2026.08.06 | Judith M. Lieu and Matthijs den Dulk. Early Christian Epistolarity. Critical Approaches to Christianity 5. Leiden: Brill, 2026. Pp. x + 380. ISBN: 9789004746145.

Review by Jonathon Lookadoo, Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Judith Lieu, Lady Margaret’s Professor Emerita at the University of Cambridge, delivered the Radboud Prestige Lectures at the University of Nijmegen in 2022. The volume under review contains the revised version of those lectures and follows the format of prior publications in the series by making available not only the lectures but also a collection of essays interacting with her work. This volume unfolds with an introduction by Matthijs den Dulk (chapter 1), in which he provides context for the volume. This is followed by Lieu’s three revised lectures (chapters 2–4), nine essays interacting with her work (chapters 5–13), and an epilogue in which Lieu responds to her interlocutors (chapter 14). Indexes of ancient sources and subjects round out the volume. Since Lieu’s lectures form the heart of the book, this review will highlight her work and interact with other contributions more sparingly.

Building on her 2016 article, “Letters and the Topography of Early Christianity” (NTS 62 [2016]: 167–182), Lieu distinguishes between two questions that can be asked of early Christian letters, namely, what they say and what they do. Rather than exegeting the contents of early Christian letters (what do letters say?), Lieu explores how the characteristics of early Christian letters influenced the nature of communication (what do letters do?). Borrowing the term “epistolarity” from Janet Altman’s study of modern epistolary fiction, she defines epistolarity as “the use of the letter’s formal properties to create meaning (Lieu and den Dulk, p. 11; Altman, Epistolarity: Approaches to a Form [Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1982], 4). The meaning, in this case, is created by the interpreter rather than the author or any reconstructed audience. For Altman, letters are shaped by polarities like presence/absence, orality/writing, private/public, and dissimulation/transparency. Lieu further notes that early Christian letters fit within broader Greco-Roman epistolary practices in their material and practical constraints, multiple purposes, and reliance upon as well as cultivation of social relationships. The framework of epistolarity along with an acute awareness of the polarities and constraints of early Christian letters provide the critical framework with which Lieu’s study proceeds.

Following this critical introduction, the remainder of chapter 2 examines how letters create meaning in the works of Eusebius and Paul. Letters are cited often and sometimes quoted at length in Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History. They may perform an analogous role to the one played by speeches in other ancient histories. Lieu pays particular attention to Eusebius’s use of letters in Books 4 and 5. He deploys letters to illustrate how early Christians formed consensus, which coincides with his broader interest in the Ecclesiastical History, albeit in ways that risk anachronism. Turning to Paul, Lieu acknowledges his influence on future early Christian letter-writers but notes that there is no unmediated Paul to which one can return. Paul’s voice is heard from within a letter collection that was compiled by others. Lieu argues that an authorial voice is malleable in a letter and observes places in which Paul himself exploits this reality (p. 25–26). The malleability of the authorial voice is likewise evident in pseudepigraphic letters, whether outside the Hauptbriefe or outside the New Testament canon entirely. As Paul could be encountered independent of time and space through letters, so pseudepigraphers used Paul’s voice to extend this encounter through additional letters.

Chapters 3 and 4 take up additional aspects of what early Christian letters did. Lieu examines the possibilities evident in letters concerning time and space. Letters presuppose authorial absence but speak as if the author is present. Further, early Christian letters traveled across space but simultaneously connected disparate locations. Lieu observes that letters also shape one’s sense of time insofar as they are written as direct address or one side of a dialogue but must be sent to an audience elsewhere so that the reader encounters a document written in the past. With these spatio-temporal polarities in view, Lieu examines how early Christian letters engaged with experiences of exile and diaspora (James; 1 Peter), prison (Philippians; Colossians; 2 Timothy; Ignatian epistles;), and martyrdom (Martyrdom of Polycarp), reimagining space and time as they do so. Alongside space and time, Lieu uses Social Network Analysis and Actor Network Theory to examine how early Christians created networks through letters. Letters presuppose and generate networks, both real and imagined. Lieu again takes up the letters of Paul, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Martyrdom of Polycarp as well as Polycarp’s letter to believers in Philippi and those written by Dionysius of Corinth. Readers glimpse these networks at a moment in time and in ways that may reflect reality but may also be aspirational. While letters were sent along preexisting networks, they were simultaneously attempting to form or strengthen relationship between authors and audiences.

