Of Rhetoric and Redemption in La Rioja

Paul obtains a thirty-day leave from house arrest in Rome to ""attend to business in Spain,"" but must promise to return for sentencing. He plans a ""mission blitz"" of Hispania. But the plan changes when, in the provincial capital, Paul meets Quintilian, a young pleader who invites him to his family's estate up the Rio Iberus, in La Rioja, outside Calagurris (Calahorra). Paul accompanies Quintilian to Calagurris, along with Luke. Zenas, the other member of ""Mission Team Beta,"" remains in Caesaraugusta to establish in the faith three new converts, one of whom is Quintilian's clerk. Their talk, rendered as Platonic dialogue, ranges across rhetorical theory, ethics, pedagogy, Christianity, and Paul's latest manuscript, which he hopes will be received as his magnum opus. The novel explores fictional competition between Paul and Apollos, Quintilian's personal crisis, a result of actual, devastating personal losses, resolved when, years after Paul has died by Nero's decree, a much older Quintilian finds comfort in the words of Paul's letter to his kinsmen, the Hebrews, words which Quintilian had discussed with Paul during that memorable occasion at the family's estate in La Rioja. ""Fans of classical and biblical studies find a warmed hearth in Jim Tallmon's ambitiously imaginative rendering of two first-century giants. He makes it work with a combination of snappy dialogue and frenetically plotted apostolic ministry, all against the backdrop of St. Paul's conclusive epistle writing and impending martyrdom. I was left plausibly wondering whether maybe, just maybe, Paul and Quintilian might have been friends and collaborators, even if briefly."" --Charles T. Evans, coauthor of Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm for Classical Learning ""Jim Tallmon has created a lively tale of St. Paul's visiting Spain, where he meets a young Quintilian, long before he has become the great rhetorician and educator. Their meeting culminates in a wide-ranging Platonic dialogue. Classical Christian educators will love this book, but so will anyone interested in our culture's past--and its future."" --E. Christian Kopff, author of The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradition Jim Tallmon earned his doctorate in rhetoric and ethics from the University of Washington. He spent most of his career teaching at the collegiate level, but most recently served as headmaster and taught grades seven and eight at a Classical Lutheran School in Wyoming. Tallmon is now semi-retired and writing daily in Austin, Texas with his lovely bride, Bonnie.