Abstract
This thesis is a study of the perception of mediums in the late ancient context. In it I argue for a medium theory approach when investigating the early Christian media culture. The purpose of this angle is to avoid being anachronistic when analysing how the late ancient early Christians perceived their surrounding communication-technologies. The first introductory chapter presents the relevancy of our research and situates it within the current scholarly landscape. In the second chapter I present the theory and method that we utilise throughout. Here I introduce medium theory and argue that there are advantages to investigating the social context of Late Antiquity from the perspective of media studies. The third chapter sketches out the historical aspects that allowed for an early Christian media culture. Here I present the written word as existing and functioning within a predominantly oral culture. In the process, I look towards Clement of Alexandria, reading practices, the technological development of the codex and the scholarly discussion surrounding cult religions and book-based religions. In the fourth and final chapter I continue to analyse reading practices and present my own notion of “de-occlusion”. Here I argue that understanding reading practices as “practices of de-occlusion”, can be a helpful tool for investigating how the illiterate (or limited literate) people may have perceived and gained access to writing mediums that were initially perceived as “esoteric”.