Mosaic traditions. In addition, no one list of texts was held to be authoritative in this period, nor were the forms of authoritative texts yet fixed.12 We do better to imagine a fluid deposit of tradition whose borders were still permeable and whose contents could become a site of contest as well as creativity.13 While the writers I study do not all attribute to the same set of traditions equal levels of authority, all of them locate their own discourses within a matrix of authoritative received