Christus Patiens

Courtney J. P. Friesen explores shifting boundaries of ancient religions by way of the reception of a popular tragedy, Euripides’ Bacchae . As a play staging political crises provoked by the arrival of the “foreign” god Dionysus and his ecstatic cult, audiences and readers found resonances with their own cultural moments. This dramatic deity became emblematic of exuberant and liberating spirituality and, at the same time, a symbol of imperial conquest. Thus, readings of the Bacchae frequently foreground conflicts between religious autonomy and political authority, and between ethnic diversity and social cohesion. This cross-disciplinary study traces appropriations and evocations of this drama ranging from the fifth century BCE through Byzantium not only among “pagans” but also Jews and Christians. Writers variously articulated their religious visions over against Dionysus, often while paradoxically adopting the god’s language and symbols. Consequently, imitation and emulation are at times indistinguishable from polemics and subversion.

Το βυζαντινό δράμα «Χριστός πάσχων» μετά την πρώτη παρουσίασή του στη νεοελληνική σκηνή το 1964, παριστάνεται για δεύτερη φορά κατά τη μεταπολίτευση από τον θίασο Θεατρική συντεχνία σε σκηνοθεσία Γιάννη Χουβαρδά. Στην ανακοίνωση ερευνάται η λειτουργία που επιτελεί στο ρεπερτόριο μίας νέας θεατρικής ομάδας ένα έργο βυζαντινής προέλευσης, το οποίο προβάλλεται ως μυστήριο, και ανιχνεύονται οι συνδέσεις των αισθητικών και πνευματικών επιλογών του σκηνοθέτη με την κοινωνικοπολιτική πραγματικότητα της μεταπολίτευσης.

This paper analyses the role that Jewish people played and the subject of moral retaliation in the Passion of Christ from a literary and historical perspective. It focuses specially on the work 'Christus Patiens', attributed to Gregory of Nazianzus.

Este artigo visa analisar como se deu a recepção da tragédia de Eurípides em um determinado local e momento do império bizantino. Para isso, será estudada a obra Christus Patiens, cuja autoria é atribuída, não sem contestação, a Gregório de Nazianzo. Essa peça, feita a partir de versos vindos sobretudo da obra de Eurípides, à maneira de centão, consegue amalgamar elementos aparentemente díspares: a partir de um obra pré-cristã plasma-se uma tragédia cristã. Assim, será analisado de que maneira os versos euripidianos foram adaptados para a feitura de uma obra cristã. Argumento que a compatibilização entre essas diferentes estruturas de pensamento é realizada nitidamente a partir da construção da personagem Maria.

This article intends to analyze in what terms the reception of the euripidean work took place in the Byzantine Empire. The Christian tragedy known as Christus Patiens will be scrutinized and questions will be made in order to clarify how a Christian piece of drama can be produced from verses of non Christian content. Through the cento, Gregory of Nazianzus (the allegedly author) proceeded to amalgamate aspects of two cultures per se dissimilar. Thus I intend to show and systematize how the euripidean verses were chosen and used in a Christian manner and I will argue that through the development of the character Mary the amalgamation of non Christian and Christian elements got its perfect accomplishment.

The Byzantine passion play Christus Patiens (Christ Suffering) is a cento: composed of quotations and borrowings from other sources, it takes Euripides’ tragedies as its main source for reworking the passion narrative. The genre, popular with Christian authors who usually transformed classical epics, enacts cultural exchange between canonical pagan literature and biblical narrative. Traditionally transmitted as the work of Gregory of Nazianzus, this drama showcases the tensions inherent in this reuse of Greek tragedy which threaten to collapse the original texts under the weight of their new meaning – or vice versa. While the afterlives of Classical texts, especially Greek tragedy, have been increasingly well explored, the scant attention afforded Christus Patiens has largely consisted of debating the disputed date and authorship. At the same time, scrutiny lavished on Virgilian centonic technique provides a helpful spring-board. This article focuses on the four tragedies most plundered in Christus Patiens: Rhesus, Medea, Hippolytus and Bacchae. It concentrates on interpreting the protagonist, Mary the Mother of God, through key passages which borrow most heavily from these plays. These stretch centonic conventions by almost exclusively reworking contiguous lines featuring the tragic mothers Medea, Agave and Musa; yet Mary is otherwise created from multiple conflicting voices. Analysis of these passages as frames for the cento author's own compositions and in the context of the prologue's invitation to identify specific Euripidean reworkings suggests that the author playfully flirts with creating a narrative of fragmentation through clashes between centonic form, tragic sources and Christian subject.