Temple and Empire

Mina Monier argues that Luke-Acts shared with 1 Clement a concern to define and defend a type of Christian piety that would not offend Roman sensibilities. The author used the Temple of Jerusalem positively, as a platform for showing Christian piety towards ancient worship, ancestral customs and God of antiquity.

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This book explores the theme of temple piety in Luke-Acts and 1 Clement in historical context. Mina Monier argues that situating both works in Trajanic Rome, in the late first century, and reading them through the lens of Roman imperial ideology explains their peculiarly positive presentation of the Temple as a form of reverence toward ancient worship and ancestral customs that would not offend, but would appeal to traditional Roman sensibilities.