Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns Through Two Millenia.

McNamara's work, by contrast, is a learned and readable history of religious women which begins historically with female discipleship in the New Testament era and ends with some contemporary reflections on female religious orders today. The author, a historian at Hunter College in New York City, has not only participated in a working group of scholars interested in this topic but has published widely on women religious in Christian history. She is particularly good at differentiating "models" of female sanctity in their historical context, reminding us that women functioned with greater or lesser autonomy at various times and in various places. McNamara has benefited from and participated in the work of serious church historians who are sensitive to gender issues.

Without being reductionistic, McNamara uses the lens of gender difference to study ways in which those taking up the ascetic life were motivated by the desire to erase gender differences, or find a way for men and women to live in relatively genderless community, or even to create a kind of "third gender." Such attempts to achieve gender parity were prompted by the hegemony that men held over the sacramental life, the "dangers" of celibate friendship, and the power relations inevitable in the rise of the bureaucratic church.

The chapter headings of this fine work describe the ideal female Christian types that one might find at a given period in the church's life. McNamara divides her material into large historical periods: the Roman Empire, the Early Middle Ages, the High Middle Ages, the Early Modern, and the present era. The precise merit of this highly accessible historical study rests in the author's keen appreciation that the Christian tradition, though organic, is not monodirectional. No straight line of development leads from the desert ascetics to the "active" orders of the modern period. McNamara raises many historical questions that remain pertinent for today. For example, women's early monastic communities needed priests only for the confection of the Eucharist and sacramental penance, while most of their liturgical life remained within their own competency. Is that not the case today? Spiritual direction is increasingly in the hands of women. Such a development is yet another example of at least one model of Christian community which is almost completely women-centered. This, of course, raises other theological questions. If a monastic community can be called an ecclesia (as it was all through the Middle Ages), is a woman's monastic community an ecclesia and, if so, in what precise sense? If not, what is this community, theologically speaking?

The only quarrel I have with this capacious work is that McNamara does not discuss the early Syriac ascetic tradition (about which there are now abundant resources in English), which made its own contribution to the ascetic life for both men and women. I also noted that in a few places the author had some theological infelicities: to describe mysticism as a manner of "perceiving and organizing knowledge about the forces that control the world" seems reductionistic. To call the theological principle of post-Tridentine Catholicism "salvation through works" is just flat wrong. Nor did Saint Teresa characterize "mystical theology" as the reception of the inner truths of Catholic doctrine (sic) through meditation. However, these small inexactitudes do not detract from the strong historical narrative and the rich panorama of persons that give shape and power to Sisters in Arms. I know of no other book of such comprehensive scope. It deserves a wide readership for what it tells us about women in the Christian tradition generally and in the ascetic/religious/vowed world in particular. Abundant notes, an excellent bibliographical section keyed to the chapters, and a well-crafted index are also included. I suspect McNamara will be closely read in religious communities of women.