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  • 404 | Enslaved Christians

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  • Keywords | Enslaved Christians

    Keywords Alexandria Apocryphal Acts Apostolic Fathers Burrhus Calligrapher Caesarea Christian Copyist Colossae Corinth Courier (see Messenger ) Dictation Ephesus Eunuch Female Freedperson Funerary Inscription Galatia Gospels Graffiti Ignatius Imperial Household Inscription Interpreter Jerusalem Jewish Letter Carrier (see Messenger ) Literate Worker Macedonia Male Mark Martyrdom Account Messenger New Testament North Africa Origen Papyrus Papias Paul Polycarp Funerary Relief Rome Reader Secretary Shorthand Smyrna Translator (see Interpreter ) Women

  • Digital Resources | Enslaved Christians

    Digital Resources Associations in the Greco-Roman World . An Expanding Collection of Inscriptions, Papyri, and Other Sources in Translation. Richard A. Ascough, Philip Harland, John S. Kloppenborg. e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha a comprehensive bibliography of Christian Apocrypha research assembled and maintained by members ofThe North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature (NASSCAL) DiKB LatinNow (Latinization of the North-Western Roman Provinces: Sociolinguistics, Epigraphy, and Archaeology). Alex Mullen, Director, University of Nottingham. Orbis The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World. Walter Scheidel, Elijah Meeks, Karl Grossner, Noemi Alvarez. Stanford University. Papyri.info a searchable online resource that aggregates information about papyri from a variety of other sites. A collaboration between the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and the Duke Collaboratory for Classics Computing at Duke University. Perseus Digital Library Gregory R. Crane, Editor in Chief, Tufts University. Pleiades a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and the Ancient World Mapping Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

  • Home | Enslaved Christians

    ANCIENT ENSLAVED CHRISTIANS Explore the world of enslaved Christian workers in the first and second centuries CE Start a search across records on enslaved workers in ancient history About Ancient Enslaved Christians is a collaborative digital resource that compiles and makes publicly accessible the material and literary evidence for enslaved Christian workers in the first and second centuries CE. Learn More Identifying Enslaved Individuals In keeping with the principles of this project we include all individuals who might reasonably have been said to be enslaved or formerly enslaved (freed person). This includes those identified based on their name and/or profession. The rationale for each individual's identification as an enslaved or potentially enslaved person is explained in the commentary on each entry. Learn More

