Alexander the Great in the Early Christian Tradition: Classical Reception and Patristic Literature

Description

What has Alexander the Great to do with Jesus Christ? Or the legendary king's conquest of the Persian Empire (335-23 BCE) to do with the prophecies of the Old Testament? In many ways, the early Christian writings on Alexander and his legacy provide a lens through which it is possible to view the shaping of the literature and thought of the early church in the Greek East and the Latin West. This book articulates that fascinating discourse for the first time by focusing on the early Christian use of Alexander. Delving into an impressively deep pool of patristic literature written between 130-313 CE, Christian Thrue Djurslev offers original interpretations of various important authors, from the learned lawyer Tertullian to the 'Christian Cicero' Lactantius, and from the apologist Tatian to the first church historian Eusebius. He demonstrates that the early Christian adaptations of the Alexandrian myths created a new tradition that has continued to develop and expand ever since. This innovative work of reception studies is important reading for all scholars of Alexander the Great and early church history.

Christian Thrue Djurslev is Assistant Professor of Classics at Aarhus University, Denmark. He has published widely on the reception of Alexander the Great in ancient and modern culture.

Djurslev's book is a useful contribution towards scholarship on the reception of Alexander. It should be a helpful reference and starting point for future work in this area. The occasional references to Coptic and Syriac works may even help inspire more research on Alexander's reception in these languages. Djurslev convincingly shows that there is much to be gained by casting a wider net in studies of the reception of Alexander. * The Classical Journal * The survey is clearly structured, thorough, and well argued. It contains a great deal of fascinating details (such as on Tatian's criticism of Aristotle's teaching: p. 44). The language is fresh and modern. The book is an important contribution to the studies of Alexander's reception. It is useful to students, very informative for scholars, and recommended for anyone interested in the multiple artificial images of Alexander in his afterlife. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review * A sparkling account of the Christian apologists. * Church History and Religious Culture * Christian Djurslev has addressed a neglected aspect of the study of both early Christian literature and the Alexander tradition. He has demonstrated that the memory and rhetorical utility of Alexander the Great transcended the ideological divides of Antiquity, and shown how the first Christian writers were like and unlike their pagan contemporaries. -- Benjamin Garstad, Professor of Classics, MacEwan University, Canada