Date of Award

2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Rohrbacher, David

Area of Concentration

Classics

Abstract

Christian apologetics in the Roman empire had two main purposes: to defend Christians and their beliefs from persecution, and to present Christianity as a legitimate religion for Romans to convert to. This thesis examines two roughly contemporary apologetic texts, ​Contra Celsum ​ and Octavius, as representatives of the two respective goals. In the Introduction, I present some background on Roman-era apologetics. In Chapter 1, I discuss the different purposes for which the two works were written, and speculate on how the author’s social contexts may have influenced those purposes, followed by a brief outline of how I intend to analyze the writers’ differences. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 examine various points of the works’ forms and content which I argue are illustrative of their differing goals and the differing attitudes that led to them. The Octavius, as a representative of the persuasive goal, is very welcoming to pagans in its form and content, while ​Contra Celsum, as a representative of the defensive goal, is much more critical.

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