50 Fun Facts About Early Christianity

Which symbol of early Christians has a Greek name, ichthys, that forms an acrostic for Jesus Christ?

A fish, ichthys in Greek, spells out the initials of the phrase Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour. The sign appears in early Christian burial sites in Rome.

Which bishop of Myra, in what is now Turkey, gave rise to the folklore of Santa Claus?

Nicholas is said to have dropped gold through a poor man's window on three nights so that his daughters could afford dowries. The Dutch form of his name, Sinterklaas, did the rest.

The Syrian ascetic Simeon Stylites spent more than thirty years living on top of what near Aleppo?

A pillar was his home for 36 years, a refuge from the crowds who came for his prayers and advice. Visitors climbed a ladder to get within speaking distance.

By early tradition, how was the apostle Peter crucified in Rome, at his own request?

Upside down is how the apocryphal Acts of Peter first tells it. Jerome later wrote that Peter felt unworthy to die the same way as Jesus, and the inverted Cross of Saint Peter recalls the story.

The Alexamenos graffito, scratched in Rome to mock a Christian, shows a crucified figure with which animal's head?

A donkey head tops the crucified figure, beside a Greek caption saying that Alexamenos worships his god. Scratched around the year 200, it is often said to be the earliest depiction of Jesus.

Which day of the week did Constantine declare an official Roman day of rest in March 321?

Sunday suited two audiences at once: Christians kept it as the day of the resurrection, while pagans held it sacred to the sun god Sol Invictus. Farm work was still allowed.

Which emperor did the historian Tacitus say blamed Christians for the Great Fire of Rome in 64?

Nero made Christians his scapegoats and began the empire's first persecution of them. Tacitus wrote that some were torn apart by dogs and others burned to light the night.

In which tunnel networks outside Rome's walls did early Christians bury their dead, including several popes?

Catacombs held Christian, Jewish and pagan burials alike, because Roman law banned burials inside the city. Historians reject the old story that Christians hid in them from persecution.

On the road to which city did Saul of Tarsus see the blinding light that made him the apostle Paul?

Damascus was where Saul was heading to arrest followers of Jesus when, Acts says, a light from heaven flashed around him. He was left blind for three days.

Garbled rumours about the Eucharist led pagan Romans to suspect early Christians of which crime?

Cannibalism was the rumour, a garbled version of talk about eating the body and blood of Christ. Calling one another brother and sister brought whispers of incest too.

According to Acts, in which great city of Roman Syria were the followers of Jesus first called Christians?

Antioch gave the movement its name, Acts 11 records, and grew into a chief centre of the early faith. Its site lies beside Antakya in modern Turkey.

Which festival, often called the birthday of the Church, marks the Holy Spirit descending on the apostles?

Pentecost found the apostles in Jerusalem for the Jewish Feast of Weeks. Acts describes a rushing wind and tongues of fire, after which they began to speak in other languages.

Which deacon, stoned to death in Jerusalem as Saul of Tarsus looked on, is honoured as the first Christian martyr?

Stephen was accused of blasphemy and stoned after a speech denouncing his judges. The men throwing stones laid their coats at the feet of Saul, the future apostle Paul.

In the deserts of which country did Anthony the Great, called the Father of All Monks, live as a hermit?

Egypt was home to Anthony and the Desert Fathers who followed his example. A biography written by a bishop of Alexandria carried the idea of monastic life into western Europe.

To which country does early tradition send the apostle Thomas, where a community still bears his name?

India is where tradition places his landing, at or near the ancient port of Muziris. The Saint Thomas Christians of Kerala trace their church back to him.

According to Acts, which trade did the apostle Paul share with Priscilla and Aquila, his hosts in Corinth?

Tentmaking let Paul earn his keep while he preached, and it first brought him together with Priscilla and Aquila. The couple later became his fellow missionaries.

In which city did the apostle Paul preach before the court of the Areopagus, having found it full of idols?

