ABSTRACT
In the last chapter, I suggested that Christian emphasis onmaterial resurrection and a final court might appeal to the non-elite persons in the early empire experiencing a new exposure to harsh and demeaning judicial treatment. A definitive chronology for the implementation of the differential penalty system would strengthen this argument.1 The attribution of laws, however, is too historically unreliable to be relied upon for secure dating. In this chapter Iwill offer that the prominence of trials andpunishment in the cultural productions of the early imperial period suggests that changes to the justice system were already having an effect and making judicial matters a culture wide focus. And I will suggest that both the Greek elite and Christians utilized this topic to articulate their distinct social identities and that a culture wide concern with judicial penalties facilitated Christianity’s entrance into the historical record.
