Medieval polemicists tailored their rhetorical opening to the intended audience
Evidence
Peter realized that to open the Contra sectam by directly attacking Muhammad would only provoke the hostility of his Muslim audience. Instead, Peter uses a few well-chosen Koranic citations to try to prove that Muslims should accept Christian scriptures; once he has done that, he can return to the exegetically based polemical method that he had employed in the Contra Petrobrusianos and the Aduersus Iudaeorum inveteratam duritiem. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 869
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Audience-aware rhetorical strategy parallels Milgrom’s point that institutions emerge to fill knowledge gaps — here the gap is the audience’s receptivity.
Related
- Peter’s polemic deferred direct attacks on Muhammad to win Muslim ears. (similarity 0.85)
- Religious polemic repels the home audience more than the described adversary (similarity 0.80)
- Medieval Christian anti-Islam polemic relied on scripture, not rational argument. (similarity 0.80)
- Medieval Christian polemics against Islam were written for Christian audiences, not Muslims (similarity 0.80)
- Medieval anti-Islamic polemics aimed to fortify Christians rather than convert Muslims (similarity 0.80)
- Medieval polemicists answered Islam with slander rather than substantive refutation. (similarity 0.79)
- Medieval Christian polemics against Islam really targeted domestic heresies, not Muslims (similarity 0.79)
- Peter the Venerable aimed his anti-Islamic tract at doubting Christians, not Muslims (similarity 0.79)
- Medieval interreligious polemics operated without shared evidentiary premises (similarity 0.79)
- Medieval polemicists deemed Muslims rational while branding Jews unreasoning beasts (similarity 0.79)
- Mozarab authors supplied the rhetorical scripts Latin polemicists later deployed against Islam (similarity 0.79)
- Medieval Christian polemic against Islam was ineffective self-consolation since Muslims never engaged it (similarity 0.79)
- Peter’s polemics functioned as defensive theology against Arabic philosophy’s appeal (similarity 0.79)
- Specific political motives, not a linear intolerance narrative, shaped medieval Islam portrayals (similarity 0.78)
- Medieval polemicists scripted Muslims’ imagined rebuttals fairly (similarity 0.78)