On Virginity Against Remarriage

This is an English translation of these treatises. The work is also introduced by Elizabeth Clark, who sets forth the context of the treatises and makes an extended comparison between John's teaching and that of Paul in 1 Corinthians.

This book, in light of recent feminist theology on the doctrine of sin, attempts to provide historical support for such feminist considerations. It examines fourth-century church fathers, John Wesley, and Phoebe Palmer as places where an alternative of traditional definitional definition, pride, can be found. Diane Leclerc devotes this study to an important twofold question: "What is the most adequate Christian diagnosis of our fundamental human problem?" and the corollary, " How should we understand the wholeness/holiness that Christianity seeks to promote?". While this interrelated topic is challenging in its own right, she has also chosen to approach it by bringing into dialogue some diverse conversation partners. What makes Leclerc's study so instructive is that no partner in this conversation emerges without some challenge for revision, or without some affirmation of their central concerns.

From an acclaimed author in the field, this is a compelling study of the origins and history of the disease commonly seen as afflicting young unmarried girls. Understanding of the condition turned puberty and virginity into medical conditions, and Helen King stresses the continuity of this disease through history,depsite enormous shifts in medical understanding and technonologies, and drawing parallels with the modern illness of anorexia. Examining its roots in the classical tradition all the way through to its extraordinary survival into the 1920s, this study asks a number of questions about the nature of the disease itself and the relationship between illness, body images and what we should call‘normal’ behaviour. This is a fascinating and clear account which will prove invaluable not just to students of classical studies, but will be of interest to medical professionals also.

This startling study of early Christian attitudes toward sexuality begins with an account of the different stances adopted by the Church—from the Early Fathers’ view that sex and the female body were irredeemably unholy, to Augustine’s contention that sex was natural, but lust was evil. While the Church Fathers struggled to reach consistent theoretical conclusions, the underlying conflation of ‘women’ with ‘sex’ meant that patristic statements on chastity, virginity and marriage effectively read as ecclesiastical law governing women’s conduct. Joyce Salisbury explains the relationship between Church doctrine and the position of women by placing these official views alongside an ascetic tradition which resisted the constraints imposed by sexual intercourse. Through an examination of texts of female and popular authorship, and the extraordinary lives of seven women saints—including the transvestites Castissima and Pelagia—she presents a markedly different picture of sexual and social roles. For many of these women, celibacy became a form of emancipation. Church Fathers, Independent Virgins bears witness to the entrenched power of the Church to oppress, the continuing power of women to overcome, and the enduring effects of medieval sexual attitudes.

The cross has always been portrayed as the means of salvation and forgiveness for sinners, but does it have anything to say to those who have been sinned against? This book shows that the atonement of Christ has powerful potential to speak to those who have been wronged, especially those who have been abused and abandoned in countless ways—those who cower at the back side of the cross wondering if they are included. As victims of various kinds of abuse are beginning to come out of the shadows in cultural conversation and in the context of the church, The Back Side of the Cross is a timely book for several audiences. It is thoroughly rigorous and will interest theologians and their students; it also offers a very practical section for pastors and those who want to care for the wounded; and it can even reach survivors themselves as it offers true hope in the urgency of such real pain.

Much theology overemphasizes marriage to the detriment of ecclesiology. Using Augustine as conversation partner, this book considers the relationship of the Church to marriage and singleness. This examination of salvation history and worship illuminates a different vision of households, governed more by the waters of baptism than familial ties.