Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion: The Power of the Hysterical Woman

ISBN-13: 9780521567282 / Angielski / Miękka / 1996 / 292 str.

Margaret Y. MacDonald

Opis

A study of how women figured in public reaction to the church from New Testament times to the second century CE. MacDonald shows the conviction of pagan writers that female initiative was central to Christianity's development, and the belief that women inclined toward excesses in religion. Concern in the New Testament and early Christian texts about the respectability of women is seen in a new light when one appreciates that outsiders focused on early church women and their activities as a reflection of the group as a whole.

Recenzje

"Those interested in women's studies will, of course, welcome this book, but any student of the early Church will learn from it. ...this is a good book for scholars and lay people alike." Stephen Benko, The Catholic Historical Review

Spis treści

Introduction: 1. Defining the task; 2. Women's studies in early Christianity and cultural anthropology; 3. Honour and shame; 4. Public, male/ private, female; 5. A social-scientific concept of power; Part I. Pagan Reaction to Early Christian Women in the Second Century CE: 1. Pliny; 2. Marcus Cornelius Fronto; 3. Lucius Apuleius; 4. Lucian of Samosata; 5. Galen of Pergamum; 6. Celsus; 7. Conclusion; Part II. Celibacy, Women, and Early Church Responses to Public Opinion: 1. Paul's teaching on marriage as a 'conversionist' response to the world; 2. Paul's focus on women holy in body and spirit in 1 Corinthians 7; 3. A focus on women in light of the values of honor and shame; 4. 1 Timothy 5.3-16 - second-century celibate women under public scrutiny; 5. When the private becomes public - contacts between 1 Timothy 5.3-16 and the Acts of Paul and Thecla; Part III. Marriage, Women, and Early Church Responses to Public Opinion: 1.1 Corinthians 7.12-16 - the evangelising potential of household relations; 2. 1 Peter 3.1-16 - recovering the lives of the quiet evangelists; 3. Justin's woman married to an unchaste husband - religious sensiblities and life with a pagan husband; 4. Married life and the social reality of women in the communities of Ignatius of Antioch; 5. From Ephesians 5.21-33 to Ignatius, Letter to Polycarp 5.1-2 - the evolution of authority structures governing the lives of married women; 6. The church-bride and married women as mediators between the church and the world; 7. Conclusion; General conclusion.