Susan E. Hylen is Associate Research Professor of New Testament at Candler School of Theology at Emory University.
Hylen's model of an early church in which women exercised agency and power within the constraints of the complex cultural expectations of their times will resonate with the experience of their times will resonate with the experience of many women readers who engage in Christian ministry while navigating the competing expectations of family, church, and society. --The Catholic Biblical Quarterly With rare clarity about cultural complexity, Susan Hylen disrupts overly sharp contrasts that assume some early Christian texts grant women exceptional social freedoms and influence (so The Acts of Thecla) while others impose patriarchal social restrictions (so 1 Timothy). Instead, Hylen subtly traces conflicting norms within texts, offering rich ancient evidence for women's civic and religious leadership and the gendering of virtue. A compelling analysis, poised to refresh debate on women in the ancient church. --B. Diane Lipsett, author of Desiring Conversion: Hermas, Thecla, Aseneth A Modest Apostle is sure to spark vigorous discussion and debate among scholars of early Christianity. Countering readings of Thecla as a subversive or transgressive figure, the author argues for Thecla's conformance to conventional Greco-Roman expectations regarding the virtue of modesty, which Hylen sees as compatible with both the teachings of 1 Timothy and public practices of female leadership in ancient society. --Stephen J. Davis, author of The Cult of St. Thecla: A Tradition of Women's Piety in Late Antiquity A Modest Apostle offers a fresh and welcome new approach to the study of Thecla, 1 Timothy, and the role of women in earliest Christianity. Calling attention to a shared ideal of 'modesty, ' Hylen shows that the disciplining rhetoric of female submission did not preclude active feminine leadership. Even the staunchest proponents of women's passivity could also offer praise for their active roles and literary endorsements of women's leadership did not necessarily imply a preference for gendered equality. Highly recommended. --Jennifer Knust, Associate Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins, Boston University The strengths of this book are considerable: it advances scholarship through reappraisal of conclusions that often go unchallenged, and it culls data about women from numerous sources, including papyri Hylen's important contribution to scholarship on early Christian women is recommended particularly for graduate students. Hylen's appeal for more complex analysis will require scholars to be more careful about what they assert about gendered social norms. --Horizons