“We are from your own ranks”:
The Mediation and Conflation of Early Christian and Roman Identities
Kayla Lunt
2014
1
An examination of early Christianity is often preceded by a brief discussion of Roman
Polytheism, as if a cursory nod to Roman religious tradition will allow us to more fruitfully
examine its supposed Other: Christianity. In doing so, we continue to gloss over the undeniable
plurality of these religions, and wrongfully separate Christianity in its early moments from the
culture which not only surrounded, but populated and incubated it, as it developed. This
comfortable separation allows us to continue to imagine the multitude of religions practiced by
Romans, including Christianity, as distinct and separate. To push against this, I propose that
early Christianity not only belongs wholly within the Graeco-Roman tradition from which it is so
often removed,1 but further, that it was engaged, early on, in nothing more than the very Roman
act of creating change through an emphasis on tradition; the result of this effort is a Christianity
strikingly and inextricably mixed with Roman Polytheist traditions.
Made up of, and appealing for conversions from, Romans, Christianity sought to remain a
Roman religion despite its inherent differences from “traditional” polytheistic practice.
Regardless of the multitude of ways by which Christianity sought to distinguish itself from its
“Pagan” surroundings, the religion is remarkable in its willingness to adapt. It is because of this
that Christianity chose to be actively involved in the Roman tradition, resulting in the conflation
of Christian and Roman identities. Nowhere is the syncretic and permeable nature of these
identities made manifest in more complicated and interesting ways during this early period than
in the arts that accompany Roman burial. As polytheistic and monotheistic imagery found the
walls of catacombs and sarcophagi to be large enough to share, so too the hearts and minds of
1 Jaś Elsner presents a similar argument in both Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1998) and “Archaeologies and Agendas: Reflections on Late Ancient Jewish Art and Early Christian Art,”
The Journal of Roman Studies 93 (2003). I will attempt to push it further and argue that Roman “culture” is
inseparable from religion, that they are not within but constitute a large part of it, and that the inclusion of GraecoRoman traditions or Roman Polytheism within Christianity is both conscious and intentional on the part of
Christians in Rome.
2
Roman people must have found space for a heterogeneity of belief from the second or third and
well into the fourth centuries, while a fragmented Christianity developed in relationship with the
plurality of Roman traditions, and gained Imperial sanction.
During the second and third centuries, this “tradition” within the Roman Empire was
extraordinary in its pluralism.2 Christianity during this period is also irrefutably fragmented, “not
yet fixed.”3 While it may be considered a universalizing religion in multiple ways, it remained
one that was manifested through a number of distinct and competing rituals and scriptural
interpretations until at least the sixth century.4 Likewise, the Imperial cult (often turned to as the
unifier of all of the Roman Polytheisms) cannot be identified as the same religious practice or
experience in different areas of the empire, and “no thing can be named as ‘the Imperial Cult.’”5
To further problematize the ways in which we conceive of the religious practices of the Roman
Empire—the polytheisms of Roman tradition that are so often treated as the sole unifier of
Roman identity—we must always understand Roman polytheism as blended. Even this Roman
traditional practice often had beginnings outside or on the periphery of Rome,6 and was part of
the complicated interplay between tradition and innovation inherent to the empire.7
Roman Polytheism, presented as it often is as the tradition against which Christianity
struggled, was not a singular, rigid tradition, but is best understood as a moving and changing
combination of “‘native’ Italic traditions” and influences from Greece and elsewhere, which
existed in the minds and rituals of Romans.8 As non-textual experiences rooted in ritual practice
2 Elsner, “Archaeologies and Agendas,” 125.
3 J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 259.
4 Elsner, Imperial Rome, 223.
5 Mary Beard et al., Religions of Rome Volume I: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 348.
6 Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 172.
