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Coming late to the table : Methodius in the context of sympotic literary development
LaValle Norman, Dawn
LaValle Norman, Dawn
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Abstract
[Extract] When Methodius wrote the most famous of his works, the Symposium, or On Chastity, the Symposium was a popular genre.¹ Imperial Symposia abounded, which took as their models and modified the founding Socratic Symposia of Plato and Xenophon. Plutarch in the 2nd century wrote not one, but two sympotic works: Quaestiones Convivales is a collection of different sympotic moments that took place over many years, and Septem Sapientium Convivium (Symposium of the Seven Wise Men) recounts the conversations at a wedding banquet set in the mythical time of the archaic wise men, couching a collection of archaic wisdom within an elaborate narrative structure. In the early 3rd century, Athenaeus wrote the Deipnosophistae, a sprawling work that covers a dinner party among friends in Rome and amasses an enormous amount of quotation from the archive. Other Christians used the genre as well: Lactantius, an exact contemporary of Methodius, wrote a Latin Symposium on his way from North Africa to the court of Diocletian, which may or may not survive.² The popularity of the Symposium continued well after Methodius, with Julian the Apostate and Macrobius, among others, turning their hand to the genre.
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Date
2017
Type
Book chapter
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Book
Methodius of Olympus : State of the art and new perspectives
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Issue
Page Range
18-37
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ACU Department
Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
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All rights reserved
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