Title: Public disputation, power, and social order in late antiquity
Description: Using select philosophical and theological debates, Lim discusses how with the advent of Christianity the public function of disputation changed from a means of discovering truth and self-identification for the orator to a means of competition and "winning over" an opponent. Lim demonstrates clearly 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.
Subjects: Church history, History, Intellectual life, Religious disputations, Church history, primitive and early church, ca. 30-600, Rome, intellectual life
Places: Rome
Time periods: 4th century