From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries
"Lampe shows that there are both archaeological and literary grounds for saying that the early Roman Christian community was at first indistinguishable from the Jewish one, from which it emerged as perhaps a less affluent underclass of God-fearer. Lampe's book will impress all who read it as a well-informed attempt to synthesize a vast amount of data in a serious, informed, and scholarly way." -----Alan F. Segal, Journal of Biblical Literature"This impressive work puts our study of early Roman Christianity on a new and more certain empirical basis and must now serve as the point of departure for all subsequent research. . . . Lampe has expanded our database and has provided the most extensive social profile of Roman Christianity currently available." -----John H. Elliott, Catholic Biblical Quarterly"This study is so masterful in its grasp of a vast array of evidence, so solid and innovative in its methodology, and so audacious in conception that it is bound to become a classic. It is the most important historical and sociological study ever written on roman Christianity." -----Robert Jewett, Interpretation