The Purpose of Rhetoric in Late Antiquity: From Performance to Exegesis

Description

Rhetoric has commonly been used as an umbrella term. A quick glance at any bibliographical catalogue in the field of Humanities will suffice to note that ‘rhetoricʼ is a mercurial term that can be applied to issues relating to subjects as varied as philosophy, literature, architecture, theology, gender studies, poetics, and cinematography, to name but a few. Rhetoric has overcome all kinds of prejudices that have portrayed it as the quintessence of garrulousness and futility. In this context, the purpose of this volume is to claim the indisputable centrality of rhetoric in the religious and cultural milieu of Late Antiquity. The twelve papers of the present work deal with the role and impact of rhetoric in the fields of Theology, Literature and Politics in Late Antiquity (more specifically, in the fourth century AD). In recent decades, Late Antiquity has been approached from many perspectives, and it has been agreed that the impact of rhetoric on its cultural development was crucial. Thus, the working assumption of this volume is that rhetoric was a key element behind every single aspect of importance in this transcendental period: rhetoric was the bedrock upon which the composition of orations, speeches and sermons was built at a time when opportunities for public speaking were numerous in the religious and political arenas; rhetoric was also at the heart of Christian theology, as it provided it with a logical means of interpreting the Scriptures and with literary forms to divulge; rhetoric was, of course, at the inception of many literary works that had an extraordinary impact on the culture of Late Antiquity. Foreword (Alberto J. Quiroga Puertas) ......................................................... VII Prologue (Robert J. Penella) .............................................................................. 1 I. Words and the Word: Rhetorical Strategies and Theology Philip Rousseau Homily and Exegesis in the Patristic age: comparisons of Purpose and Effect .......................................................... 11 Nicholas Baker-Brian Between Testimony and Rumour: Strategies of Invective in Augustine’s De moribus manichaeorum ............................................... 31 Ilaria L.E. Ramelli A Rhetorical Device in Evagrius: Allegory, the Bible, and Apokatastasis ..................................................................................... 55 Josef Lössl Profaning and Proscribing. Escalating Rhetorical Violence in Fourth Century Christian Apologetic .. 71 II. Sacred and Profane in Late Antique Literature Laura Miguélez-Cavero Rhetoric for a Christian Community: the Poems of the Codex Visionum ............................................................ 91 Manfred Kraus Rhetoric or Law? The Role of Law in Late Ancient Greek Rhetorical Exercises ............... 123 Aglae Pizzone When Calasiris got Pregnant: Rhetoric and Storytelling in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica ............................. 139 John W. Watt Themistius and Julian: their Association in Syriac and Arabic Tradition ................................... 161 III. Rhetoric and Political Speeches David Konstan Themistius’ on Royal Beauty ................................................................. 179 Guadalupe Lopetegui The Panegyrici Latini: Rhetoric in the Service of Imperial Ideology ....... 189 Lieve Van Hoof and Peter Van Nuffelen ‘No stories for old Men’: Damophilus of Bithynia and Plutarch in Julian’s Misopogon . ............... 209 Alberto J. Quiroga Puertas Libanius’ Horror Silentii ........................................................................ 223 List of Authors ........................................................................................ 245 Index of Sources ..................................................................................... 247 Index of Authors ..................................................................................... 262 Index of Subjects ................................................................................... 264