Status Updates From The Body and Society: Men, ...

Book ends off with Augustine's teachings, at a time when not only the western Roman empire was collapsing, but when the church had been more or less integrated into the fabric of Roman society. In the face of deteriorating empire, Augustine was more concerned with material issues like bandits, slavery, the Donatist heresy. He did write on sexuality extensively, but he was far more forgiving than say, Jerome.

The insights into gender are fascinating as well — as Christianity became more and more commonplace, the radical notion of men and women becoming genderless/sexless in Christ (see Gospel of Thomas and the Gnostic apocrypha) became sidelined for a strict gender division. Any women who were found to "imitate men" (e.g. through asceticism) and vice versa (e.g. through passive homosexuality) were punished severely.

I am actually so engrossed by this book. It's fascinating, disturbing, and highly moving in a way I didn't think it would be. Gonna make more notes.

I always found the history of the early Christian church interesting, as both a Vedantin and a Marxist. One of the observations I always with Christians is their zeal for sexual renunciation (almost exclusively) vs material renunciation, or social equality — which form the bulk of the Sermon on the Mount. This book answers a lot of it, even if not from an explicitly class-oriented perspective.

Really glad I pushed through the Introduction! Fascinating stuff in here!