Libanius and Theodoret of Cyrrhus on Accusations of Magic
- Both Libanius in his Autobiography (ca. 374) and Theodoret in his biographical sketch of the monk Macedonius in his Religious History (ca. 444) draw their readers’ attention to the accusations of magic as an everyday event in Late Antiquity. Yet there are differences between the ways in which they present their theme. Some of these differences pertain to genre conventions of autobiography and Christian hagiographic writing, but these are further conditioned by the concrete expectations of the intended audience and the authors’ different religious beliefs. While both are primarily engaged in creating different types of role models, the charge of magic functions as a narrative moment that shapes the character of the relevant hero differentially.
