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The Monster at the End of His Book: Monstrosity as Theological Strategy and Cultural Critique in Tatian's Against the Greeks
- Journal of Early Christian Studies
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 26, Number 2, Summer 2018
- pp. 191-219
- 10.1353/earl.2018.0018
- Article
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Abstract:
In Against the Greeks, Tatian develops a cultural critique by placing himself, his Greek education, and his "barbarian" ethnicity within the scope of the text's argument. I argue that this constitutes a deliberate strategy in which Tatian embodied a cultural monster—a hybrid creature that reflected both the mainstream of Greek paideutic values and the barbarian cultures that were antithetical to them—in order to secure a self-identity for himself and the early Christian communities for whom he presumed to speak. By performing his monstrosity in this way, he makes the case that Greek paideia is not a pure inheritance from a monolithic cultural tradition. Instead, Tatian posits a cultural theory that reflects his own hybrid self.