7 Elsner, Imperial Rome, 3.
8 Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 172.
and varied (as a “religion of place”9), it is exceedingly difficult to accurately (and impossible to
3
briefly) represent the polytheistic practices of Romans. Therefore, it is no wonder that “Roman
Polytheism” is set up (simplistically) to stand for “tradition” as one’s focus falls upon the
development of Christianity. While an examination of the specific manifestations of these
religions is arguably a worthwhile pursuit, more productive within the scope of this discussion
will be an exploration of the ways that Roman Polytheism and Early Christianity have been
constructed as separate and independent, “as real categories of visual production in Late
Antiquity,” by religious and art historians,10 and how this has mediated our understanding of
these identities. Here, “Roman Polytheism” will be used as a shorthand to call to mind numerous
and diverse modes of practice within the empire, much as “Christianity” is. Each ought to be
understood as standing in as a rough composite of distinct, yet related, practices and beliefs.
Jaś Elsner expresses his concern regarding this practice, writing, “I have my doubts about
the traditional art-historical focus on … Christian art in Late Antiquity to the exclusion of the
parallel religious arts of the Graeco-Roman environment.”11 I cannot but agree, and the concern
must be pushed further, so we may worry over the idea that the arts and religions deemed
traditionally Graeco-Roman and those marked Christian are merely parallel. A caution as we
proceed: as we acknowledge the interrelation of these religious traditions—Christianity and
Roman Polytheism—and the development of a Graeco-Roman-Christian art, we must also
recognize the significance of the ways that contemporary Romans attempted to distinguish
themselves along such lines. Their efforts have played a role in affecting our creation of these
9 Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 167.
10 Elsner, “Archaeologies and Agendas,” 114.
11 Elsner, “Archaeologies and Agendas,” 115. I should like to added to this statement that this certainly includes
Judaism, and although not discussed within the scope of this paper the “parallel” categories to which Elsner refers
must call this to mind as well.
separate, “parallel,”12 categories and identities in our practice today. The differences between
4
polytheism and Christian monotheism are real and undeniable, and should not be forgotten in our
examination of the ways that the two impacted each other in the Roman Empire. The writings
and legislation put forth between the second and fourth centuries in Rome are reminder enough
of this. Surely the frequency with which emperors directed their attention toward Christians as a
target for persecution must suggest a fundamentally irreconcilable difference inherent to this
mystery cult, which somehow threatened Rome.
Sacrifice lay at the heart of this conflict, as it served as the central ritual of the Roman
Polytheisms which were all bound up by the various manifestations of an Imperial Cult, the aim
of which was support of the empire as embodied in the welfare of the emperor himself.13
Christians would not make sacrifice to the gods for the emperor and therefore were seen as doing
harm to the empire itself. As the authors of Religions of Rome state, “there could be no doubt that
the behavior of Christians endangered the peace of the gods.”14 Christian worship was also
considered extreme, or “supersitio,” and was rejected as such, while it also clashed with public
duties and military service.15 These duties were, of course, important ways for maintaining the
empire as well as a sense of identity for its diverse peoples. Persecution of Christians thus seems
to have waxed and waned in relationship to the stresses placed upon the empire, for example, the
persecutions imposed by Diocletian following the upheaval of the third century,16 when he
implemented a program of “particular stress on (allegedly) ancestral Roman virtues … with
the … aim of consolidating central authority after the chaos and disorder.”17
12 Ibid.
13 Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 169.
14 Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 248.
15 Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 225, 293.
16 Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 305.
17 Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 242.
5
The authors of Religions of Rome further suggest that Christianity’s refusal to “participate
in the sacrificial system as a whole … here delimited and paraded the true subjects of Rome.”18
Some Christians also saw this as the fundamental divide between their religion and that of their
neighbors and leaders, with Tertullian writing, “We offend the Romans and are not considered
Romans because we do not worship the gods of the Romans.”19 Rome’s Christians surely did not
all consider themselves inherently anti-Roman or un-Roman because their religious practice
differed, though, and in fact Tertullian’s statement seems to be one of mockery. For while surely
Romans, “thought that the Christians were hostile to Rome,”20 it is equally true that Christians
saw themselves as engaged in the only right practice that could uphold their empire.
