From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonikē: A Conference on Religion and Archaeology
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Ceramics and Glass in the Thessalonikē of Late Antiquity
Anastasios Antonaras is an archaeologist-museologist at the Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki. His publications include Roman and Early Christian Glass Objects From Thessalonikē's Region and "New Glass Finds With Base Marks From Thessaloniki."
Of Memories and Meals: Early Christians and Voluntary Associations at Thessalonica
A review of the various inscriptions from voluntary associations ("elective social formations") at Thessalonica in the first through third centuries ce reveals predominance of memorial texts and, to a lesser extent, interest in meals and festivals. These emphases will be compared and contrasted with evidence of practices among early Christian groups at Thessalonica from the same time period. Finally, we will examine whether there are indications reflected in Paul's language in 1 Thessalonians to suggest that this particular group had such emphases as part of their social life together.
Richard Ascough is Associate Professor of New Testament at Queen's Theological College and Queen's University Department of Religious Studies, Kingston, Canada. He is the author of Paul's Macedonian Associations: The Social Context of 1 Thessalonians and Philippians, among other articles and books.
Late Antiquity and Christianity in Thessalonikē: Aspects of a Transformation
Charalambos Bakirtzis is ephor of antiquities, director of the Ephoreia of Byzantine Antiquities of Thessaloniki. His publications include "Pilgrimage to Thessalonikē: The Tomb of St Demetrios," in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, as well as Ayios Nikolaos Orphanos: The Wall Paintings; Hagiou Dēmētriou thaumata: hoi sylloges archiepiskopou Iōannou kai anōnymou: ho vios, ta thaumata kai hē Thessalonikē tou Hagiou Dēmētriou; and a co-authored volume on Thrace. He is co-author and co-editor with Helmut Koester of Philippi at the Time of Paul and After His Death.
Christianization of Thessalonikē: The Re-Making of a Tetrarchic Capital
Selected as one of the Tetrarchic capitals following the reforms inaugurated by Emperor Diocletian, Thessalonikē grew in importance under his son-in-law and eventually co-emperor, Galerius, especially following Galerius's victories over the Persians. From ca. 298 Thessalonikē became Galerius's seat of power, emblazoned by the layout of a new city quarter containing the imperial palace and related buildings. The ultimate failure of Galerius's anti-Christian policies, his death in 311, and the triumph of Christianity in 312-13 under Constantine I turned a new, no less significant page in the history of Thessalonikē. The process of Christianization of Thessalonikē was relatively slow, but was systematic and emphatic. The selection of sites and the construction of major buildings demonstrates a carefully thought out plan aimed at the re-making of a pagan Roman capital par excellence into a Christian metropolis of no lesser stature. Inasmuch as the Christianization of the Roman Empire and its major cities has attracted the attention of scholars (e.g., R. Krautheimer, The Three Christian Capitals. Topography and Politics [1982], considers Rome, Constantinople, and Milan only), thus far Thessalonikē has not received similar attention, which it fully merits.
Slobodan Ćurčić is Professor of Early Christian/Byzantine Architecture and Monumental Decoration at Princeton University. He is author of, among other works, Architecture in the Balkans From Diocletian to Süleyman the Magnificent (ca. 300-ca. 1550), Gračanica—istorija i arhitektura, and "Some Observations and Questions Regarding Early Christian Architecture in Thessaloniki." He is co-editor of The Twilight of Byzantium: Aspects of Cultural and Religious History in the Late Byzantine Empire. He is also an organizer of the forthcoming exhibit "Architecture as Icon: Perception and Representation of Architecture in Byzantine Art."
Second Thessalonians and the Ideology of Epistles: Our Debt to the Forger
Among Pauline pseudepigrapha, 2 Thessalonians stands out as the one that can best be called a forgery: it imitates Paul's style and epistolary structure and claims to be part of his relationship with the churches of Thessalonica. This fiction places the author of 2 Thessalonians in a complicated position. It requires the author to heighten the authority of writing (to authorize his own letter) while questioning the certainty of authorship (to devalue 1 Thessalonians). In addition, the author creates fictional encounters and oral traditions (to buttress the written argument of 2 Thessalonians). And all of this is played out for the benefit of an audience that is contemporary with the author and not located in Thessalonica. The author's product, however, pointed the way toward the future in two ways. First, it participated in the process of elevating the value of the written text over oral tradition. Second, it exhibited insights about Pauline style and structure which are more fully realized in modern critical scholarship.
