ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the second- and third-century Church Father Clement of Alexandria. His works, written near the end of the second century, provide with the first reliable witness to orthodox belief and the social practices of Christianity in Egypt. As is well known, Clement's writings have a generally positive attitude toward children and childhood, as well as toward women. Clement values infants and children as examples and objects to be imitated. Although his views of children and childhood are often expressed through metaphors and symbols, his language even here indirectly demonstrates attitudes toward children and childhood that reflect an upgrading of children as human beings and of childhood as a stage of life. The chapter also focuses on Clement's use of children and childhood as metaphors and ideals, and his views on marriage and family life. The exposure of newborn children was common among both Greeks and Romans.
