This paper examines a little noticed facet of the Christian discourse concerning spectacula, namely the impact of conventional literary technique on the shape of the arguments and the underlying attitudes they express. The point of departure is Letter 13 by Paulinus of Nola (from 396 / 397), addressed to the wealthy Roman senator Pammachius, who had recently adopted a Christian lifestyle. This letter has been studied from various angles, but it has been largely overlooked in recent studies of Christian attitudes to public shows. The paper will analyse the ways in which the momentum of a conventional literary strategy, namely ekphrasis, interacts with a specifically Christian agenda of self-definition and legitimization in Paulinus, an author who was like all learned Christians of his age steeped in classical rhetoric. Ekphrasis is the rhetorical presentation of an event as a “spectacle” for the inner eye. In Letter 13, Paulinus’ ekphrasis of Pammachius’ banquet for the poor in the basilica of St. Peter prepares and facilitates the subsequent comparison with traditional munera as a form of euergetism. Special attention will be given to the motif of god as a spectator, which will be traced in a number of further letters by Paulinus and which must again be seen as part of ekphrastic technique.
Bearing these insights in mind, the paper will widen the perspective and examine the use of ekphrasis in connection with the discourse on public spectacles in select passages from Augustine and John Chrysostom. If the workshop is dedicated to the larger question of “intrinsical” vs. “circumstantial” factors in the late antique debate concerning public shows, this paper argues that the Christian negative stance was sometimes induced by other factors than the need to oppose traditional spectacula for their own sake, a view that rather points in the direction of the latter hypothesis.
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