This volume brings together studies of a diverse collection of sources - patristic texts, apocrypha, medicinal treatises, hagiography, pseudepigrapha, papyri, and more - illuminating how children mediated the relationship between Christian thought and society in late antiquity.

Social, cultural, theological, and economic presentations of children offer important clues to understanding the development of Christianity and society in Late Antiquity. This volume brings together studies of a diverse collection of sources - patristic texts, apocrypha, medicinal treatises, hagiography, pseudepigrapha, papyri, and more - illuminating how children mediated the relationship between Christian thought and Late Antique society. The contributors address the existence of children's culture, medicine and healing of children, disability and deformed children, the economic condition of orphans, theological appropriations of children, the presentations of family relationships in Christian thought, monasticism and family obligations, early Christian response to pedophilia and the formation of Christian ethical identity, and the role of children in apocryphal texts.

With contributions by:
Reidar Aasgaard, Tony Burke, Carole Monica C. Burnett, Susan R. Holman, Cornelia B. Horn; Inta Ivanovska, Nicole Kelley, Chrysi Kotsifou, John W. Martens, Robert R. Phenix, Carrie Schroeder, Ville Vuolanto

Autorentext
is professor of Greek and Oriental Patristics, Saint Louis University, USA. Born 1973; 2005 PhD; 2008 Habilitation in the Languages and Cultures of the Christian Orient at the University of Tübingen; currently an independent scholar.