Oxford University Press | Art, Craft, And Theology In Fourth-Century Christian Authors (2020 EN)

Author: Morwenna Ludlow
Full Title: Art, Craft, And Theology In Fourth-Century Christian Authors
Publisher: ‎Oxford University Press (November 30, 2020)
Year: 2020
ISBN-13: 9780198848837 (978-0-19-884883-7)
ISBN-10: 0198848838
Pages: 288
Language: English
Genre: Religion: Christianity
File type: PDF (True, but nonnative Cover)
Quality: 9/10
Price: £65.00


Ancient authors commonly compared writing with painting. The sculpting of the soul was also a common philosophical theme. Art, Craft, and Theology in Fourth-Century Christian Authors takes its starting-point from such figures to recover a sense of ancient authorship as craft. The ancient concept of craft (ars, techne) spans 'high' or 'fine' art and practical or applied arts. It unites the beautiful and the useful. It includes both skills or practices (like medicine and music) and productive arts like painting, sculpting and the composition of texts. By using craft as a guiding concept for understanding fourth Christian authorship, this book recovers a sense of them engaged in a shared practice which is both beautiful and theologically useful, which shapes souls but which is also engaged in the production of texts. It focuses on Greek writers, especially the Cappadocians (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nysa) and John Chrysostom, all of whom were trained in rhetoric. Through a detailed examination of their use of two particular literary techniques—ekphrasis and prosōpopoeia—it shows how they adapt and experiment with them, in order to make theological arguments and in order to evoke a response from their readership.


Overview:
✓ Considers rhetoric as a social practice involving power and persuasion and not as a set of inflexible techniques
✓ Examines the concept ofprosōpopoeiaand allows readers to see howekphrasishas been adapted by Christian authors in the fourth century
✓ Argues that theology and rhetoric cannot be separated in early Christian texts, developing a more nuanced understanding of early Christian literary production

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