Education in Religious Contexts of Late Antiquity

This Element describes the most common educational processes of religious communities in the late antique period. Through a combination of historical analysis and examples, it provides an overview of the methods used to teach the alphabet and basic rhetoric, which were central to Jewish and Christian, including Manichaean, knowledge production.

This Element describes the most common educational processes of religious communities in the late antique period. Through a combination of historical analysis and examples, it provides an overview of the methods used to teach the alphabet and basic rhetoric, which were central to Jewish and Christian – including Manichaean – knowledge production. It also explains how this knowledge was disseminated through liturgy. Rather than viewing the material remains of these communities in isolation, this Element examines them together, overcoming the usual scholarly focus on differences between religious communities and between religious and secular education. Instead, it highlights the dynamics created by mutual exchange and ambition. Since evidence of education is generally scarce, the synopsis demonstrates that, for example, while one religious community may have a surviving textbook with exercises, another community may only have the final products of those exercises.