Sacred Ritual, Profane Space: The Roman House as Early Christian Meeting Place

by Jenn Cianca

Overview

The first three centuries of Christianity are increasingly seen in modern scholarship as sites of complexity. Sacred Ritual, Profane Space examines the Christian meeting places of the time and overturns long-held notions about the earliest Christians as utopian rather than place-bound people. By mapping what is known from early Christian texts onto the archaeological data for Roman domestic spaces, Jenn Cianca provides a new lens for examining the relationship between early Christianity and sites of worship. She proposes that not only were Roman homes sacred sites in their own right but they were also considered sacred by the Christian communities that used them. In many cases, meeting space would have included the presence of the Roman domestic cult shrines. Despite the fact that the domestic cult was polytheistic, Cianca asserts that its practices likely continued in places used for worship by Christians. She also argues that continued practice of the domestic cult in Roman domestic spaces did not preclude Christians from using houses as churches or from understanding their rituals or their meeting places as sacred. Raising a host of questions about identity, ritual affiliation, and domestic practice, Sacred Ritual, Profane Space demonstrates how sacred space was constructed through ritual enactment in early Christian communities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773554252
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	05/23/2018
Series:	Studies in Christianity and Judaism , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jenn Cianca is associate professor of classical studies and liberal arts at Bishop's University.

Table of Contents

Figures ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 3

1 The Context of House-Church Christianity 13

2 Roman Domestic Space 34

3 Roman Domestic Worship 53

4 House-Church Christianity and Roman Domestic Worship 80

5 Placing Ritual: Christians in the Roman House 112

6 Sacred Space and the House Church 136

Conclusion: Towards a Theory of Sacred Space in House-Church Christianity 168

Notes 173

Bibliography 223

Index 235

Editorial Reviews

"Fresh and exciting, Sacred Ritual, Profane Space comes to valuable and convincing conclusions about the material and literary evidence for Christian worship in domestic contexts. Overall, this is an admirable work." Robin Jensen, University of Notre Dame

From the Publisher