Chapter 2 considers the so-called cradle of Christian martyrdom: Second-century Asia Minor. Beginning with an analysis of the economic, political, and social relationships between Christian, Jewish, and Greek social structures in the face of the Roman Empire’s centralization of power, I outline the circumstances of Christian martyrs during the first centuries following Jesus’ death. Using legal statutes alongside letters between Pliny the Younger and the emperor Trajan, I analyze the contours and relative scope and depth of Roman persecution. Through an analysis of the language used by Christian theologians and the period’s popular Acta Martyrum, I consider the way martyrdom was performed in recognition of a separate pax Deorum—agreement with God—that challenged that of the Roman state. I proceed to show how martyrs were interpreted as imitators of Christ’s sacrifice, and the meaning that designation brought to martyrs and their audience. Finally, I highlight the parrhēsia—bold, free speech—demonstrated in martyrdom to articulate the centrality of truth-telling to Christian martyrs, a theme to which I return throughout the book.

This chapter looks at the interpretations of biblical law produced by early Christian writers and how they sought to distinguish themselves from what they saw as a Jewish approach to the Hebrew Bible and to biblical law in particular.

To understand Irenaeus and the canonical collection, particularly the revision of Paul’s letters, we need to look into the parallel redaction and revision of the famous collection of letters who pseudonymously were credited to Ignatius of Antioch. With him being backdated to the beginning of the second century by Eusebius of Caesarea, his collection of seven letters of which Eusebius is the first to speak, provides the cornerstone for the ancient anti-heretic, anti-Jewish and monepiscopal church history of the beginnings of Christianity. A critical reading of both, Paul’s letters and those of the spurious Ignatius, however, allows to dismantle the fictional account that served Irenaeus and his apologetic followers through the centuries to cement early Christian orthodoxy.

At the heart of Christianity lies an imperative to change. Following Jesus, becoming part of the movement, is about transformation: changing oneself, changing communities, indeed, changing the world. But then, we are all also subject to the imperative to survive: to accept, to adopt and adapt, to conform and to continue, to compromise, and to let be. Nothing reveals this paradoxical nature of the early church more clearly than the history of early Christianity and slavery.

Jennifer Glancy points out that scholars of early Christianity tend to have two distinct perspectives on slavery, the church, and society. While not contradictory, the two views, in essence, depict different trajectories of which one can be characterised as of descent and the other of ascent. According to one view, the Christian movement in the earliest years was a golden age for relations between women and men, slaves and slaveholders.