From Paul to Valentinus
Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries
- History & Biography
- Publisher: Fortress Press (Augsburg Fortress)
- Published: 2003
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Publisher's Description
In this pathbreaking study of the rise and shape of the earliest churches in Rome, Lampe integrates history, archaeology, theology, and social analysis. He also takes a close look at inscriptional evidence to complement the reading of the great literary texts: from Paul's Letter to the Romans to the writings of Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Montanus, and Valentinus. Thoroughly reworked and updated by the author for this English-language edition, this study is a groundbreaking work, broad in scope and closely detailed. Lampe deals with the shape of leadership and the Christians' relation to the Judeans living in Rome. In six parts, comprised of fifty-one chapters and four appendices, Lampe greatly advances our knowledge of the shape of leadership and the Christians' relation to the Judeans living in Rome.
Endorsements (6)
“This study is so masterful in its grasp of a vast array of evidence, so solid and innovative in its methodology, and so audacious in conception that it is bound to become a classic. It is the most important historical and sociological study ever written on Roman Christianity.”
“This impressive work puts our study of early Roman Christianity on a new and more certain empirical basis and must now serve as the point of departure for all subsequent research....Lampe has expanded our database and has provided the most extensive social profile of Roman Christianity currently available.”
“Lampe shows that there are both archaeological and literary grounds for saying that the early Roman Christian community was at first indistinguishable from the Jewish one, form which it emerged as perhaps a less affluent underclass of God-fearers. Lampe's book will impress all who read it as a well-informed attempt to synthesize a vast amount of data in a serious, informed, and scholarly way.”
“Peter Lampe's extremely thorough study of the Roman Christians ... I would judge it the best work on an early Christian Church I have read in the last decade ... Lampe exhibits such balance and care that I would find myself hard-pressed to write the usual review, agreeing with some points and disagreeing with others. His conclusions are likely to be the basis of most on-going discussion ... The interest of these (Lampe's) theses for church history, as well as for New Testament, should be obvious.”
“This is a learned and enjoyable study of the social history of the Christian community in Rome ... It is not one of those social histories that wishes to substitute social factors for ideas and theologies, but a book which derives its strength from its perceptions of the intimate links between doctrine and life. Dr Lampe knows how to use epigraphic and juristic evidence ... He equally knows his way round the catacombs and the archaeological evidence ... And the freshness of his approach enables him to illuminate familiar texts from the Apostolic Fathers or the Apologists ... Among the most interesting parts of a very good book are the pages on Justin Martyr.”
“The author's interesting and informative work is a notable landmark ... The sociological approach to the evidence, successfully exploited by Wayne Meeks in his study of the Pauline churches, has found an able continuator in Lampe's thorough and scholarly examination of the first two centuries of Roman Christianity.”
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