In the second century, Saint Justin Martyr wrote, “We, more than all other men, are truly
your helpers and allies in fostering peace.”21 Later in that same century Tertullian writes, with
some frustration, “So, we are committing a crime against the emperors because we do not
subordinate them to their property, and we do not make a joke of our duty regarding their health,
for we do not think it rests within hands that are soldered on with lead!”22 Thus, we find that
Christians within Rome, to at least some extent, may be said to have considered themselves both
Roman, in a very traditional sense (that is, support of the empire), and Christian. It is clear that
these two identities were both experiencing constant redefinition during the period leading up to
and following Constantine’s “conversion,” while Christians continued to emphasize tradition and
to set up their religion as one which also gave support to the empire.
Perhaps because early church fathers, such as Arnobius and Lactantius (in the third
18 Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 239.
19 Tertullian, “Apology,” in Tertullian: Apologetical Works and Minucius Felix: Octavius, trans. Rudolph
Arbesmann et al. (Washington D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1962), 54.
20 Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 283.
21 Saint Justin Martyr, “The First Apology,” in Writings of Saint Justin Martyr, trans. Thomas B. Falls, vol. 6 of
The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, ed. Rudolph Arbesmann et al. (Washington D. C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1965), 43.
22 Tertullian, “Apology,” 85.
6
century), were themselves converts to the religion, they were able and inclined to present
Christianity in Roman terms.23 Arnobius specifically writes of Christianity with a certain tone
that implies that he was not practicing a Christianity that would have been approved of by his
successors, Saint Augustine or Jerome. Of his conversion, Arnobius may be quoted,
I worshipped images produced from the furnace, gods made on anvils and by
hammers, the bones of elephants, paintings, wreaths on aged trees … Now,
having been led into the paths of truth … I entertain honourable thoughts
concerning those which are worthy, I offer no insult to any divine name; and what
is due to each, whether inferior or superior, I assign with clearly-defined
gradations and on distinct authority … is He, who in other respects may be
deemed the very greatest, not to be honoured with divine worship.24
Such acknowledgement of “inferior and superior” gods gives no clear indication that the author
saw Christianity as necessarily in opposition to a polytheistic belief system.25 Lactantius, who
studied under Arnobius and, in 317 CE, would become the tutor of Constantine’s son Crispus,26
clearly articulates the need to adjust the way that Christianity was presented in order to
encourage conversion. He writes of the failure of another to take this correct approach, “For,
since he was contending against a man who was ignorant of the truth, he ought for a while to
have laid aside divine readings…to have shown to him by degrees the beginnings of light, that he
might not be dazzled, the whole of its brightness being presented to him.”27 Thus, we find that,
as a fragmented early Christianity—one made up of converts from the dominant religious
traditions that make up Roman Polytheism—sought to define itself, it did all it could to make
23 Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 259.
24 Arnobius, “The Seven Books of Arnobius Against the Heathen,” in Fathers of the Third Century: Gregory
Thaumaturgus, Dionysus the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius, compiled
by Cleveland A. Coxe, vol. VI of The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D.
325, ed. Alexander Roberts et al. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1885), 423-4.
25 Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 259.
26 Anne Fremantle, introduction to “Lactantius Firmianus,” in A Treasury of Early Christianity, ed. Anne Fremantle
(New York: The Viking Press, 1953), 79.
27 Lactantius, “The Divine Institutes,” in Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries: Lactantius, Venantius,
Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, Homily, and Liturgies, compiled by A.
Cleveland Coxe, vol. VII of The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325,
ed. Alexander Roberts et al. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1885), 140.
conversion “a less violent break with Roman tradition.”28
7
As Christianity coalesced, it not only attempted to make conversion easier, but in doing
so, it attempted to emphasize the fact that it was a religion familiarly available to the elite in the
Roman tradition. We find in the writings of Saint Justin Martyr a statement of the way in which
Christianity could serve the state better than even Roman Polytheism. He claims that Christianity
could help maintain peace within the empire, suggesting that “[Rome’s citizens] disobey the law
knowing that it is possible to elude you, since you are men. If, however, they learned and were
convinced that nothing … can be hidden from the knowledge of God, they would live a
completely orderly life, if only because of the threatened punishments, as you yourselves will
admit.”29 Here, Christianity is presented as a tool for the ruling elite, a very Roman role for a
religion to play. In fact, Christianity’s eventual “success” turned upon its ability to be useful to
Rome.
