"Given the general attitudes toward children and their place in society in the cultural environment of Christians in antiquity, it should have been remarkable if the church fathers in general had had a heavy focus on children in their writing. There are, in fact, no writings that introduce concern for children and their needs as a subject on the theological agenda. John Chrysostom’s treatise, De Inani Gloria, comes closest to having children and their needs as a main theme. Chrysostom provides advice on child rearing, emphasizing the parents’ grave responsibility to bring up their children in the Christian faith and socialize them into a proper, Christian way of life. However, this treatise, together with sections of a couple of other writings by the same author is almost unique in its focus on children. As a rule, we have to make use of incidental comments about children and childhood in material from this period. In this respect, research on children in the early church faces the same challenges that confronted studies about women in early Christianity. Neither the role of women nor children’s place in society and the church were topics discussed on their own. Because no systematic accounts are provided by ancient sources, modern scholars have to rely on more or less accidental references in the literature."