Living in a martyrial world: Living martyrs and the creation of martyrial consciousness in the late antique Latin west
This dissertation demonstrates the necessity of recognizing that, in Christian traditions, martyrdom does not always req
844 55 3MB
English Pages [287] Year 2014
Polecaj historie
Citation preview
LIVING IN A MARTYRIAL WORLD: LIVING MARTYRS AND THE CREATION OF MARTYRIAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE LATIN WEST.
Diane Shane Fruchtman
Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Religious Studies Indiana University August 2014
UMI Number: 3634531
All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.
UMI 3634531 Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code
ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106 - 1346
Accepted by the faculty of the University Graduate School, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Doctoral Committee
_____________________________ Constance Furey, Ph.D.
_____________________________ David Brakke, Ph.D.
_____________________________ Bridget K. Balint, Ph.D.
_____________________________ Jeremy Schott, Ph.D.
_____________________________ Aaron Stalnaker, Ph.D.
_____________________________ Edward Watts, Ph.D.
July 30, 2014
ii
Copyright ©2014 Diane Shane Fruchtman
iii
For Tom Who made me laugh on a down day and who has made me laugh every day since.
iv
Acknowledgements
Reading through the final version of this dissertation, I see on every page the interventions and insights of colleagues, teachers, and friends, as well as ideas and formulations made possible by our conversations. From every paragraph I feel the flash of memory—of where I was when I wrote it and of whose support enabled me to write it. Which is all to say that I have far too many people to thank, that I feel incomparably lucky to have had such a wealth of love, assistance, and resources available to me during this process, and that the gratitude expressed below is but a fraction of what I want to convey. I have been incredibly fortunate in my dissertation committee: that David Brakke continued to shepherd me through the program long after leaving Indiana, offering his tireless guidance and dependable judgement both long-distance and through frequent visits to Bloomington; that Jeremy Schott arrived at IU just in time to influence and sharpen my thinking, particularly through reading groups and illuminating conversations; that Bridget Balint and Ed Watts agreed to be on my committee and shared their unique disciplinary and critical lenses—I am so grateful for the challenges they posed to my ideas and methods and to Bridget, especially, for going through my Latin and translations with a fine-toothed comb; that Aaron Stalnaker was always there for me when I needed advice; and that I could always rely on Constance Furey for intense but affirming interrogation of my writing and ideas—she has talked me out of many tangles and set me on loftier paths. Their generosity with their time, advice, expertise, and affirmation has been a true gift. I owe a vast debt of gratitude to the wonderful and deeply supportive graduate communities here at Indiana. Ellen Muehlberger welcomed me into the Religious Studies program nine years ago, took me under her wing, and continues to act as my academic guardian angel—not to mention the epitome of scholarly grace; Cheryl Cottine has been my v
constant grad school companion and birthday buddy, my sounding board for all things academic and not, a cheerleader and role model and friend, whose energy, passion, bravery, and adventurousness I aspire to approximate. Jessica Carr and Kerilyn Harkaway-Krieger joined the Religious Studies community a few years later, but their intellectual and personal impact on me has been no less profound. Conversations with Cheryl, Jessica, and Kerilyn, as well as with David Maldonado Rivera, Sarah Dees, and Kate Netzler Burch—some informal, some under the auspices of the wonderful Religious Studies Graduate Group—have deeply influenced this project and vastly improved its structure and clarity. I am thankful for and will dearly miss my weekly medievalist dinners with Lindsey Hansen, Erin Sweany, and Sean Tandy—lovely people, inspiring scholars, and beloved friends. And last but certainly not least, I am especially grateful to Brad Storin. I cannot ever thank him enough for his guidance and friendship, for his patience and persistence and generosity and humor. He is a brilliant scholar and a wonderful mentor, and I cannot imagine having gotten through the program without his help. Not incidentally, it was Brad who suggested that just maybe these living martyrs I kept harping on about might be interesting enough to write a dissertation on. While writing, I received much-appreciated financial support from several sources: the American Academy of University Women, whose American Fellowship in 2013-2014 allowed me to focus on completing my doctorate; the Andrea S. McRobbie Fellowship in Medieval History from the Medieval Studies Institute at Indiana; travel and conference funding from the C. Clifford Flanigan Fund (also administered by the Medieval Studies Institute), which allowed me to discuss parts of my dissertation with specialist audiences; and student academic appointments in Religious Studies and Medieval Studies. Beyond financial support, Religious Studies and the Medieval Studies Institute at Indiana have both provided me with institutional homes—communities and physical and intellectual spaces that nurtured my curiosity and advanced my scholarly and social well-being. There is not a single faculty vi
member or graduate student I interacted with in either program who has not enriched my scholarship and my experience in academia, and who has not welcomed and supported me. I am thankful for them all. Finally, I want to acknowledge and thank the friends and family without whose support I could not have written this dissertation. Or not, at least, so pleasantly. Jen Burdick and Keith Doughty let me take over the third floor of their Philadelphia townhouse for my delightful and productive Spring Break “sabbaticals,” and reminded me to never lose sight of the political. My from-forever friends Josephine Archibald, Jessica Fragola, Bethy Outes, and Emily Hellman have managed to remain cherished constants in my life, despite our evershifting geographical distances and our increasingly different life experiences. The Hannah family welcomed me into their clan with open arms, making Indianapolis instantly feel like home to me even after eight years in Bloomington. And I cannot adequately express my thankfulness for my husband, Tom, whose love, humor, and contagious sanity (not to mention his willingness to cook, vacuum, and take out the trash while I plunked away on my laptop) have brightened my life so much in the past four years. But I owe my most significant debt, and my most profound thanks, to my parents, Larry and Rubie Fruchtman. Their unconditional love, their constant support, their unparallelled example, and their enthusiasm for life, art, and road trips have all been blessings to me, and I can only hope that I’ll be able to pay it all forward some day.
vii
Diane Shane Fruchtman
LIVING IN A MARTYRIAL WORLD: LIVING MARTYRS AND THE CREATION OF MARTYRIAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE LATIN WEST
This dissertation demonstrates the necessity of recognizing that, in Christian traditions, martyrdom does not always require death. Challenging the current scholarly custom of marking death as a criterion of martyrdom, I investigate the attempts of early fifthcentury Latin authors to make martyrdom accessible to the masses (despite the end of official persecution in the fourth century) by creating new paradigms of martyrdom that did not demand the martyr’s death. Prudentius, Paulinus of Nola, and Augustine of Hippo each championed “living martyrs”—martyrs who earned their status by some other means than dying in persecution—and through rhetorical techniques, biblical realism, and outright exhortation each author sought to extend that martyrdom to their audiences, allowing their contemporaries to develop martyrdom-based worldviews to reinforce their identities as Christians. This case study proves that the concept of martyrdom is historically contingent, that it is broader than can be appreciated if we establish death as its necessary component, and that it has vast potential for deployment in self-fashioning, identity construction, and communitycreation. We therefore need to attend to and be aware of the precise constructions of martyrdom that our authors offer, and we cannot do this properly if we are blinded by a definition that hinges on death.
viii
I have therefore, based on my explorations of these late antique texts, developed a new, more inclusive definition of martyrdom. This definition, which retrieves Prudentius, Paulinus, and Augustine’s emphasis on “witness” (the original Greek meaning of the term “martyr”), does not privilege death but instead focuses on the work that would-be culturemakers sought to do with their constructions of martyrdom. On my definition, a martyr is “an individual who, by virtue of suffering, willingness to suffer, mimetic identification with an exemplary sufferer, and/or death, is employed by an author or community to serve as witness to some communally-accessible truth.” Martyrdom, then, is the way that an author configures his or her subject as accomplishing this witness. This definition is neither emic nor exhaustive, but is rather intended to facilitate better recognition of when and how martyrdomdiscourse is being used.
_____________________________ Constance Furey, Ph.D. _____________________________ David Brakke, Ph.D. _____________________________ Bridget K. Balint, Ph.D. _____________________________ Jeremy Schott, Ph.D. _____________________________ Aaron Stalnaker, Ph.D. _____________________________ Edward Watts, Ph.D.
ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
xi
INTRODUCTION: Rethinking Martyrdom
1
CHAPTER 1: Destabilizing Death, Advocating Witness: Prudentius’s Peristephanon
24
CHAPTER 2: Modeling The Living Martyr: Witness In And Through Poetry
66
CHAPTER 3: Paulinus Of Nola And The Living Martyr
124
CHAPTER 4: Making Martyrs In The Nolan Countryside
170
CHAPTER 5: Non Poena Sed Causa
215
CONCLUSION: History, Historiography, and Power
254
WORKS CITED
262
CURRICULUM VITAE
x
Abbreviations
CCSL CSEL Dolbeau EETS LCL MiAg Musurillo PG PL PLS RBen SC
Corpus Christianorum (Series Latina) Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum François Dolbeau, ed., Vingt-six Sermons au Peuple d'Afrique. Early English Text Society Loeb Classical Library Miscellanea Agostiniana Herbert Musurillo, ed. and trans., Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Patrologia Graeca Patrologia Latina Patrologia Latina Supplementum Revue bénedictine Sources chrétiennes
xi
INTRODUCTION RETHINKING MARTYRDOM
LIVING MARTYRS
On January 14, 402, with clouds of war gathering in the north and threatening to darken all of Italy, Meropius Pontius Paulinus addressed the crowds assembled at Nola for the feast day of its patron saint, Felix. His message is a soothing one—even in the scourge of Alaric God’s hand can be seen, spurring on the hordes to punish the unfaithful. Escaping such wrath is simply a matter of doing what all those assembled at Nola have already done: placing trust in Felix, the martyr and servant of God. To reassure his audience that reliance on Felix’s intercessory power is warranted, Paulinus describes, in verse, what he identifies as daily occurrences at the martyr’s tomb: For every day, with dense crowds on all sides, we are witness either to now-healthy men discharging vows of gratitude or to the sick begging for and experiencing various remedies. We see also many, carried from some foreign shore, prostrate before the sacred hall of the holy martyr as they render their thanks, recalling dangers endured, testifying that, though their ship was crushed by strong gales, with God’s mercy they were rescued, that they emerged from the depth of the sea with the very hand of Felix guiding them, that safety, once despaired of, had seized them, now at peace, and that both water and flames yielded to the merits of Felix.1
1
Paulinus, Carmen 26.384-394 (CSEL 30, 260): Omni namque die testes sumus undique crebris / Coetibus aut sanos gratantia reddere vota / Aut aegros varias petere ac sentire medellas. / Cernimus et multos peregrino a litore vectos / Ante sacram sancti prostratos martyris aulam, / dum referunt grates, tolerata referre pericla, / testantes validis conlisa naue procellis / se raptos miserante deo Felicis et ipsa / educente manu maris emersisse profundo / et desperatam placidos cepisse salutem, / Felicis meritis et aquas et cedere flammas.
1
Here was full proof of Felix’s intercessory power, testimony to add to the exorcisms Paulinus recounts and the miracle—which Paulinus uses to conclude the poem—of Felix protecting his sanctuary from the wind-driven fingers of a threatening fire.2 Just as Felix had warded off flames from his shrine, so too would he ward off harm from those whose faith had led them there. Such demonstrations of intercessory power—instances of healing, exorcism, and intervention—are typical feats for martyrs in the late antique west. Typical, too, are the throng of feast-day celebrants and their varied pilgrimages to the martyr’s tomb. But Felix, the center of all this celebration and veneration, is not a typical martyr. In fact, by the standards of many—both Christians throughout history as well as modern scholars writing outside confessional consideration—he is not even a martyr. Felix fails as a martyr because he did not die. By which, of course, I mean that he did not die under persecution, at the hands of those who opposed the Christian faith. Rather, he died peacefully as an old man, well after the threat of persecution had passed, having earned the status of martyr—according to Paulinus—long before his death. Paulinus writes that, having scorned savage punishments, Felix was deemed worthy of avoiding them, and he ascended to heaven a martyr without blood.3 He later explains: Martyrdom without slaughter is pleasing, if, ready for suffering, both mind and faith burn for God. The will for suffering suffices, and giving testimony of devotion is the height of service.4 According to Paulinus, Felix earned the title of martyr and, perhaps more importantly, the powers that come with it by his willingness to suffer and not by his actual death. This notion
2
For the exorcisms see Paulinus, Carmen 26.307-353. Paulinus, Carmen 12.5 (CSEL 30, 42): contemnendo truces meruisti euadere poenas; Paulinus, Carmen 12.9 (CSEL 30, 43): uectus in aetherium sine sanguine martyr honorem. 4 Paulinus, Carmen 14.10-12 (CSEL 30, 46): martyrium sine caede placet, si prompta ferendi / mensque fidesque Deo caleant, passura voluntas / sufficit, et summa est meriti, testatio voti. 3
2
that martyrdom is and can be independent of death and bloodshed is not something that Paulinus manufactures solely for Felix’s benefit: he extends the title of “living martyr” to Felix’s bishop Maximus and his own contemporary Victricius of Rouen as well.5 Martyrs, for Paulinus, did not need to die to earn the title. Why did Paulinus insist on Felix’s martyr-status, rather than identifying him primarily as a confessor, or even an ascetic?6 How could he plausibly detach martyrdom from death, and greet Victricius as a martyr, fait accompli? Can we accept his understanding of Felix as a true martyr? And how would it change our understanding of martyrdom if we did? In this dissertation I will argue not only that we can include martyrs who do not die in our definition of martyrdom, but that we must do so if we are to glean from our sources a full, accurate, and fruitful understanding of what martyrdom is and has meant to Christians throughout Christian history. I will investigate Paulinus’s treatment of Felix and other instances of living martyrs in the fourth- and fifth-century West in an attempt to further our understanding of the phenomenon of martyrdom and of martyr-centered spirituality in late antiquity. Paulinus was not the only late antique Christian author to dissociate martyrdom from death. The poet Prudentius rejoices in Peristephanon 4 that in the maiden Encratis the city of Caesaraugusta has the unprecedented honor of being home to a martyr who survived her own martyrdom.7 Elsewhere, in Peristephanon 10, he implicitly characterizes a nameless woman
5
Paulinus, Epistula 18.9 Despite Felix’s post-martyrdom poverty and humble behavior, Paulinus never tries to link him to the “spiritual martyrdom” of monasticism, a fact which suggests that the concept was perhaps not as welldefined (or as “uniform and definite”) as Edward E. Malone argues it was by this time. The differences between Paulinus’s treatment of Felix and Sulpicius Severus’s treatment of Martin, where he wants to call him a martyr but explicitly refrains from doing so (Epistula 2.9-12), demonstrate this fairly clearly. Malone, The Monk and the Martyr: The Monk as the Successor of the Martyr (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1950), 44. 7 Prudentius, Peristephanon 4.109-144. 6
3
as a martyr after she boldly endures the torture and death of her infant son.8 And Augustine of Hippo adamantly opposed Donatist claims to martyrdom with the dictum non poena sed causa—that it is not the punishment but the cause that makes a martyr—and thereby separated martyrdom from any punishment at all.9 He reminds his listeners that “martyr” originally meant “witness” and outlines ways of becoming a martyr that do not involve a bloody death, including suffering on a sickbed without the aid of amulets, spreading the word of God, and fighting temptation. Augustine writes that because the criterion for martyrdom is adherence to a divine causa, God has many hidden martyrs.10 Furthermore, Paulinus, Prudentius, and Augustine are all building on a tradition in which death is not the sole signifier of martyrdom. The Alexandrians Clement and Origen as well as the Africans Tertullian, Cyprian, and Commodian all privileged the intent of the would-be sufferer, rather than the actual suffering, in determining whether or not a Christian was truly a martyr.11 Despite the advocacy of so many prominent figures, when Thomas Aquinas entertained the question of whether death was essential to martyrdom in the Summa Theologiae, he answered, unequivocally, that it is: As long as bodily life remains for a man, however, he has not yet shown in action that he despises all temporal things: For men are accustomed to scorn both their families and all their good possessions, and even to suffer bodily wounds, so that they might
8
Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.828-830. Augustine, Sermo 53A, 13; Augustine, Sermo 94A, 1; Augustine, Sermo 274; Augustine, Sermo 275,1; Augustine, Sermo 285, 2; Augustine, Sermo 306, 2; Augustine, Sermo 306A; Augustine, Sermo 325, 2; Augustine, Sermo 327, 1; Augustine, Sermo 328, 4; Augustine, Sermo 331, 2; Augustine, Sermo 335, 2; Augustine, Sermo 335C, 5ff; Augustine, Sermo 335G, 2; Augustine, Sermo 359B, 16-20. 10 For “martyr” meaning “witness,” see Augustine, Sermo 299F, 1; Sermo 335A, 1; and Sermo 319, 3. For suffering on a sickbed, see Augustine, Sermo 286, Augustine, Sermo 335D, 3; and Augustine, Sermo 335D, 5. For spreading the word of God, see Augustine, Sermo 260E, 2. For fighting temptation, see Augustine, Sermo 328, 8 and Augustine, Sermo 303, 2. For hidden martyrs, see Augustine, Sermo 306E, 6. For discussion and further examples, see Chapter 5. 11 Malone, Monk and Martyr, 8-43. Malone traces the development of non-fatal aspects of martyrdom into monasticism, and the monk’s emergence as the new martyr via a spiritual martyrdom. But not all postpersecution martyrial fervor was channelled into monasticism, as we shall see in Prudentius, Paulinus, and Augustine, and I am more interested in instances where the martyrs were not also identified as monks. 9
4
save their lives... Therefore, for the perfect idea of martyrdom, it is necessary that one endure death for Christ’s sake. 12 Modern scholars seem to agree. With general approbation bordering on consensus, modern treatments of martyrdom all include the death of the martyr. Recent attempts to redefine the term focus on establishing its discursive character, on recognizing its reliance on a narrative community and “reputational entrepreneurs” to establish the existence of a martyr, on including those who died a little too eagerly to suit certain church fathers, and on complicating the notion that there was but one ideology of martyrdom.13 All presume the requirement of death. Candida Moss, for instance, in her investigation of christomimesis in martyrdom, interrogates features of martyrdom that are usually taken for granted, and asks the pivotal question: “Why do martyrs die”?14 She never asks the more basic question of whether they do. Even those who seek to reclaim and re-emphasize the term’s root meaning of “witness” nonetheless include the co-requisite of death: Michael Budde in Witness of the Body defines martyrdom as “witness written on or by the bodies of persons killed for their
12
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae. 124, 4 (Walsh, 52): Quamdiu autem homini remanet vita corporalis, nondum opere se ostendit temporalia cuncta despicere: consueverunt enim homines et consanguineos et omnia bona possessa contemnere, et etiam dolores corporis pati, ut vitam conservent...Et ideo ad perfectam rationem martyrii requiritur quod aliquis mortem sustineat propter Christum. 13 On establishing its discursive character, see Daniel Boyarin, Dying For God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 94: “I propose that we think of martyrdom as a ‘discourse,’ as a practice of dying for God and of talking about it, a discourse that changes and developts over time and undergoes particularly interesting transformations among rabbinic Jews and other Jews, including Christians, between the second and the fourth centuries.” On narrative community, see Elizabeth A. Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 34: “Martyrdom is not simply an action. Martyrdom requires audience (whether real or fictive), retelling, interpretation, and world- and meaning-making activity. Suffering violence in and of itself is not enough. In order for martyrdom to emerge, both the violence and its suffering must be infused with particular meanings … Martyrdom always implies a broader narrative that invokes notions of justice and the right ordering of the cosmos.” On “reputational entrepreneurs,” see Michaela DeSoucey et al., "Memory and Sacrifice: An Embodied Theory of Martyrdom." Cultural Sociology 2, no. 1 (2008): 99121. For “radical” martyrs, see Paul Middleton, Radical Martyrdom and Cosmic Conflict in Early Christianity (New York: T &T Clark, 2006). On complicating the notion that there was but one ideology of martyrdom, see Candida R. Moss, The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), viii. 14 Moss, Other Christs, 75.
5
faith.”15 As far as most scholars are concerned, J.D. Crossan’s statement holds: “Every martyr needs a murderer.”16 This consensus largely ignores the rather long list of Christians described and venerated as martyrs who did not suffer death as part of their witness. In addition to Encratis and Felix, Thecla and Marcellus were venerated as martyrs despite surviving their ordeals.17 Margery Kempe in the late fourteenth century and Thomas Hoccleve in the fifteenth both claimed to be martyrs, and to have suffered martyrdom through mundane trials and social marginality—torments more vicious than execution for their very replicability: what martyr could be beheaded three times a day for seven years?18 Living “in torment and martyrdom,” as Hoccleve claims to do, takes far more endurance.19 Paschasius Radbertus in the ninth century claimed that the Virgin Mary ought properly be called “martyr” as well as “Virgin,”20 and Gregory of Nazianzus treats living martyrdom as a real possibility when he asks Eusebius of Samosata for his intercession via prayers, arguing that since Eusebius was accustomed to “bravely struggling in the gospel’s faith like this, enduring terrible persecutions, preparing for himself great forthrightness toward God, dispenser of justice, through the endurance of tribulations,” he not only had divine power at his fingertips, but could share that power with others, “as if from one of the holy martyrs.”21 In addition, many
15
Michael L. Budde and Karen Scott, eds. Witness of the Body: The Past, Present, and Future of Christian Martyrdom (Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2011), viii. 16 John Dominic Crossan, The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), 285. 17 For Thecla’s reputation and veneration as martyr despite surviving her ordeals, see Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory, 134-171. For Marcellus, see Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae.124, 4.3. 18 On Margery Kempe and Thomas Hoccleve, see Danna Piroyansky, “‘Thus may a man be a martyr’: The Notion, Language, and Experiences of Martyrdom in Late Medieval England,” 72-73; 84. In Thomas S. Freeman and Thomas F. Mayer, eds., Martyrs and Martyrdom in England, C. 1400-1700 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007), 70-87. 19 Piroyansky, “Thus may a man be a martyr,” 84-85. Hoccleve’s Works: The Minor Poems, ed. Frederick J. Furnivall and I. Gollanez, EETS, e.s. 61, 73 (revised reprint in one volume, 1970), p.97, lines 62-63. Modernization by Piroyansky. 20 Paschasius Radbertus, Epistula 9 . 21 Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistula 64, to Eusebius of Samosata, 1-5. Translation by Bradley K. Storin, to whom I am grateful for the reference.
6
other influential figures besides Prudentius, Paulinus, and Augustine understood martyrdom as separable from death. John Chrysostom, Caesarius of Arles, Gregory the Great, John Mirk, and John Donne all dissociated martyrdom from the death of the martyr.22 This is by no means an exhaustive catalogue, but it does suggest that the current understandings of martyrdom do not do justice to the ways that martyrdom has historically been understood. These instances of martyrdom without death have not gone unnoticed by modern scholars. Most pass over the fact with the briefest of notice.23 Others remark on the “stretching” of the definition to include people who should not properly be considered martyrs.24 Several scholars have encountered living martyrs during broad examinations of the
22
For John Chrysostom’s repeated insistence in his homilies that Christians can be martyrs without persecution by such means as avoiding pagan practices, see Isabella Sandwell, Religious Identity in Late Antiquity: Greeks, Jews, and Christians in Antioch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 80. See also Michael Gaddis, There is No Crime for Those who have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 175. Gaddis also here discusses Caesarius of Arles, who, in his Sermo 52 argues that “whoever gives testimony to Christ for the sake of justice will be, without a doubt, a martyr; and whoever resists the defenders of dissipation and persecutors of chastity out of love for God, will receive the crown of martyrdom” Sermo 52.1 (SC 243, 434): quicumque testimonium pro iustitia dederit christo, sine dubio martyr erit; et quicumque defensoribus luxuriae et persecutoribus castitatis pro dei amore restiterit, martyrii coronam accipiet. For Gregory the Great, see Homiliae in evangelia, 2. John Mirk’s sermon on St. Stephen includes an explicit argument that death is not necessary for one to be considered a martyr (Mirk’s Festial: A Collection of Homilies, edited by Theodor Erbe, EETS, e.s. 96, part 1, 28-29). John Donne’s broader argument is against the recusant refusal to take the Oath of Allegiance to the crown, and he argues by dismantling what he sees as the Catholic conception of martyrdom in favor of one based on will (Donne, Pseudo-martyr 1.11-14). 23 For instance, in recent treatments of Paulinus, Catherine Conybeare identifies Felix as “an obscure saint and dubious martyr” (Paulinus Noster: Self and Symbols in the Letters of Paulinus of Nola [New York: Oxford University Press, 2000], 52) while Dennis Trout refers to him alternately as “confessor,” “saint,” and “martyr,” following Paulinus’s usage and abstaining from any judgments about the authenticity of his martyrdom (Paulinus of Nola: Life, Letters, Poems [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999]). 24 Michael Gaddis, for instance, notes that, for Caesarius of Arles, Maximus of Turin, and John Chrysostom, the meaning of martyrdom “stretches all the way from suffering violence to inflicting it. Far from its original sense of resistance to persecuting authorities, martyrial rhetoric here is used to justify the disciplinary, corrective violence carried out by Christian authorities willing to ‘persecute’ for the sake of spreading the gospel” (Gaddis, There is no Crime, 175). Because Gaddis is less concerned with the changing understanding of martyrdom than with its mobilization for the sake of legitimating violence in specific historical contexts, he neither attempts a redefinition nor expands his inquiry to the meaning of martyrdom as a whole. Lucy Grig, meanwhile, although she does an excellent job of demonstrating Paulinus’s attempt to number Felix among the martyrs (since “martyr-status was still the summit of saintly perfection,” declines to discuss how including living martyrs in the catalog of martyrdom might affect the character or extent of that summit (Lucy Grig, Making Martyrs in Late Antiquity [London: Duckworth, 2004], 106). On this same assumption—that martyrs should, in fact, die, Elizabeth Castelli refers to Thecla as “a martyr who, paradoxically, did not die a martyr’s death” (Martyrdom and Memory, 135). It is noteworthy that the same fifth-century text that first memorializes Thecla in narrative as a “martyr” not
7
experience of martyrdom in Christian history.25 As they investigate the many divergent ways that Christians have identified and identified with martyrs, they include instances of martyrs who do not die.26 While they offer excellent pictures of the reach of martyrological thinking, none uses her portrait as a starting point for rethinking the concept of martyrdom itself or the treatment of martyrdom more broadly. The same is true of scholarship on the “spiritual” or “white” martyrdom of monks and virgins. On the whole, while scholars acknowledge the traditions locating martyrdom in the will or in metaphorical death, they compare monks to martyrs and even call them the “new martyrs” without using the comparison to reflect back on what the meaning of “martyr” really is and what the scholarly definition of it should be. The “red” martyr or martyr by death becomes the paradigm on which the “new martyrs” are modeled, while the monk’s martyrdom is seldom used to illuminate or expand our understanding of the meaning of martyrdom.27 Edward Malone provides a telling example: while he often asserts that the martyrdom of intent or metaphorical death was, for ancient
only maintains Thecla’s peaceful death after having already achieved martyrdom, but amplifies it, suggesting that Thecla simply does not die. Ever. Dethroning the assumption that martyrs must die would affect Castelli’s argument. The story that Castelli recreates is of an ascetic, sexually abstinent, itinerant preacher morphed by the processes of memory-making into an archetypical virgin martyr. The very title of “martyr” seems to be evidence for Castelli of a destructive reading of Thecla’s text: by calling her a martyr, the fifth-century author, on Castelli’s reading, is beginning the process of elision and erasure. But, if the fifth-century author’s understanding of martyrdom did not depend on death, but rather, for instance, on witness, the use of the term “martyr” would serve as a confirmation and expansion of Thecla’s apostolic witness, rather than a diminution of it. 25 Miri Rubin, “Choosing Death? Experiences of Martyrdom in Late Medieval Europe.” In Diana Wood, ed., Martyrs and Martyrologies: Papers read at the 1992 Summer Meeting and the 1993 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993), 153-184; Piroyansky, “Thus may a man be a martyr.” 26 Piroyansky, covering a somewhat smaller terrain than Rubin, is able to conclude, based on the pervasiveness of martyr-language, that “the interpretation of the world through a martyrological prism” was available to all and was used to make sense of suffering encountered in everyday life. Piroyansky, “Thus may a man be a martyr,” 87. 27 An exception to this would be David Brakke’s treatment of Antony as new martyr, which has the effect of highlighting the element of spiritual combat against demons present in martyrdom accounts. But even Brakke is not interested in redefining martyrdom; he does not force us to rethink the phenomenon as a whole (nor is that his object). Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006). Examinations of the ascetic’s role as new martyr can certainly shed light on the utility of martyrdom: on the desire of its continuance; on the weight it carried in the Christian mind; on the roles that it served that needed to be filled by some other athlete of God. But, again, martyrdom is not the emphasis; its definition is not expanded to include the phenomena helping to illuminate it.
8
authors like Clement, “in a real sense martyrdom,”28 he nonetheless repeatedly distinguishes between “spiritual martyrdom” and “real martyrdom.”29 More recently, Carole Straw, in summarizing Augustine’s views on martyrdom for the encyclopedic Augustine through the Ages, distinguishes between “literal” martyrdom and “spiritual” martyrdom, even though Augustine makes no such distinction and in fact goes out of his way to say that the “literal” meaning of martyrdom would be “witness”—something Straw herself notes!30 Across the board, then, the concept of the living martyr is seldom directly addressed and it is never theorized in such a way as to reflect back on martyrdom more generally. More importantly, knowledge of the existence of “living martyrs” and the awareness that Christians have not always considered death necessary to martyrdom have not prompted a move to redefine the term “martyr.” Nor has there been any sustained discussion of what expanding the definition to the living might mean or what impact it might have on our understanding of Christian spirituality in different historical contexts. This persistent scholarly oversight is made possible by the vastness of the topic of martyrdom, the explosion of scholarly interest in it, and its many compelling aspects which demand focused attention, but also by the (quite reasonable) impulse to elide living martyrs with their dead counterparts, to say that their categorization as martyrs is a result of overextended similes, rhetorical posturing, or propagandistic scheming on the part of the authors arguing for their status as martyrs. This is the situation I seek to remedy with this dissertation. I offer a redefinition of martyrdom that includes martyrs who do not die as part of their witness, and argue, based on readings of the martyrological work of Paulinus, Prudentius, and Augustine, that an awareness of the living martyrs’ roles in late antique spirituality can aid in our knowledge of
28
Malone, Monk and Martyr, 14. As, for example, on pages 18, 19, 37, 41, and 46. 30 Carole Straw, “Martyrdom,” in Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia. Allan D. Fitzgerald, ed. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 538-541. 29
9
that spirituality and in our knowledge of the value of martyrdom in late antiquity more generally. My aim is to demonstrate that re-focusing our gaze on what our authors claim martyrdom is and does will enable a more fruitful understanding of the role of martyrdom in Christian history. Such an intervention is long overdue. The prevalent tendency of modern scholars is to overlook and dismiss mentions of living martyrs. This was Thomas Aquinas’s response, as well. Confronted with the examples of “Jerome”31 and Gregory the Great bestowing martyr status on the unexecuted and with the veneration of Marcellus as a martyr, Aquinas writes: “The authorities cited here, and others of the same kind, speak of martyrdom figuratively (per quamdam similitudinem).”32 With this dismissal, Aquinas gives the concept only slightly shorter shrift than modern scholars are accustomed to do. Such dismissal does not do justice to Paulinus, who argues compellingly that Felix is, in fact, a martyr of no less (and possibly greater) standing than those who shed blood; it does not do justice to Prudentius’s expression of privilege at having access to a martyr who did not die; it does not do justice to Augustine’s vehemently asserted ideology of martyrdom. It glosses over the understandings of martyrdom that John Chrysostom, Caesarius of Arles, Gregory the Great, and so many others expressed and propagated. To the extent that we might still want to say that these authors were dissembling or promoting “dubious” martyrs for their own profit, we must acknowledge that in reality all martyrs must be argued for33 and that these are therefore no different from others in that respect. These authors may have known that their constructions of martyrdom would be hard to “sell” to their contemporaries, but that does not mean that they did not themselves believe in their constructions. In fact, the
31
Aquinas attributes to Jerome a letter written by Paschasius Radbertus. Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae. 124,4 (Blackfriars, 42): Ergo dicendum quod illae auctoritates, et si quae similes inveniuntur loquuntur de martyrio per quamdam similitudinem. 33 Thanks to Mikael Haxby for this succinct phrasing. 32
10
urgency of their advocacy indicates the opposite, that they believed enough in their constructions of martyrdom that they felt them worth arguing for. If we are to understand what martyrdom meant to Christians at a given time and place we need to take their professed understandings seriously, to seek out the full picture of what martyrdom meant to them—how it affected and was shaped by their worldviews, how it fit in to their theological and ecclesiological ideologies—and, finally, to ascertain what impact their understanding of martyrdom had on the spirituality of the Christians before whom they were advocating their martyrs. Focusing on death as the sole criterion for martyrdom limits what we see and are aware of, both in terms of the authors’ aims and in terms of the pilgrim’s or practitioner’s experience; it excludes from our observation and analysis a real form of martyrial consciousness and closes off from our understanding a significant element of late antique spirituality. Just as travelers might make pilgrimages to far-flung ascetics in order to participate in the biblical past,34 so too would pilgrims attend the feast day of St. Felix, with spiritual expectations. How did the fact of Felix’s peaceful death affect that experience? How did Felix’s post-martyrdom life make him a better martyr, more able to connect with Nolan Christians and more representative of true Christian witness? Discounting the living martyrs as real martyrs discounts and distorts the real experience of Christian practitioners and believers.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
In an effort to access a fuller range of martyrial thought in late antiquity, and in order to give voice to the real or hoped-for experiences of Christian practitioners and believers in the late
34
Georgia Frank, The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 33.
11
antique Latin west, I explore in this dissertation the martyrological works of Prudentius (c. 348-413), Paulinus (353-431), and Augustine (354-430). In each case, I use close and historically contextualized readings of their texts to establish the author’s understanding of martyrdom and how living martyrs—martyrs who do not die in persecution but achieve martyrdom through other means—play into that understanding. I explore the arguments they make for their martyrs and how those arguments are presented. Ultimately, I establish that all three authors not only argued for martyrdom without death, but also sought to inculcate in their audiences a martyrial consciousness—a worldview that allowed them to think of themselves as martyrs and to become martyrs themselves. In Chapter 1, “Destabilizing Death, Advocating Witness: Prudentius’ Peristephanon,” I explore the martyrological poetry of Prudentius, looking at his treatments of the martyrs Quirinus, Vincent, Encratis, Gaius, and Crementius to identify the myriad ways that the poet advocates dissociating martyrdom from death. Prudentius uses his mastery of classical literary and rhetorical techniques to work upon and within his readers, to make his case both persuasive and seemingly intuitive. In the process we can see what, for Prudentius, are the hallmarks of the martyr: power, divine connection, and witness. Chapter 2, “Modeling the Living Martyr: Witness in and through Poetry” argues that with death thus destabilized, the notion of witness emerges to take its place as the signal characteristic of martyrdom, and not just for the martyrs already discussed: Prudentius ultimately seeks to teach his readers how to become martyrs themselves through their own mediated witness. To make this argument I combine detailed, intertext-sensitive close readings with an exploration of late ancient theories of visual and aural perception, as well as contemporary understandings of the power of poetry and rhetoric. In Chapters 3 and 4 I turn to Paulinus of Nola. Chapter 3, “Paulinus of Nola and the Living Martyr,” charts Paulinus’s martyrological program as he seeks through his poetry and 12
letters to defend the martyr-status of his patron saint, Felix, despite Felix’s failure to die in persecution. Paulinus adduces other living martyrs as well and, in the process of defending them all, configures martyrdom as primarily an embodied reorientation to God. This new worldview coheres with other elements of Paulinus’ spirituality, such as his attitudes towards friendship and poverty, so that understanding his martyrological spirituality helps make his whole Christian outlook more intelligible. In Chapter 4, “Making Martyrs in the Nolan Countryside,” I argue that, like Prudentius, Paulinus sought to extend the possibility of martyrdom to his contemporaries. Rather than advocating a shift in worldview alone as Prudentius had done, Paulinus seeks to cultivate an ethic of imitation to complement that worldview. This imitation, like Prudentius’ worldview, is based on an understanding of the centrality of witness, which Paulinus nonetheless characterizes as ambiguous—the potential illegibility of witness necessitates an authorized and authoritative interpreter. The final chapter, “Non Poena Sed Causa” turns to Augustine’s sermons to highlight the ubiquity and utility of the figure of the living martyr in the late antique West, tying the poetic and rhetorical activism pursued by Paulinus and Prudentius to Augustine’s explicit pastoral activism. The goal of this connection is to demonstrate that living martyrs represented a commonplace idea and a spiritual reality for many Christians at the time, and to gesture toward the ways that literary genre and historical context affected the presentation of these living martyrs. In the conclusion I both synthesize the findings of my chapters and return to the themes of this introduction, highlighting the ways that my research necessitates a rethinking of martyrdom and pointing to the broader implications of that rethinking.
READING THE CREATION OF MARTYRIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
13
I have pursued my readings of Prudentius, Paulinus, and Augustine with an eye toward uncovering worldviews—both those assumed by the authors and those advocated by them. A worldview is, essentially, a sort of feedback-loop that allows humans to negotiate self and world. It is at once the starting point, the end-point, and the processing capability of identity. The worldview is the lens through which we understand ourselves and the world around us. It is the filtering process by which we add our perceptions (interpreted by means of our starting-point worldview) to the reservoir of what we think we know. It is also the end-point, our new starting-point, in which our newly added knowledge is taken for granted and becomes the assumed and the “natural,” the new starting point from which we now evaluate all future stimuli.35 The worldview limits what we can incorporate into “the known,” and it limits the resonances any experience can stimulate. Its all-encompassing nature is welldescribed by Eugene F. Miller: All human expressions point beyond themselves to the characteristic world view (Weltanschauung) of the epoch or culture to which they belong. This underlying impulse or spirit makes the culture a whole and determines the shape of all thought and evaluation within it.36 The worldview is constantly being reinforced and remade. It can also, to an extent determined in part by the worldview itself, be harnessed and re-trained.37 The goal of creating,
35
In this sense, the worldview plays a similar role to narrative, in the sense elaborated by Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 23-25, 27-37. Myths, which Lincoln redefines as narratives with authority, are the basis by which we classify our experience and that in turn governs how we classify ourselves. Thomas Sizgorich uses such a concept of narrative to illuminate communal boundaries in late antiquity in his book, Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity: Militant Devotion in Christianity and Islam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009). 36 Eugene F. Miller, “Positivism, Historicism, and Political Inquiry,” The American Political Science Review, Vol. 66, No. 3 (Sep., 1972), 796-817, quoted at 801. 37 For a wonderful example of worldview creation in progress, see the work of Nancy Pearcey, particularly Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2004). Pearcey is an Evangelical Christian and Intelligent Design proponent who advocates Christian worldview construction: “[This book] will walk you through practical, workable steps for crafting a Christian worldview in your own life and work. And it will teach you how to apply a worldview grid to cut through the bewildering maze of ideas and ideologies we encounter in a postmodern world” (17). She describes how the Christian must revise every aspect of life, thought, perception, and valuation to cohere with a biblical perspective centered on the suffering and redemption of Christ: “The spiritual reality of rejected,
14
re-training, or reinforcing a worldview is to form a coherent community of believers, whose shared outlook and expectations would allow their communal identity to remain vigorous and distinctive, regardless of context. In order to access the late antique martyrial episteme38— the imaginative reality of “living in a martyrial world,” I have taken cues from a number of scholars who subject their texts to rhetorical, ideological, and literary analysis in order to attain a sense of what effects the texts were aspiring to. I follow Averil Cameron’s model of taking linguistic and rhetorical choices seriously in order to glean a sense of how authors used discourse to implant “‘habits of the heart’ more powerful than institutions and more lasting than social welfare.”39 Just as she notes, for instance, the use of biography rather than historiography as the primary vehicle for Christian identity narratives and the theologically productive use of paradox within those biographies, I focus on the choice to use martyr-discourse to convey Christian worldviews and look for the rhetorical tools authors employ to make their narratives “better.”40 My close readings are modeled on those of Patricia Cox Miller, who, in her investigation of how late ancient authors appealed to their readers’ sensory imaginations, demonstrates exemplary attention to detail and rhetorical technique.41 I have been particularly inspired by her application of Bill Brown’s “Thing Theory” to ancient texts, looking for moments of fissure, incongruity, or excess which might signal “a change in habitual perception” or a demand for
slain, raised lies at the heart of everything in the Christian life, including the work of developing a Christian mind” (378). 38 That is, “the epistemological field... in which knowledge... grounds its positivity and thereby manifests a history which is not that of its growing perfection, but rather that of its conditions of possibility” (Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. [New York: Pantheon Books, 1971], xxii). 39 Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 28. 40 Cameron writes that: “The better these stories were constructed, the better they functioned as structuremaintaining narratives and the more their audiences were disposed to accept them as true” (93). Much of my concern here lies with what consituted a “better” narrative—what did authors think they could do to make the narrative more compelling? What made the martyr-narrative “better” for them? 41 Patricia Cox Miller, The Corporeal Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late Ancient Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 7.
15
further attention.42 My reading practices are also informed by Natalie Zemon Davis’s approach, demonstrated in Fiction in the Archives, of acknowledging the fact of fiction—the fictive or formative elements that comprise the crafting of any narrative.43 Davis establishes the bounds within which 16th-century pardon tales sought to achieve persuasion and the tropes that petitioners used and finessed to their purposes; I likewise sought contextappropriate guidelines for my analyses by assessing comparable documents and contemporary theories of reader engagement. I have tried, in other words, as much as possible, to analyze the texts from within their own epistemes. I do not want to suggest that such things as epistemes or authorial intent or even intended meaning are easily or unproblematically retrievable. Nor do allow a lack of contextual precedent circumscribe my readings. Rather, I have sought to use an awareness of the cultural possibilities of representation to enhance my ability to see innovative or understated techniques that themselves, in turn, expand our knowledge of the boundaries and character of the episteme.
REDEFINING MARTYRDOM IN ORDER TO RETHINK MARTYRDOM
The account of martyrdom I glean from Prudentius, Paulinus, and Augustine is, therefore, unapologetically local. And each of these three authors defines and uses martyrdom in slightly different ways. It might, then, seem odd that I would want to offer my own definition of martyrdom, knowing how ultimately inadequate it will have to be: privileging these three Christian “culture-makers” of one generation and of one relatively small geographical circle as I define martyrdom for all of Christendom (and beyond) would seem to
42
Bill Brown, "Thing Theory" Critical Inquiry 28 (2001): 1-21; Miller, Corporeal Imagination, 2. Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987), 3. 43
16
replicate the erasure of heterogeneity I have argued against. In the interest of strengthening and preserving this dissertation’s findings, however, I will offer a definition, futility notwithstanding. In the absence of a new definition, old ones remain. While we must attend to the nuances of each author and text, without an alternative guiding definition we will revert to the criterion of death. Out of habit, out of laziness, or simply as a result of the dominance of death in martyrological literature, we will forget the broader use and meaning of martyrdom, as Thomas Aquinas did. And no definition of martyrdom that hinges on death should be allowed to stand unchallenged. Furthermore, having a clear definition will help scholars recognize martyrs even when they are not explicitly labeled as such. If my constructive contribution only serves to re-center the conversation, I will consider it successful; my hope is that by offering a new tool for discussing martyrdom, my definition will provide a stepping stone to better analyses of martyrdom and martyrial discourse across eras and disciplines. I propose that we define a martyr as an individual who, by virtue of suffering, willingness to suffer, mimetic identification with an exemplary sufferer, and/or death, is employed by an author or community to serve as a witness to some communally accessible truth.44 This definition improves on earlier attempts because it is both specific enough to point to what makes martyrdom compelling (e.g. identity, community, commitment, suffering, death, and truth) and broad enough to acknowledge the heterogeneity of understandings of what makes it so compelling (that is, the various permutations of its constituent concepts). For there is something compelling about martyrdom. It operates within a framework of opposition, where the belief of an individual is challenged and threatened by
44
This definition is intended to include all instances of martyrdom, regardless of tradition or context, but in this study I will only be discussing Christian martyrs in Late Antiquity.
17
a larger, more powerful institution.45 It presents the reader with situations of role-reversal and paradox, when the victim triumphs despite and because of her suffering, when passive becomes active and active passive, when obedience becomes defiance and defiance obedience, and when death becomes life and life becomes death.46 It has the power to call into question the value systems of victim and executioner, to challenge the “reality” of what is seemingly obvious, readily visible, or simply assumed, and to highlight and problematize the relationship between the physical and the metaphysical.47 It contains the element of sacrifice—usually ultimate sacrifice—by “an otherwise ordinary person willing to accept death and extraordinary pain, giving his body as well as his life, for the strength of belief.”48 The martyr “stood for the possibility of victory: man’s victory over death, our victory over the frailty of our bodies, the waywardness of our labile wills, the instability of our resolve, the weakness of our faith and our bondage to sin.”49 It is predicated on and lends meaning to violence, building on some unexplored combination of morbid curiosity, visceral empathy, vicarious trauma, and fascination with the limits of physicality that makes it difficult to avert
45
See Brent D. Shaw, "Body/Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs." Journal of Early Christian Studies 4, no. 3 (1996): 269-312; DeSoucey et al., “Memory and Sacrifice”; Middleton, Radical Martyrdom, 54-6; John R. Knott, Discourses of Martyrdom in English Literature, 1563-1694 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 8-9; Lucy Grig points to the “structure of confrontation” which grounded ancient hagiographical texts, “masking possible contradictions, and imposing a clear dualistic value system.” This narrative polarization is intended to lead to audience polarization, forcing the reader to take sides and more closely identitfy with the protagonist. In these texts, Grig argues, “impartiality is not a narrative option” (Making Martyrs, 5). 46 Shaw, “Body/Power/Identity”; Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire; Knott, Discourses of Martyrdom. Brad S. Gregory (Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999]) writes: “The voluntary nature of martyrdom was profoundly paradoxical: the martyrs’ agency depened on relinquishing control, their strength upon a naked admission of their utter impotence and total dependence on God” (132). On the martyr’s reordering of the cosmos see Middleton, Radical Martyrdom, 93-101 and Nicole Kelley, “Philosophy as Training for Death: Reading the Ancient Christian Martyr Acts as Spiritual Exercises,” Church History 75:4 (2006), 723-747. 47 As Middleton notes, failure to sacrifice and participate in state ritual in the Roman world not only “went against the larger view of reality” (Radical Martyrdom, 56) in a cosmic sense, but to reject the gods was “an absurd rejection of the obvious power structures of the empire” (69). 48 DeSoucey et al., “Memory and Sacrifice,” 101. This sacrifice is made even greater, DeSoucey et al. argue, by the value Western tradition places on the individual human life. 49 Robert A. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 93.
18
our eyes.50 It evokes the erotic and the spectacular.51 It provides the elegant simplicity of a commitment to truth that does not falter, even in the face of the ultimate challenge, death.52 It is the ultimate all-in: “Are you sure you’re right?” “I’d stake my life on it.” If the list above seems grandiose, vague, fractured, and contradictory, that is my intention entirely. Martyrdom taps into life’s largest questions (the nature of truth, the meaning of life), operates with the most fundamental tools that humans have available to them (their bodies, their lives, and their wills53), and grants meaning to the most universal of human experiences (suffering and death). Consequently, martyrdom has many potential “hooks,” and there are many divergent reasons that so many people—believers and scholars alike—have seen martyrdom as compelling, as well as many divergent ways that those people have characterized, situated, and employed martyrdom. This is why my definition leaves room to include these divergences and this diversity. If we define “martyrdom” without a full awareness of its significance to those attempting to use it, what they thought it meant, where they thought its power lay, we are closing ourselves off not only from seeing its full polyvalent power, but also from recognizing representations of martyrdom. Paul Middleton provides an excellent example of such definitional deficiency within the history of scholarship on martyrdom. He argues that by following Clement of Alexandria’s lead and dismissing the martyr-status of those who actively sought out arrest and martyrdom—the socalled “radical martyrs”—modern scholars had formed an incomplete picture of what
50
Ariel Glucklich, Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001; Cynthia Marshall, The Shattering of the Self: Violence, Subjectivity, and Early Modern Texts (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002); Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory. 51 David Frankfurter, "Martyrology and the Prurient Gaze." Journal of Early Christian Studies 17, no. 2 (2009): 215-45; Elizabeth A. Castelli,"Persecution and Spectacle: Cultural Appropriation in the Christian Commemoration of Martyrdom." Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 7 (2005): 102-36. 52 Marshall, Shattering of the Self; Grig, Making Martyrs; Elizabeth A. Castelli, in "The Ambivalent Legacy of Violence and Victimhood: Using Early Christian Martyrs to Think With," Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 6 (2006), describes the martyr as the “incarnation of utter, unwavering conviction” (1). 53 Donald Weinstein and Rudolph M. Bell, Saints & Society: The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000-1700 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 160.
19
martyrdom meant to the earliest Christians, a picture that did not do enough justice to the notion of martyrs as combatants in a cosmic conflict whose deaths were seen as actively contributing to their cause.54 In a similar fashion, we cannot understand the full range and utility of martyrdom if we do not take into account the full range of those who, at various points in Christian history, could be depicted as martyrs, and what the criteria for martyrdom were for their advocates. Because the term “martyr” is “not an ontological category but a post-event interpretive one,”55 these living martyrs are, in fact, simply martyrs—no less validly martyred than the archetypical early Christian lion fodder. The broad presence of these martyrs throughout Christian history makes any definition of martyrdom that hinges on death inadequate, and so whatever definition of martyrdom we come to must recognize that an actual death was not essential to the representation, power, and significance of the martyr. We need to know how and why these living martyrs fit into the larger understanding of what a martyr is and what a martyr can mean. Furthermore, any definition of martyrdom must be broad enough to include multiple and (potentially conflicting) ideologies while still presenting a category distinctive enough to allow comparison and discussion. Martyrdom is not a single phenomenon, with a single or simple ideal form or function or subject to a universal understanding. As Candida Moss argues, martyr-acta, even within the relatively narrow time-period of the pre-Constantinian church, reflected different understandings of what martyrdom was and what it meant. Comparing these early martyr-acta, she shows that despite formal similarities in form, their theological and soteriological underpinnings differed widely. The martyr’s death signified
54
This blindness to a major feature of how early Christians understood martyrdom prevented scholars interested in martyrdom’s origins from seeing a major potential source of martyr-ideology: the paradigm of Jewish Holy War, as represented in the books of the Maccabees, where human deaths offer effective aid to the divine cause. Middleton, Radical Martyrdom, 128-134. 55 Castelli, "Ambivalent Legacy," 1.