Steven Friesen is the Louise F. Boyer Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Texas, Austin. He is author of Imperial Cult and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins and Twice Neokoros: Ephesus, Asia, and the Cult of the Flavian Imperial Family, co-editor of Urban Religion in Roman Corinth: Interdisciplinary Approaches, and editor of Ancestors in Post-Contact Religion: Roots, Ruptures, and Modernity's Memory.
Invisible in Christ: The Elusive Wo/men of 1 Thessalonians
This paper traces and evaluates the history of scholarly efforts to describe the social make-up of the Thessalonian recipients of Paul's letter, with particular attention to conclusions about the economic status of the community and its orientation toward the larger social world. Various archaeological materials related to voluntary associations, cult buildings, and funerary monuments have provided a context in which to reconstruct the Thessalonians as in tension with the ideologies and power relations of first-century Thessalonica. Despite a move toward seeing the Thessalonians as a community of marginalized or socially deprived artisans who, like Paul, envisioned an alternative to empire, however, there has been little discussion of the challenges to historical reconstruction raised by the unrelenting androcentrism of the text. Rather, it is taken at face value and the historical/social picture is altered accordingly. This paper re-visits the question of wo/men in the Thessalonian community in a way that does not separate gender from structures of status and economics and considers the letter's representation of present urban life, structures of economic mutuality, and understandings of the near future as relevant for imagining Thessalonian wo/men as for describing Paul's brothers in Christ.
Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre is Assistant Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Drew Theological School. Her publications include Jesus Among Her Children: Q, Eschatology, and the Construction of Christian Origins and she is co-editor of Walk in the Ways of Wisdom.
Egyptian Religion in Thessalonikē
Helmut Koester is John H. Morison Research Professor of Divinity and Winn Research Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Divinity School. He is author of, among other volumes, History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age; History and Literature of Early Christianity; co-editor and director of Archaeological Resources for New Testament Studies; and co-author and co-editor with Charalambos Bakirtzis of Philippi at the Time of Paul and After His Death. Two volumes of his collected papers are also forthcoming.
Guided Tour of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (for speakers and registered participants only)
Christine Kondoleon is Behrakis Curator of Greek and Roman Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the author of Domestic and Divine: The Roman Mosaics in the House of Dionysos and editor of Antioch: The Lost City, among other publications.
Reflections on the Architectural History of the Tetrarchic Complex at Thessalonikē
The monumental complex of the Tetrarchic period developed in the southeastern end of the walled city, an area annexed to Thessalonikē in the middle of the third century. It comprised the Rotunda, an area that was annexed to the city in the middle of the third century, the Arch with the adjoining vestibule, the hippodrome, and the Palace proper. The whole is commonly related with Emperor Galerius, and it is dated to a limited period of time, between 299 and 311.
This paper aims at reviewing the building activity in this area, the interrelation of the individual buildings to each other, and their dependence upon the personality of Galerius. Although it has been proposed that the whole complex retains the basic elements of a unified concept and obeys a set of general principles, it is equally clear that not all the buildings of the complex were built in the limited period of Galerius's presence in Thessalonikē. A probable reason for building the palace in a relatively narrow and therefore unfavorable area, the south extremity of the area in discussion, is that this had been the site of an army camp, campus martius, and therefore the property of the state. Thus, there is evidence that the palace developed in a stretch of land around a preexisting nucleus of a second-century ad, probably army camp headquarters, building (principia). Around it were erected the most important palatial buildings, beginning with the audience hall, the Basilica, the palace temple, the Octagon, the hippodrome along the east wall curtain, and a bath complex. By the time of the erection of the octagonal temple, the camp headquarters had been proven insufficient; so the imperial residence was installed at the south extremity of the site, between the temple court in the west, the hippodrome in the east, the bath in the north, and the sea shore in the south.
