The Art of Listening in the Early Church. By Carol Harrison

Abstract

Carol Harrison, Professor of the History and Theology of the Latin West at Durham University, has produced a groundbreaking book on listening in the early Church. Going beyond the analysis of early Christian use of rhetorical language and techniques, she seeks to understand the synergy between the art of speaking and the discipline of hearing. So rather than focusing on the (male) educated elite, Harrison is more attentive to what she calls the “cultural literacy” or the facility for “literate listening” among the illiterate majority in the ancient world. This allows her to explore the Christian culture built up by speakers and writers of early Christian texts. She wants to discover how these authors were influenced by their intended hearers, and also how these hearers, in turn, heard and responded to them. This is well captured by Harrison when she describes this as eavesdropping on a conversation. As she rightly states, if we ignore the listener then we also close our ears to the real “resonances” of what is being said, as speech is an act that is always two-sided.