Overview

Situated in a period that witnessed the genesis of institutions that have lasted to this day, this path-breaking study looks at how ancient Christian women, particularly in Asia Minor and Egypt, initiated ascetic ways of living, and how these practices were then institutionalized. Susanna Elm demonstrates that--in direct contrast to later conceptions--asceticism began primarly as an urban movement, in which women were significant protagonists. In the process, they completely transformed and expanded their roles as wife, mother, or widow: as Christian ascetics, they became `virgin wives', `virgin mothers', and `virgin widows' - with all the legal and economic implications of such a dramatic shift. As importantly, though, Christian men and women ascetics lived together. As `virgins of God' they created new families `in Christ'. No longer determined by their human bonds or human sexuality, they were `neither male nor female'. Finally, the book demonstrates how ascetic bishops - today known as saints - eventually `reformed' these early models of communal, ascetic life by dividing the `virgins of God' into monks and nuns and thus laid the foundation for the monasticism we know today.

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9780198150442

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Reviews

Susanna Elm's book is a significant contribution. --Bryn Mawr Classical Review<br> Virgins of God is --dare I say it?-- an exciting book to read by anyone interested in early Church history and the role of women in the early Church, and is especially pertinent for monastics. It belongs in every monastic library. It is scholarly, but the scholarship is sensible, and almost always fascinating. The book is also very well written, and that is a gift in itself. --Coptic Church Review<br> Susanna Elm's book is a significant contribution. --Bryn Mawr Classical Review<br> Virgins of God is --dare I say it?-- an exciting book to read by anyone interested in early Church history and the role of women in the early Church, and is especially pertinent for monastics. It belongs in every monastic library. It is scholarly, but the scholarship is sensible, and almost always fascinating. The book is also very well written, and that is a gift in itself. --Coptic Church Review<br> A very well researched and documented academic treatise....It is, I believe, the first comprehensive study of the place of the virgin in antiquity to be written in English....Challenging and exciting reading...I welcome the publication of this book and recommend it to all students of the history of ascetics and community life, as well as to those exercised about the future of the consecrated state. --Fairacres Chronicle<br> An impressive number of very good books on early monasticism have appeared in the last five years....To this list we can now gratefully add Susanna Elm's monograph Virgins of God....an exciting book to read. It should be read by anyone interested in early Church history and the role of women in theearly Church, and is especially pertinent for monastics. It belongs in every monastic library. It is scholarly, but the scholarship is sensible, and almost always fascinating. The book is also well written, and that is a gift in itself. --Cistercian Studies Quarterly<br>

<br> Susanna Elm's book is a significant contribution. --Bryn Mawr Classical Review<br> Virgins of God is --dare I say it?-- an exciting book to read by anyone interested in early Church history and the role of women in the early Church, and is especially pertinent for monastics. It belongs in every monastic library. It is scholarly, but the scholarship is sensible, and almost always fascinating. The book is also very well written, and that is a gift in itself. --Coptic Church Review<br> Susanna Elm's book is a significant contribution. --Bryn Mawr Classical Review<br> Virgins of God is --dare I say it?-- an exciting book to read by anyone interested in early Church history and the role of women in the early Church, and is especially pertinent for monastics. It belongs in every monastic library. It is scholarly, but the scholarship is sensible, and almost always fascinating. The book is also very well written, and that is a gift in itself. --Coptic Church Review<br> A very well researc

Author Information

Susanna Elm is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley.

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