Virgin Territory: Configuring Female Virginity in Early Christianity

by Julia Kelto Lillis

Overview

Women's virginity held tremendous significance in early Christianity and the Mediterranean world. Early Christian thinkers developed diverse definitions of virginity and understood its bodily aspects in surprising, often nonanatomical ways. Eventually Christians took part in a cross-cultural shift toward viewing virginity as something that could be perceived in women's sex organs. Treating virginity as anatomical brought both benefits and costs. By charting this change and situating it in the larger landscape of ancient thought, Virgin Territory illuminates unrecognized differences among early Christian sources and historicizes problematic ideas about women's bodies that still persist today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520389014
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	12/13/2022
Series:	Christianity in Late Antiquity , #13
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	290
Sales rank:	892,243
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Julia Kelto Lillis is Assistant Professor of Early Church History at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments
Notes to the Reader 
Abbreviations for Series and Reference Works

Introduction: Ancient and Present-Day Meanings for Virginity

PART ONE. Virginity with and without Virginal Anatomy 

1. Testing, Showing, and Perceiving Virginity in Antiquity
2. Mary’s Forms of Virginity in Early Christian Writings

PART TWO. Christian Conceptualizations of Virginity in the Fourth Century

3. Virginity of Body and Soul: Fourth-Century Christian Configurations
4. Sealed Fountains: The Imagery of Fourth-Century Christian Virginity Discourse

PART THREE. The Cost of Anatomized Virginity for Late Ancient Christians

5. Perceptible Virginity: Its Usefulness and Consequences
6. Augustine of Hippo and the Problem of Double Integrity

Conclusion: Variety Persists

Bibliography
Index 

Editorial Reviews

"Lillis’s sophisticated treatment of this important subject will no doubt be useful to scholars exploring topics of sex, gender, the body, and late antique piety."
 

Catholic Historical Review

"Lillis offers a sophisticated study that enhances historians’ sensitivity to an intellectual history of virginity."

Plekos

"This book is consummately well conceived, researched, written and produced."
 

THE CLASSICAL REVIEW

"An exciting and essential addition to the ever-growing body of scholarship on the body in antiquity."

Bryn Mawr Classical Review