Scholars since the nineteenth century have consistently divided Byzantine textual production into two distinct groups, ‘learned’ and ‘vernacular’, of which the latter was equated with the western vernaculars. The earliest longer texts in this ‘vernacular’ idiom appear in the twelfth century and became the beginning of Modern Greek (national) literature, while Byzantine ‘learned’ texts were left in a literary no-man’s land. The chapter criticizes this narrative by presenting and discussing the evidence from school practice in the twelfth century, where the vernacular idiom was part of learning Greek, and was used at the imperial court written by highly educated scholar-poets, such as Theodore Prodromos. In this sense, there was no beginning of Greek as vernacular in the twelfth century. Only in the later fourteenth century do we find a new textual production outside Byzantine territory that develops new forms of poetry including dialectal idioms. In this sense, vernacular Greek textual production does not have one beginning with a teleological ‘development’ towards the late fifteenth century and the end of Byzantium but, rather, two beginnings signalling two phases in the production of vernacular literature, one medieval and one early modern.

This chapter explores Alexander’s legacy in early Christian literature, arguing that the Christians appropriated his figure by means of subtle alterations to existing tales or comparisons of his deeds with Christian content. It focuses on the common ground between Christians and non-Christians, and looks at first, the classicising ‘pagans’ (Celsus, Porphyry, Julian); secondly, the Greek-writing Jewish authors (Philo of Alexandria, Flavius Josephus); and, thirdly, authors of the Christian comparative material. In each case, I show how Christian authors use either established or innovative strategies in deploying Alexander as a rhetorical device to enhance the effect of their argument. I offer several close readings of important if neglected passages to highlight how different the Christians’ presentations of Alexander actually are from the material they are adapting. The chapter suggests the ‘Christianisation’ of Alexander lies primarily in the Christians’ interpretation of his legacy and in their use of comparative material rather than in their development of a wholly new image for Alexander himself.