Annemaré Kotzé

Olga Alieva

Sophie van der Meeren

The ancients never confined their philosophy to the systematic exposition of doctrine. Orations, treatises, dialogues and letters aimed at persuading people to become lovers of wisdom. Rhetorical feats, logical intricacies, or mystical experience served to recruit adherents, to promote and defend philosophy and to support adherents. Protreptic was the literary form that served all these functions. This volume seeks to illuminate both the diversity and the continuity of protreptic in the work of a wide range of authors, from Parmenides to Augustine.

Philosophical Protreptic in Antiquity

When Wisdom Calls

This reading of the "Confessions" focuses on its aim to convert its readers (it displays some characteristics of the protreptic genre) and on a specific segment of its potential audience, Augustine's erstwhile co-religionists, the Manichaeans.

Communicative Purpose and Audience

Augustine's Confessions

Jacob Albert van den Berg

Tobias Nicklas

Madeleine Scopello

This volume in honour of Prof. Dr. Johannes van Oort offers a rich variety of in-depth studies on Augustine, Manichaeism, and other Gnostic currents, thus reflecting the rich variety of the honorand’s research interests.

Studies for Johannes van Oort at Sixty

In Search of Truth. Augustine, Manichaeism and other Gnosticism

This reading of the Confessions focuses on its aim to convert its readers (it displays some characteristics of the protreptic genre) and on a specific segment of its potential audience, Augustine's erstwhile co-religionists, the Manichaeans.

Annemaré Kotzé

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