Instances of dialogue are common in early Christian literature. We have dialogues embedded within different literary genres, such as hagiography, historiography, or fictional narratives; dialogue poems (and dispute poems), especially common in Syriac literature; and texts written in the form of questions and answers, also known as erotapokriseis. Yet we also have a conspicuous corpus of self-standing texts written in prose that claim to report, or to simulate, real-life conversations between two or more speakers, primarily about religious, philosophical, or biographical subjects, and often placed within an elaborate historical or fictitious setting. Christian dialogues address themes such as the nature of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and the function of fate in relation to free will, as well as various Christological and exegetical subjects. The role of these texts in the study of the culture of Late Antiquity, particularly on issues such as religious debate, rhetorical culture, and literate education more broadly, is only gradually being recognized. The most commonly known Christian dialogues include Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho, Methodius’ Symposium, and Gregory of Nyssa’s Dialogue on the Soul and the Resurrection, while many more remain still unfamiliar to most.
Regrettably, most dialogues composed during Late Antiquity remain little studied, often in isolation from one another. Several of them have been the subject of excellent scholarship in the last two decades, but there is no systematic overview of these texts, and we still lack a comprehensive study of the dialogue form throughout the period. This is one of the aims of my new book, Christians in Conversation. A Guide to Late Antique Dialogues in Greek and Syriac (Oxford University Press, 2019). The volume is conceived as a comprehensive guide to Christian dialogues composed in Greek and in Syriac from the earliest examples in the second century until the end of the sixth century. After an introductory essay, the guide opens with the Disputatio Iasonis et Papisci, written in the mid- second century CE, and closes with Anastasius of Antioch, who wrote his Dialogue between an Orthodox and a Tritheite in the late sixth century.
Christians in Conversation includes dialogues featuring a Christian and a Jew as the main speakers. Such works have attracted most scholarly attention in relation to other instances of adversus Iudaeos literature; these texts, however, await to be integrated with broader developments of the dialogue form during Late Antiquity. Similarly, Syriac literature offers some of the earliest instances of Christian dialogues and shows the pervasiveness of the dialogue form beyond the linguistic boundaries; yet these texts need to be put in relation to contemporary developments in Greek and in Latin. To the eyes of the cultural historian, Christian dialogues reveal their authors’ awareness of a wide spectrum of religious perspectives, vividly evoke the religious debates of the time, embody the cultural conventions and refinements that late antique men and women expected from such events, and ultimately propagate the fundamental view that religious differences could be solved in the context of public debate. Not only does the extraordinary flourishing of the dialogue form attest to the transformations of ancient literary and rhetorical traditions, but it also helps us understand the functioning complexities of a lively society that thrived on religious debate.
c.1023. Hrabanus Maurus codex 132 On the universe: philosophers debate as scribe records. https://library.artstor.org/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822001090784.
The second aim of the book is to show that the composition of prose dialogues was far from moribund during Late Antiquity, as the list of dialogues at the end of this article demonstrates. The dialogue form did not exhaust itself with the philosophical schools of Classical and Hellenistic Greece, but emerged transformed and reinvigorated in the religiously diverse world of Late Antiquity. During this pivotal period Christian authors exploited and transformed the dialogue form in the composition of new, culturally contingent forms of dialogue, designed as tools of opinion formation amid the religious controversies of the time. Christians’ use of the dialogue form within religious controversy resulted in a burgeoning activity of composition of prose dialogues, which now opposed a Christian and a Jew, a Christian and a pagan, a Christian and a Manichaean, and an orthodox and a heretic. Christian dialogues were effective methods for communication that should inform any serious cultural history of late antique society. Not only do Christian dialogues embody the cultural conventions and refinements that late antique men and women expected from the religious debates of the time, but they also propagated the idea that orthodoxy would emerge as the correct and rational doctrine through public debate.
Aristotle. 14th century, beginning. Physics., Folio #: fol. 047r. Manuscript. Place: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/. https://library.artstor.org/asset/BODLEIAN_10310774673.
