Chastity as Autonomy: Women in the Stories of the Apocryphal ActsThis book examines some of the stories found in the late second- and early third-century apocryphal Acts. In all the stories here considered, women's chastity is of central importance and is presented primarily in terms of its social consequences. This book represents an attempt to develop a methodology for the historical interpretation of stories and to employ this methodology in the analysis of seven stories from the five earliest apocryphal Acts: the stories of Agrippina, Nicaria, Euphemia, Doris and Xanthippe (Acts of Peter); Maximilla (Acts of Andrew); Drusiana (Acts of John); Thecla (Acts of Paul); Artemilla and Eubula (Acts of Paul); the "princess bride" (Acts of Thomas); and Mygdonia and Tertia (Acts of Thomas). The first task undertaken is to demonstrate that these stories are most appropriately viewed as folk-stories which were originally told by women and which reflect significant social and psychological factors of these women's experience and outlook. The second task is to analyze these social and psychological factors more fully, attempting to sketch in the historical background of the women's lives and struggles and thus to complement and correct androcentric portrayals of early Christian women's chastity. --from introduction. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Literature or Folklore? A Review of Scholarship | 7 |
The Chastity Stories Tellers | 67 |
A SocialHistorical Interpretation of the Stories | 81 |
Conclusion | 113 |
Summmaries of the Chastity Stories | 121 |
Bibliography | 131 |
Copyright | |