[1] Christianity has frequently been at the forefront of major
social movements, challenging accepted practices and inviting
social transformation. Christian beliefs were essential in such
dramatic movements as the 18th and 19th century abolitionists with
their challenge of slavery, in the political formation of the
United States which built itself upon a religious and philosophical
critique of the divine right of kings, and in the push for public
education with the common school movement following the second
awakening in the early 1800s. In each of these, and in many other
social movements, Christianity played a decisive role. In its early
history, however, the pattern of Christianity and social movements
was quite different.
[2] With each of these social movements from the last few
centuries, reevaluation of Christian scripture and beliefs was
employed to challenge dominant cultural mores and to demand change.
This demand was possible because the society that was being
challenged shared a devotion to common bodies of scripture, belief
and theology. Each of these social movements occurred within a
culture where Christianity was the dominant force, and where
minority appeal put in terms of shared ideas could inspire radical
change for individuals and for the culture as a whole.
[3] Christians did not hold such a dominant place in the first
few centuries CE. They were not the majority, and held little real
power in society until Constantine's reign (312-337 CE) at the
earliest. They lived instead on the margins, first as varieties
within early Judaism with apocalyptic and messianic emphases, and
then, thanks to the missionary work of Paul and others, as small
communities in many cities scattered throughout the Empire. The
urban profile of early Christianity grew in the first centuries,
and it is within the cities of the Roman Empire that Christianity
experienced much of its early growth and where it was called upon
to respond to societal needs.1
[4] The dominant culture of the day was Greco-Roman, and it is
within this milieu that Christianity found its place and to which
it made its appeal. Because early Christianity was a minority
rather than a majority position, early Christianity can in its
entirety be thought of as a social movement, with every practice
that set Christians apart from the rest of Greco-Roman society a
critique and challenge built upon their particular perspectives.
The practices that set Christians apart, however, do not
necessarily match up with what we might expect, particularly from
the modern critiques that Christianity provides and the social
movements that it later empowers. Christians for instance continued
to be slave holders, and while there are examples of Christian
individuals freeing their slaves, the general practice among
Christians remained for many centuries that set forth by Paul and
reiterated by Augustine of accepting slavery as a social
institution.2 While slaves were
active members of the early Christian churches, they attained a
spiritual equality in the community that had little impact on their
official status as slaves. Indeed far from challenging the
institution of slavery, early Christians could employ 'slavery' as
a positive metaphor to describe their new relationship with and
obligations towards God.3 It is important to note
that ancient slavery does not accord with our modern expectations
of slavery. The lives of slaves varied greatly in antiquity. The
extremes ranged from Cicero's relatively well-treated legal
assistant Tiro and most of the Greek pedagogues to the short and
miserable lives of slaves in mines and at the oars of
ships.4
Social mobility was remarkably high in the Roman Empire, with many
slaves able to hope to gain freedom within their lifetime.
Particularly during turbulent and dramatic times such as those of
Julius Caesar or Augustus, slaves could rise to attain significant
power as freedmen.5 Nor, of course, was
slavery linked primarily to ethnic designations, but rather
resulted typically from military conquest or economic destitution.
Slaves in the ancient world may have often had better lives than
the poorer classes of free people. Still, it is striking that the
early Christians offer little negative critique of this practice of
treating humans as property, a practice that formed the economic
basis upon which the whole of the Empire built
itself.6
[5] Similarly, any notions of Christian equality seem to apply
in limited ways to women. While women played important roles in
many of the earliest Christian communities and their remarkable
examples continue to inspire individuals up until modern times,
Christian communities in general moved to reduce the role of women
in leadership as early as the 2nd century CE. Already by the time
of the Montanists, women filling prominent leadership roles was
both remarkable and problematic in the eyes of what was emerging as
Christian 'orthodoxy.' Where women did continue as leaders, it was
typically within the rich variety of Christianity among groups like
the Montanists and the Gnostics that did not ultimately win out.
While the issue is far more complex, and the distinctions are
important, it is probably simplest to observe that women acted in
important roles throughout religious life in the Greco-Roman world.
