This does not mean, of course, that there is no material
evidence at all for Christianity before Constantine, but we must
be circumspect about what it can tell us. I noted above that in
order to understand the context within which Christianity devel-
oped, practically any contemporary non-Christian texts could
be exploited. The same is true of the material record, whether
archaeological, epigraphic, or papyrological. Nevertheless, there
is a risk that such materials will be used to provide nothing more
than pretty pictures for publications on the world of the early
Christians.^8 There are, of course, archaeological artefacts that
have a more direct relevance to the study of Christian origins: the
heel bones (complete with iron nail) of a crucifixion victim called
Yehohanan found in an ossuary (burial chest) from Jerusalem and
an inscription recording Pontius Pilate unearthed at Caesarea are
celebrated examples (Charlesworth 1988). For the first two cen-
turies, however, archaeology provides no direct testimony to early
Christianity. Its utility is limited to telling us about the broader
context within which Christianity developed, providing insights,
for example, into the Galilean world of Jesus (Reed 2000).
What material evidence do we have for Christianity in the
period before Constantine? In terms of architectural structures,
there is, as has been noted, only one church, that at Dura Europos.
In spite of that, we can perhaps surmise something of the build-
ings in which Christians met before the construction of church
buildings. The Pauline epistles refer constantly to assemblies of
Christians in houses, while an apocryphal account of the career
of Paul describes him hiring a property outside Rome for the
purpose of holding Christian gatherings (Acts of Paul11.1, in
Schneemelcher 1992: II, 260–1). Many of the earliest surviving
Christian churches were built over, or into, earlier structures, as
was the case at Dura Europos. It is possible that they represent
renovations of existing structures that had been used previously
for gatherings of Christians for communal worship.
Among the early churches in Rome, for example, are a
number called tituli, from the Latin term titulusfor a plaque indi-
cating ownership of a property. It has been speculated that theseSOURCES AND THEIR INTERPRETATION
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