Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse / Edition 1

by Averil Cameron

Overview

Many reasons can be given for the rise of Christianity in late antiquity and its flourishing in the medieval world. In asking how Christianity succeeded in becoming the dominant ideology in the unpromising circumstances of the Roman Empire, Averil Cameron turns to the development of Christian discourse over the first to sixth centuries A.D., investigating the discourse's essential characteristics, its effects on existing forms of communication, and its eventual preeminence. Scholars of late antiquity and general readers interested in this crucial historical period will be intrigued by her exploration of these influential changes in modes of communication.

The emphasis that Christians placed on language—writing, talking, and preaching—made possible the formation of a powerful and indeed a totalizing discourse, argues the author. Christian discourse was sufficiently flexible to be used as a public and political instrument, yet at the same time to be used to express private feelings and emotion. Embracing the two opposing poles of logic and mystery, it contributed powerfully to the gradual acceptance of Christianity and the faith's transformation from the enthusiasm of a small sect to an institutionalized world religion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520089235
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	12/02/1994
Series:	Sather Classical Lectures , #55
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	275
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Averil Cameron is Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at the University of London, King's College. Her many publications include Images of Women in Antiquity, edited with Amélie Kuhrt (1983), Procopius and the Sixth Century (California, 1985), and History as Text (1989).

Table of Contents

	List of Illustrations	ix
	Preface	xi
	List of Abbreviations	xv
	Introduction	1
1.	How Many Rhetorics?	15
2.	Showing and Telling	47
3.	Stories People Want	89
4.	The Power over the Past	120
5.	The Rhetoric of Paradox	155
6.	Toward a New Representation	189
	Envoi	222
	Bibliography	231
	General Index	255
	Index of Scriptural Citations	261