Jewish, Christian, and pagan women all made vital contributions to
religious life, and the recovery of their voices in current
scholarship is of immense value. However, despite early leadership
roles, Christian women rarely enjoyed more freedoms than their
other religious counterparts in the centuries that followed.
Indeed, with the growing interpretation of Eve's sin as central to
the Fall, with women cast as tempters in the ascetic struggle to
control the desires of the body, and with salvation for women
through child birth emphasized in contradistinction to virgin's
betrothed to Christ, powerful Christian women were increasingly
pushed to the margins by the emerging orthodoxy.7 With women, early
Christians again appeared to miss an opportunity to challenge and
transform their society, instead further entrenching and
legitimizing the social inequalities of the ancient world.
[6] Nor was public education a major societal emphasis among the
budding Christian communities. Public primary and secondary
education was an important aspect of civic life and built largely
upon the Greek model, which had been further adapted and codified
by the Romans.8 Jewish education of the
period was also constructed upon this Greek model and is likely
connected to the early cultural influence of Hellenism. The major
differences between the early stages of Greco-Roman and Jewish
education were in the choices of texts that were employed to teach
literacy and in the use of synagogues in place of gymnasia as loci
of instruction.9 Early Christian
education seems to have taken place primarily within the standard
Greco-Roman schools.10 With advanced
education that focused more heavily on textual interpretation,
rhetoric, and philosophical schools, there were significant
opportunities for variation. While Christians at the advanced
levels did develop their own methods of interpretation and
distinctive literary forms the debt to Greco-Roman approaches and
styles of interpretation remains large throughout these early
centuries. It is striking that as late as the 4th century CE
prominent Christians were still being trained in the classical
model of Greco-Roman education and attending even their advanced
training alongside the great pagan minds of the day. It is only
quite late, with the ban passed by Justinian (529 CE) forbidding
pagans to teach, that Christians were forced to take on a more
prominent role in education.11
[7] So what social differences actually did set early Christians
apart? They clearly were distinctive, so much so that despite their
small numbers Christians start appearing in Greco-Roman sources
from the period even while they are still a very small minority.
Setting aside some of the more common pagan critiques of Christians
as immoral cannibals who were misanthropic subversives, we find
Christians noted particularly for their sharing of possessions,
extremes of self-restraint, disregard for death, treatment of one
another as brothers and sisters, and care for the
poor.12
The sharing of possessions provides one of the most intriguing
social aspects of early Christianity. In the Gospel accounts, Jesus
proclaimed a care for those in need that often took on economic
dimensions. Within the canonical texts there are a number of
memorable examples of the early communities collecting and sharing
resources including the rather disturbing example of Ananias and
his wife holding back proceeds from their property sale to their
own demise (Acts 5:1-11).13 Extra-canonically, we
find communities living with shared resources in the Didache. Early
Agape feasts filled a role not just as a celebration of Christian
community and beliefs but were feasts feeding the community.
Describing Christians in his own day, Tertullian could boldly
proclaim that Christians shared all things, noting their wives as
the only significant exception. This distinctive practice of shared
resources, which did represent a radical social movement built upon
Christian beliefs, diminished in the later centuries. Already by
the time Constantine is making Christianity a legitimate religion
in the Roman Empire, the economic profile of Christian communities
was far closer to our modern separations. This profoundly
challenging economic aspect of early Christian social organization
continues up to our present day but has been largely relegated to
specialized communities such as monasteries.14
[8] Christian extremes of self-restraint and their disregard for
death were also particularly noteworthy in the ancient world, if
not unique.15 Virginity was held up
as a virtue among Christians, particularly for early Christian
women, while ascetic practices embodied more extreme versions of
the self-restraint and denial to which all Christians were
encouraged. Christian ascetics living lives of extreme renunciation
in the Egyptian desert served as ideals of the Christian life -
ideals that even Greco-Roman philosophers could find intriguing.
