Declamatio is the established rhetorical device

Rhetorical device

In rhetoric, a rhetorical device or resource of language is a technique that an author or speaker uses to convey to the listener or reader a meaning with the goal of persuading him or her towards considering a topic from a different perspective. While rhetorical devices may be used to evoke an...

 of adopting the persona

Persona

A persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...

 of an ancient figure to express a particular viewpoint or perspective. A typical example is Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, also known as Pseudo-Denys, was a Christian theologian and philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, the author of the Corpus Areopagiticum . The author is identified as "Dionysos" in the corpus, which later incorrectly came to be attributed to Dionysius...

, a 5th century author who was long thought to be a character depicted in the Book of Acts.

Some early Christians

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

, later classified as Gnostics

Gnosticism

Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...

, have used this technique in the construction of various gospel

Gospel

A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...

s attributed to them.

Literature

• Janet Fairweather: The elder Seneca and declamation, ANRW II 32.1 (1984) 514-556 (further literature p. 543 n. 124)
• Lewis A. Sussman: The elder Seneca and declamation since 1900: a bibliography, ANRW II 32.1 (1984) 557-577
• Michael Winterbottom: Schoolroom and courtroom, in: B. Vickers (ed.): Rhetoric revalued, New York 1982, 59-70
• Konrad Heldmann: Antike Theorien über Entwicklung und Verfall der Redekunst, München 1982
• D.A. Russell: Greek declamation, Cambridge 1983
• George A. Kennedy: A new history of classical rhetoric, Princeton, N.J. 1994
• D.H. Berry / Malcolm Heath: „Oratory and declamation“, in: Stanley E. Porter (ed.): Handbook of classical rhetoric in the Hellenistic period 330 B.C.- A.D. 400, Leiden et al. 1997, 393-420, esp. 406 ff.
• Robert A. Kaster: Controlling reason: Declamation in rhetorical education, in: Yun Lee Too (ed.): Education in Greek and Roman antiquity, Leiden u.a. 2001, 317-337
• M. Winterbottom: declamation, in: Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3. ed. 1996, 436-437
• Manfred Kraus: Exercitatio, in: Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, v. 3, 1996, 71-123