20
vastly different things from text to text. She concludes: “Just as we speak of ancient Christianities, we should speak of ancient ideologies of martyrdom.”56 The differences in martyr ideologies require that we interpret each martyr-text individually for what it can tell us of its own understanding of martyrdom. This is not to say we cannot challenge the text’s selfunderstanding, but we do need to seek out its gaps, what it assumes, what it argues, what positions it is arguing against, what pressures it seems to be reflecting and what pressures it is trying to exert upon its readers. We need to compare texts, to see in what ways they are communicating with one another, but comparison should highlight, rather than elide, differences in how texts understand and represent martyrs. In short, as we define what martyrdom is, then, we need to allow for broad boundaries but also internal variety. One final consideration in constructing my definition of “martyr” and “martyrdom” is the role of the community. It is by now a scholarly truism that martyrs require a community of some sort to establish their status as martyrs within some narrative context.57 As Elizabeth Castelli writes, “martyrs are produced by the stories told about them.”58 The martyr’s power lies in his ability to serve as a witness to others; other people need to recognize his actions as those of a martyr. A person can, of course, be a martyr in her own mind, can think of herself as being a martyr while the rest of the world sees her simply as a criminal or, in Margery Kempe’s case, a wife, but unless this attempt is communicated (as with Kempe) we as historians would not know to identify her as a martyr—perhaps more importantly, in order for the martyr to understand herself as such, she has to be heir to a community’s cause or a community’s interpretation of what witness is, what it means to suffer or die meaningfully.
56
Moss, Other Christs, viii. DeSoucey et al. argue that the creation of the martyr is exclusively the province of reputational entrepreneurs. “Ultimately, the role of the martyr is fundamentally social in that it depends upon recognition of bodily sacrifice within the form of particular scripts” (114). See also Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory; Grig, Making Martyrs; Boyarin, Dying for God. 58 Castelli, “Ambivalent Legacy,” 1. 57
21
But, for the most part, when scholars assert the martyr’s need for community, they are emphasizing the recognition and reception of the individual as martyr and her subsequent veneration in the liturgical and cultic practices of religious communities. This is why the reception community is so important to my definition—the communally accessible truth to which the martyr is witness forms the backbone of my formulation. This definition, then (that a martyr is “an individual who, by virtue of suffering, willingness to suffer, mimetic identification with an exemplary sufferer, and/or death, is employed by an author or community to serve as a witness to some communally accessible truth”), includes the body as a central feature of martyrdom’s significance while not making physical suffering or death the exclusive criterion of martyrdom; rather, the central idea is that of witness. It also emphasizes the work of “reputational entrepreneurs” or narrative fashioners, and includes all those whom authors attempt to characterize as martyrs. Our definition should be governed by the use of figures explicitly configured as “martyrs” so that we can accurately assess what the possibilities of the martyr’s representation were in a given context, but we do not need to limit martyr status to those about whom the term is used. Once we establish the bounds of what we are looking for by seeing what people mean when they use the term, we can then extend that recognition to instances where the concept is being used either avant la lettre or without explicit recognition of the models/tropes being used. “Martyrdom,” on this definition, would refer to the representation that makes someone a martyr, that is, how an author (by which I mean either an individual or a community) configures his or her subject as witnessing to a communally accessible truth (or how the author justifies that claim). The prisoner on the scaffold becomes a martyr when someone characterizes her experience as such, and her “martyrdom” refers to the aggregated elements of her story that her martyrologist marshals (or concocts) to justify her characterization as a martyr. Martyrdom is the (necessarily argumentative) representation of a 22
martyr as a martyr. For Encratis of Peristephanon 4, her martyrdom consists in all the features of her story that Prudentius adduces to represent her as witnessing to the truth of Christ and Christianity. That, then, includes her torture, the death of her severed flesh, her continued suffering, and, most importantly, her survival to witness to her own experience.59 For Felix of Nola, his martyrdom was his imprisonment, his utility as God’s agent and the channel for God’s miracles, his likeness to Christ, his continued service to the church, and his voluntary poverty, all of which Paulinus draws upon to argue that Felix was, indeed, a martyr. For Augustine’s sickbed martyr, his martyrdom is his commitment to the divine causa over and against the (possible) temptations of the world. This is what Augustine identifies as the feat that makes the sick man witness to truth, and so this is what makes him a martyr.
59
Prudentius, Peristephanon 4 (CCSL126:286-293); John Petruccione, "The Persecutor's Envy and the Rise of the Martyr Cult: "Peristephanon" Hymns 1 and 4." Vigiliae Christianae 45, no. 4 (1991): 338.
23
CHAPTER 1 DESTABILIZING DEATH, ADVOCATING WITNESS: PRUDENTIUS’S PERISTEPHANON
INTRODUCTION
After being thrown from a high bridge into the Kupa River with a millstone tied to his neck, the Siscian bishop Quirinus, bobbing calmly (stone and all) in the most tranquil of eddies, begins to worry that he might not actually die: The martyr bishop felt That now the spoil—the palm of death and departure— Was being snatched away from him, And that ascent was being denied [him] To the seat of the eternal father.1 Dismayed, he petitions Jesus directly, essentially asking him to stop grandstanding and let him earn the final prize: “All-powerful Jesus,” he said, “In no way is this glory for you Either unusual or new, To trample on a raging sea And stop a rushing river.”2 Peter, after all, had walked on water, had “made sea subject to foot” with the help of Jesus’s hand (Matt 14.29-31), and the Jordan River, “with its movements flowing backward,” fled back to its source so that Joshua’s Israelites could cross (Josh 3.15-16). 3 Quirinus admits that
1
Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.51-55 (CCSL 126, 322): Sensit martyr episcopus / iam partam sibi praeripi / palmam mortis et exitus / ascensumque negarier / aeterni ad solium patris. 2 Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.51-55 (CCSL 126, 322): “Hisu cunctipotens” ait / “haudquaquam tibi gloria / haec est insolita aut nova / calcare fremitum maris / prona et flumina sistere. 3 Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.65 (CCSL 126, 323): subiecisse salum solo; Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.6970 (CCSL 126, 323): ad fontem refluis retro / confugisse meatibus.
24
his present activity, “swimming lightly in the greatest whirlpool of the river” with a boulder around his neck, is a good addition to the list of miracles.4 And yes, Quirinus allows, it’s probably a good idea to show the unbelievers the power of the Christian God. But now that’s all done, he prays, “I beg for this, for what is left, / the most precious thing of all, / to die for you, Christ God!” Even as he utters the words, the martyred bishop dies (“breath and voice and heat desert him at once”5), the stone begins to sink, and “the waters receive his body.”6 Quirinus’s story, and his obsession with death, as Prudentius depicts it in Peristephanon 7, would seem to confirm the necessity of actual physical death to martyrdom. The martyr flat-out requests death, with the understanding that his prize, his victory, cannot be achieved without it. And yet despite the martyr’s seeming certainty, the poem is fraught with tension about what, in fact, constitutes martyrdom. Is it blood? Is it suffering? Is it death? What about the willingness to die? It also highlights questions that have accompanied martyrdom throughout history: is the desire for a martyr’s death admirable, or suicidal? Why is death, rather than survival, a sign of triumph? What authority and power does a martyr have, on earth and over God? And, again, because it is the question that drives my project: In what does martyrdom actually consist for these authors? Through his ambiguous account of Quirinus’s martyrdom and similar representations of martyrs in his Peristephanon, Prudentius both highlights these questions and advocates answers to help Christian readers shape their understanding of martyrdom. Such pedagogical advocacy is typical of Prudentius’s poetry and that of his contemporaries. Theirs is a form of poetry that has been categorized as “exegetical,” which
4
Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.73-74 (CCSL 126, 323): Suspendor leve praenatans / summo gurgite fluminis 5 Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.85-86 (CCSL 126, 324) simul halitus / et vox deserit et calor 6 Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.91 (CCSL 126, 324): corpus suscipiunt aquae.
25
“interprets texts, proclaims truths, and asserts doctrines.”7 This categorization, as expanded and utilized by Mark Mastrangelo, does not necessarily require that the poet expound upon a text, but rather that the poet attempts to instruct—and ultimately alter—his readers and their opinions. Through their poetry, the late fourth-century Christian poets examined issues of concern to their Christian contemporaries, and advocated particular answers. It is not arbitrary that poetry should be selected as a vehicle for such advocacy. Poetic form was understood in late antiquity to make content more beautiful, and hence more persuasive.8 For well-educated Romans, “poetry was not just a way of dressing up a pleasant or amusing idea, but a means of packaging the crucial message of Christianity regarding human salvation in the most effective and appropriate manner.”9 Poetry enabled access to a wider variety of persuasive tools than did prose, offering a greater freedom of vocabulary and encouraging the use of intertextual allusions.10 It put Christian poets in conversation with the most inspiring and influential legacies of Roman culture, and helped them assert themselves, as had their predecessors, as culture-makers. Finally, if we are to take Prudentius at his word, poetry was a devotional practice in and of itself. As he writes in his Preface, “let [the sinning soul] at least honor God in voice, if it cannot with worthy deeds.”11 This was his form of witness, a contribution he thought he could make to praise and glorify God. The service Prudentius renders God is, moreover, based on a gift God himself gave, and therefore even more fitting to be exercised on his behalf. Prudentius writes in the Cathemerinon:
7
Marc Mastrangelo, The Roman Self in Late Antiquity: Prudentius and the Poetics of the Soul (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 7. 8 Carolinne White, Early Christian Latin Poets (New York: Routledge, 2000), 6. Laura Nasrallah highlights ancient and late-ancient anxieties about the persuasive power of beauty in her book Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture: The Second-Century Church Amid the Spaces of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). See, in particular, her treatment of the Knidian Aphrodite. This is also true in antiquity: Plato banned the poets from his ideal Republic precisely because of their powers of persuasion (Plato, Republic 10.607a). 9 White, Early Christian Latin Poets, 6. 10 Michael Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs: The Liber Peristephanon of Prudentius (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press), 6. 11 Prudentius, Praefatio 36 (CCSL 126, 2): saltem uoce deum concelebret, si meritis nequit
26
What service can a noble soul, Native of light and the upper air, Fulfill more worthily Than if she should echo the gifts she has been given, Having sung her own creator?12 These verses, “mysterious garlands” strung with “woven praise of God,” are offerings both human-wrought and divinely-inspired, and are devotional, for Prudentius, in a way that prose would not have been.13 Prudentius was the Christian poet par excellence. His poems utilize the Roman literary legacy, subverting it, challenging it, and appropriating it in the service of Christendom, ultimately integrating it into a new Christian master narrative and a cohesive Christian worldview.14 But this poetic exegesis is not simple, nor is it (usually) explicit. In the fourth and fifth centuries, as Martha Malamud writes, “figured speech, studied ambiguity, and allusive references and reminiscences that point the reader toward a conclusion but do not spell it out became characteristic features of Roman poetry.”15 It was up to the reader to piece together the poet’s clues and find the true purpose of a poem, and this participation acted to cement the reader’s own transformation in response to the poem. Prudentius’s poetry is particularly playful. He has been known to hide alternate meanings in anagrams, to blend biblical, mythological, and literary characters with regard more for educational advocacy
12
Prudentius, Cathemerinon 3.31-35 (CCSL 126, 12): Quod generosa potest anima, / lucis et aetheris indigena, / soluere dignius obsequium, / quam data munera si recinat / artificem modulata suum? 13 Prudentius, Cathemerinon 3.28 (CCSL 126, 12): sertaque mystica; Prudentius, Cathemerinon 3.30 (CCSL 126, 12): laude dei redimita; “In the words of Charlet, ‘poetic activity became a spiritual act, a form of divine worship and the poem itself an offering to God’” (White, Early Christian Latin Poets, 6). 14 Mastrangelo argues that “Prudentius’s use of his intellectual inheritance, as manifested in the Roman epic tradition, the Bible, Christian theology and pagan philosophy, constitutes a vigorous contribution to the fourth-century reformulation of Greco-Roman literary and intellectual tradition. This reformulation is best understood as an effort to produce a ‘grand narrative’ or ‘meta-narrative’ of Roman Christian identity in all its cultural, ideological, and and intellectual expression” (Mastrangelo, Roman Self, 3). 15 Martha Malamud, A Poetics of Transformation: Prudentius and Classical Mythology (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press), 5. See also Jill Ross, “Dynamic Writing and Martyrs’ Bodies in Prudentius’ Peristephanon,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 3, no. 3 (1995): 326: “Prudentius participates in an already established tradition of reading and writing where images, intertextual allusions, and etymological wordplay convey more meaning than plot and narrative.”
27
than for historical accuracy, to play tricks on his readers (like refusing to close the frame of an ekphrasis, so the reader finds herself trapped in the world of the poem), to play wordgames, and to undermine the reader’s comfort and sense of stability by undercutting his own poems, as we shall see.16 Peristephanon 7 offers an example of Prudentius’s playfulness as a poet: in addition to nesting moments of tension about martyrdom within a poem that confidently asserts the glory and power of the martyr, he paradoxically uses Quirinus’s present-day miracle to question the necessity of present-day miracles. And, also paradoxically, he uses the martyr’s request for death as a means of introducing the question of death’s value to martyrdom. Prudentius’s poetry is “anomalous, paradoxical, and ambiguous,” rife with “frequent conflict between text and subtext,” and it is these very qualities that ensure its impact on the reader. 17 With this impact on the individual reader, Prudentius’s work would have constituted an important and influential driver to the development of a Christian worldview centered on martyrdom. In treating martyrdom, Prudentius clarified and enhanced the traditional narrative of the martyr so that it could be used more broadly in Christian worldview and experience; by parsing the martyr he made arguments for certain Christian ways of being. And by depicting the martyrs’ stories in ways that highlight tensions about martyrdom, that challenge the reader’s assumed knowledge, and that promote answers for the dilemmas it introduces, Prudentius’s poetry served to help the Christian community better understand what it meant to participate in the Christian narrative of suffering and triumph. In this chapter and the next I will demonstrate that the narrative of martyrdom that Prudentius cultivates is one where death is not required for martyrdom, where death as the
16
For a discussion of the anagrams, see Malamud, Poetics of Transformation, 45; for character blending (Hippolytus in particular) see Malamud, Poetics of Transformation, 80; for the entrapment of the audience in an ekphrasis see Malamud, Poetics of Transformation, 111 and Miller, Corporeal Imagination, 70-73; for word games, see Malamud, Poetics of Transformation, 43-46. 17 Malamud, Poetics of Transformation, 9; Malamud, Poetics of Transformation, 10.
28
marker of martyrdom is destabilized and often displaced. This first chapter presents a destructive argument, focusing on how Prudentius uses five of the martyrs in his Peristephanon to destabilize death as the primary criterion for martyrdom. In the following chapter, I demonstrate that this destabilization allows another, broader and more malleable, signifier to emerge: witness—that is to say, the act of communicating the truth of Christ. I explore how Prudentius envisions this witness operating, and how he reinforces this model through an investigation of the martyrdoms of a child and his mother in Peristephanon 10. The martyrs whose representations I discuss in this chapter range from a martyr for whom death seems central to martyrs who do not actually die. Quirinus, my first subject, is the martyr whose obsession with exitus seems to indicate that death is, in fact, the sine qua non of martyrdom. I will then discuss Vincent, a martyr who would traditionally have been termed a confessor, since he died after his release from torment and prison, and whose story seems to indicate that death is not only not required, but also an elusive object in itself, a moving target whose very reality comes into question. Next I will discuss Encratis, a virgin martyr of Caesaraugusta who, as Prudentius phrases it, had the honor of “surviving her death” and living to tell the tale of her martyrdom. I will also briefly discuss her two Caesaraugustan compatriots, Gaius and Crementius, who “tasted the savor of martyrdom” despite, like Encratis, failing to die. By discussing Prudentius’s poems about these martyrs, I intend to illustrate the poet’s attempt to dissociate martyrdom from death and, as I will cover in the next chapter, to expand the category in order to align it, instead, with witness.
BACKGROUND
We know little about Prudentius as a historical figure. All that we know about his biography is what we can glean from his writings. Thankfully, the poet was kind enough to leave an 29
account of his career and progression toward poetry in the verse preface to his collected poems, which he published in 405. Unfortunately, we have no evidence with which either to corroborate or to challenge Prudentius’s autobiography or his characterization of himself. He writes, he says, as an old man of 57, with “snow” on his head18 and the “hoar of age”19 upon him, looking back on his life and questioning his accomplishments. “What useful thing have I done in all this length of time?”: The first period of my life wept Under the rods, soon the toga taught me, corrupted with vices, to speak false things not without reproach. Then playful boldness and wanton sumptuousness (to my shame and disgust) Spoiled my youth with filth and the stain of wickedness. Next disputes armed Stormy souls and an evilly obstinate Zeal for winning lay me open to harsh falls. Twice with the harness of law I guided the reins of noble cities; I returned law and order to the good people, and terrified the criminals. Finally, the piety of the emperor Raised me, exalted by a step to courtly office Ordering that I, elevated, should stand nearer, in the closest rank.20 From this we know that he had a traditional education, pursued the law, held administrative positions and served the Emperor (most likely Theodosius). We know from his poems that he had traveled a fair amount, including to Rome, and that he was a well-read man: his poetry includes quotes and ideas from his classical predecessors Lucretius, Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Statius, and Juvenal (among others), and shows the influence of his nearer contemporaries Ambrose, Ausonius, Claudian, and Paulinus of Nola. Some commentators have concluded
18
Prudentius, Praefatio 27 (CCSL 126, 2): nix capitis Prudentius, Praefatio 23 (CCSL 126, 1): canities seni 20 Prudentius, Praefatio 7-21 (CCSL 126, 1): Quid nos utile tanti spatio temporis egimus? / aetas prima crepantibus / fleuit sub ferulis, mox docuit toga / infectum uitiis falsa loqui non sine crimine. / Tum lasciua proteruitas / et luxus petulans (heu pudet ac piget) / foedauit iuuenem nequitiae sordibus et luto. / Exim iurgia turbidos / armarunt animos et male pertinax / uincendi studium subiacuit casibus asperis. / Bis legum moderamine / frenos nobilium reximus urbium; / ius ciuile bonis reddidimus, terruimus reos. / Tandem militiae gradu / euectum pietas principis extulit / adsumptum propius stare iubens ordine proximo. 19
30
that Prudentius, at the end of his public career, retired to an ascetic life in the country, possibly in some sort of Christian community that served as audience for his verse.21 While this is certainly a possibility, and would place him in good company (Paulinus, for example, and Augustine for a time), it is by no means certain, and we have but few clues to what his retirement looked like. From his depiction of an ideal day in the hymns of the Cathemerinon, we might infer that he rose early, refrained from eating rich foods and red meat, spent a large part of every day in prayer, and was habitually mindful of the salvific and devotional significance of his thoughts and actions. This lifestyle, in combination with his decision to write poetry, sounds a lot like the ascetic retirement of his contemporaries. But it also sounds rather a lot like the active old age that Cicero advocates through Cato in De Senectute, which does not represent the lifestyle as an ascetic choice but rather as the true fulfillment of an aged man of good character after a life of active service to the state. What we do know for certain is that Prudentius wrote poetry, and that he conceived of this poetry as an offering to and a service toward God. In his preface, Prudentius seems to acknowledge his inability to act on his faith in any other way, as he writes: “let [the sinning soul] at least honor God in voice, if it cannot with worthy deeds.”22 Beyond the bare biographical facts, we now know that Prudentius was an important and influential Christian thinker and author, with a deliberate and wide-reaching project that operated pedagogically to engage and reshape the reader and her understanding of what it meant to be a good Christian. Current research shows that Prudentius was engaging in poetry not only as a devotional or intellectual enterprise, but as a constructive, identity-building and
21
Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 2; Anthony Dykes entertains the possibiliy, but thinks it unlikely (Reading Sin in the World: The Hamartigenia of Prudentius and the Vocation of the Responsible Reader [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011], 3). 22 Prudentius, Praefatio 36 (CCSL 2): saltem voce deum concelebret, si meritis nequit. See also Prudentius, Cathemerinon 3.26-35.
31
advocacy-laden exercise with the goal of shaping the Christian reader. 23 Prudentius’s poems were meant to have real effects in the late antique world, acting on those who encountered and engaged with them. The Peristephanon had, prior to the last quarter of the 20th century, suffered from comparative neglect by modern Prudentius scholars. The collection of 14 martyrological poems, which vary widely in length and meter (and whose themes are diverse for all that they share the subject of martyrdom), was overlooked in favor of the more inventive verses of the Cathemerinon and the epic allegory of the Psychomachia. Recently, however, scholars of various methodological stripes have renewed critical interest in the Peristephanon.24 There is still, however, much more to discover in these poems, as I hope to demonstrate, both in terms of Prudentius’s poetic and cultural project and in terms of the history of martyrdom. One note about sources before we proceed: Prudentius’s exegetical mission is readily apparent with his more clearly original poems (Psychomachia, Hamartigenia, Cathemerinon). Some may find it less so in his martyr-poems because he is retelling stories that must have already been largely known to his contemporaries. Prudentius did not manufacture his martyrological poems out of whole cloth. Nor, however, did he merely versify existing
23
Michael Roberts connects the repetitiveness of the martyrs’ passions in the Peristephanon to the poet’s project of cultivating the sense of temporal and spatial collapse necessary for sustaining the cult of the martyrs. “Readers of the Peristephanon... must interpret the martyr texts from a perspective that transcends the spatio-temporal confines of worldly narrative” (Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 76). Just as heaven and earth merge in the martyr-poems, the reader merges his own time with that of the martyrs). John Petruccione argues that Peristephanon 1 and 4 rhetorically and intertextually create a martyrdom-based typology into which fifth century Christians could place themselves: “devil-persecutor-demons, sin vs. Christ-martyr-ordinary Christians, virtue” (Petruccione, “The Persecutor’s Envy,” 333). Mark Mastrangelo’s project, centered on the Psychomachia, is to demonstrate that “Prudentius’s purpose is not merely to praise God, but also to change and convert the reader” through the use of effective typologies (Roman Self, 169). Anthony Dykes, finally, argues that Prudentius uses the Hamartigenia to create “a reader whose vocation it is to be responsible: to make choices and to take consequences” (Dykes, Reading Sin, 16). This formative reading experience is enacted through signals to the reader, through ambiguous exempla and constructive confusion. With these tactics, Dykes argues, Prudentius’s poem both explicitly asserts a reality and simultaneously helps to create that reality (19). 24 See the text-critical study of Anne-Marie Palmer, the literary-historical investigations of Martha Malamud, and the literary and socio-historical analyses of Michael Roberts (not to mention the many enlightening articles by interdisciplinary scholars of late antiquity such as John Petruccione, Robert Levine, Catherine Conybeare, Patricia Cox Miller, Jill Ross, and Virginia Burrus).
32
legend. His authorial voice shines through; the choices he makes, the changes to the stories, his word-play, humor, the specific words he chooses to use and the nuance that he adds to the martyrs’ stories through his exegetical poetry all stand out to make the Peristephanon every bit as exegetical as his other poems. Indeed, these may be deemed more argumentative, precisely because they dealt with already known and beloved topics. His authorial choices and mode of presentation can then come to the forefront, to make his own exegesis more pronounced and force an acknowledgement and a response from the reader. In many cases, we simply do not have access to the sources that Prudentius used as the bases for his martyrologies. But when we do possess likely sources, Prudentius’s changes and directional cues can be discerned sufficiently to assure us that, while these stories did not emerge fully formed from the poet’s mind, they likewise are ultimately the products of his imagination.
QUIRINUS: DESTABILIZING DEATH THROUGH THE DESIRE TO DIE
Prudentius’s account of the martyrdom and death of Quirinus, described above, is fraught with tension, and not just tension about the value of death to martyrdom. It begins, in fact, with a challenge to those who would judge a martyr’s worth by the type of death he suffers: Neither stiffness of sword, nor fires, nor beasts killed him with cruel dissolution, but with river-waters the whirlpool, while it seized him, washed him clean. It does not matter [whether] it is with a glassy sea or from a river of blood that passion wets a martyr; glory comes forth equally from any drenching wave.25
25
Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.11-20 (CCSL 126, 321): Non illum gladii rigor, / non incendia, non ferae / crudeli interitu necant, / sed lymfis fluuialibus / gurges, dum rapit, abluit. / Nil refert, uitreo aequore / an de flumine sanguinis / tinguat passio martyrem, / aeque gloria prouenit / fluctu quolibet uuida.
33
From these early stanzas onward, we know that we are reading a polemic, an argument for the validity of a certain type of martyrdom. And we learn that martyrdom, even when marked by death, was a contested status, where the controversial territory included not only the fact of the martyr’s death but the manner of it as well. The tensions in the text proliferate from there: Quirinus feels his obligation to his flock, but is also anxious about his personal ascent to the Father; he miraculously survives his execution, only to opt for death instead; in order to achieve that end, the martyr asks God for a personal favor, contravening the demonstrated divine will; and finally, Quirinus argues that he should not have to recapitulate biblical miracles, and that because those miracles are recorded in scripture, modern-day miracles are unnecessary—yet here he is, performing one. Each of these scenarios raises further questions about the role and power of the martyr and his miracles, and the texts that commemorate them both. Prudentius is not simply muddying the waters with this tension-filled depiction of martyrdom. This is not confusion for confusion’s sake, or simply the product of an opportunistic and inconsistent poet. Rather, he is using Quirinus’s story to highlight tensions present in martyr-stories so that he can help resolve them. The result is a clearer and more precise understanding of the person and role of the martyr in general and a reaffirmed sense of the importance and power of Quirinus in particular. In Peristephanon 7, Prudentius challenges the reader to think critically about what, exactly, constitutes a martyr and what should be the martyr’s role in faith, salvation and the cosmos, and to conclude, as he has, that the martyr’s will and witness ensure his efficacy as intercessor and intermediary to God.
The Importance of Death for Quirinus’s Martyrdom Foremost among the concerns that Prudentius addresses is the tension between the martyr’s death and his survival. What brings more glory to God: that a martyr should survive under 34
miraculous circumstances, or that she should perish with the name of Christ on her lips? The answer has implications far beyond the realm of martyrdom. To answer that survival is the greater blessing, the just desert of a martyrdom well-suffered, would be to privilege earthly life and existence in a finite and imperfect world. To answer, on the other hand, that death brings more glory to God is to privilege an otherworldliness that negates the very body that served as vehicle for the martyr’s success, and to disparage the created world. The question is a perennial one in Christian thought, impinging on faith, theodicy, anthropology, soteriology, and understandings of the nature of heaven. Quirinus, according to Prudentius’s presentation, certainly seems to value death, though not, perhaps, as a means to martyrdom. Prudentius writes that Quirinus feared losing his earned spoils (the palm of death and departure), and that failure to die would leave barriers remaining between himself and his ascent to the father (7.51-55). Quirinus thus seems to see death as the reward for martyrdom, rather than the signifier of it. Furthermore, Prudentius labels Quirinus a martyr while he yet lives (7.51), and Quirinus himself seems to recognize that he’s already earned the prize, though not yet received it, which again indicates that death is the reward, not the cause for reward.26 Quirinus regards dying for Christ as the highest honor, “than which there is nothing more precious,”27 but the question remains: is death important for his martyrdom? That is, should we interpret Quirinus’s desire for death as a desire for martyrdom, or as a desire for a particular type of martyrdom, or as a desire for death, completely unrelated to a martyrdom that could well have been complete without that final coup de grace? Prudentius provokes his readers to ask this very same question by inserting momentary ambiguity into Quirinus’s death-wish through word-play. When Quirinus asks
26 27
Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.51-52 (CCSL 126, 322): Sensit martyr episcopus / iam partam sibi praeripi Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.84-5 (CCSL 126, 324): quo nil est pretiosus, / pro te, Christe deus, mori!
35
God to “release the hindrances of the soul now,”28 a statement which he clarifies a few lines later to mean that he wishes to die, Quirinus uses the words absoluas and moras. The most common meaning of absoluo is “to untie,” and mora, which can mean a delay or anything that causes a delay or hindrance, calls to mind the thing that is actually impeding Quirinus at the moment, the mola or millstone which is tied to his neck.29 For a moment, Prudentius gives his readers a pause to think that Quirinus is asking for the stone to be untied from his neck. He couches Quirinus’s death-wish in terms that could easily refer to either the martyr’s body or the stone, and which seem on the surface to refer to a desire to live. The ambiguity, the presence of a potential double meaning, and the fact that, based on this line, Quirinus really could be requesting either highlights the extraordinary nature of the request that God does honor. This presents Quirinus’s dilemma starkly, highlighting both the extraordinary nature of the request to die and also the fact that God has initially chosen that Quirinus not die. It makes the fact that Quirinus chooses death all the more striking. Also striking is the fact that God does not just allow Quirinus to die: he actually kills him. Or, rather, he complies with the martyr’s request through miraculous, supernatural means. Instead of allowing the persecutors’ punishments to be effective, God causes Quirinus to die before he sinks into the river, depriving him of “breath and voice and heat”30 and only then allowing his corpse to vanish into the water. The singularity of this death highlights its separation from the martyrdom, and conveys the notion that this death is some sort of reward for a martyrdom well done. Ultimately, Quirinus’s successful request for death says more about the martyr’s will and its efficacy than about the necessity of death. All martyrs must be argued for. Death alone was not enough to ensure martyrdom, as we saw above: it had to be a certain kind of death, according to some of Prudentius’s
28
Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.80 (CCSL 126, 323): absolvas, precor, optime, / huius nunc animae moras. Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.25 (CCSL 126, 321): ingentis lapidem molae 30 Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.85-86 (CCSL 126, 324) simul halitus / et vox deserit et calor 29
36
contemporaries. Arguing against those who would deny Quirinus martyr status because his death was watery and bloodless, Prudentius opens the poem with two whole stanzas asserting the equality of deaths among martyrs. In fact, his phrasing is ambiguous enough that it may be equality of trials or equality of effect, not equality of deaths, among martyrs. Prudentius writes that the whirlpool washed the martyr clean as it seized him: with no explicit mention of death or drowning, Quirinus could have been washed clean by the raging waters without being killed afterwards. Prudentius asserts distance, time and again, between Quirinus’s martyrdom and his death, choosing, essentially, not to use death as his argument for Quirinus’s martyr-status. Instead, he uses several other facets of Quirinus’s final minutes to make that argument: the miracles surrounding him and the authority he displays.
Arguing for Martyrdom: Miracles and Authority Prudentius illustrates Quirinus’s martyrdom in two ways. First, he marks the martyr’s death with miracles: the miraculous buoyancy of bishop and boulder which offers Quirinus the opportunity to request death actively, rather than to submit to it in a more passive manner; and the evidence of God acting outside of nature by striking the martyr dead at his own request. Second, Prudentius demonstrates Quirinus’s authority with God, both by the fact of his speaking and by its result, the honoring of the martyr’s will by God. This last proof of martyrdom merits further investigation. Quirinus’s prayer for death makes manifest the authority of the martyr. Not only can he speak so critically to God, he gets results. Quirinus’s manner of indicating his impatience, which, more than anything, reminds a reader of how an employee might attempt to influence his boss or supervisor, is unusual. He challenges the necessity of the miracle accompanying his martyrdom by opening his speech with a dismissive phrase: haudquaquam tibi gloria (“In no way is this glory for you...”), three words that have yet to be mitigated by the following 37
line (“...Either unusual or new”) and on their own stand solely as a criticism of the value of the ongoing miracle. Even when the sentence stands as a whole, it endures as a criticism of God’s repetition. The martyr thus vividly demonstrates his ability to speak freely with God, his parrhesia. This quality of free speech had a dual meaning in late antiquity; it meant both the ability of a free citizen to “raise one’s voice freely” (often in criticism of those in power)31 and also the ability to communicate with and demonstrate persuasion with God. These became mutually dependent in late antiquity, particularly in the case of the martyrs, as Claudia Rapp notes: “The boldness of speech displayed by the martyrs during their last days on earth thus resulted in their enduring parrhesia in heaven.”32 Quirinus’s parrhesia, however, blurs the lines between the two meanings, between the earthly and the heavenly parrhesia. He is speaking truth to power, but that power is no secular authority—it is God himself. Quirinus’s speech is, ultimately, respectful, but it is nonetheless a criticism. He is reminding God of what he already knows, and politely requesting a different course of action. Moreover, God listens. Not only do we, then, have evidence of free communication with God, we also see that Quirinus is persuasive. His speech has a visible, calculable result in the natural world of those witnessing his martyrdom. Even before he has actually made it to heaven, the martyr demonstrates his influence with God. In short, we can see Quirinus demonstrating that he can, in fact, act as an intercessor. If God will honor Quirinus’s prayers on his own behalf, surely God will honor his prayers on behalf of others. Prudentius in this way suggests that by venerating Quirinus and gaining his advocacy, the Christian can have sway with God. Quirinus’s speech shows him to be on conversational footing with divinity, and capable of intercession with both God and nature.
31
Claudia Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995), 267. 32 Rapp, Holy Bishops, 268.
38
We know that Quirinus’s speech to God and the authority it illustrates is the centerpiece of Prudentius’s case for martyrdom because, unlike his words of consolation to his parishioners, Quirinus’s address to Christ appears in direct speech, rather than indirect or reported speech. The difference in dramatic effect of noting that a speech has been or is being made and of quoting that speech directly parallels the difference between saying and doing. Direct speech in literature has the vivifying effect of forcing the reader to re-enact the speech-performance of the character speaking.33 This difference in speech quality—the fact that this speech, as opposed to the first, forces the reader to mirror Quirinus’s boldness of speech—further highlights the importance that Prudentius places on the prayer. Furthermore, Quirinus’s speech to God is, as far as our sources can tell us, original to Prudentius. None of the other sources mention it, though they do note his miraculous floating speech to his parishioners.34 Prudentius, then, has invented this scene and speech as a way to solidify Quirinus’s authority on multiple fronts, showing him to have both parrhesia and intercessory power. We also gain a sense of Quirinus’s martyrial authority from his will to die, and its efficacy. This is, to begin with, one of few insights into Quirinus’s character that Prudentius offers to help his readers see why the bishop deserves martyrdom. We learn little else about Quirinus from the poem. Prudentius identifies Quirinus as insignem meriti virum35 and then throws him off a bridge, with no further detour to describe the man, his history, the circumstances of his capture or sentencing, or his prior suffering. There isn’t even the usual agonistic banter between persecutor and martyr that features so prominently in Prudentius’s
33
Heinrich Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study, trans. Matthew Bliss, Annemiek Jansen, and David E. Orton (Leiden: Brill, 1998). §814; §817. 34 Anne-Marie Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 236-7. 35 On this, see Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs, 178: Quirinus is described as insignem meriti virum, in comparison to Aeneas described as insignem pietate virum in Aeneid 1.10—the sole Vergilian borrowing in this poem.
39
other poems.36 The audience picks up the story in medias res. Without some sense of Quirinus’s willingness to profess Christ in the face of persecution we would have no reason, other than his status as bishop, his concern for his flock, and his miraculous floating, to assure us that he deserved the distinction “martyr.” Looking at Quirinus’s will to die, we can read backwards to assert his willingness to be killed. We can state confidently that Quirinus was willing to pay any price to be true to his faith, and that he did so bravely, and calmly, with an eye both to the guidance of his flock and to his own salvation. But the more passive willingness to die, the openness to God’s will which lands Quirinus in the water in the first place, is secondary in terms of evidence of authority to the power of Quirinus’s will. As I noted before, Quirinus’s request for death says more about his will and its efficacy than about the necessity of death to martyrdom. God assents to Quirinus’s will to die, which reinforces the martyr’s authority. Quirinus asks to die when death could be optional, when God has clearly shown his preference for the martyr’s survival. By depicting Quirinus’s wishes as being honored by God, Prudentius offers proof of the martyr’s power to guide God’s will with his own. And the fact that God assents further reinforces the martyr’s authority: by virtue of God’s assent, the request must have been a good one.37 Quirinus’s request for death serves more important roles in the narrative than simply triggering Quirinus’s end. It demonstrates to the reader and viewer Quirinus’s willingness to die, to sacrifice everything for his faith, which provides crucial insight into his character. It highlights and capitalizes on the miraculous floating which makes the speech to God and the
36
See discussion by Michael Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 51-55. There is something of the Euthyphro dilemma here: is Quirinus’s request for death a good one because it is inherently good, or because God assents to it? Either way, the death-wish comes across as correct, since it does in fact occur and by God’s will. But if our goal is to assess the role of death in this poem, then it actually makes quite a difference whether Quirinus’s request was “the right one” or whether God just assents to it because of the virtue of the martyr. I am inclined, based on all the other evidence in the poem, to say the latter, and that Prudentius intends this episode to highlight Quirinus’s intercessory powers. 37
40
embedded request possible. It occurs via direct speech, which helps bind the reader to the martyr, and serves to introduce questions crucial to an understanding of martyrdom, including the role that post-biblical texts and post-biblical miracles should play in the Christian faith. Most importantly, the request for death highlights the role of the martyr’s will, and this seems to be the point that Prudentius is advocating. This notion is corroborated by the way that Quirinus finally dies. It is completely unnatural: Quirinus does not drown. He dies, after asking God that he might, and then sinks. God has willed Quirinus’s death, in response to the martyr’s act of will. By illustrating the power of Quirinus’s will, Prudentius is able to illustrate the operative power of God’s will, which lends authority both to Quirinus and to martyrs more generally. So, Prudentius is arguing for Quirinus’s status as martyr by pointing to the miracles surrounding his death, his intercessory power, and his will. But is the actual death also one of the factors that cements his status as martyr for Prudentius? Prudentius certainly proves it with things other than death; on the other hand, these proofs are balanced by Quirinus’s own focus on death. But, as I hope I have shown, this very emphasis on death serves to prove the power of Quirinus’s will. It is worth noting, too, that the intercessory power Quirinus demonstrates is exercised before his death. Even before his death, he is able to persuade God, to speak to God on level ground. And, as we have seen, even Quirinus himself felt like he had already earned the spoils he was asking for. Thus, by emphasizing Quirinus’s desire for death, Prudentius actually highlights the non-necessity of actual death by foregrounding the willingness to suffer it and the power of will in the martyr’s possession. Even in this poem, which seems to emphasize the role of death in martyrdom, we find that notion tested and challenged.
VINCENT: DESTABILIZING DEATH THROUGH AMBIGUITY AND OVERKILL 41
Quirinus is not the only martyr whose demise Prudentius uses to undermine the idea that death is necessary for martyrdom. Vincent appears in Peristephanon 5 as a martyr whose death and martyrdom are separable, whose status as martyr is assured before his actual death, and whose eventual death is qualified by Prudentius’s commentary. Vincent was “perhaps the most popular of Spanish martyrs,”38 but, technically, he stands in the ranks of the confessors, dying not under torture but while recuperating from it, in the embrace of his community, and after requesting his own death. Nonetheless, Prudentius writes in Peristephanon 5 that Vincent was given the crown in recompense for his blood, and describes him from the first line and repeatedly afterwards as “martyr.” By presenting Vincent’s passion as he does, challenging the very definition of death, Prudentius forces the reader to question the role of death in martyrdom more generally. Unlike Quirinus, Vincent could never be accused of not shedding enough blood to qualify as a martyr. His is one of the goriest tales in the Peristephanon. Vincent is racked, torn by claws, burnt on hot plates, and laid on a bed of jagged potsherds, all of which the poet describes in graphic detail. These tortures commence because Vincent refuses to sacrifice to the Roman gods; unlike Quirinus, Vincent has something of a backstory. Prudentius offers details about the man and his confrontation with the authorities that help flesh out his status as martyr. Vincent, deacon of the church in Spanish Caesaraugusta, not only resists the governor Datian’s calls to sacrifice, but cries out against the decree and insults the gods, challenging Datian to torture and kill him: Tear away our faith, if you can! Tortures, prison, claws and the plate whistling with flames, and even the ultimate punishment,
38
Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs, 267.
42
death, are but games to Christians.39 Vincent’s words provide a template for what happens next, as he endures the rack and claws, the fiery plates, the darkness of prison, and eventually death, laughing all the while and responding to Datian’s insults and sly bargains with professions of faith and insults of his own. For example, at one point the governor offers Vincent a deal: his life for his sacred books: “At least reveal the hidden leaves / and secret books / so that the teaching that sows depravity / might be burnt with a deserved fire.”40 To this, Vincent replies that the only thing that will burn is Datian himself, in the depths of hell.41 While Vincent is imprisoned in the darkest of prisons, awaiting more torture and his ultimate execution, a theophany occurs. The pitch-black cell is flooded with brilliant light and Vincent feels Christ’s presence within the cell. The jagged potsherds with which Datian has laced the martyr’s prison-bed morph into soft flowers, and a host of angels congregate around him, standing and speaking with him. One “of more august visage”42 than the others addresses Vincent as a martyr: “Arise, O martyr renowned!”43 Vincent obliges, getting out of bed and walking around in the company of his angelic visitors. The governor, hearing about all of this from the watchful prison guard, angrily concedes defeat and orders that Vincent be taken out of prison and “restored with kindly warmth / so that he, refreshed, might offer new fodder for punishment.”44 The Christian community responds in droves, taking care of Vincent and adoring his wounds. It is at this point that Vincent, having been delivered from immediate harm, dies.
39
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.60-64 (CCSL 126, 296): extorque si potes fidem! / Tormenta carcer ungulae / stridensque flammis lammina / atque ipsa poenarum ultima / mors christianis ludus est. 40 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.181-184 (CCSL 126, 300): saltem latentes paginas / librosque opertos detege, / quo secta prauum seminans / iustis cremetur ignibus. 41 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.185-200. 42 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.283 (CCSL 126, 304): unus ore augustior (translation follows Thomson). 43 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.285 (CCSL 126, 304): exsurge, martyr inclyte 44 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.330-333 (CCSL 126, 305): benignis fotibus / recreetur, ut pastum novum / poenis refectus praebeat.
43
But his martyrdom is not yet over. The poem goes on for another 200 lines, describing in detail how Datian sought to destroy Vincent’s body and failed, again and again, due to miraculous intervention from the natural world—first by a raven standing sentinel over the martyr’s exposed corpse, then by the sea, which refuses to accept Vincent’s millstoneweighted body and on which the body floats swiftly back to shore. This posthumous suffering, Prudentius writes, merits Vincent a second crown: “You alone, O twice renowned, / alone have carried off the palm of a double prize; / you have obtained two laurels at once.”45
The (Ir)Relevance of Death The poem is ambiguous about death, both as a requirement for martyrdom and as a category in itself. There is, on the one hand, evidence for a more conventional understanding of the importance of death to martyrdom. On the other hand, many of these very same instances are qualified by Prudentius’s choices in representation, including his outright questioning of what, really, death means to the martyr. Furthermore, there are other moments where the rejection of death as a criterion for martyrdom is clear. This very ambiguity is productive, as it forces Prudentius’s readers to sift through their presumptions and make a choice about the nature of martyrdom.46 But which choice does Prudentius weight most heavily? To what conclusions does he want his readers to come? The conventional assumption that death is a prerequisite for martyr status appears several times in the poem. First, Prudentius begins the poem by linking the day of Vincent’s victory first to his blood and then to his ascent to heaven through death: Blessed martyr, make prosperous The day of your triumph,
45
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.537-540 (CCSL 126, 312): Tu solus, o bis inclyte, / solus bravii duplicis / palmam tulisti, tu duas / simul parasti laureas. 46 As with Dykes’s interpretation of the Hamartigenia, Prudentius is inculcating a pattern of behavior into his readers.
44
On which in recompense for blood The crown was given, Vincent, to you. This day, with torturer and judge conquered, Carried you out of the shades of the age Up to the sky, And restored you, rejoicing, to Christ.47 While the crown of martyrdom given to him “in recompense for blood” could be construed as separate from the triumph of his death and ascent, the emphasis on the day, which is mentioned twice and further emphasized by the hic in line 5, connects them in a way that suggests that they are not separate events, but rather that death and the crown of martyrdom are connected. Still, it is noteworthy that Prudentius does not mention death specifically, because, as we shall see, later in the poem he problematizes the very definition of death by questioning whether Vincent really experiences it, given that he has already sacrificed himself for God. The failure to be explicit under these circumstances is telling in and of itself. In addition, the angel who addresses Vincent as “martyr renowned” also links death and the martyr’s passion, telling Vincent that, “with the beautiful departure of death / the whole passion has been completed.”48 Here we see a criterion asserted that has ostensibly not yet occurred: Vincent only wants death to complete his passion. But the death that is needed to complete the passio is described in the past tense—the only time a past-tense verb is used in the entirety of the angel’s speech. Here, text and subtext stand at odds with one another, in Malamud’s terms, as the reader is led to understand that this death, which has yet to happen, has indeed already happened, at least in the eyes of the angels.49 We see, then, Prudentius calling into question what in fact constitutes death and even temporality itself. Furthermore,
47
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.1-8 (CCSL 126, 294): Beate martyr, prospera / diem triumfalem tuum / quo sanguinis merces tibi / corona, Vincenti, datur. / Hic te ex tenebris saeculi / tortore uicto et iudice / euexit ad caelum dies / Christoque ovantem reddidit. 48 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.291-292 (CCSL 126, 304): pulchroque mortis exitu / omnis peracta est passio. 49 Malamud, Poetics of Transformation, 10. “[Prudentius’] poetry is in a constant state of tension, a tension that expresses itself in extreme violence and that is reflected in the frequent conflict between the text and the subtext. The surface meaning of Prudentius’s verse is often undercut by another level of meaning communicated to us not by the narrative but by puns, plays on words, allusions to other texts, and imagery.”
