Biblia epigraphica. La Sacra Scrittura nella documentazione epigrafica dell’Orbis Christianus Antiquus (III-VIII secolo)

The book collects Greek and Latin inscriptions of the Orbis christianus antiquus (III-VIII cent. CE) bearing direct quotations of Biblical texts (more than 800 documents), with the aim to define diffusion, reception and use of Scriptural writings. The catalogue presents the inscriptions according to a geographical order, following the Diocletian’s dioecesis and provinciae, the last coherent administrative system about the entire Orbis christianus antiquus. In every topographical context, the sequence of the inscriptions is based on their use and functions: texts related to public spaces, epitaphs and all texts in some way connected with funerary sphere, texts upon instrumentum, lastly the graffiti. According to this criterion, this book is different from the others on the same subject (by J. Gensichen, L. Jalabert, L. Leclercq) where the oredring criterion was the canonical sequence of Biblical books (first quotations from Genesis, then from Exodus, and so on). Having as examples the famous syllogae by E. Diehl (Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres) and C. Wessel (Inscriptiones Graecae Christianae Veteres Occidentis), every inscription is described by progressive number, context data (ancient and modern toponyms), material and technical aspects, letters, references to the biblical passages, datation. The synthesis following to the catalogue is intended as a contribution - from a new point of view offered by the epigraphy - to the study of the diffusion of a “Biblical culture” in the Orbis christianus antiquus: even though in this direction the first object of analysis is, obviously, the text (that offers many inputs for a philological enquiry), the same (maybe, more) weight has the consideration of the different use of the epigraphic documents, of the different material and execution technic, of the different contexts. These are the elemnts that reveal the will of the purchasers and the effects on the users: without them, the “game” of the quotation can’t work.