As impressive as is Meeks' First Urban Christians, it studies ancient cities “from above,” i.e., the perspective of elites and their retainers. He does not appreciate the meanness of cities in Asia Minor from the crowded and perilous perspective of the 85% of the population. This absence can be supplied by studies which consider “city” in cultural terms (a system, a central place, a necropolis, etc). These studies alert us to the scarcity of food, water, space, and sanitation. The use of social science models depicts a grim scene in terms of size, population density, and mortality. All of this makes us turn our gaze from the elite parts of a city to the squalid parts where those addressed in the seven letters in Revelation 1–3 dwelt. When those letters are considered in this context, certain materials concerning virtues and vices stand out. Without appreciating where the 85% of the population strove to survive, we cannot appreciate what is said to them.
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