The Introduction provides an in-depth exploration of how late antique Christian communities in the Mediterranean reconciled their Roman and Christian identities through baptismal art. It raises pivotal questions: did such art serve to confirm both Roman and Christian identities? Could this art reflect a form of Christianity less orthodox due to its Roman cultural influences? Various case studies are presented, each spotlighting a different aspect of Roman cultural affiliation in baptismal spaces – ranging from the absence of explicitly Christian imagery to the inclusion of ‘pagan’ iconographies and classical motifs. Whether in Numidia, Lusitania, or Ravenna, these communities reveal a complex relationship with their Roman heritage, often challenging ecclesiastical norms. Despite the political disintegration of the western Roman Empire, the chapter underscores the extensive interconnectedness of the Mediterranean world, pointing out the shared cultural elements in baptismal art from the East to the far West. The chapter argues that these artistic choices are not mere coincidences but are indicative of a shared Roman culture that transcends geographical and political boundaries.

‘The differences have become smaller and, especially among the young generation, they have actually completely vanished.’ In 2015, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of German unification, then German president Joachim Gauck described the situation of East and West Germans with these words. The president believed that the younger generation, those born after the fall of the wall in 1989, were completely alike, whether they were born in former West Germany or in the area which used to be the GDR. As has subsequently become apparent, the opinion of many young East Germans today differs from that of President Gauck on this point.

The chapter provides an in-depth examination of the Christian community in Cuicul (now Djémila, Algeria), with a focus on its baptismal complex dating from the late Roman Empire. The study explores the complex’s architectural layout, including a double church and baptistery, as a reflection of the community’s strong Nicene-Catholic identity. It argues that the adoption of Roman imagery, honorary titles, and even a pre-baptismal washing ritual indicates a conscious melding of Roman tradition with Christian practice. This fusion served to deepen the community’s identity, especially against the backdrop of religious dissension during the Donatist conflict. The chapter also raises questions about the limitations of allegorical interpretations of art and architecture, advocating for a nuanced approach that incorporates literal, cultural, and socio-political meanings. It concludes that Cuicul’s Christian community effectively harnessed the unifying power of Roman culture to reinforce its Nicene identity during a period of intense theological strife.

The chapter explores the varying iconographies of the personification of the River Jordan in Late Antiquity, particularly in the Orthodox and Arian baptisteries in Ravenna, focusing on how these depictions relate to biblical exegesis, and represent the standpoint of Ravenna’s Christian elite. Peter Chrysologus’s Sermon 160 is highlighted for its unique interpretation of the River Jordan, which, the chapter argues, has influenced the dome mosaic of the Orthodox baptistery by presenting the river as a converted, formerly pagan entity. In contrast to the previous case studies, the dome mosaic of the Orthodox baptistery openly condemns the Roman past as pagan but still acknowledges the pre-Christian classical heritage as relevant to Christianity. The Arian baptistery offers an alternative interpretation of the same depiction. The differences in the Orthodox and Arian representations of the River Jordan suggest that the attitude of Ravenna’s Arian clergy towards the Roman past was more positive than that of the Nicene clergy.

The chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the baptismal spaces at Henchir el Koucha (Tunisia), Myrtilis Iulia (now Mértola), and Milreu/Estói (Portugal), examining how each site incorporates pre-Christian elements into Christian contexts. At Henchir el Koucha, iconography associated with the Roman circus is ingeniously blended into a Christian framework. In the case of Myrtilis Iulia, the chapter explores a building with both palatial and baptismal features and makes suggestions about what might have motivated the representation of the mythological hero Bellerophon in baptistery. Milreu stands out for inserting a baptismal space within a pre-existing Roman monument, allowing the site’s mosaic frieze showing a marine thiasus scene to symbolize the salvific water of baptism. In each case, the incorporation of Roman elements wasn’t merely pragmatic but represented a conscious choice to articulate a multifaceted Christian identity that acknowledged and even celebrated its Roman cultural heritage. The chapter argues that these nuanced choices offer a flexible and inclusive model of Christian identity.

Sybel obviously doubted that theologians had an interest in early Christian art and that they could react objectively to the argument about the pagan roots of Christianity that he was going to make.2 Sybel’s assumption appears to be well justified from the vantage point of the early twentieth century, since the vast majority of nineteenth-century theologians, prominently represented by the Protestant church historian Adolf von Harnack, had refrained from using Christian material culture alongside textual sources in their work.3 Predominant skepticism about the epistemic value of art and archaeology in writing the history of the Church is certainly not unique to nineteenth-century Protestant Germany. As has been argued by Michael Squire and Joseph Leo Koerner among others, Luther’s rejection of the image as “epistemologically empty and void” had significant long-term consequences for humanist scholarship.4 German Protestant aesthetics like those of Kant and Hegel perpetuated the Lutheran dichotomy between a true experience of God that is necessarily spiritual, non-visual and best mediated by words on the one hand, and a visual, art-based experience deemed to offer merely didactic insights into Christian doctrine on the other.5 In his Aesthetics, for instance, Hegel postulates: “… the Divine, explicitly regarded as unity and universality, is essentially present only to thinking and, as in itself imageless, is not susceptible of being imaged and shaped by imagination.”6 Protestant skepticism towards the image influenced generations of history-writing that ignored the autonomy of the image, but privileged instead the ideas behind the image, or, preferably, did not touch upon images at all.7 This is particularly true of Protestant church history.