"This book presents an up-to-date and original survey of Early Christian art and its origins, and attacks the current idea of continuity between the Roman emperor cult and the art of the early church. Conservative readers may well be shocked by this lucid but utterly unconventional presentation of an often treated subject. I find Thomas Mathews's work convincing and impressive."--Hugo Buchthal

"Not only does Mathews present bold arguments that I find persuasive, but his book is exciting to read. He removes the images of Christ from the iconography of the emperor and puts them into the far more plausible context of late antique teachers and wonder-workers."--G. W. Bowersock

Thomas F. Mathews is John Langeloth Loeb Professor of the History of Art at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. Among his most recent books is Byzantium from Antiquity to the Renaissance (1998).