A fascinating session at last year’s annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) in Boston was dedicated to graffiti, especially early Christian graffiti in Izmir (ancient Smyrna), Turkey.
But what counts as graffiti? Does the word “graffito” imply something clandestine, something possibly illegal, like the defacing of a building by modern graffiti artists in major American cities?
Ancient graffiti were basically of two types: (1) advertisements for politicians or for various sorts of businesses—often for sex or for the sale of property; (2) religious comments, usually about and for minority or illegal religions or philosophies. We can also distinguish between graffiti that were meant to be timely and were therefore put up only in a semi-permanent way (e.g., painted on a wall) and graffiti that were meant to have a longer shelf life (inscribed into stucco, stone or brick).
The amount of ancient graffiti is surprising, if not shocking. For example, scholars have identified some 10,000 political advertisements in Pompeii! One wonders if the ancient Pompeiians lamented as we do the “billboards” besmirching the beauty of their landscape. If we count up all the graffiti in Pompeii, there seem to have been more writings on the walls than inhabitants within them! Considering the amount of graffiti evidence (usually not the work of the upper classes) plus the evidence on ostraca (pottery sherds with writing on them), this suggests a higher level of literacy in the Greco-Roman world than previously suspected. Usually estimates are that between 10 and 15 percent of the population could read and write. This is likely a very conservative estimate.
In my judgment there is a difference between the ability to read and the ability to write. Reading seems to have been a more widespread skill than writing in the first century. Writing was more of a specialized art, especially when it involved engraving texts into hard surfaces, which would require a skilled scribe or artisan. Propaganda graffiti surely assumed that a significant segment of the population could read the inscriptions.
One of the most enlightening lectures at the SBL session was Roger Bagnall’s “New Graffiti from Smyrna in the Context of Early Christianity.” He concentrated on what was found in a basilica basement in the vast Smyrna agora. (In the Roman world a basilica was a type of public building, often a hall of justice; only later was its architectural pattern taken over by the church and used as a design for churches.) The basilica had collapsed in 178 A.D. due to a massive earthquake but was later reconstructed. The part of the basilica Bagnall focused on comes from the late first and early second centuries. Plaster or stucco covered the walls that had graffiti on them. The assortment of graffiti was considerable, focusing on sex, love, civic pride, politics and religion, all jumbled together.
One of the most interesting of Bagnall’s examples reads ό δεδωκως πvεύμα (“the one who has given the Spirit”—namely Kyrios, the Lord Jesus). Bagnall claims that this is probably the earliest evidence of Christian graffiti ever discovered. What was the function of this graffito, inscribed in a public place? It does not seem to have been an advertisement to bring in outsiders, but rather for insiders (Christians), who knew the key clichés, phrases and code words to make sense of the graffito. To insiders it announced that there were Christians in the city with whom other Christians could socialize and worship.
The reason for the coded communication is obvious. It could be dangerous to be an early Christian in ancient Smyrna. Polycarp, a bishop in Smyrna in the first and second centuries, after surviving an attempt by the authorities to burn him at the stake, was stabbed to death.
Christianity was categorized as a superstitio in the Roman Empire before Constantine legalized it in the fourth century, and as such Christians were subject to persecution, prosecution and occasionally execution. The Christian graffiti in Izmir are significant because they confirm both the early presence of Christians in that city and their need to communicate in code.
The papers at the SBL session also help us to understand the level of literacy in the early Christian world. That world was by no means populated only by “women, slaves and minors” (i.e., the illiterate) as we might assume from the polemics of Greco-Romans who despised early Christianity. On the contrary, Christians left their mark not only through epistles and gospels, but also through graffiti.1
A fascinating session at last year’s annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) in Boston was dedicated to graffiti, especially early Christian graffiti in Izmir (ancient Smyrna), Turkey.
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