From Mimesis to Myth: Greek Portraits of St. Cyprian in Late Antiquity

George Frederick Rambow traces how traditions about Cyprian of Carthage were transformed in Greek literature into the legendary story of Cyprian of Antioch. Through texts from the fourth and fifth centuries, including works associated with Gregory of Nazianzus and the empress Aelia Eudocia, he examines how late antique Christian writers adapted Greek literary forms while reshaping the boundaries between history, fiction and sacred biography.

At the centre of the study is the problem of how Christian authors and audiences understood the fictional or mythic qualities of hagiographic narrative. Rambow argues that these writers consciously transformed inherited literary traditions to create new forms of heroic storytelling, and develops a theoretical framework for interpreting that process. The book is a specialist contribution to Late Antiquity, classics, literary theory and the study of early Christian narrative traditions.