Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity: 23 (Transformation of the Classical Heritage) - Hardcover

This text explores the importance of verbal disputation in late antiquity, offering a socio-historical and cultural examination of the philosophical and theological controversies. It shows how public disputation changed with the advent of Christianity from a means of discovering truth and self-identification to a form of social competition and "winning over" an opponent. It also demonstrates how the reception and practice of public debate, like other forms of competition in late antiquity, were closely tied to underlying notions of authority, community and social order.

"I know of no other book like this. Lim is thoroughly grounded in a wide variety of primary sources; cognizant of scholarly debates in contemporary literature and conversant with many recent works on sociology, anthropology and theory. The approach is original."—Elizabeth Clark, Duke University

"Original treatment of recherché material in an unusual and stimulating manner. Specialists will welcome the novelty while others may follow with profit Lim's argument as a route of access into normally inaccessible territory."—Maud Gleason, Stanford University