Handmaids of the Lord : : Contemporary Descriptions of Feminine Asceticism in the First Six Christian Centuries / / ed. by Joan M. Petersen.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Gorgias Press Backlist eBook-Package 2001-2013
• HerausgeberIn: Petersen, Joan M.,
• Place / Publishing House: Piscataway, NJ : : Gorgias Press, , [2010]; ©2010
• Year of Publication: 2010
• Language: English
• Series: Monastic Studies Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (441 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; TABLE OF CONTENTS --; ABBREVIATIONS --; TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE --; PUBLISHER'S NOTE --; 1. Feminine Monasticism in the First Six Christian Centuries: An Historical introduction --; 2. Macrina: A Domestic Monastery in Cappadocia --; 3. Ancillae Domini in the Roman Empire: Letters of Saint Jerome to Ascetic Women in the Roman Empire --; 4. Melania the Elder and Melania the Younger: Ascetic Matrons in Egypt and Jerusalem --; 5. Radegunde: A Royal Foundress in Gaul --; Appendix: The Sisters of Sainte-Croix de Poitiers --; Suggestions for Further Reading
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9781463218416; 9783111024141; 9783110663037
• DOI: 10.31826/9781463218416
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: ed. by Joan M. Petersen.

Throughout the Christian world, women have chosen to lead disciplined lives of prayer and asceticism. Descriptions of early role-models—Macrina, the two Paulas and Melanias, Radagunde—and others by contemporaries, usually men, provide details of their austerities, their aspirations, and their relationship with the Church and the world, not least with male authority figures.