Unravelling the Threads: The Origins of Women's Asceticism in the Earliest Christian Communities

Abstract

The question of the origins of women's asceticism in Christianity is one of the most intriguing puzzles in the history of the early church, at first glance seeming to appear virtually out of nowhere. This paper seeks to untangle the threads of evidence a little, first by exploring the precedents for women's asceticism in the Jewish and Græco-Roman worlds, and then by suggesting possible motives for Christian women's asceticism in Corinth and the community of the Pastoral Epistles.