The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity; Twentieth Anniversary Edition with a New Introduction (Columbia Classics in Religion) [Hardcover]

Peter Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 26, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0231144067 | ISBN-13: 978-0231144063 | Edition: 2nd

First published in 1988, Peter Brown's The Body and Society was a groundbreaking study of the marriage and sexual practices of early Christians in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. Brown focuses on the practice of permanent sexual renunciation-continence, celibacy, and lifelong virginity-in Christian circles from the first to the fifth centuries A.D. and traces early Christians' preoccupations with sexuality and the body in the work of the period's great writers.

The Body and Society questions how theological views on sexuality and the human body both mirrored and shaped relationships between men and women, Roman aristocracy and slaves, and the married and the celibate. Brown discusses Tertullian, Valentinus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Constantine, the Desert Fathers, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine, among others, and considers asceticism and society in the Eastern Empire, martyrdom and prophecy, gnostic spiritual guidance, promiscuity among the men and women of the church, monks and marriage in Egypt, the ascetic life of women in fourth-century Jerusalem, and the body and society in the early Middle Ages. In his new introduction, Brown reflects on his work's reception in the scholarly community.

(8/23/08)

Editorial Reviews

Review

The reader of Peter Brown's work is always uncertain which to admire most, the grace and clarity, the scope and erudition, or the ability to bring diverse and complex units into a meaningful whole. These merits are all fully on display in The Body and Society.

(New York Times Book Review )

Peter Brown's book is a great achievement. It will long be read, its insights studied and discussed, and its prose admired and enjoyed.... His work is a tour de force, showing a mastery of text and subject through six centuries of history.

(W. H. C. Frend New York Review of Books )

A profound exploration of the meaning of embodiment, celibacy, and chastity for early Christians.

(Christianity Today )

A work of rediscovery and re-evaluation, written in luminous, heart-stopping prose.

(Nicolas Rothwell The Australian )

A seminal work.

(Bryn Mawr Classical Review )

A truly magisterial work of historical scholarship by the greatest living authority on late antique Mediterranean civilization. It will be the definitive work on this subject for the foreseeable future.

(Choice )

[A] compelling and human study of the depths and heights of sexual renunciation.... Brown's detached yet compassionate sympathy recreates the subtle and complex world of late-antique sexuality and renunciation with a skill which is uniquely his. This is not a history of the idea of virginity, but a sharpyly-focused series of pictures of its practice.

(London Review of Books )

Only Peter Brown could have written The Body and Society. The book... is the work of an acute and immensely learned mind soaked in the sources, with an enviable power to bring together widely scattered and recondite texts.

(Religion )

About the Author

Peter Brown, formerly professor of classics and history at the University of California, Berkeley, is the Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor of History at Princeton University and the most prominent scholar of late antiquity (between 250 and 800 A.D.). He is the author of a dozen books, including Augustine of Hippo, Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman World, The Rise of Western Christendom, and Poverty and Leadership in the Late Roman Empire.

(4/27/09)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 568 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press; 2nd edition (June 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231144067
• ISBN-13: 978-0231144063
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,707,183 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an excellent, scholarly study, May 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Body and Society (Paperback)

Brown's book is the finest study available on sexuality and the body in the early Church. This book sheds great light on the classical, Jewish , and Christian conceptions of the body and how important those conceptions were in early Christianity, especially for early Christian asceticism. This is a must read for anyone interested in gaining a serious appreciation of the early Church. Many histories focus primarily on the Development of Christian Doctrine and Ecclesial structures. An understanding of early Christian spirituality and asceticism illuminates early Christian doctrine and church structure even more.

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent History of Early Christianity, December 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Body and Society (Paperback)

This is a marvelous book and Peter Brown is a master of his field. _The Body and Society_ provides one of the best histories available of the human body and its relationship to Christianity in late antiquity. Brown traces early Christian ideas on the body and sexulity to their roots in the Classical world and Roman views of gender and sexual practice. Then, the Christian idea of sexual renunciation is explored through the ideas of major Christian theologians, dealing especially well with the complex views of Augustine of Hippo. This is a beautifully written masterpiece of historical research and is likely to be a modern classic.

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very well written history book, it makes history pleasant., October 1, 1998

By 

Also Roberta Campani ([e-mail]) (Alps, Switzerland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Body and Society (Paperback)

This book is an introduction for those who are just approaching the ancient world of early christianity, and a guide full of insight for those who already have had a look of it. It is as important to philosophers as to historians, and to all those who are interested in the <<origins>> of Christianity and all the trouble it had before becoming one of the most expanded religions and cultures on our world. Moreover it makes an important step in linking the history of religion and of thought to the history of the human body. Mr. Brown wrote an excellent history book where any person seriuosly interested in the ancient world can find important information. Information, though, is not the only important thing in History, and in this book we can find much more: useful anecdotes are beautifully depicted in the very right place in order to make the thinking and the more practical need of our ancestors more undersandable to our western technological eyes. Also let me add, that this book is the result of some thirty years of reserch and extensive, but deep reeding of the writings and deed of the Fathers of Christianity. This book is, for us, an exceptional chance to read not only the translations of a very experienced translator of ancient literature but also his comments and crossed inquiries.