Infant Exposure and the Rhetoric of Cannibalism, Incest, and Martyrdom in the Early Church

Abstract

In responding to the charges of incest and cannibalism, a number of early Christian writers appealed to the idea that Christians could not be guilty of such crimes when they would not engage in more socially acceptable practices like adultery and infant exposure. This paper argues that the recourse to infant exposure was not accidental; it both addressed unspoken assumptions about the origins of children used in these supposed rituals, and also formed the basis for a sharp critique of Roman morality. Infant exposure, Christians argued, threatened everyone with the taboo crimes of cannibalism and incest. By uniting the morally ambiguous yet socially entrenched practice of exposure with barbarizing taboos like incest and cannibalism, Christians did something novel that had ramifications both for speculation about post-mortem punishment and also for practical laws governing the family.