The suffering self

by Judith Perkins

The Suffering Self is a controversial interdisciplinary study of the spread of Christianity across the Roman empire. Judith Perkins shows how Christian narrative representation in the early empire worked to create a new kind of human self-understanding - the perception of the self as sufferer. Drawing on feminist and social theory, she addresses the question of why themes of martyrdom and bodily suffering were so prevalent in early Christian texts. This study crosses the boundaries between ancient history and the study of early Christianity in the context of the Greco-Roman world. Perkins draws parallels with suffering heroines in Greek novels and in martyr acts and examines representations in medical and philosophical texts. The Suffering Self is important reading for all those interested in ancient society, or in the history of Christianity.