Pelagius’ View of Ideal Christian Women in his Letters

1990

What does the perfection of Christian life consist in? This article focuses on two great authorities on ascetic life in late 4 th -century Rome, Jerome and Pelagius. They both emphasise the importance of permanent dissatisfaction with what one has already achieved and a permanent focus on what is ahead. The main difference between Jerome's 'imperfect perfection' and Pelagius' 'nostrumque non progredi, iam reverti est' seems to correspond to Jerome's central interest in the Pelagian controversy, the (im)possibility of sinlessness.

Journal of Church and State, 2001

An Investigation of the Active versus Contemplative Life of Women in the Medieval Church Affiliated with Rome between the Twelfth and Fifteenth Century, 2016

The theological paradigm of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42) posits two distinct roles for women. In the Roman Catholic Church in the High and Late Middle Ages, women were offered two roles that correspond to Luke’s story. Mary, according to Jesus, having chosen the “better” path, is the woman who exemplified discipleship through the consecrated life, while Martha is the medieval housewife. In the medieval church, the role of “Mary,” which was a life of virginal devotion to God, was presented to women as the better path, but women were often forced by family and church into the role of “Martha,” a life of chaste devotion to God through marriage and family life. Augustine’s influential theology ascribed greater value to the contemplative life, while Meister Eckhart gives greater value to the active life in his sermon on Mary and Martha. Which is the better path? Or is this a false choice? While this is a question that is relevant in any age, this thesis will demonstrate how the story of Mary and Martha as presented by both Augustine and Eckhart is a false dichotomy using examples from Eckhart’s time to show that women both in the consecrated life and the married life exemplify aspects of both contemplative and active lives. This paper will give a brief overview of Augustine’s exegesis as well as Meister Eckhart’s contrasting sermons on Luke 10. Next, I will discuss the role of women in marriage and family life and some of the struggles and decisions they went through which may have been a cause for their conversion from a “Martha” life of domesticity to a “Mary” role enabling them to take on the devotion of Jesus, which would eventually lead some women to sainthood. Then, I will discuss women’s role in religious life and how they moved from a “Mary” to a “Martha” role to effect change within the church in spite of great adversity from their male counterparts. Lastly, I will conclude that the paradigm of Mary and Martha in the Middle Ages is relevant to post-modern women who have multiple options and maintain a role of discipleship and contemplation in what is very much a “Martha” world.

It is said that Women are often the hidden half of history, but this does not mean that they did nothing. Likewise, since the early Christianity though women have played an important role in the life and ministry of the church, their role and many contributions is often neglected. Most of the Church historians and the Christian writers have ignored the involvements of women to Christianity in general and to the church in particular in their writings except few passing comments to supplement the history of men. In this paper we are going to deal with a cursory overview of the portrayals of women by the early church Fathers, in the Medieval, Reformation period and in the Ecumenical movement.

WOMEN IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY Presiding: Maria Dell’Isola & Mario Resta BARBARA CROSTINI (Newman Institute, Uppsala) Women-with-Child on Show: Painting Motherhood from Dura to Luke MARIANNA CERNO (University of Udine) Dreams and Virtues of the «Women of Clement». Matthidia and Procula in the Light of a Newly Recovered Pseudo-Clementine Fragment TOMMASO INTERI (University of Turin) Womanhood as Exegetical Paradigm in Eusebius ALESSANDRO DE BLASI (University of Padua) (Im)pious Sisterhood. Once More on Greg. Naz. carm. II 1, 41, Contra Maximum

Studia Philologica Valentina, 2020

Aschendorff, 2024

The essays presented in this volume address the question posed about the role of women throughout the history of the Church: which female figures had the opportunity, and under what circumstances, to express themselves and act freely, thereby exerting their influence in the family, social, spiritual, political, or cultural spheres, but above all, in the ecclesiastical realm. It explores the resources available for their education and training aimed at developing the functions to which they had access. The result is a broad historiographical panorama, characterized by a unique profile, due both to its extensive range - covering almost two thousand years of Church history - and to its openness to less-explored geopolitical contexts. Stimulating reflections on lesser-known figures and events that challenge established historiographical paradigms are not lacking. One of the most important aspects of the volume is its interdisciplinary nature; within the book, we find research conducted by specialists from various fields: history, biography, archaeology, patristics, and archival studies. A strong aspect of the book lies in the authors’ efforts to measure the gap between an often negative and limiting paradigm of women’s roles and their actual condition in a world that, in any case, was imbued with Christian values.

Priscilla Papers, 2021

This article seeks to emphasize the liberating and countercultural place of women within the earliest centuries of church history through an examination of the earliest surviving criticisms of Christianity by pagan writers. The examination will focus most directly on the work of Celsus, a second-century non-Christian writer, noting how some of his criticisms highlight the particularly high reception of the Christian message by women. I endeavor to show through an analysis of both Celsus’ critiques as well as certain aspects of Greco-Roman culture in the earliest years of church history that to be a Christian offered women not only a sense of belonging and significance within an egalitarian movement, but also offered them a countercultural sense of liberation.

The feminine has been a recurring topic in the authors of the patristics and has occupied a great place in their exegetical, poetic or historical works. However, the interest of these authors was not only directed to the analysis of anthropological issues related to women, their place in creation and history, but that "feminine" can be identified as an independent attribute associated with certain behaviors and procedures, both human as divine. Christianity evoked from its beginnings the spiritual equality of men and women, thus generating a great attraction in the believers, who quickly became diffusers of the new faith; However, the rhetoric about the feminine does not accompany this enthusiasm, since the authors of the patristics gave speeches that in many cases associated it with weakness and instability, situations very close to sin. The question that Jesus addresses to Mary Magdalene in the tomb, "Woman, why are you crying?", Becomes in our contemporary world a call to revisit and critically review the contributions that the first Christian literature and the Eastern and Western patristic literature have made us legacy in terms of images and readings of the feminine.