Gender Instability in Early Christian Accounts

The way in which gender has been constructed and understood in society is a fluid and dynamic process, through which certain people are often included and excluded from positions and institutions. Looking at the way in which gender operates in Christianity in antiquity, I focus on several early texts about women, notably the Acts of Paul and Thecla and the Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas, to examine ways in which women in Christian texts, particularly in martyrdom and persecution in those two cases, are represented as less "feminine" while still being an "ideal" female.