Anyone know who and what they were?
The female equivalent of the desert fathers - early Christians who abandoned cities to live in the wild and eventually established the first monastic communities?
Correct. They, of course, were (in some ways) even more admirable than the desert men, because they flouted all expectations of women, especially widowed women and young women of marriageable age.
I’ve often wondered if Melania was deliberately named after a well-known desert woman.
It’s a shame that we can’t speak to any of these early Christians for a better comparison to our modern interpretations of religion.
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You might like this. I read it often.
Diognetus must have written to Mathetes wanting to know about the Christians. This is the letter written to Diognetus. Written around the first century.
The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus
This reads a lot like the letters of Paul. Very nice read, thank you!
You are welcome!
From Chapter XI “…but having been a disciple of the Apostles, I am become a teacher of the Gentiles.”
Mathetes claims to have been “a disciple of the Apostles.” Maybe that Apostle was Paul. Paul was sent to the Gentiles.
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Went to the Home Page of Early Christian Writings and have been having a great time scanning through it. Much more interesting that the “Lost Books of the Bible” although some of them are of great interest as well.
I think so. They may not be inspired writings, but they are of value to me.
