Early Christianity and Women's History

Profile of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, popular saint in medieval Christianity.

She associated with heretics, so she was largely ignored by history even though she was not herself condemned. Melania the Elder (grandmother of Melania the Younger) founded monasteries and traveled from Spain to Rome to Egypt to Jerusalem, in contact with such leaders as Jerome and Paula and Augustine of Hippo.

Better known than her saintly grandmother, she talked her husband into celibacy after their second child died. They gave their immense fortune to found monasteries and do other good works, and left Rome ahead of the Visigoth invasions, going on pilgrimage to and settling in Jerusalem.

The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica included a surprisingly feminist entry on the history of women. This entry describes then-current understanding of laws and customs relating to women, including divorce and marriage law, in early Christianity.

A profile of writer, feminist, and Biblical scholar Elaine Pagels.

Translations of some fragments of her writing, known second-hand. Background information and bibliography, too.

Jeffrey Conrad looks for roots of early Christian piety in the 4th-5th century Roman Empire, contrasting Egyptian and Syrian practice.

Writing of St. Cyprian of Antioch or her own poetry, this Christian Greek woman wrote during the Roman Empire in the fifth century.

Gnostic Christians revered Mary Magdalene as a disciple of Jesus. In this excerpt from their gospel, Mary tells the other disciples of Jesus' words to her in a vision.

Women went on religious journeys to many of the important sites of early Christianity. Birgitta, Margery and Julian are also mentioned.

A rebuttal of common interpretations of early Christian writings by men about women, translating and interpreting these common quotes more positively.

Background and bibliography on this Roman Christian convert.

An excerpt from the Diary of Perpetua, an apocryphal book describing her martyrdom (about 202 CE).

A Roman woman who converted to Christianity. Poems in translation, background information, and bibliography.

Pictures of mother-daughter relationships from early Christianity (Syria), focusing on saints like Sophia and Euphemia.

Excerpts from a translation of the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla. Thecla, with the Apostles, took up missionary work in the first generation of Christianity.

Supplementing the PBS documentary From Jesus to Christ, these pages detail controversial recent evidence about women's role in the early Christian church.