Abstract

The speech of Gregory Thaumaturgus to the Christian scholar and theologian Origen is a historical document of unusual importance, both in terms of its content, depicting the master-student relationship of the time from the perspective of the student, and in terms of form, providing an actual implementation of the theory of rhetoric that was a cornerstone of higher education. Yet disagreement persists to this day in the scholarly literature over the generic classification of this first example of Christian epideictic oratory. It is most frequently found categorized as a speech of thanksgiving, of praise, or of farewell. This paper discusses the grounds for the various definitions, examines the text itself in search of such grounds, and shows, in reference to two treatises on epideictic attributed to Menander Rhetor, why the most plausible classification is as a logos syntaktikos – a farewell speech, in which a traveler, by means of portraying and arousing emotion, laments the necessary parting and praises the person or people of whom leave is taken.