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Amphilochius (Ἀμφιλόχιος; 345[?]–404[?] CE) was bishop of Iconium (Ἰκόνιον, today Konya) from 373/374 CE to at least 394 CE. He had strong ties to the three Cappadocian fathers (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus , and Gregory of Nyssa) whose church policy and theology he continued. Held in high regard by his contemporaries and posterity, nowadays he is commonly assumed to have been more of a practical churchman (active metropolitan and preacher) than an original theologian. This judgment, however, is difficult to a…

Ancyra (modern-day Ankara, capital of Turkey) is located in the central high plains of Anatolia, at an altitude of more than 900 m; it is surrounded by steppes in a continental climate. The historical center is upon a hill along the right shore of the river (Ankara Çayı), tributary of the river Sangarius (Sakarya). Its legendary founder was supposedly King Midas; however, until the arrival of the Romans this center was of little importance. After the death of King Amyntas (25 BCE), his kingdom became a Roman province of Galatia, and it was governed by a propraetor. The region was inhabited…

Firmilian (d. 268 CE), a well-known bishop of the Cappadocian metropolis Caesarea (from c. 230 CE), appears according to Eusebius of Caesarea ( Hist. eccl. 6.27) to have taken part in almost all of the significant debates in the formation of una sancta et catholica ecclesia (one holy and catholic church) and its standardized structures in the middle of the 3rd century CE as a representative of an episcopally organized church. The institution of synods and intensive epistolary communication between the churches appear to be for him a fundamental element in the structure of the ecclesia ca…

Thecla, traditionally called “of Iconium,” is “one of the most celebrated Christian saints” (Delehaye, 1911, 742) in East and West. Her honorary title is “protomartyr” (among the women) as a parallel to Stephen who is regarded as the first male Christian martyr.Thecla’s LifeThe only source that can claim to provide at least some historical data on Thecla is the legendary and novelistic Acts of Thecla. For the transmission of these acts in at least four independent translations into Latin and furthermore translations into Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic, O…

The Acts of Paul and Thecla is the name given to a subsection of the 2nd century CE Christian literary work known as the Acts of Paul ( Paul, Acts of). The Acts of Paul and Thecla highlights the travels of the apostle Paul (Paul [Apostle]) along with a female traveling companion by the name of Thecla (or Thekla) as they passed through the central Anatolian towns of Iconium and Antioch. The setting for the story presumes that the events are taking place sometime around the middle of the 1st century CE, yet most attempts at hi…

It is a matter of debate among scholars today whether any identifiable group or movement of people who can properly be called Messalians (a Syriac term meaning “those who pray,” sometimes represented by the Greek term “Euchites”) ever existed. No primary texts belonging to the Messalians have survived, those accused of Messalianism did not identify with the term themselves, and the earliest ancient sources indicate a loose grouping or a tendency, rather than an organized group with well-…

Conon of Bidana is a martyr saint from a village called Bidana, lying close to the city of Isaura in the province Isauria (southern Asia Minor). He became the central martyr figure of his home region in late antiquity. Conon is venerated as a martyr (Martyrs), but according to his Vita, he is, technically speaking, a confessor.Composition and TraditionConon’s martyr acts were composed over a longer period of time in late antiquity. The preserved “longer” text was probably finished during the reign of Emperor Zeno at the end of the 5th century CE (f…

We know of three Christian martyrs (3rd cent. CE) in the Roman Era with this same name, Conon. The first was the bishop of Edessa (evidenced in The Chronicle of Edessa), who laid the foundations of the church of that city and died in 228 or 311 CE; the second, the martyr of Pamphylia who was called “the gardener” (also mentioned as Conan), was executed during the reign of Decius (c. 250 CE), about whom there exist Acts of the Martyrdom, endowed with a veritable worth, and it is these that I will treat in this article; and finally a third, evidenced in the Roman Martyrology, who was executed togeth…

The Acts of Paul (Cop. empraksis empaulos k[ata] papostolos, i.e. “the act(s) of Paul according to the apostle” in P.Heid.; i.e. Gk praxeis pa[ulos] in P.Hamb.) is the name of a mid- to late 2nd-century CE Christian literary work. The Acts of Paul is a travel narrative that shares many broad similarities to the literary genre of the Greek Romance, and more specifically offers an alternative, but similar, account of another early Christian text entitled the Acts of the Apostles. The story highlights the missionary travels of an early…

Isauria is a territory in the mountains of the central Taurus. Its boundaries changed over the centuries. In the oldest, restricted sense, Isauria was the country around the old villages Isaura Nea and Isaura Palaia on the northern slope of the Taurus (Stra. Geogr. 12.6.2, also called Isaurike. In late antiquity, Isauria was a province covering the middle part of the central Taurus down to the Mediterranean. The latter represents the area described here.Geography and HistoryIn canyon-like valleys, the Calycadnus River and its numerous feeders traverse this rugged and …

