Advocacy in the Dialogue on the Life of St John Chrysostom
Advocacy in the Dialogue on the Life of St John Chrysostom
This chapter argues that the Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom should be understood as a legal argument in defense of John composed in accordance with the principles of late antique judicial rhetoric found in the Art of Political Speech (Anonymous Seguerianus) and Art of Rhetoric, attributed to Apsines of Gadara. This chapter analyzes the Dialogue in terms of its four constitutive parts, namely, the introduction [proemion], narration [diegesis], argumentation [kataskeue or pistis], and conclusion [epilogos] and explains the purpose and historical value of each. This chapter reveals that Palladius used the dialogue form to mimic courtroom debate and that he subordinated all narrative elements to the argumentation. It is the argumentation that is at the very heart of the Dialogue, even though its significance has been ignored or even dismissed by most scholarship which has long viewed the dialogue as a historical or biographical narrative.
Keywords: Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom, dialogue, judicial rhetoric, forensic, Art of Political Speech, Anonymous Seguerianus, Art of Rhetoric, Apsines of Gadara, narration [diegesis], argumentation [kataskeue or pistis]
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