>>679687
>before in times exclusively Sailors, convicts and biker chapter members got tatoos to *communicate something*, and normal people weren't vain enough to get one with personal significance.
The practice of tattooing and branding is much older than that. In the ancient world, there was a lot of significance for a person to tattoo themselves with something like a cross, because brandings and tattoos were usually reserved for criminals, slaves, or soldiers. A Christian marking themselves with a cross in this content would be communicating themselves as a soldier or slave for the cause of Christ, and also possibly as a "criminal" in opposition to paganism (mainly Roman paganism) so they would be marking themselves as a willing martyr.
Here is a quotation attributed to Constantine about tattoos, from the year 313AD
>since the penalty of his condemnation can be expressed both on his hands and on his calves, and so that his face, which has been fashioned in the likeness of the divine beauty, may not be disgraced.”
This quote implies tattooing was a practice among Christians and that some were tattooing their face along with other body parts, note that he only bans the use of face tattoos and allows the practice of branding other parts of the body to continue.
If you look into the history of Christian tattooing you will see it come up time and time again, long before the modern era, in many different contexts. This article is good for picking out a few sources and quotes from different time periods.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/blog/what-the-early-church-had-to-say-about-tattoos