The Aesthetics of Hope in Late Greek Imperial Literature: Methodius of Olympus' Symposium and the Crisis of the Third Century (Greek Culture in the Roman World)

"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." -- Cover 1 Half-title 3 Series information 4 Title page 5 Copyright information 6 Table of Contents 7 Acknowledgments 9 Introduction: Christians among Imperial Greek Writers in the Third Century 11 Looking Back and Looking Forward 11 Positioning the Third Century between the Second Sophistic and Late Antiquity 15 Methodius of Olympus and his Symposium 19 The Shape of This Book 25 Chapter 1 Mapping Third-Century Literature from the Severans to Constantine 32 The Crisis of the Third Century 33 After Philostratus, Plotinus and Origen: The Literature of the “Third Century Crisis” (235–315) 38 Shifting Centers and Connectivity between Them 55 New Third-Century Centers 55 Lycia in the Rhetorical Networks of the Third Century 61 The Question of a Third-Century Aesthetic 69 Chapter 2 The End of Dialogue?: The Christianization of a Tradition 79 Phantasia, Mimesis and the Delights of Dialogue 82 Philosophical Dialogue and Erotapokriseis: Method versus Content 85 Why Dialogue? 88 Fantasizing Philosophers, Training the Imagination 91 Participatory Insertion 99 Changing Interpersonal Constellations 104 Authorial Authority 105 How to Ask a Question: The Classroom 108 The Trial of Words: The Courtroom 114 Neoplatonic Dialogues 121 Conclusion 125 Chapter 3 Compilation and Unity in Imperial Sympotic Traditions 129 Defining the Symposium 131 Belatedness 131 Ancient and Modern Definitions 133 The Three Waves: Xenophon vs. Plato 141 The Second-Wave Symposia of Plutarch and Athenaeus 142 Xenophon and the Origins of the Episodic Symposium 142 From Xenophon to Plutarch 146 Plutarch’s Quaestiones Convivales to Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists 148 Plutarch’s Symposium of the Seven Sages to Lucian’s Lapiths 152 The Third-Wave Symposia of Methodius and Julian 156 Plato and the Origin of the Unified Symposium 156 From Plato to Methodius and Julian: A New Type of Symposium 157 Shadow–Image–Reality 167 Conclusion 171 Chapter 4 Rhetoric and the Problem of Rivalry 173 Silence, Performance and the Problem of Rivalry 176 The Sophistic Rivalry among the Virgins 180 Methodius’ Sophistic Stance towards his Audience 182 The Parallel in Intellectual Activity between Methodius and his Virgins 185 The Persistence of Difference: Harmony and Variation 188 Harmony and Variation in Rhetoric 188 Harmony and Variation among the Speeches of the Virgins 194 Harmony and Variation among Ways of Life 196 Gender and Competition 198 Feminine Foliage 198 Feminine Rhetoric 202 Conclusion 209 Chapter 5 The Lyric Tradition and Changing Hymnic Forms 211 Lyric Poetry in the Imperial Period 211 Poetry in Prose Genres of the Imperial Period 211 The Shape of Thecla’s Poem 215 The Thematic Shape of the Poem 216 Stanzas 1–10 (alpha–kappa) 223 Stanzas 11–18 (lambda–sigma) 224 Stanzas 19–24 (tau–omega) 226 The Metrical Shape of the Poem 227 Lyric Innovations: The Refrain and Alphabetism 231 Refrain (Ὑπακοή) 232 Alphabetic Poems 235 Hymns of the Past and Hymns of the Future 239 Death and Song: Chronotope in Philostratus, Lucian and Methodius 239 Liturgical Time, Teleology and Repetition 245 Monovocality and Polyvocality 248 Conclusion 251 Bibliography 257 Index 285 Sheds light on a relatively dark period of literary history, the late third century CE, by examining how some early Christian writers tried to re-orient literature. Methodius of Olympus' dialogic Symposium exposes an era's new concerns, with its insistence that the future is more interesting than the past. An Early Christian Dialogue With An All-female Cast Makes Us Rethink How Literature Was Changing During The Third Century Ce.