Educating Bodies in Ancient Christianity

Catalog description

How did ancient Christians learn to be Christian? Did Christian education look different from the ways that “Pagans” learned to be Pagan, Jews Jewish, or “heretics” heretics? This course explores the many ways that Christians learned to be Christian, paying particular attention to the role of the family, city, liturgy, and, of course, “schools.” We will adopt a comparative approach, looking at education among heretical “Gnostic” communities, on the one hand, and the rabbinic Jewish community, on the other. Some familiarity with the ancient Mediterranean world, through prior study of early Christianity, Judaism, Classics, or Ancient History, is recommended.