Methods, sources, and demographic judgements

The demographic study of earliest Christianity began with Adolf von Harnack’s Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums. Relying on the critical analysis of literary sources, Harnack saw demographically significant Christian communities wherever there was a martyrdom narrative or clear evidence for an episcopal see. This assessment was influenced by Tertullian and Origen, who both argued that Christianity was expanding rapidly in all parts of the empire, even in remote corners like Britain. Nearly a century of research since then has clarified the issue, but these studies are still in their infancy. The first step is to look particularly at what evidence has become available since Harnack’s pioneering work.

Three specific genres of evidence lend themselves to demographic analysis: inscriptions, papyri and archaeological artefacts. As material evidence, they permit the localisation of early Christian communities at particular sites and historical moments, as long as dates can be assigned with relative precision. Inscriptions are the most useful genre, because of their wide distribution in town and countryside, and because, as demotic documents, they give expression to the social norms and theological concepts of ordinary people. The greatest part of the epigraphy by far consists of funerary inscriptions.