The Monster at the End of His Book: Monstrosity as Theological Strategy and Cultural Critique in Tatian's Against the Greeks

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.