Assembling Early Christianity

Trade, Networks, and the Letters of Dionysios of Corinth

Cavan W. Concannon

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781107194298
• eBook ISBN: 9781108302852
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Storia del cristianesimo

In this book, Cavan W. Concannon explores the growth and development of Christianity in the second century. He focuses on Dionysios of Corinth, an early Christian bishop who worked to build a network of churches along trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean. Using archaeological evidence, and analysing Dionysios' fragmentary letter collection, Concannon shows how various networks and collectives assembled together, and how various Christianities emerged and coexisted as a result of tenuous and shifting networks. Dionysios' story also overlaps with key early Christian debates, notably issues of celibacy, marriage, re-admission of sinners, Roman persecution, and the economic and political interdependence of churches, which are also explored in this study. Concannon's volume thus offers new insights into a fluid, emergent Christianity at a pivotal moment of its evolution.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Connecting Dionysios: Connectivity and Early Christian Difference
• 2 Placing Dionysios: Corinth in the Second Century
• 3 Defining Dionysios: Ecclesial Politics and Second-Century Christianity
• 4 Debating Dionysios: Sexual Politics and Second-Century Christianity
• 5 Conjuring Crisis: Plague, Famine, and Grief in Corinth
• 6 Responding to Rome: Patronage, Kinship Diplomacy, and Dionysios’ Letter to the Romans
• Conclusion: After Dionysios: Collecting, Linking, and Forgetting Early Christian Networks
• Appendix A The Fragments of Dionysios
• Bibliography
• Index