The very “conversion” of Constantine in 312 CE,30 often located as the turning point of
Christianity’s status, hinged upon the ability of Christianity to act as the religions of Rome
always had—as support for the emperor and the empire. For in his conversion, Constantine
sought to gain supernatural support in his military campaign,31 and in practice “the religion of
Constantine was based on philosophy (acceptance of a supreme God)…The Christian scriptures,
dogma, and ritual were initially unimportant.”32 That is to say, his “conversion” was less about
Christianity, and much more about Rome. Of course it was not Constantine’s conversion alone
that placed Christianity in such a powerful position, although it was a key milestone along the
path between the banned status of this cult and its ultimate end-point as official religion of
28 Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 259.
29 Saint Justin Martyr, “The First Apology,” 44.
30 Elsner, Imperial Rome, 199.
31 Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 292.
32 Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 280.
Rome.33 This process also required popular support, and Liebeschuetz argues that without the
8
existing support of members of the military and educated classes, Christianity may not have
become the state religion.34 Christians also, exemplified here by Lactantius, Arnobius, Tertullian
and Saint Justin Martyr, worked from very early on to make Christianity familiar and palatable to
other Romans.
Even the rhetoric of some of these early church fathers may be seen as Roman,
specifically that of Lactantius’ “Divine Institutes,” which Liebeschuetz calls “a work in the
Roman literary tradition.”35 The explanatory claim for this—made by those who seek to
maintain Christianity as a “monolithic”36 and independent religion aside from the Graeco-Roman
tradition—is that such presentations of the religion resulted from the fear that is born of
persecution.37 What is also possible, however, is that these allowances were both the cause and
consequence of a factious Christianity that would ultimately persist well into the fourth century
and, arguably, beyond, as evidenced by the writings of Saint Augustine and by the existence of
such spaces and paintings as those within the Via Latina catacomb. Within such spaces we may
find that these early treatments of Christianity created, not a monolithic religion apart from
culture, but a Graeco-Roman-Christian tradition both in terms of identity and the corresponding
visual arts.
The art commissioned by early Christians displays this in its syncretism, and with good
reason. As noted, these Christians were Romans, and although Roman identity was very much
tied up with polytheistic practices, “in many circumstances of life, especially public life,
33 Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 181-2, 251.
34 Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 253.
35 Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 261.
36 Elsner, “Archaeologies and Agendas,” 114.
37 Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 302.
Christians and pagans had perforce to emphasize what united rather than what divided them.”38
9
Even into the fourth century, as Christianity lost its banned status and transitioned into a position
of dominance, “there were serious debates as to what was to count as ‘Christian,’ [and] how far
the traditional customs and festivals of Rome were to be regarded as specifically ‘pagan,’ or how
far they should be seen as the ancient cultural inheritance of the city and its empire.”39 In such a
period, as identities were being formed through “cross-fertilization,”40 and as religious and
national identities were so closely associated with one another, the syncretism apparent in such
religious arts is unsurprising.
Take, for example, the Via Latina catacomb in Rome (Fig. 1). The catacomb is
commonly dated with a series of four phases of construction41 that occurred between 315 and
350,42 its walls covered with figurative and decorative paintings between 315 and 370.43 It
consists of thirteen rooms (A-O), two of which with only polytheistic imagery and two more
with a mix of Christian and polytheist or secular images.44 It spans the period of the fourth
century during which the official position of Christianity within Rome moved from that of
persecuted mystery cult toward dominant and sanctioned practice in the years following the
Emperor Constantine’s “conversion” in 312. Furthermore, funerary arts represent a fruitful visual
source for my argument regarding the conflation of Roman and Christian identities. First,
funerary art is an especially stable place to “locate” Christian cults.45 Secondly, in Peter Brown’s
38 Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 262.
39 Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 365.
