Our image of ‘conversion’ takes its form from well-known episodes in the lives of St Paul and St Augustine. Paul's life is turned around by a blinding vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus (Act. Ap. 9.1–22); Augustine is directed by an oracle to a scriptural passage that ends his hesitations and sets him on the course that he has long known he should take (August. Conf. 8.12). Very much in parallel, although in a non-Christian context, are crisis-provoked life-changes reported by the Second Sophistic orators Dion of Prousa and Aelius Aristeides. Aristeides finds his life transformed by the intervention of the god Asklepios; Dion receives – he claims, from a god – advice that, put into effect, makes him the philosopher he has aspired to be. Were Dion and Aristeides ‘converts’? Adopting a conservative definition of ‘conversion’, I will argue that their accounts – though not autobiographies in the strict sense of that term – can legitimately be called ‘conversion narratives’. I will then test each for its goodness-of-fit to two influential life-change models, the first developed by Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner in the context of initiation rituals, and the second, Lewis Rambo's process model of conversion.

中文翻译：

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古代的生命变化与“皈依”：普鲁萨的狄翁和阿里乌斯·阿里斯泰德斯的证词分析

我们对“皈依”的形象取材于圣保罗和圣奥古斯丁生活中的著名插曲。保罗在去大马士革的路上看到耶稣的眼目，改变了他的生活（行为。美联社。9.1-22); 奥古斯丁被一位神谕引导到一段经文，结束了他的犹豫，并让他走上了他早就知道他应该采取的道路（August.会议。8.12)。非常相似的是，尽管在非基督教背景下，第二诡辩演说家普鲁萨的迪翁和埃利乌斯·阿里斯泰德斯报告了引发危机的生活变化。阿里斯泰德斯发现他的生活因阿斯克勒庇俄斯神干预而改变；迪翁收到了——他声称，来自上帝的——建议，这些建议付诸实施，使他成为他渴望成为的哲学家。迪翁和阿里斯泰德是“皈依者”吗？采用“皈依”的保守定义，我将争辩说，他们的叙述——尽管不是严格意义上的自传——可以被合理地称为“皈依叙事”。然后，我将测试它们对两个有影响力的生活改变模型的拟合优度，第一个是由 Arnold van Gennep 和 Victor Turner 在启动仪式的背景下开发的，第二个是 Lewis Rambo 的转换过程模型。