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Religion at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, having formerly taught in Britain at St. Andrews,
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Cambridge, and Durham Universities. Some of his recent books include The Lost Letters of Per-
gamum (2002); Rhetoric at the Boundaries (2005); and Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty, and the
Greco-Roman World (2010).
Religion / Early Christianity
The Cross before Constantine

The Cross before
Constantine
The Early Life of a Christian Symbol
Bruce W. Longenecker
Fortress Press
Minneapolis
THE CROSS BEFORE CONSTANTINE
The Early Life of a Christian Symbol
Copyright © 2015 Fortress Press. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations
in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner
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http://www.augsburgfortress.org/copyrights/ or write to Permissions, Augsburg
Fortress, Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440.
Cover design: Laurie Ingram
Cover image:Charcoal cross © Bruce Longenecker
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
Print ISBN: 978-1-4514-9030-5
eISBN: 978-1-5064-0036-5
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z329.48-1984.
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
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PrinceXML.
For Richard and Delia,
whose love and support has shown no bounds
throughout the years.

Contents
Preliminaries ix
1. The Cross in Its Place 1
2. The Cross and Non-Christian Society 21
3. The Cross in a Jewish Cradle 49
4. The Cross in Textual Images 61
5. The Cross in the Material Record 73
6. The Cross in a Pompeii Bakery 121
7. The Cross in the Literary Record 149
8. The Cross and Its Advocates 163
9. A Very Short Conclusion 185
Bibliography 189
Index of Subjects 207
Index of Modern Authors 215
Index of Ancient Sources 221
Index of Locations 231

Preliminaries
SeveralcolleaguesatBaylorUniversityandbeyondhavebeenhelpful
in the crafting of this project at one point or another—in particular,
MichelleBrown,EverettFerguson,SimonGathercole,DavidJeffrey,
David Moessner, Mike Parsons, Jeffrey Spier, Todd Still, David
Wilhite, and Tom Wright. Several Ph.D. students at Baylor
University offered feedback on versions of the project: Jeremiah
Bailey, David Beary, Scott Ryan, and Mike Whitenton.
This study was supported by the funders of the W. W. Melton
Chair of Religion at Baylor University, by the Department of
Religion at Baylor University, and by funds from the University
Research Committee and the Vice Provost for Research at Baylor
University.
Princeton University Press granted permission to reproduce the
images in figures 3.1 through 3.5 and figures 5.6 and 5.7 (scanned
from Jack Finegan, The Archaeology of the New Testament: The Life of
Jesus and the Beginning of the Early Church [Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1992]). Permission to use figures 1.8 and 5.2 was
grantedbytheSuperintendencyofArchaeologicalHeritageofRome
and Ostia Antica. Jeffrey Spier kindly granted permission to use
the images in figures 5.8, 5.10, and 6.7, and supplied the original
digital photos of those artifacts. The Museum of Fine Arts Boston
ix