Christianity and the Contest for Manhood in Late Antiquity

In this book, Nathan Howard explores gender and identity formation in fourth-century Cappadocia, where pro-Nicene bishops used a rhetoric of contest that aligned with conventions of classical Greek masculinity. Howard demonstrates that epistolary exhibitions served as'a locus for' asserting manhood in the fourth century.These performancesillustrate how a culture of orality that had defined manhood among civic elites was reframed as a contestwhereby one accrued status through merits of composition. Howard shows how the Cappadocians' rhetoric also reordered the body and materiality as components of a maleness over which they moderated. He interrogates fourth-century theological conflict as part of a rhetorical battle over claims to manhood that supported the Cappadocians' theology and cast doubt on non-Trinitarian rivals, whom they cast as effeminate and disingenuous. Investigating accounts ofpro-Nicene protagonistsovercomingstruggles, Howard establishes thattropesbased onclassicalstandards of gender contributed to the formation of Trinitarian orthodoxy.