Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

A Missing Sacrament? Foot-washing, Gender, and Space in Early Christianity

A Missing Sacrament? Foot-washing, Gender, and Space in Early Christianity AbstractAlthough the story recounted in John 13 has often been taken to suggest a communal foot-washing practice existed in some Christian communities, the actual evidence for foot-washing in earliest Christianity suggests not a communal ritual, but women and particularly widows washing the feet of prisoners and others confined and in need. This custom seems to have waned across the third and fourth centuries as expectations of gender roles, liturgical practice, and space shifted, while different readings of the John 13 story encouraged a variety of newer, communal, and more public foot-washing practices, including those connected to initiation, and the monastic communal washings that underlie the medieval and later pedilavium. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Archiv für Religionsgeschichte de Gruyter

A Missing Sacrament? Foot-washing, Gender, and Space in Early Christianity

McGowan, Andrew
Archiv für Religionsgeschichte , Volume 18-19 (1): 18 – Sep 26, 2017
Download PDF
18 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/de-gruyter/a-missing-sacrament-foot-washing-gender-and-space-in-early-HL0WTflgOU

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
© 2017 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
ISSN
1868-8888
eISSN
1868-8888
DOI
10.1515/arege-2016-0007
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AbstractAlthough the story recounted in John 13 has often been taken to suggest a communal foot-washing practice existed in some Christian communities, the actual evidence for foot-washing in earliest Christianity suggests not a communal ritual, but women and particularly widows washing the feet of prisoners and others confined and in need. This custom seems to have waned across the third and fourth centuries as expectations of gender roles, liturgical practice, and space shifted, while different readings of the John 13 story encouraged a variety of newer, communal, and more public foot-washing practices, including those connected to initiation, and the monastic communal washings that underlie the medieval and later pedilavium.

Journal

Archiv für Religionsgeschichte – de Gruyter

Published: Sep 26, 2017

There are no references for this article.