Books
Christians in Conversation. A Guide to Late Antique Dialogues in Greek and Syriac. Oxford University Press. 2019.
When we imagine a literary dialogue, we tend to think of Plato – and so did the ancients. But it is important to remember that several other authors also wrote dialogues, such as Aristotle, Cicero, Plutarch, and Tacitus. This book focuses on one of the most extraordinary, and perhaps unforeseeable, developments of the dialogue form: the use and the transformations of the classical dialogue form by Christian authors in late antiquity. The dialogue did not disappear with the rise of Christianity, which we tend to associate with a drive away from diversity of opinion, but was adopted and transformed to suit the new needs of religious debate.
This is the first English monograph dedicated to the more than sixty dialogues that survive in Greek and in Syriac from late antiquity. Connected to classical dialogues, but also departing from them, these texts staged encounters between Christians and pagans, Jews, Manichaeans, and “heretical” fellow Christians on various religious, philosophical, and political subjects. Through an interdisciplinary approach that brings together Greek and Syriac, this book demonstrates that prose dialogues were intended as effective tools of opinion formation in late antique society, and that they propagated the fundamental idea that religious difference could be solved through dialogue and debate.
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Reviews
J.E. Walters, Hugoye 26.1 (2023): 311-15: “a welcome addition to scholarship on dialogues in Greek and Syriac”
D. Olster, ChHist 91.3 (2022): 636-37: “an innovative methodological approach”
P. Wood, BMCR 2021.03.31: “opening up the field”
S. Wear, JPT 15 (2021): 257-60: “a learned and unique book”
B. Bennet, JECS 28.1 (2020): 161-63: “a significant advance in scholarship”
S. Basso, MEG 20 (2020): 449-50: “an opus magnum”
M. Cassin, RSPh 104.2 (2020): 401-5: “utile à tous ceux qui s’intéressent à la littérature chrétienne ancienne”
F. Jullien, Abstracta Iranica 42-43 (2020): “une contribution synthétique à l’histoire des traditions rhétoriques et philosophiques”
Michael of Ephesus: On Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics 10. Themistius: On Virtue. Ancients Commentators on Aristotle. Bloomsbury. 2018.
This is the first full-size study and English translation of a philosophical oration by the fourth-century philosopher and rhetorician Themistius, which is lost in the Greek original and survives only in an ancient Syriac translation. The work is supported by a historical and philosophical introduction, textual apparatus, and scholarly commentary.
This entirely new text opens new avenues of research in ancient philosophy, ancient history, and Syriac studies. It attests previously unknown developments within Cynic philosophy in the imperial period, with particular reference to its own understanding within the Socratic tradition; it adds a new layer to our grasp of emperor Julian’s project of pagan restoration by showcasing the opposition to it by a moderate pagan and Aristotelian such as Themistius; and it transforms our knowledge of Syriac intellectual culture, which now appears to engage openly with the philosophical work of a pagan rhetorician.
Review
M. Trizio, BMCR 2019.08.26: “an important witness to late-antique philosophy … very fluent and pleasant to read”