The dialogue form was versatile, and it offered its practitioners a wide variety of rhetorical and literary devices that could be deployed according to their aims. Various Christian authors found suitable models in existing traditions, such as the Platonic or the Peripatetic, or attempted to develop new forms of dialogue for particular or simply broader readerships (as was indicated, for instance, by an innovative text layout with systematic indication of the speakers). Some even wrote dialogues as more or less successful literary experiments, as in the notable case of Methodius of Olympus, who wrote a Christian Symposium, and the anonymous author of the On Political Science, who took Plato’s Republic and Cicero’s On the Commonwealth as his models. The progymnasmata of traditional rhetorical education, and professional rhetoric more broadly, contributed to a renewal and transformation of the dialogue form during Late Antiquity. Similarly, an increasing formalization of theological argumentation, which, as reflected in conciliar acts, relied more and more on patristic florilegia and legalistic proofs, reshaped the modes of argumentation employed in Christian dialogues. As a result, late antique dialogues display considerable variance in their formal features, modes of argumentation, and literary awareness, but they do show that Christian authors continued to develop and exploit this form for their more practical needs. Christian dialogues reveal the inner workings of a culture that thrived on religious debate and that made conspicuous investment in the search of orthodoxy and in its articulation in linguistic terms. Religious dogma did not put an end to dialogue but acted as a continuous source for debate and disagreement.
The Greek and Syriac dialogues treated in Christian in Conversation are the following (the question mark indicates dubious authorship):
1. ?Aristo of Pella, Disputatio Iasonis et Papisci
2. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho
3. Gaius Romanus, Dialogue against Proclus
4. ?Hippolytus, Chapters against Gaius
5. Philip Bardaisanite, The Book of the Laws of the Countries and Bardaisan’s lost dialogues
6. Anon., Erostrophus
7. Origen, Dialogue with Heraclides and lost dialogues
8. Gregory the Wonderworker, To Theopompus, on the Impassibility and Passibility of God
9. Gregory the Wonderworker, Dialogue with Gelian
10. Anon., adversus Iudaeos Dialogue in P.Oxy. 2070
11. Methodius, On Free Will
12. Methodius, On Leprosy
13. Methodius, Symposium
14. Methodius, Aglaophon or On the Resurrection
15. Methodius, Xeno or On Things Created
16. ?Hegemonius, Acta Archelai
17. Anon., Dialogue with Adamantius
18. Diodorus of Tarsus, Two Dialogues
19. Gregory of Nyssa, Dialogue on the Soul and the Resurrection
20. Gregory of Nyssa, Against Fate
21. Macarius Magnes, Apocriticus
22. Apollinarius of Laodicea, Dialogi and Quod Deus in carne Christus
23. Didymus the Blind, Disputation with a Heretic
24. Ps.-Athanasius, Disputatio contra Arium
25. Anon., Two Macedonian Dialogues
26. John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood
27. Anon., Dialexis Montanistae et Orthodoxi
28. Ps.-Athanasius, Five Dialogues on the Trinity
29. Ps.-Athanasius, Dialogus Athanasii et Zacchaei
30. Ps.-Athanasius, Two Dialogues against the Macedonians
31. Palladius, Dialogue on the Life of John Chrysostom
32. Cyril of Alexandria, On Adoration and Worship in Spirit and in Truth
33. Cyril of Alexandria, Seven Dialogues on the Trinity
34. Cyril of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten
35. Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ
36. Ps.- Cyril of Alexandria, Dialogue with Nestorius
37. Theodotus of Ancyra, Contra Nestorium
38. Nestorius, Adversus Theopaschitas
39. Nestorius, Dialogue in the Bazaar of Heracleides
40. Mark the Monk, Disputatio cum Causidico
41. John of Apamea, Six Dialogues with Thomas
42. John of Apamea, Four Dialogues with Eusebius and Eutropius
43. John of Apamea, Dialogue on the Mystery of Baptism
44. Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Eranistes
45. Anon., Actus Silvestri
46. Aeneas of Gaza, Theophrastus
47. Zacharias of Mytilene, Ammonius
48. Zacharias of Mytilene, Life of Severus
49. Anon. or Menas, On Political Science
50. Leontius of Byzantium, Dialogus contra Aphthartodocetas
51. Leontius of Byzantium, Solutions to the Arguments Proposed by Severus
52. Basil of Cilicia, Against John of Scythopolis
53. Paul the Persian, Disputatio cum Manichaeo
54. John bar Aphthonia, Conversation with the Syrian Orthodox under Justinian
55. John the Grammarian of Caesarea, Disputatio cum Manichaeo
56. Anon., Dialogus cum Iudaeis
57. Anon., Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila
58. Paul of Nisibis, Conversation with Caesar
59. Anon., Religious Conversation at the Sasanian Court
60. Anastasius of Antioch, Dialogue between an Orthodox and a Tritheite
Alberto Rigolio is Assistant Professor in Classics at Durham University. This post was adapted from his new book, Christians in Conversation. A Guide to Late Antique Dialogues in Greek and Syriac (Oxford University Press, 2019).