Description: The attitude of late ancient Christians towards classical education was complex and has in recent years been extensively studied with particular attention being paid to the different theoretical positions that can be found among the Church Fathers. Their attitudes ranged from enthusiastic assimilation to outright rejection, which sometimes masked implicit adoption. Shifting attention away from such explicit statements, this volume focuses on a series of lesser-known texts in order to study the impact of specific literary and social contexts on late ancient educational views and practices.
Review Quotes:
"Taking into account geographical and linguistic disparities, as well as social, political and cultural upheavals, these twelve contributions provide a nuanced overview of the relationship Christians have with classical education in late antiquity. The major contribution of the book lies in the attention paid to many little-known and under-exploited literary sources. The treatment reserved for them contributes to improving not only the knowledge of late antiquity and the richness of its literary production, but also the understanding of these texts, which sometimes do not yet benefit from a modern critical edition. The work, far from ending the subject, will undoubtedly demonstrate the complexity of the study of Christian attitudes towards paideia in the field of education in late antiquity and will certainly lead to further research on the question."
- Nathan Carlig, Università di Roma, Italy, in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review