More recently, scholars have found the term “Second Sophistic” to be less helpful as an explanatory term. The term stems from Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists and envisions the circle of sophists too narrowly. See Kendra Eshleman, “Defining the Circle of Sophists: Philostratus and the Construction of Second Sophistic Author(s),” Classical Philology 103, no. 4 (2008): 395–413. Eshleman, Secord, and Laura Nasrallah include “Christian” intellectuals such as Justin, Marcion, and Tatian within this category. See, for instance, Laura Nasrallah, “Mapping the World: Justin, Tatian, Lucian, and the Second Sophistic,” Harvard Theological Review 98, no. 3 (2005): 283–314. That the term excludes scholars and falsely circumscribes a particular period, see Jared J. Secord, “Elites and Outsiders: The Greek-Speaking Scholars of Rome, 100 BCE–200 CE” (University of Michigan, 2012), 15–74. That the sophistic movement continues beyond the second century, see Lieve Van Hoof, “Greek Rhetoric and the Later Roman Empire: The Bubble of the ‘Third Sophistic’,” Antiquité Tardive 18 (2000): 211–24. I am indebted to David DeVore for pointing me to this scholarship on the Second Sophistic.
footnote 9 in the 'Introduction' of Nina E. Livesey, The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship, Cambridge University Press, 2024, p.4.
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re Jared J. Secord, “Elites and Outsiders: The Greek-Speaking Scholars of Rome, 100 BCE–200 CE” (University of Michigan, 2012):
Abstract
The chances that a Greek-speaking scholar had to gain power, wealth, and connections in Rome were dictated by how he identified himself with respect to the classical period of Greece. Those scholars who venerated the classical past of Greece and displayed their mastery of its literature were best able to gain the attention of powerful Roman patrons and thereby gain elite status, while those who associated themselves instead with non-classical forms of Greek culture were marginalized as outsiders. Debates between these groups of elite and outsider scholars shaped intellectual life at Rome, and provided motivation to the influential revival of classical culture that began in the first century BCE. Chapter 1 demonstrates that a close partnership based on a common fascination with the classical past of Greece was established between members of the Roman ruling classes and an influential group of scholars in the first century BCE, Chapter 2 shows that the development of this partnership produced a worldview that emphasized the historical connections between Greece and Rome, and the united front that the two civilizations presented against barbarians and non-classical forms of Greek culture. Chapter 3 treats the growth of the partnership in the first and second centuries CE and the support that was provided to classicizing scholars by the powerful members of the Roman ruling classes, and the motivation that was at the same time being provided to the burgeoning classical revival by the challenges made against it by other Greek-speaking scholars, particularly Jews, Christians, and scholars who came from humble backgrounds. Chapter 4 shows that the marginalized status of Jewish, Christian, and Near Eastern scholars at Rome led them to mount attacks against the roots of the Greek tradition, and to suggest that Greece was a young civilization that had derived, if not plagiarized, all of its wisdom from the older civilizations of Egypt and the Near East. In response, classicizing scholars championed a Hellenocentric worldview that assigned to Greece a special status in the history of the world, and that ignored or denied any suggestions made about its youth, or the derivative nature of its wisdom.
via https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/127209 and/or https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... CE--200_CE
Statistics: Posted by MrMacSon — Fri Dec 13, 2024 4:23 pm