Local Christian Elites on the Public Scene in the Third Century

Abstract

This article investigates the involvement of Christians in local public life before the time of Constantine through a phenomenological approach, based on the observation of behaviors and of style of interactions in public contexts. It thus explores how the practical conduct of Christian local elites acting as civic officials could be framed as conventional, in their religious group as well as in their sociopolitical milieu, with minor arrangements allowing for ease in public roles and interactions. This study consequently outlines interpretative paths regarding epigraphical evidence as well as sources less often used by historians of cities for the time preceding the legalization of Christianity. Comparing different types of sources from several areas of the empire and asserting methodological principles first exemplified by the study of an inscription from Kios (Bithynia), this study identifies a variety of behaviors by Christian local elites and of interactions with their civic environment: although barely visible, these modes of conduct emerge in the examination of sources if attention is not focused on conflictual events in the context of the persecution beginning in 303. Despite its rarity, evidence regarding Christians in local public contexts thus emerges as historically significant. This pattern of Christian participation in civic life is perceptible in some regions of the empire in the second part of the third century and reflects a specific moment in the long life of the postclassical city.