Novels about early Christians but not about Jesus?

October 19, 2009 6:10 PM

Non-religious novels about early Christians that aren't about Jesus.

Are there any good novels about early Christians that don't revolve around Jesus himself? I'm thinking of something like Last Temptation of Christ, but about someone like Paul or an early gnostic church, or even ones that aren't about early Christianity per se, but have Christian characters. In fact, I might be even more interested to read something set in a melting pot city like Alexandria where pagans and jews and christians were interacting daily and Christianity hadn't been fully formed yet.

I'm interested in anything from Augustine up through the beginnings of the Byzantine Empire.

I'm not very interested in anything that's written from a religious point of view, so that might eliminate a lot of books for me personally, but they'd probably be worth mentioning, anyway, if you can think of any.

posted by empath to religion & philosophy (24 comments total)

(err, I meant to say Augustus, not Augustine)

And actually, I might be interested in any that don't take place in the roman empire as well -- like about Thomas-ite Christians in India, for example
posted by empath at 6:11 PM on October 19

How about Ben Hur?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:17 PM on October 19

Pillars of the Earth was very good - Medieval times though.
posted by mazienh at 6:19 PM on October 19

I'm not sure if this fits with what you're looking for - I, Claudius is about the roman empire - early Christianity is mentioned a bit tangentially, but it's an excellent read.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 6:24 PM on October 19 [2 favorites has favorites]

Maybe The Red Tent? Many of the characters are figures from the Bible, but I'm not religious so I don't know if it would be the kind of thing you are looking for.
posted by Shesthefastest at 6:29 PM on October 19

I'm kinda looking for stuff that's more 'historical fiction' about Christians and less 'Christian fiction' about history, if that makes sense.
posted by empath at 6:33 PM on October 19

So, it's sort of tangentially about early Christians, but I like it, the characters are interesting, and it fits the time period and place you're looking for: The Beacon at Alexandria by Gillian Bradshaw. If you like her as an author, several of her other books have minor religious themes, and almost all are set in the Roman empire at various interesting, historically ignored time periods.
posted by MadamM at 6:51 PM on October 19

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz.
posted by Allee Katze at 6:58 PM on October 19

And, The Roman and The Secret of the Kingdom by Mika Waltari ... he also wrote The Egyptian which while not in the theme you're looking for was a really good read.
posted by Allee Katze at 7:02 PM on October 19

One of my favorite books is "The Secret Magdalene", which focuses on Mary Magdalene and though Jesus is around, it's in a totally different way than the traditional Christian story... and the book is full of gnostic philosophy and links between the Christian mythology and other mythologies.
posted by olinerd at 7:16 PM on October 19 [2 favorites has favorites]

i was kinda hoping for something even less jesus-focused than that one seems to be, but that's basically exactly the kind of thing i was looking for.
posted by empath at 7:29 PM on October 19

Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew

Even though the Amazon description makes it sounds like it is about different versions of Christianity (and Christ) that is only a small part of the story. The rest of it is about different versions of the church and how circumstances caused different versions to become orthodox.
posted by aetg at 8:19 PM on October 19

One of my favorite historical novels, Gore Vidal's Julian is about a 4th century Roman emperor who wanted to roll back Christianity, kind of a reversal of your idea.
posted by rfs at 8:25 PM on October 19

John by Niall Williams might fit the bill: "a novel about what a frail, blind John and his followers might have done during their exile to an island and return to a world of religious sects. What if this John was the one to have written the gospel of John? What would be the invariable clashes between faith and doubt under stress?"

I love this kind of novel. There's also Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist, but that might have too much Jesus for you.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:28 PM on October 19

A somewhat sideways suggestions: The Master and Margarita. . . .
posted by grobstein at 8:33 PM on October 19

You may be interested in The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago.

It's difficult to describe, to say the least; as you might guess, the principal character is Jesus, but it definitely isn't just the traditional "Story of Jesus" one learns in Sunday school. Ultimately, everything is loosely based around the principal events of the Gospels, but Saramago's interpretations and elaborations are rather, uh, non-traditional. He spends a lot of time on Jesus' angsty adolescence, for instance, and God is portrayed as rather manipulative and petty.

If you really want hard-line-realistic historical fiction, I guess this isn't for you (both God and the devil are characters; Jesus performs miracles), and be warned, there is little to no punctuation. But it's a very, very good book, and worth reading if you want something that takes place during that time period.
posted by Commander Rachek at 10:48 PM on October 19

Kingdom of the Wicked by Anthony Burgess
A God Strolling in the Cool of the Evening by Mario de Carvalho
These are the two main ones I can think of right now. If any further come to mind, I'll come back. The Saramago book suggested above is an absolutely splendid piece of literature, but as Commander Rachek suggests, it's focussed pretty centrally on Jesus.
posted by hydatius at 11:25 PM on October 19

Army of Children by Evan Rhodes may suit. It's historical fiction set during and amongst the Children's Crusade of 1212, focusing mainly on two boys in their early teens.

There's a BIT more sex in it than you'd expect to find in a book about a) Crusaders or b) children, but this didn't necessarily bother me (I was thirteen when I read it, so it maybe was mildly titillating).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:41 PM on October 19

You might be interested in A God Strolling in the Cool of the Evening, by Portuguese novelist Mario Carvalho. It's an exploration of the dilemmas faced by a Roman magistrate in charge of an outpost in what would one day become Portugal--as representative of the still-pagan Empire in a foreign land that is rapidly being caught up in Christian fervor.
posted by drlith at 4:26 AM on October 20

The Pendragon Cycle is a retelling of the King Arthur cycle from the slightly-more-historical Celts v. Saxons perspective, with a very heavy dose of Christian theology and practice. I find those aspects of it fascinating, particularly the contrast between early Christian practice (as envisioned in what is basically a fantasy novel) and modern practice, and the process of Christianity spreading across pagan Britain.

Now, to be fair, I read is pretty much as though all the gods and religions are just as fictional as in any other fantasy novel, so YMMV. But they're entertaining books.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:29 AM on October 20

Seconding "Kingdom of the Wicked" by Burgess. It's a sequel to "Man of Nazareth" which is about Jesus but "Kingdom of the Wicked" stands on its own (I know I read them out of order).
posted by maurice at 9:15 AM on October 20

I found The Silver Chalice by Thomas Costain to be enjoyable. I don't know how historically accurate it is, though.
posted by Quonab at 3:20 PM on October 20

What about Michael Moorcock's Behold The Man?

It's kind of about Jesus, but it's also about the world of the time, John the Baptist, the Niceans, etc etc.
posted by Philby at 10:09 PM on October 20

Oscar Wilde's Salome, which is a play, but as it's by Wilde, it's been anthologized a few zillion times by now.
posted by WCityMike at 2:39 PM on October 21