It is no small task to challenge long-established consensuses in scholarship, but this is exactly what Edward Adams tackles in this volume He examines the widely-held assumption that the earliest Christian communities gathered primarily in private homes. Adams seeks to cast doubt on the existing presupposition and provide a more carefully articulated, nuanced perspective.
Organised into two sections, part i examines the evidence in support of the house-as-meeting-places theory; part ii investigates alternatives. The most compelling arguments are found in the opening two chapters, dedicated to the evidence for houses churches in the New Testament. Here the author engages with the texts traditionally used to support what he refers to as the ‘almost exclusively houses’ consensus. In the Epistles, Adams argues, there are only four unequivocal references to congregations meeting in a person's house. Thus, ‘these four references hardly bear witness to a widespread practice of gathering in houses in the early Church’ (p. 44). In the Gospels and Acts, Adams points to the diversity of locales used by Jesus and the Apostles. Indeed, where there is ‘strong textual witness to houses as church-meeting locales … the testimony is not nearly as extensive as has often been claimed’ (p. 67). This is an emphasis repeated throughout the book: the acknowledgment that while there is evidence to support the fact that Christians were meeting in houses, there is not sufficient testimony to justify the traditional, all-encompassing consensus.
The remainder of part i examines the post-canonical literature, archaeology and other comparative evidence relevant to the established consensus. In contrast to the careful analysis of the New Testament texts, these chapters are much less rigorous. Particularly noteworthy is the superficial engagement with the literature of the apostolic Fathers. Recent works by David Rankin, Carolyn Osiek and Allen Brent have mined the apostolic Fathers with considerable more energy and would have provided a valuable contribution.
More insight is provided in chapter iv on recent archaeological findings. Great detail is provided for two of the earliest known Christian buildings, those at Dura Europas and Megiddo. Adams carefully describes the buildings’ layout, arguing that the evidence suggests that the buildings could not have been true house-churches. The analysis here is interesting and carefully presented and serves his thesis well. A similar approach is taken in examining the meeting places of the contemporary associations, cults and synagogues. Adams again sifts carefully through the evidence and concedes that these groups did meet in houses. However, much as he does with the archaeological data, he places the priority of importance on the findings that demonstrate occasional use of alternative sites. The author concludes that such evidence ‘supports a broader view of early Christian meeting places’ (p. 133).
In examining the literary, archaeological and socio-cultural factors it is clear that Adam's purpose in these chapters (as with the entirety of the first part of the book) is not to deny the presence of house gatherings in early Christianity. On the contrary, his purpose is to demonstrate the very strong likelihood of alternative gathering places. Part i thus serves to destabilise the ‘almost exclusively in houses’ consensus.
Part ii of the book explores location-types other than houses that may have served as Christian meeting places. Ten different possibilities are investigated and the pattern of examination is the same for each. First is a consideration of the evidence that early Christians met in the particular setting. The quality of the evidence varies greatly, however, from case to case. Adams's first example examines shops and workplaces and here the testimony is strong; other examples are not so convincing. The evidence for hotels and inns, for example, relies on a legendary story from the apocryphal Acts of John and on other passing references in the Pseudo-Clementine documents (pp. 157–8). The second component to Adams's methodology is to describe the various locales in their historical context, illustrating how the locations functioned in society. Finally, each setting is evaluated to determine ‘the plausibility of the space-type as a setting for Christian assembly’ (p. 137). The survey of the ten possible locations provides a fascinating glimpse into an early Christianity potentially more eclectic than is usually portrayed. These later chapters do, however, feel somewhat forced at times. The evidence given for the various sites varies considerably in quality and the reader gets the sense that Adams has utterly exhausted any possible reference that locates two or more believers in a non-traditional setting. Moreover, despite the varied evidence the evaluation of all ten locations concludes with an affirmation of the plausibility of them being a spot of Christian assembly.
One of the strengths of this work is that it demonstrates the significant implications of an uncritical acceptance of the traditional consensus. Adams states that the presupposition ‘has been foundational for scholarly work on the social formation of the early churches, the origins and early development of ecclesiastical architecture, [and] early Christian worship’ (p. 200). Following the influential works of Judge, Malherbe and others who popularised the use of the social sciences for the study of church history, the house church became ‘foundational for the study of the social formation of the early churches’ (p. 2). Wayne Meeks's The first urban Christians expanded on this, arguing that the leadership of early Christianity was largely tied to the leadership structure of the Roman family unit, a thesis also reliant on the traditional consensus. Adams points out that without the consensus, this scholarship — and much else besides — is not nearly so convincing.
Is Edward Adams successful in destabilising the view that the early Church was primarily a house-church movement? Since his purpose was to qualify, rather than overthrow the conventional wisdom, then his task should be considered to have achieved a moderate success. Moreover, the study is valuable for students of the early Church in that it provides a heretofore neglected degree of context and nuance.