40 Elsner, “Archaeologies and Agendas,” 122.
41 William Tronzo, The Via Latina Catacomb: Imitation and Discontinuity in Fourth-century Roman Painting
(University Park [PA]: For the College Art Association of America by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
1986), 5.
42 Tronzo, The Via Latina, 10.
43 Jaś Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 271.
44 Ibid.
45 Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 270.
10
words, “burial customs are…also an element in the religious life of a society that is splendidly
indifferent to the labels usually placed upon forms of religious behavior by the tradition of
religious history.”46
The al secco paintings47 which adorn the walls of the Via Latina catacomb’s cubicula
could not better embody this assertion. The paintings depict not only the Christian images of
Daniel, Jesus, and Jonah, but also the “Pagan” Hercules, Admetus, and Persephone, as well as a
scene of apparently secular study (see Fig. 2-6). This is also in accord with Brown’s suggestion
that, “in times of change, the grave…can emerge as an apposite area in which conflicting
views…may be fought out.”48 Here, Brown is detailing the ways that the grave embodied the
conflict between “orthodox” and “heretical” Christian practice. In the Via Latina catacomb, we
find that this conflict includes Christian usurpation of polytheist themes and myths, as nonChristian heroes and deities are represented in rooms and on walls adjoining those which display
scenes from Christian scriptures, which is suggestive of a battle of conflicting views between
Christians. Other possibilities exist, however, and rather than simply viewing these seemingly
discordant representations in competition with each other, we might be rewarded for considering
other avenues of explanation.
Some have argued, and I agree wholeheartedly, that what we may have encountered in
such syncretic spaces as the Via Latina catacomb is in fact “a group of people who became
Christians without seeing the need…to give up elements of traditional Roman practice, without
being prepared to jettison what made Rome Roman.”49 As Tertullian wrote in the second century,
46 Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1981), 24.
47 Tronzo, The Via Latina, 11. Al secco refers to a technique of fresco painting in which the pigment is applied to
dry, rather than wet plaster.
48 Brown, The Cult of the Saints, 25.
49 Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 380.
“We are from your own ranks: Christians are made, not born!”50 Bearing these claims in mind,
11
what can it mean when we find within the Christian space of the Via Latina catacomb
representations of both Christian and “Pagan” myth? Cubiculum N, one of the rooms with
exclusively polytheistic scenes depicted on its walls, contains representations of Hercules in
which we see the deified man in several acts of heroism. In one scene, in an arcosolium,
Hercules returns the rescued Alcestis from death to her husband (Fig. 2).51 Hercules is nude and
haloed, leading Alcestis by one hand on her shoulder while the other holds and leads the hound
of hell. Admetus reclines awkwardly to the right of the scene. This painting, in this location, is
explained as an allegory of “triumph over death.”52 In fact, Elsner argues that the entirety of the
catacomb is centered upon a theme of salvation.53 This may be seen also in the individuals
included in the adjoining passage, and in room O, which contains both polytheist and Christian
figures. Those such as Persephone (Fig. 3) and the lion-flanked Daniel (Fig. 4), both of which are
visible from some locations within the catacomb (Fig. 5), perhaps also support this argument for
a theme of salvation.
But what, then, of the inclusion of the representation of a group of men apparently
studying the anatomy of a corpse in room I (Fig. 6)? This does not seem to fit with the salvation
theme proposed by Elsner for the catacomb. In this scene, a large crowd of sandaled men in
togas face towards a corpse lying on its back, eyes and belly open to the world. The second man
from the right holds back what may be a flap of flesh with a long stick, and all of those
surrounding him have their eyes turned in his direction. Several men gesture as if engaged in
active discussion. This scene, in a Christian context (directly across from this scene in room I is
50 Tertullian, “Apology,” 77.
51 Elsner, Imperial Rome, 218.
52 Elsner, Imperial Rome, 219.
53 Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer, 272.
an image of Jesus, Peter, and Paul54) may be construed to “mean” several things. I suggest we
12
develop an understanding of the Via Latina catacomb’s syncreticism through examining some
ways that the “problem” of its content has been handled.