Martyrs provided another ideal, and truly were the heroes of the
early church to which Christians looked in admiration and whom
pagans regarded with bafflement. Martyrs would only cede their
place at the center of Christian life and self-conception with the
removal of persecution in the 4th C. CE, to be partially replaced
by the white martyrs of Christian ascetics and their slightly more
restrained monastic counterparts. Martyrs remained though, firmly
entrenched in the memory of the church, their feast days providing
major occasions for local celebration and their relics consecrating
nearly every important religious site. Martyrdom accounts preserve
a window into this vital aspect of early Christian life. Indeed,
few primary sources are as effective as martyrdoms in overwhelming
modern readers through their visceral detail and in removing
readers from their own context and placing them into a very
different social and religious world view.16
[9]
Another aspect that set Christians apart from their Greco-Roman
contemporaries was their care for the poor. Christian care for the
poor took many forms including providing food generally, and caring
specifically for widows and orphans.17 Christians were also
remarkable for burying the poor.18 This burial of the
poor which is typically dealt with only in passing, is worth
considering at some length because it offers useful insight into
the social needs and preoccupations of Greco-Roman culture and the
Christian response. With burial of the poor we again find ourselves
on ground that is very different from our modern culture and
expectations. Burial and care for the dead was of great importance
throughout the ancient world.19 Indeed, burial was so
important that the Egyptians, for instance, could lavish the wealth
and labor of an entire nation for many years towards the burial of
a single pharaoh. It is thanks to these cultural preoccupations
that we have the remarkable monuments of the pyramids (roughly
3200-2800 BCE), and the extravagant grave goods of Tutankhamen
(ca.1300 BCE) which are currently touring our country once again to
the amazement of all who encounter them. It is striking to realize
that these extravagant grave goods are only a rush job for a minor
pharaoh who would otherwise have little remembrance in history. At
the well-documented community of Deir el Medina where a small
enclave of skilled workmen lived and labored on the Egyptian royal
tombs, workmen risked significant reprimand to moonlight and lavish
attention on their own tombs. Foremen from Deir el 
Medinaeven
abused their power to force their work crews to beautify the
private tombs they were building for themselves.20 The popular modern
adage 'you can't take it with you' would have found little appeal
in the ancient world, where the resources devoted to burials
confound even our modern obsessions with accumulating unnecessary
material possessions. Nor were the Egyptians alone in this
preoccupation. The Egyptians were merely remarkable for their
extreme concerns over proper burial, and for the wealth of
resources that they could devote to the dead. Greeks exhibited
similar concern for lavish grave goods, with the golden remains of
the Mycenaen shaft graves (ca.1600-1500 BCE) prominently displayed
at the National Museum in Athens providing a rich counterpoint to
Egyptian remains (figures 1-3).
[10] While these particular examples are quite early relative to
Christianity, the importance placed on burial, grave goods, and
care for the dead persists throughout Egyptian, Greek, and Roman
cultures. Sizeable burial monuments celebrated and lamented the
lives of the deceased, often including in addition to any artistic
elements lengthy inscriptions that detailed the lives of the dead
in the words of the living. These monuments surrounded every
ancient city, lining the roads to proclaim the stories of the dead
to passersby in words and images. 
In
the classical period these monuments are well exemplified by the
Kerameikos at Athens and the numerous grave monuments that fill the
first floor of the National Museum (figures 4 and 5). Even the
simplest of ancient graves included grave goods, and much of what
we have preserved and can infer about daily life is possible thanks
to these remains. Grave objects provide a haunting reminder of the
real individuals that peopled the ancient world, and it is hard to
encounter such objects as the Fayum portraits or the grave remains
of a child with its simple toys and not be moved (figure 6).
