Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity (review)

Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity. Edited by Tomas Hägg and Philip Rousseau, with the assistance of Christian Høgel. [The Transformation of the Classical Heritage, Vol. XXXI.] (Berkeley: University of California Press. 2000. Pp. xii, 288. $50.00.)

In this uniformly excellent volume Gillian Clark, M. J. Edwards, and Patricia Cox Miller highlight biographies of pagan holy men from the late third and the fourth centuries; Averil Cameron, Philip Rousseau, Samuel Rubenson, and Miller analyze biographies of desert saints, in particular the Life of Antony; Frederick W. Norris, David Konstan, and Jostein Børtnes discuss Gregory of Nazianzus' panegyric about Basil of Caesarea; Robert J. Penella studies some of the orations of the sophist Themistius; and G. W. Bowersock examines the Syriac Life of Rabbula, a bishop of Edessa during the early fifth century.

Almost all of the contributors have adopted a literary approach, and they are much more concerned about the motives of the authors and the rhetorical strategies implicit in their writings than about the actual subjects of these biographies and panegyrics. Most of the contributors think of these biographies and panegyrics primarily as texts rather than sources, as Lives rather than lives, and their emphasis is on rhetorical construction and appropriation. Clark concludes that both Porphyry and Iamblichus composed biographies as "probably a weapon in their continuing debate" (p. 41) over the nature of the philosophic life. Edwards suggests that because Porphyry wrote his Life of Plotinus as "a Neoplatonic gospel" (p. 67), he intended to present Plotinus as "not merely a pagan saint, but a pagan Christ" (p. 54). Cameron concludes that the Life of Antony was perhaps an "answer" to Eusebius' Life of Constantine (p. 85), Rousseau that it was "a discourse, not a report" (p. 102). Norris and Konstan propose that in his panegyric about Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus was meditating as much about himself and his ideas of friendship as about his friend. According to Norris, "the subtext is clearer than the text" (p. 155). Panella suggests that in praising his father, Themistius was advertising his own intellectual culture. Miller argues that both Eunapius in his collection of biographies of pagan intellectuals and the author of the Historia Monachorum organized their material in order "to define the authentic human being" (p. 222). With such an emphasis on the authors and their rhetoric most of these discussions have effectively transformed the panegyrics and biographies into autobiographies, as conceded by Konstan. "Biography threatens to dissolve into autobiography" (p. 161).

The one exception to this focus on authorial intentions is Bowersock, who concludes that the Life of Rabbula is a "faithful record" (p. 269) of this Syrian saint's early life. The success of his reconstruction might have intriguing implications for Børtnes' analysis of the erotic vocabulary employed by Gregory of Nazianzus to describe his relationship with Basil. Børtnes suggests that Gregory's use of "longing" and "blazing" was simply a rhetoric of friendship and a variation on a Platonic theme. In contrast, an interpretation that highlighted this panegyric as a source might argue that these terms described the actual relationship between Gregory and Basil. In that case perhaps it would be appropriate to conclude that this vocabulary was a true memory of a lost love.

The most suggestive of the contributions is Rubenson's nuanced account of Christian reactions to classical learning. Different Lives offered different models, extending from the image of Antony as an unschooled ascetic who was the opposite of learned philosophers to Jerome's depiction of Paul the Hermit and Hilarion as ascetics who were untroubled by their extensive educations in classical culture. "Classical education and social respectability are harmonized with the ideal of Christian asceticism" (p. 123). In his Lives of Gregory Thaumaturgus and of his sister Macrina, Gregory of Nyssa, furthermore, implied that a biblical education was "an alternative route to the same goal as the classical philosophical tradition" (p. 126). One result...