Maidens, Magic and Martyrs in Early Christianity

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Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XVII Section I Aspects of Early Christianity 1. Why Did Jesus’ Followers Call Themselves ‘Christians’? . . . . . . 3 2. The Social and Religious Capital of the Early Christians . . . . . . 13 3. Why Did Early Christianity Attract Upper-class Women? . . . . . 33 4. Pauper or Patroness: the Widow in the Early Christian Church . . . 43 5. Peregrinus’ Christian Career . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 6. The Domestication of Early Christian Prophecy . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Section II Studies in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles and Pseudo-Clementines 7. Women in the Acts of John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 8. Man, Magic, and Martyrdom in the Acts of Andrew . . . . . . . . . 115 9. Aspects of the Acts of Peter: Women, Magic, Place and Date . . . . 133 10. Magic, Martyrdom and Women’s Liberation in the Acts of Paul and Thecla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 11. The Acts of Thomas: Place, Date and Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 12. Conversion in the Oldest Apocryphal Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 13. Magic in the Apocryphal Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 14. The Apocryphal Acts: Authors, Place, Time and Readership . . . . 219 15. Pseudo-Clementines: Texts, Dates, Places, Authors and Magic . . . 235 16. Apion and Anoubion in the Homilies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Section III Apocalypses and Tours of Hell 17. The Apocalypse of Peter: Greek or Jewish? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 18. The Apocalypse of Peter: Place, Date and Punishments . . . . . . . . 281 19. Christian Hell: From the Apocalypse of Peter to the Apocalypse of Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 20. Tours of Hell: Greek, Jewish, Roman and Early Christian . . . . . . 313 21. Descents to Hell and Ascents to Heaven in Apocalyptic Literature . 329 Section IV The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas 22. Perpetua and her Diary: Authenticity, Family and Visions . . . . . 349 23. Felicitas: The Martyrdom of a Young African Woman . . . . . . . . 387 24. The Motivation of Martyrs: Perpetua and the Palestinians . . . . . . 403 25. Passio Perpetuae 2, 16 and 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423 26. The Vision of Saturus in the Passio Perpetuae . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439 27. Contextualising Heaven in Third-Century North Africa . . . . . . 455 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469 Index of Names, Places and Passages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471