In Raised on Christian Milk, John David Penniman shows that early Christian interpretations of Paul's milk-solid food distinction in 1 Corinthians 3:1–3 held more freight than a mere metaphor. Through an analysis of various Greco-Roman, Jewish, and early Christian texts, Penniman argues that, while early Christian writers had varying interpretations of Paul's distinction, their conceptions of human formation were always entwined with ancient theories of how food nourished both body and soul.
In chapter 1, Penniman demonstrates that early Christians did not start from scratch with their connection between food and formation. Drawing upon Hippocratic treatises, works by Plato and Aristotle, and other Greco-Roman works, Penniman focuses on the nourishment and instruction associated with breastfeeding as the bedrock of the sociocultural construction of Roman family values. Feeding children well directly affected the health of the paterfamilias and, by extension, the empire. The source and quality of breast milk either nourished the empire or was indicative of its moral slippage. In short, milk was political.
In chapter 2, Penniman turns to the Jewish tradition, beginning with an analysis of the Maccabean mother tradition. Her sons die well because they were fed well. However, the Maccabean mother's honor is tied to the rearing of her children and does not extend beyond that nurturing space. Turning to Philo, Penniman observes the concern for the preservation and transmission of Jewish culture over and against the Roman Empire. Philo locates the source of ethnic security in mother's milk that, like the Maccabean mother's milk, can sustain its form intact in the midst of cultural and political changes. An analysis of Paul's milk-solid food distinction in 1 Corinthians 3 rounds out the chapter. Penniman convincingly argues that Paul's concern for the Corinthians, his diagnosis of “pneumatic malnourishment” (72), and his solution of more milk (specifically his apostle's milk) relies upon the assumptions, theories, and strategies found in ancient medical and philosophical texts and in the texts of the Jewish tradition.
In the third chapter, Penniman shifts to the early Christian interpretation of Paul's milk-solid food distinction. In the second century, questions arose about how to interpret Paul's words in the context of Christian community. Even after those readings deemed problematic (e.g., that of the Valentinians) were rejected, Penniman observes continued exegetical diversity of interpretation. For both Irenaeus and Clement, the church is God's nursery, full of infants who are one family because they are nursed by God. However, as Penniman notes, the difficulty resided in what to do with the categories of Christian development that Paul seems to propagate as a result of the milk-solid food distinction. For Irenaeus, all are infants and God's milk is the only nourishment that leads to maturity. Penniman shows how Clement takes a different tack and interprets Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 3 as indicative of individualized pathways of development for each Christian.
Chapter 4 focuses on how Origen's concerns and questions differ from those of his predecessors. Penniman highlights Origen's Against Celsus in which the Alexandrian works to “democratize classical paideia”—nourishment is offered to all and, regardless of their state, this food is formative. But formative in what way? According to Penniman, Origen's expansive instruction, in which food is given to all according to capacity, results in distinguishing capacities of soul and therefore types of Christians. God nourishes all, but it seems that some souls do not have the same ability to make progress as others. At issue is how continuous the pre-resurrected body is with the resurrected, noetic body. Even as Origen counters Celsus's rendering of distinctions among Christians, Penniman convincingly argues that he reinforces them almost by default.
Penniman turns to Gregory of Nyssa in chapter 5 and shows that “throughout his work, milk is described as a transformative meal—a form of subsistence that is the essence of salvation and the way toward perfection” (139). Milk is a conduit for God's wisdom and, because all Christians receive milk at the breast of the church, all grow in perfection. But, as Penniman notes, for Nyssen, progression does not just happen; one must actively assess the quality of the source and the milk ingested. Milk is a regimen as much as it is a gracious sustenance. Penniman's consideration of Nyssen's use of feminine symbols and erotic language was a particularly welcome section as it demonstrates the complex nature of Christian exegesis and conceptions of nurturance and formation.
In chapter 6, Penniman describes a very different approach than Nyssen's conception of progressive growth: Augustine's “milk without growth” (168). By this point, it is obvious that, for the early Christians, articulating the process of Christian formation was not an easy task. Augustine exemplifies this difficulty as he spends treatise after treatise considering formation. According to Penniman, the Confessions indicates an obvious change in Augustine's approach to growth. Understanding growth as discrete stages shifts to what amounts to the opposite: “The progress of the Christian pilgrim is, in fact, a regression to infancy and to the pleasure of sucking God's milk” (181). For Augustine, humility is the cornerstone of Christian growth and therefore perpetual infancy is the most fitting state for that growth.
Throughout Raised by Christian Milk, Penniman highlights how the symbolic power of milk is linked to sociocultural values of women's bodies and how this power of nurturance is appropriated by male authors, whether Greco-Roman, Jewish, or Christian. Women's embodiment grounds the symbol, but the actual women tend to remain obscured by the lens of their male writers. Indeed, Raised on Christian Milk is a book about the Christian interpretative tradition around a Pauline metaphor, but it is also a book that illuminates how powerfully the symbol of breast milk and nourishment functions across various cultures to construct social identity. Penniman's careful analysis of the texts chastens any assumptions that minimize the power of symbols and offers clarity about how those symbols take on formative power and shape entire traditions.
