Holy Misogyny
October 25, 2012 I’m reading a book titled, Holy Misogyny : Why the Sex and Gender Conflicts in the Early Church Still Matter, by April DeConick . Its revelations on vilification of the female in the first centuries of Christianity would repel even most conservatives today. I had encountered much of this material before but had forgotten the details—who said or did what outrageous thing. The ugly story presents a backdrop to contemporary events and helps to explain the glacial pace of change today in the treatment of women and girls. In these excerpts “Church Fathers” reveal prejudices so contorted as to call into question their soundness of mind. [Jerome, translator of the Bible into Latin,] spells out all the details of fostering a virgin whose body would become the temple of God. The girl child must be kept in total seclusion . . . She should be taught such shame of her female body that after puberty she should never bathe again, being humiliated by the mere thought o