Melania the Elder and her granddaughter Melania the Younger were major figures in early Christian history, using their wealth, status, and forceful personalities to shape the development of nearly every aspect of the religion we now know as Christianity. This volume examines their influence on late antique Christianity and provides an insightful portrait of their legacies in the modern world. Departing from the traditionally patriarchal view, Melania gives a poignant and sometimes surprising account of how the rise of Christian institutions in the Roman Empire shaped our understanding of women’s roles in the larger world.

About the Author

Catherine M. Chin is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of California, Davis and author of Grammar and Christianity in the Late Roman World.

Caroline T. Schroeder is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of the Pacific and author of Monastic Bodies: Discipline and Salvation in Shenoute of Atripe.

Introduction
Catherine M. Chin and Caroline T. Schroeder

PART ONE. ARISTOCRACY
1. Apostles and Aristocrats
Catherine M. Chin
2. Namesake and Inheritance
Christine Luckritz Marquis
3. Exemplary Women
Caroline T. Schroeder

PART TWO. BODY AND FAMILY
4. Holy Households
Maria Doerfler
5. Wounded by Divine Love
Kristi Upson-Saia

PART THREE. GENDER AND MEMORY
6. Memories of the Martyrs
L. Stephanie Cobb
7. The Memory of Melania
Rebecca Krawiec

PART FOUR. WISDOM AND HERESY
8. A Life in Letters
Robin Darling Young
9. Friends and Heretics
Susanna Drake
10. Posthumous Orthodoxy
Christine Shepardson

PART FIVE. IN THE HOLY PLACES
11. The Lost Generation
Andrew S. Jacobs
12. Sing, O Daughter(s) of Zion
Stephen J. Shoemaker

PART SIX. MODERNITIES
13. Afterlives
Michael Penn
14. Monastic Revivals
Stephen J. Davis
15. The Future of Sainthood
Elizabeth A. Castelli
Afterword
Randall Styers

List of Contributors
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

"The decision to zero in on the two Melanias produces obvious benefits: the interlocking papers build to a sort of ‘thick description’ of late fourth- and early fifth-century Christianity, and recent analytical approaches to its study . . . this book would make an excellent companion for a special subject or graduate course on asceticism in late antiquity. "
— Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"Diversity of thought is the chief value in this collection. From spacial syntax to gender theory, this collection provides examples of new methods of research that emerged after 'The Lady Vanishes.' . . . This book [is] suitable for advanced graduate students and specialists in Late Antiquity and Christianity, particularly those which focus on sexuality and gender."
— Classical Journal

"Readers can be grateful to the editors and authors who have produced a wide-ranging contribution to the 'Melania revival.' "
— Anglican and Episcopal History

"Although one does not expect that a volume of essays will necessarily be coherent, this collection succeeds, and is both a richly varied scholarly study and a pedagogical aid to rethinking what a cultural biography might be."
— Journal of Ecclesiastical History

"Melania is a great addition to the field of early Christian studies."

— Religious Studies Review

"In this tightly focused volume, Catherine Chin and Caroline Schroeder have done a splendid job giving shape to the emergent Christianity of the late Roman Empire through the lens of the Melanias. The work is of a very high caliber."–Susanna Elm, Sidney H. Ehrman Professor of History and Classics at the University of California, Berkeley

"Melania makes both a significant contribution to the study of 'the Melanias' and also to a range of creative and innovative methodological interventions in the study of late antiquity. This volume is an appropriate tribute to the distinguished accomplishments of Professor Elizabeth A. Clark, in whose honor the essays have been written. I was extremely impressed."—Benjamin Dunning, Professor of Theology at Fordham University

About the Book

About the Author

Table of Contents

Reviews