In depicting an apocalyptic expectation of the revelation of God's children (Rom 8.19–23), Paul personifies ‘creation’: awaiting the revelation of these children, she ‘groans and suffers pains of childbirth’. While Paul's vision is framed with scriptural allusions, Greek and Roman images of Earth Mother also provide a relevant juxtaposition. This study recovers such a context by surveying sources ranging from Hesiod's Gaia to the Roman Terra Mater. Philo provides an especially relevant comparative model, as he relates biblical cosmology to Greek mythological sources and asserts that earth's role as mother is also attested in Genesis. In light of these comparisons, fresh insights emerge: maternal creation gives birth to a new divine era, yet for Paul this remains a future hope rather than a past (mythological) or present (political) occurrence.

A relationship between Achilles Tatius and Christianity has been imagined from atleast as early as the tenth century when the Suda claimed thathe had converted to Christianity and been ordained as a bishop. Modernscholarship has found this highly improbable; nevertheless, attempts to exploreconnections between his late second-century c.e. novel,Leucippe and Clitophon, and early Christianity continue. Inrecent decades, within a context of renewed interest in the ancient novel,scholars of early Christianity have found a wealth of material in the novels toilluminate the generic development and meaning of Christian narratives in theNew Testament and beyond. Less attention, however, has been given to the ways inwhich the novels respond to and incorporate themes from Christianity. AchillesTatius's etiological myth of wine and its associated harvest festivalin Leuc. Clit. 2.2 represent a particularly striking point ofcontact between Christianity and the Greek novel. In the first section below, Isystematically review the narrative and ritual parallels between Leuc.Clit. 2.2 and the Christian Eucharist and conclude that they aretoo striking to be accidental or to have gone unnoticed by an ancient readerwith knowledge of Christianity. Although these similarities have been pointedout, their meaning and consequences have received comparatively little attentionfrom scholars either of the novel or of early Christianity. Thus, in thesubsequent sections of this study I contextualize these parallels withinsecond-century Christian and non-Christian literary and religious culture. Mycontention is that an exploration of the relationship between Leuc.Clit. 2.2 and the Christian Eucharist will provide valuable insightboth into the larger project of Achilles Tatius and into the relationshipbetween early Christianity and its contemporary context, particularly the SecondSophistic.