[11] While burials for pharaohs and kings were the concern of
entire nations, for most individuals care for the dead depended on
families. Care for the dead was one of the most fundamental aspects
of filial piety and obligation. This familial duty is well
expressed in the extreme with the dramatic and tragic events of the
6th
C. BCE play Antigone, where young Antigone embarks upon a
courageous and ultimately destructive challenge to Creon and the
governing powers of Thebes to win proper burial for her treasonous
brother. Among Egyptians the ceremony of the 'opening of the mouth'
which was to be performed upon the statue of the deceased was
similarly the duty of surviving family members. Romans also
displayed due piety towards their ancestors and emphasized care for
the deceased as an essential aspect of familial responsibility. It
was the duty of family members to eulogize the dead and to evoke
their sense of loss for all who heard.21 Among prominent
families, masks made of wax (imagines) that preserved the features
of ancestors were treasured possessions to be kept in household
wooden shrines and brought out for paid actors to wear at familial
funeral processions.22 Offerings also
continued for the deceased long after burial. Particular festivals
such as the Parentalia included remembrance of the dead, and the
death day of individual family members was often remembered with a
visit to the tomb and accompanied by offerings or a
meal.23
Due honor towards ancestors particularly in the forms of the
lares and penates was also at the center of
domestic cult.24
[12]
Concern for burial and care for the dead was a significant
preoccupation throughout the ancient world. It also represented a
significant urban problem and societal need. Despite the importance
placed on familial responsibility, this critical stage of ancient
life could not always be answered by family members alone,
particularly in an increasingly cosmopolitan world with individuals
often living far from their familial homes and among the poorer
classes with limited resources. In light of such concerns, groups
often banned together in the cities of the ancient world to form
small collegia, or clubs. While these clubs formed around a range
of issues including religious belief and practice, as dining clubs,
or as trade organizations, many of them included in their bylaws
great specificity about providing for proper burial of their
members.25 These charters detail
a range of concerns, but the lengthy treatments addressing burial
and the sizeable amount of total funds allocated for this purpose
clarifies the incredible importance they attached to the burial of
their members in good standing.26 Early Christians share
many features in common with these clubs, not least among them a
concern for burial.27
[13] If Christians only cared for burying their own they would
be very similar to these other clubs and the cultural expectations
of the day, providing a social net in case families failed in their
burial 
obligations.
However, Christians provided for burial for the urban poor more
generally, and do not seem to have limited this care solely to
their own members.28 This care for burying
others was particularly clear in the extremes, such as when plague
struck a city and Christians cared for the sick but also for the
burial of those afflicted.29 For an ancient world
where the treatment of the dead mattered deeply this was no small
issue. Indeed, so often when we think of the needs of the urban
poor in relation to Christianity today we think of the needs of the
living…for food, employment, healthcare, safety. But
within the context of the ancient world Christian care for the dead
responded to one of the most profoundly felt needs of the poor and
represented a remarkable social movement in response to the
surrounding culture.
[14] In Christian burial of the urban poor there are at least
two interesting lessons. The first is that where Christianity has
inspired social movements it has done so out of its beliefs but
also in response to very particular cultural contexts. It is
important to remember that these contexts change. While it is a
mark of the strength of the Christian tradition(s) that it can
respond to the specific societal needs of so many different
contexts, it is important not to blur these distinct contexts in a
desire to see simple continuity. The second lesson worth noting is
the challenge and critique that this particular social aspect of
the ancient world and early Christianity can offer to our own
death-denying culture. The extremes of ancient emphasis on death,
burial, and care for the dead are quite foreign to us today. While
Christianity continues to try to integrate death as a critical life
stage for both the community and individuals, Christianity does not
fully challenge our current cultural obsession with denying and
obscuring our own mortality.30 In a cultural context
such as the United States in the twenty-first century, where a
significant majority self-identify as Christians, this failure to
fully connect death to our daily lives is puzzling. Our culture is
saturated with false promises of immortality, whether in such forms
as plastic surgery which attempts to deny the aging process or in
improvements in medicine that hold out the tantalizing possibility
of longer and longer lives of continued activity and virility. This
denial of mortality and the aging process has important cultural
and individual consequences. Our society is prone to marginalize
the elderly rather than to revere them and incorporate them into
family and community life, much to our own shame and loss. For
individuals, failure to use death as a measure of life impoverishes
the way we conceive of our lives on a daily basis. Where the good
life is delineated so often by how much income one makes or the
importance of one's job, the preoccupation with death in the
ancient world offers an interesting curative to our this-worldly
cultural focus. Early Christians not only cared for the dead, they
incorporated the dead into their lives. The stories of the martyrs
and their bloody deaths lovingly told offered a measure by which
one tried to live life. Early Christians cherished and gazed upon
the martyrs' physical remains with pious adoration. It is no
accident that burial locations like the catacombs at Rome preserve
for us such a rich visual expression of the life of early
Christianity and that so many early churches were built upon sites
of martyrdoms and upon martyrs' remains.
