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Although Jesus called on his first followers to welcome children in his name and to become like children, the lives of the first Christian children have remained in the shadows. This book explores the hidden lives of children at the origins of Christianity. It draws on insights gained from comparisons of children's experiences in ancient Judaism and the Graeco-Roman world. The authors also engage a vast body of early Christian literature, extending from the New Testament to sermons, letters, theological treatises, poetry, pedagogical manuals, and historiography in Greek, Latin, Syriac, and other languages current in the early Christian world. The guiding question of the book focuses on how Christianity changed the lives of children in the ancient world. Some of the other questions examined by the authors include: Did boys and girls both receive a formal education? Were Christian children slaves? How did they participate in manual labor? What kinds of games did children play? How did children become a part of the Christian church? This book breaks new ground in the study of early Christianity by examining the challenges to Christian childhood in the first centuries of the Church. The authors look at violence perpetrated against children, and they consider the effects and opportunities arising from Christians' experiences of martyrdom, and from the increased Christian interest in various forms of asceticism, including celibacy. The book brings into the open the lives of early Christian children and throws much needed light on what has been a largely neglected area of study in early Christianity.

Historical-critical methods in biblical scholarship are associated with numerous intellectual movements, such as rationalism, positivism, and historical relativism, that minimize or reject the sacred and revealed nature of Scripture. Ben F. Meyer noted, however, as have official Church documents, that modern biblical techniques are essential for locating the literal, that is, the intended sense of the biblical texts. He likened these modern methods to the ancient Antiochene school’s focus on the literal sense. But to focus on “Antioch” alone does not account for Scripture’s theological depth, religious context, or fulfillment of the promises of God. Biblical interpretation associated with ancient “Alexandria” offers a focus on the transcendent mystery of God’s word, often lacking in current biblical scholarship, but Meyer noted that ancient allegorical interpretation cannot simply be borrowed today since it often lacks a sense of historic change and development. This book is not about patristic reception of the Bible in Antioch and Alexandria, but the need to bring together in critical synthesis historical biblical methods that seek to understand the literal sense in all of its fullness and also incorporate methods of interpretation that take seriously the biblical texts as revelatory of God’s word for our salvation. “Antioch” and “Alexandria” are representative in this book of interpretive stances that pay attention to historical context, change, and development and are open to transcendence in order to offer the salvific power of Scripture to readers in our own day.