Renunciation and Ascetic Identity in the Liber ad Renatum of Asterius Ansedunensis

This chapter explores the rhetoric of strict renunciation advanced by Asterius Ansedunensis in his Liber ad Renatum monachum in the context of late antique ascetic identities. Asterius employed the ascetic exegesis/translation of certain Scriptural terms and passages to advocate the holistic renunciation of interpersonal relations as a prerequisite for ascetic life. Starting from Genesis 2:18, Asterius maintained, in a peculiar twist on the creation and fall narratives in Genesis 2–4, that God created Adam to be an ascetic. Conversely, the premises of sin were sown when the first woman privileged her relationship with Adam over the commandments of God. Asterius thus extended the traditional ascetic exegesis of Genesis 4:1 (sexual renunciation) to include all interpersonal relations, since sinfulness flows from human relational conduct. Two conclusions emerge from this exposé: asceticism is the natural state of the human being; and the only legitimate way to retrieve the Adamic state is heremitism.

The Rhetoric of Heresiological Prefaces

The genre of heresiology—catalogues of heretics and their supposed beliefs—flourished in late antiquity, especially from the late fourth century. This chapter forms part of a reappraisal of this underappreciated literary phenomenon by considering the rhetorical aspects of a number of heresiologies within the context of classical technical literature. Drawing on parallels from a range of ancient texts, especially medical and encyclopaedic writings, this chapter focuses on the prefaces of heresiologies by Epiphanius of Salamis, Filastrius of Brescia and Augustine of Hippo to illuminate how they employed recognized techniques for the construction of textual authority. Through such close analysis, it is possible to trace the development of heresiology as technē, with each author drawing on both established classical tropes and also the writings of their predecessors in the genre to create their own distinctive rhetoric that advertised the reliable orthodoxy and intellectual supremacy of both writer and text.

‘Very great are your words’

This chapter evaluates the Manichaean Kephalaia-collections from the perspective of recent developments in the study of late-antique rhetoric, specifically the role and context of dialogue in ancient literature and philosophy. It pays close attention to the recently edited material from the Coptic text, The Chapters of the Wisdom of my Lord Mani, by analysing the engagements between Mani and a number of teachers associated with the court of the Sasanian monarch, Shapur I. The chapter highlights the importance of Mani’s dialogues with competitor figures from the Sasanian Empire to the development of the religious identity of Manichaeans in late-antique Persia and Egypt.

Christian Literary Identity and Rhetoric about Style

How was Christian identity related to literary style? Ancient authors wanting to establish their discourse as morally serious would lay claim to plain (or sublime) speech, whilst depicting their rivals’ words as over-elaborate. Questions of style thus became associated with moral qualities, especially in philosophers’ ‘rhetoric about rhetoric’. Then Christians laid claim to the plainest of all styles: that (supposedly) of the gospel. This chapter argues that all such claims about style are rhetorical, because they are based on the slippery notion of the ‘appropriate’ and are not absolute but comparative. In fact, Christians used all three stylistic modes (‘plain’/‘slender’, ‘pleasant’, and ‘majestic’/‘sublime’) and identified them in the Bible. Their claims about their own and their opponents’ styles thus need to be read with an awareness of how they are being used rhetorically in attempts to establish claims about true Christian discourse and morally superior speakers.

Constructing Identity in the Tomb

Surviving examples of early Christian visual art found in a funerary context (e.g., catacomb paintings and sarcophagus reliefs) reflect elements of their owners’ beliefs about death and the afterlife. Their decorative programmes also reveal aspects of the deceased’s social status, profession, or character—or at least about how they or their survivors wished them to be represented. Insofar as these Christian burial monuments display motifs both like and unlike those of their non-Christian neighbours, it is possible to examine the ways Christians adapted a pre-existing iconographic vocabulary. This chapter examines instances of Christian appropriation and reconceptualization of conventional tomb décor. It also identifies patterns or artistic devices that shaped a distinctive Christian visual rhetoric and memorializing practice.

Julian the Apologist

This chapter examines how the myth and cult of the Mother of the Gods (with the associated figures of Attis and the supposedly self-castrating Galli) were utilized in the rhetorical construction of religious identity in the fourth century AD. Christians in their characterizations of paganism gave a prominent place to the cult of the Great Mother, usually in salacious and shocking terms, and the chapter focuses on the examples of Arnobius and Firmicus Maternus. These Christian texts are then brought into dialogue with a pagan treatment of the cult, the discourse on the Mother of the Gods written by the emperor Julian. The chapter emphasizes the need to see Julian in context and in dialogue with his times and his contemporaries. A close reading of Julian’s text reveals that he is responding to Christian presentations of the cult, and that he is not just an apostate but also an apologist.

Approaching ‘Religious Identity’ in Late Antiquity

The category of ‘semi-Christians’ has often been criticized, but nevertheless seems to endure in academic discourse. It is used for describing Christians who do not fully embrace Christianity. After a review of the use of this category and its critics, this chapter proposes a shift of paradigm for approaching ‘religious identity’ in late antiquity. Instead of classifying individuals according to one category membership, their ‘religious identity’, I introduce the notion of identity salience and that of arrangement of category membership sets. Finally, I consider what such theoretical considerations can bring to the understanding of individuals described as ‘semi-Christians’ with the case-studies of Ausonius and Macrobius.

What Happened after Eusebius? Chronicles and Narrative Identities in the Fourth Century

The chronicle of Eusebius, published in 325AD, was the subject of a wide range of responses by scholars of the fourth century. If a few simply adopted his framework, others sought to reintroduce the ideas of Julius Africanus and Hippolytus, whose chronicles Eusebius had brushed aside. The chapter shows that, notwithstanding a strong concern with getting Biblical chronology right, fourth-century chronography was not a merely intellectual activity in support of Biblical exegesis. Chronographic arguments were also marshalled in the exchanges with other faiths and Christian groups. In addition, by seeking to link the astronomical cycle to historical events, chronography also contributed to making Christianity the natural religion, in that its history and its cycle of feasts came to be aligned with the rhythm of nature.

The Rhetorical Construction of a Christian Empire in the Theodosian Code

This chapter examines the Theodosian Code as a source for the construction of religious identities in late antiquity. Traditionally, scholars attempted to use the Code as a source for the progress of Christianity in the post-Constantinian empire, but this approach has increasingly been regarded as unsatisfactory. This chapter prefers to examine the Code from the perspective of when it was compiled in the mid-fifth century, and determine the extent to which it mirrors the ideology of the empire under Theodosius II. It is argued from this perspective that the Code provides a charter for how to run an empire that is simultaneously Roman and Christian.

Classical Decadence or Christian Aesthetics?

Christian rhetoric veered off pagan classical rhetoric, but this phenomenon in my opinion started earlier and not only in Christian milieus. The new eloquence was the result of a trend to acquire education with a minimum amount of effort that was visible already in the writings of pagan rhetors such as Libanius. John Chrysostom and Augustine had a profound knowledge of rhetoric, yet they became aware that the observance of the principles of eloquence had become less rigorous and accepted that. There were profound changes in the transmission of knowledge and technical literature flourished. To properly understand the condition of rhetoric we cannot divorce it from the state of other disciplines and from the cultural changes that had taken place.