Athens is where Paul was taken to the Areopagus, the city's high court, to explain his teaching. He had been waiting there for his companions Silas and Timothy.

On which Mediterranean island does Acts say Paul was shipwrecked while sailing to Rome to appeal to Caesar?

Malta, called Melita in Acts, is where the islanders lit a fire for the survivors in the cold and rain. The island still marks the shipwreck every 10 February.

Which bishop of Hippo in North Africa wrote Confessions, sometimes called the first Western autobiography?

Augustine recalls in Confessions how stealing pears as a boy first showed him the nature of sin. He later wrote The City of God as the Western Roman Empire was falling.

In which city, now İznik in Turkey, did Constantine convene the first ecumenical council of bishops in 325?

Nicaea drew at least 200 bishops, nearly all of them from the eastern half of the empire. Besides debating the nature of Christ, the council set one rule for the date of Easter.

Before which battle near Rome in 312 is Constantine said to have seen a vision promising him victory?

Milvian Bridge carried a main road over the Tiber, where Constantine's rival Maxentius drowned in the rout. A Christian biographer wrote that a heavenly sign had foretold the win.

Which scholar, commissioned by Pope Damasus I, completed in Bethlehem the Latin Bible later known as the Vulgate?

Jerome finished the work in a monastery beside the Church of the Nativity. Earlier Latin Old Testaments had been made from a Greek version, but his went back to the Hebrew.

Around the year 50, the Council of Jerusalem ruled that Gentile converts need not undergo which Jewish rite?

Circumcision was not required of Gentiles, the council decided, nor was most of the law of Moses. They were told only to avoid idol offerings, blood, strangled meat and sexual immorality.

On which Aegean island does the Book of Revelation say its author, John, received his visions?

Patmos still draws pilgrims to the Cave of the Apocalypse, where John is said to have received the visions. Several monasteries on the island are dedicated to him.

Which kingdom, under King Tiridates III, is traditionally held to be the first state to adopt Christianity, in 301?

Armenia took the step, the traditional story goes, after Gregory the Illuminator was freed from years in a dungeon pit and cured King Tiridates of an illness.

Which empress, whose son Constantine ruled Rome, is said by tradition to have found the True Cross in Jerusalem?

Helena toured the Holy Land in the 320s and is also credited with building or adorning the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. A town in Palestine was later named after her.

Which 313 agreement between Constantine and Licinius gave Christianity legal status and a reprieve from persecution?

The Edict of Milan is named after the city where the two emperors met. It made the faith legal but not official, a step that came only in 380.

Constantine built his new capital, dedicated in 330, on the site of which older Greek city on the Bosporus?

Byzantium began as a Greek colony in the seventh century BC. Constantine first styled his refounded city New Rome, though it came to be known by his own name.

Which emperor opened the Great Persecution of 303, the last and most severe Roman campaign against Christians?

Diocletian and his co-rulers stripped Christians of their legal rights and demanded that they follow traditional religious practices. Enforcement was weakest in Gaul and Britain.

The preacher John Chrysostom, an archbishop of Constantinople, is known by a Greek nickname meaning what?

Golden-mouthed was the tribute paid to his preaching, which first drew crowds in Syria. He died in 407 on the road to a remote place of exile.

Which sin, the trading of church offices, is named after a sorcerer in Acts who offered the apostles money?

Simony recalls Simon Magus, who offered two of the apostles payment for the power to bestow the Holy Spirit by laying on his hands.

Which early Christian monogram did Constantine put on his army's military standard?

Chi-Rho lays the letter rho over the letter chi, the opening of Christos in Greek. The military standard that carried it was known as the labarum.

Early Christians were quick to copy their scriptures in which book format, which later replaced the scroll?

The codex, a book of bound pages, drew level with the scroll around the year 300 and had replaced it by the sixth century. Its spread is often linked to the rise of the new faith.

Which pope met Attila the Hun in 452 and is credited with persuading him to turn back from Italy?

