Saving shame

Christianity is often blamed for shifting the ancient Mediterranean world from a culture of shame to one of guilt, and for shaping the modern Western focus on guilt. Virginia Burrus challenges that story, arguing that Christians did not simply swap shame for guilt. Instead, they took shame on as their own and reworked it. Her study centers on late antiquity and follows this process through several arenas, including the dramatic displays of martyrs, the image of a humiliated Christ, the self-abasing practices of ascetics, and the candid self-exposure found in Augustine's writings.

Burrus traces how public martyrdom turned the vulnerability of being shamed into a visible declaration of faith. She shows that the crucifixion of Christ, understood as a self-giving death, was taken up by believers as a model for their own lives. Shame also appears in more private forms. Her chapters examine the uneasy appeal of bodily frailty within theological thinking about the incarnation, the extreme humiliations that certain saints chose, and the emergence of confessional writing in both literary and monastic settings, where the shame of never-ending sin is voiced.

Writing in dialogue with a range of theorists, Burrus combines her historical analysis with theological, psychological, and ethical reflection. The book is aimed at readers interested in early Christianity, the history of emotions, and the study of religious identity.

In her final argument, Burrus proposes that early Christian texts still have something to offer modern readers about shame and its place in humility, courage, and love that seeks to transform.