The classroom of Didymus the Blind.

Among the works found in the Tura papyri and attributed to the fourth-century church father Didymus the Blind are commentaries on five books of the Septuagint. Two of the commentaries, those on Ecclesiastes and on a section of the Psalms, are transcriptions of Didymus' lectures and include actual student questions. This dissertation explores the evidence provided by these commentaries for classroom methods in fourth-century Alexandria. The Introduction includes a brief biography of Didymus and a survey of recent literature on the Tura papyri. Chapter One discusses the implications of the student questions. Chapter Two examines the audience, the level of education of the students, the categories of the students' questions, and, as an example of Didymus' exegetical style and the ways questions are introduced, details his exegesis of Psalm 34. Chapter Three reviews the standardized school examples which Didymus constantly uses and the philosophical tradition of such recurring analogies to navigation, medicine, athletics, education, and other occupations. The remainder of the dissertation is a compilation of Didymus' sources. In the Psalms and Ecclesiastes commentaries there are quotations from or specific references (often by name) to diverse sources, for example, Aristotle, Clement of Alexandria, Democritus, Epicurus, Heraclitus, Homer, Isocrates, Josephus, Leucippus, Musonius Rufus, Philo, Plato, Porphyry, Prodicus, Protagoras, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Solon. Chapter Four catalogues these direct quotations. Chapter Five explores further references to logic, grammar, numerology, and natural history.PhDBiblical studiesBiographiesClassical literatureEducationEducation historyLanguage, Literature and LinguisticsPhilosophy, Religion and TheologyReligious historySocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/129717/2/9610207.pd