45
the need of both the readers and the martyr himself to be informed that the struggle is not yet over and that Vincent has not yet reached perfection suggests that Vincent has already achieved a superhuman level of divine contact and has become a man worthy of veneration, worthy of the company of angels, if not yet their sodalis. Furthermore, Prudentius describes Vincent as “sick from the tedium of delays / and burning with a thirst for death.”50 As with Quirinus, his desire is immediately granted, lending authority both to the man and to the death that he seeks. It is at this moment, however, that Prudentius chooses to include his most explicit qualification of death: If something of this sort is to be considered death Which releases the free mind From the bodily prison And returns to God, its maker, A mind cleansed with blood Overwashed with the waters of death Which has offered itself and its life As a sacrifice to Christ.51 In this formulation, Prudentius questions the very nature of death, characterizing it as a positive thing for someone whose mind is already devoted to God. Death exists, Prudentius maintains, but this is not an example of it. Because the martyr suffered and offered up himself to Christ, the only thing left for him is to abandon the shackles of the body and join his creator. Just as Vincent was locked up in a dungeon and tortured and then released to his beloved community, so was his mind imprisoned in a body, “cleansed with blood,” and is now being released to join its true heavenly community. How, Prudentius asks, could this “be considered death”? By inserting such ambiguity into the nature of death for the faithful at the precise moment when he notes the martyr’s death-wish, Prudentius is calling into question the very
50
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.355-356 (CCSL 126, 306): aeger morarum taedio / et mortis incensus siti Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.357-364 (CCSL 126, 306): si mors habenda eiusmodi est / quae corporali ergastulo / mentem resoluit liberam / et reddit auctori deo / mentem piatam sanguine / mortis lauacris erutam / quae semet ac uitam suam / Christo immolandam praebuit. 51
46
wish the martyr is making. This has the overall effect, as it did in Quirinus’s case, of lending more authority to the man and his request than to the object of the request—whatever the value of the request, God honors it nonetheless because it is what the martyr asked for. Prudentius makes this ambiguity all the more authoritative to the reader by framing Vincent’s request for death as a desire to which the poet is privy, not as something that the martyr necessarily articulates. By describing Vincent as “sick from the tedium of delays / and burning with a thirst for death,”52 Prudentius situates himself as the omniscient authority, who knows the inner workings of the martyr’s mind and must therefore be similarly privy to metaphysical or divine matters, such as the question of the nature of death. Prudentius continues to challenge the nature of death and to assert his metaphysical omniscience in his description of Vincent’s post-mortem journey to heaven. Once Vincent dies, Prudentius describes in detail his ascent, including a personal greeting from John the Baptist, who “calls one who has been similarly released from prison.”53 John, as Prudentius’s readers would well have known, was “released” from prison by his execution.54 This bit of gallows humor serves both to assert the importance of death to martyrdom and to undercut it. Because the only escape that John had from prison was death, this little comment seems to indicate that John is privileging their shared experience of death while also highlighting their shared imprisonment. We could read this also as Prudentius’s attempt to ameliorate any anxieties the pious might feel about venerating a martyr whom the authorities had released: if John sees the martyr’s imprisonment in both dungeon and body as commensurate with his own, certainly we should have no qualms about accepting him as a martyr. By making Vincent’s release from the dungeon analogous to John’s “escape” by execution, Prudentius might be underscoring the importance of death and shoehorning the confessor into the mold
52
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.355-356 (CCSL 126, 306): aeger morarum taedio / et mortis incensus siti Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.375-6 (CCSL 126, 307): parique missum carcere / baptista Iohannis uocat 54 Mark 6:21-29; Matthew 14:6-11 53
47
of the martyr. On the other hand, this same equivalence, doubled as it is by Vincent’s release from his cell and from his body, affirms Vincent’s experience in prison as sufficient for martyrdom without explicitly marking death as part of that experience. What we have seen so far is that, wherever death appears privileged as a requirement for martyrdom, Prudentius’s poetic, literary, and narrative choices undercut that assumption. There is one passage, however, in which Prudentius unambiguously links death and martyrdom. In his explanation of Vincent’s two-fold crown, Prudentius states that Vincent was ultimately martyred twice: Victor in a savage death, then next after death similarly a victor with body alone triumphant you crush the bandit.55 This is the most unambiguous statement in the poem that Vincent was awarded the crown for his death. Nonetheless, it occurs alongside a post-mortem set of miracles that indicates the opposite. If he suffers a second martyrdom by having his body abused after death, where is death in that second martyrdom? As the much-maligned body-prison triumphs against the persecutors by itself, demonstrating to all and sundry the miraculous powers of the Christian God, the reader is left with the distinct impression that perhaps what lies at the heart of martyrdom is something else entirely. In contrast to these ambiguous presentations of death as the sine qua non of martyrdom, Prudentius offers evidence that Vincent has achieved martyr status prior to his death. For instance, after Vincent has been locked in his dark cell and strapped to a bed of potsherds, he has a visitation from Christ: For the blindness of the prison flashed with the splendor of light and the two-fold bite of the stocks
55
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5. 541-544 (CCSL 126, 312): In morte uictor aspera, / tum deinde post mortem pari / uictor triumfo proteris /solo latronem corpore
48
bursts open with apertures broken. Vincent recognized here To be present that which he had hoped for, The prize of such great labor, Christ, the giver of light.56 There are a number of features of this epiphany that serve to highlight Vincent’s elevated status and authority, not least the fact that Vincent recognizes the presence of Christ. But the element that most argues for his martyr-status is that Prudentius characterizes Christ and his presence as the prize of Vincent’s toil, now realized. In addition, the light-filled prison then becomes flower-covered and scented with nectar (5.277-280), indicating that, once again, the lines between life and death are blurred, with heaven coming to earth just as Christ had done. This heavenly prison hosts Vincent’s conference with angels, which is, again, well before his death. It is here that the angel addresses him as “martyr renowned:” Arise, martyr renowned! Arise, free from care of yourself! Arise, and join this nourishing company as our companion. The duties already performed by you are enough of a threatening punishment, and by the beautiful end of death the entire passion has been completed. Oh, most invincible soldier, the strongest of the strong! Already the selfsame savage and difficult torments tremor at you, their conqueror. Christ God the watcher repays these things with an unending life and crowns the companion of his own cross with his generous right hand. Set aside this perishable vessel, a fabric woven of earth, which, destroyed, falls apart and come, free, into heaven!57
56
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.269-276 (CCSL 126, 303): Nam carceralis caecitas / splendore lucis fulgurat / duplexque morsus stipitis / ruptis cauernis dissilit. / Agnoscit hic vincentius / adesse quod sperauerat / tanti laboris praemium, / christum datorem luminis. 57 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.285-304 (CCSL 304): “Exsurge, martyr inclyte, / exsurge securus tui, / exsurge et almis coetibus / noster sodalis addere! / Decursa iam satis tibi / poenae minacis munia / pulchroque mortis exitu / omnis peracta est passio. / O miles inuictissime, / fortissimorum fortior, / iam te
49
By the angel’s reckoning, Vincent is already a martyr, already renowned, and worthy of an invitation to join the angelic company that has surrounded him in prison. He has already done his duties, suffered his quota of torments, and done all he can to ensure his martyrdom. Prudentius highlights this by shifting the subject from munia or “duties” performed by a lineending and emphatic tibi in lines 289-90 to a passio which peracta est in lines 291-292. He has conquered all foes, to be termed “strongest of the strong,” and the torments that once attacked him now tremble, conquered. His rewards from Christ are being described in the present tense, while the destruction of his body, his earth-woven vessel, is described as already complete. There is no distance between Vincent and martyrdom, but if we are to take the statements of the angel literally, there may still be a gap to be bridged between Vincent the martyr and Vincent the companion of the angels: “Arise, martyr renowned!” the angel invites. “Arise, and join this nourishing company / as our companion!” For Prudentius, as for most Christian martyrologists, martyrs hold a special place in the heavenly hierarchy as companions and colleagues of the angels.58 But the martyr’s imprisonment in a human body hinders this human-angelic fellowship. Just as Prudentius writes in the Hamartigenia that Revelation’s John could only join the angels while he was separated from his body in sleep, so too can Vincent not join the angels until he has disposed of his corporeal prison.59 But does this mean that Vincent is not yet a martyr, that he does not yet possess the powers of the martyr? Not at all. There are many ways that Prudentius asserts Vincent’s status as a martyr before his death, and several of them appear in this very same passage. For instance, while
ipsa saeva et aspera / tormenta uictorem tremunt. / Spectator haec Christus deus / conpensat aeuo intermino / propriaeque collegam crucis / larga coronat dextera. / Pone hoc caducum uasculum / conpage textum terrea, / quod dissipatum soluitur, / et liber in caelum ueni!” 58 Moss, Other Christs, 114. 59 Prudentius, Hamartigenia 910-911.
50
the angels press Vincent to become their companion, they are already sharing his cell, and when they tell Vincent to arise, he does not arise from his body but arises in his body, miraculously loosening the metal chains rather than his fleshly ligatures and walking about, very much alive. Despite the distinction that the angels make, Vincent seems already to be in the ranks of the heavenly host. Again we see a tension between text and subtext in Prudentius’s work, as the angel asserts a reward to come that has in fact already been achieved. Whether or not the angels have truly deemed Vincent’s struggles at an end, his enemy has already conceded the match, and Prudentius has already declared him the victor. When he hears of Vincent’s miraculous stroll with the angels in his cell, Datian, “defeated, weeps.”60 He laments his own defeat: “groaning, he mulls over his anger, grief, shame”61 and ultimately orders that Vincent be released to heal, so that he can live to suffer another day. Prudentius offers his readers this window into Datian’s mind in order to drive home the point that the persecutor has already been conquered by the martyr—and not just in his own sentiment but in the poet’s omniscient observation. The martyr has not died, yet already he has triumphed over his enemies. Following Datian’s orders, the jailers release Vincent to the community’s Christians, who congregate to comfort, honor, and venerate him: You might see that a faithful crowd gathers from the whole town to soften his shining couch (or to mitigate his shining wound) to dry the raw wounds. That one traverses the double furrows of the claws, this one rejoices to lap up the purple62 gore of his body. And many moisten their linen garments
60
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.326 (CCSL 126, 305): flet, uictus Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.326-7 (CCSL 126, 305): uoluit gemens / iram, dolorem, dedecus. 62 Purple both in glorification and in bruising. 61
51
with the dripping blood, that they might save for their progeny a sacred talisman at home.63 Vincent already receives the veneration that believers owe to martyrs, both in his body and in his blood. The community eagerly congregates to take care of him, and individual Christians venerate his body in frankly erotic terms. What is more, believers collect his blood in the expectation that future generations will use it as relics. While the Christians might be counting on Vincent’s imminent death to activate his martyrial powers, the level of premortem fervor is striking and strongly suggests that death was not the crucial event. Furthermore, when Vincent does die, Prudentius qualifies his death, as we have seen (“If something of this sort is to be considered death...”64). The overall effect of Prudentius’s conditional statement about death is to signify its irrelevance to the martyr. He has already made the sacrifice, so what more can death mean to him? Prudentius reinforces his interrogation of death with the narrative structure of the poem. It is not enough to question death explicitly; Prudentius must model this uncertainty about death by including multiple “deaths,” multiple illusory endings, within his poem. The poem is filled with these false endings. Datian declares a moratorium on Vincent’s torments (which he himself fails to enforce after Vincent’s insults anger him), telling the executioners to stay their hands and wait for the wounds to heal before re-plowing them once the blood has congealed65; he prescribes a “final” punishment which proves to be anything but final
63
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.333-344 (CCSL 126, 305-306): Coire toto ex oppido / turbam fidelem cerneres / mollire praefultum torum / siccare cruda uulnera. / Ille ungularum duplices / sulcos pererrat osculis, / his purpurantem corporis / gaudet cruorem lambere. / Plerique uestem linteam / stillante tingunt sanguine, / tutamen ut sacrum suis / domi reseruunt posteris. This language is graphic and full of double entendres; it is, as David Frankfurter would categorize it, “sado-erotic,” and consequently implicated in Christian identity construction around martyrdom. See Frankfurter, “Martyrdom and the Prurient Gaze.” 64 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.357-364 (CCSL 126, 306): si mors habenda eiusmodi est 65 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.136-144 (CCSL 126, 299): sed uos, alumni carceris, /par semper inuictum mihi, / cohibite paulum dexteras, / respiret ut lassus uigor. / Praesicca rursus ulcera, / dum se cicatrix colligit / refrigerati sanguinis, / manus resulcans diruet.
52
(“let the trial be conducted, last of all, with fire, the bed, and the plates”66); when Vincent ascends his pyre, Prudentius intimates an ending by saying that the holy man seemed already conscious of the crown and the final, highest seat of judgment67 and by using the same vocabulary (scando and conscendo) that he regularly uses to describe the heavenly ascent of the soul after death68; when Vincent seems to be insensible to the burning and to be deriving active enjoyment from casting his eyes to the heavens, Datian rescinds his orders about Vincent’s “final punishment” and has him cast down into the prison, a dreadful place of aeterna nox which contains its own Shades69; the angels who visit Vincent here in prison declare the martyr’s suffering to be at an end and seem to offer an optimal moment for Vincent to actually die, which does not happen: as we have seen, Vincent arises not from his body but in his body to wander around his paradisaical cell (5.289-292); when imprisonment fails to have the desired effect, Datian again declares a delay while the martyr heals up for a new round of tortures, a command which projects a new ending point which never materializes, interrupted as it is by Vincent’s “actual” death.70 After each of these “endings,” the poem keeps going, and the tortures continue. Even Vincent’s death does not end the poem. First Prudentius follows Vincent on his heavenly path to the Father,71 and then Datian tries to end the contest with first a desecration of Vincent’s body, which fails, and then a concealment of the body via watery entombment, which also fails when the body floats back to shore despite being weighted with a millstone. The presence of all these false endings
66
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.205-208 (CCSL 126, 301): Tum deinde cunctatus diu / decernit: Extrema omnium / igni grabato et laminis / exerceatur quaestio. 67 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.221-224 (CCSL 126, 302): Hunc sponte conscendit rogum / uir sanctus ore interrito, / ceu iam coronae conscius / celsum tribunal scanderet. 68 Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 73. 69 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.245-248 (CCSL 126, 302-303): Aeterna nox illic latet / expers diurni sideris, / hic carcer horrendus suos / habere fertur inferos. 70 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.329-332 (CCSL 126, 305): “Exemptus” inquit “carceri / paulum benignis fortibus recreetur, ut pastum nouum / poenis refectus praebeat.” 71 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.369-376 (CCSL 126, 306-307): Cui recta celso tramite / reseratur ad patrem uia, / quam frater caesus inpio / Abel beatus scanderat. / Stipant euntem candidi / hinc inde sanctorum chori / parique missum carcere / baptista Iohannis uocat.
53
structurally reinforces the rhetorical point that Prudentius is making about the blurred boundaries between life and death and the consequent need to find another pillar for martyrdom to stand on. Prudentius destabilizes death as the prime signifier of martyrdom both by making death’s role in the narrative ambiguous and by destabilizing what it means to die. Prudentius presents alternate options, but heavily weights, reiterates, and advocates the idea that death is not what it seems to be, either for the martyr or for the martyrdom.72
Arguing for Martyrdom: Miracles and Authority As in the case of Quirinus, Prudentius uses proofs other than death to secure Vincent’s status as a martyr. Foremost among these proofs is the presence of miracles, performed first by Vincent, in the form of endurance, and subsequently by his corpse. Prudentius further cements Vincent’s authority with what amounts to a laundry-list of proofs—first in his parrhesia, then by his contact with Christ and the angels, the definitive assessment of the angels, his ability to convert others, the response of the community, his request for death being honored by God, an omniscient-eye view of Vincent’s journey to heaven, and finally the expression of his post-mortem power (which verifies both the power of his relics and the saint’s powers of intercession). Vincent’s endurance is indeed miraculous. He laughs at his torments, and his countenance is never less than serene. He maintains his wits amid this harsh torture, enough to make speeches against his persecutors. Finally, when Datian orders that Vincent be burnt on hot plates, the martyr is so excited by the prospect that he literally runs to the coals: “Toward these munera that one / burst forth with a swift step, / and in nimble joy arrived
72
Michael Roberts has noticed this qualification of death, and treats several aspects of it in Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs (68-77).
54
before / those very ministers of torture.”73 This is a man whose joints are loosened with racking and whose internal organs lie exposed from the raking of claws. That he was able to make it there in once piece is remarkable enough: to race there under his own power is nothing short of miraculous. Augustine agrees: “If, in that passion, human suffering is considered, it begins to seem unbelievable; if divine power is recognized, it ceases to be wonderful.”74 The post-mortem miracles are even more spectacular, defying any natural explanation, as Prudentius emphasizes. First, both beasts and birds, although they are desperate with hunger, avoid the martyr’s exposed corpse and do not dare to despoil the body, “a memorial of glory.”75 The corpse was protected from all disturbance by a raven, which drove off even a vicious wolf (5.401-436). Prudentius dwells on this miracle, noting both its biblical precedent (how a raven carried Elijah’s food) and how much this “unwarlike guardian”76 contravenes expectation, and especially the expectations of the unbelievers. He focuses on the miracles’ impact on the unfaithful, first the perfidi in general and then Datian in particular. Much like Quirinus’s unsinkability, these miracles are tangible tests of the unbelief of bystanders. And, again as with Quirinus’s floating, Prudentius’s description of Vincent’s own water-miracle explicitly recalls two scriptural instances of God’s control of water. He references Christ’s walking on water and the parting of the Red Sea at Moses’s command.77 The floating millstone also recollects (or foreshadows) Quirinus’s miracle. Vincent’s martyrdom is chock-full of authority-ensuring miracles, and miracles which call to mind other miraculous, power-signifying events.
73
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.209-212 (CCSL 126, 301): Haec ille sese ad munera / gradu citato proripit / ipsosque pernix gaudio / poenae ministros praevenit. 74 Augustine, Sermo 276 (PL 38:1256): si consideretur in ista passione humana patientia, incipit esse incredibilis; si agnoscatur diuina potentia, desinit esse mirabilis. 75 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.397-400 (CCSL 126, 307): Sed nulla dirarum famis / aut bestiarum aut alitum /audet tropaeum gloriae / foedare tactu squalido. 76 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.420 (CCSL 126, 308): custodis inbellis 77 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.476; 5.481-488.
55
This intertextuality between biblical stories and martyr-stories and the mental conjuring of other miracles and other martyrs it inspires is something that Prudentius makes explicit, in order to portray Vincent to greatest advantage as a martyr. Prudentius declares that Vincent is now in the company of other martyrs, and names the Maccabean martyrs and Isaiah, but then throws them into competition with one another, saying that these older martyrs had gotten off easy: “There was a simple crown / of punishments for these, for whom / the supreme end of death / marked the end of evils.78 Prudentius labels Vincent as the clear victor, because his torments did not end with his death, but continued on after it. Not only does Prudentius assert Vincent’s status as martyr, he proclaims Vincent as a fuller, more accomplished martyr because of his posthumous glories. Beyond highlighting Vincent’s miracles, Prudentius makes Vincent’s authority clear with a laundry list of proofs, as I noted above. Vincent’s parrhesia (directed not, as in Quirinus’s case, toward God, but toward the persecutor Datian) demonstrates his authority, while the vehemence of that speech and his assumption of the authority to threaten Datian with hellfire mark the martyr’s force and assumption of power. When Vincent is imprisoned, Prudentius establishes his authority by showing that he has celestial support and a heavenly home already here on earth. This is yet another level of importance for the visitations of Christ, the angels, and heaven itself while Vincent is locked in his cell. The angels, too, pronounce Vincent a martyr and cement his authority, as well as his martyr-status. We see Vincent’s authority again in the reactions of the Christian community as depicted in the poem. By their treatment of him, which both demonstrates their sense of the martyr’s authority and models the appropriate level of veneration with which the reader is supposed to regard the martyr, Prudentius demonstrates Vincent’s authority. Furthermore, as he does in the case of
78
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.525-528 (CCSL 126, 312): Simplex sed illis contigit / corona poenarum, quibus / finem malorum praestitit / mortis supremus exitus.
56
Quirinus, God honors Vincent’s death-wish. At this point in the martyrdom, Vincent could live or die. He has already endured more than any one person should be able to endure. He has lived through several false endings. Moreover, Datian intends to keep him alive. Yet he chooses death, and God grants his wish. God’s assent confirms the martyr’s power, as it did for Quirinus, inspiring the same sort of sentiment that Perpetua’s editor expresses in response to her having to help guide the executioner’s sword to her neck: “Perhaps such a great woman, who was feared by the foul spirit, was unable to be killed otherwise, except if she herself wished it.”79 Here we see, yet again, Vincent’s authority in play, and have evidence of his intercessory power. At this point in the poem, Vincent’s life has ended, but the proofs of his martyrial authority have not. Prudentius offers a privileged perspective, a heaven’s-eye view of Vincent’s ascent. Prudentius “documents” angels and saints greeting him as their equal, suggesting that the martyr shares in their power and the poet shares in the knowledge of it. Finally, Vincent’s post-mortem feats of bodily power demonstrate that he is capable of performing miracles even after his death and illustrate the divine power present in his relics.
Conclusion With Vincent’s story, Prudentius includes so many ambiguities surrounding this particular question of death and its relationship to martyrdom as to destabilize death as a primary criterion for martyrdom. Death as pillar of martyrdom is represented as shaky, and qualified, while other proofs abound and there is no doubt in the reader’s mind (or in Prudentius’s pronouncements) that he is in fact a martyr. This is how Prudentius’s exegetical project works. By presenting the story with tension that the reader is forced to confront, he guides the reader to a new understanding of what martyrdom should mean. What he has done with
79
Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitas, 21.10 (Musurillo, 130): Fortasse tanta femina aliter non potuisset occidi, quae ab immundo spiritu timebatur, nisi ipsa uoluisset.
57
Quirinus and Vincent, who were widely recognized martyrs even before Prudentius’s poems were published, helps lay the foundation for what he attempts to assert about Encratis and her companions in Peristephanon 4: that one does not need to die to become a fully-functioning martyr.
ENCRATIS, GAIUS, AND CREMENTIUS: CAESARAUGUSTA’S LIVING MARTYRS
In Peristephanon 4, Prudentius focuses on one city rather than on one martyr. He compares Spanish Caesaraugusta to other locales and concludes that no other city can match the wealth Caesaraugusta holds in the ashes of its eighteen martyrs. No other city can come close: it is the rare city that can boast five (4.49-50). With so many protectors, Caesaraugusta, as Prudentius characterizes it, is practically inviolable, whether sin, plague, or barbarian hordes threaten its safety. And yet Prudentius is not comfortable with this hefty lead. He claims, on top of the eighteen, four more: Vincent, a child of Caesaraugusta who happened to meet his end elsewhere, and three martyrs who did not die, the fierce maiden martyr Encratis and the two bloodless champions, Gaius and Crementius.
Encratis: The Girl Who Lived In the case of the maiden martyr Encratis, whom Prudentius features in Peristephanon 4, there is no question that death as traditionally conceived is no requirement for martyrdom: as Prudentius makes clear, she survives her martyrdom. Addressing the martyr by apostrophe, Prudentius writes: To none of the martyrs did it pass that with life remaining they dwelled in our lands, only you, surviving your own death, live on in the world. You live, and you retrace your punishments one by one, 58
and preserving,80 the spoils of hewn flesh, you narrate how the foul wounds left bitter furrows. The barbarous torturer tore off [your] whole side. The blood was excessive; the limbs lacerated. The chest lay exposed, with the breast severed And the heart underneath. Already the lesser price of death is paid Which, effacing the venomous sufferings, Allots to the limbs a rapid rest With a sleepy end. The bloody scar held you long And for a long time the burning pain clung to your veins, While a putrefying humor weakened The festering innards. Although the jealous sword of the persecutor denied you the final death, the full punishment crowns you, martyr, just as though destroyed. We saw a that a part of your liver, torn off by oppressing claws, lay far away; pale death had something of yours with you also living. This new honor Christ himself gave to our Caesaraugusta to enjoy, that it might be the everlasting hallowed home of a living martyr.81 Encratis is tortured and maimed, but lives to tell the tale, in grotesque and gory detail and, it seems, with handy visual aids. Prudentius twice describes this as a singular honor, bookending Encratis’s story with assertions that not only is this a real martyrdom, but it is a martyrdom of rare and heightened quality.
80
Or “testing again.” Prudentius, Peristephanon 4.113-144 (CCSL 126, 290-291): Martyrum nulli remanente uita / contigit terris habitare nostris, / sola tu morti / propriae superstes / uiuis in orbe. / Viuis ac poenae seriem retexis, / carnis et caesae spolium retentans / taetra quam sulcos habeant amaros / uulnera narras. / Barbarus tortor latus omne carpsit, / sanguis inpensus, lacerata membra, / pectus abscisa patuit papilla / corde sub ipso. / Iam minus mortis pretium peractae est, / quae uenenatos abolens dolores / concitam membris tribuit quietem / fine soporo./ Cruda te longum tenuit cicatrix / et diu uenis dolor haesit ardens, / dum putrescentes tenuat medullas / tabidus umor. / Inuidus quamuis obitum supremum / persecutoris gladius negarit, / plena te, martyr, tamen ut peremptam / poena coronat. / Vidimus partem iecoris reuulsam / ungulis longe iacuisse pressis, / mors habet pallens aliquid tuorum / te quoque uiua. / Hunc nouum nostrae titulum fruendum / caesaraugustae dedit ipse christus, / iuge uiuentis domus ut dicata / martyris esset. 81
59
It is a sign of death’s importance to martyrdom that Prudentius cannot just leave these assertions to speak for themselves, but must address several times how Encratis’s experience is in fact either a form of death or a better substitute for it. Prudentius takes three primary routes to defend Encratis’s martyr-status through death. First, he argues that she suffers a metaphorical death, by explaining that she “survived [her] own death” to “live on in the world.” This statement both asserts and qualifies the importance of death. Second, he argues that her torments, prolonged and rendered even more meritorious by her survival, earn her the crown. On this reading, she is even more worthy of martyr status than a conventional martyr, whose suffering is limited by death. If the reader does not accept either of these arguments, however, Prudentius has a back-up: a piece of her body, a chunk of her liver, actually did die in full public view. Death claimed something of hers, though she yet lived.82 We can see here Prudentius’s project stark against the vision of those he opposed, who thought that martyrdom could not be valid without death. While Prudentius is willing to humor them, to cater to their need for death, he is at the same time provoking his readers to come to the opposite conclusion. Death is not irrelevant to martyrdom, then, but, as Prudentius asserts later, it was Encratis’s survival that ensured her the title and crown. As he adds her to the number of Caesaraugustan martyrs, Prudentius refers back to Encratis as “the girl, alive after model punishment.”83 Looking at Encratis’s martyrdom from another angle: what would have happened if Vincent and Quirinus had not asked to die? Why didn’t Encratis? And what would have happened if she had? As we have seen, the requests that the other martyrs made for death serve more to prove their power and their sway with God (and, in Vincent’s case, to prove the privileged insight of the author) than to perfect their martyrdoms. Presumably, if Encratis
82 83
Petruccione, “Persecutor’s Envy,” 338. Prudentius, Peristephanon 4.178 (CCSL 126, 292): uiua post poenae specimen puella
60
had asked to die, God would have let her, and it is her choice not to do so that inspires Prudentius’s encomium.84 She is not, then, a hapless would-be martyr who failed to cross the finish line, but instead an even greater champion because of her choice. The difference between Quirinus and Vincent, on the one hand, and Encratis, on the other, is not so vast, and Prudentius even privileges Encratis, asserting her greater value as a martyr, because her suffering lasted a lifetime. Just as Vincent received a second crown of martyrdom for suffering post-mortem abuse, so too does Encratis derive additional merit from her post“death” suffering. Furthermore, while the language of death pervades the poem, so does the language of life. In the 32 lines of Encratis’s story, words denoting life appear 8 times. Vita, habitare, and vivis occur in the second stanza alone. That this is supposed to draw the reader’s attention can be inferred by the immediate repetition of the vivis. “You live on in the world,” Prudentius writes in his apostrophe to Encratis. “You live, and you recount.” Prudentius further emphasizes Encratis’s survival by using vita as the final word in the second-to last stanza: “With you, also, living,” and by using the living martyr as the closing concept of the apostrophe. Moreover, amid all this life-language, Prudentius brings up death only in order to undermine its severity in light of Encratis’s continued suffering. Morti is introduced in line 115 only to be immediately superceded by superstes. Prudentius devotes one full stanza to the idea that death is sweeter than suffering, that it is a rest, a “sleepy end.” Finally, Encratis’s survival is contrasted explicitly with Vincent’s death, while both are asserted as sufficient for martyrdom and worthy of the highest honor. In listing the honors to be added to the pride of Caesaraugusta, Prudentius lists Encratis, a viva puella (4.178) and the mors Vincenti (4.179). Both viva puella and mors are here in the nominative, which lends them
84
Requesting death and the parrhesia it requires are phenomena not limited to male martyrs in the Peristephanon. Encratis wishes for death (3.159), and Agnes dies “by her own will” (14.9).
61
both emphasis, and the alternating lines begin with viva and mors, again highlighting the two paths to martyrdom. This emphasis on life, along with the contrast between Encratis on the one hand and Quirinus and Vincent on the other, helps force the question: why is death better? That Encratis was able to survive such horrifying bodily harm is in itself miraculous: why should God cap off a miracle of survival with a gratuitous death?
Gaius and Crementius: Tasting the Savor of Martyrdom Gaius and Crementius also do not have to die to “taste the savor of martyrdom.” The pair, “to whom / came bloodless glory in a favorable / contest of praise,”85 have much less time in the spotlight than Encratis, but are nonetheless claimed by Prudentius as Caesaraugusta’s special protectors. They deserve this status because of their testimony for God and their ability to withstand unnamed trials for the sake of that truth. “Both, having confessed the Lord, stood / fiercely against the roaring of the enemies; / both tasted lightly the savor of martyrdoms.”86 Although Prudentius does not give them as much attention as he does Encratis, he still gives them the honor of martyrdom and adds them to the number of martyrs protecting the city. Prudentius honors these three martyrs because he counts them among the protectors of the city, the holy army that guards its walls and its people. They have proven themselves, in Prudentius’s eyes, to be effective patron saints and intercessors. And, what is more, he means to add them to the ranks of those already acknowledged to be the pride and protectors of Caesaraugusta. Vincent, Encratis, Gaius and Crementius, for whose identities as martyrs
85
Prudentius, Peristephanon 4.182-4 (CCSL 126, 292): quibus incruentum / ferre prouenit decus ex secundo / laudis agone. Secundo can mean either favorable, second, or secondary; H. J. Thomson chooses to translate it as “victorious” (Prudentius, Prudentius II, ed. and trans. H. J. Thomson, Loeb Classical Library 398 [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953], 169), while Lavarenne translates it as “l'épreuve glorieuse du second rang,” diminishing its glory compared to that of Vincent and Encratis (Maurice Lavarenne, Étude sur la Langue du Poète Prudence [Paris: Société Française d’Imprimerie et de Librairie, 1933], 553). 86 Prudentius, Peristephanon 4.185-188 (CCSL 126, 292): Ambo confessi dominum steterunt / acriter contra fremitum latronum, / ambo gustarunt leuiter saporem / martyriorum.
62
Prudentius must argue if he is to add them to Caesaraugusta’s ranks of the holy, garner the most attention in the poem. Vincent receives 32 lines, Encratis 38, and Gaius and Crementius 8, while each of the other martyrs receives one line (or less) of personal attention, with few if any descriptive details. These four additional martyrs are not only part of the horde: they are the focal points. By introducing these martyrs to his audience, Prudentius is introducing not only more martyrs for Caesaraugusta to boast, but new criteria for what constitutes martyrdom. It is worth noting here that Prudentius does not really make a distinction between confessors and martyrs. He never calls someone a confessor in any technical sense; rather, he sees confessing the truth of God as a spiritually beneficial act (both for bystanders and often for the confessor), and one that frequently plays a role in the lead-up to martyrdom. The only time he actually labels someone a “confessor” is in Peristephanon 9, when he calls Cassian a “confessor of Christ” in the middle of his torture, which ultimately ends in death.87 So, while labeling Gaius and Crementius as “having confessed” might play into other people’s notions of a distinction between martyrdom and confession, it has precisely the opposite significance in Prudentius’s poetry. The use of confessi actually links these two men more closely to the other martyrs of the Peristephanon, instead of imposing a categorical difference. Not everyone seems to have bought into Prudentius’s effort to place these living martyrs in the Caesaraugustan canon. Lines 181-188, the eight lines that add Gaius and Crementius to the list of the city’s protectors, are not present in the oldest manuscript of the Peristephanon, though the poem appears in all. This prompted Bergman to bracket the lines.88 But Cunningham, while he expresses his hesitation about the passage, thinks it not unlikely that a monastic copyist excised the passage precisely because he wished to leave the
87
Prudentius, Peristephanon 9.55 (CCSL 126, 327): christi confessor. In Pe 5.29, 10.131, and 13.92 Prudentius uses the language of confession about martyrs prior to their deaths. 88 H. J. Thomson ed. and trans., Prudentius, 167.
63
Caesaraugustan martyrial liturgy to the martyrs—that is, those who had died—alone.89 Meanwhile, subsequent traditions held that Encratis, whose survival of her own martyrdom Prudentius so praises, had actually died a martyr, plain and simple.90
CONCLUSION
Prudentius argues through his poetry that martyrs do not have to die in order to be martyrs, that death is not required to make a martyrdom complete. He does this by telling the stories of martyrs in such a way as to make death tangential to their martyrdoms. Reading through the whole Peristephanon, this theme emerges time and again, with martyrs’ deaths “subject to radical abbreviation” (Romanus) or seeming to be “afterthoughts” (Vincent), as irrelevant unknowns (as with the fates of the unnamed soldier-martyrs of Peristephanon 1), and with martyrs requesting their own deaths (Quirinus, Agnes, Fructuosus, Augurius and Eulogius). 91 What Prudentius emphasizes instead as guarantors of martyr status are, as we have seen, miracles, demonstrations of authority such as parrhesia or exerted intercessory power, and a visible willingness to suffer for God. These proofs of martyrdom all cohere around one theme: the emphasis on the demonstrative and communicable—that is to say, their ability to provide witness to the truth and power of God. This notion of witness as central to martyrdom will be the subject of the following chapter.
89
CCSL 126, xxvi. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints: With Reflections for Every Day in the Year (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1894), 148-149. See, too, William H. Shoemaker on Basurto’s 1533 pageant performance Santa Engracia, in which Encratis tells the Empress, “Yo soi yo / quien Daciano aqui mató”: “It is I / who was here killed by Datian.” William H. Shoemaker, “Fernando de Basurto's "Lost Play" on the Martyrdom of Santa Engracia,” Hispanic Review 6, no. 1 (1938), 40. 91 For Romanus, see Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of Martyrs, 68; for Vincent, see Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of Martyrs, 74; For the unnamed soldier-martyrs, see Prudentius, Peristephanon 1.79-81; for Quirinus, see Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.76-80, for Agnes, see Prudentius, Peristephanon 14.9, and for Fructuosus, Augurius and Eulogius, see Prudentius, Peristephanon 6.115-117. 90
64
Before we move on, however, it is essential to point out that we can see witness emerging as a theme in Prudentius’s very presentation of this argument. Rather than explicitly asserting the non-necessity of death to martyrdom, Prudentius makes his argument through subtle and oblique cues, infusing his texts with tension, rather than clarity. Encratis is the only martyr for whom Prudentius openly proclaims death to be unnecessary; all the other instances of death being nonessential require intense narrative and philological engagement with the text. But this is precisely the reason that Prudentius pursues this line of persuasion. Images, word-play, paradox, and rhetorical elements were prized, as we have seen, by fourth and fifth century Christian poets for their ability to engage the reader. These techniques and this style of writing demanded that the reader participate in the texts in order to understand them properly, and consequently that the reader would be and become a witness to the truth of the poem.
65
CHAPTER 2 MODELING THE LIVING MARTYR: WITNESS IN AND THROUGH POETRY
INTRODUCTION
In the previous chapter, I argued that Prudentius’s martyr poems provoke the reader to reconsider the role of death in martyrdom, and that he aims to destabilize death as the fundamental building block of martyrdom. In this chapter, I argue that with death thus destabilized, the notion of witness emerges to take its place. The role of witness as catalyst for faith, and of the martyr as visible and tangible testament to the glory and truth of Christ, has pervaded each of these poems (as I shall show), even as the role of death is deemphasized, problematized, and re-imagined. Ultimately, Prudentius encourages his readers to engage with his textual witnesses as witnesses themselves. He strives to compel his readers to become bound up in the witness his martyrs provide. In this chapter I will elaborate on the role of witness, first exploring themes of witness in the Peristephanon and then discussing the reasons that witness would emerge as the central signal of martyrdom in Prudentius’s writing. Finally, I will demonstrate the power of witness through a close reading of Peristephanon 10, specifically the story of two nameless characters who appear in an ekphrasis in the middle of another Christian’s martyrdom, a child and his mother who are never labeled as martyrs despite clearly being represented as such. Through this discussion and analysis, I intend to prove that the overall effect of Prudentius’s dissociation of martyrdom from death is to make martyrdom something accessible to all Christians, even after the end of persecution. As Ellen Muehlberger writes in her discussion of Gregory of Nyssa’s characterization of his sister Macrina as martyr: “This 66
is the central paradox of late ancient Christianity: long after the conditions that first created the concept of a Christian martyr had disappeared, Christians persisted in thinking about themselves, their positions in culture, and the futures that awaited them through the lens of martyrdom.”1 In order to close this gap between expectation and experience, Gregory offered the model of brave suffering; Prudentius, for his part, offers witness. Witness operates on three levels: the level of observation, the level of relating what one has observed, and then, finally, the level of refiguring what one has observed or, to put it another way, becoming the object of observation. Witnesses observe by seeing (or hearing, touching, etc.), and then witness to what they have observed by testifying (by speech, action, or some other means) to what they have seen, finally becoming the witnessed, the basis for other people’s observations, the object of others’ witness. At this last stage, the witness serves as ground-zero, so to speak, for the witness of others. In shorthand, this tripartite understanding of witness can be described by the designations “witness/see,” “witness/say,” and “witness/be.” The value of this witness in Christianity is that it rehearses the verdict of Christianity’s truth while simultaneously providing more opportunities for witness. The martyrs’ triumphs and miracles confirm the validity of the Christian faith, while they also, by refiguring that truth in an observable way, form the basis for future witness, expanding the repertoire of truth and creating a web of witness that provides a support structure for a Christian worldview. In Christian martyrdom, the martyr refigures Christ for onlookers. He re-enacts the advent of Christ on earth, and in doing so both affirms the reality of what transpired with Christ in the past and also re-presents the events to his contemporaries. The collapse of time and of witness, of old and new miracles, enables the onlookers to expand the type and number of signifiers to which they respond in confirming the truth of Christ. The
1
Ellen Muehlberger, “Salvage: Macrina and the Christian Project of Cultural Reclamation,” Church History 81:2 (2012): 281.
67
martyr himself can now be imitated, while his imitator will still be imitating both the martyr and Christ. Witness forms the foundation of Prudentius’s martyrial edifice in two ways. First, the poet emphasizes acts and language of witness—of seeing, saying, and being—within the texts themselves. Second, Prudentius encourages the reader herself to witness, that is, to become a witness in all three forms by interacting with the text: /seeing what the text depicts, /saying what the text asserts, and /being the new object of witness by transforming in response to the text. This process, while it turns the reader into a witness, also makes the text itself into a witness, confirming the utility of the text as witness/say. Not only does this ensure that future generations of Christians will not be bereft of martyrs to witness/see (since they have texts to act in their stead), it also opens up the reality of martyrdom to them, allowing them to witness/be. I will discuss first the ways that Prudentius inserts the elements and concepts of witness into his poems, then offer an explanation for why Prudentius chose witness (as opposed to, say, Gregory of Nyssa’s long suffering) as the hallmark of martyrdom, and then complete the discussion by demonstrating witness expanded into world of the reader and interpreter.
WITNESS IN THE PERISTEPHANON
Prudentius emphasizes witness throughout the Peristephanon, but I will focus discussion primarily on the poems we examined in Chapter 1, partly to keep the discussion manageable and partly to illustrate that Prudentius touts the role of witness in the very same poems (and in reference to the very same martyrs) that most problematize the role of death. I will focus first on the use of witness language (the use of testis and related words), and then on three
68
categories of witness that emerge most prominently in these poems: witness by being seen, witness by speaking and being heard, and the role of the text as witness.
Language of Witness In Peristephanon 4 and 5, Prudentius uses the term testis interchangeably with the term martyr. As he weighs the number of Caesaraugusta’s martyrs alongside the counts of other renowned cities, he writes: “Some few [cities] will find favor with one, three or two, or maybe even five witnesses to Christ.”2 He then goes on to contrast those paltry few with Caesaraugusta’s noble eighteen. Since he is evaluating the cities based on the number of their martyrs, rather than on the quality of their martyrs or any other point of comparison, testis Christi here is unequivocally a synonym for martyr. Prudentius similarly describes Vincent as an “indomitable witness” who shines brightly in heaven in robes all the brighter for being washed in blood.3 In Peristephanon 1.21-22, among the first lines a reader would encounter upon embarking on these poems, Prudentius’s use of the term testis to refer to a specific type of witness by martyrdom is highlighted by his choice to repeat the word, in the same grammatical form, immediately. Prudentius uses this anadiplosis to emphasize testibus, repeating it as he describes the subjects of the poems that follow: “Good Christ denies nothing, ever, to his witnesses, / witnesses whom neither chains nor harsh death terrify.4 Such a noticeable revaluation of the term is necessary because “martyr” is not Prudentius’s usual definition of testis. In every other poem, the word and its cognates relate
2
Prudentius, Peristephanon 4.49-51 (CCSL 126, 287-8): Singulis paucae, tribus aut duobus, / forsan et quinis aliquae placebunt / testibus Christi prius hostiarum / pignere functae. 3 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.11 (CCSL 126, 294): quam testis indomabilis. Prudentius also uses testis to mean martyr elsewhere in the Peristephanon: see Prudentius, Peristephanon 2.505-508 (CCSL 126, 274): Dum daemon inuictum dei / testem lacessit proelio, / perfossus ipse concidit / et stratus aeternum iacet; and Prudentius, Peristephanon 8.9-10 (CCSL 126, 325): Ante coronati scandebant ardua testes / atria, nunce lotae celsa petunt animae 4 Prudentius, Peristephanon 1.21-22 (CCSL 126, 252): nil suis bonus negauit Christus umquam testibus, / testibus quos nec catenae dura nec mors terruit
69
simply to seeing, testifying, or revealing. It is often used to refer to some divine knowledge or supernatural revelation, but it is also used for simple acts of sight or attestation. In these latter instances the witnessing is even occasionally done by distinctly uninspired actors— such as the shades who observe pagan sacrificial rituals, secular inscriptions attesting the construction of pagan temples, or even the persecutors themselves, who witness various elements of the Christian community or the martyr’s miracles while remaining nonetheless unmoved.5 Some instances are legalistic, retaining the customary use of the word in legal contexts.6 But Prudentius usually does treat the act of witnessing, of testifying to truth, as privileged: God and nature are observers of human success and failure, while Christ, the Holy Spirit, the apostles, Moses, the magi, ordinary Christians, and the Milvian Bridge (among others) all act as witnesses testifying to God’s truth either by their actions or by their words.7 Some things act as witnesses by sole virtue of existing, of standing as visible traces testifying to higher truths. The ashes of Sodom and Gomorrah, for instance, remain as reminders of hellfire, while all nature stands as witness to God’s creation—observable proof of divine control of the world.8 Even the stones in the Jordan stand, twelve in number, as witnesses to the number of the disciples.9
5
Prudentius, Contra Symmachum 2. 1107; Prudentius, Contra Symmachum 1.249-250; Prudentius, Peristephanon 2.74 and 10.996. 6 Christ is the testator in Cathemerinon 12, for instance, to whose will the apostles are witnesses (Prudentius, Cathemerinon 12.85ff); in the Apotheosis Joseph acts a witness to Mary’s virginity (Prudentius, Apotheosis 602); and in Contra Symmachum and Peristephanon 3 an atheist malefactor and the maiden Eulalia, respectively, act secretively, sine teste (Prudentius, Contra Symmachum 2.174; Prudentius, Peristephanon 3.43). 7 God appears as testis in Cathemerinon 2.109 (and as spectator in 2.105); nature appears as witness in Cathemerinon 2.27, when the light of day becomes witness to shameful things (Sol ecce surgit igneus;/ piget pudescit paenitet / nec teste quisquam lumine / peccare constanter potest); the Tiber is described as witness to Peter and Paul’s executions, Peristephanon 12.9. The Milvian Bridge merits inclusion in this category because it, as Prudentius recounts the tale, aided in the Christian overthrow of the usurper Maximian by jettisoning him from its span (Contra Symmachum 1.485). 8 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.196; Cathemerinon 9.8. 9 Prudentius, Tituli Historiarum 15
70
In all of these definitions of testis and its verbal cognates, the act of testifying is foremost. This makes it all the more clear that Prudentius, when he uses the term as a synonym for martyr in the Peristephanon, sees the martyr’s function as witness to be paramount, and that he intended for his readers to draw the same conclusion.
Seeing and Being Seen We see the same emphasis on the power of witness when we consider the wealth of sight and seeing language in these poems. The martyr is established as both seer and object of sight through the linguistic and narrative choices the poet makes. Prudentius emphasizes the act of seeing, uses language that highlights the visual, and makes narrative choices that highlight sight. The overwhelming presence of visual language signals to the reader that witness by sight is, in fact, an essential component of martyrdom.10 Prudentius emphasizes the act of seeing in each of these poems, and the reader is left with the distinct sense that the eyewitness implied by the texts substantiates the truth of the accounts, and constitutes proof. Quirinus, Prudentius writes, has “illuminated the Catholic faith” by his death, which the poet proceeds to describe.11 Later, in successive stanzas, Prudentius describes Quirinus first as seen by his flock and then as seeing them seeing him: “The terrified flock watches their teacher from the ground, at a distance, for the people of Christ had closed around the windings of the banks in a closely compressed battle line. But Quirinus, as he, rising, cast his face around, alas! He sees his own [people] frightened by his
10
Sight also comes into the foreground in this poem by reference to its absence. Prudentius describes, for instance, Vincent’s prison as a place of blindness, which is only remedied by the martyr’s encounter with the angels: “The blindness of the prison / shines with the splendor of light” (Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.269 [CCSL 126, 303]: Nam carceralis caecitas / splendore lucis fulgurate) 11 Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.6-10 (CCSL 126, 321): Hic sub Galerio duce / qui tunc Illyricos sinus / urgebat dicionibus, / fertur catholicam fidem / inlustrasse per exitum.
71
example.” 12 Quirinus then offers them a comforting speech, which, as we have seen, Prudentius reports rather than recreates. In this passage, we have both the crowd and the martyr observing one another and interacting with one another: both see and are seen, both offer here a double witness, and both are shaped by the consequences of seeing and being seen. The crowd sees the exemplum of the martyr and is frightened, then it is seen by that same martyr and is comforted. The martyr is seen by his congregation. Then, upon seeing them seeing him and ascertaining by this sight their improper reaction (fear) to what they were seeing, he acts to direct their response, and in the process manufactures a miracle for himself. The circle of sight Prudentius creates here highlights the fact and features of witness, among other things that there is a proper and an improper way to witness/see the act of someone who is witnessing. The object seen must be correctly interpreted, must be reacted to correctly, for the witness to be effective. Sight again takes center stage when Prudentius discusses Encratis’s torments and how they could be understood as death. Prudentius not only informs the reader that part of her liver had been torn off and died, but that vidimus, “we saw” it happen.13 In order for this partial death to furnish proof of martyrdom, it had to be seen. As the first word in the stanza, this notion of sight frames the episode, so that even when the passage acknowledges a concrete role for death in Encratis’s martyrdom, that role is subordinate to the primary act of seeing and being seen. Sight plays a vast role in Vincent’s martyrdom narrative. Angels validate Vincent’s sufferings by saying that Christ has seen them, that Christ is spectator.14 This notion of Christ
12
Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.31-38 (CCSL 126, 322): Spectant eminus e solo / doctorem pauidi greges; / nam Christi populus frequens / riparum sinuamina / stipato agmine saepserat./ Sed Quirinus ut eminens / os circumtulit heu suos / exemplo trepidos uidet 13 Prudentius, Peristephanon 4.137-140 (CCSL 126, 290): Vidimus partem iecoris reuulsam / ungulis longe iacuisse pressis, / mors habet pallens aliquid tuorum / te quoque uiua. 14 Prudentius, Peristephanon, 5.297
72
seeing rather than “knowing,” or, perhaps, knowing through seeing as a spectator, reinforces the importance of visual witness. Vincent, too, is a “seer.” After a brilliant flash of light shines in the prison and his leg clamps fly off miraculously, Vincent ...realizes that the hoped-for prize of such great labor, Christ, the giver of light, is present. He then sees the fragments of potsherds clothe themselves with soft flowers, with the prison smelling of nectar.15 First he recognizes Christ’s presence, and then he is able to see and smell the flowers that signify his trial ascension to paradise. The martyr’s own experience, his own perception is twice highlighted here. It is doubled, however, when the jailer has a similar experience of sight: ...Light within broke through the closed doors and the delicate splendor of the hidden light was projected through the chinks. While astonished at this, the terrified guardian of the dark doorway, for whom the nightlong task had been to guard the deadly house, heard the very sweet song of the martyr’s psalmody, to which the hollow room returns a likeness of a comparable voice. Trembling, he then looks in, his eye pressed as much as possible to the posts to enter through the close-pressed joints. He sees the scatterings of potsherds blooming with many flowers and that very man, with shackles burst, walking around singing.16
15
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.274-280 (CCSL 126, 303-304): Agnoscit hic vincentius / adesse quod sperauerat / tanti laboris praemium, / christum datorem luminis. / Cernit deinde fragmina / iam testularum / mollibus / uestire semet floribus / redolente nectar carcere. 16 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.305-324 (CCSL 126, 304-305): ... sed clausas fores / interna rumpunt lumina / tenuisque per rimas nitor / lucis latentis proditur. / Hoc cum stuperet territus / obsessor atri
73
Like the martyr, the jailer sees the potsherds covered in flowers after first seeing the flash of light from the cell. These lines, as Michael Roberts points out, are a doublet, signifying Prudentius’s intentional parallel between the martyr’s sight and the jailer’s.17 And the doubling of sight continues. The reader sees the jailer’s experience twice, since his story is depicted twice over. Prudentius repeats the jailer’s act of seeing just before Vincent dies, only a short twenty lines from the first account. Then that very agent of the prison and doorkeeper of the chains, so ancient witness tells us, suddenly believed in Christ. This one had seen, with the bolts fastened, the closed space of dense fog glitter with the splendor of alien light.18 In this second iteration, the jailer’s conversion is documented, and the act of seeing which prompted that conversion is repeated. It is noteworthy that the two elements of the jailer’s story that Prudentius repeats are the jailer’s sight of the heavenly light and the obstacles to that sight, first the “close-pressed joints” and then the “fastened bolts” and the “dense fog” in the cell. He nonetheless sees successfully, and becomes Christian as a result. Prudentius thus communicates to his readers that while the remove between observer and observed may be wide, it is nonetheless surmountable.19
liminis, / quem cura pernox manserat / seruare feralem domum, / psallentis audit insuper / praedulce carmen martyris, / cui uocis instar aemulae / conclaue reddit concauum. / Pauens deinde introspicit, / admota quantum postibus /acies per artas cardinum / intrare iuncturas potest. / Vernare multis floribus / stramenta testarum uidet / ipsumque uulsis nexibus / obambulantem pangere. 17 Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 88: “Events are viewed from within, from the perspective of the martyr (cf. agnoscit, 273 and cernit, 277), and from without (cf. especially 321-24, a doublet of 277280).” 18 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.345-352 (CCSL 126, 306): Tunc ipse manceps carceris / et uinculorum ianitor, / ut fert uetustas conscia, / repente christum credidit. / Hic obseratis uectibus / densae specum caliginis / splendore lucis aduenae / micuisse clausum uiderat. 19 Roberts discusses this episode: “The juxtaposition implies at a certain level of generality an equivalence between the conversion of an individual Christian and the victory of the martyr” (Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 89).
74
In addition to describing those who see effectively, Prudentius invites the reader to participate in the act of seeing, just like the jailer, just like the martyr, and just like Christ, when he describes the scene where Vincent’s community comes out to care for and venerate him. Prudentius introduces the action of the townspeople with cerneres (“you [sing.] might see”),20 and so the reader—the singular, personal, individual reader—becomes involved as the viewer, rather than the reader, of this display of affection and veneration. The word introduces both the concept of sight and the action of sight, as the reader is prompted to visualize, in his mind’s eye, the scene Prudentius depicts.
Hearing and being Heard Witness is not solely accomplished by sight; speaking and hearing are both major components of witnessing featured prominently in these poems. The martyrs testify with their words as well as with the spectacles they create, while observers witness by hearing the testimony of the martyrs. Prudentius emphasizes speech, just as he emphasizes visuality. He constructs lengthy speeches for his martyrs, and inserts them into the poems in narratively powerful ways. He includes and dwells on miraculous speech acts, and also inserts subtle references to hearing, to gossip and reported speech, all of which help cement the impression that hearing and providing testimony for others to hear are central to Prudentius’s notion of martyrdom. The speeches of the martyrs, as Michael Roberts has noted, far outshine even the manner of their deaths in Prudentius’s presentation, both in terms of length and in terms of emphasis. While in the Peristephanon the martyrs’ deaths (as opposed to their torments) are
20
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.333-336 (CCSL 126, 305): Coire toto ex oppido / turbam fidelem cerneres / mollire praefultum torum / siccare cruda uulnera.
