The Body and Society

Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity

By:

Peter Brown

Format:

Hardback

Show Hide Adult Content

$371.00

Available from supplier

Usually ships in 3-4 weeks

0 in Trolley

Price Match

Wrap this item as a gift ($5.90) - add a free gift card on the next page

Free Delivery with Primate

Join Now

Free 14 day free trial, cancel anytime.

Buy Now, Pay Later with:

4 payments of $92.75 with Afterpay Learn more

6 weekly interest-free payments of $61.83 with Laybuy Learn more

Availability

Delivering to:

Estimated arrival:

Around 11-21 June using International Courier

Description

First published in 1988, Peter Brown's The Body and Society was a groundbreaking study of the marriage and sexual practices of early Christians in the ancient Mediterranean and the Near East. To mark the twentieth anniversary of its publication, Columbia will make available an edition that features a new introduction by the author. Brown will discuss the reception of the book since its debut in the scholarly community as well as the influential thought and literature it has produced. The Body and Society focuses on the practice of permanent sexual renunciation-continence, celibacy, and life-long virginity-in Christian circles from the first to the fifth centuries AD. Brown follows early Christians' strange, disturbing preoccupations with sexuality and the body in great detail, tracing the reflection and controversy these notions generated among the period's great writers. Brown questions how theological views on sexuality and the human body both mirrored and shaped not only the uneven relationships between men and women, but also the complex interactions between the Roman aristocracy and their slaves, and between the married and the celibate.Figures discussed include Tertullian, Valentinus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Constantine, the Desert Fathers, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine, among others. Topics covered include asceticism and society in the Eastern Empire; martyrdom and prophecy; Gnostic spiritual guidance; promiscuity among the men and women of the church; monks and marriage in Egypt; the ascetic life of women in fourth-century Jerusalem; and-in order to ground the subject in a historical context-the body and society in the early Middle Ages.

Author Biography:

Peter Brown, formerly professor of classics and history at the University of California, Berkeley, is the Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor of History at Princeton University and the most prominent scholar of late antiquity (between 250 and 800 A.D.). He is the author of a dozen books, including Augustine of Hippo, Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman World, The Rise of Western Christendom, and Poverty and Leadership in the Late Roman Empire.

Release date NZ

July 3rd, 2008

Author

Peter Brown

Audience

Professional & Vocational

Edition

Twentieth Anniversary Edition with a New Introduction

Pages

568

Dimensions

152x229x30

ISBN-13

9780231144063

Product ID

3718184

Customer reviews

Nobody has reviewed this product yet. You could be the first!

Write a Review

Marketplace listings

There are no Marketplace listings available for this product currently.
Already own it? Create a free listing and pay just 9% commission when it sells!

Sell Yours Here