Introduction: 1. Defining the task
2. Women's studies in early Christianity and cultural anthropology
3. Honour and shame
4. Public, male/ private, female
5. A social-scientific concept of power
Part I. Pagan Reaction to Early Christian Women in the Second Century CE: 1. Pliny
2. Marcus Cornelius Fronto
3. Lucius Apuleius
4. Lucian of Samosata
5. Galen of Pergamum
6. Celsus
7. Conclusion
Part II. Celibacy, Women, and Early Church Responses to Public Opinion: 1. Paul's teaching on marriage as a 'conversionist' response to the world
2. Paul's focus on women holy in body and spirit in 1 Corinthians 7
3. A focus on women in light of the values of honor and shame
4. 1 Timothy 5.3-16 - second-century celibate women under public scrutiny
5. When the private becomes public - contacts between 1 Timothy 5.3-16 and the Acts of Paul and Thecla
Part III. Marriage, Women, and Early Church Responses to Public Opinion: 1.1 Corinthians 7.12-16 - the evangelising potential of household relations
2. 1 Peter 3.1-16 - recovering the lives of the quiet evangelists
3. Justin's woman married to an unchaste husband - religious sensiblities and life with a pagan husband
4. Married life and the social reality of women in the communities of Ignatius of Antioch
5. From Ephesians 5.21-33 to Ignatius, Letter to Polycarp 5.1-2 - the evolution of authority structures governing the lives of married women
6. The church-bride and married women as mediators between the church and the world
7. Conclusion
General conclusion.