After the death of Galerius the palace continued functioning as imperial residence; it was used by many emperors and members of the imperial family from the early fourth to the late seventh century. During this long span of time, the palace expanded toward the north, the only direction available for building growth. The buildings near the Mese, the decumanus maximus, were of lesser importance and definitely posterior to Galerius. The Rotunda, temple of the state cult, was erected in the north part of the annexed area to the city, on a smooth rise above the decumanus. It was enveloped in a temenos which communicated with the city via the monumental Arch that served as a gate, right above the Mese. The steep difference of levels, added to the existence of the street and the distance between them, held the Pplace away from the temple area.
The city of Thessalonikē was the donor of the Arch, and the same must be true for the temple as well. Therefore, the two parts of the tetrarchic complex were initially independent. The Arch was planned as a tetrapylon with four massive marble-clad piers. At some later period the course of the street deviated so that it passed under the Arch. At the same time a large hall, vestibulum, with a mosaic floor was attached to the south side of the Arch via an addition of a pair of lower arches. A colonnaded passage linked the Arch with the temple, again via a pair of arches that joined the north facade of the original with the vestibulum. This rearrangement involved a major intervention in the city plan. Such a radical intervention can be realized better as a result of two facts. First, the property of the temple shifted from the city to the imperial household, probably because the city would no longer support the upkeep of a pagan temple. This reality created the need for linking the two areas. Second, the growth of the palace and the change of course of the street brought the two areas close to each other, and therefore made their connection feasible.
In conclusion, contrary to common knowledge, not every part of the tetrarchic complex belongs to Galerius's initiative, nor was everything built during the period of his presence in Thessalonikē. The two areas of building activity were originally independent of each other; they were brought into a singe complex during a period of Christian emperors, probably in the second half of the fourth century ad.
Aristotelis Mentzos is Professor of Byzantine Archaeology in the Department of History and Archaeology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a member of the Dion University expedition team. Recent relevant publications include "The Palace and the Rotunda of Thessaloniki: New Propositions on the History of the Complex" (in Greek), in Byzantina; "Reflections on the Interpretation and Dating of the Rotunda of Thessaloniki," "The Apostle Andrew and the Church of Thessaloniki," and "Questions Concerning the Topography of the Chrisian City of Philippi," all in Egnatia (Greek with English summaries); and "Some Preliminary Remarks on the Evolution of the Civic Institutions of Thessaloniki at the Dawn of the Middle Ages," in Byzantina (Greek with English summary).
Thessalonikē's Revelation: Towards a New Understanding of Iconography and Canon
The mosaic programs at Hosios David and the Rotunda in early Christian Thessalonikē are often understood as interpretations of the book of Revelation. This paper proposes that they be read instead in two different ways. First, both mosaics are read as part of a broader discourse of apocalypse associated with Thessalonikē, a discourse which may have stemmed not only from Revelation but also from the apocalyptic thought penned by Paul in his first letter to the Thessalonians. Second, these mosaics teach us that we must question the common idea that the book of Revelation was marginal in the canon of the Greek East. The paper suggests that we must broaden our analysis of canon and textual use, employing evidence not only from literary writings and manuscripts, but also from iconography. Surely visual instantiations of a text like Revelation, with all the variety and interpretation that these images provide, push us to a new understanding of "textual fluidity" in the early Christian period and constitute significant and long-ignored evidence regarding the use and popularity of marginal texts in the Christian canon.
Laura Nasrallah is Assistant Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School. Her publications include An Ecstasy of Folly: Prophecy and Authority in Early Christianity and "Empire and Apocalypse in Thessaloniki: Interpreting the Early Christian Rotunda."
