Focuses on the practice of permanent sexual renunciation-continence, celibacy, and life-long virginity - in Christian circles from the first to the fifth centuries AD. This book questions how theological views on sexuality and the human body both mirrored and shaped the uneven relationships between men and women.

St Augustine, bishop of Hippo, was one of the central figures in the history of Christianity. Written as a defence of the faith at a time when the Roman Empire was on the brink of collapse, this title examines the ancient pagan religions of Rome, the arguments of the Greek philosophers and the revelations of the Bible.

This study looks at the assumptions within which students of the Bible in the West approached their reading, from Augustine to the end of the 12th century, when new skills in grammar and logic made it possible to develop more refined critical methods and to apply fresh tools to the task.