Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church

by Michael Philip Penn

In the first five centuries of the common era, the kiss was a distinctive and near-ubiquitous marker of Christianity. Although Christians did not invent the kiss--Jewish and pagan literature is filled with references to kisses between lovers, family members, and individuals in relationships of power and subordination--Christians kissed one another in highly specific settings and in ways that set them off from the non-Christian population.

Christians...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 081223880X
• ISBN13: 9780812238808
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 8.7"