Persecution and identity in the anti-pagan poems of Prudentius

In each of his anti-pagan poems, Peristephanon 10, the Psychomachia, and the Contra Symmachum, as well as in the Praefatio to his collected edition, Prudentius contributes to a late antique discourse which aimed at reinforcing a normative Christian identity through the promotion of a dialectical opposition between Christians and pagans. This dissertation seeks to demonstrate that a key feature of the poet's contribution to this discourse obtains from his representation of the opposition as resistance to persecution. Prudentius adopts an apologetic persona in each poem through appeals to a collective past of Christian suffering which situates his attacks on pagans in contexts of historical persecution. This serves to frame the poet's opposition as defensive, distinguishing it from the anti-pagan invectives of his contemporaries and portraying it as apologetic in an era of polemic.;Prudentius' persona also serves to bolster his opposition to pagan worship and to convey his hostility to those aspects of pagan culture which, for the poet, cannot be disassociated from it. By reading these poems together, I show how Prudentius exploits his persona to undercut the surface sentiment of his plea for the preservation of pagan statues and his praise for Symmachus' rhetoric in the Contra Symmachum, arguably the only passages throughout his anti-pagan poems which may be interpreted to project an image of tolerance.;But while acknowledging the role of the poet's apologetic persona in reinforcing his opposition, I argue that its primary aim is to promote a dialectical relationship between pagan persecution and Christian resistance as a means to reinforce group identity. Prudentius' decision to situate his opposition to pagans consistently in contexts of persecution through appeals to a collective past of Christian suffering attests to the importance for the poet of preserving this past as a feature of group identity. The pagan alterity functioned to help Christians know themselves and, for Prudentius, it functioned to help them know they were persecuted. Through his adoption of an apologetic persona, Prudentius portrays his opposition to pagans as resistance in order to promote an awareness of the continued threat of persecution as a feature of Christian self-knowledge.