Education and Religion in Late Antiquity.

Genres and Discourses in Transition

http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/434377.html
Workshop at the Lichtenberg-Kolleg of the University of Gttingen (June 13-15, 2013)
organised by Peter Gemeinhardt, Lieve Van Hoof, and Peter Van Nuffelen

Conference abstract
Can or should education grammar, rhetoric, philosophy play a role in religious affairs, and
if so, to which extent? This long-standing question was the topic of a lively debate in late
Antiquity: between the fourth and the seventh century, Christians adopted and adapted
pagan educational traditions, religious topics underwent a literary reworking, and normative
texts like the Bible or Platos writings were subjected to critical exegesis. This workshop
explores how the relation between education and religion was transformed in various
genres and discourses. It focuses in particular on monastic education and the reception of
classical and hellenistic philosophy in Syriac Christianity, on the transformation of ancient
rhetoric for the purpose of debates concerning religious questions, and on the development
of Christian hagiography, based on pagan as well as biblical models. The public lecture at the
start of the workshop analyses the ambivalent attitude of elite young men to the attractive
careers in Roman administration which their education opened up for them: whilst some
saw great dangers in a worldly career and chose to flee to the desert, they hardly ever lost
contact with the world. Internationally renowned scholars present papers on these and
other aspects of the dynamic relationship of education and religion in late Antiquity. The
workshop is held in cooperation with the Courant Research Centre Education and Religion
From Early Imperial Roman Times to the Classical Period of Islam (EDRIS), founded in 2009
at the University of Gttingen.

Programme
Thursday, June 13th
20.00 Peter Gemeinhardt and Lieve Van Hoof: Introduction
Public Lecture: Edward Watts, University of California, San Diego
Monks as Hippies: Tuning in and Dropping out of the Fourth Century Imperial System
Reception at the Lichtenberg-Kolleg
Friday, June 14th
CHAIR: Peter Gemeinhardt
09.00 Ioannis Papadogiannakis, Kings College, London
An Education Through Gnomic Wisdom: The Pandects of Antiochus as
Bibliotheksersatz
09.45 Peter Van Nuffelen, University of Ghent / Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Gttingen
The Quest for the Right Argument: Disputations and Late Ancient Education
10.30 Coffee break
11.00 Lieve Van Hoof, University of Ghent / Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Gttingen
Falsification as a Protreptic to Truth: The Forged Epistolary Exchange between of
Basil and Libanius
11.45 Jan Stenger, University of Glasgow
Athens and/or Jerusalem? Basils and Chrysostoms Views on the Didactic Use of
Literature and Stories
12.30 Discussion
13.00 Lunch

CHAIR: Peter Van Nuffelen

14.30 Lillian Larsen, University of Redlands, California
Early Monasticism and the Rhetorical Tradition: Sayings, Stories and Schooltexts
15.15 Peter Gemeinhardt, University of Gttingen
Christian Hagiography and the Rhetorical Tradition: Victricius of Rouen, In Praise of
the Saints
16.00 Coffee break
16.30 Derek Krueger, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Scripture and Liturgy in the Life of Mary of Egypt
17.15 Discussion
19.00 Conference Dinner

Saturday, June 15th

CHAIR: Peter Gemeinhardt
09.00 Alberto Rigolio, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Syriac Translations of Greek Secular Literature: a Gnomic Format for an Instructional
Purpose?
09.45 Daniel King, University of Cardiff
The Role of Philosophy Within Syriac Religious Education
10.30 Coffee break
11.00 Final Discussion moderated by Peter Van Nuffelen

Abstracts
Public Keynote Lecture (Thursday, 13 June 2013)
Monks as Hippies: Tuning in and Dropping out of the Fourth Century Imperial System
Edward Watts, San Diego CA
The generation of Romans who came of age after the tetrarchic and Constantinian
administrative reforms entered a world in which governmental positions were far more
numerous and lucrative than ever before. The Roman educational system opened the doors
to these opportunities and socialized students to take best advantage of them by developing
social networks. In the 360s, 370s, and early 380s, however, we begin to see a movement
(catalyzed by texts like Athanasius' Life of Antony) in which educated elites turn against both
their education and the careers for which it prepared them. Intriguingly, part of what makes
their rejection of elite social norms and aspirations possible are the networks of friends their
education helped them to develop.
Papers (Friday Saturday, 14-15 June 2013) (in alphabetical order)
Christian Hagiography and the Rhetorical Tradition: Victricius of Rouen, In Praise of the
Saints
Peter Gemeinhardt, Gttingen
Late antique Christianity was deeply indebted to classical culture and education. Whether
this heritage might be utilized by Christians, e.g., for preaching, exegesis, or clarifying
theological questions was subject to long and heated debate. While Augustine and Jerome
struggled for a general solution to this question, their contemporary Victricius of Rouen
simply made use of his rhetorical skills. In 396, he delivered a well-elaborated speech on
occasion of the advent of relics of martyrs in Rouen, as if they were prominent living
persons, perhaps even emperors. The present paper is devoted to the question how classical
rhetoric is employed in order to elucidate the impact of this arrival at Rouen. A special focus
will lie on the question how the communion of dead and living saints is depicted and how
Victricius sets out not only to praise the deceased saints but also to exhort the living
Christians to the imitation of the saints. Thus, the rhetorical tradition becomes an integral
part of Christian hagiographical panegyric.

