Section 1: the canonical beginnings. The fragmentation and inversion of empire in the Christian Apocryphal Acts / Nicole Kelley -- "Sic est voluntas Dei" : Latin patristic views on 1 Peter 2:13-17 / Jonathan P. Yates -- Power and tradition in Apostolic Constitutions 7 / Clayton N. Jefford -- Section 2: 2nd and 3rd century developments. -- Tertullian and military service: the scriptural arguments in De corona / Geoffrey D. Dunn -- Irenaeus and the kingdoms of the world / D. Jeffrey Bingham -- The weak God of the Gospels : mercy, mysticism, and martyrdom in Origen's Contra celsum / Roberto J. de la Noval -- Section 3: Scripture in the service of Urban Unity. -- Diodore on the politics of kingship in Psalm 2 / Benjamin D. Wayman -- Justus sibi lex est : the Donatist interpretation of the law in Romans 2:14 / Alden Lee Bass -- Should a Christian sell everything? : Early interpretations of the rich young man / Stephen M. Hildebrand -- Section 4: Augustine's legacy. -- Abraham, Samson, and 'certain holy women" : suicide and exemplarity in Augustine's De ciuitate de 1.26 / Melanie Web -- From slave to friend : John 15, Philemon, and Slavery in Augustine / Joseph E. Capizzi -- From Ordo to Potestas : Romans 13 and Saint Augustine's chastened civil confidence / David Vincent Meconi.