Early Christian inscriptions

Early Christian inscriptions are the epigraphical remains of early Christianity. They are a valuable source of information in addition to the writings of the Church Fathers regarding the development of Christian thought and life in the first six centuries of the religion's existence. The three main types are sepulchral inscriptions, epigraphic records, and inscriptions concerning private life.

The materials on which early Christian inscriptions were written were the same as those used for other inscriptions in antiquity. For sepulchral inscriptions and epigraphic records, the substance commonly employed was stone of different kinds, native or imported. The use of metal was less common. When the inscription is properly cut into the stone, it is called a titulus or marble; if merely scratched on the stone, the Italian word graffito is used; a painted inscription is called dipinto, and a mosaic inscription—such as those found largely in North Africa, Spain, and the East—are called opus musivum. It was a common practice in the Greco-Roman world to make use of slabs already inscribed, that is, to take the reverse of a slab already used for an inscription for the inscribing of a Christian one; such a slab is called an opisthograph.

The form of the Christian inscriptions does not differ from that of the non-Christian inscriptions that were contemporary with them, except when sepulchral in character, and then only in the case of the tituli of the catacombs. The forms of stone sepulchral inscriptions differ in the Greek East and Latin West. The most common form in the East was the upright "stele" (Greek: στήλη, a block or slab of stone), frequently ornamented with a fillet or a projecting curved moulding; in the West a slab for the closing of the grave was often used. Thus the majority of the graves (loculi) in the catacombs were closed with thin, rectangular slabs of terracotta or marble; the graves called arcosolia were covered with heavy, flat slabs, while on the sarcophagi a panel (tabula) or a disk (discus) was frequently reserved on the front wall for an inscription.

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