  • Bibliography | Enslaved Christians

    Bibliography Blake, Sarah. “In Manus: Pliny’s Letters and the Arts of Mastery.” Pages 89–107 in Roman Literary Cultures: Domestic Politics, Revolutionary Poetics, Civic Spectacle. Edited by A. Keith and J. Edmondson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011. ———“Now You See Them: Slaves and Other Objects as Elements of the Roman Master.” Helios 39.2 (2012): 193–211. Bonar, Chance E.“Enslaved to God: Slavery and Divine Despotics in the Shepherd of Hermas.” PhD Dissertation, Harvard University, 2023. Bruun, Christer. “Greek or Latin? The Owner’s Choice of Names for vernae in Rome.” Pages 19–42 in Roman Slavery and Roman Material Culture. Edited by Michelle George. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. Charles, Ronald. The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts. London: Routledge, 2020. Coogan, Jeremiah, Joseph A. Howley, and Candida R. Moss, eds. Writing, Enslavement, and Power in the Roman Mediterranean, 100 BCE–300 CE. Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming. Elder, Nicholas. Gospel Media. Reading, Writing and Circulating Jesus Traditions. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2024. Flexsenhar III, Michael. Christians in Caesar’s Household. The Emperor’s Slaves in the Makings of Christianity. Inventing Christianity Vol. 1. University Park: Penn State Press, 2019. Fuentes, Marisa J. Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Geue, Tom. “Rush Job: Slavery and Brevity in the Early Roman Principate.” Cambridge Classical Journal 68 (2022): 83–111. Goodspeed, Edgar J. The Meaning of Ephesians. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1933. Haines-Eitzen, Kim. “‘Girls Trained in Beautiful Writing’: Female Scribes in Roman Antiquity and Early Christianity.” JECS 6.4 (1998): 629-646. ———Guardians of Letters: Literacy, Power and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Harley-McGowan, Felicity. “The Alexamenos Graffito.” Pages 105–140 in The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries. Edited by Chris Keith, Helen Bond, Christine Jacobi, and Jens Schröter. London: T&T Clark, 2019. Harrill, J. Albert, Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006. Harrison, P. N. “Onesimus and Philemon.” ATR 32 (1950): 288–94. Hartman, Saidiya. Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. ———“Venus in Two Acts.” Small Axe 12.2 (2008): 1–14. ———Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008. Head, Peter M. “Named Letter-Carriers Among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri.” JSNT 31.3 (2009): 279–299. ———“Tychicus and the Colossian Christians: A Reconsideration of the Text of Colossians 4:8.” Pages 303–15 in Texts and Traditions: Essays in Honour of J. Keith Elliott. Edited by Peter Doble and Jeffrey Kloha. Leiden: Brill, 2014. ———“‘Witnesses between You and Us’: The Role of the Letter-Carriers in 1 Clement.” Pages 477-93 in Studies on the Text of the New Testament and Early Christianity: Essays in Honour of Michael W. Holmes on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. Edited by Daniel M. Gurtner, Juan Hernández, and Paul Foster. Leiden: Brill, 2015. ———“Onesimus the Letter Carrier and the Initial Reception of Paul’s Letter to Philemon.“ JTS 71.2 (2020): 628–656. Heilmann, Jan. Lesen in Antike und frühem Christentum: Kulturgeschichtliche, philologische sowie kognitionswissenschaftliche Perspektiven und deren Bedeutung für die neutestamentliche Exegese. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 2021. Horn, Friedrich Wilhelm. “Stephanas und sein Haus – die erste christliche Hausgemeinde in der Achaia: ihre Stellung in der Kommunikation zwischen Paulus und der korinthischen Gemeinde.” Pages 83–98 in Paulus und die antike Welt: Beiträge zur zeit- und religionsgechichtlichen Erforschung des paulinischen Christentumes: Festgabe für Dietrich-Alex Koch zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by David C. Bienert et al. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008. Howley, Joseph A.“Reading in Ancient Rome.” Pages 15–27 in Further Reading. Edited by Matthew Rubery and Leah Price. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Keith, Chris. “‘In My Own Hand’: Grapho-Literacy and the Apostle Paul,” Bib 89 (2008): 39-58. Knox, John. Philemon Among the Letters of Paul, A New View of its Place and Importance. New York: Abingdon, 1959. Laes, Christian. “Lectors in the Latin West: The Epigraphical Evidence (c. 300-800).” Arctos 53 (2019): 83–127. Lampe, Peter. From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries, trans. Michael Steinhauser. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. Larsen, Matthew and Mark Letteney. “Christians and the Codex: Generic Materiality and Early Gospel Traditions.” JECS 27.3 (2019): 383–415. Last, Richard. “The Neighborhood (vicus) of the Corinthian ekklēsia: Beyond Family-Based Descriptions of the First Urban Christ-Believers.