86 pages, paperback
14,8 x 21,0, 2024

Did Christianity in its beginnings depend on classical education, and was it ever able to free itself of this dependency? Christians were confronted with classical paideia, which comprised literate learning as well as social codes and the ideal of the true human being. Many Christian writers uttered their skepticism about paideia (due to the prominence of pagan Gods in school texts), but looking at educational practices opens up a different view. Christians made use of literate skills in memorializing the dead in inscriptions, writing down the life of saints, and preaching the Gospel in worship. Their dependency on educational competencies and values thus always entailed innovation and creativity as well as an ongoing interaction with contemporary religious cultures. If one distinguishes the levels of discourse and practice, it becomes clear that Christians felt no need to dispose of paideia. Instead, religious education was promoted for all members of the faith, regardless of age, sex, social standing, and also regardless of a person’s status as a free citizen, freed person, or slave. One may even call late ancient Christianity, as is argued, a “Bildungsreligion” (a religion characterized by education).     
           
 

The Author

Peter Gemeinhardt (b. 1970) earned the degree of Dr. theol. from the University of Marburg in 2001. In 2006, he completed his habilitation in the University of Jena. Since 2007, he has been a professor of Church History at the Faculty of Theology in the University of Göttingen. His research foci comprise the doctrine of the Trinity, Christian saints and sainthood from the beginnings of the religion to modernity, and the relationship between education and religion in the late ancient world. From 2015 to 2020, he was the director of the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centre – “Education and Religion” in the University of Göttingen. From 2021 to 2023, he served as the dean of the Faculty of Theology. He is the editor of Studies in Education and Religion in Ancient and Pre-Modern History in the Mediterranean and Its Environs (SERAPHIM) and of the Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. His publications include: Das lateinische Christentum und die antike pagane Bildung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007); Athanasius von Alexandrien, Vita Antonii. Leben des Antonius (introd., trans. and notes) (Freiburg: Herder, 2018); Geschichte des Christentums in der Spätantike (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022).