God and the Gods
God and the Gods
This chapter investigates in detail the relationship of Libanius with his intimate friend Olympius. To do so, it adduces the evidence of an oration which presents Olympius as a committed Christian who left his property to the pagan sophist in spite of the fact that his brother Evagrius was then bishop of Antioch. The chapter then considers Libanius's references to the individual gods and looks at the distribution of these references over the course of his life. Whereas in the orations there is no perceptible difference, the letters show that, by and large, the individual gods, with the exception of Zeus, disappear from his writing over time. Next, the chapter investigates the instances in which Libanius mentions “god” in the singular versus the “gods,” without regarding the trends in these usages as an indication that he drifted toward pagan monotheism.
Keywords: Olympius, gods, Libanius, god, religion, religious references
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