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  • 17 - Dissemination of Biblical Narratives, Motifs, and Figures through Early Christian Inscriptions and Homilies

  • Edited by Lewis Ayres, University of Durham and Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Michael W. Champion, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Matthew R. Crawford, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne
  • Book:
    The Intellectual World of Late Antique Christianity
    Published online:
    05 October 2023
    Print publication:
    26 October 2023, pp 303-327

  • Summary

    Early Christians used biblical narratives and motifs often and extensively. Supplementing literary evidence, Christian funerary inscriptions and inscriptions in church buildings reveal the dissemination of biblical tradition by the naming of children and by allusions to and citations from the Bible. Ekphrastic reference to and depiction of scenes from the Bible—like Moses splitting the Red Sea, Jonah and the big fish, the seven-eyed lamb of the Apocalypse or the paradisiacal peace of Isaiah 11—in stone or as mosaics and dipinti could be admired in churches or on graveyards. Through inscriptions, mosaics, literary works (such as those of Pseudo-Athanasius, Theodoret of Cyrus, or Amphilochius of Iconium), and liturgical practices, biblical stories and traditions were kept alive and woven into a network of knowledge and imagination, connecting Christians all over the ancient world.