Which was the state of the relationships between Christianity and paganism in the late antiquity? How were these tensions reflected in society? Alberto Quiroga, researcher of the department of Greek Studies of the Universidad de Granada has tried to answer these questions in his doctoral thesis “Rhetoric-History-Mythology relation in the speeches 19-23 by Libanius of Antioch”, supervised by professor José Luis Calvo Martínez.
This multidisciplinary work has dealt with the fields of history, religion and rhetoric, exploring the unknown ambit of religion in the 4th century AD. As a result of a riot occurred in the Syrian city of Antioch –one of the most important metropolises of the Roman Empire–, the citizenship made clear the religious, political and cultural tensions inherent in the relation between Christianity and paganism.
Alberto Quiroga´s thesis highlights that the cultural conflicts of the Classical world were happened fundamentally, at an intellectual level, in the cultural elites, given that the common people just tried to survive –a quite difficult mission in that period–. To this effect, his work has allowed to realize how people shared the festivities: in a city like Antioch, inhabited by pagans, Jews and Christians, they all shared the same feasts, amulets and artistic representations, even if they did not belong to their creed.
Libanius of Antioch’s speeches
During the riot of Antioch, its inhabitants pulled the statues of the Imperial family down as they found out that they had placed a new tax that on their precarious economy. After the violent disturbances, the representatives of paganism and Christianity tried to set themselves up as defenders and protectors of the people against the Christian Emperor Theodosius. Libanius of Antioch, a pagan intellectual and official sophist of the city, composed five speeches in which rhetoric became a way to prove and defend the pagan –cultural, political and religious– way of life, the object of this thesis carried out at the UGR.
Quiroga´s work has tried to add a deep analysis of late-imperial literature and rhetoric to the historic study, as they were powerful linguistic weapons in the conflict between Christians and pagans at that time. It all with the only purpose of understanding the passing of the city from paganism to Christianity that we all have inherited.
The importance of this study lies in the fact that it can be applied to different fields and societies: the fact that the work reflects a time of changes, in which two ways of life represented by two religions (paganism and Christianity) polarized the cultural elites of society, makes its transposition to other societies easier.
Reference
Alberto Quiroga. Department of Greek Studies
Phone number. 958 243 694. Mobile 675 431 124. E-mail. albertoquiroga@terra.es
Prof José Luis Calvo Martínez. Department of Greek Studies
Phone number. 958 243 695 / 958 243 694. E-mail. jcalvo@platon.ugr.es
