The Cross before Constantine (Paperback)

Professor of Early Christianity and W W Melton Chair of Religion Bruce W Longenecker
Fortress Press
 9781451490305
1-4514-9030-5

This book brings together, for the first time, the relevant material evidence demonstrating Christian use of the cross prior to Constantine. Bruce W. Longenecker upends a longstanding consensus that the.

read more…

cross was not a Christian symbol until Constantine appropriated it to consolidate his power in the fourth century.Longenecker presents a wide variety of artifacts from across the Mediterranean basin that testify to the use of the cross as a visual symbol by some pre-Constantinian Christians. Those artifacts interlock with literary witnesses from the same period to provide a consistent and robust portrait of the cross as a pre-Constantinian symbol of Christian devotion.The material record of the pre-Constantinian period illustrates that Constantine did not invent the cross as a symbol of Christian faith; for an impressive number of Christians before Constantines reign, the cross served as a visual symbol of commitment to a living deity in a dangerous world.