1. Women's roles in the church. Teachers. Marcellina ; Melania the Younger ; Macrina ; Women, the church, and teaching -- Prophets. Disciples of Marcus ; Montanists -- Martyrs. Blandina ; Agathonicê ; Potamiaena -- Catechumens -- Widows. New Testament ; Second-century correspondence ; Third-century church rules -- Deaconesses. Writings opposed to women's ecclesiastical duties -- 2. Women and virginity. Female comportment. Major treatises on virginity. Methodius, The symposium ; Gregory of Nyssa, On virginity ; John Chrysostom, On virginity -- The subintroductae. Athanasius, Second letter to virgins ; John Chrysostom, Instruction and refutation directed against those men cohabiting with virgins ; John Chrysostom, On the necessity of guarding virginity -- Transvestism -- 3. Portraits of ascetic women. Ascetic heroines in literature. Thecla ; Xanthippe and Polyxena ; Maximilla -- Biographies of ascetic leaders. Macrina ; Melania the Elder ; Melania the Younger ; Olympias -- Women in desert asceticism. The nun who feigned madness ; Pelagia ; Theodora, Sarah, and Syncletica -- 4. Women and domestic life. Marriage. Paul, 1 Corinthians 7 ; Hermas, The shepherd ; Clement of Alexandria, The pedagogue ; Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies ; John Chrysostom, Homily 12 on 1st Corinthians ; John Chrysostom, The kind of women who ought to be taken as wives ; John Chrysostom, Homily 20 on Ephesians -- Praise for mothers and sisters. Gregory of Nazianzus, Funeral oration for his sister Gorgonia ; Gregory of Nazianzus on his mother, Nonna ; John Chrysostom, On the priesthood -- 5. Female imagery and theology. Eve-Mary theme. Eve ; Eve and Mary -- Marian literature. Marian biography ; Virgin and mother of God ; Marian cult ; The other Mary -- Female images and metaphors. God as mother ; The "woman clothed with the sun" ; The church personified as a woman ; The soul as female ; The Virtues as female -- Appendices. Timeline of early Christian women ; Timeline of early Christian authors and texts.