Welcome to What Matters Most, episode 2 of our fifth season and episode one of the “Childhood, Education, and Family Relations in Early Christian Communities” SSHRC Insight Grant Podcasts. This episode is the first in a series of episodes that are funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant. SSHRC is the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Margaret MacDonald and I are co-principal investigators on this five-year grant titled “Childhood, Education, and Family Relations in Early Christian Communities.” Cornelia Horn and Teresa Morgan are collaborators on this research grant. We are thankful for SSHRC’s support of our research through this Insight Grant.

Here is a part of our proposal submitted to SSHRC:

“The main aim is to explore the relationship between childhood, education, and family relations in early Christian communities and their relevant contexts from Jewish beginnings to the Late Antique period (approx. 100 BCE-500 CE). The research reflects the trans-disciplinary interest in the experiences of children which have often been neglected. Employing an emerging theoretical approach, “childist” interpretation, investigators will move children from the margins to the center of investigation. They will highlight potential advances in our understanding resulting from a deliberate effort to listen to and learn from children through analysis of ancient textual and material evidence. Researchers will highlight findings which suggest that children and youth were important agents, instrumental to growth, the passing on of traditions, and transition into new generations. They will draw upon the category of “intersectionality” (exploring identity with reference to overlapping factors linked to status), especially the intersection between the lives of slaves and children (free and slave) in educational experiences. Rather than focus exclusively on the use of teaching language and authority figures (usually male), the aim is to probe the parameters of educational spaces, paying attention also to the presence of women, slaves, and children.”

In this first SSHRC funded episode I speak with the team about the parameters of the grant. What do we mean by education? Formal and informal education? Literate education? Scribal education? What methodologies are we using? How do you study ancient children? Were there differences among the educational experiences of Greek, Roman, and Jewish children? How did these differences influence the emerging Christian movement? Who were the teachers of children, and adults for that matter, as perhaps the lives of children were more integrated into the adult world in antiquity than the lives of children today. We had a lively discussion and even though our team comprises experts on all of these topics, it is clear that in these beginning stages of our research, we have much to sort out and define. I find this exciting, as I know Cornelia, Margaret, and Teresa do also, and I want to invite you along on our research journey, which begins its public dissemination with this first episode.

I also want to introduce the team a bit more, which for this episode will include me, and focus on some of their research relevant for this grant. I cannot cover all of the teams research in this episode but I will highlight some key contributions:

Dr. Cornelia Horn is Full Professor & Chair, Depart. of Oriental Christian and Byzantine Studies, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. She is the author, with me, of Let the Little Children Come to Me”: Childhood and Children in Early Christianity. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009.

She was also, with Reidar Aasgaard, a principal investigator on the major research study, “Childhood in Early Europe,” through the Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.

Some of her articles are as follows:

“Raising Martyrs and Ascetics: A Diachronic Comparison of Educational Role-Models for Early Christian Children.” In Children in Late Antique Christianity. Edited by Cornelia B. Horn and Robert R. Pheonix. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009, 293-316.

“Parent-Child Relationships and Children’s Health in the Roman East and the Persian Empire: Perspectives from Theodoret of Cyrrhus’s Religious History and the Acts of Mār Mārī.” In Children and Family in Late Antiquity: Life, Death, and Interaction. Edited by Christian Laes, Katarina Mustakillio, and Ville Vuolonto, Leuven and Walpole: Peeters, 2015, 257-287.

Dr. Margaret MacDonald – Professor of Religious Studies at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.

The Power of Children: The Construction of Christian Families in the GrecoRoman World. Waco Texas: Baylor University Press, 2014.

“Like Father Like Son: Reassessing Constructions of Fatherhood in Ephesians in Light of Cultural Interests in Family Continuity.” In Bodies, Borders, Believers: Ancient Texts and Present Conversations: Essays in Honor of Turid Karlsen Seim on her 70th birthday. Edited by Anne Hegge Grung, Marianne Bjelland Kartzow and Anna Rebecca Soleväg. Eugene, Or:Wipf and Stock, Pickwick Publications 2015, 125-143.

“Paul and Family Life.” In Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook,Second Edition, 2 vols. Edited by J. Paul Sampley. London: Bloomsbury, T&T Clark, 2016, 25481.

“Education and the Household in the Pastoral Epistles,” Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 75 (2021): 283-93.

Dr. John Martens – Professor of Theology at St. Mark’s College, Vancouver

“Adoption.” In Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity Online. Edited by David G. Hunter, Paul van Geest and L. J. Lietaert Peerbolte. Leiden: Brill, 2018.

“Methodology: Who is a Child and Where do we Find Children in the Greco-Roman World?” In the T&T Handbook of Children in the Bible and the Biblical World. Edited by Sharon Betsworth and Julie Faith Parker. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2019, 223-243.

“Are Enslaved Children Called to Come to Jesus? Freeborn and Enslaved Children in John Chrysostom’s On Vainglory.” Biblical interpretation 28.5 (2020): 584–607.

“Book I: A Typical Child of the Fifties.” In Augustine’s Confessions and Contemporary Concerns. Edited by David Vincent Meconi, SJ. St. Paul, MN: St. Paul Seminary Press, 2022, 11-31.

Dr. Teresa Morgan – McDonald Agape Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Yale University.

Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

“Ethos: The Socialization of Children in Education and Beyond.” In A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Edited by Beryl Rawson. Oxford: Blackwell, 2011, 504-520.

Roman Faith and Christian Faith. Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

A few thanks are in order. First of all, I am grateful to Martin Strong, who guides me in the podcasting world and joins me for the Pop Culture Matters regularly. Second, the episodes are edited, engineered, and produced by Kevin Eng who is the first listener to all the episodes and my consultant for each episode, especially with the snippets that begin each episode. Thank you, Kevin, for all of your expertise and support and especially for saving this episode when I could not convert it to a listenable or viewable file. Finally, to the Fang Fang Chandra, the CCE assistant, who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly.

I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. We are thankful to their commitment to the life of the academic world and of the work of the Church in the world by funding the work of the CCE. I am also thankful to the Cullen family, Mark and Barbara, for their support of the ongoing work of the CCE through financial donations that allow us to bring speakers to the local and international arenas.

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Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce or our Facebook page and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. We’ll post there with a question as to what you are most interested in. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected].

John W. Martens</