Leo I was one of three envoys sent to negotiate with Attila, who had been sacking cities on his way towards Rome. How far the pope's own authority swayed him is still debated.

Which emperor's decree of 380 made Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire?

Theodosius I addressed the decree to the people of Constantinople, and it was the first Roman law to define what counted as orthodox belief. It opened the way to penalties for heretics.

Which nephew of Constantine, the last non-Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, tried to revive the old pagan cults?

Julian is remembered in Christian tradition as the Apostate for publicly converting to paganism. He was one of the few in the imperial family to survive the purges under his cousin Constantius II.

Which Alexandrian priest taught that the Son was created by the Father, a view that split the fourth-century church?

Arius argued that if the Father begot the Son, there must have been a time when the Son did not exist. His own bishop had him condemned by a local synod, and Arius sought refuge in Palestine.

Which Roman governor of Bithynia wrote to Emperor Trajan around 110 asking how to deal with Christians?

Pliny the Younger reported that Christians met before light on a fixed day to sing hymns to Christ as to a god. Trajan's reply shows they were not being sought out by imperial order.

Which collection of Gnostic texts, including the only complete Gospel of Thomas, was found in a sealed jar in 1945?

The Nag Hammadi library came to light when a local farmer dug up a set of leather-bound papyrus books that had been buried in the desert in Upper Egypt.

Which bishop of Smyrna, said to have been taught by the apostle John, was burned at the stake around 155?

Polycarp was stabbed, the story of his death says, when the fire failed to consume his body. That text is among the earliest accounts of a Christian martyrdom outside the New Testament.

The Greek title Theotokos, upheld for Mary by a church council in 431, is usually translated into English as what?

Mother of God is the common English rendering. The council held that Mary deserved the title because her son was both God and man, against Nestorius, who preferred Christ-bearer.

Which writer, called the father of Latin Christianity, is the first known to use the Latin word for Trinity?

Tertullian's word was trinitas, and he was the first Christian author to leave an extensive body of writing in Latin. He has also been called the founder of Western theology.

Which bishop of Alexandria, exiled five times, wrote the Easter letter of 367 listing the 27 New Testament books?

Athanasius was also the first to call those books canonized. His five exiles, ordered by four different emperors, added up to more than 17 years away from his see.

Which third-century scholar compiled the Hexapla, an edition of the Hebrew Bible set out in six versions?

Origen set the Hebrew text beside a Greek transliteration and four Greek translations, in six parallel columns. His Hexapla survives only in fragments.

Which bishop of Lyon, author of Against Heresies around 180, is the earliest known writer to insist on four Gospels?

Irenaeus argued that four Gospels suited a world with four zones and four principal winds. He wrote chiefly to refute Gnostic teachers who claimed a secret wisdom.

Which teacher, expelled by the church of Rome around 144, published the earliest known New Testament canon?

Marcion accepted only ten letters of Paul and an edited Gospel of Luke. When Rome threw him out, it handed back the 200,000 sesterces he had donated.

Which early church manual, known in full as The Lord's Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, was rediscovered in 1873?

The Didache had been lost for centuries until a Greek copy made in 1056 turned up in a monastery in Constantinople. Parts of it form the oldest surviving written catechism.

In which ruined frontier town in Syria did archaeologists unearth the earliest identified Christian house church?

Dura-Europos kept the converted house intact because Roman defenders buried it in an earth embankment to brace the city wall against a Persian attack. Its wall paintings are now at Yale University Art Gallery.

The fourth-century bishop Ulfilas devised an alphabet to translate the Bible for which Germanic people?

The Goths got their own script from him, based largely on Greek letters with some Latin and runic ones. He is also credited with converting them to the faith.

Which monk of reputed British origin, whose name became a heresy about sin and free will, was excommunicated in 418?

Pelagius was condemned when African bishops and the emperor Honorius pressed Pope Zosimus to act. Three years earlier a synod in Palestine had judged him sound.