Gender and Sexuality in Ancient Christianity

(Cross-listed as WGSS 160.) Examination of gender and sexuality in the ancient Mediterranean, with special attention to how issues of gender and sexuality are treated in the New Testament, in early Church Fathers, Hebrew Bible, martyrdom accounts, and hagiography (saints’ lives). Consideration of pre-Christian sexual ethics and the structure of the family in Mediterranean patriarchal cultures (in this case Greeks, Romans, and Judeans) and discussion of the sexual ethics found in the writings of figures like Pythagoras, Plato, and the Stoics. Discussion of how early Christians (second through the fifth centuries CE) simultaneously reinscribe traditional gender roles and notions of sexuality, and also subvert these roles and ideas. Consideration of the conflict over the right of women to hold positions of authority and alternative avenues of power such as renouncing sexuality & marriage, and voluntary martyrdom. The rise of sexual renunciation as a central feature of ascetic Christianity and attention to the ways that women and men strive to shed the trappings of “this mortal coil” by denying sexuality full-stop.