Women in Late Antiquity and Early Christianity: The Voices and Deeds of the “Silent” Minority

Abstract

The status of women in Late Antiquity and early Christianity has been an inspiring
theme for debate in the last few decades. The New Testament is full of texts that testify
about the involvement of women in early Christian communities. In the Epistles of St.
Paul, he salutes women, addresses them as collaborators, one of them as the deaconess, and
even calls one the Apostle. This text makes a brief overview of the role and position of women
in antiquity, which, in addition to the later analysis of their place in the early Christian
world, will best show whether and how much the new religion influenced their, to use
here an exquisite modern word, emancipation. In the context of this, we are also going to
study several examples of deciduous mosaics from archaeological sites in the Republic of
Macedonia.