Cilliers Breytenbach – “Morality Beyond Kinship: The Rise of Early Christianity”
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
5:00-7:00 pm
Dahlgren Chapel of the Sacred Heart
Reception to Follow in Dahlgren Quad
In Greco-Roman cities, allegiance and behavior were shaped by citizenship, tribal and family ties, gender, social status, patronage, and custom. For apostle Paul, the founder of many Christian assemblies, these boundaries lost their value (Phil. 3:7–8). In this lecture, Cilliers Breytenbach will explain how in the centuries that followed, the transformation of allegiances within Christian communities increasingly extended familial moral obligations beyond kinship lines and contributed to the spread of Christianity.