Rhetoric and the instigation of violence in late antiquity: Cyril of Alexandria and his “authorizing practices”
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Date
2019
Authors
Dyck, Nathaniel
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Abstract
Wendy Mayer’s “Preaching Hatred? John Chrysostom, Neuro-science, and the Jews” describes the effect of rhetoric on cognitive function, and the ways in which metaphor and conceptual framing operate to form intuitive moral frameworks. Her work creates a line of causation between rhetoric and violence, yet lacks direct, dated evidence between the homilies containing this rhetoric, and the acts of violence against Jews in Antioch. This thesis intends to demonstrate these connections through the festal letters of Cyril, archbishop of Alexandria in the early fifth-century, tying dated homiletic letters to acts of anti-Jewish and anti-Pagan violence for which there are dates from contemporary sources.
The violent rhetoric espoused by Cyril utilizes metaphors of non-Christians as criminals, corrupting and infecting the body with their impiety. These ‘crimes’ demand retributive justice, and therefore a conceptual frame of the other as requiring retribution forms a moral intuitive framework, whereby the sub-conscious framing becomes physical action. These frames can also be mapped on to the socio-political discourses described by Bruce Lincoln, which use classification as a means of generating sentiments of affinity and estrangement. This process of developing moral intuitive frameworks and classification strategies to beget violence can be seen as “authorizing practices,” where an authoritative individual sanctions violent acts through both psychological and social pressures via rhetorical discourse. Within this framework, a connection can be demonstrated between Cyril’s rhetoric and the violent acts of the early fifth century in Alexandria.
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Keywords
Alexandria, Cyril, Cognitive Science, Rhetoric, Violence, Late Antiquity