‘Lest She Pollute the Sanctuary’
The Influence of the Protevangelium Iacobi on Women's Status in Christianity
By (author) P. M. Rumsey
No text in Christian history has had such a profound influence on how Christians perceive women: this book explores the Protevangelium Jacobi, the most influential Christian text that most Christians have never heard of! This work explores a second-century text, the Protevangelium Iacobi, and, by examining current scholarship on the subject, assesses the way it has influenced the Christian perception of women and the ordering of their lives through the centuries down to the present day. It demonstrates how Mary, as she is presented in this text with extreme and unreal emphasis on her purity, has been held up as an unattainable model for all Christian women and takes as a case study the lives of contemplative women in the Roman Catholic church, showing how the image of Mary impossibly secluded in the temple has been partly responsible for their enclosure. By exploring the way female biological processes have been allowed to intrude on the sacred, tracing this influence from the Old Testament, through this text and its connection with Mary to the present day, it argues that this has been a significant factor in the denial of presbyteral ordination to women in some Christian churches. One of the original features of this work is the tracing of art work depicting scenes from the text across the Christian world, thus demonstrating the breadth of its influence, right down to New Age writings today.
- By (author) P. M. Rumsey
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Friendship as Ecclesial Binding
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Volume 2
Through the Bone and Marrow
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‘The Letter Killeth’
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Volume 51
Saints and Sinners in Early Christian Ireland
Moral Theology in the Lives of Saints Brigit and Columba
Volume 3
The Spirit, the World and the Trinity
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‘The loss of a minute is just so much loss of life’
Edward Robinson and Eli Smith in the Holy Land
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Healing not Punishment. Penitentials in the Insular Church
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The Christology of Theodore of Tarsus
The Laterculus Malalianus and the Person and Work of Christ
Volume 6
Agents in Liturgy, Charity and Communication
The Tasks of Female Deacons in the Apostolic Constitutions
Volume 37
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