Private Associations of Thessalonica During the Imperial Era: In Search of Identity and Support in a Cosmopolitan Society
Thankfully, due to a large number of newly discovered inscriptions of the last couple of decades, we have so significantly enriched our findings of Thessalonica's associations that the ground is now set for the study of the "collective" effect of the capital of Macedonia comparatively and per se. The city of Thessalonica appears to have more associations than any other in the region of Macedonia, and also more than many of the largest cities of the eastern part of the empire.
The reasons behind this phenomenon are one of the matters addressed in the present study. Through past and recent findings, several aspects of the "life" of these associations can be further discussed, aspects such as their dispersion through time, their identity (religious and professional), their structure, and their relationship with the Roman authorities. Finally, the problem of the social identity of its members can be addressed and examined with the study of additional insights into peoples' names, financial details, and the nature of their activities.
Pantelis Nigdelis is Associate Professor of Ancient History at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His interests include the institutional, social, and political history of Greek cities during the Hellenistic and Roman era, as much as the history of the research of antiquity in modern Greece (19th-20th centuries). The last fifteen years he has published many inscriptions, preferably Greek ones, which have been found in various sites of the territory of Northern Greece. He has also undertaken the task of publishing the Supplementum of the 10th volume (Inscriptiones Thessalonicae et viciniae) in Inscriptiones Graecae. His major publications include Polity and Society of the Cyclades During the Hellenistic and Imperial Era; Petros Papageorgiu the Thessalonian: His Correspondence 1880-1914; The Proconsul Says: An Edict of the Imperial Era Concerning the Gymnasium of Beroia (Macedonia), co-authored with G. Souris; and Epigraphica Thessalonicensia: A Contribution to the Political and Social History of Ancient Thessalonica (a part of the inscriptions to be published as IG X 2 1 Supplement).
Ceramics and Glass in the Thessalonikē of Late Antiquity
Demetra Papanikola-Bakirtzi is an archaeologist at the Archaeological Institute for Macedonian and Thracian Studies in Thessaloniki. Her publications include "Byzantine Tableware: Form, Use and Decoration" in a volume that she edited, Βυζαντινών Διατροφή και Μαγειρείαι ("Food and Cooking in Byzantium"), as well as her edited volume Everyday Life in Byzantium.
Civic Identity in Christian Thessalonikē
Several significant moments throughout its long history mark distinct changes to the cultural identity of the city of Thessaloniki. The period of the fourth through sixth centuries ce is no exception. Like other Greco-Roman cities in the East unaffected by the fourth-century incursions of the Germanic tribes, Thessaloniki undergoes a transformation in its self-identification as a Christian city and the civic identity of its inhabitants—a shift from a late Roman city to a Christian polis. Evidence for this change is found in the Christian building program, the role of the bishop in the civic life of the city, and the establishment of a cult center for the Christian patron of the city, St. Demetrios. This paper discusses evidence for civic identity from a variety of textural sources (including hagiography), with some reference to key iconographic and archaeological evidence, in an attempt to elucidate the markings of a Christian civic identity for a Late Antique city.
James Skedros is Associate Professor of Early Christianity and Byzantine History at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts, where from 1998 to 2002 he served as Acting Dean. As a Fulbright Scholar, he has conducted field and archaeological research in Thessaloniki related to the veneration of St. Demetrios. His publications include "Festivals, Shrines, and the 'Undistinguished Mob'," "The Heroikos and Popular Christianity in the Third Century," and St. Demetrios of Thessaloniki: Civic Patron and Divine Protector, 4th-7th c. ce.
Social Status and Family Origin in the Sarcophagi of Thessalonikē
The testimonies of travelers who visited Thessalonikē in the nineteenth century and the significant number of monuments that have been preserved leave no doubt that sarcophagi were the most characteristic type of funerary monument in the city's cemeteries. These monuments as a rule stood out in the open and were arrayed outside the gates and along the great thoroughfares for a considerable distance beyond the city. The size of the sarcophagi, which were usually made of Thasian marble, their inscriptions, and their sculptural decoration show that we are dealing with deluxe monuments through which individuals and their families projected an image of themselves within the space of the cemetery.
