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Chreia And Lives Of Saints: A Study Of Hagiography As An Evolved Rhetorical Genre In Late Antiquity, Seth Fisher

Masters Theses

Hagiography has often confused historians over what practical application this genre of Christian literature has when read as primary sources. In this project I will show that hagiography can read as an evolution of an earlier pagan style rooted in the paideia of ancient scholars. Chreia exercises were performed by students of paideia in order to instruct them on how to write about figures worth emulating such as Diogenes or Alexander the Great. Christian authors did not participate in a hermetically sealed education system but took part in the same schooling as their pagan peers. Hagiographies are structurally and functionally …