Guide to the Dialogues

The guide presents all sixty dialogues that survive entirely or in fragmentary state until the end of the sixth century, arranged in chronological order so as to emphasize changes and transformations over time. The treatment of each dialogue is structured into standardized headings (author, full title, original language, date of composition, modern editions and translations, summary, discussion of scholarship, and a selected bibliography for further study). The incorporation of Greek and Syriac dialogues shows the pervasiveness of the dialogue form in late antiquity beyond the language boundary; dialogues that feature a Christian and a Jew as the main speakers, up to now mostly studied in relation to other instances of adversus Iudaeos literature such as homiletics or treatises, are here related to Christian dialogues more broadly.

Introduction

Although some scholars have written of an end of dialogue coinciding with the rise of Christianity, the composition of prose dialogues was far from moribund during late antiquity. During this period, Christian authors exploited and transformed the ancient dialogue form in the composition of new, culturally contingent forms of dialogue, which were designed as tools of opinion formation within the religious controversies of the time. The burgeoning production of these prose dialogues sheds light on the cultural toolbox of late antique writers and readers, and, by extension, on their education and culture, but it also shows that the prose dialogue was a form of choice for many Christian authors. The extraordinary success of the prose dialogue in late antiquity indicates the endurance and the evolution of ancient rhetorical instruction and traditions; in addition, it helped propagate the idea that orthodoxy would be recognized as the correct and rational doctrine in the context of a public debate.