75
reported quickly, often almost as an afterthought,21 their speeches are long and lingering, comprising the bulk of the verse in several of the poems, and forming the focal points of several more. Verbal confrontation and interaction drive and dominate Prudentius’s martyrnarratives. For example, Quirinus’s speech itself accounts for 30 lines of a 90-line poem, while a further five lines are devoted to the speech Prudentius does not relate in Quirinus’s voice.22 Peristephanon 12, describing the passions of Peter and Paul, is entirely composed of a dialogue between two pilgrims. Romanus, the protagonist of Peristephanon 10, which we will discuss later on in this chapter, speaks for more than half of the exceptionally long poem, giving proper declamations and lengthy retorts that comprise 614 lines of the 1140-line poem.23 His death, by comparison, is related in one and a half lines, and is brief almost to the point of absurdity: the still-speaking martyr is thrown into prison, where “a wicked lictor strangles his neck with a cord.”24 As we shall see, the length of these speeches is but one manifestation of the emphasis on speech: even when the martyrs are not speaking, the martyr’s speech is frequently the focus of the poet’s or the persecutor’s commentary. The first 22 lines of Peristephanon 10 deal with the ability of the poet to speak through his poetry—an ability that is granted by God, if the poet takes the martyr as model.25 Asclepiades, Romanus’s antagonist, remarks again and again that the martyr’s speech must be stopped, going so far as to order Romanus’s cheeks gouged and his tongue excised from his mouth.26 A decent opportunity for speech is
21
Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 74. Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.56-85; 41-45. 23 96-107, 123-390, 426-445, 459-545, 562-570, 585-660, 801-810, 852-855, 928-960, 1006-1100. And, of the 526 lines during which Romanus is not speaking, 70 of those relate the words of an anonymous Christian woman (whom we shall shortly encounter) exhorting her child to martyrdom (721-790). 24 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.1108-1109: elidit illic fune collum martyris / lictor nefandus. 25 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.1-22. 26 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.396-400, 547-555, 891-895, 911-925, 961-967, 1101-1105. 22
76
also granted to the doctor, who must defend his work after Romanus’s continued oratory raises suspicion about whether the surgery had been performed correctly: The doctor refutes this charge with the truth: “Plumb now the cave of his throat And bring the curious thumb around within the teeth. Or inspect the open swallowings, Lest anything remains which governs breath. ... It’s for him to know which god suggests words to him. I do not know how a muted man is speaking.” With these words, Aristo cleared himself.27 Here we have an example of verification by the witness of sight, sound, and even touch, as the doctor invites Asclepiades to look into Romanus’s mouth and examine it with his own fingers to prove that the tongue is missing, all while the martyr’s words continue unabated as evidence to the contrary. The invitation is to look, to touch, but ultimately, it is the words that the doctor offers which ultimately clear him, although Asclepiades, blind to this as to all else, refuses to be appeased. All of this supports the importance of speech to the poem’s projection of truth, and Prudentius’s desire to emphasize speech: even when the martyr is not speaking, the other characters are discussing his speech. For Vincent, too, speech is central to his martyrdom. His first offense is speech (5.44). The ensuing dialogue reinforces that fact, as Vincent’s speech enrages Datian and the persecutor orders his mouth to be stopped (5.93-100). In fact, the dialogic antagonism between Datian and Vincent forms the backbone of this narrative, as Vincent’s taunts and Datian’s wiles escalate the level of torture the martyr is subjected to. Further evidencing the power of speech, the poet labels these words of the martyr within this conflict as thundering, intonantem, which identifies them as both terrifying and superhuman, so much so that “the
27
Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.981-1001 (CCSL 126, 364): Veris refutat medicus hanc calumniam: / "scrutare uel tu nunc latebras faucium / intraque dentes curiosum pollicem / circumfer haustus uel patentes inspice / lateat ne quidquam quod regat spiramina... Sciat hic quis illi uerba suggillet deus. / Ego unde mutus sit disertus nescio." / His sese aristo purgat.
77
judge could not bear it.”28 Aurality finds emphasis as well through the angel’s speech, which forms the centerpiece of Vincent’s prison sequence and states unequivocally his attainment of martyr status, through the song and psalmody that help draw the jailer’s eye toward the prison door, and through the emphasis on rumor and report we see when Datian hears of Vincent’s survival in prison—his ears are filled with Vincent’s miracles.29 Finally, when extolling Encratis, Prudentius highlights her unique ability to recount the experience of martyrdom as the reason that her survival of her own death garners her so much honor: You live, and you retrace your punishments one by one, and preserving the spoils of hewn flesh, you narrate how the foul wounds left bitter furrows. 30 The verbs vivis and narras frame the stanza, forming a parallel that helps emphasize why it is that the living is so important. Both retexens and narras again point to the benefit of survival: you can recount and narrate what has happened to you, continuing to bear witness even after the torment has ended.31 Speech is yet again the focal point of the martyrdom story when it helps demonstrate the power of the martyr through miracles. Miraculous speech acts, which abound in Prudentius’s poems, serve to enable the martyr to testify both through speech and through the demonstrably superhuman power they reveal the martyrs to possess. Quirinus speaks while floating miraculously, Romanus continues to speak despite the loss of his tongue, and the
28
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.93 (CCSL 126, 297): His intonantem martyrem / iudex profanes non tulit On the angel’s speech, see 5.285; on the songs that attract the jailer, see 5.313; on Datian’s ears being filled with Vincent’s miracles, see 5.325-328. 30 Prudentius, Peristephanon 4.117-120 (CCSL 126, 290): Viuis ac poenae seriem retexis, / carnis et caesae spolium retentans / taetra quam sulcos habeant amaros / uulnera narras. 31 Michael Roberts goes so far as to say that Encratis has become her own martyrologer, usurping that role from Prudentius. Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 57. 29
78
child martyr we will see later in this chapter speaks despite being, literally, a child who cannot speak, an infans. Undergirding this emphasis on speech and speaking is a subtler, structural emphasis on speaking and hearing. References to hearing, gossip, and reported speech pervade the poems, as do rationales for speaking, which frequently serve as drivers of the plot and as authorial conceits for writing, for the authority to write, or for the veracity of the things written. This web of subtle references to speaking and hearing helps identify speaking as an effective form of witness. Peristephanon 4, for example, is preoccupied with verbal praise, enjoining its reader to “sing psalms,” “speak forth Successus, sing Martialis,” “let your song celebrate Urbanus,” “let the song resound Julia and Quintillian,” “let the chorus sound Publius and retell the triumph of Fronto,” and “let eager praise cultivate afresh your triumph, Apodemus.”32 Prudentius writes of four more martyrs that their names should be exalted, even if they refuse his meter (4.162), and that all eighteen martyrs, plus the four more he has added, will have their names recited to Christ, first by Prudentius through his poem, and then by an angel, face-to-face with the Father and Son (4.169-176). Recitation and vocalization of these names provides a connection to Christ, a worshipful mimicry of angelic duty, in which Prudentius, through simple imperatives, hortatory subjunctives, and narrative modeling, encourages his readers to participate. Additionally, in arguing for Gaius and Crementius’s inclusion in the canon of martyrs, Prudentius does not use words of forgetting or remembrance or of dishonor or honor, but rather the language of speaking. He says that we must name them, and “not be silent.”33 Meanwhile, in Peristephanon 5, we see reports being
32
Prudentius, Peristephanon 4.148-160 (CCSL 126, 291-292): ...pangere psalmis. / Ede successum, cane martialem, / mors et vrbani tibi concinatur, / iuliam cantus resonet simulque / quintilianum. / Publium pangat chorus et reuoluat / quale frontonis fuerit tropaeum, / quid bonus felix tulerit, quid acer / caecilianus, / quantus, euoti, tua bella sanguis / tinxerit, quantus tua, primitiue, / tum tuos uiuax recolat triumfos / laus, apodemi 33 Prudenttius, Peristephanon 4.181 (CCSL 126, 292): nec enim silendi
79
granted the value of truth. Prudentius uses common report (fertur, 5.248) to describe Vincent’s prison as a veritable Hades and also to offer credence to the report of the jailer’s conversion (ut fert uetustas conscia, 5.347). Hearing and report again become plot-drivers when Datian gets wind of what is going on in Vincent’s cell, and, as we have seen, his ears grow full of Vincent’s miracles (5.325). And for Quirinus, the report of his illustrious end is mentioned at the start of the poem, in the second stanza, and is situated such that it largely justifies the rest of the poem. Quirinus is described as a man of manifest merit who “is said to have illustrated / the Catholic faith through his death.”34 In all these examples, we see speaking, reporting, and hearing holding truth value. Speech even has the power to break through the boundaries between the world of the text and the world of the reader; as we have seen and will see again, reading texts aloud is a way of revivifying (or vivifying) the episodes described in the text and of recreating the speeches of the martyrs. But Prudentius also demonstrates this within the poem itself, speaking, as the poet, to one of his characters. He asks Datian a rhetorical question: “But what, oh obstinate tyrant, / will mark the end of this impotence? / Will no limit break you?”35 This would be unremarkable except for the fact that Datian, stunningly, responds to the narrator’s query, breaking the fourth wall to exclaim: “None! I will never give up!”36 The temporal differences between the narrator and the narrated have collapsed, and with the recitation of the poem, so too does the distance between the time of the poet and the time of the reader. We see here a twofold revivification, which is all the more shocking and noticeable for its direct duplicity. By far the most pervasive and important aspect of speech as witness, however, is the
34
Prudentius, Peristephanon 1.9 (CCSL 126, 321): fertur catholicam fidem / inlustrasse per exitum. Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.429-432 (CCSL 126, 308-309): sed quis, tyranne pertinax, / hunc inpotentem spiritum / determinabit exitus? / Nullusne te franget modus? 36 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5. 433 (CCSL 126, 309): nullus, nec umquam desinam. 35
80
fact that Prudentius configures it as a means of communicating with God. The very first poem in the Peristephanon describes how praying at the shrines of the martyrs brings solace and salvation: the martyrs hear all petitions, not suffering a murmur to be lost, and carry the words on to God’s ears. “They hear, and immediately bear [them] to the ears of the eternal king.”37 That God has ears, and that speech is an effective way to communicate with him, is a recurring theme in the Peristephanon.38 Prudentius even sees his poetry as being heard by God, just like the petitions at the shrines: ...Oh glory of Christ, listen to an unsophisticated poet as he confesses the sins of his heart and puts his deeds in writing. I am unworthy, I know and own, that Christ himself should hear me; but through the intercession of the martyrs, a cure may be attained.39 As Jill Ross notes about this passage, “Prudentius, although referring to his poetic activity, attributes conventional qualities of orality to his poems (audi, exaudiat), and thereby betrays an attitude that views writing as a kind of indirect speech that will reach the ears of Christ.”40 We see this same theme at the close of Peristephanon 5, when Prudentius entreats Vincent to “hear the voices of the praying” and to become their spokesperson before the Father’s throne, which will help convince Christ to “lend a favorable ear” to the entreaties of his people.41
37
Prudentius, Peristephanon 1.16-18 (CCSL 126, 252): Tanta pro nostris periclis cura suffragantium est, / non sinunt inane ut ullus uoce murmur fuderit; / audiunt statimque ad aurem regis aeterni ferunt 38 We saw this in Peristephanon 4. 173-176, and it also occurs in Pe. 3.75 and Pe. 5.558-560, and in almost every poem the notion that the martyr hears and conveys the petitioners’ messages to Christ is present. 39 Prudentius Peristephanon 2.573-580 (CCSL 126, 277): O Christi decus, / audi poetam rusticum / cordis fatentem crimina / et facta prodentem sua. / Indignus, agnosco et scio / quem Christus ipse exaudiat, / sed per patronos martyras / potest medellam consequi. 40 Ross, “Dynamic Bodies,” 327. 41 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.545-549 (CCSL 126, 312-313): Adesto nunc et percipe / uoces precantum supplices, / nostri reatus efficax / orator ad thronum patris!; Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.557-560 (CCSL 126, 313): miserere nostrarum precum, / placatus ut Christus suis / inclinet aurem prosperam / noxas nec omnes inputet.
81
Thwarting Hiddenness Prudentius further asserts witness as key to martyrdom by emphasizing instances where the martyr’s opponents seek to hide or disable his or her testimony and fail dramatically. That the persecutors know that these martyrs need to be hidden is evidence internal to the text that witness was key to martyrdom. But the fact that they are continually thwarted in their efforts to hide the martyrs serves to further that same knowledge: witness is powerful, and when God approves of the witness being given, nothing can hinder it. This happens frequently throughout the Peristephanon, for instance when Asclepiades orders Romanus’s tongue cut out and yet he continues speaking, or when a Christianity-reviling attendant attempts to forestall veneration of the martyrs by stealing and destroying their records, only to have their cults survive through the strength of their miraculous intercessions (1.75-84). It also happens quite spectacularly in Vincent’s martyrdom. Datian attempts to deprive the Christian community of a body to venerate, thinking that without this evidence his power will be diminished, but Vincent’s body is immune both to violent dissolution and to being hidden. After Vincent’s death, Datian rages: Now I shall destroy even his bones, lest there be some place of burial where the common flock might venerate him and affix the title of ‘martyr.’42 Datian exposes the body, but, as we have seen, to no avail. His next order betrays his overwhelming desire to hide the visible evidence of the martyr: he orders not just that Vincent be buried at sea, but that he be doubly enclosed in a burlap sack and tied to a stone so he would unquestionably sink, and that the soldiers carrying out the orders should travel so far from shore that they are no longer in sight of land (5.457-464). Of course, Vincent’s body floats back to shore and, ultimately, to precisely the veneration Datian had sought to thwart.
42
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.389-392 (CCSL 126, 307): Iam nunc et ossa extinxero, / ne sit sepulcrum funeris, / quod plebs gregalis excolat / titulumque figat martyris
82
Vincent’s body is un-hideable, and it is because of this visible resiliency that Vincent earns his second martyrial crown. This is one of the features of Vincent’s martyrdom that most calls into question the role of death as signifier of martyrdom and also mitigates against seeing will as the primary site of martyrdom. Vincent’s body is will-less, it is death-less (because already dead). It only signifies through its visible, supernatural power. The only way that it accomplishes its martyrdom is by providing further witness, further proof to the eyes of the beholders and believers.
Witnessing the Miraculous Beholding the miraculous frequently leads to believing in the Peristephanon, and this is why the miracles surrounding the martyr’s struggles signify witness. In each case, the visibility and/or aurality of the miracles the martyrs perform (or of which they are at the center) are highlighted and shown to have Christianizing effect. We have already seen this once in the Vincent narrative, when the jailer witnesses Vincent’s prison-cell paradise and is converted. But it is acknowledged as well elsewhere in the Peristephanon, as well as in Quirinus’s poem and once again in Vincent’s. The power of witnessing miracles pervades the Peristephanon. In the very first poem, the tokens of the martyrs fly heavenward, with all the bystanders and even the executioner seeing it and reacting with amazement. The executioner appears to be converted, as he “halting, stays his hand and grows pale,” but he ultimately follows through with his swing, “lest their glory perish.”43 The miraculous endurance and libertas displayed by Lawrence in Peristephanon 2 causes pagan hearts to yield to Christ: With their necks bearing the weight, Certain leading men carried the body,
43
Prudentius, Peristephanon 1.92-93 (CCSL 126, 255): manum repressit haerens ac stupor oppalluit / sed tamen peregit ictum, ne periret gloria.
83
Men whom the marvelous liberty of the man Had persuaded to embrace Christ. Suddenly he inspired and compelled Their innermost consciences With love of lofty God And hatred of their former frivolities. From that very day The cult of the base gods grew cool; The people more rarely [attended] the shrine, But ran to the seat of Christ.44 At Eulalia’s death, her spirit flew forth from her mouth in the form of a bird; the executioner who sees this is obstupefactus and attonitus, and runs away in horror of what his hand had done (3.173-174). While this is not a conversion in the strictest sense, it is clear that he has seen something of the truth of Christianity Eulalia espoused, recognizing that his orders had been in error. In Peristephanon 6, the governor’s attendant saw the trio of martyrs ascending to heaven and showed the sight to the governor’s daughter, who then knew, as did the attendant, that “those whom [the governor] had killed in the marketplace lived on in heaven.”45 “These things then virginity deserved to see openly, / through clarity, while her father remained blind.”46 Moreover, those who ought to see miracles, but do not (such as the governor in Peristephanon 6, Datian, or Asclepiades) are characterized either as blind or as so animalistic that they cannot see like normal humans.47 Such stories appear interspersed throughout the poems, and help build the case that, for Prudentius, seeing is believing.
44
Prudentius, Peristephanon 2.489-500 (CCSL 126, 274): Vexere corpus subditis / ceruicibus quidam patres / quos mira libertas uiri / ambire Christum suaserat. / Repens medullas indoles / adflarat et coegerat / amore sublimis dei / odisse nugas pristinas. / Refrixit ex illo die / cultus deorum turpium; / plebs in sacellis rarior, / Christi ad tribunal curritur. 45 Prudentius, Peristephanon 6.126 (CCSL 126, 318): caelo uiuere quos forum peremit. 46 Prudentius, Peristephanon 6.127-128 (CCSL 126, 319): Haec tunc uirginitas palam uidere / per sudum meruit parente caeco... 47 Prudentius, Peristephanon 6.128; Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.962-963 (CCSL 126, 363): Horror stupentem persecutorem subit / timorque et ira pectus in caliginem / uertere. Nescit, uigiliet anne somniet. In Peristephanon 5, Datian is figured as animalistic, hissing out words like a serpent (anguina ...exsibilat, 176), losing bodily control so much that he is foaming at the mouth (201-204), being depicted again as a serpent (381), and supplanting the savageness of animals with his own cruelty (434-437).
84
Just as Vincent is able to inspire the conversion of the prison-guard by witnessing to the truth of Christ, so too does Prudentius point to the possible conversion of the savage soldier tasked with taking Vincent’s body to the sea. His name, “Eumorphio” or “wellformed,”48 screams for a conversion story: it is a programmatic name, not the name of a villain. That no conversion occurs within the narrative does not detract from the expectation of it that Prudentius has inculcated in the reader by focusing on the name, devoting a whole line to its establishment (Eumorphio nomen fuit, 5.466). The last we see Eumorphio, he is standing on the boat, marveling with the other boatmen at the body floating lightly over the waves back to Spanish shores (5.493-496). We have here witness and amazement, which is not too large a step from conversion, at least as we have seen Prudentius configuring it: this type of witness is the intent of the body’s miracles. The Christianizing property of miracle-witness also plays a role in Prudentius’s treatment of Quirinus. Amid his rejection of his own miraculous floating, Quirinus concedes that the event does have utility. He asserts: “Now your reputation is fulfilled / and the power of your name revealed, / through which Gentile numbness grows dull.”49 Miracles serve to demonstrate God’s power, to confirm what the Christian community already knows by visual demonstration in the present, but they also serve to demonstrate to new audiences the truth of which Christians are already aware. Miracles dumbfound skeptics and force them to recognize claims counter to their own accepted truths. Even though Quirinus generally rejects modern-day miracles—remember, he objects to his own continued miraculous floating on the grounds that there’s nothing new in it, and that it adds nothing to the glory of God— Prudentius is offering here through the martyr himself a concession to the continued utility of miracles.
48
Or, as I like to read it, “Changing for the better.” Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.76-78 (CCSL 126, 323): Iam plenus titulus tui est / et uis prodita nominis, / quam gentilis hebet stupor. 49
85
The Text as Witness/Say In addition to the emphasis Prudentius places on seeing and hearing, there is also another theme whose presence militates the centrality of witness: the notion of the text itself as witness. The text enables experience, and as such serves as the witness/say, communicating the truth to others and enabling the witness (in all forms) of the reader. As a physical document, it enables the reader to experience it through touch and sight, reaching across centuries to connect past and present. As a text comprised of words intended to be spoken, either silently or aloud, it enables the reader to hear its words and the words of the martyrs it represents, re-vivifying them aurally. In addition, as a vehicle for vivid description, it enables the reader to see, in her mind’s eye, the events unfolding. And, ultimately, by recreating the presence of the objects described, the text allows the reader to experience the drama of martyrdom firsthand, in his own visceral reactions to the episodes and torments detailed in the text. Prudentius is intent on conveying this aspect of texts, their life beyond the page. He consistently, as we have seen, depicts the act of writing as a vehicle for speaking or confessing to God, and sees the stringing-together of verses as akin to weaving crowns of his own in praise of God.50 The text is more than text. It is material, to be offered at the tombs of the martyrs. It is voice, to be offered up to the ears of God. It is body, as Jill Ross notes, acting as a mimetic double of the martyr’s body and equally capable of mediating between this realm and the next.51 Text is testimony, re-presenting reality for observers by recording and recreating (making present again) what “really” transpired and by detailing what ought to
50
Prudentius, Cathemerinon 3.28 (CCSL 126, 12): sertaque mystica; Prudentius, Cathemerinon 3.30 (CCSL 126, 12): laude dei redimita 51 Ross, “Dynamic Writing.” Because of the poem’s mediatory power (326), “the very act of writing embodies martyrdom” (351). “Prudentius sees his own corpus of poetry as a transmuted form of the martyrs’ divine body-texts, and therefore as capable of exercising the same mediatory function” (354).
86
be believed. In the Hamartigenia, for instance, Prudentius details the basis of Christian belief in the all-powerful God by pointing to God’s presence in scripture: “we... have now seen the Lord twice, in books and in body, / before by faith and soon after face-to-face in flesh and blood.”52 With faith, then, text becomes such reality that it parallels physical reality. Christ was present once in text, and later in the flesh, and the believer has seen him both times. In Peristephanon 4, Prudentius introduces the “text as witness” trope simply by calling attention to the fact of the text, that is, by drawing the reader’s notice to the fact that she is reading a poem. He interrupts his praise of the martyrs to declare that he must violate the meter of his poem in order to accommodate their names, and then comments that “the concern to speak about the saints is never wicked or coarse… Love of their golden names makes light of the laws of poetry,” he writes.53 This digression, both from the meter of the poem and from the subject immediately at hand, enables Prudentius to highlight the role of text. He goes on to say that the names of the martyrs whom he had found so difficult to contain in verse are written in the book of heaven, awaiting angelic recitation to Christ, who would then bestow divine favor on Caesaraugusta.54 Immediately following the irruption of the fact of the text into the mind of the reader, recollecting her to the knowledge that the text is acting as the mediator of the witness she is receiving from the martyrs, Prudentius inserts the notion that the text will stand before Christ, that the names read aloud to him will suffice for his intercession. In Vincent’s case, the text as witness appears twice, first in the martyr’s refusal to hand over the Christian sacred books to the persecutors, and then in an interruption, which
52
Prudentius, Hamartigenia 217-218: Sed nos qui dominum libris et corpore iam bis / uidimus, ante fide mox carne et sanguine coram 53 Prudentius, Peristephanon 4.161-168 (CCSL 126, 291-292): Quattuor posthinc superest uirorum / nomen extolli renuente metro, / quos saturninos memorat uocatos / prisca uetustas. / Carminis leges amor aureorum / nominum parui facit et loquendi / cura de sanctis uitiosa non est / nec rudis umquam. 54 Prudentius, Peristephanon 4.169-172 and following (CCSL 126, 292): lenus est artis modus adnotatas / nominum formas recitare Christo, / quas tenet caeli liber explicandus / tempore iusto.
87
we have seen before, in which the crazed persecutor breaks the fourth wall of the poem. Prudentius highlights the role of texts as witnesses both in Datian’s request for the books to be burned and in Vincent’s defiant reply. Datian pleads: At least reveal the hidden pages and obscure books so that the crooked-sowing sect is burned with just flames.55 Datian identifies texts as dangerous because they spread the seed of Christianity, though he mistakenly identifies them as hidden. Vincent demonstrates exactly how un-hidden Christian sacred texts are, however, by making repeated reference to episodes from those very books in his reply. These books are dangerous precisely because they are not hidden, because they remain as witness to events in Christian history. Vincent tells the persecutor that, for desiring to burn the inspired books of God, Datian himself will be the one to burn. To convince him of this, Vincent refers to scripture: You see the tell-tale embers of Gomorrah’s crimes, nor does the ash of Sodom lie hidden, an eternal witness to death. This exemplar is yours, serpent, The soot of sulphur and pitch mixed with tar Which will soon ensnare you deep in hell.56 He emphasizes first the act of seeing, of observing the indices which remain to tell the story. This seeing, however, as well as these “tell-tale embers,” only comes from reading
55
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.181-184 (CCSL 126, 300): saltem latentes paginas / librosque opertos detege, / quo secta prauum seminans / iustis cremetur ignibus. 56 Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.189-200 (CCSL 126, 301): Vides fauillas indices / gomorreorum criminum, / sodomita nec latet cinis / testis perennis funeris. / Exemplar hoc, serpens, tuum est, / fuligo quem /mox sulpuris / bitumen et mixtum pice / imo inplicabunt tartaro.
88
scripture.57 Vincent is assuming that by reading the inspired text, visual witness can be achieved. He then identifies Sodom’s ashes as an eternal witness, and yet, again, this is a witness only to be found in scripture. Concluding with the concept of an exemplar, and linking Datian with the serpent, Vincent brings the witness of the text into the future. The text of scripture records the past, testifies in the present, and encompasses the future as well, witnessing to what will be. Both Datian’s fear of the power of the text and Vincent’s affirmation of the value of the text confirm the idea that text is witness. The text of scripture is, for Prudentius, a witness in its own right. The second instance in which text as witness comes to the foreground in Persistephanon 5 is when Prudentius asks a rhetorical question and Datian answers. Though I have used this as an example of the power of speech, it is also an example of the text drawing attention to itself as a text, precisely because of the jarring nature of the broken boundary. Prudentius ruptures the boundary between the time of the persecutor and the time of the poet, between text and the poet, and between the reader and the world of both the poet and the events, but in doing so, in blurring those boundaries, the poet calls attention to the medium in which those boundary-crossings occur. The broken fourth wall is only jarring because the reader does not expect it to be broken. In theatre, for instance, seeing a character talking directly to the audience actually reminds the audience that they are watching a play. When there is simply action taking place on stage, the viewer can forget the gap between the drama’s reality and his own, but when a character engages the audience as an audience, the illusion is broken and the fact that the audience is watching a play becomes clearer. Prudentius achieves a similar effect by having Datian enter into dialogue with him.
57
While one could argue that Vincent is telling Datian to go and really have an in-person look at the ashes of the cities, the complete ignorance (then and now) of the location of Sodom and Gomorrah would have made that impossible; more to the point, without familiarity with Jewish and Christian scriptures a Roman would have no notion of the cities’ significance, and their ashes would, consequently, be meaningless.
89
Finally, we can see the trope of text as witness in Quirinus’s story. It appears briefly in the final lines of Quirinus’s speech, when he uses the verb prodo, which means “bring forth” but is also the word used to mean “to publish.” Quirinus uses this word to describe the power of God manifest in both the scriptural miracles and in his own miracle of floating: “Now your reputation is fulfilled / and the power of your name published, / through which gentile numbness grows dull.”58 This small reference to the martyr’s death as a publication, and of that publication as a witness which has the power to convert, becomes larger and more significant in light of the broader treatment of the text as witness we can see in the rest of Quirinus’s speech, beginning with his opening admonition to Christ. In this admonition, Quirinus implicitly asks of Christ: What is the use of new miracles? The martyr states bluntly, “In no way is this glory for you / Either unusual or new.” This is a challenge to Christ and to the reader to defend the repetition of miraculous events. We all already know, Quirinus points out, that God can “trample on a raging sea / And stop a rushing river.”59 What glory can repetition add, what novelty, when we already have all the evidence we need of God’s power in Scripture? With this speech, Quirinus is calling into question the necessity of all present-day miracles and asserting the sufficiency of texts. Shouldn’t we know what God is capable of through Scripture alone? Present-day miracles add nothing to the glory of God, at least not for those who have faith in scripture. We do not need to see something with our own eyes to know that it is possible because we can trust the
58
Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.76-78 (CCSL 126, 323): Iam plenus titulus tui est / et uis prodita nominis, / quam gentilis hebet stupor. The word serves the same function in Vincent’s narrative, when Prudentius describes the light from the prison cell breaking through the door-slats to reach the eyes of the soon-to-beconverted jailer: “Light within / broke through the closed doors / and the delicate splendor of the hidden light / was published through the chinks”(Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.305-308 [CCSL 126, 304]: ... sed clausas fores / interna rumpunt lumina / tenuisque per rimas nitor / lucis latentis proditur). Prodo is often used in this sense by Prudentius’s progenitors (including Cicero, Columella, Varro, and Livy) as well as his contemporaries (including Augustine, Arnobius, and Claudianus Mamertius) (Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, col 1621-1622). 59 Prudentius, Peristephanon 7.51-55 (CCSL 126, 322): “Hisu cunctipotens” ait / “haudquaquam tibi gloria / haec est insolita aut nova / calcare fremitum maris / prona et flumina sistere.
90
images we find in sacred texts. Text is just as good as reality, as far as faith is concerned. Scriptural text, he argues, is a sufficient witness. And yet Quirinus says all this in the middle of a miracle. He makes this argument while partaking of a post-biblical miracle, which is lending him both the opportunity and the authority to question the value of those very same miracles. Reassuring God that faith and glory do not depend on the performance of miracles takes on a different character when the ability to make that statement in the first place is dependent on an ongoing miracle. We watch Quirinus attempt to navigate the relative value of (and possible gaps between) reality and representation. Quirinus verbally supports the reality-value of scripture and questions the necessity of visual confirmation, even though his current circumstance speaks to the continued value of eye-witnessed miracles. We, however, are watching Quirinus’s struggle through a poem, through the lens of a text. The same irony and paradox, that the denial of value is enabled by the very thing being devalued, are present here. On the one hand, the poem discounts itself as the representation of a martyr who doesn’t need to be represented and as an addition to scripture, which requires no further evidence. On the other hand, the poem simultaneously affirms itself, first by presenting the martyr (a martyr whose authority is bolstered because knows he’s not adding anything to scripture), second by being the textual substitute for the martyr, who is not present in the present day, and finally by offering (again paradoxically) an argument for the sufficiency of prior textual witness. Despite the tension between representation and the argument for non-repetition, the existence of the text both highlights the value of this text and the object of its representation, rendering both (contrary to Quirinus’s argument) important. The conclusion to which Prudentius ultimately forces his readers is that new miracles do matter, but so do their representations in text. Both have value as witness because they bring truth-confirming miracles to new audiences. The narrative and rhetorical elements of 91
the poem come together to highlight the power and role of witness in martyrdom. Quirinus’s delayed death and the speech that precipitates it not only help Prudentius to explore the qualifications for martyrdom, but also serve as means of defending its representation in literature and the role of representation in re-creating witness in the reader. This, in turn, helps us see that Prudentius advocates witness as the true role and criterion for martyrdom, the essential component.
WHY WITNESS? (OR, THEORIZING THE POWER OF WITNESS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE LATIN WEST)
Now that I have established the dominating presence of witness in these poems, the next question must be: “why?” Why is witness, by sight, by hearing, or through texts a viable and desirable underpinning for martyrdom? The answer lies in the cultural context of Prudentius’s writing. Sensory perception was a source of both tension and possibility for early Christian authors, and the discussion about how to negotiate the sensible world took center stage once Christianity became legal. The “material turn” in the years following the Edict of Milan diminished the ontological separation of matter and divinity,60 which both enabled a positive evaluation of human sensory experience and necessitated the theorization of the “paradoxical relation between the infinite and the finite.”61 The senses, then, as the inescapable mediators of human knowledge, became focal points in the hardly unproblematic
60
Miller, The Corporeal Imagination, 7. Miller contrasts the dualism of anti-idol rhetoric such as Athenagoras’s with the “investment of human bodies with the holy” (7) and the use of the human body as a vehicle for transcendence (6), and maintains that both strains persisted in late ancient Christian literature and thought, which in turn explains “the ambiguities and ambivalences of that discourse”—they betray “a hesitation or even a nervousness regarding the potential for confusing the material and the spiritual” (6). The term “material turn” is introduced on page 5. 61 Miller, The Corporeal Imagination, 7.
92
process of negotiating the human’s relationship to the divine. The senses could be valued, but how? Under what circumstances? Within what boundaries? Helping to resolve these dilemmas was the fact that some late ancient authors, among them certainly Prudentius, felt that sensory experience, particularly the visual and the auditory, could be replicated through textual representation, and thus controlled. In recent works, both Susan Ashbrook Harvey and Patricia Cox Miller have highlighted the ways that ancient Christian authors negotiated the realm of the sensible—in Harvey’s case the olfactory and in Miller’s the visual—by instructing their audiences in the proper (that is to say, the Christian) way of perceiving.62 The development of such modes of peculiarly Christian perception enabled Christians to participate in a worldview wholly their own, thus to separate the Christian community from the pagan. The properly-trained Christian, for example, understands how to distinguish the holy stench of the ascetic from the reek of sin, and can look at and venerate an icon without oversimplifying its connection to the divine. By establishing certain acceptable ways for Christians to interpret what they perceive, early Christian authors provided tools essential for the definition and maintenance of the Christian community. While the senses were occasionally represented as unproblematically conveying truth for Christians simply on the strength of their faith—as when the community smells “pleasant nectar” or “delightful fragrance” 63 during the burning of a martyr—discernment of the sensible was more frequently portrayed as requiring training and the conscious reordering of sensory evaluation. Even if a foul smell were able to be identified as evil (which was
62
Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006) and Miller, The Corporeal Imagination. 63 Harvey, Scenting Salvation, 204. Prudentius contrasts the Christian perception of this smell to the pagan: Peristephanon 2.388-392 (CCSL 126, 270): his nidor, illis nectar est. / Idemque sensus dispari / uariatus aura aut adficit / horrore nares uindice / aut mulcet oblectamine; Harvey, Scenting Salvation, 12; Martyrdom of Polycarp, 15.
93
certainly not always the case), how could the Christian know what the source of the evil was? “When was stench the indication of sin, and when did it mark the battle against that very condition? When did it reveal divine disfavor, and when did it demonstrate shared participation in divine combat against evil?”64 Such discernment required training. John Chrysostom, for example, exhorted the Christian to “discipline the body” so as to heed pleasant smells only “within the confines of an ecclesiastically defined situation,” and Paulinus of Nola felt that “since the odor of monks was nauseating to pagans, the smells of pagans ought to ‘stink in our nostrils.’”65 In the visual realm, the “uncanny doubling of image and saint”66 in literature served to teach Christians the location of the divine, or, rather, the impossibility of locating the divine simply within the physical icon or relic. To an untrained observer, one without a “transfigured eye,”67 the icon of Cosmas and Damian might seem simple and unproblematic, either wholly divine or wholly profane. By contrast, the properlytrained Christian, familiar with instances of uncanny doubling, would fully appreciate the mysterious ambiguity of divine presence at play in the icon. This training produced a community whose every input from the world was filtered by Christ-colored glasses and whose every interaction with the material came to be structured by their frames. Prudentius’s use of witness, the use of the visual and the auditory and the text, was similarly in part prompted by an attempt to discipline the Christian community into correctly experiencing the sensible world, of making use of these potent connections to the divine to guide the
64
Harvey, Scenting Salvation, 213. For Chrysostom, see Harvey, Scenting Salvation, 161; For Paulinus, see Harvey, Scenting Salvation, 204; Paulinus of Nola, Epistula 22.2 66 Miller, The Corporeal Imagination, 159. This is one of the many techniques Miller highlights as ancient Christian modes of dealing with the contested realm of the corporeal. In uncanny doubling, the image and the saint whom the image represents share their power ambiguously—agency is never clearly fixed solely in one or the other, making the image and the saint both implicated in their miracles. This ambiguity then represents the truth more accurately than any simpler attribution: “The truth of the iconic representation of the saint lies in its ontological uncertainty” 67 Miller, The Corporeal Imagination, 160. 65
94
Christian’s perception of the poems, the martyrs they depict, the God they reflect, and the world of the reader beyond the text. Miller identifies a theme in these late ancient writings, the development of what she calls “the corporeal imagination,” defined as “a kind of writing that blurs the distinction between reader and text by appealing to the reader’s sensory imagination.68 Elements of the text take on visual, auditory, sensible characteristics, and force themselves as objects of witness upon the reader, who is intended to (and encouraged to) respond corporeally or viscerally. Materializing the text, this corporeal imagination turned them into witnesses, as we have seen Prudentius is inclined to do. On this model, all of Prudentius’s visual and aural cues, all of his emphases on the various forms of witness, are subordinate to and part of this larger emphasis on bringing the text before the reader as an object and enabler of witness.
Sight and Figuring The late ancient understanding of sight as inextricable from touch and experience finds voice in the episode of the jailer from Peristephanon 5. The jailer looks into the cell, “his eye pressed as much as possible / to the posts, to enter through / the close-pressed joints.”69 The word Prudentius uses here for “eye” is acies, which can refer to the pupil of the eye as well as any sharp edge or object. It can also mean, the faculty of the eye, that is, eyesight. The word in this instance must mean both the eye and the eyesight of the jailer, as Michael Roberts highlights by asking: “Does the word signify a part of the body, the eyes, which can literally be ‘brought close to the door,’ or does it have to be an abstract sense, ‘eyesight,’ for only
68
Miller, The Corporeal Imagination, 7-8. Prudentius, Peristephanon, 5. 318-20 (CCSL 126, 305): Pauens deinde introspicit, / admota quantum postibus /acies per artas cardinum / intrare iuncturas potest. / Vernare multis floribus / stramenta testarum uidet / ipsumque uulsis nexibus / obambulantem pangere. 69
95
vision, not eyes, can be said to enter (intrare) the cell?70 The referent must be something material that can be physically brought close to something else, and must also be something immaterial (or composed of finer material), which can overcome the boundary of the prisondoor to connect with what is inside. Prudentius’s ambiguity here, which highlights the action both of the eye and of the power of sight, draws attention to the reaching aspect of vision, which extends past the eye, past where the boundaries of the human body lie, and which travels on its own far outside of the body that it nonetheless continues to instruct. This, precisely, is the power of sight as widely understood in late antiquity. It was tactile, grasping, and tentacle-like, either beaming out from the eye to grasp at objects in the visible world or shooting in as rays from the sensible world into the eye in order to impress vision into the mind of the beholder.71 The visual encounter, because of this physicality, was seen to have had “permanent effect,” which is in part attributable to the understanding that memory was essentially a visual phenomenon, where the eyes retained all sense perceptions and a visually-based memory could recreate reality.72 Vision, powerful as it was, could thus lead to conversion or to corruption, because it had the potential to “connect the viewer so intimately to its object that the adhesion could damage the soul beyond repair.”73 This possibility of connection is also what made vision such a potent means of accessing the divine. God could be reached and understood through sight, more so (for many authors) than
70
Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 88. Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 123-5. All theories, Frank notes, were current well into late antiquity. 72 Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 16; see also her discussion of Athanasius’s view that sight “engenders change in the viewer” (111); Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 125-128. 73 On conversion: We have already seen this phenomenon above in our discussion of the power of seeing miracles in the Peristephanon. In his address to the virgins at Jerusalem, Athanasius walks them through a pilgrimage in which sight recurs as a catalyst for transformation: “The repeated ‘you have seen’ links each act of seeing with a transformation” (Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 111). On corruption: Sight was understood to be powerful, and thus both to be praised and feared. “As the window or mirror of the soul, the eye could lead the soul to God, but it could also swiftly distract it from divine purposes. Some ascetics immured themselves to protect others from the dangerous consequences of the erotic gaze” (Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 131); Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 131. 71
96
through any other sense.74 As Georgia Frank summarizes, “Visual perception triggers an immediate bond with the divine presence, a bond that is edifying and permanently transforming.”75 In her study of late antique Christian pilgrimage, Georgia Frank points to yet another way that the visual had particular power: it could enable participation in biblical events. Frank labels this understanding “biblical realism,” or “instances when the viewer claims to become an eyewitness to a biblical event.”76 This eyewitness was the result of a temporal and spatial collapse prompted by the experience of vision through the “eye of faith,” a vision triggered by visits to see living holy men.77 These pilgrims believed that “seeing holy people was an opportunity to participate in the biblical past,” and that “seeing holy faces was a means to see Christ himself.”78 That pilgrims understood this participation in biblical events as the result of sight, specifically, is Frank’s central argument and is based on the writings of the pilgrims themselves: Although pilgrimage engages every physical sense, late antique Christian pilgrims believed that seeing offered special benefits. In diaries and letters they claimed a more genuine understanding of scripture precisely because the sense of sight allowed them to internalize and embody that knowledge.79 This is, in essence, the extension of typology through to the present day. The living saint refigured Christ to onlookers. Seeing the miracles of a holy person was akin to seeing the miracles of Christ, just as the ark bearing Noah was seen to be typologically linked to the cross raising up Christ.80 Encountering a splinter of the True Cross could, with the proper
74
See, for instance, Frank’s discussion of Asterius and Chrysostom and their response to the theological problem of being born blind (Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 114-118). “The immediacy of Christ’s presence is perceived by the faculty of sight” (110). 75 Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 111. 76 Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 106. 77 Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 106, 177. 78 Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 33; 99. 79 Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 104. 80 Benedicta Ward, “Signs and Wonders: Miracles in the Desert Tradition” Studia Patristica 17.2 (1982), 539-542; See especially 540.
97
understanding, transport the viewer to the place and time of the Crucifixion, to where the splinter was truly the whole cross and the relic-venerator was in actuality the believer watching the Crucifixion.81 But the key requirement of interaction that prompted these typological identifications was the element of sight.
Hearing and Speaking Because sight was associated with touch, it was therefore seen as more reliable than hearing, which had no tactile component, but that does not mean that hearing played no role in accessing the divine.82 Aristotle valued hearing “because it was by which to encounter language, persuasion, and reasoning.”83 In the Acts of Paul and Thecla, it is hearing alone that arrests Thecla’s interest—so much so that she sits at her window days on end to listen to Paul’s preaching—and induces her to convert.84 And who can forget Augustine’s conversion in his garden, prompted by a mysterious child’s voice saying, “Tolle lege, Tolle lege”?85 Speaking, meanwhile, was both vivifying and transformative. Aeneas hesitates to recount for Dido the siege of Troy, because it would renovare (renew or restore) his unspeakable grief.86 The distance between retelling and reliving the events is collapsed and the anguish experienced at Troy is re-created in Carthage. Furthermore, the very act of speaking is itself transformative and recreative of the human. Certainly, the content of a speech was thought to influence the character of the speaker, as we see in the Gospel of Matthew: “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of
81
Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 177. This is her interpretation of Paulinus’s treatment of the relic of the True Cross. 82 Frank, 111-114; Cyril of Jerusalem, “sight is more trustworthy than hearing” (Mystagogia 1.1). 83 Harvey, Scenting Salvation, 104. 84 Acts of Paul and Thecla, 2.2-2.4 85 Augustine, Confessiones 8.12 (CSEL 33, 194): et ecce audio uocem de uicina* domo cum cantu dicentis et crebro repetentis quasi pueri an puellae, nescio: "tolle lege, tolle lege." 86 Aeneid 2.3: infandum, regina, iubes renovare dolorem.
98
the mouth that defiles. ….Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles” (15:11-18). But as Maud Gleason demonstrated in her examination of the constructions of masculinity in second-century rhetorical texts, even the manner of speaking was understood to transform the speaker, morally and physically. One’s mode of speaking demonstrated proper virility, and “both physicians and educated laymen believed that the training of the voice affected not only a man’s speech, but also the wellbeing of his entire body.”87 And finally, as we have already seen, in Prudentius’s martyrstories, the verbal confrontation between martyr and persecutor takes central stage, to the detriment of other aspects of martyrdom, including suffering and death. The martyr’s speeches encompass the whole martyrdom, providing martyrdoms in miniature, as “each exchange tends to take on the pattern of the martyrdom as a whole: conflict, followed by victory for the martyr and defeat for the magistrate.”88
Seeing and Hearing Through Texts Vision and display, and hearing and speech, were therefore not activities divorced from identity. They were thought to have powerful influence on the development of the mind, soul, and even the body of the Christian. And Prudentius, along with his contemporaries, firmly believed that both the visual and aural sensory realms could be replicated through text. Sight could be achieved through literary techniques, though primarily through ekphrasis, the literary device of vivid description. Hearing could be achieved through the use of dialogue, word-play, and poetic elements like meter and rhyme, although the underlying orality of
87
Maud W. Gleason, Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 84. 88 Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs, 54.
99
literature in the ancient world, particularly the fact that most readers read aloud, even to themselves, made hearing almost a necessary component of any reading. Late ancient authors firmly believed that sight could be achieved through the words of a text. The characteristic method for this feat was ekphrasis.89 The definition of the term from the Rhetorica ad Herennium that became “canonical” in Late Antiquity defined ekphrasis as “when an event is so described that the business seems to be enacted and the subject to pass before our eyes.”90 The device’s defining feature was its characteristic quality of enargeia, or vividness.91 Thus objects of ekphrasis could be works of art and architecture, as modern readers are accustomed to seeing, but they could also be people, places, times and events.92 An ekphrasis could consist of a single suggestive word or an entire, standalone narrative, but the characteristic feature was that ekphrasis achieved the illusion of ‘bringing the subject before the eyes.’ The illusion was intended to be persuasive; ancient students of rhetoric were trained to employ ekphrasis to make their arguments more effective. To demonstrate, rather than assert, the truth of their case, orators would create verbal pictures that bore the same
89
The term ekphrasis has come, in modern scholarship, to denote, specifically, “a description of a work of art.” Ruth Webb, in Ekphrasis, imagination and persuasion in ancient rhetorical theory and practice (Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2009), demonstrates that this emphasis on subject, rather than effect, as a defining characteristic is a modern, largely twentieth century, development born of a dual process of restriction and expansion in meaning and referent which removed the ekphrasis from its rhetorical context and located it as a primarily poetic phenomenon (28-37). Webb maintains that this development has been fruitful, “in particular in encouraging interdisciplinary exchanges between classical scholars and specialists in other periods of literature and, to some extent, between literary scholars and historians of art and archaeologists” (11), but that the ancient meaning needs to be acknowledged and understood if we are to properly understand what ancient authors sought to accomplish and how they thought communication worked.Even with this description, the ability to represent the visual in words comes to the fore. But in antiquity, the definition was both broader and more singularly devoted to the notion that description could engender visual presence. “The purpose,” as Lausberg summarizes §810 in §1133, “is enargeia.” 90 Michael Roberts, The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 39. 91 Webb, Ekphrasis, 8-9. 92 Anne Rogerson uncovers, for instance, an ekphrasis in Vergil’s description of Ascanius on the battlefield, while Rebecca Langlands notes the ekphraseis of sex-changing bodies in Ovid and Diodorus Siculus (Rogerson, “Dazzling Likeness: Seeing Ekphrasis in Aeneid 10,” Ramus 31:1-2 (2002): 51-72; Langlands, “Can you tell what it is yet? Descriptions of Sex Change in Ancient Literature,” Ramus 31:1-2 (2002): 91110.
