The Aesthetics of Hope in Late Greek Imperial Literature: Methodius of Olympus' Symposium and the Crisis of the Third Century by Dawn LaValle Norman

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Aesthetics of Hope in Late Greek Imperial Literature: Methodius of Olympus' Symposium and the Crisis of the Third Century by Dawn LaValle Norman Katerina Oikonomopoulou Dawn LaValle Norman The Aesthetics of Hope in Late Greek Imperial Literature: Methodius of Olympus' Symposium and the Crisis of the Third Century Greek Culture in the Roman World Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019 Pp. viii + 287. £75.00. Methodius's Symposium or On Chastity, composed around 290 c.e., falls squarely within what Dawn LaValle Norman calls the "gap period" of 235–294 c.e. (5), understood as the threshold period between the "Second Sophistic" and "Late Antiquity." Her book advances a reading of this text which places it at the vanguard of a new tradition (or "third wave") of symposiastic writing in late antiquity, and which identifies as the work's intellectual hallmarks its preoccupation with the future of Christian salvation and its dedicated exploration of variety and difference. In what follows, I will highlight the main arguments of the book's chapters, while commenting on the many innovative aspects of its approach. [End Page 641] The Introduction incisively identifies the problems that ensue from the lack of proper scholarly attention to the literary pedigree of Methodius's Symposium itself, as well as to the transitional period in which it was written. Chapter One aims to rectify this in two principal ways. First, it rehabilitates the third-century c.e. literary landscape, by showing that the authors of this period exhibit in their literary output a "polygenericity" (31) which destabilizes conventional distinctions based on intellectual genealogy (e.g., between pagan and Christian; philosopher, rhetorician and theologian; and "technical" as opposed to "literary" author, 28–45). This argument is then buttressed by pointing out that third-century intellectual communities were far from isolated or self-contained microcosms: on the contrary, traditional centers of pagan knowledge such as Athens, Alexandria, and Rome interacted on multiple levels with new hubs of intellectual activity, most notably Babylon, Palmyra, Caesarea Maritima, and Berytus (45–51). LaValle Norman situates Methodius squarely within this context, by drawing attention to the rich generic repertoire on which his Symposium draws, as well as to the fact that the author sought to make the region of his bishopric, Lycia (on the southern coast of Asia Minor), part of this dense network of intellectual contact, by fostering an intellectual community modeled on those depicted in Plato's dialogues (51–59). She concludes by arguing that Methodius and his contemporaries represent a new literary aesthetic, which reorients some key preoccupations of the Second Sophistic (paideia, classicism, identity) to new ends (59–68). Most notably, this new aesthetic seeks to forge a new relationship with foreign (non-Greek) forms of wisdom, and to develop new hermeneutical techniques which embed "a narrative of progress and teleology" (63). Chapters Two through Five look closely at the literary texture of Methodius's Symposium, exploring its use of the dialogue form (Chapter Two), its place in the literary tradition of the Symposium (Chapter Three), its rhetorical tropes and performativity (Chapter Four), and, last but not least, the structure and content of its iambic hymn (Chapter Five). The main strength of the analysis here lies in the insightful treatment of complex questions pertaining to genre, with well-chosen close readings offered alongside rich intertextual comparisons. LaValle Norman cogently dispels arguments on the supposed decline of dialogue in the Christian tradition (most prominently by S. Goldhill, ed., The End of Dialogue in Antiquity [Cambridge University Press, 2008]), on the basis of distinguishing between erotapokriseis (the textual method of organizing knowledge by posing and solving questions, which gained wide popularity in late antiquity) and literary dialogue as an imitative genre. There should be no doubt, as she convincingly argues, that Methodius aligns with the latter genre. She demonstrates why particularly in her richly researched section on the interplay of phantasia, pleasure, and desire in the text (78–94): dialogue serves Methodius's aim to actively implicate his readers in the sympotic conversation of the virgins, as well as to train their imagination to envisage the life to come. In light of the fact that cognitive theory is steadily gaining ground...