Bildung, Elite und Konkurrenz

During the Roman Empire, philosophers were regarded as experts on the ars vitae. They were influential advisers and critics, teachers and spiritual caregivers, and their practical knowledge of life was in particular demand. From the middle of the 2nd century on, it was not only pagans who performed these functions; this was done increasingly by Christians as well, since they had a good grasp of traditional cultural practices, which they used to establish an alternative scholarly milieu. The author of this book explains why this provoked pagan philosophers and also describes the strategies developed by a Platonist such as Celsus to exclude the unloved competitors from the intelligentsia. Katrin Pietzner illustrates how Christian experts were challenged by being labelled uneducated and socially inferior and how they became effective as intellectuals.