Oratio ad Graecos / Rede an die Griechen

Tatian's Oratio ad Graecos, written in the second century AD, is of historico-cultural and theological significance. It facilitates the understanding of a Christianity which was increasingly taking hold of the higher social classes and which was no longer willing to accept the sovereignty of a pagan culture in the Greco-Roman world. It is thus early evidence of a growing mood in emerging Christianity that indicated the will to enter into the »battle between the cultures.« In this new critical edition, Jörg Trelenberg provides a reliable source text and a new translation which takes the current state of research into consideration. Numerous explanations contribute to easy understanding; the introduction to the work combines all the scholarly discussions of the last one and a half centuries. At the end of the book the author deals with particular problems, such as the relationship between Tatian and Justin, the question of Tatian's gnostic heresy or the problem of the literary genre of this unusual work.