One answer is to “de-paganize”55 the imagery, to emphasize the role of the non-Christian
figures and paintings as mythology and perhaps as cultural heritage, essentially to see them as
subjugated by the more important Christian subjects nearby. As Tronzo argues in The Via Latina
Catacomb: Imitation and Discontinuity in Fourth-Century Roman Painting, the “presence of
these motifs in a Christian context surely implies a desire to preserve a part of the Roman past.”56
However, this does not allow enough space to recognize the way that these perhaps were not
only preserved, but became a part of and functioned within the Christian religion. Another
approach is to allow for the syncretic nature of Christianity, and to see these Roman Polytheist
inclusions as part of the conflation of these two identities, which we only imagine are separate.57
In this vein, it may be asserted that these images are a visual representation of the process,
engaged in by both Romans and early Christians, of creating change through emphasizing
tradition. Consider Lactantius here, whose writings predate this catacomb by roughly a century.
He wrote, as we have seen, of a Christianity engaged in the Roman tradition and advocated this
approach to aid conversion of other Romans. Key to this strategy seems to have been a deference
to the Roman emphasis on philosophy and to the educated,58 itself likely the result of the same
type of syncretism at work in the Via Latina Catacombs.
Thus, such images and spaces as we are examining may be the product and display of the
early Christian attempt to meet the potential convert where he or she was—these images of
54 Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer, 271.
55 Elsner, “Archaeologies and Agendas,” 117.
56 Tronzo, The Via Latina, 70.
57 Elsner, “Archaeologies and Agendas,” 117.
58 Lactantius, “The Divine Institutes,” 104.
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salvation, both Christian and non-Christian, create a legible story for all viewers regardless of
familiarity with scripture. Just as they allow the viewer to access Christianity through familiar
stories, so they may also result from this act of manipulation. I would like to argue that
representations such as these were made by Christians whose understanding of their religion was,
at its core, Roman, in that it allowed tradition to be subsumed into the new. This argument finds
some basis even in the writings of early Christian apologists, who turned at times to Rome’s
philosophical and religious heritage in order to effectively argue for and illustrate their beliefs.
Jaś Elsner further claims that perhaps the “problem” we imagine is found in our “need to
force a catacomb like that of … the Via Latina to represent a single religious constituency,”
which he argues is “inherently problematic.”59 What is inherently problematic, however (and I
believe Elsner agrees60), is the “need to force” Christianity and Roman Polytheism themselves to
each “represent a single religious constituency.”61 If we accept that neither of these two religious
traditions may be considered as representative of a singular belief or practice and must have each
influenced each other in complex ways and for complex reasons, then perhaps we must admit
that finding “pagan” imagery in a Christian catacomb does not indicate that the catacomb is not
representative of a single religion, but rather that there is no singular religion to represent.
By the time of the construction and decoration of this catacomb, however, Christianity
would not have needed to appropriate polytheistic imagery because of power dynamics or fear of
persecution. Here, the work of the early church fathers, such as Tertullian and Saint Justin
Martyr in the second century and Arnobius and Lactantius in the third, is key to understanding
the motivations and methods which guided how Christians became comfortable with expressing
their religious identification, and thus how that identity would continue to be expressed through
59 Elsner, “Archaeologies and Agendas,” 117.
60 Elsner, “Archaeologies and Agendas,” 118.
61 Elsner, “Archaeologies and Agendas,” 117.
14
the fourth century (and surely later). Though Peter Brown points out that some Christians like
Saint Augustine would argue that the “increase” in polytheist influences on the church coincided
with “mass conversions,” he also notes that both the idea that so-called heretical or non-Christian
practices (and I am inserting here the accompanying visual culture) resulted from mass
conversions is dubious at best62 and the early writings of other Christians seem to corroborate
Brown’s assertion that the heresy Augustine lamented was “accepted by all previous
generations.”63
Christians such as those who commissioned paintings in the Via Latina and those who
wrote apology after apology to their leaders were surely Roman before and after their
conversions. To mark off the art which enriched their lives and informed (and presented) their
identities as somehow distinctive on either side of their conversion accepts both the separation of
Christianity(ies) and Roman Polytheism(s) and the unified nature of each religious tradition
individually. This state of being, of a Christianity marked as somehow distinct in belief, practice
and visual representation, and a Roman Polytheism in much the same state to act as a foil, is
surely the result of a history created by those with “ancestral investments” in the beginnings of
the religion.64 And how Roman, too, this invented history—in which the roots of Christianity
may be found to be above the influence of the secular world of its converts, in which justification
for the pragmatic innovations which have become dogmatic may be found in even the earliest
instances, in the oldest of tradition.
