This book sheds light on a relatively dark period of literary history, the late third century CE, a period that falls between the Second Sophistic and Late Antiquity. It argues that more was being written during this time than past scholars have realized and takes as its prime example the understudied Christian writer Methodius of Olympus. Among his many works, this book focuses on his dialogic Symposium, a text which exposes an era's new concern to re-orient the gaze of a generation from the past onto the future. Dr LaValle Norman makes the further argument that scholarship on the Imperial period that does not include Christian writers within its purview misses the richness of this period, which was one of deepening interaction between Christian and non-Christian writers. Only through recovering this conversation can we understand the transitional period that led to the rise of Constantine.
Author(s): Dawn LaValle Norman
Series: Greek Culture in the Roman World
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 296
City: Cambridge
Cover
Half-title
Series information
Title page
Copyright information
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Christians among Imperial Greek Writers in the Third Century
Looking Back and Looking Forward
Positioning the Third Century between the Second Sophistic and Late Antiquity
Methodius of Olympus and his Symposium
The Shape of This Book
Chapter 1 Mapping Third-Century Literature from the Severans to Constantine
The Crisis of the Third Century
After Philostratus, Plotinus and Origen: The Literature of the “Third Century Crisis” (235–315)
Shifting Centers and Connectivity between Them
New Third-Century Centers
Lycia in the Rhetorical Networks of the Third Century
The Question of a Third-Century Aesthetic
Chapter 2 The End of Dialogue?: The Christianization of a Tradition
Phantasia, Mimesis and the Delights of Dialogue
Philosophical Dialogue and Erotapokriseis: Method versus Content
Why Dialogue?
Fantasizing Philosophers, Training the Imagination
Participatory Insertion
Changing Interpersonal Constellations
Authorial Authority
How to Ask a Question: The Classroom
The Trial of Words: The Courtroom
Neoplatonic Dialogues
Conclusion
Chapter 3 Compilation and Unity in Imperial Sympotic Traditions
Defining the Symposium
Belatedness
Ancient and Modern Definitions
The Three Waves: Xenophon vs. Plato
The Second-Wave Symposia of Plutarch and Athenaeus
Xenophon and the Origins of the Episodic Symposium
From Xenophon to Plutarch
Plutarch’s Quaestiones Convivales to Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists
Plutarch’s Symposium of the Seven Sages to Lucian’s Lapiths
The Third-Wave Symposia of Methodius and Julian
Plato and the Origin of the Unified Symposium
From Plato to Methodius and Julian: A New Type of Symposium
Shadow–Image–Reality
Conclusion
Chapter 4 Rhetoric and the Problem of Rivalry
Silence, Performance and the Problem of Rivalry
The Sophistic Rivalry among the Virgins
Methodius’ Sophistic Stance towards his Audience
The Parallel in Intellectual Activity between Methodius and his Virgins
The Persistence of Difference: Harmony and Variation
Harmony and Variation in Rhetoric
Harmony and Variation among the Speeches of the Virgins
Harmony and Variation among Ways of Life
Gender and Competition
Feminine Foliage
Feminine Rhetoric
Conclusion
Chapter 5 The Lyric Tradition and Changing Hymnic Forms
Lyric Poetry in the Imperial Period
Poetry in Prose Genres of the Imperial Period
The Shape of Thecla’s Poem
The Thematic Shape of the Poem
Stanzas 1–10 (alpha–kappa)
Stanzas 11–18 (lambda–sigma)
Stanzas 19–24 (tau–omega)
The Metrical Shape of the Poem
Lyric Innovations: The Refrain and Alphabetism
Refrain (Ὑπακοή)
Alphabetic Poems
Hymns of the Past and Hymns of the Future
Death and Song: Chronotope in Philostratus, Lucian and Methodius
Liturgical Time, Teleology and Repetition
Monovocality and Polyvocality
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
