El paganismo en la literatura apologética cristiana (ss. II-IV)

Resum

The present doctoral thesis studies the discourse of Christian apologetic literature on paganism from the second century AD to the reign of Constantine. In the widest sense of the term, apologetic literature includes those works that present and defend Christianity within a real or potential context of persecution. However, to defend Christianity was not the only objective of the apologists, as their arguments served to construct the identity of Christianity itself, and define the boundaries between it and other religious systems in the Greco-Roman world, as regarding beliefs, rites and ethical and social behaviour. The image of paganism given by the apologists is a stereotype, and rarely can elements of contemporary experience be extracted from their texts. Therefore, this thesis does not attempt to examine the situation of paganism between the second and fourth centuries, but analyses the argumentative strategies, the rhetorical tools, and ultimately, the ideas the apologists crafted about Greco-Roman paganism. This topic has not previously been approached systematically in a study embracing all the treatises traditionally included within the category of pre-Constantinian apologetic literature. The present doctoral thesis aims to fill this historiographical lacuna.