Intimate Labour

Using the framework of intimate labour, in this article I consider some evidence for women's labour for and with God in Romans 16 and Philippians 4 alongside other ancient letters and everyday material evidence about women's labour. Evidence of intimate labour from the ancient world adds qualitative data that expands the scholarly scope of how we think about the ancient economy. In this article I ask, how can we account for the wide range of work, including work for and with God, in our descriptions of early Christianity? Whose labour is valued, and what types of labour are valuable in early Christianity? How did women negotiate their labour and contributions to early Christ communities within and beyond expectations of women's labour in the ancient world?