100
emotional and evidentiary weight that a bloody cloak or bit of bone brought into a courtroom might achieve.93 Using this visual immediacy to turn hearers and readers into spectators, authors and orators appear to have felt that they had a fair amount of control over the images their words would conjure in the minds of their audience.94 They could therefore ensure that the audience retained the appropriate message, absorbing the spectacle in the appropriate manner and isolating the intended meaning of the spectacle from among “the matrix of alternative possibilities.”95 The persuasive aspect of ekphrasis did not disappear when used in poetry or history rather than oratory.96 It could cultivate images in listeners’ minds and involve them in an argument; it was understood to be capable of serving as proof, eliciting emotional responses, and leading to action.97 All these uses combine to make ekphrasis a valuable pedagogical tool, conveying information and inciting change. It presents a moment of rupture, where the mind’s gaze is momentarily refocused onto a new object, and thus it not only grabs the audience’s attention and serves to add visual immediacy and import to the object being described,98 but also signals to the audience that this object requires more attention in order to be processed.99 Within these ekphrastic moments, signals to the reader abound, encouraging particular responses and guiding reception. It is not enough to simply experience the visualized event; the reader must experience it properly. Once the reader understands that this moment requires his or her attention, the author then provides clues or guidelines for how the
93
See Webb, Ekphrasis, 90. See also Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 17. Webb, Ekphrasis, 107. 95 Fowler, Don P. “Narrate and Describe: The Problem of Ekphrasis,” The Journal of Roman Studies 81 (1991): 27. 96 Webb, Ekphrasis, 129. 97 See Webb, Ekphrasis, 153. 98 See the discussion of ekphrasis, enargeia, and evidentia in Grig, Making Martyrs, 111-112. Also see Roberts, The Jeweled Style, 38-41 and Simon Goldhill, “The naïve and knowing eye: ecphrasis and the culture of viewing in the Hellenistic world,” in Goldhill and Robin Osborne, eds. Art and Text in ancient Greek culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 197-223. 99 Roberts, The Jeweled Style, 64-5. The recognized centrality of ekphrasis as well as its insistence on the reader’s attending to every last detail are both central to my argument. 94
101
reader is supposed to feel, think, or respond. Asterius of Amaseia, for instance, describes his own tears at viewing scenes of Euphemia’s martyrdom, thus modeling the appropriate reaction, while Prudentius inserts a shudder of horror—miserabile visu!—at the image of the martyr Cassian being pricked to death by his students’ styli, ensuring that his readers share in his visceral appreciation for the martyr’s torment.100 When we are invited to watch Vincent’s release from prison (via the suggestive cerneres mentioned above) we are also guided in our response to that image by the community’s depicted response to Vincent’s mutilated (but still living) body. In addition to modeling appropriate responses, authors might set one ekphrasis within another to highlight particular points, as Prudentius does in Peristephanon 11,101 or they might create fractures in some other way, blurring reality and representation, creating dissonance or synaesthesia or even actively cultivating the reader’s confusion by inserting paradoxes. Visuality is key, and ekphraseis often compound and are signaled by other visual cues which serve to vivify the events described. In an attempt to represent the immediacy of the events described, Prudentius, in what is a standard move for authors introducing ekphraseis, slips in and out of the present tense while depicting his martyrs and their torments.102 He also hints to his readers the need for visualization by foregrounding the role of sight within the narrative. For instance, in the poem we are about to discuss more thoroughly, Peristephanon 10, the son is martyred, rather than the mother, because the prefect wants to exploit the mother’s sight in order to torment her more cruelly: “The parent’s
100
Grig, Making Martyrs, 113; Asterius, Ekphrasis on Saint Euphemia (edited by François Halkin, in Euphémie de Chalcédoine: Légendes Byzantines [Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1965]), 4-8; Prudentius, Peristephanon 9.13. 101 See Miller, The Corporeal Imagination, 69-73 for a wonderful discussion of this passage. 102 See Lausberg §814 on translatio temporum
102
eyes will be punished more cruelly / than if the bloody claws despoil her limbs.”103 Later, Prudentius himself highlights the visual component when, in explaining the executioners’ tears, he asks, “What rock would be able to endure that sight, what stiffness of bronze or of iron would be able to bear it?”104 This sort of authorial interruption is another standard rhetorical technique to force audience engagement and signal ekphrasis.105 Prudentius, finally, also promotes visualization by employing direct speech, rather than reported speech, when his characters talk.106 This tactic, while it primarily serves to revivify the martyr through aural means, also serves to enhance the visual, by offering a soundtrack to the scenes playing out before the readers’ eyes and by completing the reality of the moment’s re-presentation. Prudentius and his contemporaries believed that hearing could also be achieved through text. It almost goes without saying that the aural qualities of poetry are inherent to their aesthetic and persuasive powers. Extended onomatopoeia, whether via word choice or through alliteration is a frequently used vivifying tool, as it forces the reader to recreate in her own voice the noises that would be occurring in the scene the text describes. This same effect can also be accomplished through rhythm and meter, using spondaic lines to signify steady, booming noise. This is also the effect, as I mentioned above, of using direct speech, rather than reported, when recreating dialogue between characters. The reader is forced to recreate and re-enact the speech of the character as he is reading the text. It is because of techniques like ekphrasis, and because of this general understanding that text could reproduce reality, that late ancient Christians thought they could participate in biblical events, experiencing Frank’s biblical realism, without actually traveling to see the
103
Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.694-695 (CCSL 126, 354): Oculi parentis punientur acrius, / quam so cruentae membra carpant ungulae 104 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.701-2 (CCSL 126, 354): Quae cautis illud perpeti spectaculum, / quis ferre possit aeris aut ferri rigor? 105 See Lausberg, §759-765. 106 See Lausberg §814; §817.
103
holy men or the holy lands. Ordinary Christians could make pilgrimages vicariously, through the writings and travelogues of the pilgrims. Similarly, Prudentius’s accounts of martyrdom would enable his readers to participate in the textual martyrdoms, with a mentality of what we could label “martyrial realism.” The reader is transported to the scene of the martyrdom, where she witnesses both through sight, via vivifying devices like ekphrasis, and through sound, by the various features of reading aloud. More than this, because witness by sight and by hearing has transformative power, the reader can also witness by being a martyr. This is where Prudentius’s advocacy through exegetical poetry shines through: he guides the transformation of the reader into a witness, and in so doing leads them to their own form of martyrdom. He argues against the notion of death as the signifier of true martyrdom and asserts the centrality of witness, all the while exploiting and cultivating a particular type of readerly engagement. The resultant reader is thereby instructed in the proper way of understanding martyrdom, the text, and, as I will soon demonstrate, their own experience.
PERISTEPHANON 10: MODELING THE LIVING MARTYR
In Peristephanon 10 Prudentius actually models a means of becoming a witness through interpretation and understanding, rather than with death. He does so by means of an ekphrasis about two anonymous characters, a child and his mother, whose story appears as an interruption of the (very) lengthy passion of another martyr. Prudentius does not explicitly call either the child or the mother a martyr, but he clearly configures them as such, using them (and their very anonymity) to instruct his readers in how to cultivate a properly Christian, martyrial worldview that would enable them to become martyrs themselves. The story unfolds as follows: as part of his long, scathing diatribe against paganism, the martyr Romanus asserts that inborn human understanding acknowledges the truth of 104
Christianity.107 To prove his point, Romanus challenges Asclepiades, the prefect in command of his execution, to select a child, barely weaned, to answer the question of whether or not the worship of Christ is natural and inborn. Asclepiades agrees and chooses from the crowd of onlookers a small boy, described as an infans (literally “one who cannot speak”). Romanus asks the child: “What seems true and fitting: / to worship the one Christ and in Christ the Father, / or to pray to gods in a thousand forms?”108 Mirroring Romanus’s own miraculous speech, the child responds that “whatever it is that men call ‘God’ / must be one and the only one of the one. / Since Christ is thus, Christ is the true God. / Even children do not suppose that there are many sorts of gods.”109 The appalled prefect asks who taught him to say such things, and the child answers, “My mother, and God through my mother.”110 In order to punish the child and deliver the harshest possible penalty to the mother, Asclepiades orders that the child be tortured and the mother forced to watch. Undergoing graphic abuse that leaves even the executioners in tears, the child cries out for water. Up to this point his mother, the only dry-eyed spectator in the crowd, has been watching silently, her “brow shining with calmness and joy”;111 she now takes this opportunity to speak. She admonishes her son for complaining, reminds him that Christ awaits him if he suffers well, and finally encourages him to imitate biblical instances of sacrifice and martyrdom that typologically mirror Christ’s own passion. Hearing her speech and following her advice, the child becomes heartened and begins to laugh at the violence being done to his body. The furious prefect orders him killed. The child is handed back to his mother, who carries him to the slaughter, bids him farewell,
107
Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.653-654. Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.667-670 (CCSL 126, 353): quid uidetur esse uerum et congruens, / unumne Christum colere et in Christo patrem, / an conprecari mille formarum deos? 109 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.672-674 (CCSL 126, 353): est quidquid illud quod ferunt homines deum, / unum esse oportet et quod uni est unicum. / Cum Christus hoc sit, Christus est uerus deus. / Genera deorum multa nec pueri putant. 110 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.680-1 (CCSL 126, 353): “Quis auctor,” inquit, “vocis est huius tibi?”/ Respondit ille : “Mater et matri deus.” 111 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.711-712 (CCSL 126, 354): At sola mater hisce lamentis caret, / soli sereno frons renidet gaudio. 108
105
and sings a Psalm of David as he is beheaded. The last the reader sees her, the mother is clutching her son’s severed head to her chest. The child in this story is a martyr in the familiar death-centered sense of the word, although Prudentius never once actually calls him a martyr. The poet does, however, emphasize the child’s witness to the suffering of Christ at the crucifixion. The boy’s initial punishment, for instance, is to be lifted up high and beaten.112 The word Prudentius uses to describe the lifting is tollere, which is the same word used in most versions of the Vetus Latina to translate Jesus’s ascension to the cross.113 Also reminiscent of Christ’s death in the Gospels is the image of milk as well as blood flowing from the child’s wounds: “more milk than blood flowed from [his back].”114 This is analogous to, though not an exact imitation of, Jesus’s side wound pouring forth water along with blood in John 19:34. Later, as the child’s tortures intensify, Prudentius calls to mind a sympathetic relationship between the innocent’s suffering and the natural world that would be familiar to Christians from the Synoptic Gospels.115 Just as the earth quakes and rocks split in response to Jesus’s death in Matthew, in this child’s passion Prudentius makes the comment, “What rock would be able to endure that sight, / what stiffness of bronze or of iron would be able to bear it?”116 The most striking and direct parallel, however, between the child’s experience and Christ’s is the child’s request for water. Prudentius writes: “The little one exclaimed that he was thirsty / (the intensity of the burning breath amid his tortures drove this out, / that he should seek a drink
112
Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.697 (CCSL 126, 354): sublime tollant et manu pulsent nates. For tolle, John 19.15, most Vetus Latina manuscripts use tolle once or twice, and the ones that do not just have crucifige—they do not use another word. 114 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.700 (CCSL 126, 354): plus unde lactis quam cruoris defluat. 115 See the onset of darkness in Matthew 27.45, Mark 15.33, and Luke 23.44-45, as well as the shaking earth and split rocks of Matthew 27.51. 116 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.701-2 (CCSL 126, 354): Quae cautis illud perpeti spectaculum, / quis ferre possit aeris aut ferri rigor? 113
106
of water).”117 This request mirrors Jesus’s statement on the cross in John: “I am thirsty” (John 19:28). The verb the child uses, sitire, is also the verb used in all extant renderings of the scene in the Vetus Latina, with which Prudentius would have been familiar. At this moment the child is performing a perfect imitatio Christi, where he both aurally and visually refigures Christ for the crowd of onlookers and the reading audience. Up to this point, the scene is an unproblematic retelling of the basic martyr’s tale, which Prudentius’s audience would have come to expect. The boy’s request for water, however, presents a moment of rupture, of dissonance and discontinuity. The discontinuity derives from the fact that, at the very instant the child is so perfectly imitating Christ, he is also failing as a martyr. Martyrs were not supposed to evince negative reactions to pain and suffering. We have already seen Vincent’s exuberant response to his torments and Encratis’s uncomplaining endurance. But the trope of the impassive martyr is not Prudentius’s alone. Blandina, the slave whose endurance at Lyons bested the daylong efforts of torturers to break her, is twice described as insensible to her pain because of her continual confession of faith.118 The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas directly addresses and resolves the issue of pain: when Felicitas cries out in pain during childbirth, her jailers mock her, doubting her ability to endure torture, to which she responds, “I suffer so because it is I who suffers; then, however, another will be in me who will suffer for me, because I am about to suffer for him.”119 The expectation is that the martyr does not simply endure pain, but that she does so with an unsurpassed serenity and apparent inviolability. The martyr’s pain is a logical conundrum: if the martyr is not suffering, then there is little merit in his feats of endurance.
117
Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.716-718 (CCSL 126, 354): Sitire sese paruus exclamauerat / (animae aestuantis ardor in cruciatibus / hoc exigebat lymfae ut haustum posceret). 118 Martyrs of Lyons 1.19; 1.56 119 Passio Perpetuae et Felicitas 15.6-7 (Musurillo, 122-124): modo ego patior quod patior; illic autem alius erit in me qui patietur pro me, quia et ego pro illo passura sum.
107
But if, on the other hand, the martyr actually suffers, the martyrdom does little to reassure onlookers of the reality of God’s help or to remind them of his coming glory. Perhaps due to the centrality and difficulty of the question, Prudentius himself offers several answers to the puzzle of the martyr’s pain in the Peristephanon. Some of the martyrs in the Peristephanon, like Vincent, behave as if they are not being tortured: “Amid all of this [torture] he remained unmoved, as if (tamquam) ignorant of the pain.”120 The pain seems to be a fact, albeit one by which Vincent is unmoved, but Prudentius leaves open the possibility that Vincent did not, in fact, feel the pain, although he logically should have. Less ambiguously, Cyprian acknowledges the pain of torture, but advises his followers that “it is light, if you compare it with the future, eternal things that God himself has promised to brave men.”121 The pain is real, but when put in perspective, it is nothing grievous. Not so for the martyr Cassian, who urges his tormentors to strike more forceful blows, so as to end the brutal torture of thousands of little wounds. Prudentius writes that the weaker assailant was the greater torturer, and that the torments increased in severity as his attackers grew more tired.122 But Cassian, in asking for a quicker death, is not complaining: he is challenging his tormentors, ridiculing their strength, and pointing to the fact that he, though outnumbered and a passive victim, has outlasted them. In Eulalia’s case, Prudentius seems to find some middle ground between the potential impassivity of Vincent and the stated (if undemonstrated) anguish of Cassian: the pain affects her body, but not her spirit, and so she appears unmoved by it. Eulalia is described as speaking “without tears or even a groan,” since “the dreadful
120
Prudentius, Peristephanon 5.233-234 (CCSL 126, 302): Haec inter inmotus manet / tamquam dolorum nescius. 121 Prudentius, Peristephanon 13.41-45 (CCSL 126, 383): Esse leuem cruciatum, si modo conferas futura / quae deus ipse uiris intermina fortibus spopondit. / Merce doloris emi spem luminis et diem perennem. / Omne malum uolucri cum tempore transuolare cursim. / Nil grave quod peragi finis facit et quiete donat. 122 Prudentius, Peristephanon 9.59 (CCSL 126, 328): Maior tortor; Peristephanon 9.68 (CCSL 126, 328): tormenta crescunt, dum fatiscit carnifex.
108
pain was absent from her soul.”123 In all of Prudentius’s varied negotiations of pain, however, one element is constant: the martyr cannot evince a negative reaction to pain and suffering. The child martyr is not only unusual in his cry for water, he is jarringly and visibly exhibiting behavior that runs counter to everything Prudentius’s audience had been taught to expect. Readers could have been nothing but shocked. This moment of rupture, this enacted paradox of simultaneous failure and perfection, provides an entrance, a Philostratean “Look!,”124 for the interlude’s second martyr, the child’s mother, who intervenes to help her son realize his own martyrdom and becomes, without any physically-inflicted suffering of her own, a martyr herself.125 The mother’s intervention consists, essentially, of interpretation and identification. She interprets biblical stories so as to allow both her son and herself to identify with characters who are themselves typologically identified with Christ. In doing so, she induces biblical realism that enables her son and herself to become participants in salvation history following the type of Christ. The mother first tells her son to look to Christ, to make the desire to see Christ the “one fire that burns” in his “soul and marrow.”126 Then, to help him do this, she offers three biblical examples that relate to his plight: the massacre of the
123
Prudentius, Peristephanon 3.141-143 (CCSL 126, 282): Haec sine fletibus et gemitu / laeta canebat et intrepida. / Dirus abest dolor ex animo. 124 Norman Bryson, “Philostratus and the Imaginary Museum,” in Goldhill, Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture, 266-267. This describes a “moment of visionary presence” when, in the case of Philostratus’s description of a painting of a spider, the “words, the paint and the spider’s web merge.” 125 It should be noted that this dichotomy of “actual” vs “vicarious” suffering is a false one: whether violence is physical or psychological, physical responses result. As Vasiliki Limberis noted (following Babette Rothschild, The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment (New York: Norton, 2000), 56-57) in “Making the Body Remember: Violence in First Invective Against Julian the Emperor by Gregory of Nazianzus,” a paper presented at the annual conference of the Society of Biblical Literature, Boston MA, November 2008: “‘Emotions, though interspersed and named by the mind, are integrally an experience of the body.’ Hence anger results in muscular tension; disgust in nausea; fear in a racing heart, trembling body, and shaking extremities; and shame in rising body heat and visibly turning red.” It is this fluidity of physical and psychological that enables the dynamic of expanded martyrdom I discuss below. 126 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.731-5 (CCSL 126, 355): Venies ad illud mox fluentum, si modo / animo ac medullis solus ardor aestuet / uidere Christum, quod semel potum adfatim / sic sedat omnem pectoris flagrantiam / vita ut beata iam sitire nesciat.
109
innocents at Bethlehem, the binding of Isaac in Genesis, and the story of the seven Maccabean martyrs.127 The mother both highlights how these images parallel Christ’s sufferings and emphasizes their similarities to her son’s situation. The mother’s interpretive progression is most visible in her description of the binding of Isaac. In the mother’s retelling, Isaac becomes a willing victim: You know, as I have often said... ...That Isaac was his father’s only little boy, And that he, about to be sacrificed, discerning the altar and the sword, Voluntarily offered his neck to the old man making the sacrifice.128 The lone small son precociously ascertains not only that someone he trusts is about to kill him, but also that this sacrifice is worthy of his full acquiescence, and he sees the instruments of his demise and nonetheless willingly submits himself to their pain. Isaac is an appropriate model for the young child of Peristephanon 10 to follow, for there are similarities between the Isaac of the mother’s telling and the child martyr, and the child’s situation requires behavior similar to what the mother asserts Isaac’s had been. We know, for example, that the child martyr is an only child because the mother remarks elsewhere: “That one birth should make me preeminent, my life, / As fruitful of glory, is placed in your hand.”129 Furthermore, it is the mother who is responsible for her son’s suffering, just as Abraham is responsible for Isaac’s. Because she instructed the child in Christianity, the mother is the agent through whose faith the sacrifice is made possible, placing her son in the same position as Isaac, about to die at the hands of a trusted parent. Rather than feeling betrayed by his mother, the
127
For the purposes of this investigation, I am assuming that Prudentius was using primarily 2 Macc, even if he may have had access to 4 Macc. The mother’s speech more closely parallels 2 Macc, and there is nothing present in the text that seems to indicate the necessary influence of 4 Macc. 128 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.746-750 (CCSL 126, 355-6): Scis, saepe dixi… /… Isac fuisse paruulum patri unicum, / qui, cum inmolandus aram et ensem cerneret, / ultro sacranti colla praebuerit seni. 129 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.779-780 (CCSL 126, 357): Me partus unus ut feracem gloriae, / mea vita, praestet, in tua est situm manu.
110
child martyr listens to her words and becomes, like Isaac, a willing victim, a parent’s sacrifice to God. The mother interprets Isaac as a Christ figure. First, as noted above, the mother designates Isaac an only son. There is, to be sure, biblical precedent for this: God commands Abraham in Genesis 22.2 to "take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you." Nonetheless, Isaac was not an only child. Ishmael, his older half-brother, figures largely in earlier chapters of Genesis: his birth, naming, circumcision, blessing by God in response to Abraham’s prayer, departure with his mother, and role in burying his father are all significant events that are overlooked in calling Isaac Abraham’s only son. Yet Prudentius ignores Ishmael, asserts that Isaac was Abraham’s only son, and so conforms Isaac more fully to Jesus. This only-begottenness enables the promised child to more closely resemble the Christ of John 3.16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His onlybegotten Son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish.” The child’s mother, then, characterizes Isaac as a type of Christ, and she urges her son to imitate him. In so doing, the child will imitate not only Isaac, but also Christ. The mother also heightens similarities between Isaac and Christ by asserting that Isaac was a willing victim. Genesis does not say that Isaac was willing; it merely says that Abraham “bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood” (22.9). Nonetheless, authors such as Cyprian, Irenaeus, and John Chrysostom wrote of him as a willing victim, a type for Christ.130 This identification was predicated on two main hermeneutical moves. The first is an allegorical reading of Genesis 22.6 (“and Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac”), through which the wood Isaac
130
Cyprian, De Bono Patientiae 10.177; Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 4.5.4; Chrysostom, Homily III on 2 Corinthians, In epistulam i ad Timotheum, Homily XXVI on John, and Homily LXXXV.
111
carries becomes representative of the cross and Isaac therefore becomes Christ. Exegetes assumed that Isaac willingly carried this wood. His ability to carry the wood, however, led to the second interpretational venture: if Isaac was old enough and strong enough to carry wood, he would have been capable of overcoming his centenarian father if he so chose, and therefore must have willingly submitted to his hand. The mother, for her retelling, abandons the idea that Isaac would have been old enough to carry wood, but does not relinquish the idea that Isaac was a willing victim. Instead, she merges the self-sacrificing Isaac with the helpless and child-like Isaac and uses that composite image as her son’s role model. The final result is an Isaac who prefigured Christ and to whom the child martyr can look for guidance; the child is never instructed to imitate Christ, but nevertheless he can refigure Christ by imitating the Isaac described by his mother. The child’s imitation of this christomimetic Isaac actually becomes identification with the biblical model as a result of his mother’s interpretation. Hearing his mother’s speech, the child begins to laugh at his tortures, establishing a firm link to Isaac, whose name means laughter.131 It is this laughter that Prudentius uses to signal the child’s assumption of the martyr’s role—he becomes Isaac, and thus a true witness of Christ. He welcomes his martyrdom, all pain (or appearance of pain) gone, truly becoming the willing victim. In order to become a true martyr, the child has to be aware that his actions are significant. He has to “read” his own experience correctly, much as the Christian seeking to navigate the sensory world would need to understand what she sees or hears correctly. In the reader’s case, the poet provides guidance as to the proper meaning, but in the case of this child, it is his mother’s intervention and interpretation that make his awareness possible.
131
Though he uses a different word, Prudentius elsewhere notes Isaac’s connection to laughter, recalling Sarah’s laughter upon hearing she would conceive. In Psychomachia, Praef. 49 (CCSL 126, 150), he describes Sarah as: herede gaudens et cachinni paenitens, or “rejoicing at an heir, while repenting of her derision” In Peristephanon 10.791-3 (CCSL 126, 357), the word is rideo, but the image is the same.
112
Dying for Christ, imitating his death even down to his request for water, would not count as martyrdom or true witness unless the would-be martyr understood himself to be acting within a matrix of Christian action; the martyr must be cognizant of the testimony he is giving if he is to exhibit a response to pain that is appropriate for a martyr. The child appears to have no idea that he is or ought to be refiguring Christ and imitating the Christ-types of the Old Testament until his mother intervenes to interpret his suffering, and then, armed with his new understanding, he succeeds in his witness. In this manner Prudentius offers his readers an example of effective interpretation, that is, interpretation that influences the world of the interpreters. Here an outside interpreter can alter the course of events by inculcating a new understanding of experience. The mother is acting as exegetical poet, offering an interpretation, a new way of understanding, and hoping to incite a change in her audience. We see that she is successful with her son’s martyrdom, but her success goes beyond helping someone else become a martyr: she becomes a martyr herself by virtue of these same interpretive powers. The mother, even without dying or suffering any physically-inflicted torture, becomes a martyr through her model of effective interpretation, becoming a Christ figure by the same means that help her son achieve his martyrdom. She creates a web of martyr-images and Christ-types, places herself within it, and emerges triumphantly depicted by Prudentius as a Christ-figure. For those living after the age of persecution, who could no longer hope for the baptism of blood, Prudentius offers this woman as a model of martyrdom. The poem now becomes the site of a master-class in identity construction. One of the images that the mother conjures up for her son is that of the seven brothers of 2 and 4 Maccabees. In her retelling, however, she inserts herself into the story, becoming the Maccabean mother whose sons are tortured and killed before her eyes. She presents the narrative of these martyrs and their mother in such a way that the mother is a more central 113
example of sacrifice than her sons. Rather than calling the seven young men brothers, for instance, she calls them “seven sons issued forth from one mother.”132 And while 2 Maccabees relates that “the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly” (7.5), the mother’s retelling of this story only includes the exhortations of the Maccabean mother. The sons seem to fade into the background in the mother’s retelling of the event, in order to give more prominence to their mother. The focus is not on how the sons suffered, but rather on how their mother reacted to their torments, and it is she, not her sons, who triumphs: “With these encouragements the parent, spurring the Maccabees, / conquered and subdued the enemy seven times; / As many times as she bore children, so many times is she renowned for her triumphs.”133 The Maccabean mother’s ability to endure watching her sons be tortured and killed without being moved is remarkable, and she even goes so far as to see their suffering in a positive light. For such endurance, the mother in Peristephanon 10 accords the Maccabean mother, not her sons, the triumph of martyrdom. Furthermore, the mother in the Maccabean story does actually finish her martyrdom with her own death, which occurs once her sons have been dispatched. And yet the child martyr’s mother does not mention her counterpart’s death, but instead locates the source of her triumph in her fortitude at losing all her sons. In relocating the sacrifice from the martyr (sacrificing himself) to the parent (sacrificing her child), the mother of Peristephanon 10 creates a space for her own martyrdom within her son’s. It is noteworthy that each of the examples the mother chooses to reassure her son includes a sacrificing parental figure with whom she can identify. We have already seen this dynamic at play in the Maccabean story and in the binding of Isaac. The mother’s other example, the one she first cites, is that of the massacred innocents in
132
Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.752 (CCSL 126, 356): una matre quod septem editi. Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.776-778 (CCSL 126, 356-7): His Maccabeos incitans stimulis parens / hostem subegit subiugatum septies, / quot feta natis tot triumfis inclyta. 133
114
Bethlehem: “the thousand little ones … / forgetful of milk and unmindful of breasts.”134 It is not necessary here, if the goal is to offer the child models of Christ-like behavior, to include a reminder of the children’s mothers through the image of breastfeeding, but the mother includes it anyway, establishing a foothold by which she herself can ascend to martyrdom. And ascend she does. Prudentius leaves little doubt that the mother becomes a martyr, and the audience can see that the mode of interpretation she is using is having an effect in the world of the interpreter. As the mother retells these stories for her son, she becomes even more like the Maccabean mother than before. After she is done relating the story of the Maccabees, the child’s mother says some general words of comfort and encouragement to her son, employing the very same topics that the Maccabean mother used to comfort and encourage her sons. In 2 Maccabees, the mother reminds her youngest son of the debt he owes her: “I carried you nine months in my womb, and nursed you for three years, and have reared you and brought you up to this point, and have taken care of you” (7.27). She also evokes God’s role as giver of life, calling to mind her son’s other debt: “I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath” (7.22). The speech of the child martyr’s mother in the passion of Romanus is strikingly similar: Through the faithful vessel of this womb, Through the hospitable hearth of twice five months, If the nectar of our breast was sweet to you, If the lap soft, if the infancy pleasing, Stand firm and proclaim the author of these gifts. By what art you began to live within us, And even from what nothingness your body came, I know not; Only your animator and creator knows. Be devoted to him, whose gift you were born; You would do well to pour back into the giver what he gave.135
134
Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.737-738 (CCSL 126, 355): mille in Bethleem quem biberunt paruuli; / oblita lactis et papillarum inmemor. 135 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.781-790 (CCSL 126, 357): Per huius alui fida conceptacula, / per hospitalem mense bis quino larem, / si dulce nostri pectoris nectar tibi, / si molle gremium, grata si crepundia, / persiste et horum munerum auctorem adsere! / Quanam arte nobis uiuere intus coeperis /
115
The duration of pregnancy, the mystery of life, the joys of infancy, and the dual debt to mother and God all shine through here in direct parallel with the words of the Maccabean mother. Even outside the context of explicitly attempting to quote the Maccabean mother, therefore, the mother in the Peristephanon is refiguring the biblical event. She is speaking as that earlier mother, collapsing time and circumstance; this is biblical realism at work. We can also see that the mother’s method of interpretation is successful from the way Prudentius subsequently describes her. As she carries her son to the executioner, Prudentius writes that she carries him “as you might believe the firstling to have been carried / in the basket of holy Abel to be sacrificed to God.”136 Both the lamb and Abel are images associated with Christ. John the Baptist identifies Jesus as “the Lamb of God” in John 1.29, and Prudentius himself refers to the lamb as a symbol of Christ in the Cathemerinon and the Apotheosis.137 So, once again, the son, being carried, is identified with Christ. But the firstling’s bearer, Abel, is also typologically linked to Christ. Abel has often been read as a prefiguration of the good Christian, who sacrifices to God and who is himself a sacrificial object: Hebrews cites him as an example of one who is approved by God because of his faith (11.4). In addition, in his role as “keeper of sheep” (Gen 4.2), Abel bears likeness to Christ, who describes himself as “the good shepherd” who “lays down his life for his sheep” (John 10.11). Thus, the mother’s identification with Abel conforms her also to Christ, even while another element of the same image, the firstling or lamb, reinforces her son’s depiction as a Christ-figure. The doubled image, furthermore, is jarring and paradoxical, which only calls more attention to the dual presence of Christ in the image—Christ carrying Christ to the altar
nihilumque et illud unde corpus nescio, / nouit animator solus et factor tui. / Inpendere ipsi, cuius ortus munere es, / bene in datorem quod dedit refuderis. 136 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10. 828-830 (CCSL 126, 358): ut primitiuum crederes fetum geri / deo offerendum sancti Abelis ferculo, / lectum ex ouili, puriorem ceteris. 137 Cathemerinon 6.81; Apotheosis 348-54.
116
of sacrifice—and highlights once again the fact that both child and mother are performing witnesses/be to Christ. A similar doubling occurs when the mother begins singing from the Psalms while her son is being executed. “Precious in the sight of God is the death of the holy one / your very servant, the child of your handmaiden.”138 This version of Psalm 115 does not differ drastically from extant versions of the Vetus Latina, which generally write: “Precious in the sight of God is the death of his holy ones. Oh Lord, I am your servant: I am your servant and the son of your handmaid,”139 but the mother has singularized “the holy,” changed filius (“son”) to prolis (“progeny”), and omitted the intervening “I,” with the effect that the holy one whose death is precious to the Lord is, by apposition, more closely identified with the child she bore; once again, she reconfigures the Old Testament to strengthen its connection to her son and herself. She asserts her son’s holiness, recalls her son’s identification with David, and gives her son the same accompaniment that marked Christ’s death, as represented by Mark and Matthew (where Christ himself sings from Psalm 22) and Luke (in which he sings a line from Psalm 31 as he dies). At the same time, however, it is she who is singing the Psalm, and it is she who is now the figure in the poem aurally identified as Christ and heir of David.
138
Prudentius, Peristephanon 10. 839-840 (CCSL 126, 359): pretiosa sancti mors sub aspectu dei, / tuus ille seruus, prolis ancillae tuae. 139 The most common rendition in the Vetus Latina offers: pretiosa in conspectu Domini mors sanctorum eius. O Domine quia ego servus tuus, & filius ancillae tuae... (Pierre Sabatier, Bibliorum sacrorum latinae versiones antiquae seu Vetus italica, et caeterae quaecunque in codicibus Mss. et antiquorum libris reperiri potuerunt, quae cum vulgata latina, et cum textu graeco comparantur: accedunt praefationes, observationes, ac notae, indexque novus ad vulgatam e regione editam, idemque locupletissimus [Remis: Reginald Florentian, 1743], 228; Teófilo Ayuso Marizuela, La Vetus Latina Hispana : origen, dependencia, derivaciones, valor e influjo universal : reconstrucción, sistematización y análisis de sus diversos elementos : coordinación y edición critica de su texto : estudio comparativo con los demás elementos de la 'Vetus Latina", los padres y escritores eclesiásticos, los textos griegos y la Vulgata / V, El salterio : introducción general y edición crítica [Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto "Francisco Suarez," 1962], 974.)
117
Finally, the last image of the mother is also one that helps solidify her connection with Christ. We see her clutching her son’s head in her arms, having stretched out her cloak to catch it as he is beheaded; the word Prudentius uses for “head” is globus. The globus represented, in the classical world, the cosmos, and carrying it signified rule and power. Roman art and coinage often featured the globe, cradled in the hand of god or emperor, resting at the figure’s feet, or beneath and supporting the portrait. Such depictions made the argument “that the god or emperor both cared for and controlled the cosmos.”140 The symbol of the cosmic globus persisted into the Christian era and was later used, adorned by a cross, to symbolize Christ’s dominance over the cosmos.141 Indeed, in later art, the globe-and-cross was often used in lieu of a trinitarian halo to designate a particular figure as Christ.142 While Prudentius predates the first known instance of images of Christ with the globus, the correlation of the globus and power was known throughout the Roman world. Furthermore, Prudentius’s word choice is deliberate: in all of Prudentius’s work, the word globus appears ten times. In four instances he uses it to refer to a mass of people, three times in a technical, military sense, and once to refer to the candida massa, the crowd that commits suicide at Cyprian’s death.143 In five instances it refers to celestial bodies, to the sun, moon, and stars.144 Only here is globus used to indicate a person’s head. Describing a child’s head in such unusual terms would have called to mind the usual connotations of globus, facilitating imaginative connections to celestial bodies or powerful masses of people.145 Therefore, when
140
Nasrallah, Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture, 299. As the globus crucifer, which appeared on coins shortly after the year 400. On the globus more generally as it came to be understood as a conventional symbol of power, see Steven Ernst Hijmans, “Sol: The Sun in the Art and Religions of Rome” (Ph.d. Dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 2009), 72. 142 Diane Apostolos-Coppadona, Dictionary of Christian Art (New York: Continuum, 1994), 262. 143 See Psychomachia 172 and 662; Contra Symmachum 2.508. The reference to the candida massa is in Peristephanon 13.85. 144 See Cathemerinon 9.15 and 12.30; Contra Symmachum 1.313; Peristephanon 10.537 and 10.844. It is worth noting that both prior uses, even in this poem, in this poem refer to celestial bodies. 145 Furthermore, ancient rhetoricians were fully expected to be cognizant of all valences of the synonyms they chose. See Lausberg, §1094. 141
118
the mother catches her son’s globus in her outstretched hands, she becomes, as a result of his martyrdom, more than herself—she becomes an image of divine power, in a visual tableau that would come to be iconographically indicative of the world-conqueror, Christ. She displays Christ, provides a witness to Christ, for onlookers and for the reading audience. Thus, even though she does not die, even though she is only a spectator to (and the one least moved by) the death of her son, even though her suffering is not physically inflicted, the mother still provides a Christ-object for the seeing witness of others; she is still a witness to Christ, which is to say, a martyr.146 This transformation from spectator to martyr is possible only through the mother’s use of effective interpretation, which requires that she understand herself to be a witness to Christ, that she see herself as Christ-like and the world around her as fodder for her Christcomparison. The mother attains her own martyrdom through her readings of Old Testament passages. She employs Old Testament images and narratives capable of referring at once to herself, to her son, and to Christ. She then manipulates those images and narratives so that they speak more closely to her own experiences. This way of thinking enables her to embody the Old Testament characters whose stories she re-imagined. Armed with this similarity to prefigurements of Christ, she also attains, according to Prudentius’s depictions of her at the conclusion of the episode, a greater similarity to Christ. Notably, in her many configurations of identification with biblical figures the martyrmother never mentions Christ. While she seems to follow her own advice to her son and maintains a “single-minded yearning”147 for Christ, all of her and her son’s resemblances to him are mediated or enhanced by episodes that pre-date the crucifixion and that are linked to
146
In light of the discussion above about the martyrs’ pain, the mother’s serene appearance and evident composure also indicates her martyr-status. Suffering untold anguish while evincing nothing but calmness and joy is a hallmark of martyrdom. 147 Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.732 (CCSL 126, 355): solus ardor.
119
Christ only typologically. It is this expansion of available Christ-images, along with the importance of correctly interpreting them as Christ-images and including the self in the retelling, that Prudentius aims to teach. Prudentius here advocates using the images made available through Old Testament pre-figurations to think of oneself as Christ-like.148 In the same way that Prudentius claims Old Testament types for Christ, so too can his readers claim their own experience for their own Christian witness. As Prudentius constructs it, the mother’s obvious success in refiguring Christ in herself and encouraging her son to do the same makes her a fitting role model for the fifthcentury Christian. Although Prudentius explicitly labels neither the child martyr in Peristephanon 10 nor his mother “martyr,” both refigure Christ through interpretation and imitation of Old Testament passages that serve as Christ-types. The mother achieves the same result as her son, even though she does not die. She is a martyr who does not die, modeling for others how to be a living martyr. Through her interpretation of her own situation in the context of her son’s martyrdom—in other words, through her enforcement of a worldview in which both she and her son refigure Christ—she witnesses Christ without suffering the martyr’s expected fate. The major difference between the mother and Prudentius’s reader is that, while the mother can ground her interpretation on the experience of watching someone being executed for his faith, the fifth-century Christian reader of the poem cannot. He or she can only read
148
In the preface to his Psychomachia, Prudentius clarifies the relationship between Old Testament Christtypes and the Roman Christian reader. He says, in his own authorial voice, that the stories of the Old Testament have been written as guides; they are lines “drawn beforehand as a model/ which our life might reinscribe by a guided foot” (Prudentius, Psychomachia Praefatio 50-51 (CCSL 126, 151): Haec ad figuram praenotata est linea / Quam nostra recto uita resculpat pede), and their ultimate purpose is to help inculcate a Christian consciousness: “Then Christ himself…will enter the humble abode of the modest heart, showing it the honor of entertaining the Trinity” (Prudentius, Psychomachia Praefatio 59-63 (CCSL 126, 151): mox ipse Christus… / paruam pudici cordis intrabit casam / monstrans honorem trinitatis hospitae). This concept of praenotata, or “having been written or inscribed beforehand,” appears here in the Psychomachia and then in only one other instance in all of Prudentius’s work: in Peristephanon 10.629, just before the episode of child martyr, as Romanus explains that Christianity is not a new religion, but that the cross had been present beforehand, prefigured in prior events recorded in the Old Testament.
120
about it. But as we have seen, late ancient authors understood that text could conjure up reality. We have also seen that Prudentius privileges and emphasizes the various forms of witness, asserting their power and continued utility to cross boundaries—between disbelief and belief, and between text and reader. What we have here in this episode is an instructive ekphrasis that turns readers into knowledgeable spectators, fusing reader and text and merging the world of the text with the world of the viewer. In Peristephanon 10, this merge is accomplished through biblical interpretation, and so can aptly be called biblical realism. What the reader can aspire to now goes beyond this biblical realism into martyrial realism. Readers are now participants in the martyrdom they are reading. In this expanded venue, comprised of text and reality, this moment of merging, the mother demonstrates the audience’s capacity for martyrdom, if they follow both her method of interpretation and the advice she gives her son. She is the one who, while guaranteeing her own martyrdom, makes her son’s martyrdom “stick” by enabling him to understand his suffering in relation to Christ. Her success highlights the power of this method of textual interpretation to share with others her identification with Christ, that is, to enable them to participate in her Christ-centered worldview. She makes martyrs of herself and her son— could she not extend the favor to the reader as well? Her words to her son, exhorting him to bear certain examples in mind, are also meant for the reader; they are an invitation for all and sundry to try on her Christ-colored glasses. Although the readers are not at the moment undergoing physically inflicted torture, they are led by the mother’s interpretive example as well as her words of encouragement to see themselves as martyrs and, therefore, as better Christians.
CONCLUSION: DEVELOPING A CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS; or, THE (NEW) MARTYRDOM OF WITNESS 121
Returning to the “central paradox of late ancient Christianity,”149 the persistent martyrial lens, we recall that Gregory of Nyssa redefined martyrdom as brave suffering in order to suit the post-persecution desire for continued martyrdom. What Prudentius does in his Peristephanon serves a similar function, although his solution does not involve actual physically inflicted suffering but instead a new form of processing experience, of understanding and interpretation. Prudentius is, in effect, advocating a new Christian worldview that would make his readers understand themselves to be martyrs. To see typological connections to Christ in every experience, to place oneself in the center of a matrix of Christ-types and refigurations, and to order reality according to that frame, is to participate in a Christian episteme. By implanting filters to knowledge and imposing a particular lens on reality, pedagogical ekphrasis could inculcate a new or altered worldview, one firmly and emphatically bounded by Christ, and made possible by cultivating a new, martyrial worldview. But how do these newly-created martyrs of witness, these transformed readers, compare to the original martyrs, the objects of their textual witness? Do they have posthumous power? Can they offer witness to others as the texts had offered it to them? Did Prudentius intend for his new army of reader-martyrs to achieve the same level of veneration as the martyrs whose narratives inspired his poetry? We do not know, and we cannot know. Certainly there are no saints whose feast days solely celebrate their ability to think of themselves as witnesses to Christ, and Prudentius comes as close as he can to writing a poem about one such martyr in relating the mother’s role in Peristephanon 10. But he leaves us with no clear sense of the mother’s after-life. Does she sit around and recount her experience like Encratis, perhaps? Perhaps she is even venerated by her community as Encratis was.
149
Muehlberger, “Salvage: Macrina,” 281.
122
Prudentius does not say. It is doubtful that he intended every transformed reader to receive her own martyr-shrine, even if, perhaps, the shrines were all merited. But we can understand the importance of this new understanding of martyrdom if we take an analogy from biblical realism. Participating in scripture through biblical realism did not mean that the participating Christian assumed the role of God. But biblical realism opened up the possibility that the pilgrim or reader could interact with and perhaps even embody typologically the earthly incarnation of God. Prudentius’s martyrial realism fostered this same sense of possibility. You do not, by reading these poems, automatically become a martyr. But if you understand their message and apply the recommended worldview, you are participating in the narrated martyrdoms and opening up the possibility that you could potentially become a martyr yourself. The age of Christian martyrdom, Prudentius establishes, is not yet over.
123
CHAPTER 3 PAULINUS OF NOLA AND THE LIVING MARTYR
INTRODUCTION
St. Felix of Nola earned his martyrdom without bloodshed, according to his biographer and primary promoter, Paulinus of Nola. Instead, the pious third-century priest, who was willing to suffer any manner of torment, endured persecution and imprisonment only to be spared further suffering by divine intervention, several times over. As Paulinus emphasized in his retelling of the saint’s life, it was the express, repeatedly-demonstrated will of God that enabled Felix to survive persecution. An angel released him from prison, loosing his iron fetters and muffling his progress past the guards so that he could come to the aid of his bishop, who was dying of starvation and exposure in the barren wilderness outside Nola.1 God later clouded the minds of pursuing soldiers so they did not recognize him, while Felix abetted God’s trickery by asserting, in the style of a Jedi master, that he was not the man they were looking for.2 When the soldiers were finally corrected (by a Judas-like informer), Felix escaped their pursuit by hiding in a rubble-filled alleyway whose entry was promptly, and miraculously, covered by a spider-web whose presence the soldiers read as evidence that no one could have entered.3 And finally, Felix hid out for the duration of the persecution in an old cistern, where he certainly would have starved, dehydrated, or gone mad for lack of companionship had God not provided food (by possessing a woman who would daily deliver
1
Paulinus, Carmen 15.238-306 Paulinus, Carmen 16.72 3 Paulinus, Carmen 16.95-115 2
124
her own bread to the saint and promptly forget that she had done so), water (by sending a cloud to hover over the cistern no matter the weather and squeeze out drops of water to Felix), and company (by spending time with him personally).4 Felix’s miraculous survival was, for Paulinus, a sign of his sanctity, his relationship with God, his utility as an instrument of God’s action, and his power to channel miracles on earth. In fact, in Paulinus’s view, this divine intervention showed that Felix was perhaps more blessed than those mediocre or perhaps wavering martyrs whom God allowed to die in torment: God, Paulinus claimed, “remits punishment of the flesh on account of proper piety.”5 In the absence of “punishment of the flesh” (and with the benefit of divine insight into the hearts of men), interior orientations take center stage. It would be easy to read Paulinus’s categorization of Felix as a martyr as politically and economically expedient, an opportunistic move by Paulinus to garner support for his patron saint and satisfy his own ambition as Felix’s amicus and “impresario.”6 Configuring Felix as a martyr, as foremost among the martyrs, and as, in some senses, better than those who died for their faith certainly served Paulinus well in his campaign to increase the prestige and power of his adopted home (and his own status as well).7 But we should not dismiss Paulinus’s reconfiguration of martyrdom as mercenary or as an opportunistic, instrumental means to self-aggrandizement. First, regardless of what motivated Paulinus to separate martyr-status from death, the reconfiguration Paulinus advocates has important repercussions for his and his countrymen’s spirituality. Paulinus
4
Paulinus, Carmen 16.161-191; Paulinus, Carmen 16.196-210; Paulinus, Carmen 16.192-196 Paulinus, Carmen 14.9 (CSEL 30, 46): supplicium carnis justa pietate remittit, 6 Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 63. 7 See Trout, Paulinus of Nola, 160-197 and Jennifer Lynn Smith, “The Natalicia of Paulinus of Nola and the Embodiment of Authority at the Shrine of Saint Felix” (PhD Dissertation, Indiana University, 2004), 71-84 for assessments of how Paulinus’s role as spokesman for Felix lent him both spiritual and temporal authority and influence, as well as raising Nola’s profile. 5
125
certainly modeled himself after his representation of Felix by entering the priesthood, shunning his wealth, living a life of obedience and humility, and exerting influence by underthe-radar advice and charismatic authority. Not only that, but he advised others to follow similar paths.8 And they did; or at least Paulinus’s Felix-inspired exemplum resonated enough in subsequent generations that such influential figures as Gregory of Tours and Gregory the Great looked to both him and Felix as role models.9 In short, the spirituality that Paulinus derived from his understanding of Felix “worked,” and provided inspiration for future Christian life. Second, Paulinus did not limit his reconfiguration to Felix alone: he depicted Felix’s bishop, Maximus, as a martyr (despite his rescue) and called Victricius of Rouen a martyr, though he was still very much alive at the time of Paulinus’s writing. Paulinus did not, then, reserve the category of living martyr solely for Felix’s aggrandizement. Furthermore, Paulinus clearly had a deeply-felt sense that Felix was, truly, the height of saintly power: our author could have chosen any shrine at which to spend his days and wield his influence, and yet he chose Nola. Certainly he had personal connections to Nola, having spent time there both in his youth and as governor of Campania, and he had also already displayed his Christian euergetism in the region by constructing a road to the shrine, but his beloved infant son was buried ad sanctos at Complutum in central Spain, it was in Barcelona that he had been pressed into the priesthood as a local hero, and it was in Aquitaine that he had been baptized by Delphinus and healed of blindness (either spiritual or physical) by Martin of Tours. In Aquitaine, too, lived Paulinus’s closest male friend, Sulpicius Severus, who
8
As with, for instance, the student Jovius in Carmen 22 and the grieving parents Pneumatius and Fidelis in Carmen 31. 9 Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria martyrum, 103 (Felix) and Liber in gloria confessorum, 108 (Paulinus); Gregory the Great, Dialogues 3.1.1-8.
126
established his own life as a monachus there.10 Paulinus could have chosen to retire anywhere and to serve any saint, but he chose to go to Nola and to serve Felix.11 But most importantly, we gain nothing by dismissing the notion that Paulinus really saw Felix as a martyr. This is not to say that the characterization was not useful. The martyr was understood to be the pinnacle of sanctity and saintly power on earth,12 and Felix’s status as a martyr certainly helped to promote his cult and to ensure his legacy, as well as to cement Paulinus’s prestige and underpin his “civic” programs and policies.13 It also enabled Paulinus to re-characterize martyrdom in a way that was more accessible to and more imitable by 5th century Christians than execution. But treating Paulinus’s characterization of Felix as a martyr as shallow or opportunistic overlooks the fact that Paulinus’s theology of martyrdom (which includes living martyrs) is wholly in keeping with his understandings of asceticism, friendship, and poverty. Just as attitude and orientation are more essential to each of these objects than physical performance, so too does the category of martyrdom include all those who “scorn savage punishments” for the sake of Christ, no matter the degree (or absence) of their suffering.14 Just as Paulinus’s understanding of perfect Christian ascesis, friendship and poverty were all predicated on a shift in focus “from action to attitude,”15 martyrdom became,
10
In Carmen 21.365-386, the Natalicium of 407, Paulinus recounts his years as a youth and later a governor at Nola, including his depositio barbae (377), and his early building projects (382-386). For Paulinus’s son’s burial ad sanctos, see Carmen 31.607-608; for his ordination in Barcelona, see Epistula 1.10; for his miraculous healing by Martin, see Carmen 19.39-40 and Sulpicius Severus Vita martini 19.3. 11 In the first Natalicium, Carmen 13, Paulinus describes his lifelong connection to Felix, and asserts that he has called on his help in times of trouble since his youth (5-19). 12 See Severus’s discussion of whether or not to call Martin a martyr (Severus, Epistula 2.9-12) and Cyprian’s De Lapsi 18-20, where he makes clear that the only things out of the martyrs’ power are those things that run contrary to God’s command. 13 See, for instance, Paulinus’s use of Felix’s authority in the water-rights conflict between Nola and Cimitile recounted in Carmen 21.672-835 14 Paulinus, Carmen 12.5 (CSEL 30, 42): contemnendo truces meruisti euadere poenas 15 Trout, Paulinus of Nola, 136.
127
for Paulinus, an embodied reorientation toward God rather than a product of suffering or death. The resulting, more inclusive martyrdom coincided with and colored Paulinus’s understanding of what it meant to be a Christian. In this chapter, I investigate Paulinus’s definition of martyrdom and his inclusion of Felix and other living martyrs in the canon of martyrs. In the following chapter, I demonstrate how Paulinus sought to encourage more Christians to aspire to martyrdom, to help them identify with the martyrs, and to model their expressions of Christianity on the martyrial life as exemplified by living martyrs.
PAULINUS OF NOLA: LIFE AND WRITINGS
Meropius Pontius Paulinus (ca. 352-431) was one of the most celebrated men of his day, even before his conversion to ascetic Christianity and his renunciation of the secular world. Scion of a wealthy Christian patrician family in Aquitaine with further property in Italy, senator and benefactor, suffect consul of Rome in (or around) 378 and governor of Campania in 380-81, Paulinus shocked his friends by retreating from political life in the mid 380s to pursue a Christian retirement with his wife, Therasia, in Spain and shortly thereafter stunned the Roman establishment by turning to asceticism, priesthood, and a monastic life at Nola. His conversion to ascetic Christianity, recounted by such prominent contemporaries as Sulpicius Severus, Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, served as a beacon for those promoting Christianity and asceticism, while his own efforts as a thinker, writer, and patron helped shape contemporary Christianity.16
16
See Trout, Paulinus of Nola, 2-10. As Trout points out, this very celebrity status makes it more difficult to ascertain an accurate account of Paulinus’s conversion. All commentators, Paulinus himself included, used the conversion story to further their own agendas.