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 38.4 (2017): 399–425. Lightfoot, Joseph Barber. The Apostolic Fathers. Volume 2. London and New York: Macmillan, 1885. Marchal, Joseph A. “The Usefulness of an Onesimus: The Sexual Use of Slaves and Paul’s Letter to Philemon.” JBL 130.4 (2011): 749-770. Martin, Clarice J. “Womanist Interpretations of the New Testament: The Quest for Holistic and Inclusive Translation and Interpretation.” Pages 19–41 in I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader. Edited by Mitzi J. Smith. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2015. Meggitt, Justin. Paul, Poverty, and Survival. Studies of the New Testament and Its World. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998. Mitchell, Margaret M. “New Testament Envoys in the Context of Greco-Roman Diplomatic and Epistolary Conventions: The Example of Timothy and Titus.” JBL 111.4 (1992): 641–662. Moss, Candida R. Ancient Christian Martyrdom. Yale Anchor Reference Library. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. ———“The Secretary: Enslaved Workers, Stenography, and the Production of Early Christian Literature.” JTS 74.1 (2023): 20–56. ———“What Large Letters: Invisible Labor, Invisible Disabilities, and Paul’s Use of Scribes.” Pages 105-121 in Divided Worlds? Interdisciplinary and Contemporary Challenges in Classics and New Testament Studies. Edited by Tat-Siong Benny Liew, Caroline Johnson Hodge and Timothy Joseph. Semeia Studies. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Press, 2023. ———God’s Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible. New York: Little Brown, 2024. Muddiman, John. “The Reader of Mark 13:14B as the (Re-)Interpreter of Apocalyptic.” Pages 170–82 in Revealed Wisdom: Studies in Apocalyptic in Honour of Christopher Rowland. Edited by John Ashton. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Osiek, Carolyn. Philippians, Philemon. ANTC. Nashville: Abingdon, 2000. Petersen, Hans. “The numeral praenomina of the Romans.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 93 (1962): 347–354. Preisigke, Friedrich. Namenbuch. Heidelberg: Selbstverlag des Herausgebers, 1922. Reay, Brendon. “Agriculture, Writing, and Cato’s Aristocratic Self-Fashioning.” Classical Antiquity 24.2 (2005): 331–61. Reece, Steve. Paul’s Large Letters: Paul’s Autographic Subscriptions in the Light of Ancient Epistolary Conventions. LSNT 561; London: T&T Clark, 2018.. Richards, E. Randolph. The Secretary in the Letters of Paul. WUNT II/42. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991. ———Paul and First-Century Letter Writing. Secretaries, Composition and Collection. Westmont, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2004. Roller, Otto. Das Formular der paulinischen Briefe: Ein Beitrag zur Lehre vom antiken Briefe. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1933. (14-23, 295-300) Schoedel, William R. Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1985. Schott, Jeremy. The History of the Church: A New Translation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019. Schwaller, Tyler M. “Picturing the Enslaved Christ: Philippians 2:6–8, Alexamenos, and a Mockery of Masculinity.” JECH 11.1 (2021): 38–65. Schwartz, Eduard. Eusebius Kirchesngeschichte. Repr.; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021. Shaner, Katherine A. Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Shiell, William David. Reading Acts: The Lector and the Early Christian Audience. Leiden: Brill 2004. Smallwood, Stephanie. Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007. ———“The Politics of the Archive and History’s Accountability to the Enslaved.” History of the Present 6.2 (2016): 117–32. Snyder, Julia. “Acts of Peter.” e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha. Accessed 1 March 2024. https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/acts-of-peter/ Solin, Heikki. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum: Die griechischen Personennamen in Rom. Volume 2. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1982. ———Die stadtrömischen Sklavennamen: Ein Namenbuch I-III. Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei, Beiheft 2. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1996. ———“Griechische und römische Sklavennamen. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung.” Pages 307-30 in Fünfzig Jahre Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei an der Mainzer Akademie, 1950-2000. Miscellanea zum Jubilaeum. Edited by Heinz Bellen and Heinz Heinen. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2001. Solin, Heikki, and Marja Itkonen-Kaila, eds. Graffiti del Palatino I: Paedagogium. Helsinki: Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae, 1966. Syme, Ronald. “‘Donatus’ and the Like.” Historia 28 (1978): 588–603. ———“Roman Papers III.” Ed. A. R. Birley. Oxford (1984): 1105–1119. Wellhausen, Julius. Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien. Berlin: Reimer, 1905.

