A carved stone that formed part of the collection of the Capitoline Museums in Rome, Italy, has been identified by scholars as the world’s earliest surviving Christian inscription.
The stone is officially called “NCE 156,” and the inscription concerns an ancient sect that followed the teachings of a second-century Gnostic theologian, Valentinus.
“If it is in fact a second-century inscription, as I think it probably is, it is about the earliest Christian material object that we possess,” researcher Gregory Snyder informed LiveScience.
The inscription is in Greek and alludes to Christian beliefs. Snyder believes it could be a funeral epigram, incorporating both Christian and pagan elements.
Snyder studies over 50 years of research done by multiple scholars, before translating the inscription as, “To my bath, the brothers of the bridal chamber carry the torches, [here] in our halls, they hunger for the [true] banquets, even while praising the Father and glorifying the Son. There [with the Father and the Son] is the only spring and source of truth.”
NCE 156 was found in the suburbs of Rome near the medieval tower of Tor Fiscale, suggesting that a community of Valentinus’ followers may have lived there during the second century, Snyder added.
“We know that Valentinus was a famous Gnostic teacher in the second century [who] lived in Rome for something like 20 years, and was a very sophisticated ... poetic, talented, thinker, speaker, writer,” he said.
Snyder, who found some similarities between the inscription and ancient funeral epigrams composed for non-Christians, said the Christian identity at the time was perhaps flexible.
According to Tertullian, the first author of Latin Christian literature, Valentinus was a candidate for bishop but after he was not chosen he started his own group. Some of his teachings are believed to be found in the Gospel of Philip, a collection of Gnostic beliefs.
Valentinus was eventually declared a heretic. He taught his followers that there were three kinds of people. Those of a spiritual nature had the “gnosis” or knowledge to attain salvation whereas those of a psychic nature – ordinary Christians – could attain only a lesser form of salvation. And those of a material nature – pagans and Jews – were doomed to perish, he believed.