128
Paulinus’s decision to renounce the secular life placed him squarely in the midst of ongoing debates about the propriety of asceticism to a Christian life. Ausonius, for instance, the Christian poet and educator who was Paulinus’s friend and teacher, saw Paulinus’s initial retreat from public life as a betrayal of his upbringing and their friendship. At that point Paulinus had divested himself of neither his wealth nor carnal relations with his wife; he had simply moved to Spain. But this relocation was enough to alarm Ausonius, whose personal understanding of Christianity did not include grand gestures or decreased political involvement. Ausonius’s position was starkly different from that of Jerome, whom Paulinus consulted by letter in 394. Jerome advocated that Paulinus immediately abandon all of his property (with no eye toward a lucrative or orderly sale) and pursue a life of immersion in scripture.17 Jerome advocated physical deprivation to quell bodily passions, and ascetic seclusion to prevent distractions and possible contamination by the trappings of secular society, including both clerical office and marriage.18 The mirror-opposite of Ausonius, Jerome praised separation and societal disruption in the name of Christian devotion. Paulinus chose the ascetic life, but did not find Jerome’s version of that life persuasive. He pursued instead his own path: ordination in Barcelona followed by travel to Italy where he and his now-companionate wife carved out a cenobitic life of fasting, prayer, and service ad sanctos in the hills outside the walls of Nola.19 There was at the time no consensus on what monastic life should look like, and Paulinus was largely able to determine
17
Jerome, Epistula 53.11 Peter Brown, Through the Eye of A Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012), 259-272. 18
19
For an excellent summary of Paulinus’s life at Nola, the people he interacted with, and his role in Nola’s rise to religious and cultural prominence, see Sigrid H. Mratschek, “Multis enim notissima est sanctitas loci: Paulinus and the Gradual Rise of Nola as a Center of Christian Hospitality,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 9, no. 4 (2001).
129
for himself how to practice.20 Paulinus permitted wine, but restricted the food intake of his community to sparse, vegetarian meals once a day. He chose to emphasize prayer, both individual and communal, over manual labor, and made ample time, as Jerome had enjoined, for biblical study.21 We know that Paulinus stressed as well the external trappings of monastic life; pallor, stench, and simple clothing were, for Paulinus, the true hallmarks of a monk. Leinhard even suggests that this at one point comprised the whole of Paulinus’s awareness of monks and monastic life: “one is led to suspect that his understanding of monasticism began with its physical aspects, so that he had to write to Jerome and ask him how he should proceed in living the monastic life.”22 Paulinus’s choices on this front proved influential, and, along with the exhortations of his letters, contributed to “the refinement of western monastic practice in the century before Benedict of Nursia.”23 Paulinus moreover actively worked to secure his reputation and influence by developing epistolary friendships with Augustine, Jerome, Victricius, Severus, Alypius, Delphinus of Bordeaux, and a whole host of Christian elites. During the course of these relationships he not only participated in and helped to develop a community of paideia, but also engaged with contemporary theological debates and developments.24 In these letters, Paulinus reveled in sophisticated and playful uses of imagery, using polysemy and boundaryresistant imagery (including layered and contradictory typologies) to negotiate his relation to
20
As Dennis Trout notes: “The cross-fertilization of western and eastern ascetic thought and practice in the later fourth century yielded a heterogeneous crop of ascetic lifestyles and practices that resists the imposition of any simple taxonomy” (Paulinus of Nola, 121). For a summary of Paulinus’s possible monastic influences, see Trout, Paulinus of Nola, 122-128. See also Joseph T. Leinhard, Paulinus of Nola and Early Western Monasticism, With a Study of the Chronology of His Works and an Annotated Bibliography, 1879-1976 (Köln-Bonn: Peter Hanstein Verlag, 1977), 82-110. 21 Leinhard, Paulinus of Nola, 107-110. 22 Leinhard, Paulinus of Nola, 99. 23 Trout, Paulinus of Nola, 122. For the influence of Paulinus’s interpretation of Acts 4:32a on Augustine’s definition of both monos and monachus see Conybeare, Paulinus Noster, 144-145. 24 See Joseph T. Leinhard, “Paulinus of Nola,” in Augustine Through the Ages, 628-629; Trout, Paulinus of Nola, 218-251; Conybeare, Paulinus Noster, 138-144.
130
the transcendent.25 Most simply, Paulinus’s involvement in the Christian epistolary culture of his day helped to propagate Christian literature and inspire others to write. Not only did his sanctioning of this literary activity help provide a model for other Christians, but his demands for letters and other gifts of the written word impelled his correspondents to copy and to compose literary works. Paulinus’s query about relics and burial ad sanctos prompted Augustine to write De Cura Gerenda Pro Mortuis, for example, and it may have been Paulinus’s request to Alypius for a history of African monasticism that helped provoke Augustine to write his Confessions.26 It is in the realm of poetry, however, that Paulinus’s innovation as an author truly stood out. His poetic corpus tracks his attempts and ultimate success at developing a Christian poetic discourse, an accomplishment that stood at odds with the prevailing wisdom of the day, which suggested that Christianity and literary culture were diametrically opposed (a philosophy to which Ausonius certainly subscribed). Paulinus’s earliest known poems demonstrate his poetic prowess: he composed letters in verse to accompany gifts to his friend Gestidius and he versified Suetonius’s De Regibus, which he sent to Ausonius.27 He was by all accounts a “well-groomed classical poet.”28 In the late 380s, Paulinus began experimenting with Christian poetry, beginning with verse renderings of scripture (the story of John the Baptist from Luke, as well as several Psalms), then expanded to more independent ventures, including epistolary poems to Ausonius and others.29 Many of these poems adopted traditional Greco-Roman poetic forms while addressing Christian topics and relying on biblical as well as classical intertexts. In addition to his poetic responses to
25
Conybeare, Paulinus Noster, 111-130. Frederick Van Fleteren, “Confessiones.” Augustine Through the Ages, 227. 27 Paulinus, Carmina 1, 2, and 3. 28 Brown, The Cult of the Saints, 55. 29 Carmen 6 on John the Baptist is a poetic encomium and epyllion, or mini-epic (Trout, Paulinus of Nola, 98), in which John is presented as the “prototypical ascetic exemplum” (99). Carmina 6-9 treat the Psalms. 26
131
Ausonius’s challenge of infidelity, Paulinus wrote a propemptikon (farewell poem) for Nicetas of Remesiana after his visit to Nola in 403, a protreptikon (poem of encouragement) to his younger relative Jovius, an epikedeion (consolation poem) for Pneumatius and Fidelis (also Paulinus’s relatives) on the death of their eight-year-old son, and an epithalamion (marriage poem) for Julian (soon to be “of Eclanum”). In each of these poems, Paulinus made full use of his mastery of classical form to convey Christian content.30 Paulinus’s most notable poetic innovation was his series of natalicia, or birthday poems, which drew from the genres of genethliaka (birthday odes) and panegyric (praise poem) to form a new and variable style of celebratory poetry through which he could both honor Felix on his feast day and make use of the occasion to educate and influence his audiences.31 Paulinus composed a new natalicium every year for at least the first fourteen years of his life at Nola, and he would both perform the poems himself, reading them aloud at Felix’s shrine to the crowds gathered at Nola on January 14, circulating them afterwards in written form to his network of friends and peers. All but one segment of one of the natalicia are in dactylic hexameter, and they are full of classical and biblical allusions and intertexts. They also evoke strongly the experience of being present at the saint’s shrine on his feast day: Paulinus emphasizes the day, the weather, the experience of sharing space with crowds, the sights he wants to draw his listeners’ attention to and the interpretations he wants them to draw from those sights. In these poems, as in his epistolary poems, Paulinus shows himself to be fully part of the same early Christian poetic movement that produced Prudentius. His poetry is
30
Roger P. H. Green, The Poetry of Paulinus of Nola: A Study of his Latinity (Brussels: Latomus, 1971), 21-40; André Basson, “A Transformation of Genres in Late Latin Literature: Classical Literary Tradition and Ascetic Ideals in Paulinus of Nola," in Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity, edited by Ralph W. Mathisen and Hagith S. Sivan, 267-276 (London: Aldershot, 1996). 31 Smith, “Natalicia,” 48-93. Smith establishes that Paulinus, like many of his contemporaries, was more concerned with style and content than with genre, and shows that the Natalicia defy classification by genre.
132
exegetical—it “interprets texts, proclaims truths, and asserts doctrines.”32 It is argumentative and uses all available means of rhetorical and literary persuasion to instruct and alter its audience and their opinions, using “figured speech, studied ambiguity, and allusive references and reminiscences that point the reader toward a conclusion but do not spell it out.”33 Like Prudentius, Paulinus used poetry to advocate his understanding of Christianity and Christian life to varied audiences, those attuned to the finer points of Roman literary culture as well as those composed of ordinary Christians, who would have had only a passing familiarity with many of the texts to which Paulinus alluded. That Paulinus saw poetry as a persuasive means to instill Christian devotion is nowhere more apparent than in his letter to Licentius, whose explicit argument is that Licentius should follow the guidance of Augustine and which switches from prose to elegiacs partway with the express intent of calling Licentius to the Lord.34 Finally, and again like Prudentius, Paulinus saw his poetry as a devotional exercise and his verses as an offering to God. It is Paulinus’s sworn lex to celebrate Felix’s feast day with “a gift from my mouth, to speak Felix in verse / and to sing my happiness in a devoted song.”35 It is a moment where Paulinus configures himself as Felix’s channel or instrument (“the pipe for your streams, / which you will provide for me from the river of the divine word”36), and where God’s grace flows through Paulinus in
32
Mastrangelo, The Roman Self, 7. Malamud, Poetics of Transformation, 5. See also Jill Ross, “Dynamic Writing,” 326: “Prudentius participates in an already established tradition of reading and writing where images, intertextual allusions, and etymological wordplay convey more meaning than plot and narrative.” 34 Paulinus, Epistula 8.3 (CSEL 29, 48): ut te ad dominum harmoniae omniformis artificem modulamine carminis euocarem. 35 Paulinus, Carmen 18.1-4 (CSEL 30, 96-97): Lex mihi iure pio posita hunc celebrare quotannis / eloquio famulante diem, sollemne reposcit / munus ab ore meo, Felicem dicere uersu, / laetitiamque meam modulari carmine uoto 36 Paulinus, Carmen 29.4-5 (CSEL 30, 305): ego uero tuis ero fistula riuis, / quos mihi praebueris diuini a flumine uerbi. See also Carmen 15.26-33 (CSEL 30, 52): surge igitur, cithara, et totis intendere fibris, / excita uis animae; tacito mea uiscera cantu, / non tacita cordis testudine dentibus ictis / pulset amor, linguae plectro lyra personet oris. / non ego Castalidas, uatum phantasmata, Musas / nec surdum Aonia Phoebum de rupe ciebo; / carminis incentor Christus mihi, munere Christi / audeo peccator sanctum et caelestia fari. 33
133
poetry: But let your grace flow into me continually from you, Christ. And nonetheless I pray that the likeness of that bird be given to me To vary the melody and annually display promised songs With altered speeches, although in a single mouth, Because always the grace of God adds Rich and diverse attestations to his wonderful powers Which God Christ repeats often in the flesh of Felix, Bringing forth famous miracles in salvation-bringing signs.37 God’s grace is manifest in the beauty and variety of Paulinus’s expressions of his carmina— just as it is in the multitude of ways that God uses Felix to show his own salvific power.
PAULINUS ON LIVING MARTYRS
“Oh Illustrious Confessor, by deserts and by name felix!”38 Thus begins the first Natalicium, written in Spain in 395 as Paulinus prepared to make the journey to Nola. With this introduction, Paulinus announces and inaugurates his new Nolan life by referring to and publicizing the Felix that his contemporaries already know. He is a confessor both celebrated by others and outstanding in himself (inclite), who is happy or fortunate (felix) because his name is Felix but also because he has earned his happiness and good fortune. Paulinus goes on to establish the saint’s status and operation in the world through descriptive honorifics in apposition to confessor: “Oh mind powerful in piety, Oh mind inhabitant of the highest heaven, / Oh power no less experienced39 throughout earth, / [You] who declared Christ the
37
Paulinus, Carmen 23.37-44 (CSEL 30, 194-195): sed mihi iuge fluat de te tua gratia, Christe. / et tamen illius mihi deprecor alitis instar / donetur uariare modis et pacta quotannis / carmina mutatis uno licet ore loquellis / promere, diuersas quia semper gratia diues / materias miris domini uirtutibus addit, / quas deus in caro Christus Felice frequentat, / clara salutiferis edens miracula signis. 38 Paulinus of Nola, Carmen 12.1 (CSEL 30, 42): inclite confessor, meritis et nomine Felix. 39 Or “tested”
134
Lord in an unchained voice.”40 Felix’s mind is resident of heaven, while his power is yet manifest on earth. Paulinus attributes Felix’s doubled presence first to the power of his mind’s piety, and then to the fact that Felix spoke out, or confessed, to the truth of Christ in a voice that was, in contrast to his body, unfettered. Three times, then, in three lines we see how Paulinus emphasized the split between mind and body, between physical and psychological, between intent and action, and each time we see merit attributed to the mental. These first four lines help prepare the reader for what comes next—Paulinus’s assertion that Felix’s survival itself was a mark of his merit, and that in addition to being a confessor, Felix is, in fact, a martyr as well: You deserved to escape savage punishments by scorning [them]. And having been ordered to willingly hand over with weakened limbs The soul devoted to Christ through all torments, You abandoned empty limbs to the frenzied lictors: A martyr carried into heavenly honor without blood.41 Moving from the familiar to the foreign in order to be persuasive, Paulinus takes his readers, already introduced to the idea of the mind’s primacy, to the notion that by separating in this life his bodily salvation and his spiritual salvation, Felix deserved to escape that very same bodily punishment. From there, Paulinus proceeds to his conclusion: because Felix was willing, when ordered, to do everything required of a martyr, he became a martyr without having to suffer death or shed his blood. Paulinus counts Felix a martyr and offers explanations as to why: he was willing to suffer and die for the faith, and acted accordingly; he correctly ordered his mind and body so that they were in proper relation to one another, with the mind reigning supreme and the body weakened and emptied of value and attachment; finally, he scorned the looming “savage punishments” just as a martyr does.
40
Paulinus of Nola, Carmen 12.2-4 (CSEL 30, 42): mens pietate potens, summi mens accola coeli, / nec minus in totis experta potentia terris, / qui Dominum Christum non uincta uoce professus 41 Paulinus of Nola, Carmen 12.5-9 (CSEL 30, 42-43):contemnendo truces meruisti euadere poenas, / deuotamque animam tormenta per omnia Christo, / sponte tua iussus laxatis reddere membris, / liquisti uacuos rabidis lictoribus artus, / uectus in aetherium sine sanguine martyr honorem.
135
It was these qualities, rather than death, that defined a martyr, in Paulinus’s view. Paulinus insisted that death was not necessary to earning martyrdom. Sometimes he did so explicitly, as when he defended Felix’s martyr-status in light of his peaceful death or asserted that Maximus’s mental anguish was equivalent to any other martyrdom (“He was suffering martyrdom with torture different but no lighter than if he had given his neck to the sword.... concern for his flock burned and troubled him”42); at other times Paulinus defended the living martyr’s status with subtle, implicit arguments that strengthen the case for a different understanding of martyrdom, as when he attributed to Victricius a Christ-like presence and miraculous powers of conversion. This is all in addition to the multitude of instances where he named Felix, Maximus, or Victricius as martyrs, addressing them or referring to them as such as if it were a simple, unproblematic designation, which both reminded the reader of the status Paulinus has claimed for them and further entrenched their links to that title. For example, Paulinus referred to Felix as “martyr” explicitly and without further comment forty times across eleven of the fourteen natalicia; this unproblematic repetition served to normalize and reinforce Felix’s status as martyr. We should not take this heavy lobbying as evidence that Paulinus was grasping at straws, that his claims were unfailingly futile, that they were not taken seriously, or that he did not believe what he was saying. Every martyr needs to be argued for, and all martyrologists need to defend their claims; there is nothing unusual in Paulinus reiterating Felix’s (or Maximus’s or Victricius’s) worthiness of the title. We should, on the contrary, take advantage of these defenses and assertions, gleaning from them the evidence they offer about what constituted a martyr in Paulinus’s thinking. Because he knew that he was going against the grain of contemporary thinking in calling these men martyrs, Paulinus was
42
Paulinus, Carmen 15.200-203 (CSEL 30, 60): ...diversa at non leuiore ferebat / martyrium cruce, quam si ferro colla dedisset / membraque tormentis aut ignibus; acrior illum / cura sui gregis urit et afficit
136
remarkably clear in defending the idea that these confessors had really suffered martyrdom. In the following sections, I will first examine the ways (beyond simply calling them martyrs) that Paulinus constructed these three as martyrs, then delve into the explanations he offers for identifying them as such.
CONSTRUCTING MARTYRS
In addition to labeling these men martyrs, Paulinus constructed their identities as martyrs by several means. First, he pointed to their post-mortem power as intercessors, protectors, and healers as evidence of their highest possible status in heaven. Then, pointing to these demonstrations of their power, he argued that God recognizes them as martyrs and honors them with the martyr’s crown. Finally, but most pervasively, he used biblical imagery to depict these men either as Christ-like or as typologically linked to Christ through any number of apostolic and Old Testament figures. All three modes of martyr-construction combine to leave little doubt that Paulinus intended the reader to class all three martyrs alongside their executed brethren. Paulinus understood martyrdom to be marked by divine supernatural power, posthumous or otherwise. This power manifests itself in exorcisms, miracle-working, unlikely conversions, and intercession, as well as in divinely inspired action. Martyrs were, for Paulinus, the primary focal points of God’s power on earth, and Paulinus made clear that this exercise of power would not be possible were these saints merely confessors. After praising the day that signifies Felix’s “heavenly honor” in the Natalicium of 397,43 Paulinus explained: There is, ultimately, nothing [in Felix] unequal to these witnesses
43
Paulinus, Carmen 14.20 (CSEL 30, 46): sidereum ... honorem.
137
who poured forth blood, with both title and virtue received at once. He demonstrated the merit of a martyr, when with a powerful oath He exorcised demons, and released chained bodies (emphasis mine).44 And later, in the Natalicium of 402, Paulinus concludes a discussion of Felix’s power by noting that these proofs of God’s activity in the world are also a sign of “what sort of crown” Felix will be wearing when he stands before them resurrected at the Judgment.45 That is to say, we know that he will be wearing the red crown of martyrdom, because he has demonstrated such great power. The utmost power belongs to the martyrs, and Paulinus ensured that his martyrs (and especially Felix) exercise that level of power. Exorcisms abounded at the shrine of Felix. So many, in fact, that Paulinus in his Natalicium of 401 expressed concern that they had become too run-of-the mill to inspire awe. Paulinus recounts the many exorcisms that routinely occur at the shrine, describing at some length the actual physical mechanics of possession, and then delving into one particularly memorable exorcism (in which the demon inspires his host to dangle by his feet upside down on the balustrade, but his garments miraculously defy gravity and remain in place to cover his pudenda), Afterwards, Paulinus introduces a small-scale miracle as if it were a palate cleanser: Marvelous and great are these deeds (who would deny it?); however The more known they are through repetition, the less they seem awe-inspiring to hear, Regardless of their awesomeness in appearance and their greater magnificence in fact. Therefore listen, I pray, to some new, if small, deeds of my patron...46 Paulinus describes how Felix miraculously saved the eyesight of a monk who had walked into a spike-covered lamp, a story which takes up the next 260 lines of the poem. This
44
Paulinus, Carmen 14.21-24 (CSEL 30, 46): denique nil inpar his, qui fudere cruorem, / testibus et titulo simul et uirtute recepti / martyris ostendit meritum, cum iure potenti / daemonas exercet deuinctaque corpora soluit 45 Paulinus, Carmen 26.364-365 (CSEL 30, 259): ...qualem pro meritis sit gestatura coronam / cum steterit toto rediuiuus corpore Felix. 46 Paulinus, Carmen 23.96-99 (CSEL 30, 197): mira haec sunt et magna (quis abnegat?), et tamen usu / nota magis, minus auditu miranda uidentur, / quamlibet et uisu reuerenda et grandia facto / ergo minuta mei simul et noua facta patroni / auscultate, precor....
138
astonishing tale provides a (supposedly necessary) contrast with the martyr’s everyday miracles and his now-mundane banishment of demons. But, belying this conceit, Paulinus frequently made a point of gesturing toward these “commonplace” exorcisms, even if he rarely goes into much detail about individual cases—the “problem” of too much power in evidence at the shrine is one that Paulinus was glad to have. He reveled in it. Take, for example, this passage in natalicium of 400: Behold, you see the tomb covering the sacred bones of the martyr And the silent body preserved with overlaid marble. No one is visible to human eyes, by which we discern in the body; The limbs of the one buried lie hidden, the flesh rests in peaceful death, Having been interred in the hope (not vain) of a restored life. Whence, therefore, does such great terror linger around these thresholds? Who drove so many people here? What hand presses [them], seizes the unwilling demons and compels them, protesting in vain with a rebellious voice, and stops them as if transfixed at the holy threshold, at the very doorway to the tomb of the martyr?47 Exorcisms were proof, for Paulinus, of the martyr’s continued power and influence from beyond the grave, and the contrast between Felix’s peaceful bodily repose and the demons’ tumultuous torment only serves to highlight the miraculous and excessive nature of the healings that occur at the shrine. Related to exorcism, and similarly within Felix’s purview, were instances of healing. Some of the ailments that Paulinus recounted Felix healing are demonically caused (as with the demoniac who once devoured live chickens, but stood, cured, as a witness on Felix’s feast day), but some seem like more mundane complaints. Felix, for example, cured sick children and cattle, healed those who gather for his feast from varied (unspecified) illnesses, and
47
Paulinus, Carmen 18.92-101 (CSEL 30, 101): ecce uides tumulum sacra martyris ossa tegentem /et tacitum obtento seruari marmore corpus; / nemo oculis hominum qua corpore cernimus extat, / membra latent positi, placida caro morte quiescit, / in spem non uacuam rediuiuae condita uitae. / unde igitur tantus circumstat limina terror? / quis tantos agit huc populos? quaenam manus urget / daemonas inuitosque rapit frustraque rebelli / uoce reclamantes conpellit adusque sepulchrum / martyris et sancto quasi fixos limite sistit? See also Carmen 23.45-105 for a similar emphasis on exorcism.
139
manifested Christ’s power to heal.48 Felix also healed those whom he himself had afflicted in order to instruct them in proper Christian action. The greedy man from Abella, who promised a pig to Felix but took all the best parts for himself after slaughtering it at the shrine, was both afflicted by and (once he had repented of his misdeeds) cured by Felix.49 I should also note that in this story Felix’s infliction of illness is also portrayed as a type of healing, as it heals the soul through the remedy of pain and chastisement. Like a good doctor, Felix must sometimes do harm in order to heal. Felix also excelled at metaphorical healing—that is to say, at healing souls by bringing them to Christ. Indeed, Paulinus often conflated spiritual and physical healing, as he does throughout the Natalicium of 405, which explains that the local power of saintly relics is tailored to the depravity of the city: Nola, as a center of pagan ritual life, required the ministrations of the most powerful of martyrs, Felix.50 When Paulinus calls Felix a sanator, always ready to bring medicina for the health of the sick,51 he sees this as a continuation of Felix’s earthly ministry: But because one mortal span could not suffice to wash away contagions so long drawn out, in the few years that Felix—the confessor and priest, teacher by mouth, martyr by verdict, priest by desert and duty—lived in the flesh, the all-powerful Lord made the temporal bounds of Felix’s body persist in a more powerful way, continuing the hardworking martyr’s curing actions, his powers, so that he, buried, might perform the same things which he used to accomplish by the power of Christ while remaining in the flesh.52
48
For the chicken-eating demoniac, see Paulinus, Carmen 26.307-323; for the children and cattle, see Paulinus, Carmen 18.198-205; for the unspecified illnesses, see Paulinus, Carmen 23.59-60; for channeling Christ’s power, see Paulinus, Carmen 26.380-386. 49 Paulinus, Carmen 20.62-209. 50 Paulinus, Carmen 19.16-45; 164-236; 283-306. 51 Paulinus, Carmen 19.294-8 (CSEL 30, 128): sanator... / prompta sed aegrorum semper medicina saluti / adforet. 52 Paulinus, Carmen 19. 283-292 (CSEL 30, 128): sed quia non poterat mortalis unius aetas / sufficere, ut longo contagia tempore tracta / dilueret paucis quos corpore uiueret annis / confessor Felix et presbyter, ore magister, / elogio martyr, merito officioque sacerdos, / omnipotens dominus finitum corporis
140
Medical language, from contagia to medicos, combined with the clearly instructive and exemplary nature of Felix’s earthly healing powers, connects physical to spiritual healing. Healing seems to operate on a continuum—one that Felix engaged in both before and after his death—between the physical and the spiritual. Felix thus demonstrates his power by healing sick souls, as well as sick bodies. Felix’s skill at this sort of healing can be seen in the multinational throngs that crowd his shrine on his feast day, as Paulinus described in the Natalicium of 397: Felix draws this variegated mass of peoples to him, acting as a beacon of Christian life and faith.53 He served as a beacon for Paulinus as well. According to Paulinus, it was Felix who “planted in [him] the seeds of heavenly things” and guided him (and his property) to spiritual and physical safety at Nola.54 Victricius, too, demonstrated this type of power, bringing even the barbarian realms into Christian harmony, in Paulinus’s telling.55 He was a beacon and a light to all, transforming Rouen into Jerusalem, the city on a hill that draws all eyes and leads them to salvation.56 He served as the catalyst for the conversions of his executioner, his guards, and even the general himself.57 Paulinus concludes his letter to Victricius by (as he had done with Felix) analogizing him to a farmer sowing seeds in a fertile field: Truly you are the blessed parent of many blessed ones, the sower of a great harvest,
aeuum / Felici potiore uia persistere fecit, / continuans medicos operosi martyris actus, / uirtutes ut eas idem celebraret humatus, /quas in carne manens Christi uirtute gerebat 53 Paulinus, Carmen 14.44-78. 54 Paulinus, Carmen 21.365-366 and following (CSEL 30, 170): tu mihi caelestum... rerum / prima salutiferis iecisti semina causis. This seed and flower metaphor is repeated often, notably earlier in this same poem (21.60-61) when Paulinus calls the Roman converts “flowers in the field of Felix”: nam quasi fecundo sancti Felicis in agro / emersere noui fores, dup germina Christi. 55 Epistula 18.4 (CSEL 29, 131): ubi quondam deserta siluarum ac littorum partier inuta aduenae barbari aut latrones incolae frequentabant, nunc uenerabiles et angelici sanctorum chori urbes oppida insulas siluas ecclesiis et monasteriis plebe numerosis, pace consonis celebrant. 56 Epistula 18.4-5. In 18.4 Victricius is literally configured as a light, shining for all to see, whereas in 18.5 Victricius leads Rouen in its transformation into Jerusalem. 57 Paulinus, Epistula 18.7
141
bringing forth for God fruit—one hundred, and sixty, and thirty at a time—from the fertility of your soil, and you will receive an equal measure from the manifold fruits of your offspring. The highest one has named you among the greatest in his kingdom—he has allowed your speech to match your deed, so that you possess both the teaching of your life and the life of your teaching. So it is, in order that no student dare excuse himself as if from a command of difficulty, because he is bound beforehand by the example of your virtue.58 Victricius’s ability to bring people to Christ and to bring out the spiritual gifts in his disciples was, for Paulinus, a sign of his power and his favor with God. Intercession was another power that Paulinus’s living martyrs possessed. Felix habitually rescues shipwrecked travellers, intervenes in disputes over water rights, cushions the falls of those whose mules balk on the way to his shrine, plays a part alongside Peter and Paul in the protection of the Roman state, and burns down the houses of rustics whose hovels diminish the visual splendor of Paulinus’s building projects.59 Felix was very involved in the lives of his faithful. And we see similar intimations of intercession in Paulinus’s treatments of Victricius and Maximus. Paulinus asked Victricius to remember him on the day of his crowning in heaven, essentially asking him to intercede for his salvation.60 Maximus, meanwhile, interceded for Felix by blessing him after his rescue, as Felix was preparing to leave him in the healing hands of an old servant woman. Maximus acts as the conduit of God’s blessing: ...‘You, too,’ he said, ‘my son, must receive a gift in repayment, which he who ordered you to come to me when I was lost ordered me to give to you once I was saved.’ Then he placed his sacred right hand On beloved Felix’s head, while seeking from Christ
58
Paulinus, Epistula 18.10 (CSEL 29, 137): uere tu beatus tot beatorum parens, tantae messis sator, centenum et sexagesimum ac tricesimum fructum deo fecunditate tuae terrae efferens et mensuram parem de uariis partuum tuorum fructibus recepturus. te altissimus inter regni sui maximos nominauit, cui concessit facto aequare sermonem, ut et doctrina tibi uitae tuae sit et uita doctrinae. quo fit, ut nemo se audeat excusare discipulus uelut difficultatis imperio, cum prius adstringatur uirtutis exemplo. 59 For rescuing travellers, see Paulinus, Carmen 26.387-394 and Epistula 49.3; for the water-rights dispute see Paulinus, Carmen 21.777-787); for the balking mule, see Paulinus, Carmen 24.409-422; for protecting Rome, see Paulinus, Carmen 21.25-36; and for burning down the ill-placed hovel, see Paulinus, Carmen 28.148-155. 60 Paulinus, Epistula 18.10 (CSEL 29, 136): Memineris, quaeso te, nostri in illa die....
142
All gifts, just as that venerable Isaac of [our] fathers Blessed his son with the dew of heaven and the riches of earth; Thus Maximus, blessing and enriching Felix before Christ With speech both fatherly and apostolic, Garlanded him with the honor of an unfading crown And elevated him with the everlasting powers which we see even now.61 Maximus’s effective blessing, demonstrably still in evidence at Felix’s shrine, shows that he has the status to act for God, and to intercede in Felix’s life even while he himself is still bound in the flesh. Although this is not a typical intercession in that Maximus is doing God’s will rather than asking God for help, Maximus is nonetheless the conduit for God’s grace: God could simply have blessed Felix himself; there is no reason for Maximus to be involved in Felix’s acquisition of heavenly power other than to demonstrate Maximus’s own sanctity and efficacy as an intermediary. Finally, the martyrs demonstrated their power by being the instruments of divinelyinspired action on earth. They are the loci of miracles, the focal points of grace in the world. Felix, as we have seen, was the beneficiary of miracle after miracle; Victricius was at the center of a series of conversion miracles; and Maximus was discovered, fed, revived, and brought to safety by miraculous interventions. As far as Paulinus was concerned, all of these powers combined—exorcism, healing, conversion, intercession, and acting as the focal points of divine power on earth—rendered impossible any effort to discount the power of these men. Paulinus made clear that, despite their failure to die in persecution, these martyrs possessed enough power to prove their martyrdoms.
61
Paulinus, Carmen 15.351-361 (CSEL 29, 67): cape tu quoque, dixit, / muneris, o mi nate, uicem, quam me tibi iussit / reddere conpositum, qui te mihi iussit adesse / deposito. tum deinde sacram Felicis amati / inponit capiti dextram, simul omnia Christi / dona petens, uelut ille patrum uenerabilis Isac / rore poli natum et terrae benedixit opimo; / Felicem Christo sic Maximus ore paterno / ore et apostolico benedicens et locupletans, / inmarcescibilis redimiuit honore coronae / perpetuisque opibus, quas et modo cernimus, auxit.
143
It was certainly this superabundance of saintly power that freed Paulinus to claim unequivocally that God honors Felix as a martyr in heaven, that he will honor Victricius as such once he arrives, and that he reckons Maximus too a martyr. Despite being decidedly human and firmly entrenched in Cimitile, Paulinus claimed for himself the same authority we saw Prudentius asserting, namely, the authority of poetic omniscience. With this authority, he recounts God’s presentation of the rose-red crown of martyrdom to Felix, Victricius’s perfection and current possession of the crown, and the reasoning behind God’s decision to use Felix to rescue Maximus. The natalicium of 400 takes up Felix’s story just after his death. As Paulinus is describing Felix’s reception in heaven, we see the bands of angels who have escorted him into the presence of God adorning Felix’s sacred head with “a snow-white crown.”62 This is the crown befitting a confessor. But God intervenes, adding a rose-red crown, the martyr’s crown, at Christ’s behest: But nevertheless, the father also added a rose-colored one, with Christ as judge, and doubled [Felix’s] snowy cloaks with a purple garment, since each of these is the distinction for such services. For Felix, who died a confessor, assumed the bright white garlands as one carried into the aether by a peaceful death, but deserved, equally, the purple of the slaughtered martyr. Thus he holds as well the prize of one who suffered, because the award was brought forth on account of courage...63 God himself, Paulinus claims, bestowed the crown of martyrdom on Felix. And, what is more, he did so in order to honor the precise distinctions that Felix’s merits demanded. Paulinus
62
Paulinus, Carmen 18.145 (CSEL 30, 104): tum niuea sacrum caput ornauere corona Paulinus, Carmen 18.146-153 (CSEL 30, 104): sed tamen et roseam pater addidit iudice Christo / purpureoque habitu niueos duplicauit amictus, / quod meritis utrumque decus. nam lucida sumpsit / serta quasi placido translatus in aethera leto, / sed meruit pariter quasi caesi martyris ostrum / qui confessor obit. tenet ergo et praemia passi, / quod prompta uirtute fuit, nec pacis honore / ornatuque caret, quia non congressus obiuit. 63
144
essentially covers all his bases by arguing for Felix’s martyr-status on two fronts: he is martyr by God’s decree and because of his own meritorious actions.64 Similarly, Paulinus asserted that Victricius has received divine coronation and used his heaven’s-eye view to describe the further honors the martyr will receive. Paulinus describes Victricius’s coronation and his stamp of perfection: “Should we doubt whether you are perfected even now, you who have begun perfect? Or whether you are legitimately crowned by the contest already won, when you began your run with the crown?”65 Paulinus then laments that, when he met Victricius all those years ago, he was still so sinful and incapable of true reverence that he saw Victricius as “only a priest” and did not recognize “that which is more outstanding, you as a living martyr.”66 Now, by contrast, Paulinus has the knowledge, he has the faith, and he can access God’s assessments of his servants. So much so that he describes, in detail similar to the detail he included in describing Felix’s coronation, what Victricius’s reception in heaven will be. Be mindful of us, I beg you, on that day, on which the hands of the angels running to meet you will carry to you, accompanied by the uncountable cohort of your merits and adorned with happy ornaments and crowned equally with fillets and glories, the snowy ribbons of a hallowed bishop and the shining purple garments of confessors, and that highest purifier of his gold and silver will receive you yourself as silver weighed in fire and as gold tested in the furnace of this age and the eternal king will fasten [you] as a precious pearl onto his diadem; he will recognize that he owes you a prize as great as your own virtues, seeing the innumerable flocks of holy people of
64
We see a similar crowning in Carmen 14.113-114, where Paulinus says that Felix holds the twin crown of war and peace (CSEL 30, 50): ast illum superi sacra gloria luminis ambit / florentem gemina belii pacisque corona. We see it again in the Natalicium of 407, when Paulinus says of Felix: “he was not defrauded of the crown of the martyr, / because he had discharged the vow of passion in his mind,” and “[God] did not deny the crown of the martyr, / but added the crown of a priest” (Carmen 21.152-158 [CSEL 30, 163]: non defraudatus a corona martyris, / quia passionis mente uotum gesserat. / nam saepe agonem miles intrauit potens / uictoque semper hoste confessor redit; / sed praeparata mente contentus deus / seruauit illum, non coronam martyris / negans, sed addens et coronam antistitis.) 65 Paulinus, Epistula 18.8 (CSEL 29, 135-136): dubitemus etiam nunc an perfectus sis, qui de perfectio coepisti? et si legitime coronandus sis agone decurso, cum currere coeperis a corona? 66 Paulinus, Epistula 18.9 (CSEL 29, 136): sacerdotem te tantum, quod in medio erat, uiderim et, quod inerat insignius, martyrem uiuum uidere nescierim
145
either sex around you, whom you, the standard of perfect virtue and faith for all, beget for him every day with your teaching.67 As with Felix, Paulinus envisioned for Victricius welcoming bands of angels and the glory of distinctions in white and purple, as well as special recognition from God. As he had done with Felix, Paulinus includes God’s logic in this analysis, explaining on what merits Victricius has garnered his recognition. Even though here the purple garments designate confessor status, the extended connection between Victricius and divine coronation, in combination with Paulinus’s earlier statements about the bishop’s status as crowned martyr, serves to make the case for Victricius’s coronation as martyr. Paulinus was similarly authoritative in describing God’s reaction to Maximus’s suffering in the wilderness. He writes that “the pity of the highest father was moved for so great a priest.”68 This pity is why God “did not allow the body to be consumed by death unseen, / although he could have either fed him just as that same Elias, / sending foodbearing birds to barren deserts / or could have opened a secret grave for him like Moses’.”69 Maximus would have been just as sainted if he had been miraculously (but quietly) preserved or if he had been allowed to die in some secret place, but God weighed his options and chose to honor Maximus differently, by associating him even more closely with Felix. Paulinus says that not only did God seek to honor Maximus, but that he chose Felix as the instrument of that honor: “looking upon the priest and confessor / with a glad eye, the gentle Father did
67
Paulinus, Epistula 18.10 (CSEL 30, 136): Memineris, quaeso te, nostri in illa die, qua ad te innumera meritorum tuorum cohorte comitatum ornamentisque felicibus comptum et infulis pariter atque adoreis coronatum et niueas sacratorum antistitum uittas et floridas confessorum purpuras occurrentium manus adferent angelorum teque ipsum ut argentum igne examinatum et aurum in fornace saeculi huius probatum ipse summus auri sui argentique purgator accipiet et ut pretiosam diademati suo margaritam rex aeternus aptabit nec tuarum tibi tantum praemia se debere uirtutum iudex iustus agnoscet, uidens innumeros circa te sanctorum utriusque sexus greges, quos illi cotidie institutis tuis generas, formula omnibus perfectae uirtutis et fide 68 Paulinus, Carmen 15.220 (CSEL 30, 61): mota patris summi pietas antistite tanto 69 Paulinus, Carmen 15.221-224 (CSEL 30, 61): non tulit obscuro consumi funere corpus. / quamquam et ut Elian istum quoque pascere posset, / esciferas uolucres ieiuna per auia mittens, / posset et ut Mosen secreto operire sepulchro;
146
not suffer him / to waste away further in silent woods and, because he was preparing / to join to his dignity a companion similarly worthy in merit, / he chose Felix from the whole number of those in prison....”70 as Maximus’s savior. Paulinus not only describes what happens to Maximus, but also confidently depicts God’s motivations for and the logic behind his interventions. This demonstration of authority helps validate as empirically true Paulinus’s claim that Maximus “was suffering martyrdom with torture different but no lighter than if he had given his neck to the sword” because “concern for his flock burned and troubled him.”71 The final mode of martyr-construction Paulinus employed was to characterize these men as martyrs by configuring them as imitators of Christ. This depiction links back to the notion of witness/be that we saw in Chapter 2 and will discuss further in the next chapter. The martyr refigures Christ for his onlookers, making Christ present once more through the enactment and performance of imitation, thus confirming the truth of the Christian message and expanding the repertoire of what can be witnessed, serving as the object of the audience’s witness and allowing them to witness/see. Paulinus took great care to render his martyrs Christ-like. At times he made direct connections between the martyr and Christ. In the Natalicium of 398, he describes Felix as “ready, following the example of the Lord, to lay down his life for his sheep.’72 A few lines later, imitation of Christ’s example becomes identification, when Paulinus writes that under threat of persecution Felix “grew strong, ...mindful of Christ and unmindful of the world, / bearing God in his heart and filled with Christ in his chest.”73 The connections are not always
70
Paulinus, Carmen 15.230 (CSEL 30, 61): ergo sacerdotem confessoremque sereno / lumine respiciens tacitis tabescere siluis / non tulit ulterius mitis pater, et quia digno / condignum comitem meritis sociare parabat, / Felicem numero de carceris eligit omni 71 Paulinus, Carmen 15.200-203 (CSEL 30, 60): ...diversa at non leuiore ferebat / martyrium cruce, quam si ferro colla dedisset / membraque tormentis aut ignibus; acrior illum / cura sui gregis urit et afficit 72 Paulinus, Carmen 15.170 (CSEL 30, 58): exemplo domini promptus pro grege vitam. 73 Paulinus, Carmen 15.172-174 (CSEL 30, 58-59): ...reuirescit in annis, / totus in astra animo, Christi memor, inmemor aeui, / corde deum gestans et plenus pectora Christo.
147
quite so overt. In the Natalicium of 405 (in the same passage I quoted above in regard to miraculous healing) we can see Felix’s imitation of Christ slip into an elision with Christ, as Paulinus structures his appositions to blur the boundaries between the two. Felix is the subject of a subordinate clause, whose verb (viveret) appears in line 285. 74 The next two lines are filled with descriptions of the identity of that subject: confessor, presbyter, magister, martyr, sacerdos. Immediately after these nominatives describing Felix, the subject changes, to omnipotens dominus, the lord who grants Felix and his corpse life beyond temporal bounds. The moment at which it is impossible (grammatically speaking) to conflate omnipotens dominus with Felix is a full line later when, in line 289, Felix appears as the recipient of the dominus’ largesse. Reading through the poem, this is a moment of pause, a stutter in which Felix and Christ are combined, a rhetorical illusion intended first to connect Christ and Felix more closely and only later to differentiate them.75 Paulinus likened Victricius, too, to Christ. He writes that Victricius mirrors Christ in his role as beacon to the world (as depicted in Mathew 4:15): “Just as once in the land of Zebulon and Naphthali... those who lived in the land in the shadow of death saw a great light, thus even now in the land of the Morini... those who live in the hidden places beyond the Jordan... they devote rough hearts to the lord Christ ...through your sanctity.”76 Victricius is acting as a new Christ, refiguring Christ for new onlookers. He even shares the cross with
74
Paulinus, Carmen 19. 283-292 (CSEL 30, 128): sed quia non poterat mortalis unius aetas / sufficere, ut longo contagia tempore tracta / dilueret paucis quos corpore uiueret annis / confessor Felix et presbyter, ore magister, / elogio martyr, merito officioque sacerdos, / omnipotens dominus finitum corporis aeuum / Felici potiore uia persistere fecit, / continuans medicos operosi martyris actus, / uirtutes ut eas idem celebraret humatus, /quas in carne manens Christi uirtute gerebat. 75 As an additional example of Paulinus linking Felix to Christ, in Carmen 16.64-70, Felix, like Jesus on the road to Emmaeus in Luke 24, is not recognized by those seeking him. 76 Paulinus, Epistula 18.4 (CSEL 29, 131): sicut terra Zabulon quondam et Nephthalim, uia maris trans Iordanen Galilaeae, qui sedebant in regione umbrae mortis, lucem uiderunt magnam: ita et nunc terra Morinorum situ orbis extrema, quam barbaris fluctibus fremens tundit oceanus, gentium populous remotarum, quie sedebat in latebris uia maris harenosa extra Iordanem, antequam pinguescerent fines deserti in ea, orta sibi per tuam sanctitatem a domino luce gaudents corda aspera Christo intranet posuerunt. See, too 18.6, where Paulinus depicts Victricius as the candelabrum that is no longer hidden under a bushel.
148
Christ, as Paulinus asserts that despite harsh torments: “You were not conquered, because you were supported by the cross of Christ.”77 Paulinus later makes this connection explicit, saying that all of those whom Victricius has converted “love Christ in you,”78 and expressing his desire to be physically close to Victricius and hence closer, physically, to Christ: Who would give us wings like a dove? We would fly to you and rest in the sight of your sanctity, admiring and venerating the Lord Christ in person in your face; we would wipe off with hair his feet in your feet, and would wet [them] with tears, and in your scars we would caress the imprinted traces as if they were of the Lord’s passion.”79 Victricius refigures Christ so completely that Paulinus equates interacting with Victricius to interacting with Christ. At other times, Paulinus connected his martyrs to Christ by linking them to other biblical figures who are themselves typologically identified with Christ: Abraham, the father of faith; Isaac, the willing (and stave-carrying) victim; Jacob, the chosen twin and laboring shepherd; Daniel, faithful believer unharmed in the lion’s den; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who survive the furnace of Babylon through steadfast faith; Peter, the miracleworking apostle.80 Paulinus’s use of these types helps emphasize the continuity of holiness
77
Paulinus, Epistula 18.7 (CSEL 29, 134): nec tamen uictus es, quia crucis ligno innitebaris Paulinus, Epistula 18.5 (CSEL 29, 133): in te Christum amantes 79 Paulinus, Epistula 18.8 (CSEL 29, 136): quis daret nobis pennas sicut columbae? et uolaremus ad te et requiesceremus in conspectu sanctitatis tuae, coram in ore tuo Christum dominum admirantes atque uenerantes, tergeremus capillis pedes illius in tuis pedibus et lacrimis rigaremus et in illis cicatricibus tuis quasi dominicae passionis inpressa uestigia lamberemus. 80 On Abraham: Paulinus links Felix to Abraham in Carmen 15.61-68, drawing on the move he made (in the person of his father) from foreign lands to promised ones. This comparison also works as an Isaac comparison, as Abraham represents both Felix and Felix’s father, who by causing Felix to be born in Italy “plants the sacred seed in Canaan’s fields” (deposuitque sacrum Chananaeis semen in aruis) as Abraham had done with Isaac. In addition, when Felix rescues Maximus in the wilderness (Carmen 15.282ff), he acts as an Abraham figure, using divinely-provided resources to save his companion; on Isaac: In addition to the allusion in Carmen 15.61-68, Paulinus figures Felix as Isaac in Carmen 26.230. Maximus is explicitly configured as Isaac in Carmen 15.354-361, when he blesses Felix as Isaac blessed Jacob, and implicitly depicted as Isaac in the narrative in which he willingly sacrifices himself in the wilderness but is saved by divine providence (Carmen 15.282ff); on Jacob: Felix appears as Jacob first when he is contrasted to his brother Hermias (Carmen 15.89-94) as the divinely-chosen twin, and again when he is blessed by Maximus as if the latter were Isaac blessing his son (Carmen 15.354-361); on Daniel: Carmen 26.255ff; 26.294 (in contrast to Daniel, which still calls to mind the comparison) and 26.374ff; on Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego: Carmen 26.380; on Peter: Carmen 15.257. 78
149
that enables martyrs to stand in for Christ. He even makes this point explicitly while comparing Felix’s escape from prison to Peter’s: ...Is there not one Christ present in every saint? Just as the same spirit flourishes in all born in Christ, thus the very grace of the pious ones harmonizes. I see that the ancient type returns in recent history, when Peter was commanded to escape— exalted in the line of the twelve disciples— by his own will with loosed chains, and he emerged from the locked prison, where the earlier angel drove him, having plundered the spoils of Herod.81 The nighttime arrival of an angelic rescuer, the loosened chains and thwarted guards, and the miraculously unlatched gates that Peter encountered in Acts 12 all parallel Felix’s escape, so that in his miraculous survival the priest more closely mirrors Peter and through this comes to a further connection with Christ. For Paulinus, all the saints refigured Christ. All were driven by the same spirit and power. The same types return over and over again, to refigure the same manifestations of holiness, the same miracles, to new, more recent audiences. By linking Felix, Victricius, and Maximus to Christ, directly or obliquely, Paulinus simultaneously cements and defends their depictions as martyrs, because, in his view, similarity to Christ is crucial to martyrdom. It is this similarity that enables martyrs to be influential with God: Thus the more powerful limbs in his venerable body are the martyrs (out of whom Felix is distinguished in strength, shining among the sacred eyes of the divine head), justly influential with God, because they suffered very much like Christ.82
81
Paulinus, Carmen 15.257-265 (CSEL 30, 62): nonne unus in omni / Christus adest sancto? sicut uiget omnibus idem / spiritus in Christo genitis, sic ipsa piorum / gratia concordat. ueterem remeare recenti / historia uideo speciem, qua iussus abire / bisseno sublimis in agmine discipulorum / Petrus sponte sua uinclis labentibus eque / carcere processit clauso, qua praeuius illum / angelus Herodi praedam furatus agebat. For the idea that Christ is ever-present in his saints, see also Carmen 20.308-311. 82 Paulinus, Carmen 26.207-210 (CSEL 30, 253-4): sic potiora eius uenerando in corpore membra / martyres, e quibus est insigni robore Felix / inter diuini capitis sacra lumina fulgens, / iure deo ualidi, quia Christo proxima passi. See also in the ninth Natalicium, where Paulinus compares the martyrs’ survival after death to Christ’s: “you, also, who with slaughtered bodies and spilled blood, / the martyrs having witnessed the Lamb slain and alive” (Carmen 27.215-216 [CSEL 30, 271]: uos quoque corporibus caesis et sanguine fuso / occisum et uiuum testati martyres agnum).
150
While suffering seems to be key to the imitation here, Felix is also the martyr adduced as “distinguished in strength,” and while Felix was willing to suffer, he did not actually have to—his sufferings were minimal, limited to his imprisonment in a dark and shard-strewn cell. What is happening here is that Paulinus is using typology to bind together Christ and his martyrs, to elide their differences by making connections that do not seem intuitive. This typological method mirrors what Catherine Conybeare identifies in Paulinus’s letters, a pattern of relying on “complex connections of thought, drawn through symbolically significant images” to develop the “active reading” required to access the “truth that lies beyond the textual.”83 The seeming contradictions in Paulinus’s interpretation lead the wellequipped reader to “look beyond the letter to the spirit,”84 absorbing the full meaning of the text and superceding the text by using it as a conduit to an external truth, which in this case would be (at the very least) that Felix’s willingness to suffer was sufficiently equivalent to Christ’s to make him a martyr. Finally, as further proof that we should not take Paulinus’s assertion of martyrdom lightly, as mere poetic embellishment or as a propitiatory device or even as meaningless aggrandizement, we can look to the contrasting example provided by Sulpicius Severus. Paulinus’s friend wrestled openly with the decision of whether or not to call Martin of Tours a martyr, and decided against it, precisely because he had not met the condition of death in persecution.85 This took nothing away from Martin’s holiness: his miracles, both in life and after death, cemented his status as saint and gave witness to his ability to channel God’s power. Nonetheless, there was something in the title of martyr that Paulinus understood differently than did Severus, something that he wanted to claim for Felix, Maximus, and
83
Conybeare, Paulinus Noster, 115-116. Conybeare, Paulinus Noster, 116. 85 Severus, Epistula 2.9-12 84
151
Victricius. Paulinus could have chosen to blur or merge the categories, as Prudentius did, but he instead preferred to maintain the separation between confessors and martyrs and nonetheless to use both terms to refer to Felix, Maximus, and Victricius. But Paulinus knows, as well, that his designations of Felix, Maximus, and Victricius as martyrs will stand at odds with what others expect martyrs to be. This is why he not only uses the title “martyr” to refer to each of them, but also defends and explains his use of the title for all three.