Taken as a whole, Lieu’s lectures represent a marked expansion of her 2016 article, which highlighted different spatial constructions within early Christian letters. Her focus on what letters do provides a fresh way of examining these documents. Although this question cannot be answered without also knowing what letters say, examining what letters do encourages readers to consider how letters communicate as letters. Given the preponderance not only of early Christian texts but specifically of letters, Lieu’s question is important, and her use of Altman’s concept of “epistolarity” broadens scholarship on Christian origins. Considering what letters do is particularly beneficial in her study of the construction of early Christian networks, which appear more fragile in the light of her work. The transitory and complicated nature of early Christian networks runs counter to the Eusebian picture, of course, but also to the rhetoric that is used in a number of early Christian letters. Where exactly Florinus, for example, should be placed within the networks of Polycarp and Irenaeus is difficult to adduce and may suggest change over time (p. 82–83; see also Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.20). The shift in the question that Lieu asks, from what letters say to what they do, thus allows both her and her readers to return to early Christian letters with a different perspective.

Nine chapters follow Lieu’s revised lectures, engaging with and extending her work to figures like Paul, Ignatius, Cyprian, and Dionysius of Alexandria as well as letters embedded in narrative, networks implicit in letters, and letters about martyrs. Angela Standhartinger examines the Pastoral Epistles as a collection of Pauline letters and revises Lieu’s claim that Paul influenced later Christian epistolography to account for the importance of second-century letter collectors. Eve-Marie Becker argues that Pauline language about self-cognition and self-knowledge can be understood on analogy with the Delphic maxim, “Know yourself” (γνῶθι σεαυτόν). Becker’s work yields insight into Pauline epistemology as mediated through his letters. Jan Willem van Henten explores Ignatius’s conception of time. Noting that Ignatius’s language can quickly shift across multiple time frames, van Henten argues that Ignatius conceptualizes time as a single αἰών without further periodization and with a kind of timelessness surrounding the αἰών. Cavan Concannon revises his prior study of networks in Ignatius’s letters by interpreting the creation of these networks as a tool of Christian memory-making. Harry O. Maier takes up the letters of Cyprian of Carthage to show how he shapes allegiance and dissent. Highlighting Cyprian’s epistolary strategies and making use of network theory, Maier argues that Cyprian sometimes competes against opponents to win allies to his cause. Adam Schor likewise takes up Cyprian and compares the network evident in his letters with the one apparent in Dionysius of Alexandria, suggesting that networks were becoming increasingly well-formed by the middle of the third century. Bronwen Neil examines letters embedded in historiographical narratives and demonstrates that the practice found in writers like Eusebius and Rufinus of Aquileia both continues and innovates the practice of embedding letters in writers like Livy, Tacitus, and Josephus. J. Gregory Given examines “epistolary networks,” using the term not to refer to networks of people mentioned in letters but rather to alternative collections of letters. He thus helpfully introduces another polarity for studies of epistolarity to consider, namely, that between open and closed collections. James Corke-Webster reflects on a modern example of letter-writing from a project developed with refugees and places it in dialogue with ancient letters about persecution and displacement. He suggests that letters like the Martyrdom of Polycarp or the Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne provide a means by which to construct emotional communities through the narration of stories.

The polyphonic construction of this published series of lectures makes it possible for readers to listen to early conversations. In an epilogue, Lieu responds to each chapter individually, concluding that “actual and potential conversations are the prime outcome of this volume” (p. 365). Her extension of epistolarity to early Christian letters is an important addition to the study of these documents. The chapters included alongside hers attest not only to the importance of Lieu’s lectures as a standalone contribution but to the potential for new applications and adaptations in the study of ancient letters. It remains, then, for readers of the book to join in the conversations Lieu has initiated.

Jonathon Lookadoo
Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary
jonathon.lookaodo [at] puts.ac.kr