rise to similar suspicions. Snippets of information about Christian
rituals, such as the symbolic consumption of the body and blood
of Christ in the Eucharist, could prompt outlandish rumours that
the Christians indulged in cannibalism at their clandestine meet-
ings (Minucius Felix, Octavius9.5). We will touch on this topic
again in this chapter’s case study.
Another aspect of Christian behaviour that marked the new
religion as different derived from its emphasis on moral strict-
ness and renunciation of the world and the temptations it offered
to the body (Brown 1988). This is not to say that Romans were
moral degenerates, as they are often portrayed in Christian confes-
sional discourse (in Tertullian, for instance). That Livy’s senators
should have been so appalled by the dissipation of the worship-
pers of Bacchus is but one reflection of a Roman tradition of stern
morality. For the Christians, however, the moral battle between
good and evil was equated with a struggle within them between
the spirit and the flesh. By focusing on the needs of the spirit,
Christians hoped to triumph over the weaknesses of the flesh for
gluttony and sexual immorality. This renunciation of the tempta-
tions offered to the flesh could lead to physical withdrawal from
the world. By the end of the third century, the deserts of Egypt
and the Middle East were coming to be occupied by individuals
who sought to subject their physical bodies to the most rigorous
deprivations of all the fleshly temptations that the world had
to offer. The behaviour of such individuals was described as
aske ̄sis, the Greek term for the tough training regimen to which
athletes adhered. Such ‘athletes for God’ were the first Christian
ascetics, from whose endeavours the monastic movement devel-
oped (Harmless 2004). Of course, this was not a purely Christian
phenomenon: Jewish groups, such as the Essenes, had also with-
drawn to the desert to pursue their love of God free from the
temptations of the flesh. Even so, the Christian enthusiasm for
asceticism could be viewed as another manifestation of their
broader rejection of the normal structures of society. This was
certainly the case especially in the fourth and fifth centuries, when
ascetic tendencies – particularly when they were espoused byEARLY CHRISTIANITY AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE
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