[15] In an ancient world preoccupied with death, Christians
incorporated their own blessed dead at the center of their lives.
Early Christians also responded by stepping outside of societal
expectations and the dominant culture by caring for the proper
burial of people who were not their own. In a modern world where
Christians are now responsible for the dominant culture this
emphasis on death and burial as an integral aspect of life and
social responsibility seems to have somehow been lost along the
way. While contexts can and must change and the strength of a
tradition is in part measured by its ability to respond to new
needs, one cannot help but wonder if something important has been
forgotten in this particular case and question how our own cultural
preoccupations and responses to the end of life will be viewed by
later generations.
© January 2006
Journal of Lutheran Ethics (JLE)
Volume 6, Issue 1
1 Wayne Meeks' The First Urban Christians (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1983) remains a highly instructive
introduction to Christianity and its early placement in the life of
Greco-Roman cities.
2 Paul presents a consistent theology of all as being
equal in Christ (cf. for instance Galatians 3:27-28). However, he
shows a remarkable lack of interest in challenging social
inequalities, such as slavery, in more this worldly terms.
Paul&=javascript:goNote(39s letter to Philemon addressing the
issue of the runaway slave Onesimus provides a sustained, if brief,
insight into Paul's perspective in a very specific case. Philemon
is strongly encouraged to receive Onesimus as a fellow brother in
Christ (verse 16), but nowhere does Paul make any strong claims
that he should be freed. For a brief and useful discussion of
Philemon see Bart Ehrman's The New Testament: A Historical
Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997),
296-298. For the issue of slavery more generally, the Anchor
Bible Dictionary provides an excellent summary. Paul's
attitudes towards slavery, as with many of his social positions,
are strongly informed by his apocalyptic expectations. Augustine
deals with slavery many times in his works, but see particularly
City of God 19.15.
3 See for instance Wayne Meeks' The Origins of
Christian Morality (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993),
169 and note 29. Building upon Paul&=javascript:goNote(39s
teachings in 1 Corinthians 6 and 7 and Romans 6, slavery is
presented as a positive metaphor for all Christians emphasizing
absolute obedience to God. Meeks notes that in the context of the
ancient world there is also remarkable power and even honor implied
in being the slave of God. It is easy to imagine how this could be
possible in a world where freedmen proudly proclaimed their
connection to their former masters, retaining their masters' names,
and even frequently staying connected to their households and
within their patronage. If having been a slave of Augustus was
noteworthy, how much better to be a slave of God?
4 The harshness of life for slaves in the mines praying
for death rather than life as the only cure for their suffering is
well captured by Diodorus Siculus, The History of the
World 5.38.1. For Cicero&=javascript:goNote(39s slave Tiro
and his eventual manumission see Cicero's Correspondence with
Family and Friends. For an extensive collection of sources on
ancient slavery see Thomas Wiedemann, ed. Greek and Roman
Slavery (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1981). It
is hard to overemphasize the importance of slavery or its impact on
the ancient world. While precise numbers are always difficult,
roughly 2/5 to 1/3 of the ancient population was made up of
slaves.
5 There are many examples of slaves rising during this
period to positions of prominence. Near and dear to my heart, and
my current dissertation work is Zoilos, an Augustan freedman who
returns to his native city of Aphrodisias with significant wealth.
Zoilos is commemorated in several inscriptions throughout the city
for his significant funding of building activity. He is also
granted a sizeable tomb with beautiful relief panels, many of which
are preserved.
