Leonard Aldea - Alternative manners of Christian cultural behaviour prior to 313 and their impact on our knowledge of Early Christian Art

This paper is a critical response to the theory of Christian cultural adaptation during the first three centuries AC. Paul Corby Finney has derived a whole perspective of understanding and interpreting early Christian art from St Clement’s instructions regarding ring seals in his second century ‘Pedagogue’. The central question of my paper is whether the theory developed from this short paragraph is a valid key of interpretation for the whole Christian artistic output before St Constantine. The main limitation of this approach is that it uses specific and rather extreme examples of conduct under exceptional circumstances in order to draw a generally valid principle of early Christian cultural behaviour. St Clement’s ring seals, like most other early Christian artifacts (lamps, catacomb paintings, the Dura church, symbols etc) are strictly connected with the visible side of Christianity. While they correctly document the Christian artistic behaviour at the dangerous interface between a persecuted religion and the persecuting society, they may prove irrelevant for the intimate and more secure places of worship that did not pose the same threat to expose and condemn the frail Christian communities. I shall end by suggesting that early Christians accepted alternative manners of conduct depending on the context in which they acted and their relationship with that context. To do so, I shall use selected New Testament texts, especially St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, and the interpretation these texts received in Patristic writings of the first three centuries. This short paper is intended only as a concise presentation of these ideas and suggestions.