This study argues that we can interpret narrations of rhetorical performances as a reflection of the process of transformation and adaptation in Late Antiquity, a changing and dynamic period in which institutions and culture became increasingly Christianized. Our knowledge of the adaptation of secular rhetoric to early and late antique Christian discourse has advanced in recent decades but studies of the relevance of rhetorical deliveries in a Christian context are still lacking. How did Christian preachers and bishops respond to their audiences desire for flamboyant and bombastic oratory? What was the place of rhetorical deliveries in the making of religious orthodoxy in the fourth and fifth centuries CE? This volume pays particular attention to deficient rhetorical deliveries, the rhetoric of incompetence, arguing that the accounts of flaws and mistakes in oratorical displays and rhetorical performances reveal how late antique literature echoed the concerns of the time. Criticisms of deficient deliveries in different speaking occasions (declamations, public speeches, oratorical agones, school exercises, and so on) were often disguised as accusations of practising magic, heresy or cultural apostasy. A close reading of the sources shows that these oratorical deficiencies hid struggles over religious, cultural and political issues.