  • Methodology | Enslaved Christians

    Methodology Drawing upon both recent work by Saidiya Hartman, Marissa Fuentes, Stephanie Smallwood and others on the history of Atlantic slavery, as well as studies in book history, religious studies, and classics, this project is an attempt to document the role of enslaved workers in production of the literature of the early church.[1] It aims to gather and assemble the epigraphic, literary, documentary, and artistic evidence for enslaved literate workers in the 1st-2nd centuries CE. The material contained here is deliberately maximalist. This means that certain categories will be blurry and that individuals who might not have been enslaved will be included. Identifying Enslaved Individuals The social status of individual workers can sometimes be difficult to parse. Sometime s the social status of an individual is explicit, on other occasions it is obscured or assumed by an ancient auth or. The difficulty is only exacerbated when dealing with Christian sources as tradition has tended to elevate the pedigree of named members of the Jesus movement. Often the status of a worker is ascertained on the basis of (1) their name (2) their occupation. Each aspect of this method has problems. While some names (e.g. “Epaphroditus” meaning “charming” or "attractive") are unmistakably “slavish,” there are always exceptions, and general principles vary depending on chronological period and region.[2] So too, while some professions (e.g. copying) were considered dishonorable and associated with servile workers, there were situations where freeborn individuals would engage in these tasks. In keeping with the principles of this project we include all individuals who might reasonably have been said to be enslaved or formerly enslaved (freed person). This includes those identified based on their name and/or profession. The rationale for each individual's identification as an enslaved or potentially enslaved person is explained in the commentary on each entry. Enslaved and Formerly Enslaved The database includes people who had been manumitted (freed) as well as those who are explicitly identified as enslaved. It is sometimes difficult to identify the stage in a person’s life when they were manumitted. Moreover, those who had been manumitted often continued to live in the homes of their former enslavers and were subjected to the same forms of pressure and abuse. The Language of Enslavement In the past forty years the study of slavery has come a long way. Following the work of Foreman, et al , we see the identification of a person as a “slave” as dehumanizing and essentializing. Thus, we prefer to use the terms “enslaved” and “enslavement.”[3] Biblical Texts and their Modification Unless otherwise noted Greek texts of the New Testament come from Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece (28th ed. 2012). The official text for this can be found here . English translations are drawn from the New Revised Standard Version, though the translation is often modified. As the work of Clarice Martin has shown, translations of Biblical texts have selectively and strategically translated the language of enslavement in order to obscure and erase enslaved identity. Translating enslaved person (doulos) as “servant” obscures the brutal fact that enslavement was not a matter of choice and “minimizes the full psychological weight of the institution of slavery itself.”[4] The erasure of enslaved identity is rooted in the understanding that there is something shameful about the experience of being victimized and, thus, tacitly assumes the inferiority of enslaved people. We have chosen to preserve the language of enslavement even in situations where the language might be understood to be metaphorical. Christian Identity The language of “Christian” poses some problems. First, it is not always possible to identify the religious orientation of an individual worker. Non-Christian enslaved workers often lived in the households of freeborn Christians (e.g. the enslaved workers noted in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.1.14). Second, even if an enslaved worker is known to have been Christian their “conversion” may have been involuntary or coerced. Finally, for most of the first century, followers of Jesus were known simply as Jews or followers of the Way. Many of the individuals included here may simply have identified as Jewish. We do not wish to erase their identities by identifying them as Christian. Nevertheless, and with a view to plans to broaden the database to include enslaved non-Christians we use the keyword “Christian” as an identifier in entries for first century members of the Jesus movement. Defining Role and Job Titles Wherever possible the project identifies people by their role or title (e.g. “secretary” or “reader”). In instances where (1) a worker’s role is unclear or (2) the individual performs multiple literate roles they are identified simply as “literate workers.” Timothy, for example, is a co-author in some letters attributed to Paul and as a messenger in others. Enslaved workers in Roman households often served a variety of roles regardless of their formal title. This is true, for example, of an enslaved man named Diphilus who worked in the household of Crassus in Rome: he is identified both as a “writer” and a “reader” (Cicero, De Orat. 1.136). Anonymity Some of the entries include anonymous individuals whose presence and role can only be inferred from primary materials. These people are listed as "Anonymous" with the relevant primary evidence following. It is, of course, impossible to know exactly who these people were, but in light of recent work erasure of enslaved workers from ancient texts by Brendon Reay, Sarah Blake, Joseph Howley, and Candida Moss and in keeping with the maximalist goals of this project they are included here.[5] GENDER We have included gender as a category of analysis in each entry. Alongside the traditionally recognized genders of “Male” and “Female” we have included “Unknown” and “Non-Normative.” Included under “Non-Normative” both are those individuals whose gender performance is suggestive of non-normative gender and those whose bodies had been modified by force (i.e. “Eunuchs”). In the case of those whose bodies had been forcibly modified, we do not wish to obscure either the violence of this practice, or its many medical risks. Notes [1] Saidiya V. Hartman, “Venus in Two Acts,” Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 12.2 (2008): 1–14; Hartman, Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), 16; Hartman, Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Marisa J. Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016); and David Kazanjian, “Freedom’s Surprise: Two Paths Through Slavery’s Archives,” History of the Present: A Journal of Critical History 6.2 (2016): 133-145; Stephanie Smallwood, “The Politics of the Archive and History’s Accountability to the Enslaved,” History of the Present 6.2 (2016): 117-32. [2] See, for example, Christer Bruun, “Greek or Latin? The Owner’s Choice of Names for vernae in Rome,” in Roman Slavery and Roman Material Culture, ed. Michelle George (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 19–42. [3] P. Gabrielle Foreman, et al., “Writing about Slavery/Teaching About Slavery: This Might Help,” Community-sourced document, Accessed November 20, 2020. https://naacpculpeper.org/resources/writing-about-slavery-this-might-help/ . [4] Clarice J. Martin, “Womanist Interpretations of the New Testament: The Quest for Holistic and Inclusive Translation and Interpretation,” in I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader, ed. Mitzi J. Smith (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2015), 19–41 [25]. [5] Brendon Reay, “Agriculture, Writing, and Cato’s Aristocratic Self-Fashioning,” Classical Antiquity 24.2 (2005): 331–61; Sarah Blake, “Now You See Them: Slaves and Other Objects as Elements of the Roman Master,” Helios 39.2 (2012): 193–211; Blake, “In Manus: Pliny’s Letters and the Arts of Mastery,” in Roman Literary Cultures: Domestic Politics, Revolutionary Poetics, Civic Spectacle, ed. A. Keith and J. Edmondson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), 89–107; Joseph A. Howley, “In Rome,” in Further Reading, edited by Matthew Rubery and Leah Price (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 15–27; Candida R. Moss, “Between the Lines: Looking for the Contributions of Enslaved Literate Laborers in a Second-Century Text (P. Berol. 11632),” SLA 5.3 (2021): 432–52

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