6 Christians did however encourage more humane treatment
of slaves and shared this concern with other religious and
philosophical groups including Stoics, and followers of Isis and
Mithras. These concerns were paralleled in a range of laws enacted
to limit extreme abuse of slaves. See Jo-Ann
Shelton&=javascript:goNote(39s As the Romans Did
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 182-85. I should note here
my indebtedness to many of the excellent source books that exist
for this period. Where possible, I have intentionally drawn from
many of these source books with the ancient materials that I have
employed. I would strongly recommend such works as Jo-Ann Shelton's
As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998);
Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price's Religions of Rome
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Ramsay MacMullen and
Eugene Lane's Paganism and Christianity: 100-425 CE
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992); and Ross Kraemer's Women's
Religions in the Greco-Roman World: A Sourcebook (New York:
Oxford University Press, rev. ed. 2004).
7 For interpretation of Eve&=javascript:goNote(39s sin
as central to the Fall, see Irenaeus and elsewhere, for women cast
as demonic tempters in the ascetic struggle to control the desires
of the body see Athanasius' "Life of Antony," and for salvation of
women through childbirth see Timothy 2:11-15.
8 Quintillian&=javascript:goNote(39s detailed work in
the late first century CE on education and curricula provided the
canonical Roman Imperial form of education and exhibits clear
dependence on Greek models with occasional Roman texts like the
Aeneid added and a greater emphasis placed on rhetoric. Roman
education also reduced the importance of music, and possibly
athletics, in education.
9 Marrou remains one of the best treatments of Jewish
education in antiquity. H.I. Marrou. A History of Education in
Antiquity, translated by George Lamb (Madison, Wisconsin:
University of Wisconsin Press, [1982] c. 1956).
10 Despite the problems associated with doing so,
particularly with the reverence payed to pagan idols, Tertullian
describes Christians as attending pagan schools (De Idolatria
10).
11 There are important exceptions of Christians involved
in education, especially at the more advanced levels. Origen and
Clement are particularly prominent as heads of the school in
Alexandria. The role of these teachers was particularly important
in developing methods of reading and interpreting Christian and
Jewish scripture, and in making sense of Christianity within the
dominant Greco-Roman cultural language. However, even as late as
the Life of Isidore, which describes the schooling and adventures
of a young pagan who ultimately converts to Christianity, the
school at Alexandria remained a hotbed for debate between pagan and
Christian teachers and students. This ban of Justinian against
pagan teachers is also typically connected to the closing of the
school in Athens in 529 CE, a date that fits well with the
archaeological evidence (see Alison Frantz).
12 There are many examples of these types of critiques of
early Christianity. Many of them are preserved by Christian
apologists trying to defend their faith against common accusations,
such as Minucius Felix&=javascript:goNote(39s Octavius and
Tertullian's Apology. Christians and pagans also detail
Christian practice - see for instance Justin's First
Apology 67 the Pliny/Trajan correspondence, and possibly the
passage from Galen's Summary of Plato's Republic 3. For
one of the more humorous treatments of early Christians and their
care for their own, see Lucian's Vita Peregrini.
13 Other examples of passages emphasizing sharing one's
resources include Romans 12:8; 1 Corinthians 13.3 and Hebrews
13.16.
14 The issue of economics within the early churches is
both fascinating and complex, and while this might serve as a brief
introduction it is in no way complete. Economics are particularly
closely tied to the running of the large Greco-Roman household
(oikos), the structure of the polis, and the structural
organization of early Christian communities. The topic is worthy of
ongoing and sustained treatment that is not possible here. It is
one of many aspects of early Christianity that warrants ongoing
study and more than a few dissertations and monographs addressing
its many aspects.
15 There were others willing to die for their beliefs in
the ancient world. Socrates is probably one of the best known
examples. The Jewish Maccabean martyrs provide witnesses to their
faith and political position every bit as gory as early Christian
martyrdom accounts. Similarly, Greco-Roman holy men practiced
ascetic extremes, and the more mild ascetic practices of stoicism
were very common. Stoic ideals and asceticism are probably best
known with Cato and later with Marcus
Aurelius&=javascript:goNote(39 Meditations. Despite
all of these parallels, however, for their Greco-Roman
contemporaries these features of ascetic practice and eagerness for
martyrdom were particularly characteristic of Christians.
16 Many accounts are preserved and they are widely
available. My personal favorites for martyrdom accounts would
include those of Polycarp and Perpetua and Felicitas.
