Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli, "Citifying Jesus: The Making of a Roman Religion in the Roman Empire" (Mohr Siebeck, 2024)

Dec 24, 2025

Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli, an Associate Professor at the University of Bologna, explores the dynamics of urbanity in early Christianity through his book Citifying Jesus. He delves into how urban spaces influenced religious practices and the development of Christ religion over centuries. Urciuoli highlights the concept of 'citification,' contrasting it with earlier studies, and discusses early Christian critiques of urban religion. He also connects martyrdom narratives to urban contexts and advocates for theoretical clarity in religious studies, making a compelling case for the interplay of faith and city life.

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ANECDOTE

Erfurt Project Sparked The Urban Turn

Urciuoli recounts how moving to Erfurt and joining a funded urban religion project redirected his research toward cities.
His city passion and institutional context produced five years of work that became Citifying Jesus.

INSIGHT

Citification Is About Urban Adaptation

Citification measures how religious ideas and practices adapt to urban conditions rather than simply indicating geographic urbanization.
Emiliano Urciuoli reframes Christianity as explanandum, asking how city life produced religious traits often attributed to the faith itself.

INSIGHT

Critique Of The Polytheist Spatial Fix

Early Christian writers critiqued the 'polytheist spatial fix' that anchored gods with costly urban architecture.
They promoted an alternative spatial imagination that avoided tying religious legitimacy to monumental urban investment.

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Religion and urban life are the most successful strategies of handling, enhancing, and capitalizing on human sociability. By integrating religious studies, archaeology, and spatial theory, Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli aims to re-describe the formation of Christ religion as urban religion in Citifying Jesus: The Making of a Roman Religion in the Roman Empire (Mohr Siebeck, 2024). Spanning almost four centuries of Christian literature from Paul to Augustine, the author shows that several characteristics commonly attributed to Christ religion are, in fact, outcomes of the distinct ways in which religious agents enact urbanity and interact with the urban space. The study brings the urbanity of religious agents into focus, shedding light on significant elements of religious transformation, innovation, institutionalization, empowerment, and resistance to power. Simultaneously, it explores the key urban features that shaped the emergence and development of Christ religion.

Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Cultures at the University of Bologna. Previously he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Max-Weber-Kolleg of the University of Erfurt and has spent research stays in Paris, Berlin, and Geneva. His research interests focus on the history of the ancient Christ religion, methodological advances in the study of ancient Mediterranean religious groups and traditions, issues of theory and method in the accademic study of religions, and the phenomenon of ancient and contemporary urban religion. He is conversant with issues of political theology, sociology of religion, critical theory of space, and critique of ideology (including religious ideologies).

Jonathon Lookadoo is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. While his interests range widely over the world of early Christianity, he is the author of books on the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Shepherd of Hermas, including The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade, 2023).

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