W.R. Gingell’s Reviews > Christian Women in the Patristic World: Their Influence, Authority, and Legacy in the Second through Fifth Centuries > Status Update

"Christian eschatology taught that wealth and land were to be distrusted and that political and religious systems, intertwined as they were with the imperial cult, were anathema or cursed by their God. Instead, Christians created new families based on confession, not kinship"

so yeah those who have lost (evangelical/fundamentalist) family and are called "jezebels"/"lost" are in good company with early female martyrs

the gr version of this book has incorrect page counts, meaning i'm guestimating percentages rather than page numbers (and then forgetting that and thinking "oh yeah! it has page numbers as well! i can do that!" and then remembering why as soon as it shows the percentage done with the page numbers... >:(

Their defiance of conventional expectations for familial pietas, or faithful rendering of family obligations, is especially evident in the female martyrs' stories. Through the martyrs' actions and words, the early church forged a new model of community and familial responsibilities, which rightly shocked the ancient world, and still today, though perhaps for different reasons, raises scholars' brows." (3/3)

Based on her acceptance of the Christian gospel, and in a stance quite unbecoming for a Roman matron, [Perpetua] defies her father. We read about Felicitas, a young slave who gives birth to a daughter directly before dying a martyr's death in the arena with her fellow martyrs. (2/3)

"What is perhaps less recognised is the place of motherhood alongside martyrdom in the stories of female martyrs. As we saw in chapter one, Thecla, the beast fighter, is also known as the church's first female martyr. She defies her mother, gains a surrogate mother & refuses the promise of motherhood with her rejection of marriage.

...We find Perpetua, a young mother nursing her son. (1/3)

from the chapter on Thecla:

"...women, including Christian women, might choose conservative expressions of modesty as they demonstrate their agency....This interpretation of women's agency is an important corrective to earlier scholarship's thesis that agency is synonymous with autonomy and can only be seen in countercultural moves and poses of resistance" (1/2)

absolutely fascinating so far!