Of course, a religion above secular concern does not and has never existed. Furthermore,
early Christianity in the Roman Empire is hardly equivalent to the Christianity we are today
familiar with. Nothing of our own conception of the relationship between religious and national
62 Brown, The Cult of the Saints, 27.
63 Brown, The Cult of the Saints, 29.
64 Elsner, “Archaeologies and Agendas,” 114.
15
or cultural identity, with separation as a goal (some of us may pretend, as a reality), may be
forced upon the Roman Empire. The close relationship between the religious and cultural
identity of a “Roman,” however, is key to my argument that Christians sought to be seen as both
Roman and Christian. Elsner speaks of the art used by “different groups—whether to attract
adherents or to help establish a more coherent sense of community and identity among existing
members”65 and claims that the art of Rome’s Christianity(ies) is (are) part of “the rich spectrum
and range of Graeco-Roman religion,” which is, “a collective flowering of a development within
Roman culture,” rather than “broad cultural generalizations in their own right.”66 Yet we must
remember that religion permeated all aspects of life,67 that it was not separate from the rest of
what made Rome or a Roman. These religions, polytheistic and monotheistic alike, are subsumed
within the Roman cultural identity, inform this Roman identity, and perhaps even maintain and
create a Roman identity inasmuch as religious, cultural, and political identities were
interconnected for Romans.
We may be inclined to believe that there is merit in separating Christianity from Roman
Polytheism, as if one was innovative, and the other purely traditional. We may be inclined to
believe that there is merit in separating the “Christian tradition” from the “Graeco-Roman
tradition,” as if one was only a religion, an aspect of culture, and the other the culture itself.
While surely defining and patrolling the borders of the Roman identity was a frequent and
violent struggle, Christianity, in its fragmented early form, ought to also be viewed as engaged
with this identity and this struggle, and just as some Romans pushed against its practice as
something un-Roman, it was equally true that it was made up of Roman people. The conscious
appropriations practiced by early Christian apologists, advocating for a syncretic approach to
65 Elsner, “Archaeologies and Agendas,” 125.
66 Elsner, “Archaeologies and Agendas,” 126.
67 Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 359.
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their religion in order to make it palatable for those Romans to whom their apologies were
directed, surely impacted the Via Latina catacomb despite the fact that its construction and
decoration took place well into the period of Christianity’s transition to dominance. I believe
what we have encountered in the development of these two categories is a difficulty seeing
Roman identity—so closely tied in practice to the polytheisms of the religiously plural culture
and society—as something that can remain intact in the company of different religious practice.
But of course this must be possible, for there remains the very telling hyphen within the name of
those traditions against which we view Christianity, as if the Graeco-Roman tradition was not
already something that demonstrates the ability of Rome to adapt and remain “Roman” under
new influence.
17
Fig. 1, Plan of Via Latina Catacomb, 315-350 CE, Rome. Source: Tronzo, 1986.
Fig. 2, Hercules with Alcestis hellhound, and Admetus, Cubiculum N. Source: Art Resource
website, via ArtSTOR.
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Fig. 3, Persephone, Room O. Source: Tronzo, 1986.
Fig. 4, Daniel flanked by lions, Room O. Source: Tronzo, 1986.
Fig. 5, Looking into Room O from Cubiculum N. Note Persephone in the passageway and Daniel
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in the background. Source: Art Resource website, via ArtSTOR.
Fig. 6, Anatomical study, in Room I. Source: Art Resource website, via ArtSTOR.