SeptemberJune 2006 2006 Clio’s Psyche Page 81 Clio’s Psyche Understanding the "Why" of Culture, Current Events, History, and Society Volume 13 Issue 2 September 2006 John Forrester: A Cambridge Suffer the Children: Children Historian of Psychoanalysis in the Early Christian Centuries Paul H. Elovitz Daniel Dervin The Psychohistory Forum Mary Washington University John Forrester was born on August 25, 1949 Through late Antiquity, as Christianity in London, England to working class parents reconfigured the Roman Empire, abandonment of transformed by education into the professional children, mostly through exposure, remained a classes. He received a B.A. with honors in the common practice, though officially condemned by Natural Sciences Tripos, specializing in the history the fourth century. Survivors of these practices likely and philosophy of science, from the University of entered the “slave populations” (Harris, pp. 1-22). Cambridge (1970). While on a Fulbright Scholar- Most families abandoned at least one of their ship he studied for eighteen months in the Program offspring, according to Boswell (pp. 135, 163-9), in the History of Science at Princeton University and who estimates abandonment rates between 20 percent he was elected a Junior Research Fellow at King’s and 40 percent. Accordingly, most psychohistorians College, Cambridge on the basis of his Fellowship agree with Lloyd deMause’s designating parenting in Dissertation “Language and Symbol in Freud’s this period as the Abandonment Mode of childrearing Psychoanalysis” (1975). Forrester received his (deMause, 1982, pp. 30-6). Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 1979. He Conversely, it has been pointed out that a was Senior Research Fellow at King’s College from majority of these children were wanted or at least 1980-84, when he was appointed to a position at the accepted. As classical ideals of socializing children University of Cambridge as Lecturer in the History for polis or Empire were reshaped by an other- and Philosophy of Science. Since 2000 he has been worldly morality, children experienced their world Professor of History and Philosophy of the Sciences differently. at the University of Cambridge. (Continued on page 87) (Continued on next page) IN THIS ISSUE A Cambridge Historian of Psychoanalysis…...………….81 A Disappointing Book on Lust…………………..…….100 Paul H. Elovitz Book Review by Donald L. Carveth Suffer the Children…………………………………..…..81 Arnold A. Rogow: In Memoriam……………………....102 Dan Dervin Paul H. Elovitz with Jeanne Rogow Binion Continues His Important Work……………...…...94 In Memoriam: John Caulfield……………………….…104 Paul H. Elovitz Book Review by David Lotto Announcing Applying Psychology to Current Events, Women in the American Revolution…………………….96 History, and Society.....................................................105 Book Review by Edward J. Cody Call for Papers: Sports and Retirement…………...106-107 The Mask of Niceness…………………………………...98 Book Review by Judith Harris Bulletin Board………………………………………….106 Page 82 Clio’s Psyche September 2006 Living in the Greek East of the latter fourth ages the world through the fear of hell and the assur- century and undeterred by the limitations of his celi- ance of the kingdom” (Leyerle, p. 261). bacy, St. John Chrysostom freely advised on child- Along with threatened and actual beatings, rearing and became a pivotal figure in adapting older authorities used catechisms and sacraments, scrip- ideals of military glory and worldly success to emer- tures and clergy, to prepare offspring for the next gent paradigms (Leyerle, p. 268). Addressing well- world. However strict or lenient, this spiritual social- to-do families, Chrysostom laid out a regimen of izing was a daunting task made more arduous by a measured indulgence. A child should be deliberately uniquely child-centered religion. “Unless you be- provoked by tutors or servants in order to master his come as a little child you cannot enter heaven” (Holy temper and avoid abusing his own class later on as Bible, Matthew 18:3), and “Suffer the little children civic or military careers were pursued. Physical dis- to come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of cipline should be applied sparingly, lest the child heaven” (Holy Bible, Mark 10:14-5) were admoni- grow accustomed and lose his fear (Leyerle, p. tions that boggled the ecclesiastical mind and stirred 256). Like threats of eternal damnation, the switch numerous theological debates. How could children, performs best as a warning. As a “third par- lacking reason and being weak of will, be held up as ent,” (Wood) the pedagogue assumed a primary role guides to salvation? Like the rest of humanity, chil- in regulating behavior, although Leyerle notes that dren were implicated in Adam’s fall and thus born fathers and tutors alike interceded on the child’s be- into original sin. Yet at least scripturally, they were half for moderate treatment (p. 256). Yet while beat- singled out for special treatment: better a “millstone ings were accepted, Chrysostom advises, “let us kiss be hanged around his neck, and