Journal of Early Christian Studies

Through looking at "how people of the late antique Mediterranean were thinking and discussing questions of upbringing, formal education, and self-formation" (2), Jan Stenger's Education in Late Antiquity: Challenges, Dynamism and Reinterpretation, 300–550 CE aims to show that one is "missing out on a crucial dimension of education" if one "neglect[s] the theorization made by [late antique] thinkers" (2). By documenting the degree to which education surfaces as a "pervasive topic in literature, thought, and society" (3), Stenger seeks to correct a long-held "prejudice that this period was anything but original" (5). Just as importantly, Stenger demonstrates that "paideia was a central issue of the time," both in the "secular realm" and "within the church" (3). "While not denying the strong and palpable continuities in schooling across the epochal watershed of c. 300 CE" (6), Stenger premises that by shifting "the focus from practice" to "analysis of theorization," it is possible to "re-evaluate the relationship between education and society" (7). As he harnesses more than two centuries of late ancient debate, Stenger redefines late antiquity as a period that was "by no means suffering from wholesale decline but . . . rather marked by "dramatic upheavals and symptoms of transition" (7).

Juxtaposing Greco-Roman theorists with emergent Christian voices, the volume is structurally organized as a dialogue about pedagogy. Following a detailed introduction (1–16), discussion begins with exploration of late antiquity's primary "Educational Communities" (17–56), then turns to "The Emergence of Religious Education" in Chapter Two (57–98). In his third chapter, Stenger seeks to temper the notion of "ancient Schooling [as a] training ground for elite men" (99–106) by re-orienting the question to "What Men Could Learn from Women" (99–140). Chapter Four extends this discussion to "The Life of Paideia" (141–88) as narratively encapsulated in exemplary Lives and teachings. In the fifth chapter, Stenger situates emergent templates within a social and civic frame, addressing the implications of education aimed at "Moulding the Self and the World" (189–238).

The volume's final chapter brings the conversation full circle. Having traced the social, religious, demographic, cultural, and civic exchanges that govern "The [End Page 139] Making of the Late Antique Mind" (239–84), Stenger presents the Vivarium of Cassiodorus as a creative melding of Greco-Roman and Christian education. Retrospectively reimagined, here one meets the revival of classical pedagogies sequenced as derivative of Judeo-Christian antecedents. Stenger's "Conclusion" (285–92) recaps the volume's overall assessments, underscoring the degree to which late antiquity's "fierce controversies turned the domain of education into a field of intense competition" and, as such, "a marketplace for rivaling ideologies" (291). Stenger summarizes his approach as a corrective to "scholarship . . . [that] has tended to deal with pagan, Christian, Greek and Roman approaches separately." He argues instead that the tensive "reflections on upbringing, instruction, and formation," which shaped transitional, late ancient understandings of education, must be examined in conversation (292).

In each of the volume's six chapters, Stenger demonstrates deft familiarity with his source material. His analyses, however, concurrently underscore the challenges implicit to maintaining a critical perspective when engaging deeply rooted interpretive traditions. For example, in addressing "What Men Could Learn from Women" (Chapter Three), Stenger astutely reads portrayals of women's literacy against the grain. He observes that "however curious and scholarly" Christian women were—qualities that are repeatedly acknowledged—they are often "confine[d]" by their male biographers "to the role of the inquisitive student drinking from the sources of [a male teacher's] expertise and authority" (135). Noting recurrent resistance to portraying female figures "as biblical scholars on equal terms," Stenger observes that self-commissioned male reporters appear "anxious to stress their [colleagues'] . . . need for . . . theological guidance" and is eager to clarify that they have been enlisted "at a female scholar's request" (135; cf. Jer. Epist. 23.1, et al.). Simultaneously, Stenger's avoidance of gender-inclusive language—except in Chapter Three—tacitly reinforces representation of female scholarship as somehow different "from what most male intellectuals practiced" (102). Late ancient female scholars are commensurately consigned to elucidating educational theory, solely "from . . . its periphery" (138).

For readers familiar with the distinctive pedagogical currents of late antiquity, this volume provides a trove of learning-related source material. Just as promising is the degree to which embedded debates add concrete parameters to less structured reports of the transition from "Graeco-Roman" to "Roman-Christian" education. In limiting focus to theoretical discourse, however, Stenger forgoes the benefit of correctives that derive from placing interpretive "theory" in conversation with deeply rooted practice. Although, far from alone in sometimes face-value acceptance of inherited historiographies (not least those espoused by Marrou), Stenger's close critical analyses serve as a reminder of the embedded presuppositions that structure almost every construal of learning in late antiquity (cf. Thomas E. Hunt 2018; L. I. Larsen 2018, 2021). While Stenger effectively troubles interpretive approaches that have identified late ancient investment as a static "appendix . . . that . . . was anything but original" (5), it is difficult to ignore the degree to which Stenger himself (and perhaps all of us) echoes assessments that have iteratively judged a select slice of elite exchange, broadly representative.

Nonetheless, as Stenger continues the work of complicating notions of late ancient education as neither the nadir nor the apex of human endeavor, his [End Page 140] attention to theorization adds important perspective to developing a more balanced understanding of late antique learning. Although at points Stenger's readings bear the indelible imprint of timeworn interpretive legacies, the variety that characterizes his representation of late antiquity's learned voices likewise underscores the recurrent character of enduring debate. By affording cogent access to disparate authoritative positions, whether wittingly or not, Stenger also introduces welcome nuance to current arguments about the relationship between religion and education. As Stenger's diverse theoretical spectrum relativizes isolated articulations of a singular late ancient perspective, it likewise contextualizes contemporary echoes in discourse where religion remains a thinly veiled (and often problematic) subtext. In this, Stenger effectively attunes readers' ears to the operative resonance of ancient theorists. He simultaneously elucidates complex configurations of learning and formation, which still find voice today.