The role of philosophy within Syriac religious education

Daniel King, Cardiff
Syriac Christianity has always been well-known for its strong ascetic tendencies and the high
spiritual value it placed on the simple and uneducated lives of holy men. But Syriac
philosophers are also famous for having maintained the tradition of teaching Greek
philosophy as a form of higher education well into the Islamic era. How should we seek to

reconcile these attitudes and to explain the motives behindr the Syriac adoption of Greek
philosophy, especially Aristotelian logic, into the curriculum of the monastic schools?
Research increasingly demonstrates that this had little to do with the usefulness of logic in
sectarian disputes over doctrine and much to do with differing views on how serious
learning might be deployed in bringing the individual ascetic closer to a genuine union with
the Divine.

Scripture and Liturgy in the Life of Mary of Egypt

Derek Krueger, Greensboro NC
Two biblical citations, both fairly obscure, frame the introductory paragraph of the seventhcentury Life of Mary of Egypt. One is from Tobit; the other from the Wisdom of Solomon,
neither part of the emerging lectionary, and neither much commented in the patristic
corpus. The author supplies references: Such were the words of the angel to Tobit and as
Solomon taught with divine inspiration. Most likely, his intended audience needed the
citational help. At the highpoint of the text, the two protagonists Mary and the monastic
priest Zosimas engage in a brief liturgical service. She asks him to recite the creed and to
lead her the Lords Prayer; they exchange a ritual kiss, and he provides her with reserve
sacrament. Elsewhere the author quotes the refrain of a hymn of Romanos the Melodist.
These texts and actions need no citation.
The paper uses the Life of Mary of Egypt as a case study to consider the use and function of
biblical quotations and liturgical references in early Byzantine hagiography. There are
approximately twenty-five biblical quotations in the text. Quotations familiar from the
liturgy tend to appear without the author citing a source. More obscure quotations tend to
receive citations, either with the name of the book or the supposed author of the text.
Hagiography thus both confirms the extent and limits of the knowledge of the Bible that an
hagiographer could reasonably expect from his audience. The Life of Mary of Egypt provides
a particularly useful place to investigate these issues, since in the middle of its narrative, it
engages again in an early Byzantine version of the footnote when the author identifies the
sources for Marys own biblical quotations and Zosimas registers surprise, since Mary has
never received any Christian education. Her Bible knowledge is miraculous.
For earlier texts, this sort of analysis is difficult or impossible, since we cannot reconstruct
liturgies or lectionaries with much confidence. But by the seventh century, we can begin to
detect trajectories of liturgical usage from a variety of sources, including narrative accounts
and eighth-century prayer books. Meanwhile the fifth-century Armenian lectionary and the
seventh-century Georgian lectionary allow us to reconstruct parts of the reading cycle for
the city of Jerusalem and the region of Palestine, where the Life of Mary of Egypt was most
probably written.
In the early Byzantine period, most Christians absorbed their scripture in liturgical settings,
either though lectionary readings, the chanting or hearing of Biblical psalms and canticles, or
the exploration and interpretation of biblical narratives in sermons or hymns. Because
familiarity with scripture derived in large part from the liturgy, hagiography should be seen
not merely as participating in a culture of biblical reference, but rather in a culture of

liturgical reference. Indeed the primary and implicit intertext for hagiography should be
located in the liturgy, including the liturgical reading of scripture, rather than in the Bible per
se.

Early Monasticism and the Rhetorical Tradition: Sayings, Stories and Schooltexts
Lillian I. Larsen, Redlands CA
This paper examines proto-monastic sayings and stories within a broader rhetorical frame.
Given the integral role accorded gnomic sentences and maxims in ancient education, it
argues the particular merits of reading collections of monastic apophthegmata in light of
broader pedagogical models. Throughout the paper, extant material evidence wiil serve to
elucidate the parameters of practice identified in schooltexts from the hellenistic period
through late-antiquity and beyond. Both common and distinctive aspects of emergent
monastic application will be identified and discussed.

An Education Through Gnomic Wisdom: The Pandects of Antiochus as Bibliotheksersatz

Ioannis Papadogiannakis, KCL
The Pandects of Antiochus compiled in the early seventh century AD was an ambitious
attempt to distil the Bible in gnomic bits organized under different headings for the
education of, predominantly but not exclusively, monks. As intrinsically and eminently
didactic as this work was, it has not received the scholarly attention that it deserves. After
examining the circumstances under which it was composed and how these affect the nature
of the work, this paper will analyse the authors working methods and educational aims.

