Marie-Pierre Bussières - WORKSHOP : Aspects of Question-and-Answer Literature in Late Antiquity: Ambrosiaster, Anastasius of Sinai and Ps. Athanasius

Title: “Magis ad laudem proficiat simplicitas eorum” (QVNT 100, 3): How sophisticated were Ambrosiaster’s students?

Abstract

Ambrosiaster’s simple explication of Scriptures – when not sometimes downright fallacious – draws one to wonder what the level of sophistication of his pupils was: were they not able to tell when an argumentation is either circular or truncated? Using the Questions and Answers on the Old and New Testament as an example of Ambrosiaster’s teaching, and taking as a premise our previous work where we argued that Ambrosiaster’s audience for his teaching varied from one version of his work to another (i.e. cleric, non-cleric), we will try to dig deeper in Ambrosiaster’s conception of the relation between magister and pupil.

The connection to the workshop is self-explanatory.