Sep 25 2008
Explicit and Implicit Alterity of Children in I Corinthians, Part I
There seems to be no question that the role of children in late antiquity was that of radically subordinate ‘others’ relative to adult society.[1] While Andre Gingrich has argued for “an inherently dialogical relationship between sameness and differing, belonging and othering,identity/alterity,”[2] the present inquiry emphasizes alterity over identity because scholars have no recourse to the actual voices and views of children in the late antique world, whereby we might arrive at some notion of their identity. At the same time, while this important aspect will go unexplored in these pages, the “dialogical” dimension of the ‘othering’ process points to the fact that the same distinctions which serve to define the alterity of children also work to circumscribe the identity of adults. Given the nature of the textual resources in this case, it is probably best to specify adult men. This additional consequence of the character of the alterity of children opens onto a further set of questions and problems beyond the scope of the present reflections.
Gingrich emphasizes the need to get beyond a pejorative moralization of ‘othering,’ in favor of empirical descriptions that can differentiate and specify the process.[3] But Gerd Baumann’s work toward that end begins even to reverse the moral significance attributed to identity/alterity. By pointing out genocidal violence as the scenario in which the various “grammars” of difference uniformly fail, Baumann indicates their positive moral value in maintaining the legitimacy of the other and the grounds for coexistence, however unequal and contentious.[4] There are features of the ancient Hellenistic view of children that suggest just such a lack of articulated alterity, chiefly the social acceptance of infanticide and exposure of children, leading to their death or enslavement.[5] John Carroll observes, “Jewish and Christian writers vigorously opposed these practices,” and cites Josephus and the Didache to prove his point.[6] Significantly, that sort of opposition does not appear in the canon of Jewish or Christian scripture, but we might still expect to be able to find signs of the “grammars of alterity” which led to such a stance against prevailing norms.
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[1] See, for example Osiek & Balch 1997, 62-64; Gundry-Volff 2001, 31-34; Carroll 2001, 122.
[2] Gingrich 2004, 6.
[3] Gingrich 2004, 15.
[4] Baumann 2004, 42-46.
[5] Osiek & Balch 1997, 67; Gundry-Volf 2001, 33.
[6] Carroll 2001, 122.