WHAT MAKES A MARTYR?
We have seen that Paulinus regards Felix, Victricius, and Maximus as martyrs, and not in some lesser, “figurative” sense, as Thomas Aquinas would have it.86 But what was it, essentially, that made them worthy of martyrdom, if not actual suffering and death? One criterion Paulinus employed to justify martyrdom without death, as I pointed to above in the discussion of the first Natalicium, is the proper orientation of the mind to the body. It is this correctly-ordered valuation that enables Felix to “scorn savage punishments.”87 The inner mind remains unconquered because it is able to distinguish between itself and the transient body: “Faith, mindful of heavenly / truth, compares the future life to the present death / and, happy, brings the mind victorious over the conquered body / up to the rejoicing stars, returning it to God.88 This is how Paulinus introduces Felix’s persecution by imperial officials—it is a generally applicable dictum which helps Paulinus argue the foolishness of seeking to inflict physical harm on the faithful. Because of his faith
86
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2a2ae. 124, 4. Paulinus, Carmen 12.5 88 Paulinus, Carmen 15.149-152 (CSEL 30, 57): fide, quae conscia ueri / caelestis uitam praesenti morte futuram / conparat et uicto uictricem corpore mentem / laeta deo referens gaudentibus inuehit astris 87
152
and his knowledge that the mind is both separate from and superior to the transient body, the victim will not truly be harmed. Felix goes on to demonstrate this faith in action: Neither devoid of rest, however, nor free from light is the confessor, with whom Christ, the ally in all things, already co-suffers, for whom graver punishments multiply green crowns, who traverses the heavens in his wandering mind. And ahead of him, though he is chained in body, his free spirit flies into the innermost chambers of highest Christ, with the soul considering in advance its reward for resolute devotions. Therefore the blessed passion with sacred punishments was bearing down on Felix with heavy chains and a blind prison, and however many punishments from men the submissive flesh clothed itself in, so many palms did his patience receive from Christ.89 Felix is imprisoned, weighed down by chains and shrouded in darkness, but he is nonetheless free in spirit to ascend to heavenly heights. What frees him is the knowledge that this life and these punishments pale in comparison to the heavenly realm and the rewards that the soul will receive on arrival there. The soul’s ascent despite the body being chained is made possible by its contemplation on future things, on its ability to “consider in advance its reward for resolute devotions.” The non-attachment to the physical is, then, what enables Felix to “scorn savage punishments.” Paradoxically, the reward that Felix gets for paying no heed to threats of torture is a physical one: comfort, or at least avoidance of physical torment. In other words, the thing he scorns is the means by which he’s rewarded. Moreover, Paulinus reinforced the idea that true merit lies in mental disposition, rather than physical activity, by establishing that this separation is both a cosmic reality and also the key to God’s evaluation of martyrs. Paulinus’s most vehement and explicit defense
89
Paulinus, Carmen 15.187-197 (CSEL 30, 59-60): nec requie tamen est uacuus nec luminis expers / confessor, cui iam sociatus in omnia Christus / conpatitur, uirides grauior cui poena coronas / multiplicat, spatiante polum qui mente peragrat. / seque ipsum, uincto quamuis in corpore, liber / spiritus anteuolat summi in penetralia Christi / praemeditante anima certis sua praemia uotis. / ergo beata sacris Felicem passio poenis / urgebat grauibus uinclis et carcere caeco, / quantasque ex homine induerat caro subdita poenas, / tantas a Christo recipit patientia palmas.
153
of Felix’s martyr-status occurs in the Natalicium of 397. He opens the poem with a heavyhanded distinction between the physical and the heavenly realms: The day has arrived, joyous in heaven and most celebrated on earth, bearing the birthday of Felix, on which in body he died on earth and was born in Christ in the highest stars, having received heavenly honor as a martyr without blood.90 We see again the separation of Felix’s body from his incorporeal existence, and here as in the first natalicium it mirrors the distinction between earth and heaven. The message is more forceful here, however, as Paulinus uses chiasmus and repetition to emphasize a contrastive symmetry between heaven and earth. Heaven and earth, at the same time but in different ways, mark this day—it is festa in heaven and celeberrima on earth—this day that saw Felix’s death on earth and his birth into the realm of the “highest stars.” The chiasmic caelo... terris... terris... astris, with terris repeated at the end of two successive lines, effectively highlights both the contrast and the symmetry of body/mind and earth/heaven. Paulinus caps off this stanza with the claim that Felix received heavenly honor as sine sanguine martyr, juxtaposing the separation of body and soul with the reward Felix earned and implying a causal relationship. Paulinus appears to know that this claim will not stand on its own and so explains further, acknowledging Felix’s widely-known status as confessor: For he died a confessor, having escaped punishments unwillingly, with God accepting the faithful mind in place of blood. He, who is the examiner of the silent heart, holds those prepared to suffer on par with those who have, considering that internal things have proven [him].91 Felix’s mind took the place of blood as an offering to God and a sign of true faith. God knew his innermost heart and the level of his devotion, and therefore deemed Felix worthy of life
90
Paulinus, Carmen 14.1-4 (CSEL 30, 45-46): Venit festa dies caelo, celeberrima terris, / natalem Felicis agens, qua corpore terris / occidit, et Christo superis est natus in astris, / caelestem nanctus sine sanguine martyr honorem. 91 Paulinus, Carmen 14.5-9 (CSEL 30, 46): Nam confessor obit poenas non sponte lucratus, / acceptante Deo fidam pro sanguine mentem; / qui cordis taciti scrutator, ferre paratos / aequiparat passis, sat habens interna probasse,
154
because of it, regardless of what befell his body. Not only is proper orientation of mind and body essential to the martyr himself, but God assents to this split. Just as the martyr disregards the pain threatening the physical body in favor of mental action, so too does God. The passage continues, and Paulinus circles back once again to reiterate his explanation that inward devotion makes one worthy of a martyr’s crown: Martyrdom without slaughter is pleasing, if, ready for suffering, both mind and faith burn for God. The will for suffering suffices, and giving testimony of devotion is the height of service.92 Bodily suffering looms on the horizon, and must be embraced as a possibility, but God’s judgment is based on the internal orientation of the martyr, whose mind a faith burn for God to the extent that they do not balk at the threat of physical torment. Moreover, we can see from this passage that martyrdom for Paulinus involved not just the correct orientation between mind and body, but also the correct orientation toward God: “Martyrdom without slaughter is pleasing if, ready for suffering / both mind and faith burn for God” (emphasis mine).93 This notion that proper piety is required for martyrdom recurs in the Natalicia. In the Natalicium of 402, Paulinus attributes Felix’s martyr status to his subordination of his own honor before the honor of God. Perhaps that very piety will bring more safety, if we can lay down our cares so that we might bear glad hearts to the confessor at whose honor God rejoices, because the martyr spurned his own honor on behalf of the name of Lord Christ; he became cheaper to himself so that he might become more precious to Christ.94
92
Paulinus, Carmen 14.10-12 (CSEL 30, 46): martyrium sine caede placet, si prompta ferendi / mensque fidesque Deo caleant, passura voluntas / sufficit, et summa est meriti, testatio voti. 93 Paulinus, Carmen 14.10-11 (CSEL 30, 46): martyrium sine caede placet, si prompta ferendi / mensque fidesque Deo caleant... 94 Paulinus, Carmen 26.58-63 (CSEL 30, 248): forte magis pietas nobis dabit ista salutem, / si nostras ideo libeat deponere curas, / ut confessori laetantia corda feramus, /cuius honore deus gaudet, quia martyr honorem / contempsit proprium domini pro nomine Christi, /uilior ipse sibi, ut Christo pretiosior esset.
155
While addressing a crowd anxious about Gothic incursions into Italy, Paulinus asks the people to give up thought for themselves and to focus instead on celebrating the saint, exactly as Felix had done for Christ. This disavowal of worldly honor helped earn Felix his martyr’s crown. We can actually see Felix’s transition from confessor to martyr through the spurning of honor. Paulinus juxtaposes the two titles but ultimately leaves “martyr” the subject of its clause, so that Felix, acting as martyr, spurns honor in favor of Christ. This honor that Felix discards might refer to worldly splendor (which would be appropriate for a Natalicium whose intent was to comfort the Nolans in the face of impending war), or it might refer to his maintenance of humble priestly status despite being sought after as bishop. Alternatively, it might refer to the glory of a martyr’s death—perhaps Paulinus is here highlighting Felix’s trust in God, which enabled him to lay his fate in God’s lap, rather than to insist upon death. Whichever “honor” Felix spurns, however, he has spurned it in favor of Christ, with Christ in mind throughout, and this is a source of his martyr status. This attitude, the display of devotion to God through a willingness to suffer and die for him, not only warrants the title of martyr, in Paulinus’s view, but also explains why Felix did not die: Paulinus writes that God “remits punishment of the flesh on account of proper piety.”95 In the absence of “punishment of the flesh” (and with the benefit of divine insight into the hearts of men), interior orientations took center stage in Paulinus’s negotiation of martyrdom. Foremost among these is the willingness to do what God demands, even if God demands suffering and death. The willingness to subordinate all temporal concerns for the sake of God emerges as the best qualification for martyrdom in several of the Natalicia, and we can see this theme running through several of Paulinus’s defenses of living martyrs.
95
Paulinus, Carmen 14.9 (CSEL 30, 46): supplicium carnis justa pietate remittit,
156
As we saw in the first natalicium, Felix sponte gives his limbs over to punishment,96 while in subsequent poems Paulinus argues that Felix “holds... the prize of one having suffered, / because he lived with willing virtus”97 and lauds him for his willingness to die.98 This willingness appears in Maximus’s story, as well, when Maximus explains that he could have fled to a comfortable hideout in a distant town but chose instead to “seek unknown mountains and barren deserts, / placing my head on the lap of the sweet Lord, / so that I might wither away under his witness or be fed by him.”99 This absolute trust in God confirms Maximus’s claim that “I did not flee for fear of death, nor put my life before Christ.”100 Maximus is willing to be God’s instrument, however God chooses to use him. Victricius, too, finds his status as a living martyr bolstered through his willingness to die, when Paulinus depicts him as sacra victima obediently following his executioner.101 Once again, however, the clearest explication of this criterion of martyrdom comes from Paulinus’s full-throated defense of Felix’s martyr-status in the third natalicium. Explaining the claim that Felix was received in heaven as sine sanguine martyr, Paulinus continues: For he died a confessor, having escaped punishments unwillingly, with God accepting the faithful mind in place of blood. He, who is the examiner of the silent heart, holds those prepared to suffer on par with those who have, considering that internal things have proven [him]. He remits punishment of the flesh on account of proper piety. Martyrdom without slaughter is pleasing, if, ready for suffering, both mind and faith burn for God. The will for suffering suffices, and giving testimony of devotion is the height of service
96
Paulinus, Carmen 12.7-8 (CSEL 30, 43): deuotamque animam tormenta per omnia Christo, / sponte tua iussus laxatis reddere membris, / liquisti uacuos rabidis lictoribus artus, 97 Paulinus, Carmen 18. 151-152 (CSEL 30, 104): tenet ergo et praemia passi, / quod prompta uirtute fuit 98 See 15.170 and 16.23-24 99 Paulinus, Carmen 15.321-323 (CSEL 30, 65): Ignotos montes desertaque nuda petiui / in gremio domini dulcis mea colla reponens, / ipso ut deficerem teste aut ut pascerer ipso 100 Paulinus, Carm, 15.316-317 (CSEL 30, 65): non mortis fugisse metu Christoque meam me / praeposuisse animam 101 Paulinus, Epistula 18.7.
157
(emphases mine).102 Paulinus repeatedly hammers home this point: willingness to suffer is the true mark of the martyr. Felix did not avoid punishments willingly—he would gladly have suffered for his faith. God knows this, as he knows all things, and counts the suffering already completed, simply because Felix was willing to undergo it. Paulinus is clear here that God sees no difference between Felix and other martyrs who did actually suffer and die in persecution. What truly matters is the willingness; the will for suffering suffices to earn the crown of martyrdom. Again, it is the internal orientation that matters. Orientation toward God was, for Paulinus, paramount in martyrdom, but I do not want to give the impression that Paulinus saw martyrdom as a wholly mental phenomenon, or that he rejected wholesale the idea of the body as a site of holiness. Even if he considered martyrdom primarily a matter of orientation, he did think that some sort of bodily engagement should support and complement the martyr’s mentality. This is an important corrective: Paulinus advocated the primacy of the mind, will, and orientation, but he did not devalue the physical. He was adamant about the physical body’s role in salvation and resurrection—as Catherine Conybeare underscores by attributing Augustine’s increasing valuation of the body at the resurrection in part to Paulinus’s influence.103 As evidence of this, we can see that while Paulinus continually asserts that actual bodily suffering is not necessary to martyrdom, he nonetheless persistently returns to suffering as an important imaginary feature of martyrdom. The language of suffering recurs
102
Paulinus, Carmen 14.1-12 (CSEL 30, 45-46): Venit festa dies caelo, celeberrima terris, / natalem Felicis agens, qua corpore terris / occidit, et Christo superis est natus in astris, / caelestem nanctus sine sanguine martyr honorem. / Nam confessor obit poenas non sponte lucratus, / acceptante Deo fidam pro sanguine mentem; / qui cordis taciti scrutator, ferre paratos / aequiparat passis, sat habens interna probasse, / supplicium carnis justa pietate remittit, /martyrium sine caede placet, si prompta ferendi / mensque fidesque Deo caleant, passura voluntas / sufficit, et summa est meriti, testatio voti. 103 Conybeare, Paulinus Noster, 138-9.
158
in his discussions of the living martyrs, and does indeed feature prominently in their martyrdoms. The physically-inflicted suffering that Felix undergoes is, all told, rather minor. He is bound in uncomfortable chains, in a shard-strewn cell, and kept in total darkness. Paulinus makes the most of these torments, building up anticipation for them and then describing them in as torturous a manner as possible: At once he, rejoicing, is seized and dragged away by the savage hands of furious men. But such is the custom of the unjust enemy, for whom it is more important to destroy souls than our bodies—he beforehand tests with terrors the one delayed from the sword and escalates toward death by stages of punishments. The first row of the punishment is woven from the prison. Iron chains are fastened in the gloomy enclosures; Steel rested on his hands and neck and his feet grew numb With his fetters drawn tight; shards of pottery were scattered So that the penal bed might ward off sleep with their sting.104 The “savage hands of furious men” seizing a joyful Felix and dragging him away to torture and execution recall the standard martyrdom narrative. The villain, too, seems to be a conflation of Devil and persecutor, in keeping with the standard “cosmic battle” aspect of martyrdom and the similarly standard alignment of persecutors and bystanders with Satan: “Just as the martyrs are filled with Christ, their opponents are filled with Satan.105 The “terrors” with which he tests his adversary and which he “escalates toward death” serve as a shorthand for all possible punishments inflicted upon a martyr, and call them to mind—claws, fire, flaying, dismemberment, animal attacks and all manner of alternative tortures are possibilities here. Whoever reads or hears this poem would, at this point, know to expect the
104
Paulinus, Carmen 15.177-186 (CSEL 30, 59): ilicet arripitur gaudens saeuisque furentum / protrahitur manibus, sed, qui mos hostis iniqui, / cui potior labor est animas quam corpora nostra / perdere, dilatum gladio terroribus ante / temptat et in mortem surgit gradibus poenarum. / primus supplicii de carcere texitur ordo. ferrea iunguntur tenebrosis uincula claustris; / stat manibus colloque chalybs neruoque rigescunt / diducente pedes; sternuntur fragmina testae, / arceat ut somnum poenalis acumine lectus. 105 Middleton, Radical Martyrdom, 101; Candida R. Moss, The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom (New York: HarperOne, 2013), 199.
159
worst. Even the descriptor “delayed from the sword” (dilatum gladio) adds to this expectation, as dilatum is often used in a juridicial context to describe long, drawn out interrogation, and is recognizable from other martyr stories, when the martyr is threatened with long, drawn out punishments, as Lawrence was.106 Differo, while signifying a respite from torture, is also a word used to indicate anticipated or enhanced torture. And this is just the beginning—or so Paulinus would have the reader assume: he describes Felix’s rough imprisonment as “the first row of punishment woven,” as if the torments would ultimately comprise a tapestry for which the chains and the darkness are only the foundational layer. Furthermore, while Paulinus invokes the spectre of harsher punishments, he also lingers on the suffering Felix actually does undergo, adding the ambience of iron and gloom (ferrea... tenebrosis), emphasizing the experience of chains (stat manibus colloque chalybs neruoque rigescunt / diducente pedes) as well as the implements of torture (chalybs, fragmina testae, lectus poenalis) and their effects (ut arceat somnum).107 Even in the lead-up to this passage Paulinus sets a suffering-centered tone by addressing Felix’s would-be persecutors. In this apostrophe, Paulinus both follows a conventional narrative pattern that would indicate tragedy to come (i.e., foreshadowing suffering) and also highlights the suffering Felix’s persecutors would have inflicted upon him if given the chance: Alas, wretched impiety, blinded by infernal shadows, to where do you rush? Against whom do you brandish weapons? Do you believe that God exists in one mortal man? And that if you destroy the body, the divine mind and power would be able to be effaced? ... Therefore what helpful thing do you pursue, madman, by attacking
106
Prudentius, Peristephanon 2.337. A similar instance of threatened violence beign treated as accomplished violence occurs in the first Natalicium, when Felix is described as having abandoned his limbs to frenzied lictors: Paulinus, Carmen 12.5-9 (CSEL 30, 42-43): contemnendo truces meruisti euadere poenas, / deuotamque animam tormenta per omnia Christo, / sponte tua iussus laxatis reddere membris, / liquisti uacuos rabidis lictoribus artus, / uectus in aetherium sine sanguine martyr honorem. 107
160
pious Felix with such an abundance of furor? The mind remains unconquered with God concealed within; nor does the earthly nature of man alone oppose you now; God himself refuses what you seek, and against your poison, ancient serpent, Christ himself offers himself through the bodies of his servants And, tying you with your traps he scatters you in their slaughter, triumphing over death through the appearance of death. But his error was pressing wild hearts with frenzied goads To burn with bloody thirst for holy blood, As if demanding a palm of wickedness.108 Brandishing weapons, destroying bodies, attacking with furor, burning for blood—had the intentions of the persecutors been enacted, the result would have been gruesome. By calling to mind these specific potentialities, Paulinus creates within the poem an imaginary realm, an alternate reality in which all these torturous prospects are still, indeed, on the table. Similarly, Paulinus refers to the bodies of the saints suffused with Christ and slaughtered as a means of highlighting the economy of suffering in this alternate world, so close to being realized. Paulinus’s emphasis on physical suffering is clearly in evidence here. Bishop Maximus, on the other hand, earned his martyrdom by suffering emotionally: “He was suffering martyrdom with torture different but no lighter than if he had given his neck to the sword.... concern for his flock burned and troubled him.”109 Here Paulinus notably prioritizes mentally-derived suffering over physically-derived suffering: Maximus is starving and freezing, but it is his concern for his flock that explicitly makes him a martyr. Whatever the source, suffering is nonetheless part of the picture of martyrdom that Paulinus sketches.
108
Paulinus, Carmen 15.140-143; 153-163 (CSEL 30, 57-58): heu, misera inpietas, infernis caeca tenebris /quo ruis? in quem tela moues? an credis in uno / mortali constare deum? et, si corpora soluas, / uim simul et mentem diuinam posse aboleri? ... quid iuuat ergo pium tanta quod mole furoris / Felicem, uesane, petis? manet intus operto / mens inuicta deo; nec iam tibi sola resistit / terreni natura hominis; deus ipse repugnat / quem petis, atque tuis, serpens antique, uenenis / ipse offert se per famulorum corpora Christus / teque tuis nectens laqueis in caede suorum / sternit, per mortis speciem de morte triumphans. / sed fera corda suus stimulis furialibus error / sanguinea flagrare siti sanctumque cruorem / urgebat ueluti sceleris deposcere palmam. 109 Paulinus, Carmen 15.200-203 (CSEL 30, 60): ...diversa at non leuiore ferebat / martyrium cruce, quam si ferro colla dedisset / membraque tormentis aut ignibus; acrior illum / cura sui gregis urit et afficit
161
Similarly, Paulinus details Victricius’s sufferings, in order to situate him more firmly among the martyrs. Paulinus recites Victricius’s own story back to him, describing the consequences of Victricius’s public refusal of military service: And immediately, with the tribune disturbed into frenzies by the jealousy of the ancient serpent, you were pulled in different directions into floggings and broken with monstrous clubs, but you were not conquered, because you were supported by the cross. And soon, with doubled bodily punishment, you were stretched out, limbs mangled by massive blows, over sharp fragments of shards, with Christ then supporting you more softly, Christ whose lap was a bed for you and whose right hand a pillow.110 The physicality of Victricius’s punishment is front and center—he is pulled in different directions, flogged, broken with clubs, stretched over shards, and mangled by blows. Even his sources of respite are physical, if perhaps metaphorically so: the cross supports him and Christ himself offers him his lap and his hand as soft landing places. Martyrdom was, in Paulinus’s view, not only a reorientation of the self to God but an embodied one. While it did not require suffering, and certainly not death, it did require suffering to be part of the visceral imaginary of the martyr.
EMBODIED REORIENTATION TO GOD
It is important to acknowledge and interrogate Paulinus’s view of martyrdom because it reflects Paulinus’s worldview as a whole. Rather than being a one-off idea, Paulinus’s construction of martyrdom as primarily a matter of embodied reorientation toward the divine is of a piece with his wider thinking about Christian life, most notably his ideas on ascetic life,
110
Paulinus, Epistula 18.7 (CSEL 29, 134): et ilico antiqui serpentis inuidia concitato in furias tribuno districtus in uerbera et uastis fustibus fractus nec tamen uictus es, quia crucis ligno innitebaris. geminataque mox corpori poena acuto testarum fragmine laniata inmanibus plagis membra substratus es, tunc mollius fulciente Christo, cuius tibi gremium lectulus erat et dextra puluinar.
162
friendship, and poverty. As Dennis Trout notes, “Paulinus regularly turned the light of examination from action to attitude.”111 In his pursuit of the ascetic life, for example, Paulinus saw biblical study as paramount (as we have seen) in preference to more mundane exertions of discipline, such as giving up wine. He also did not share Jerome’s view that a monachos could be neither a cleric nor a suburbanite: rather than retreating from the world either physically or administratively, Paulinus largely maintained his temporal connections and instead sought predominantly mental discipline. In what is actually a rather hilarious letter to Severus, Paulinus complains about a mutual friend’s penchant for flavorless cooking, but then takes a philosophical view of it—saying that his food “imitated the bread of affliction”112 from Ezekiel, and that the friend “wanted therefore to humble me not only through fasting but also through food.”113 In addition to signalling the relative palatability of Paulinus’s usual food choices, this passage (and particularly the lightness with which Paulinus treats the topic) indicates that such deprivations were not foremost in Paulinus’s evaluation of what constituted asceticism, that the choice of what to eat ultimately did not matter much. It also signals the importance of interiority and interpretation, since the food gains value not from its simplicity, blandness, or its instantiation of denial, but because that simplicity is interpreted through biblical lenses. On the other hand, while Paulinus was (by Jerome’s standards) lenient on what a monk should eat and drink, he was fastidious about when a monk should eat and drink, as his
111
Trout, Paulinus of Nola, 136. Trout continues on to elaborate that this was “a subtle deflection but one that somewhat paradoxically allowed the approbation of a significant range of behavior and pragmatic relationships between committed Christians and their worldly goods.” 112 Paulinus, Epistula 23.6 (CSEL 29, 163): panes...tribulationis 113 Paulinus, Epistula, 23.7 (CSEL 29, 163): Voluit ergo frater Victor, ut non solum ieiunio sed et cibo humiliare animam disceremus et recordatione peccatorum ueterum intellectuque praesentium tristes manducare panem doloris, quamuis ex parte nobis pepercerit fabam tantum milio panicioque confundens, quod tamen forsitan obliuionis magis quam moderaminis fuerit.
163
seemingly good-natured mockery of the monk Cardemas indicates. He writes to Amandus that the monk, his courier, was not quite up to the task of eating but once a day and would beg for food and drink at midday when all the other members of Paulinus’s community only ate at dusk.114 And, as we saw above, Paulinus held the external trappings of monasticism in high esteem. He even rejected Severus’s courier Marracinus because of his healthy red cheeks and un-monklike clothing.115 Thus, while interior orientation is paramount, Paulinus does not completely disavow bodily implementation, and in fact on certain occasions privileges it. Likewise, just as Christians earn martyrdom earned through proper piety and the willingness to die for Christ, they create friendship, according to Paulinus, not primarily by actions but, as Catherine Conybeare and others have shown, by a shared orientation toward Christ. If two men were equals in God’s eyes, they shared a bond that would make them instant friends, regardless of disparities in age or experience, the newness of the acquaintance, or their physical distance from one another.116 Paulinus, on arriving at Nola, found himself physically distant from all his Christian friends and physically close to all his former friends whose spiritual distance from him he now judged insurmountable.117 But this was not, ultimately, a problem. As Catherine Conybeare demonstrates, for Christian letter-writers in this period and particularly Paulinus, the virtual presence of friends through letters comes to be better than actual presence.118 The
114
Paulinus, Epistula 15.4 Paulinus, Epistula 17.1, although the tirade against Marracinus in Epistula 22.1-2 indicates that there was much more about Marracinus that Paulinus disliked: in addition to rejecting Paulinus’s ascetic practices, he seems to have scorned them, complaining, for instance, about the bad breath of Paulinus’s fasting monks. 116 Conybeare, Paulinus Noster, 90; see also Carolinne White, Christian Friendship in the Fourth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 154 and Bradley K. Storin, “The Letters of Gregory Nazianzus: Discourse and Community in Late Antique Epistolary Culture” (PhD Dissertation, Indiana University, 2012), 87-88. 117 Paulinus, Epistula 11, 3. 118 Conybeare, Paulinus Noster, 67. 115
164
“very fact of absence becomes significant, for it enables the spiritual and the physical to be seen in their true relationship.”119 Paulinus at one point writes to Severus dismissing the need for a personal visit by saying “you have come to us—the part of you better than that which stayed at home, residing in body only—in will and in spirit and in speech.”120 Physical presence was not paramount to Paulinus’s understanding of friendship. This is why, for example, Paulinus could assertively introduce himself to Augustine and Alypius as a friend despite never having met.121 And yet there was an embodied component to all these communications: the letters themselves, the gifts of materials or texts that frequently accompanied them, and the messengers who carried them.122 These letters and their messengers thus provided a physical grounding for a non-physical friendship: while they made possible the sublimation of the physical relationships between friends, they simultaneously served as the physical, embodied core of the friendship. Through their physical presence, their embodiment of the friendship, the letters and their carriers enable the reorientation of Christians from physical to spiritual friendship. Even beyond these substitutionary exchanges, however, and despite all his claims that they are, in fact, sufficient proxies, Paulinus still desired the real physical proximity of his friends. Paulinus made frequent and fervent pleas for Severus to visit him, even while asserting that the messengers Severus sends fully satisfy his need to see his friend because they are, in a sense, him: “But you were not wholly absent indeed in body, when the limbs of
119
Conybeare, Paulinus Noster, 68. Paulinus, Epistula 5, 1 (CSEL 29, 24): tu uero potiore tui parte quam qua manseris, solo corpore domi residens, uoluntate ad nos et spiritu et sermone uenisti 121 See Epistula 4 to Augustine and Epistula 3 to Alypius. 122 See Storin, “Gregory Nazianzus,” 80-146. 120
165
your body came to us in the form of your boys joined to you in holy servitude to the Lord.”123 Nonetheless, Paulinus berated Severus for ignoring his calls to visit, and even enlisted Felix in an attempt to shame Severus into coming—Paulinus had promised Felix that Severus would visit, and now Paulinus blames Severus for making him look bad in front of his holy patron.124 Paulinus’s pleas were complex and cloying, and (as I read them) heartfelt. While expressions of desire for physical visits were a late antique epistolary commonplace alongside (frequently disingenuous) statements of affection and thus not to be read as solely reflecting Paulinus’s own wishes,125 no late antique letter-writer is quite as committed as Paulinus is to this trope. Paulinus goes above and beyond in demanding Severus’s presence, and, in addition, he reserves this exuberant pleading for his letters to Severus alone. None of Paulinus’s other correspondents receive the same caliber of entreaties to visit, and so it seems safe to regard his demands to Severus as genuine, if also in genuine tension with his more sublimating statements about friendship. Thus, in the same way that Paulinus moves the burden of martyrdom from physical death to an internal orientation, from action to attitude, so too is friendship’s burden relocated from visits to letters. And, just as there is still a physical component that remains central to martyrdom, there is, nonetheless, still an importance placed on physical proximity. We see the same tension-filled turn from action to attitude with Paulinus’s view on poverty: in the same way that one can be a martyr without actually dying, Paulinus advocates that one can be poor without actually giving up one’s wealth. One need only reorient oneself to wealth, an attitude which Peter Brown describes as “a portrait of ‘poverty’ not as
123
Paulinus, Epistula 5, 1 (CSEL 29, 24): quamquam ne corporaliter quidem penitus afueris, quando in pueris tuis sancta in domino tibi seruitute conexis corporis ad nos tui membra uenerunt 124 Paulinus, Epistula 17, 3. 125 Storin, “Gregory Nazianzus,” 139-141.
166
‘unwealth’ but as ‘anti-wealth’.”126 The rich “were not condemned,” as Brown writes, “to be forever camels”—they could “bypass” the eye of the needle by using their God-given earthly treasure for divine ends.127 They could maintain their wealth so long as they held it in proper regard, without attachment to it, employing it in some fashion in service to Christ and his poor. This was, in Dennis Trout’s words, Paulinus’s “Salvation Economics,” what Peter Brown labels the “mystical symbiosis between rich and poor.”128 Being “anti-wealth” still meant forgoing some creature comforts. After all, the enjoyment of luxurious clothing and foods would prevent a rich person from rejecting his or her attachment to wealth.129 And as we saw above, Paulinus did, in fact, value performances of poverty such as abstemious eating and plain dress. Nonetheless, regardless of the austerities one imposes on oneself, divesting oneself of attachment to wealth—that is, “anti-wealth”—is a far cry from divesting oneself of actual wealth. Though he left the senator’s insulating entourage, the “protective bubble”130 of clients and friends who would have buffered him from contact with the poor in order to live in a cell on the second story of a cloister whose ground level was at all times thronged with the indigent seeking Felix’s aid, Paulinus nonetheless wielded his wealth much as any patron would. He ensured that the crowds all had food and shelter; he solicited alms on their behalf from wealthier benefactors, opened his storehouses to the hungry, warmed them with the shelters he built and the clothes he bought for them from local merchants.131 He used his
126
Brown, Through the Eye of A Needle, 220. Brown, Through the Eye of A Needle, 235. 128 Trout, Paulinus of Nola, 133-159; Brown, Through the Eye of A Needle, 235. 129 See, for instance, the practices of Pinian and Melania the Younger (described in Brown, Through the Eye of A Needle, 291-294), as well as Paulinus’s own abstinence and fasting. 130 Brown, Through the Eye of A Needle, 60; Greg Woolf, “Writing Poverty in Rome,” in Poverty in the Roman World, ed. Robin Osbourne and Margaret Atkins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 85. 131 On soliciting donations from the wealthy, see for example Paulinus, Epistula 34. On opening storehouses, see Uranius, De Obitu Sancti Paulini 4 and Trout, Paulinus of Nola, 150; On building shelters: see Paulinus, Carmen 28.53-59; On clothes: Uranius, De Obitu 3 and Paulinus, Epistula 34.10. 127
167
influence to secure lodging and lands for impoverished acquaintances, and is reported to have used the remnants of his personal fortune to settle the debts of struggling locals.132 And using his own funds he embarked on massive building projects, remarkable for their opulence and splendor, in Felix’s honor. More importantly, however, the primacy of intent in poverty was true even for those who were not, in fact, wealthy—in Paulinus’s view you can be poor, but if you are attached to material possessions you are, in fact, the rich man who cannot be saved. Paulinus publicly mocks and excoriates his poor neighbor whose hovels had been blocking the light shining into his new basilica, condemning him for his attachment to his beloved properties and gloating when they “miraculously” burn down. This man was by no means rich—he was likely one step up from joining the transient poor who sought alms at Felix’s shrine. And yet, because he “preferred his hovels to the holy roofs,” he is classed with the rich who will not and cannot be saved. 133 Interior attitude trumps actual material prosperity, whether one is rich or poor. In each of these cases (asceticism, friendship, and poverty), identifying the pattern of embodied orientation toward God helps enrich our understanding of Paulinus’s thought.
132
Uranius, De Obitu 6; taking in a poor rustic in Paulinus, Epistula 23.9. Paulinus, Carmen 28.156-7 (CSEL 30, 298): nam sua qui sanctis nuper gurgustia tectis / praetulerat, primum flamma multatus in uno. Regarding the colonus’s salvation, Paulinus is uncharacteristically uncharitable. The last we see him, he is standing over the ruins of his beloved huts, marveling at their total destruction, just as damned as ever. He is Dives, the rich man in Luke, who, seeing that his error in ignoring the beggar Lazarus has landed him in hell, wants to repent, but cannot. NB: I am labeling this man poor, despite his ownership of buildings large enough to block the light into Paulinus’s basilica and the consequent likelihood that his and his family’s hunger would have been episodic, rather than endemic (see Robin Osbourne, “Introduction: Roman Poverty in Context,” in Poverty in the Roman World, ed. Robin Osbourne and Margaret Atkins [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006], 5). First, the buildings were cheaply made and old, in appearance (28.64 (CSEL 30, 294): deformia visu), and more easily flammable because of “the rotten wood of their old roofs” (28.82-83 (CSEL 30, 294-295): tum facili lapsu per putria ligna uetusti / culminis erumpens). Second, poverty, in the late ancient Roman estimation, was usually a matter of relative status, and this man was certainly poor compared to Felix and his caretakers. Finally, as a practical matter, this colonus likely had nowhere else to go; he would certainly not have been guaranteed even subsistence elsewhere. He is not a man of means for whom leaving these huts would be as simple as relocating to a more southerly estate. Dispossessed of these crumbling structures, the colonus and his household very likely would have been truly destitute. Thus, relative to Paulinus and by virtue of their tenuous hold on prosperity, the colonus and his household should be classed among the poor. 133
168
While not resolving (or attempting to resolve) the tensions and contradictions reflected in his writing (and, indeed, helping us see how these views can coexist without reconciliation), this paradigm helps us as scholars to identify, acknowledge, and validate as proper to his devotional thinking the multiple avenues of spirituality that Paulinus pursued, giving scholarly voice to the full range of thoughts he expressed, including those about living martyrs. To fail to see living martyrs as a real and powerful category for Paulinus would be to damage the continuity of his thinking by ignoring some of its major components. Paulinus is, in fact, remarkably consistent across his major fields of concern: embodied orientation toward God trumps the purely physical particulars of life and experience.
CONCLUSION
Claiming that, for Paulinus, martyrdom consisted in an embodied orientation toward God might seem like a cheat, a way to let Paulinus have his cake and eat it too. In its bluntest form, it makes the simultaneous claim that Paulinus did not require suffering or death for martyrdom, and that, in some sense, he did. But what it offers, on a subtler plane, is a way for us to acknowledge and highlight the interiority of martyrdom in Paulinus’s thinking without disregarding the physical, which, while secondary, is nonetheless inseparable in Paulinus’s thinking from the spiritual. An interior shift necessitates an exterior shift if only because, for Paulinus, no interior shift can come without imaginary, emotional, or physical consequences. But it is still the interior shift, the orientation toward God, that causes martyrdom and merits its rewards. In this chapter, I have shown that Paulinus considers martyrdom to be achievable without death. In the next, I will show how Paulinus extends this martyrdom to his contemporaries.
169
CHAPTER 4 MAKING MARTYRS IN THE NOLAN COUNTRYSIDE
INTRODUCTION
As we saw in the previous chapter, Paulinus reconfigured martyrdom to include those, like Felix, Maximus, and Victricius, who did not die in persecution. Martyrdom became, rather, an embodied re-orientation toward God. In this chapter, I will show that, with this paradigm in place Paulinus made martyrs out of more men than these three—he created the conditions under which other men and women could become martyrs, too. In fact, we can see from the Natalicia that Paulinus actively sought to inculcate this re-envisioned martyrdom, this embodied orientation, in his audience; he wanted to make them martyrs, too—or at least to give them the opportunity to become martyrs.1 Paulinus extended the possibility of martyrdom to his listeners in three primary ways. First, he cultivated an ethic of imitation that emphasized the importance of modeling oneself after holy figures and martyrs (including and especially Felix, whose example demonstrated the breadth of martyrial behavior). Second, in defending Felix’s martyr-status, Paulinus asserted universal principles through which others could become martyrs. Third, Paulinus used poetic and rhetorical techniques to meld audience and text and to elicit emotional responses that would enable his listeners to have an embodied experience to complement their orientation toward martyrdom.
1
This program is also apparent in the letters, from which I will occasionally be drawing.
170
The title of this chapter recalls the title of Dennis Trout’s essay “Christianizing the Nolan Countryside: Animal Sacrifice at the Tomb of St. Felix.”2 Trout explores the ways that Paulinus reframed animal sacrifice at Nola as Christian devotio, miracle, and alms, helping to cultivate a spirituality and practice that built on what was already familiar to Nolans and to “Christianize” it, using this “transforming dynamic” to bring Christianity to the widest possible audience. Likewise, Paulinus transformed a well-known sacred practice, martyrdom, into something accessible to and appealing to more people. Just as Paulinus redefined sacrifice as Christian by taking what would be familiar to his audience and tweaking it, he sought, with his treatment of “living martyrs,” to redefine the familiar concept of martyrdom in such a way that those around him could participate in it, making martyrdom a matter of embodied reorientation of the will to God, rather than of death.
THE MARTYR AS MODEL
We have already seen how extensively Paulinus used typology to link his living martyrs to Christ and to other holy men: he depicted Maximus as an Isaac-figure, Victricius as a type of Christ, and Felix as refiguring Christ, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and the apostle Peter. In this last instance, Paulinus explicitly described Felix as re-enacting Peter’s escape from prison. Commenting on Felix’s experience of angelicallyenabled escape, Paulinus wrote: “I see that the ancient type returns / in recent history.”3 P. G. Walsh notes that: “This is a statement of the greatest interest, justifying the reenactment of
2
Journal of Early Christian Studies 3, no. 3 (1995), 281-298. Paulinus, Carmen 15.257-265 (CSEL 30, 62): ueterem remeare recenti / historia uideo speciem, qua iussus abire / bisseno sublimis in agmine discipulorum / Petrus sponte sua uinclis labentibus eque / carcere processit clauso. See also Carmen 20.306-311. 3
171
biblical miracles in the lives of later saints by this thesis of the harmony of grace.”4 But Paulinus was not only defending contemporary saints. With this explicit reminder that types persist into the present, Paulinus signaled that neither the fodder for imitation nor the ability to succeed in it was a relic of the past. Imitation was possible, Paulinus asserted, even for his contemporaries. More than this, imitation was an ethical imperative, in Paulinus’ view—it was the way to make oneself worthy of God’s help. In the service of this imperative, Paulinus often emphasized typology and repetition with a hortatory aim, cultivating and modeling imitative thinking. In addition, he urged his audience explicitly and implicitly to mimic the saints. Finally, Paulinus presented Felix as a particularly imitable model of sanctity—a presentation that included admissions that Paulinus modeled himself and his community after Felix. Through this ethic of imitation, Paulinus asserted that present-day Christians could access timeless holiness and its rewards. By refiguring God’s holy people, Christians, no matter their era, could achieve similar honors. Paulinus’ call to imitation is nowhere more forcefully or extensively articulated than in the eighth Natalicium, given in 402 as Campania prepared for Alaric’s impending assault. The whole poem is crafted to assuage the audience’s anxiety. Paulinus begins by asking the crowd to disregard their fear and gloom and, instead, to rejoice. After all, he argues, even if one were a captive of the Goths or the Alans, it would still be possible to celebrate Felix’s feast day. Setting up the distinction we saw in the previous chapter between body and mind, Paulinus writes that ...Even if multi-yoked chains were oppressing my neck, the enemy would not harness the mind along with captive limbs— with heart unchained, proud piety would trample sad servitude. Although among barbarian chains, free love would sing my offerings in pleasing little verses.5
4
P. G. Walsh, The Poems of St. Paulinus of Nola (New York: Paulist Press, 1975), 371. Paulinus, Carmen 26.22-28 (CSEL 30, 246-247): hunc ego, si Geticis agerem male subditus armis, / inter et inmites celebrarem laetus Alanos, / et si multiiugae premerent mea colla catenae, / captiuis animum 5
172
Perhaps recognizing that this might not be as comforting or compelling to his audience as to himself, Paulinus moves on, commanding the assembled crowd to let their trust in Christ keep them safe: “Nonetheless, let steadfast trust in the lord Christ strengthen / us and arm us with minds fixed on the right path, / so that black terror does not overspread this light with clouds, / [this day] which God brightens for the heavenly honor of Felix.”6 Faith can not only keep our minds correctly ordered toward “the right path”: it can, Paulinus intimates, lead to better outcomes in the physical world. Although he is presumably speaking of figurative clouds, Paulinus’ use of cloud and daylight imagery calls to mind God’s power to intervene in earthly affairs. Paulinus then proceeds to offer his listeners an edifying example of God doing just that. God intervened to help the Jews escape Egypt, and we listeners should therefore (Paulinus asserts) take the ancient Jews as our model. Although they were fearful on the eve of their terrifying journey, they celebrated at Moses’ instruction and “despite their roiling dread, did not abandon the solemn command.”7 “Thus, therefore,” Paulinus urges, “let us now, happy in a turbulent time, / with pious mind all celebrate the feast of the beloved martyr / with united devotions of cheerful piety.”8 Celebrating on the eve of battle is a sign of the sure faith that led the Jews to a positive outcome, so Paulinus asks his audience to follow their lead. This exhortation to imitate the ancient Jews signals the project of the poem: Paulinus wanted his audience to keep these biblical examples in mind and mimic them so as to achieve the same rewards, that is to say, rescue:
membris non iungeret hostis, / pectore non uincto calcaret triste superba / seruitium pietas. licet inter barbara uincla / liber amor placitis caneret mea uota loquellis. 6 Paulinus, Carmen 26.31-34 (CSEL 30, 247): nos tamen in domino stabilis fiducia Christo / roboret et recto fixis pede mentibus armet / nec pauor ater in hanc obducat nubila lucem, / quam deus aetherio Felicis honore serenat. 7 Paulinus, Carmen 26.40 (CSEL 30, 247): nec turbante metu iussum sollemne reliquit 8 Paulinus, Carmen 26.55-57 (CSEL 30, 248): sic igitur modo nos turbato in tempore laeti, / mente pia festum dilecti martyris omnes / conlatis hilarae studiis pietatis agamus.
173
Let us retrace the ancient examples of our saintly parents, Who, enduring the deserved lashes from wars unleashed, Did not think to wrangle protection from arms or walls. To hope for salvation by human means is no safety. For mortal things cannot repel death. Therefore, for those in anxiety let the time of anxiety be a time of beseeching The heavenly Lord, by whom sorrows and joys are prepared, Who alone is able to ensure with celestial authority That joyful things again be brought back with concern expelled.9 Paulinus calls upon his listeners to “re-trace” or “re-undertake” the example of people in similar circumstances to them, who responded to physical threats by trusting in God. He then establishes why, formulating a truism, an axiomatic statement, that God alone can repel death and that trust in human protection is futile. Then he moves into exhortation, encouraging his listeners—who are now lumped together with the Jews by the general, universalizing quibus—to pray to heavenly powers and receive the laeta and gaudia that only God can ensure. The poem then adduces example after example of “saintly forebears” triumphing with God’s help: Nineveh is redeemed by its “grief” at its error (luctu); Moses conquers Amalek’s forces through “excessive prayer” (inpensa...prece); Esther overcomes Haman with a prayer (prece).10 We should consider (or “cultivate anew” [recolamus]) that Joshua used not force but divine favor to conquer Jericho, that Rahab survived “not relying on her walls to escape, / but she obtained the reward of piety by piety to God,” that Hezekiah’s prayerful visit to the temple prompted the angel of God to slaughter Sennacherib’s forces while they slept, and that similarly devoted prayers from Moses, Lot, and Elias saved entire populations from destruction. Daniel and the three boys in the furnace of Babylon round out the biblical
9
Paulinus, Carmen 26.80-88 (CSEL 30, 249): prisca retractemus sanctorum exempla parentum, / qui merita inmissis tolerantes uerbera bellis, / non armis sibi nec muris capienda putabant / praesidia. humanis opibus sperare salutem / nulla salus. nec enim mortem mortalia pellent. / ergo quibus curae tempus sit cura precandi / caelestem dominum, quo maesta aut laeta parantur, / qui solus praestare potest dicione superna, / rursus ut exactis renouentur gaudia curis. 10 Luctu: 26.93 (CSEL 30, 249); inpensa...prece: 26.94 (CSEL 30, 249); prece: 26.95 (CSEL 30, 249).
174
examples, and then Paulinus connects all these miraculous survivals to more recent events where faith overcame obstacles: a recent exorcism, a fire averted, a river diverted.11 In this litany of exempla, all of the instances of salvation that Paulinus points to involve physical salvation as well as spiritual salvation for the faithful. Paulinus could have looked to the Maccabees, facing as they did a military threat, or to any of the martyrs whose bravery in the face of attack showed that they placed no faith in earthly resistance. But he does not. Though Paulinus is telling his audience not to fear earthly armies but rather God’s correction, he is encouraging them with examples that suggest God will defeat the threatening forces on their behalf—if, that is, they imitate these earlier figures by having faith in God’s intervention. The poem ends with Paulinus pleading with Felix to avert the impending battles and to save the shrine from bloodshed. Paulinus was asking his listeners to share in the faith that saved these prior figures, to imitate them in their faith, and by so doing to (aim to) imitate them in their physical salvation. Not only could Christians “save themselves” both physically and spiritually by imitating these holy figures, in Paulinus’ reckoning they could actually attain a higher reward: similarity to the source of their holiness, Christ. Likeness to Christ was, for Paulinus, the ultimate aim of imitating the saints: as Paulinus asserted in a letter to Severus, “by imitating the imitator of Christ we shall attain the imitation of God.”12 Indeed, this was why Felix is so successful as an intercessor, as Paulinus argued in the Natalicium of 402: Thus the more powerful limbs in his venerable body are the martyrs (out of whom Felix is distinguished in strength, shining among the sacred eyes of the divine head),
11
Recolamus, 26.114 (CSEL 30, 250); Joshua conquering Jericho: 26.114-131; Rahab surviving: Paulinus, Carmen 26.133-134 (CSEL 30, 251): non freta suis euadere muris, / sed pietate dei meritum pietatis adepta est; Hezekiah: 26.166-194; Moses: 26.219-220; Lot: 26.221-224; Elias: 26. 227-229; Daniel: 26.255-256; the three boys in the furnace: 26.264; recent exorcism: 26.307-323; fire averted: 26.396-412; river diverted 26.425-426. 12 Paulinus, Epistula 11.7 (CSEL 29, 66): imitando enim imitatorem Christi perueniemus ad imitationem dei Paulinus is here answering Paul’s plea in 1 Corinthians 11.1: imitatores mei estote, sicut et ego Christi.
175
justly influential with God, because they suffered very much like Christ.13 As a martyr, Felix has so much sway with God because of his similarity to Christ. And given the way that Paulinus describes Felix’s intercession throughout the rest of the poem, recounting Felix’s beneficence and salutary interventions, it seems as if this affinity with Christ is more of a unity with Christ—at the very least it appears to be a unity of will.14 This ethic of imitation is similar to the martyrial worldview we saw in Prudentius in that it operates in and through typological thinking to translate witness/see into witness/be. It differs from Prudentius’ martyrial worldview in that it actually enjoins its adherents to imitate the martyrs in order to achieve martyrdom while simultaneously (and seemingly contradictorily) placing less emphasis on all forms of witness. The visual and communicative aspects of martyrdom are less emphasized, while the act of imitation is stressed. The imitation of the martyrs could, Paulinus argued, lead to a martyrdom of one’s own. In the Natalicium of 407, Paulinus made this explicit, offering instruction to his audience: “if we walk in the martyr’s footsteps, we can enjoy rewards equal to [our] forbears.”15 Walking in the martyr’s footsteps could take a variety of forms. Just as Felix’s similarity to Christ gave him privileged access to God despite the actual differences between his experience and Christ’s, so too could many experiences “round up” to a full Christ imitation: the fact that Felix’s suffering did not precisely mirror Christ’s does not stand in the way of his status as imitator. In this same Natalicium of 402, Paulinus clarified that a variety
13
Paulinus, Carmen 26.207-210 (CSEL 30, 253-4): sic potiora eius uenerando in corpore membra / martyres, e quibus est insigni robore Felix / inter diuini capitis sacra lumina fulgens, / iure deo ualidi, quia Christo proxima passi. 14 For the martyr’s identification with Christ, see also Paulinus, Carmen 28.223-228. 15 Paulinus, Carmen 21.136-137 (CSEL 30, 162): ...si ambulemus martyrum vestigiis, / paribus parentum perfruamur praemiis.
