Children and Family in Late Antique Egyptian Monasticism by Caroline T. Schroeder

Abstract

Reviewed by: Children and Family in Late Antique Egyptian Monasticism by Caroline T. Schroeder Arietta Papaconstantinou Children and Family in Late Antique Egyptian Monasticism Caroline T. Schroeder Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xiii + 255. ISBN 9781107156876 When in 2006 Alice-Mary Talbot and I organized a conference on late antique and Byzantine childhood at Dumbarton Oaks, we felt we were venturing into new territory. In the fifteen years following that conference, the field has seen a spectacular rise in interest for all aspects of childhood in the broader late antique and Byzantine world. Caroline Schroeder's book is one of the most sophisticated products of this surge, both in its overall approach to the subject and in its nuanced and balanced discussions. Schroeder tackles a favorite of research on medieval childhood: the uneasy relationship between children and monasteries. This has not yet been studied comprehensively for the eastern Mediterranean, and this book, focused more specifically on late antique Egypt, makes an important first step in that direction. After an introduction defining the concept of "child" as used in the book and discussing the broader issue of how cultural norms can affect the way we study the subject, the first section, "Finding children," surveys a very broad array of sources, from monastic to visual to documentary (Chapter 1: "Documenting the Undocumented: Children in the Earliest Egyptian Monasteries"), and discusses the vocabulary of childhood and its ambiguities (Chapter 2: "The Language of Childhood"). Paradoxically, however, the second chapter undermines the first: the constant uncertainty regarding what exactly is being referred to by the various possible words for "child" does not support the argument that children's presence in monasteries was common and important. Neither does it invalidate it, of course, but the interpretation of most of the texts used is far from univocal. The second section, "Representations," is on much firmer ground, because it discusses literary themes about children. Each of the three chapters is based on a previously published article, and despite being self-standing studies, they combine to offer an excellent analysis of the thought-world of monastic writers and the literary uses to which they put children. Chapter 3, "Homoeroticism, Children, and the Making of Monks" (based on a 2009 publication, "Queer Eye for the Ascetic Guy? Homoeroticism, Children, and the Making of Monks in Late Antique Egypt" in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion 77: 333–47), treats the vexed issue of the sexualization of young boys in male monasteries. The undeniable grim reality underlying monastic literary [End Page 249] obsessions about young boys is difficult to access through texts that primarily express the sexual anxieties of monks. For the monks, they probably functioned similarly to texts about eunuchs or imaginary disguised women in their midst. Chapter 4, "Child sacrifice: from familial renunciation to Jephthah's lost daughter" (originally from 2012, "Child Sacrifice in Egyptian Monastic Culture: From Familial Renunciation to Jephthah's Lost Daughter" in the Journal of Early Christian Studies 20: 269–302), brings together topics as disparate as the killing of children and the renunciation of family affection. Schroeder shows how these hang together in a web of holy hierarchies, where obedience to God—and the line of authority figures representing him—trumps any bond within the biological family. She explores the complex intertextual relations between monastic stories and biblical models and the symbolic power of a practice that went against cultural norms. Biblical models like Jephtah and Abraham undeniably underlie such stories, but sacrificing one's child for a superior cause was also a Homeric theme and certainly familiar to monks with a Greek education. The final chapter in this section, chapter 5: "Monastic Family Values: The Healing of Children" (rooted in a 2011 publication, "Monastic Family Values: The Healing of Children in Late Antique Egypt" in Coptica 10: 21–28), discusses healing in both the literal and the symbolic sense—in other words, both biological and spiritual cures. Schroeder argues that the monastery thus took on the role of the household by providing care and moral education to the children. Although the monks' healing powers were ascribed to faith and asceticism, it seems inmates sometimes had medical expertise...