An early Christian dialogue with an all-female cast makes us rethink how literature was changing during the third century CE.

Dawn LaValle Norman is a Research Fellow at the Australian Catholic University's Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry.

Introduction. Christians among Imperial Greek writers in the third century; 1. Mapping third-century literature from the Severans to Constantine; 2. The end of dialogue? The Christianization of a tradition; 3. Compilation and unity in Imperial sympotic traditions; 4. Rhetoric and the problem of rivalry; 5. The lyric tradition and changing hymnic forms; Conclusion.