BMCR reviews a very important work, “Let the Little Children Come to Me”: Childhood and Children in Early Christianity, by Cornelia B. Horn, John W. Martens.

Through an exhaustive analysis of nearly every quote pertaining to children in the canonical New Testament, with some references from early patristic texts and some extracanonical, especially the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the authors attempt to answer a basic and important question: what “significant differences Christianity made in the lives of children, historically, sociologically, and culturally” in the first few centuries? The answer they posit is that “Christianity made life better for children” … “Christian criticism of practices of abuse, infanticide, abortion, and exposure led to improved lives for numerous children, in significant part because the Roman state embraced the Christian moral code in the course of the fourth and fifth century.”

Also important, on the same topic: When Children Became People: The Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity, by O. M. Bakke.

Edward G. Mathews, Jr., reviews Christos Simelidis’s Selected Poems of Gregory of Nazianzus in BMCR.

Gregory of Nazianzus is one of the most consistently celebrated of the early Christian writers … However, this sustained popularity was generally due to his theological acumen and his extraordinary rhetorical skills, not to his poetry, which both Jerome and the Suda numbered at 30,000 verses (only about two-thirds of them have actually survived) …

Simelidis’ work is a revised version of his Oxford doctoral dissertation. It offers a lengthy introduction to Gregory’s poetry (pp. 21-102), critical editions of the Greek texts — no translations — of four of Gregory’s poems … This is an extraordinarily detailed and erudite study that ought to lay down the path for any future study of Gregory’s poetry. Gregory stands as a unique transitional point between classical/hellenistic poetry and Byzantine poetry.

Some of Gregory’s poems are available in English translation, in the Popular Patristics series: On God and Man: The Theological Poetry of St. Gregory of Nazianzus.

Looks very interesting.

Vines Intertwined: A History of Jews and Christians from the Babylonian Exile to the Advent of Islam, by Leo Duprée Sandgren (Hendrickson).

The study of Jewish/Christian history in antiquity is experiencing a renaissance. Textual witnesses and archaeological sites are being reevaluated and revisited. As a result, author Sandgren asserts, the relationship between Jews and Christians has shifted from a “mother-daughter” paradigm to one better described as “siblings.”

Recognizing that Judaism and Christianity are what they are because of each other and were not formed in isolation, Sandgren provides readers and researchers with a comprehensive generation-by-generation political history of the Jews—from the fall of the First Temple and the Babylonian Exile through the rise of Christianity out of Judaism—to the conquest of Jerusalem by Muslim Arabs and the rise of Christianity out of Judaism, to the point where both are fully defined against each other at the start of the Middle Ages.

With a good subject index and a strong chronological framework, this book is a convenient reference work to this extended period of antiquity, with sufficient “bookends” of history to show where it began and how it ends. Making use of numerous contemporary studies as well as often neglected classics, Sandgren thoroughly develops the concept of “the people of God” and the core ideology behind Jewish and Christian self-definition. A ready resource for both students and scholars, pastors and laypeople, this accessible reference also includes a bibliography and an ancient sources index as well as a CD. The attached CD will have the entire book as a searchable PDF as well as a list of names of emperors, rabbis, and church fathers.

Word has arrived of a newly-typeset edition of Irenaeus’s “Against the Heresies.” The text is that of the ANF, with the original page numbers embedded in the text. The only revision is to the introduction, to fill out some of the background on Pope Victor and St. Irenaeus; the new editors have removed Bp. Coxe’s anti-Catholic footnotes, while retaining the original numbering on the remaining notes. The book is available in  softcover and  hardcover.

If you’ve visited this blog more than twice, you know by now that I’m a big fan of Rod Bennett’s book Four Witnesses: The Early Church in Her Own Words. It’s a novelistic re-telling of the earliest Christian history, using the very words of the Apostolic Fathers. It’s one of the great “imaginative entries” into the world of the Fathers that I’m always recommending, especially for young Christians.

Here’s the great news: Four Witnesses is now available for download in a professionally produced audio edition. So you can do your daily aerobics with the Apostolic Fathers. You can drive with the Apostolic Fathers. You can cook with the Apostolic Fathers. The possibilities are innumerable.

In BMCR …

Benjamin Garstad reviews Roger S. Bagnall’s Early Christian Books in Egypt.

Scott Carson reviews Luigi Gioia’s The Theological Epistemology of Augustine’s De Trinitate.

Gerard O’Daly reviews Philip Rousseau and Jutta Raithel’s A Companion to Late Antiquity.