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Description of  Christians in Caesar s Household: The Emperors Slaves in the Makings of Christianity (Inventing Christianity)

In this volume, Michael Flexsenhar III advances the argument that imperial slaves and freedpersons in the Roman Empire were essential to early Christians self-conception as a distinct people in the Mediterranean and played a multifaceted role in the making of early Christianity. Scholarship in early Christianity has for centuries viewed Roman emperors slaves and freedmen as responsible for ushering Christianity onto the world stage, traditionally using Pauls allusion to the saints from Caesars household in Philippians 4:22 as a core literary lens. Merging textual and material evidence with diaspora and memory studies, Flexsenhar expands on this narrative to explore new and more nuanced representations of this group, showing how the long-accepted stories of Christian slaves and freepersons in Caesars household should not be taken at face value but should instead be understood within the context of Christian myth- and meaning-making. Flexsenhar analyzes textual and material evidence from the first to the sixth century, spanning Roman Asia, the Aegean rim, Gaul, and the coast of North Africa as well as the imperial capital itself. As a result, this book shows how stories of the emperors slaves were integral to key developments in the spread of Christianity, generating origin myths in Rome and establishing a shared history and geography there, differentiating and negotiating assimilation with other groups, and expressing commemorative language, ritual acts, and a material culture. Read more