he [be] cast into the and put our arms around” the fractious child: let us sea, than that he should offend one of these little “show our affection... and mold him,” as “God man- ones” (Holy Bible, Luke 17:2). By Adam’s fall, they were heirs of sin; by Clio’s Psyche God’s grace, they were heirs of heaven. St. Vol. 13 No. 2 September 2006 Augustine’s image of the infant’s fierce competition for oral supplies at the maternal breast proves “it is ISSN 1080-2622 not the infant’s will that is harmless, but his weak- Published Quarterly by The Psychohistory Forum ness of limbs” (Confessions, p. 49). Yet as 627 Dakota Trail this foreshadowing of Freud’s drive theory also re- Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417/ USA Cliospsyche.org veals, the Augustinian child is an active player from day one. However impaired by original sin, his free Editor: Paul H. Elovitz, PhD will and language capacity are exercised for lying as Editorial Board well as truth-telling, and as the saint’s confessions of C. Fred Alford, PhD University of Maryland • James W. his wayward youth confirm, the innocence of chil- Anderson, PhD Northwestern University • David Beisel, PhD RCC-SUNY • Rudolph Binion, PhD Brandeis dren, the Gospels notwithstanding, is a myth, but an University • Andrew Brink, PhD Formerly of McMaster enduring one (Wills, p. 123). University and The University of Toronto • Ralph Colp, MD Columbia University • Joseph Dowling, PhD Lehigh Equivocally viewed as fallen and idealized as University • Glen Jeansonne, PhD University of innocent, the child and the theologian interpenetrated Wisconsin • Peter Loewenberg, PhD UCLA • Peter especially in the primary ritual of faith. Baptism not Petschauer, PhD Appalachian State University • Leon only removed original sin and opened the gates to Rappoport, PhD Kansas State University eternal bliss but revamped traditional initiation ritu- Subscription Rate: als. The water and the concave baptismal font Free to members of the Psychohistory Forum $48 two year subscription to non-members “become a reverential womb for the second birth” so $40 yearly to institutions that those who “descend into it may be fashioned (Add $10 per year outside USA & Canada) Single Issue Price: $15 afresh by the grace of the Holy spirit and born again into a new and virtuous human nature” (Theodore of We welcome articles of psychohistorical interest that are 500 - 1500 words—and a few longer ones. Mopsuetia, quoted in Finn, The Liturgy of Baptism, p. 156). The font/waters motifs represented the tomb Copyright © 2006 The Psychohistory Forum and death as well as a reenactment of the crucifixion, September 2006 Clio’s Psyche Page 83 burial, and resurrection via the virginal womb of demands for sweat-of-the-brow labor encroached on Holy Mother Church (Finn, pp. 158, 164). Drawing abiding family ties and undermined religious ideolo- on Paul’s heavenly-adoption theme, Chrysostom held gies of innocence and purity. A more moderate solu- that the baptized alone “have been enrolled as citi- tion than composing martyrologies of fallen youth zens of another state, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Finn, was the cloistering of selected children as a means of 40). perpetuating ideals of purity by handing over the young to God. Oblation became abandonment on a Baptism is also emotionally overdetermined higher level. as sacred nuptials: a “spiritual marriage in which Christ is the bridegroom and the ‘baptisand’ is the It is instructive to see how the often incon- bride” (Finn, p. 165). Preeminently, the ceremony as gruous images of children as vehicles of sinfulness purified marriage and rebirth would undo the onus of and vessels of innocence were played out during the being conceived in evil and born in sin (Saint rise of monasticism in Carolingian Europe. Believ- Augustine’s position in Wills, p. 46). For Augustine, ing that “God reveals his truth to the simple and the this means that “original sin and spiritual concupis- innocent,” St. Benedict involved the whole monastic cence are handed down from generation to generation community, children and adults alike, in decision- by means of propagation” (Rigby, p. 115). More pre- making, though children were not expected to preach cisely, “children are born infected with the lust which until thirteen (De Jong, p. 136). Yet while minors was biologically necessary for their concep- were assigned the “role of innocent and pure media- tion” (Clark, p. 60). The sin-virus was transmitted by tors in sacred affairs,” even in interpreting Scripture, sexual activity. Despite Augustine’s later revisions their misbehaviors were “chastised with severe fasts and more desexualized versions from medieval scho- and sharp blows,” i.e., whippings (De Jong, p. 137; lastics, childhood in the Christian era not only enters Wood, p. 86). Though not preventing child-abuse, theology but children are deeply implicated in par- the cloistered life served as the most effective means ents’ sex lives, including their sexual fantasies and to protect and preserve “childlike purity,” and the feelings of guilt.