Early Christian asceticism emphasized renunciation of family, while Egyptian monks in late antiquity cared for children.

Caroline T. Schroeder is Professor of Classics and Letters at the University of Oklahoma. She is the author of Monastic Bodies (2007), co-editor of Melania (2016), and co-founder of the ground-breaking digital project Coptic Scriptorium.

Introduction; Part I. Finding children: 1. Documenting the undocumented: Children in the earliest Egyptian Monasteries; 2. The language of childhood; Part II. Representations: 3. Homoeroticism, children, and the making of monks; 4. Child sacrifice: From familial renunciation to Jephthah's lost daughter; 5. Monastic family values: The healing of children; Part III. A social history: 6. Making new monks: Children's education, discipline, and ascetic formation; 7. Breaking rules and telling tales: Daily life for monastic children; 8. The ties that bind: Emotional and social bonds between parents and children; Conclusion: Monastic genealogies; Bibliography.