Ancient Biographies

The New Testament gospels each narrate the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. Ancient Greco-Roman readers were familiar with these sorts of biographical texts, which were commonly called “lives” (Greek: bioi / Latin: vitae). In some basic ways, the gospels and other ancient biographies resemble modern biographies. Most notably, they all tend to focus on the life and death of a particular human subject.

Who was thought worthy of a biographer’s attention?

Ancient biographies often hold up the lives of political leaders and generals—the men (yes, almost always men) who shaped history. For example, Suetonius shed light on the history of Rome by narrating the Lives of the Caesars, from Julius Caesar to Domitian. Also writing in the early second century CE, Plutarch composed a series of Parallel Lives. This work pairs the life of a famous Greek figure with the life of a Roman counterpart, then finishes with a comparison of the two. The two might be orators, like the Greek Demosthenes and the Latin Cicero, or renowned military leaders, like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar.

Like the orators, Jesus has been remembered for his words. While he did not take up scepter or sword, his execution notice labeled him “king of the Jews” (Matt 27:37 // John 19:19). Still, the gospels do not seem closest to Plutarch’s Demosthenes or Suetonius’s Vespasian, but rather to the ancient biographies of philosophers. Extant works include Xenophon’s Memorabilia (about Socrates), Philo’s Life of Moses, Lucian’s Demonax, and Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of Eminent Philosophers. For the record, we may note that Diogenes Laertius’s collection does include the life of a woman philosopher, Hipparchia—a rare exception to the almost-universal focus on illustrious men.

Like the gospels, the lives of the philosophers sometimes begin with the subject’s birth and early years and sometimes start in adulthood. The story may progress chronologically, or not. Instead of a continuous storyline, the narrative often moves from one episode or anecdote to another. And these episodes were selected by the biographer to reveal the subject’s character.

What was the purpose of ancient biographies?

Ancient biographers said that the purpose of their writing was to reveal something about the character of their subject. In addition to noting birth and ancestry, a biography compiled the exemplary words and deeds of the main character—and these deeds sometimes included extraordinary actions like miracles and healings. Biographers often paid special attention to the noble death of the person, as we see in the biographies of Socrates and Cato.

Ancient audiences who were familiar with these biographies might have brought similar expectations to the gospels. Some of these expectations might be satisfied with the detailed birth narratives of Matthew and Luke’s Gospels. The episodic structure of the New Testament gospels and Acts would also fit with their past experience, as would the emphasis on the death of Jesus.

Given how recent a figure Jesus was, ancient audiences likely assumed that these texts would be reliable sources of information. By telling the story of Jesus in the form of a biography, the gospels moved into the terrain of history. Of course, ancient history-writing involved selecting, ordering, and modifying existing materials to tell a coherent and compelling story. And biography specialized in using that process to highlight the ethical and exemplary character of a history-shaping figure. That figure might be an emperor, a philosopher, or—in the case of the gospels—a charismatic teacher and healer believed by some to be the “Son of God.”