Published by the Essex Society for Archaeology and History
Martin Parsons 'How Early did Christianity reach eastern England? a review of the evidence' The Essex Journal 58:2 (Autumn 2023) 29-34.
This article raises the possibility that Christianity could have first arrived in England in the Colchester area - and done so in the first century. It also re-examines the suggestion first made in the 1950s that Colchester had one of the first bishops in England - long before Canterbury!
It challenges the widespread assumption based on the absence of clear archaeological evidence that Christianity arrived later in England. This is in fact, precisely what should be expected in a context where Christianity was not a legal religion and was intermittently persecuted in the Roman Empire.
As such, the absence of explicitly Christian early archaeological data does not negate either the external data (Tertullian and Origen) or the earliest documentary sources (Gildas, Bede).
Martin Parsons 'How Early did Christianity reach eastern England? a review of the evidence' The Essex Journal 58:2 (Autumn 2023) 29-34.
This article raises the possibility that Christianity could have first arrived in England in the Colchester area - and done so in the first century. It also re-examines the suggestion first made in the 1950s that Colchester had one of the first bishops in England - long before Canterbury!
It challenges the widespread assumption based on the absence of clear archaeological evidence that Christianity arrived later in England. This is in fact, precisely what should be expected in a context where Christianity was not a legal religion and was intermittently persecuted in the Roman Empire.
As such, the absence of explicitly Christian early archaeological data does not negate either the external data (Tertullian and Origen) or the earliest documentary sources (Gildas, Bede).
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