Early Christian Meals and Slavery

Abstract

In introducing her groundbreaking study of Slavery in Early Christianity, Jennifer Glancy emphasizes that while scholars of early Christianity have historically relied on constructing “a seamless picture of ancient life that disguises the jagged edges of the documentation,” it is in fact a harsher reality that best reflects the contours of lived experience.² Asserting that “any description of slavery in antiquity is the product of multiple scholarly decisions,” Glancy argues that “whether one can discern links among miscellaneous sources to tell a connected story” remains a question.³ She reminds her readers that although “the earliest Christian writings are laced with images and metaphors borrowed from the rhetorical domain of chattel slavery, [concrete] evidence concerning Christian slaves and Christian slaveholders is typically fragmentary.”⁴ In seeking to hear voices that echo in silence, to catch glimpses of bodies that remain invisible, one must read around the edges and between the lines.

This essay was first presented in a session of the Meals in the Greco-Roman World Seminar at the 2008 SBL Annual Meeting in Boston. My thanks to members of the seminar for their useful questions and comments. A number of the meals treated in relatively cursory fashion here are explored in far greater detail in publications of the respective members of this group. I am grateful to the Wabash Center and Riksbanken Jubileumsfond for financial support during periods when portions of this paper were being revised for publication.