Suz’s Reviews > The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity > Status Update
Suz
is 77% done
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.
— Apr 20, 2026 01:42PM
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Suz
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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.
— Apr 20, 2026 06:17PM
Suz
is 60% done
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.
— Apr 19, 2026 10:50PM
Suz
is 20% done
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.
— Apr 19, 2026 06:48PM
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Apr 20, 2026 01:50PM
The repression of these so called ascetics was also disturbing to read. We have these accounts through written "confessions" of sexual fantasies caused by "demons". This manifested also, as extreme puritanism such that proponents of complete celibacy like Jerome, Ambrose, etc. went even more hardcore than their predecessor Paul and label marriage as one step away from fornication. Interestingly, in the western church, the role of consecration and remaining virginal was aimed at women rather than men — it was the other way around in the east. This needless to say, created a major Madonna/Whore complex that we still experience today.
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