A small fraction of the inhabitants of Thessalonikē preferred particularly luxurious and expensive sarcophagi made by workshops in Attica; local products predominate, however, and are closely linked to models originating in Asia Minor. Western influences are practically nonexistent. The locally made sarcophagi of Thessalonikē are distinguished by their simple but impressive form, which afforded the opportunity of carving an inscription, frequently monumental, to advertise the self-presentation of the sarcophagus's owner. In some cases, sarcophagi also bear small sculptures that act as bearers of complementary messages. Buyers' choices were only partly bound up with economic factors; far more often, they were related to family origin and had an ideological basis. These issues are of particular interest when viewed in combination with the epigraphical evidence.
Theodosia Stefanidou-Tiveriou is Professor of Classical Archaeology in the Department of History and Archaeology at the Philosophical Faculty of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Some of her recent publications concerning Thessaloniki include Tο μικρό τόξο του Γαλερίου στη Θεσσαλονίκη (The Small Arch of Galerius in Thessaloniki), "Une tête colossale de Titus au forum de Thessalonique," "Septimius Severus, Divi Marci Pii Filius. Eine Büste in Thessaloniki," and "Το ανακτορικό συγκρότημα του Γαλερίου στη Θεσσαλονίκη. Σχεδιασμός και χρονολόγηση" ("The Palace Complex of Galerius in Thessaloniki: Its Plan and Dating"). She is co-editor of the two-volume Catalogue of Sculpture in the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki.
Locating Purity: Temples, Sexual Prohibitions, and "Making a Difference" in Thessalonikē
I will examine the discourse of purity in the Thessalonian correspondence using indigenous conceptions of purity from traditional Mediterranean cult (the religions formerly known as paganism). The Thessalonian epistles are products of Diaspora Judaism that refers to the Thessalonians explicitly as converted polytheists. Traditional cults of the Roman period in Thessalonike, such as those of the Kabeiroi and of the Egyptians gods, as well as examples from elsewhere in the Roman East, will show that Mediterranean religions possessed a distinctive "grammar" of purity that is contested in the Thessalonian correspondence, which substitutes bodies and bodily practice for the more traditional notions of purity located within a civic map of sacred space. Bodily integrity in the form of sexual chastity can be construed, not so much in Mary Douglas's sense as a metaphor for group boundaries, but rather as a site of sacrality contrasted in the letters with the temple that is the site of the "person of anomia." The early Christian focus on the body and bodily practice reflects a discourse of space that inverts or negates the usual map of sacred space in the Mediterranean world. Early Christians were consciously living in spaces that they could not physically control, and thus developed ways of understanding their life in the space of the city that allowed them to "make a difference" between their community and the surrounding society. The monuments that, in dominant discourse, would invoke the social memory of certain notions of piety and ethnicity, were reinscribed by the Christians with an alternate meaning that became an identity marker for their community.
Christine Thomas is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is author, among other works, of The Acts of Peter, Gospel Literature, and the Ancient Novel: Rewriting the Past, and "Placing the Dead: Funerary Practice and Social Stratification in the Early Roman Period at Corinth and Ephesos." She is co-author with Thomas Drew-Bear of both Actes du Ier Congrès International sur Antioche de Pisidie and Phrygian Votive Steles. She co-directs an excavation at Metropolis in Turkey.
Laura C. Wood is librarian of Andover-Harvard Theological Library. Before coming to Harvard Divinity School in 2004, she served as both periodicals librarian and technical services librarian at the Pitts Theological Library of Candler School of Theology, where, through her dual responsibilities, she developed a balanced approach to library services that emphasizes both the building of great collections and the enhancement of access to materials through innovative means. She received a master's degree in information science at the University of Michigan, a master's degree in religion from Yale Divinity School, an MBA from Emory's Goizueta Business School, and a BA from Mount Holyoke College.
The Early Christian Heritage in Thessalonikē and the Hellenic Ministry of Culture
Christos Zachopoulos is secretary general of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. His publications include papers on Byzantine history and the book Ta Byzantina (A Trilogy on Byzantium).
