Ebook: Assembling Early Christianity: Trade, Networks, and the Letters of Dionysios of Corinth

In this book, Cavan Concannon explores the growth and development
of Christianity in the second century. He focuses on Dionysios of
Corinth, an early Christian bishop who worked to build a network of
churches along trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean. Using
archaeological evidence and analyzing Dionysios’ fragmentary letter
collection, Concannon shows how various networks and collectives
assembled together and how various Christianities emerged and
coexisted as a result of tenuous and shifting networks. Dionysios’
story also overlaps with key early Christian debates, notably issues of
celibacy, marriage, readmission of sinners, Roman persecution, and the
economic and political interdependence of churches, which are also
explored in this study. Concannon’s volume thus offers new insights
into a fluid, emergent Christianity at a pivotal moment of its evolution.