Syriac translations of Greek secular literature: a gnomic format for an instructional purpose?
Alberto Rigolio
Syriac translations of Greek secular literature, composed between the fifth and early sixth
centuries by Western Syriac communities living under Roman rule, provide evidence for the
endurance of Greek cultural traditions within early Christian communities. On the one hand,
the selection of the authors that were translated was part of the corpus of texts with which
late antique pepaideuomenoi were familiar, while, on the other hand, the treatment and the
transmission of the Syriac translations attest to their expected use within Christian ascetic
settings.
My paper concentrates on the Syriac translations of Plutarchs De cohibenda ira and De
capienda ex inimicis utilitate, Ps.-Plutarchs De exercitatione (lost in Greek), Lucians De
calumnia, Ps.-Isocrates Ad Demonicum, and Themistius De amicitia and De virtute (lost in
Greek). Since the translation process gave the translators room to intervene on the texts

with omission, additions, and changes, their textual editing has the potential to reveal their
interests and aims in translating Greek secular literature into Syriac.
Three of these adaptations are particularly noticeable. (i) The Syriac texts have been
Christianised through the omissions of all references to pagan religion; (ii) the exempla,
which are regularly drawn from Greco-Roman culture, have been selected, and, as a result,
most mythological material has been omitted; (iii) proper names of most of the figures
drawn from Greco-Roman literature and history, such as Gaius Gracchus, Socrates and Philip,
have been replaced by formulas such as a wise man, a philosopher, and a king. The
nature and extent of the changes show that a primary interest of the adaptors lied in the
edifying exempla contained in the original texts.
Another crucial feature affects the textual form of the translations. Their rephrasing in Syriac
suggests that the adaptors were familiar with instructional compositions that characterise
gnomic literature. By providing textual samples, the present paper puts forward the
hypothesis that the adaptors designed their works for instructional settings. The scenario
depicted by John the Solitary in the Four dialogues with Eusebios and Eutropios (early fifth
century), in which the author instructs less experienced ascetics through exempla and
sentences, may suggest the setting that the Syriac translators were expecting for their
works.

Athens and/or Jerusalem? Basil's and Chrysostom's views on the didactic use of literature and
stories
Jan Stenger, Glasgow
The paper deals with two treatises on Christian education, composed nearly at the same
time: Basil's Address to Young Men and Chrysostom's On Vainglory. These two
programmatic texts originated in a similar cultural context and promote roughly the same
idea, i.e. to lead young Christians to a virtuous life. With regard to the methods to achieve
this aim, however, they differ considerably. While Basil adopts an inclusive approach, which
combines the best of pagan literature with Christian faith, Chrysostom aims at replacing
traditional schooling with storytelling based on Scripture. A comparison between these two
approaches to the use of texts can reveal fundamental assumptions about the role of
education in a Christian framework, which were available to Christians in the fourth century.
They bear witness to concepts of identity characteristic of this period.

Falsification as a protreptic to truth: The forged epistolary exchange between Basil and
Libanius
Lieve Van Hoof, Gttingen and Ghent
This paper studies the forged epistolary exchange between Basil of Caesarea (329/30-379)
and Libanius of Antioch (314-393). Consisting of twenty-six letters, this epistolary collection
must have been composed shortly after the death of these two major participants in the
fourth-century debate between Christians and pagans. Whilst previous research was largely
focused on the question of authenticity, this paper reads the forgery as a literary
composition in its own right. More specifically, it argues that the forgery serves the
protreptic function of converting young students from a life dedicated to rhetoric and
worldly values to a sacred life in which rhetoric could have a place, yet would be subordinate
to the higher values and truth of Christianity.

The quest for the right argument. Disputations and late ancient education.
Peter Van Nuffelen, Gttingen and Ghent
A theme that recurs often in the rich documentation on public disputations in late Antiquity
is the choice for the correct mode of argumentation to conduct the argument. It occurs in
the criticism of Eunomian dialectics, but also in the distinction made by the Donatists
between a legal mode of argumentation and an ecclesiastical one. These texts will be used
to argue the following points: (1) these texts do not reflect a desire to do away with
disputation as such (Lim), but rather point to a theoretical problem: what is the appropriate
mode of argument to discuss theological or ecclesiastical issues? This is, in turn, connected
with considerations about modes of education, and the possibility of applying the right type
or part of education in the right context. Bildung is thus not rejected but rendered relative to
the context and subject being discussed. (2) The Donatist and Catholic bishops participating
in the conference of Carthage (411) seem capable of switching between a legal and an
ecclesiastical mode, whilst still maintaining the distinction and valuating negatively the
former one. Whilst reflecting the depths of secular and religious education of late ancient
bishops, it also suggests a consciousness of the limits of forensic training and its application
(pace Humfress).