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Raised on Christian Milk: Food and the Formation of the Soul in Early Christianity

Online ISBN:
9780300228007
Print ISBN:
9780300222760
Publisher:
Yale University Press
Book

Raised on Christian Milk: Food and the Formation of the Soul in Early Christianity

John David Penniman
John David Penniman
Bucknell University
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Published online:
18 January 2018
Published in print:
27 June 2017
Online ISBN:
9780300228007
Print ISBN:
9780300222760
Publisher:
Yale University Press

Abstract

What if the idea that “you are what you eat” weren’t a simple metaphor? What if it revealed a deeper medical, moral, and religious history about the relationship between food and the soul? In the early Roman Empire, food (and especially breast milk) was invested with the power to transfer characteristics, improve intellect, and establish bonds of kinship. Ancient Jews and Christians participated in this discourse surrounding the symbolic power of food and feeding. This book explores the legacy and complex history of food, feeding, and the formation of ancient religious cultures. Highlighting the apostle Paul’s reference to breastfeeding in 1 Corinthians 3, the book argues that this metaphor must be viewed as the result of social ideologies and embodied practices focused on the feeding of infants that were prominent throughout the Greco-Roman world. Drawing upon Paul and this broader cultural context, a wide range of early Christian authors (including Irenaeus of Lyon, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine of Hippo) used milk and solid food to think about how humans become what they eat—for good or for ill. In so doing, the book demonstrates the deep connection between “eating well” and “being well” for diverse models of growth, education, and identity within early Christianity.

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