The heresiologists of the early church call “Continentes” (Gk ἐγκρατῖται; Lat. continentes/ encratitae; Eng. Encratites [continents]; Encratism/Encratites) some ascetics or groups living an ascetic life who are considered to be heretics because they demand from all Christians that they follow an ascetic way of life, particularly that they renounce marriage, the eating of certain foods (particularly meat), and the consuming of intoxicating drinks (whereby “continentes” in the Latin tradition can stan…

Olympias (Ὀλυμπιάς) the deaconess (Deacon/Deaconess) was born in 361 CE (or 368 CE) and died probably in 408 CE. She is also known as Olympias the Younger to distinguish her from namesake and paternal aunt Olympias. Because of her father’s connections with the imperial family, this aunt was engaged to Constans, the son of Constantine, who later became Roman emperor (see Am. 20.11.3). However, this older Olympias later married the Roman client-king Arsaces II and died in the 361 CE, the putative birth year of her niece.While Olympias’ piety led to her sainthood, another reason w…

The Acts of John, like most of the apocryphal acts of the apostles (Apostles, Apocryphal Acts of the), is fragmentary and has a complicated text history. For the most part, the “early” or “primitive” Acts of John – to the extent that an “early” text can be reconstructed – is preserved only in sections that were incorporated into later compositions, above all the Acts of John by Pseudo-Prochorus.Only two sections of the Acts of John are extant independently:1. The “metastasis” (i.e. the description of John’s notably peaceful death) is preserved in multiple Greek manuscr…

The Jewish Diaspora had a long history before the advent of Christianity. The expulsion from Judaea and the coerced sojourn in Babylonia began already in the 6th century BCE. Many Jews in that land chose to remain even after the release from the “Babylonian Captivity” and the possibility of return. A thriving Jewish military colony at Elephantine in Upper Egypt held forth in that same era. Jews were not homebodies.The ScatteringThe scattering of Jews in the Mediterranean world, however, escalated in substantial numbers after the conquests of Alexander the Great …

In the field of the study of early Christian origins, a similar dynamic can be observed as within religious studies with an interest in the question of gender at large: in research on early Christian anthropologies and the role of men and women in early Christian communities, the understanding and role of women have been studied extensively and fruitfully. However, the study of the construction and role of men and masculinities is only in its infancy, despite the publication of a number o…

Paul is one of the most beloved figures within the Christian tradition. He holds this position because his teachings influenced 1st-century CE believers and have remained influential up to the modern period. Paul, however, was not a Christian nor did he start (or convert to) a new religion called Christianity. After meeting Jesus and receiving his call, Paul spent the rest of his life figuring out and defending his understanding of Jesus within his Jewish context. For example, Paul does n…

Christianity was born in an atmosphere of persecution and hostility. According to the New Testament, Herod attempted to kill Jesus shortly after his birth in Bethlehem to prevent the rise of the messianic kingdom that the prophets of the Old Testament had predicted (Matt 2:13–23). All of the canonical gospels portray an acute hostility between Jesus and his disciples and various Jewish sects of 1st-century CE Palestine. At the beginning of his Gospel, John informs his readers that Jesus w…

The name Cataphrygians was given to the followers of Montanus, a name derived from the place where this movement originated, between Phrygia and Mysia, in the second half of the 2nd century CE (see Markschies, 2012, 1197–1199; Berruto Martone, 1999, 127–130). From the beginning, ancient Christian authors used the expression “the Phygrian heresy” (Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.16.1; 5.18.1; 6.20.3; Heresy/Heretical), or even more briefly “Phrygians” (Clem. Strom. 4.93.1; 7.108.2; Anonimus ap. Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.16.22), “according to the Phrygians” (Epiph. Haer. 48.1.1; 48.1.3; 49.1; in…

In the development of early Christianity, Tarsus is mostly known as the birthplace of Paul the apostle (c. 5–c. 67 CE). Our focus will center on its importance as the backdrop to a better understanding of the latter’s trajectory. An important, strategically located regional city, Tarsus was the capital of Cilicia, although it was a satellite of the Syrian metropolis Antioch, both politically and religiously. A description of ancient Tarsus requires the piecing together of accounts left by…

The monastic movement started spontaneously in the early 4th century CE in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, already before Christianity became the official religion of the empire. By the middle of that century, monasticism had spread throughout the Christian East, and by the last quarter of the century, monasteries were common in all Near Eastern provinces. By the early 5th century CE, monasticism was fully integrated into the ecclesiastical establishment. Monks had a tremendous influence on the Chr…