Envisioning the Sign of God
The Rhetorical Figuration of the Cross in the Epistle of Barnabas and the Writings of Clement of Alexandria
Paperback (Forthcoming)
(November 2026)
ISBN: 9782503625638
Price: $100.00
How Early Christians transformed the cross from an instrument of death into a powerful divine sign shaping the identity and life of believers
In ‘Envisioning the Sign of God’, Robert Button explores the rhetorical imaging of the cross as the sign of Jesus in the early Christian text known as the ‘Epistle of Barnabas’ and in the writings of Clement of Alexandria. He draws attention to how these early Christian writings evoke and ‘figure’ the cross as a geometric and material form which can be seen in the natural and cultural world, and which mediates divine communication and presence. Focussing on an under-studied number symbolic exegesis where the cross is pictured in the very orthography of scripture, and on examples where the cross is imaged in physical performances in scripture and in scenes from Greek epic and tragedy, this study develops a semiotic hermeneutical lens which traverses text, image, and thing, to foreground the role of the cross as a rhetorical image in shaping Christian imaginaries. This work makes an original contribution to the study of early Christian literature and to the understanding of the cross in early Christian theology, developing a novel methodology which engages trends in material religion and performance studies to highlight and explore the semiotic, material, and performative dimensions of the figurative images of the cross evoked by Christian rhetoric. It considers the role of these images in strategies of Christian formation and in theological perspective it argues that the imaging of the cross as a rhetorical strategy relates to incarnational theology, as the cross emerges as the sign of Jesus, himself the incarnate sign of God.
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