Patterns of Pedagogy Across Late-Ancient Cultures

Over the past several years Westar’s Christianity Seminar (Phase II) has been exploring texts and material culture (including works of art), that afford opportunity to better understand Christian and Jewish practice of the third through sixth centuries. Within this broad frame, the Fall 2024 Meeting will look especially at late-ancient pedagogical practices, and the place accorded education in Jewish, Christian, and Graeco-Roman teaching and formation. Countering a long tradition that has framed these centuries as a period of radical Christian-initiated rupture, we will trace the ways in which Christianity and Judaism shared in pedagogical technologies that cross cultural, religious and linguistic boundaries. Through investigating the instruments – economics, mechanics, language, and content – of late-ancient Jewish, Christian, and Graeco-Roman education, we will explore pedagogical patterns that link respective communal practices, as well as those which render these cultures distinct.