The body and the embodied self were crucial components of identity, social engagement, and lived experience in the ancient Mediterranean, the context of early Christian texts. Early Christian texts themselves abound with material that speaks to these concerns, in a variety of different ways. Specifically, this course will examine concepts of the social body, the body as a location where identity, honour and shame are constructed and negotiated, the body as something which must be controlled or even disdained, and the body as a location of negotiating power (among other topics).