17 For care of widows and orphans see Hermas Similitudes
9, and Barnabas 20. For care for the poor generally with alms see 2
Clement 16.
18 Cf. Aristides' Apology 15.
19 There are many works which deal extensively with
ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian attitudes towards death, burial
and care for the dead. Among works on Greek attitudes see Robert
Garland, The Greek Way of Death (Ithaca, New York: Cornell
University Press, 1985); Ian Morris, Death-Ritual and Social
Structure in Classical Antiquity (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1992); and Emily Vermeule, Aspects of Death
in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1979). For Roman and Christian times, see
especially J.M.C. Toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman
World (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1996) and
A.C. Rush, Death and Burial in Christian Antiquity
(Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1941).
20 For the workers at Deir el Medina see Morris BierBrier,
The Tomb-Builders of the Pharaohs (American University in
Cairo Press, 1989) and Leonard Lesko, ed. Pharaoh's Workers:
The Villagers of Deir el Medina (Ithaca, New York: Cornell
University Press, 1994).
21 There are many examples of the depth of loss felt by
Greeks and Romans at the death of a loved one. Often formulaic,
inscriptions on burial monuments are all the more poignant when
they break from these forms to express the overwhelming grief,
love, and loss felt with the death of a family member. More
extended writings also remain such as those of Cicero in his
personal writings which exhibit the rawness of his inconsolable
grief at the death of Tullia.
22 This practice is well described in Polybius,
History of the World 6.53-6.54.3.
23 For the Parentalia see H.H. Scullard, Festivals and
Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (Ithaca, New York: Cornell
University Press, 1981), 74-76. This festival particularly honored
dead parents and included a visit to their tombs and simple
offerings made by the family.
24 Mary Beard, John North and Simon
Price&=javascript:goNote(39s Religions of Rome Volume
2 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 104-5 for
examples of house-tombs, including such features as dining couches
for reclining and an oven preserved for preparing funeral meals
(4.13 a and b). For an example of a household shrine to the lares
see pp. 102-3.
25 Politics could also provide a reason to form such
groups. Roman authorities proved particularly concerned about the
potential political dimensions of some of these groups and the
possibility of treasonous cabals. We see these political concerns
with such groups in many places including the Pliny/Trajan
correspondence.
26 The classic example of such a
club&=javascript:goNote(39s constitution is preserved in a
lengthy inscription CIL 14.2112 (ILS 7212). This inscription from
133 CE details religious aspects of the collegium, concern for
self-governance and the collection of funds and foodstuffs for the
monthly meals and burial. The bulk of the inscription though is
taken up with detailed instructions about the burial and funeral
processions of members. 300 sestertii are allotted for members in
good standing to provide for their funerals with additional funds
for club members if they have to travel far to make arrangements
This represents a sizeable amount of money and the bulk of club
funds considering that 100 sestertii is the amount to be paid on
joining with 5 asses serving as monthly dues. For some perspective
on these denominations, 40 sestertii would provide for a poor
family for roughly one month - see Mary Beard, John North and Simon
Price's Religions of Rome Volume 2 (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1998), 294 and note 4.
27 For a brief treatment of collegia and their
relationship to and differences from early Christianity see Wayne
Meeks' The First Urban Christians (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1983), 77-80.
28 Concern for burying outsiders also seems to have been
an issue for earlier Judaism. In Joshua, for instance, there is
concern for burying both Israelites and non-Israelites (Joshua 8:29
and 10:26). Burial of the poor also seems to be an issue for
contemporary Judaism, see Josephus' Apion 2.
29 In 252 CE, for instance, when Carthage was struck by a
plague Cyprian called upon Christians to care for the sick and bury
the dead.
30 The Greek Orthodox Church provides a fascinating
example of a modern Christian tradition that emphasizes death and
care for the dead much more strongly than its western counterparts.
Many elements more familiar from the ancient world persist. The
dead are incorporated much more clearly into the community. There
is also a specific time of remembrance and mourning for familial
survivors and the larger community. The ritual process of death and
care for the dead remain far more integrated and central aspects of
the religious tradition.