176
of practices could lead to martyrdom and sainthood: it all depended on what God asked of a person: ...the gift differs for you (vobis), [but] the glory is equal, since [there is] one font for all saints and one common kingdom of God; there is not one task for the holy prophets and martyrs, since their times were different, and their exploits, differing in causes, did not share signs. The heavenly ones stand apart through the gifts of God, equals in merit. If Felix did not bear or endure all the same things as Daniel and did not have that very pit nor did the terrible lions encircle [him], neither did Daniel suffer the same dreadful things for the name of the lord— floggings, chains, fears, and the night of a black prison— which Felix bore.16 The differences in their lives and experiences did not make Daniel and Felix unequal to one another, for each accomplished the tasks that God had set for him. Daniel and Felix, according to Paulinus, are equals in merit, and share in the same glory. Later in the poem, Paulinus returned to this theme, making the same claim for a wider variety of saints: Each and every saint will shine with his own light Equal in dissimilar brightness, and with Christ as judge There will emerge no loss of merit one to the other; Christ will be for all of them kingdom, light, life, crown. See, distinct in deed but yoked in honor, The teachers of the testaments both old and new, In which one wisdom gave twin laws. And indeed equal glory balances varied virtues. Peter did not intrude upon the sea with a rod, but neither did Moses Advance upon the liquid of the sea surface; nonetheless one honor Shines on both, since there was one author for both Dividing the waters with a rod and treading on the flowing waters with feet, Who is God of the saints of old, the very same God of the new; By which lord the law is given, out of whom comes grace; That is the God of Daniel and that [is the God] of the three boys, That very God of Felix not himself less in himself God in holy Felix, through whom he administers good gifts
16
Paulinus, Carmen 26.288-299 (CSEL 30, 256-257): ...diuersa est gratia uobis, / gloria par, quoniam sanctis fons omnibus unus / et regnum commune dei; non una prophetis / martyribusque sacris opera, ut diuersa fuerunt / tempora, nec coeunt signis distantia causis / gesta; dei per dona sibi caelestia distant / aequales meritis. si non eadem omnia Felix / quae Daniel gessit uel pertulit et lacus istum / non habuit nec terribiles cinxere leones: / nec Daniel eadem pro nomine passus / erili est, / uerbera uincla metus et noctem carceris atri, / quae Felix horrenda tulit.
177
And healing works on land and on the sea.17 These passages make clear Paulinus’ understanding of the equivalence of saints and the continued truth of this paradigm, opening up the variety of possible saintly activities that might merit divine reward and affirming that those saintly behavioral options are no less available in the fifth century CE than in the first CE or the sixth BCE. Neither of the passages quoted above explicitly called upon the audience to imitate the saints, however. They could simply have been a defense of Felix’s sainthood, rather than an invitation for all and sundry to join him in sainthood. After all, the command to do what God asks of one in particular seems to stand in tension with the command to imitate. The latter is far too directive, too specifically prescriptive, contradicting the receptivity required for the former. Nonetheless, I would argue that these passages were intended to promote imitation. First, by discounting the differences between various saints on the grounds that their glories were one and the same, Paulinus privileged interior status over external appearances. What made them the same was their receptivity to God’s command, their internal orientation toward whatever God asked of them, and their faith in God. Those were the qualities that Paulinus wanted his audience members to imitate; the diverse exempla of saintliness, meanwhile, provided an indication of the diverse ways sanctity might manifest itself. Those differing proofs of martyrdom and sanctity were worth preserving because they were instructive, illustrating the various channels through which the grace of God could flow. After all, Paulinus did not suggest that his contemporaries mimic Rahab in her harlotry—
17
Paulinus, Carmen 26.366-384 (CSEL 30, 259-260): omnes quisque suo radiabunt lumine sancti / dissimili fulgore pares nec iudice Christo / alter in alterius meriti dispendia crescent; / Christus erit cunctis regnum lux uita corona. / cernite distinctos actu sed honore iugatos / testamentorum ueterisque nouique magistros, / in quibus una dedit geminas sapientia leges. / atque ita uirtutes uarias par gloria pensat. / non Petrus inrupit uirga mare, sed neque Moyses / aequoris incessit liquido; tamen unus utrique / fulget honos, unus quoniam fuit auctor utrique / scindere aquas uirga, pedibus calcare fluenta, / qui deus est ueterum in sanctis, deus ipse nouorum; / quo data lex domino est, ex ipso gratia uenit; / ille deus Danielis et ille trium puerorum / Felicis deus ipse deus nec se minor ipse est / in sancto Felice deus, per quem bona dona / et medicas exercet opes terraque marique.
178
rather he suggested that they imitate her faith in God, her willingness to align with the side of right over her own city, and her status as model for the penitent.18 Even so, it is possible for a lie (whether Rahab’s or Felix’s) to be in the service of God19 if, in imitation of Rahab and Felix, the will to do God’s will is driving the lie. Thus, interiority emerges as the key to both imitation and saintliness. Second, we need to look at the context of these passages within the poem as a whole. The entire poem offered assurance to the assembled crowds; why on earth would digressions on the degrees of sanctity be appropriate amid a litany of soothing stories and calls to “re-cultivate” (recolo) their protagonists?20 Such a preoccupation makes complete sense if we read them as Paulinus reminding his audience that sanctity, like salvation, is more broadly available than we might think in bleak times.21 To highlight the imitative significance of interior equality among the saints, we have the example of Nicetas of Remesiana, who was visiting Nola in the winter of 403. Paulinus asked him to “act the part of Felix” by praying for him. Such action would be fitting for a man like Nicetas, because, as Paulinus tells him, “you match that same one in pious mind / and you re-present the appearance of his mind and you follow his soul / in love for me.”22 Similarity of interior state, then, was a precursor to both imitation and identification. Paulinus’ mental paradigm of searching out things to imitate even extended to the world of the inanimate. One of Paulinus’ most explicit calls to imitation occurred during his description of his glorious new basilica in Natalicium 10, delivered in 404. Celebrating the new construction, he urged those in attendance to take these buildings as their guide: “If the
18
Paulinus, Carmen 26.132-149 Paulinus, Carmen 26.137; Paulinus, Carmen 16.70-72 20 This word, recolo, appears three times in the poem, and that it means more than simply “consider,” “think about,” or “remember” is indicated by the fact that, when it is used in line 397, it is explicitly in the context of feeling residual terror: “panic from a recent terror / still rocks the remembering hearts” (26.396397 [CSEL 30, 260]: pauor e terrore recenti / uibrat adhuc memores animos). 21 See also Paulinus’ configuration of himself according to Old Testament types in Carmen 27.607-635. 22 Paulinus, Carmen 27.596-601 (CSEL 30, 288-289): quod superest ex his, quae facta et picta uidemus, / materiam orandi pro me tibi suggero poscens, / rem Felicis agens ut pro me sedulus ores. / et decet, ut quem mente pia comitaris eundem / et mentis facie referas animoque sequaris / par in amore mei 19
179
teaching of God from the light of the word / does not unfold understanding for us, at least let us seize / an example from these shrines.”23 Just as the old edifices took on new facades, so too should Christians renew themselves: They are both old and at the same time new, equally neither new nor old, Not the same and at the same time the same, corresponding to the form of future and present good; for even now it is useful for us to be made new in pious mind, with the filth of our old life wiped away, to follow Christ and be prepared for his kingdom.24 The goal of this modeling is, ultimately, to attain an imitation of Christ. It is the Christians who have been “overspread with a shining cloak above servile / flesh” who “will be numbered more powerful among those rising” and will “change forms to the image of the lord / and, about to reign with God, similar to Christ but by the gift of Christ, / will receive conforming honor.”25 In form, image, and function, these renovated humans will achieve likeness to Christ. And Paulinus made clear that this honor was not reserved for the rarified few whose honors had already been established and enumerated: he wanted these buildings to bring the possibility of imitation to everyone at the shrine. The “type” (species) of the buildings, Paulinus explains, warns Christians “to put down the old form / And to put on the new, and to efface former deeds” with a new façade, “[extending] fitting forgetfulness over former
23
Paulinus, Carmen 28.258-260 (CSEL, 302): si nobis doctrina dei de lumine uerbi / non aperit sensum, saltem capiamus ab ipsis / aedibus exempla 24 Paulinus, Carmen 28.218-222 (CSEL, 300-301): suntque simul uetera et noua, nec noua nec uetera aeque, / non eadem simul atque eadem, quae forma futuri / praesentisque boni est; namque et nunc utile nobis / deterso ueteris uitae squalore nouari / mente pia Christumque sequi regnisque parari. 25 Paulinus, Carmen 28.223-228 (CSEL 30, 301): tunc quoque cum dabitur redeunte resurgere uita, / ille resurgentum potior numerabitur ordo, / qui super inlustri carnem perfusus amictu / seruilem domini mutabit imagine formam / conformemque deo conregnaturus honorem / accipiet Christo similis, sed munere Christi.
180
concerns / and [inviting] concern for heavenly kingdoms into the spirit.”26 This is a lesson for all present: ...Therefore let us be made new in feelings, and let us hasten to shake off the worthless deeds of [our] earthly image from our body with garments cast off afar, so that we might return/give back pure cloaks, with the dust shaken off them, of body and shining soul. 27 Paulinus’ continued use of the garment metaphor highlights the continuity of these consequences of imitation: when Paulinus’ audience assumes the puros... corpore atque animae nitidi.. amictus, they are being covered with the same inlustri...amictu of those who will be honored with co-reign with Christ. The rest of the poem, some 100 lines, details the parallels to be drawn between constructing the church buildings and re-forming the soul to suit Christ. Just as the builders had to root out thorns and prior ventures (the land had once been partly covered by a vegetable garden) to prepare the soil for building anew in skywardreaching marble, so too Christians should extirpate sin from heart and soul in preparation for bodily ascent into heaven. The “construction offers a form to me / by which I can cultivate, build, renew myself / in feelings and set myself as a suitable abode for Christ.”28 Paulinus concludes with entreaties for his audience to join him in modeling themselves after these buildings: Let us not, therefore, be old buildings among the new...29 Let us relinquish the world willingly...30 Let us die lest we die...31 Let us cover deadly life with life-bringing death...32
26
Paulinus, Carmen 28.229-233 (CSEL 30, 301): haec eadem species ueterem deponere formam / et gestare nouam monet et retro acta abolere / inque futura dei conuersam intendere mentem, / congrua praeteritis obliuia ducere curis / caelestumque animo regnorum inducere curam. 27 Paulinus, Carmen 28.236-240 (CSEL 30, 301): ergo nouemur / sensibus et luteos terrestris imaginis actus / discutere a nostro properemus corpore longe / uestibus excussis, puros ut sorde recussa / corporis atque animae nitidi reddamus amictus. 28 Paulinus, Carmen 28.279-281 (CSEL 30, 303): quonam igitur nunc ista modo mihi fabrica formam / praebebit, qua me colere aedificare nouare / sensibus et Christo metandum ponere possim? 29 Paulinus, Carmen 28.314 (CSEL 30, 305): non igitur simus ueteres inter noua tecta 30 Paulinus, Carmen 28.319 (CSEL 30, 305): sponte relinquamus mundum 31 Paulinus, Carmen 28.320 (CSEL 30, 305): moriamur, ne moriamur
181
Let us be changed here / so that we may be changed there.33 Layering exhortation upon exhortation, Paulinus drove home the point that this imitation was incumbent upon every Christian who wanted to be worthy of salvation. The poem’s final lines reiterate the ethical imperative to imitation in axiomatic form: “He who now remains in himself / the same, will not be changed from himself eternally.”34 Transformation is the consequence and goal of imitation, which is why the imitation is so crucial. To see more clearly what sort of imitation Paulinus is aiming for here, it is instructive to juxtapose him with his Egyptian monastic contemporary, Shenoute of Atripe, who also used his church-building project instructively, “to define and defend his ideology of the ascetic life.”35 For Shenoute, The building embodies a theology of the ascetic life in which the monument is the material testimony to the purity of the monks' bodies and souls. Yet, it is the very materiality of the church that also poses its greatest hermeneutical difficulties. Although the church's beauty stands as a testament to the greatness of the God who resides in it, the monks must take heed not to admire its physical attributes too much, for fear that they might be drawn too deeply into the desires and concerns of the flesh, and away from the desires and concerns of God. ...The church, like the body of the monk, becomes the space in which the ascetic struggle between the spirit and the flesh is undertaken.36 While Shenoute used his monumental program to exhort his audience to keep themselves pure and holy through “staples of monastic life (celibacy, fasting, and obedience),”37 Paulinus –strikingly, to Carrie Schroeder—“rarely mentions the standard practices of renunciation, such as celibacy, fasting, and poverty in these [architectural] texts.”38 Whereas Shenoute saw
32
Paulinus, Carmen 28.321 (CSEL 30, 305): letalem uitam uitali morte tegamus Paulinus, Carmen 28.324-325 (CSEL 30, 305): mutemur et istic, / ut mutemur ibi 34 Paulinus, Carmen 28.325-326 (CSEL 30, 305): qui nunc permanserit in se / idem, et in aeternum non inmutabitur a se. 35 Caroline T. Schroeder, “‘A Suitable Abode for Christ’: The Church Building as Symbol of Ascetic Renunciation in Early Monasticism,” Church History 73, no. 3 (2004), 513. 36 Schroeder, “Suitable Abode,” 477. 37 Schroeder, “Suitable Abode,” 506. 38 Schroeder, “Suitable Abode,” 515. Obedience is also missing. 33
182
his buildings as promoting ideals of humility and discipline, Paulinus saw his buildings as inspiring others to a more broadly-conceived mimesis: Paulinus hoped that those who entered his basilicas would become like the saints depicted on their walls and like the basilicas themselves—suitable abodes for Christ. The biggest obstacle Paulinus found was neither pride not the glorification of material objects. Rather, he feared that people would not understand the pictures, and thus provided captions to guide the viewer in interpreting them.39 The problem Paulinus anticipated was conceptual, not behavioral. He strove to inculcate the right mindset, rather than the right behavior, in his listeners. The contrast with Shenoute highlights that Paulinus’ idea of imitation was more about an embodied reorientation toward God than about any specific action taken to imitate holiness. As Catherine Conybeare summarizes Paulinus’s architectural ekphraseis, which are generally lacking in detail and recreatable specifics but rich in spiritual interpretations, “It is the faith, not the form, that is of paramount importance.”40 Paulinus’s concern with physical space was one that privileged the non-physical aspects of the spaces he described. Amid these calls to imitation, Paulinus presented Felix as a particularly imitable model of sanctity. Felix was willing to die for God, but God had other plans, rescuing him from prison so that he, in turn, could rescue Maximus. God later again helped Felix elude persecutors so that he could survive to model proper humility and Christian voluntary poverty. By imitating the defining aspects of Felix’s life—that is, his willingness to do what God asks of him, his humility, and especially his attitude toward wealth—Paulinus and his contemporaries could become martyrs too. Paulinus found Felix’s poverty especially imitable. After lauding the poverty of Christ in the Natalicium of 407, praising it for exchanging earthly abjection for heavenly
39 40
Schroeder, “Suitable Abode,” 520. Conybeare, Paulinus Noster, 93.
183
treasures, Paulinus points to Felix’s own poverty (which he had described in detail in a Natalicium eight years before): For who remains ignorant of your poverty, which for the sake of the holy name, with your wealth having been proscribed, you undertook, O rejoicing confessor, and in which you until old age Always cultivated a rented garden, blessed Felix? Therefore you will strive to make similar to you in pious poverty all those whom you receive under your hosting roof; for a dissimilar form cannot unite with you. ... But that path, which is of Christ, which lies open to the nurturing Confessors and martyrs, is a hard road, laid out for the few. This way does not, therefore, permit the overfed, it excludes those burdened with riches. Therefore it is fitting that the servant and follower of the blessed Martyr be constrained, stripped of troublesome shackles, And to become feeble and lightweight from healthy poverty So that he is able to penetrate the narrow gate And ascend the highest mountain of the Lord.41 With Felix serving as model, Paulinus advises those who want to become martyrs to follow the path of the martyrs and pursue poverty. Once again, following in the footsteps of the martyrs earns Christians similar rewards. The Christian who, in imitation of Felix’s holy poverty, makes himself light and feeble, will be allowed to pass through the same narrow gate that Felix did, and will be able to ascend the Lord’s mountain alongside Felix, because they share the similarity of poverty. It was not Felix’s persecution that made this imitation possible, but his post-persecution life of poverty, which, unlike Felix’s imprisonment, Paulinus’ contemporaries could attempt to imitate.
41
Paulinus, Carmen 21.531-550 (CSEL 30, 175-176): nam cui paupertas tua, quam pro nomine sancto / proscriptis opibus gaudens confessor adisti, / ignorata iacet, et qua praeditus usque senectam / conducto, Felix, coluisti semper in horto? / propterea similes tibi niteris efficere omnes / paupertate pia, quos suscipis hospite tecto; / dissimilis nec enim tibi posset forma coire. /. . . / at uia, quae Christi est, quae confessoribus almis / martyribusque patet, paucis iter ardua pandit. / non capit ergo uia haec farsos, excludit onustos. / propterea famulum sectatoremque beati / martyris adstringi decet exutumque molestis / conpedibus tenuem de paupertate salubri /atque leuem fieri, ut portam penetrare per artam / possit et excelsum domini conscendere montem.
184
This breadth of imitability helps to explain why, despite so adamantly making the case that Felix is a legitimate martyr, Paulinus nonetheless frequently and persistently also called him “confessor.” Whereas Prudentius did not see confessors as occupying a separate category from martyrs, Paulinus did. As we saw in the previous chapter, Paulinus was aware that he was going against the grain of contemporary thinking by claiming that Felix was a martyr. So it might seem strange, given the lengths to which Paulinus went to establish that Felix was a martyr, that Paulinus nonetheless continued to refer to him by this other title as well. Why did he persist in using a title that would undercut Felix’s status as a martyr? It must be that the title “confessor” did not, to Paulinus’ mind, undercut Felix’s martyr-status; instead, the separate but glorious confessor’s crown to which Felix was entitled increased his honor and complemented his martyrdom. Surviving his martyrdom made possible his other praiseworthy feats, including the voluntary poverty that Paulinus so emphasized. The most basic quality of a confessor—that he survives—was an element of Felix’s life that Paulinus used to help connect his audience to the model of the saint. Paulinus connected the model confessor to the model martyr both by asserting that Felix had earned both crowns42 and by using the terms “martyr” and “confessor” essentially interchangeably to combine the two categories in Felix. In this way Paulinus offered his audience a broader path to martyrdom. Moreover, in some cases Paulinus labeled Felix’s two crowns not as those of the martyr and the confessor, but of the martyr and the priest or of the confessor and the priest: it was important to Paulinus that all of Felix’s roles—as martyr, as confessor, as priest—be honored and held up for imitation. This was certainly how Paulinus employed the distinctions: when he drew attention to his own priesthood, as in the Natalicium of 407, he chose to point to Felix’s priestly crown.43
42 43
Paulinus, Carmen 18.138-153; Paulinus, Carmen 21.138-164 and Paulinus, Carmen 26.354 Paulinus, Carmen 21.138-164; Paulinus, Carmen 15.114; Paulinus, Carmen 16.254
185
While advocating this ethic of imitation, Paulinus made clear that it was a transformative ethic. As Paulinus described in the fourth Natalicium, given in 398, simply being a follower of Felix came with transformative possibilities: [Your birthday] is something special for yours (tuis) because Christ allowed us to be yours... Because the good father wished to enrich us, needful of level footing and unworthy of salvation, so that we, wickedly wealthy in sins, by an exchange of wealth turned toward better things, instead of all wealth and all affects and instead of noble titles and vain honors in all respects, might grasp Felix as our wealth, fatherland, and home. You44 are father and fatherland and home and resources, into your womb our cradle is transferred, and your lap is for us a nest, there we, kept warm, grow well, and, changing bodies into another form, are stripped of earthly lineage and with wings sprouting we are turned into birds by the seed of the divine word. 45 We know that the yoke of Christ is light, with you lifting it, in you Christ is flattering to the unworthy and sweet to the bitter. This very day, therefore, must be solemn for us, Which is a birthday for you, because, with you destroying our evil, We die to the world, so that we are born to Christ in the good. 46 Closeness to Felix, being “his,” being a follower, has the power to cleanse and ennoble the living, to the point that his followers are not only given the wings of heavenly creatures, but come to share Felix’s birthday—it is the day that these followers of Felix die to the world and are born in Christ, as Felix was. Imitation, we see again, ultimately led to identification in Paulinus’ view.
44
That is, Felix divini could refer either to birds or to words. 46 Paulinus, Carmen 15.1-25 (CSEL 30, 51-52): [natalis tuus]... / est aliquid speciale tuis, quod nos tibi Christus / esse dedit... / quia nos inopes aequi indignosque salutis / sic uoluit ditare pater bonus, ut male dites / criminibus uersa in melius uice diuitiarum / pro cunctis opibus cunctisque affectibus et pro / nobilibus titulis et honoribus omnia uanis / Felicem caperemus opes patriamque domumque. / tu pater et patria et domus et substantia nobis, / in gremium translata tuum cunabula nostra, / et tuus est nobis nido sinus, hoc bene foti / crescimus inque aliam mutantes corpora formam / terrena exuimur stirpe et subeuntibus alis / uertimur in uolucres diuini semine uerbi. / te releuante iugum Christi leue noscimus, in te / blandus et indignis et dulcis Christus amaris. / ista dies ergo et nobis sollemnis habenda, / quae tibi natalis, quia te mala nostra abolente / occidimus mundo, nascamur ut in bona Christo. 45
186
This identification appears throughout the Natalicia, as Paulinus repeatedly referred to Felix’s followers as “Felixes” themselves. While relating Felix’s role in establishing a water source for Cimitile (a feat that involved motivating the citizens of Abella to repair an aqueduct and teaching the Nolans a lesson about their stinginess) during the Natalicium of 407, Paulinus designated the residents of Cimitile as “Felixes,” writing that Nola “had before been arrogant toward felicibus, but afterwards were servant [to them] with better zeal.”47 In this case, the adjective felix is being used substantively but stripped of its original meaning as a shorthand to refer to Felix’s followers. There is an element of wordplay here, as the monks were certainly happy to have the matter resolved, but the primary effect of the shorthand is to conjure up an image of Felix’s shrine as populated by a crowd of Felix clones. At other times, the designation was more deliberately crafted as simultaneous identification and wordplay. In 407, for instance, Paulinus closed his Natalicium with an imprecation to Christ that emphasized the merging of divine and human through Felix: Flow, Christ, into the hearts dedicated to you and to Felix, and bestow upon the sinners committed to him that your piety never carry off the font of this power from our marrow and that he himself, bountiful Felix, the font from your font, might flood us, so that your font, King Christ, might always spring up within us, and that, after wretchedness and lack Felix might hold us fast to live felices after the manner of his name.48 By explicitly mentioning that living as fortunate ones or Felixes is in imitation of the saint’s name, Paulinus is calling attention to the wordplay. But in the context of the passage, in which Felix “floods” his followers while the font of Christ “springs up within” them, the message of identification is clear: we can become Felixes, too; like Felix we can merge with
47
Paulinus, Carmen 21.820-821 (CSEL 30, 185): ...qua fueras felicibus ante superba / et qua post studio meliore ministra fuisti. 48 Paulinus, Carmen 21.851-858 (CSEL 30, 186): influe pectoribus semper tibi, Christe, dicatis / Felicique tuo de peccatoribus ipsi / mandatis tribue, ut numquam pietas tua nostris / uisceribus fontem huius opis subducat et ipse / fons a fonte tuo Felix nos largus inundet, / semper ut in nobis saliat, rex Christe, tuus fons, / et nos de miseris et egenis sorte sui iam / nominis obtineat felices uiuere Felix.
187
the divine. Similarly, we see the title doing double duty as a name and as an adjective also in the Natalicium of 406. Paulinus here recounted the repentance of a visitor to the shrine, who had absconded with the meat from the pig he had sacrificed to Felix only to be struck down on his homeward journey by a Felix-sent fall from his horse. Acknowledging his own former failures, the once greedy man admits: “For myself, I, wretched, deserve such punishment / here in this hall where, if anyone wretched should come into it, / he is made felix!”49 The rest of the repentant man’s speech is about transformation from being a sinful man with a sound body to a cleansed man with a broken body, and about how that healing happens through Felix and at his shrine: the transition from miser to felix is a transformation both of mental state and of identity.50 With all of these exhortations to and encouragements toward imitation, Paulinus creates and cultivates an ethic of imitation that he intends to govern the spiritual worldview of contemporary Christians. This is the same sort of mentality that we saw with Prudentius’ martyrial worldview and in Georgia Frank’s notion of biblical realism. But in this instance the “opportunity to participate in the biblical past”51 is not afforded by a re-interpretation of the self but by a commitment to imitating what is imitable in the saints. For Paulinus, that category included above all else an interior reorientation to govern behavior in the here and now, an interior imitation capable of manifesting itself in multiple earthly forms. Paulinus is expanding the range of patterns that constitute martyrdom. This mirrors the multiplication of mimesis that Candida Moss identifies in earlier Christian material.52 According to Moss, this means that “additional layers to the mimetic economy are added so that each successive
49
Paulinus, Carmen 20.144-146 (CSEL 30, 148): o mihi, qui talem merui desumere poenam / hac in sede miser, qua, si miser adueniat quis, / efficitur felix! 50 For additional examples of transformational identification with Felix, see: Paulinus, Carmen 14.104-107 and Paulinus, Carmen 21.225. In Carmen 21.754 Paulinus impersonates Felix in order to scold Nola, while in Carmen 27.596 Paulinus asks Nicetas to play the role of Felix and bless him. 51 Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 33. 52 See Moss, The Other Christs, 102-109.
188
generation of martyrs models their conduct on that of their predecessors.”53 What I have shown, by contrast, is that the multiplication Paulinus seeks is not one delimited by enumerated varieties of conduct but one centered on orientation with limitless possible manifestations.54
UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES
Paulinus’ second mode of extending martyrdom to his contemporaries was to assert universal principles through which anyone could become a martyr. In defending Felix’s martyr status, Paulinus frequently offered arguments based on general maxims, rather than explanations that would have been specific to Felix alone. For instance, in the Natalicium of 397, as he is explaining how Felix has died a confessor but is counted a martyr in God’s eyes, Paulinus asserted that God, “who is the examiner of the silent heart, holds those prepared to suffer / on par with those who have, considering that internal things have proven [him].”55 This is not just a description of how Felix was judged a martyr, but a truism about how God operates vis a vis all humans. This general axiom, that God holds those prepared to suffer on par with those who have actually suffered, is based on another universal principle: that God knows what lies within every human heart. This truism both explains the regard in which God holds Felix and inspires in the hearer a pang of vulnerability: it implies that God knows what is in a person’s heart, and
53
Moss, The Other Christs, 103. As a comparison, see Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism, 161-170. Paulinus’ ethic of imitation is primarily interior, as I discussed in the last chapter—it is not completely absent a physical/behavioral manifestation, but the interior is primary. Athanasius, like Shenoute, is more concerned with practices of asceticism on a community level, rather than the orientation of asceticism on an individual level. 55 Paulinus, Carmen 14.5-9 (CSEL 30, 46): Nam confessor obit poenas non sponte lucratus, / acceptante Deo fidam pro sanguine mentem; / qui cordis taciti scrutator, ferre paratos / aequiparat passis, sat habens interna probasse, 54
189
so each person must do his or her best to make the heart worthy of God. This explanation simultaneously furthers Paulinus’ narrative about Felix and fulfills his pastoral duties as priest to the congregants at Nola, correcting them and steering them away from error while opening up their comparison to Felix. Paulinus was not merely speaking about Felix; he was using calculated universalism to induce his listeners to apply God’s standards for Felix to themselves. As the poem continues, Paulinus asserts again and again the principles by which Felix is to be counted a martyr, and all of them are couched in terms applicable to all humans: God “remits punishment of the flesh on account of proper piety”; “the will for suffering suffices”; “giving testimony of devotion is the height of service.”56 In each of these truisms, we see exemplary behavior and orientation delineated and extolled. Maintaining proper piety, having a will for suffering, and giving testimony of devotion are all couched as things that inherently merit the crown of martyrdom and that Felix has done. But the axiomatic way that Paulinus presented these qualities indicated to his audience that others, besides Felix, could earn martyrdom through them. While these axioms establish that Felix himself counts as a martyr, they also stand on their own as statements that could, and should, be applied to anyone. The audience at Nola and the circle reading the Natalicia after the feast day would both have understood themselves to be referents in these maxims, or at least would have recognized that they did not apply solely to Felix, paving the way for the assertions to guide their own journeys to martyrdom.
RHETORIC, RATHER THAN PERSECUTION
56
Paulinus, Carmen 14.1-12 (CSEL 30, 45-46): / supplicium carnis justa pietate remittit, /martyrium sine caede placet, si prompta ferendi / mensque fidesque Deo caleant, passura voluntas / sufficit, et summa est meriti, testatio voti.
190
The third method that Paulinus used to extend martyrdom to his contemporaries was through poetic and rhetorical techniques, by which he cultivated in his audience the embodied reorientation that mimicked Felix’s martyrdom. Through these techniques, which include extensive use of ekphrasis, paradox, direct speech from his characters, and personal appeals to his audience, he both merged the world of the listener with the world of the martyr (or, indeed, with the world of Christ and his biblical types) and induced the listeners to feel viscerally connected to the experience of martyrdom. Paulinus, essentially, created a martyrial worldview for his audience to adopt and inhabit, one which would support and enable their imitations of the saints and Christ. Paulinus’ rhetorical efforts to merge the world of the listener and the martyr (or the martyr-types) were sometimes subtle, but they were pervasive. He used, for instance, echoed language to facilitate the desired imaginative connections in his readers. For example, in the Natalicium of 402, Paulinus used the same language to describe the mental state both of the Jews who were nervous on the eve of their exodus from Egypt and of the crowd at Nola, anxious about impending Gothic attacks. The Jews, Paulinus claimed, “despite their roiling (turbante) dread, did not abandon the solemn command.”57 “Thus, therefore,” he urged, “let us now, happy in a turbulent (turbato) time, / with pious mind all celebrate the feast of the beloved martyr / with united devotions of cheerful piety.”58 Fifteen lines separate the first use from the second, but the parallel wording highlights the parallel situation, as well as the emotional intensity of recognizing that both groups of people are on the eve of something momentous. He advised his audience to imitate the Jews and reinforced that ethic of imitation by describing them in identical terms—the imitation was already underway. The wordplays
57
Paulinus, Carmen 26.40 (CSEL 30, 247): nec turbante metu iussum sollemne reliquit Paulinus, Carmen 26.55-57 (CSEL 30, 248): sic igitur modo nos turbato in tempore laeti, / mente pia festum dilecti martyris omnes / conlatis hilarae studiis pietatis agamus. 58
191
on Felix’s name, which I highlighted above as indicating the way that imitation can lead to identification, serve a similar function, linking the emotional state of the reader with the object of imitation. Thus, when Paulinus exclaimed nos quoque felices in the Natalicium of 397 while describing the festive atmosphere at Nola, he was connecting his audience both with the name of Felix and with the feeling that the adjective denotes: “We, too, are felices, to whom it is given to observe him in person / and to celebrate his day and to see the gifts / of our excellent patron and to give thanks to Christ for the so great things [he gives] to his own / and to rejoice among the happy crowds.”59 The felix does double-duty here, and neither meaning—neither the man nor the sense of good fortune—removes the other. Another subtle and pervasive technique Paulinus used is enjambment. By reserving an essential word or idea for a subsequent line, Paulinus simultaneously created suspense in his readers and emphasized the reserved word or concepts. In the Natalicium of 402, as he was linking the Nolans’ current anxieties to the anxieties of earlier role models, Paulinus included two successive enjambments to heighten his audience’s tension: prisca retractemus sanctorum exempla parentum, qui merita inmissis tolerantes uerbera bellis, non armis sibi nec muris capienda putabant praesidia. humanis opibus sperare salutem nulla salus. nec enim mortem mortalia pellent. 60 By keeping the object sought, “safety” or “protection,” away from the listener for that much longer, Paulinus keeps the safety and protection of narrative closure away from his audience. It would only have been for the length of a pause, if even that, but the delayed arrival at a safe-haven nonetheless would have had the effect of adding to the suspense. And then, in good rhetorical form, Paulinus offers a hopeful alternative—to hope for safety in human
59
Paulinus, Carmen 14.104-107 (CSEL 30, 49): nos quoque felices, quibus istum cernere coram / et celebrare diem datur et spectare patroni / praemia praestantique suis tam grandia Christo / gratari et laetos inter gaudere tumultus 60 Paulinus, Carmen 26.80-88 (CSEL 30, 249).
192
might—which he then crushes by inserting the subject, “no salvation.” Paulinus was here toying with his audience’s emotions, priming his listeners for the imitative ethic he intended to instill in them. Two years later, in the Natalicium of 404, Paulinus again used repetitive enjambment to lead his listeners to embody the changes he advocated. In two parallel constructions 44 lines apart, Paulinus sets up the possibility of becoming a new person, being made anew—novemur in line 236 and novare in line 280—and then waits until the next line to specify how: sensibus. In both cases, the fact that the renovation is not a physical one but a “sensible” one, one located in the feelings, is reserved for a subsequent line. The effect is that the enticing “carrot,” the possibility of renewal, engages the listener’s hope and imagination, and is only then tempered to show how the listener can in fact enact the change. In addition, we see concatenated enjambments piling up one after the other in the passage where Paulinus addressed the variety of tasks assigned to the saints: ... non una prophetis martyribusque sacris opera, ut diuersa fuerunt tempora, nec coeunt signis distantia causis / gesta; dei per dona sibi caelestia distant / aequales meritis. 61 In each case the enjambed word modifies the prior line—martyribusque is not really an enjambment, but it initiates the progression of reserved words, whose momentum snowballs and culminates in the final idea of equal merit for diverse instantiations of holiness. As a final example, we see enjambment at work in the words of the repenting greedy man, who exclaims: o mihi, qui talem merui desumere poenam / hac in sede miser, qua, si miser adueniat quis, / efficitur felix! The final, emphatic phrase here, the longed-for resolution, is
61
Paulinus, Carmen 26.288-299 (CSEL 30, 256-257): ...diuersa est gratia uobis, / gloria par, quoniam sanctis fons omnibus unus / et regnum commune dei; non una prophetis / martyribusque sacris opera, ut diuersa fuerunt / tempora, nec coeunt signis distantia causis / gesta; dei per dona sibi caelestia distant / aequales meritis. si non eadem omnia Felix / quae Daniel gessit uel pertulit et lacus istum / non habuit nec terribiles cinxere leones: / nec Daniel eadem pro nomine passus / erili est, / uerbera uincla metus et noctem carceris atri, quae Felix horrenda tulit.
193
the supplicant’s ultimate goal. In all of these instances of enjambment, the effect on the reader is not simply logical, but emotional and experiential, and therefore embodied, with the embodiment facilitating the audience member’s reception of the crucial idea. We see a similar effect occurring with the asyndeton in the Natalicium of 402. As Paulinus stressed that the saints, though different, are equal, he concluded that Christus erit cunctis regnum lux uita corona—“Christ will be for all of them kingdom, light, life, crown.”62 The absence of connecting conjunctions renders these appositions to Christ increasingly intense. The rush and the rushing-together of the terms within this heavily spondaic line not only helps to make the claim that Christ will be all of these things for each of his saints, but also inspires an affective reaction in the reader, who is driven by the rush, the rhythm, and the concatenation to get caught up as well in the elision. Paulinus employed further and more substantial rhetorical maneuvers to encourage his audience’s imitation of the saints, most notably paradox, apostrophe, and direct appeals to his audience. In each of these cases, Paulinus’ words impel the reader or hearer to engage more deeply with what he is saying than simple narration or exposition would allow. Through paradox, Paulinus forces his reader to reconcile or grapple with the contradictions and dissonances he presents. Paradox requires the reader or listener to engage with the text in two primary ways. First, because it is a contradiction, the paradox offers a moment of pause, much as we saw with Prudentius’ nameless child martyr crying for water in Peristephanon 10. The moment of paradox signals the need for heightened attentiveness on the part of the reader or hearer. Such moments of rupture or discontinuity allow words and imagery to become “things” rather than “objects,” in the sense used by Bill Brown and Patricia Cox Miller: they “stand out against their natural environment and, like magnets of
62
Paulinus, Carmen 26.369 (CSEL 30, 259): Christus erit cunctis regnum lux uita corona
194
attraction (or repulsion), announce a change in habitual perception.”63 They defy our assumptions and prevent us from seeing only what we expect to see; they both demand our attention and elude our understanding, creating a dissonance that leads to a heightened reaction. Second, paradox, by juxtaposing contradictory terms, forces the reader or hearer to do the work of reconciling those terms—that this work of reconciliation is linked to embodied reaction is exemplified in the frequent connection (and even identification) of paradox and humor,64 and in the radical doubt that it inspires—an experienced aporia which “constitutes a crucial aspect of the Socratic method” in Plato’s attempts at indirect persuasion.65 Paradox was one of Paulinus’ more frequent rhetorical tactics. Often it appears as situational and fairly subtle, with two concepts juxtaposed that, if worked out logically, lie in tension with one another. For instance, Paulinus on multiple occasions announces that he is discharging his vows by offering his poetic talent to Felix and then undercuts his own ability to discharge those vows by asking God, Felix, or Christ essentially to be his muse and to give him the words with which to fulfill his vow. In the Natalicium of 400, Paulinus opened by emphasizing the fact that he was making an offering of words: “By solemn oath law demands of me... a gift from my mouth, that I speak Felix in verse and set to music my joy.”66 Then, however, twenty lines later, Paulinus prays, “Christ, God of Felix, be present! Give me now the word, / speech-God, give me a clear mind, Wisdom! / It is not possible to speak your praises with eloquence of human power.”67 This sort of contradiction—of offering a vow
63
Miller, The Corporeal Imagination, 2. Neal R. Norrick, “How Paradox Means,” Poetics Today 10, No. 3 (1989), 551-562. 65 Jason Ingram, “Plato's Rhetoric of Indirection: Paradox as Site and Agency of Transformation,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 40, No. 3 (2007), 294. 66 Paulinus, Carmen 18.1-4 (CSEL 30, 96-97): Lex mihi iure pio posita hunc celebrare quotannis / eloquio famulante diem, sollemne reposcit / munus ab ore meo, Felicem dicere uersu, / laetitiamque meam modulari carmine uoto / et magnum cari meritum cantare patroni... See also Carmen 23. 67 Paulinus, Carmen 18. 25-27 (CSEL 30, 98): Christe deus Felicis, ades, da nunc mihi uerbum, / sermo deus, da perspicuam, sapientia, mentem. / non opis humanae facundia dicere laudes / posse tuas; 64
195
which one cannot possibly fulfill without the gift of the one to whom the offering has been vowed—tended to occur, as in this example, as Paulinus’ captationes benevolentiae, and worked to help ensnare his hearers and bring them to the realization of divine embodiment: the audience was present at Nola both to hear the great man speak and to experience the words of God, for human being and God merged in the speaking, with imitation becoming identification, as we saw above. At other times, Paulinus’ paradoxes were both more direct and more directly addressed. Paulinus will state a contradiction, and then explain it himself, as when, in a later Natalicium, he points to God’s immensity and asserts that the saints can contain him: “For the originator of the world is greater than the world, God the King himself, / who fills the earth and heavens; whom the world itself does not contain, / but the saints contain.”68 Paulinus does not let this contradiction stand for long, immediately offering the solution: the saints contain God “not because they are enormous of body, / but [because they are] humble in piety and capacious in pure heart.”69 In these cases, the poet uses the paradoxes to captivate the audience, but by providing the resolution himself Paulinus controls its reaction and the lessons it takes away. Finally, Paulinus will directly juxtapose dissonant terms without further comment, trusting his readers to make the right reconciliation for themselves, as when he exclaims of the monk Theridius’ run-in with a lamp (discussed below): “O fortunate calamity, good wound, sweet danger, / through which I have learned the martyr’s care for me!”70
68
Paulinus, Carmen 29.19-21 (CSEL 30, 306): maior enim mundi sator, ipse deus rex, / qui terram caelumque implet; quem non capit iste / mundus, eum capiunt sancti... 69 Paulinus, Carmen 29.21-22 (CSEL 30, 306): ... non corporis amplo, / sed pietate humiles et mundo corde capaces. 70 Paulinus, Carmen 23.309 (CSEL 30, 206): o felix casus, bona uulnera, dulce periclum, / per quod cognoui me curam martyris esse.
196
In the case of apostrophe, Paulinus invited his reader to become a spectator of and an eavesdropper into the conversations he was having with Felix and God. Most modern treatments of apostrophe emphasize either the relationship it engenders between the speaker and the object of the apostrophe—with the speaker calling her object into existence, “[throwing] voice, life, and human form into the addressee, turning its silence into mute responsiveness”71—or the narrative self-construction of the speaker, who uses apostrophe “to establish with an object a relationship which helps to constitute him... Thus, invocation is a figure of vocation... [The] voice calls in order to be calling, to dramatize its calling, to summon images of its power so as to establish its identity as poetical and prophetic voice.”72 While Paulinus’ apostrophes to Felix and to God served both these functions, Paulinus above all followed Quintilian’s notion that apostrophe uses the speaker/object relationship to demonstrate a point to the “judge,” the viewer. Apostrophe highlights the emotion of the speaker, according to the Institutio Oratoria and the Rhetorica Ad Herennium,73 and engages the reader or hearer in that emotion. "In oratorical apostrophe, the orator averts his speech from a ‘judge’ and, in passing, addresses individuals in the audience, opponents perhaps (as Demosthenes to Aeschines, or Cicero to Catiline), or absent others, or even inanimate things... Despite this temporary aversion of address, the orator's intent continues to be to interest and persuade whoever is sitting in judgment on a case or argument or plea."74 Thus, when Paulinus spoke to Felix in the short (and entirely apostrophic) Natalicium of 395, he invited the reader into his personal relationship with the saint, conjuring not only the reality of both speaker (the newly-ordained priest not yet in residence at Nola) and addressee (the intangible and mutely responsive Felix), but also their intimacy. Paulinus
71
Barbara Johnson, “Apostrophe, Animation, and Abortion,” Diacritics 16, No. 1 (1986), 30. Jonathan Culler, “Apostrophe,” Diacritics 7, No. 4 (1977), 63. 73 Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.22; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria. 4.1.63–70, 9.2.38–9. 74 J. Mark Smith, “Apostrophe, or the Lyric Art of Turning Away,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 49, No. 4 (2007), 412. 72
197
opens with a paean to Felix (as we saw in the previous chapter) which includes direct address of the saint (inclite confessor), a playful comment on his name (meritis et nomine Felix), a litany of paradoxical statements (Felix’s mind is in heaven, but his power is felt equally throughout the earth; he deserved to escape punishment by scorning it; he offered his limbs to the persecutors but went to heaven as a martyr without blood), and privileged access to both Felix’s story and the divine mind. He then addresses Felix in prayer, beginning with supplications, nods to human frailty, and allusions to a variety of obstacles, and ending with confident assurance of being accepted into a life of service to the saint.75 Paulinus characterizes himself as a man to whom Felix speaks, who has access to privileged information and privileged assurance, who himself has the power to speak both with and for his heavenly interlocutor—and who can recognize and decipher the paradoxes presented by Felix’s story. By inviting his audience to observe this conversation, Paulinus was attempting, in Smith’s words, to “interest and persuade”76 them about the reality and character of Felix as well as his own standing with both of them; by including in the conversation sympathetic elements like wordplay, uncertainty, and resolution, he sought to elicit a particular, imitative, embodied response from his audience to aid in that interest and persuasion. We see a similar dynamic in the following year’s Natalicium, which is entirely apostrophic except for one section, in which Paulinus speaks for the whole assembled crowd as it observes itself. In this case, however, Paulinus wanted his audience to be persuaded to both feel felix and to become Felix. The progression has the following structure: paean to Felix (including word-play and authorial omniscience; a prayer thanking him for a lifetime of care and particular help in travel; a non-apostrophic observation on the assembled crowds; and an apostrophe to Nola itself. In this case, the apostrophe engages and directs the audience
75
Paulinus, Carmen 12.1-39 (CSEL 30, 39-41). Inclite confessor and meritis et nomine Felix: 12.1; paradoxical statements: 12.2-9; prayer: 12.10-31; confident assurance: 12.32-39. 76 Smith, “Apostrophe,” 412.
198
toward imitation of Felix: Paulinus opens with a play on Felix’s name (Felix, hoc merito quod nomine, nomine et idem / qui merito), continues by linking that name to the name and serenity of Christ (hunc, precor, aeterna pietate et pace serenum / posce tuis, cuius magno stas nomine, Felix), moves on to assert (in the non-apostrophic section) that the congregated masses are, in fact, joyful (nunc iuuat effusas in gaudia soluere mentes) because they are assembled in such great numbers for Felix’s sake, and then claims, once again in an apostrophe, that Nola is, in fact, felix Felice.77 The final encouragement is a direct one: “May you (i.e. Nola) be good and kind (felix) as you persuade the powerful lord on our behalf!”78 Speaking to Nola as to Felix, essentially eliding the two in the act of intercession, Paulinus seals his apostrophic pleas with an appeal to both embodiment (being felix) and imitation (being Felix). In the case of direct speech, Paulinus requires his reader to engage with him one-onone, or community with leader face-to-face, demanding his hearers’ attention and their obedience. By speaking directly to the members of his audience, Paulinus recalls them to themselves, to the fact that they are, indeed, supposed to be turning his words into livable practices. Because the whole of the Natalicia were addresses, delivered usually in public and therefore structured as speeches to a crowd, there are moments where Paulinus used the imperative to make clear that the object of his address was the audience in front of him, and not an abstract, hypothetical, rhetorically-constructed audience. When Paulinus used the imperative to speak directly to them, the listeners knew that they themselves were responsible for heeding Paulinus’ words. By calling upon them to “bring praise to God, discharge a pious
77
Paulinus, Carmen 13.1-26 (CSEL 30, 45-46). Paean to Felix: 13.1-4; prayer of thanks: 13.5-19; on the crowds: 13.20-25); apostrophe to Nola: 13.26-36; play on the name of Felix: 13.1-2 (CSEL 30, 45); links to Christ: 13.18-19 (CSEL 30, 46); assertion of joyful crowds: 13.20 (CSEL 30, 46); felix Felice: 13.26 (CSEL 30, 46). 78 Paulinus, Carmen 13.31 (CSEL 30, 45): sis bonus o felixque tuis dominumque potentem / exores
199
vow,” “scatter the ground with flower[s]” and “cover the threshold with garlands,”79 Paulinus was at once highlighting the listeners’ own actions, noting the range of possibility of their actions, and reminding them to act. By calling them to “open your hearts” and forgive his inability to do justice in verse to Felix’s majesty, Paulinus was underlining the hearers’ role as responsible for vetting and assenting to Paulinus’ speech—he was reminding them that their approval is essential to the success of the poem. Occasionally Paulinus used direct address to instruct the audience on the meaning of what he had just said or to offer “signposts” to make his narrative progressions and arguments clear. During the hagiographical Natalicium of 399, Paulinus changed topics in Felix’s narrative by noting: “We have spoken about how he trod upon death and ambition; now learn about the other palm of confessor.”80 In all of these instances of direct address, Paulinus recalls his readers or listeners to themselves, to the fact that they are reading or hearing: if they had thus far lost themselves in the words, in the effervescence of the crowd, or, perhaps, in drunkenness, Paulinus’ words to them would recall them to a certain amount of self-possession, which they could then use to cultivate the intention to imitate. In the Natalicium of 400, after announcing that he intended to fulfill his own vow with his verses, Paulinus implored: “Harmonize with my verses, I pray, and applaud with me, brothers / and pour out your minds with chaste abandon.”81 Through the imperative claim, Paulinus told his audience directly what their actions should be, and those actions were imitative. These imperatives supplement the moments where, when narrating a story, Paulinus composed characters’ speeches in the first person—as when the repentant greedy man begs
79
Paulinus, Carmen 14.108-110 (CSEL 30, 49): ferte deo, pueri, laudem, pia soluite vota / et pariter castis date carmina festa choreis, / spargite flore solum, praetexite limina sertis. 80 Paulinus, Carmen 16.254-255 (CSEL 30, 79): diximus ut mortem clacarit et ambitionem; / nunc aliam confessoris cognoscite palmam. See also Paulinus, Carmen 21.107 (CSEL 30, 162): quod laude dixi, morte dictum discite. 81 Paulinus, Carmen 18.8-9 (CSEL 30, 97): concordate meis, precor, et conplaudite, fratres, / carminibus castoque animos effundite luxu.
200
Felix for forgiveness82 or when the poor man berates Felix for failing to protect his prized oxen.83 In those cases, we see the same dynamic we saw in Prudentius: the poet made the miraculous moments present once again by joining his own voice with that of the story’s original speaker. These techniques in aggregate work together to support a worldview in which the people listening to or reading the poetry are engaged in body and mind in the performance, and are consequently both persuaded and spurred on to the road to transformation. These are rhetorically-driven embodiments, leading to enacting an ethic of imitation. In addition (and again like Prudentius), Paulinus used ekphrasis as a means of further engaging his readers and instructing them. Much ink has been spilled on Paulinus’ ekphraseis, in large part because he went into depth about his building program and the artwork supposedly within eyeshot of the people he was addressing.84 He also formulated a clear theory about how images should be used for instruction. It is fascinating that Paulinus’ theory requires (in contrast to the eventually dominant theory of Gregory the Great) that the stories depicted be accompanied by text to explain what is going on and how the images must be interpreted: “Even when the depictions are expressly directed at the unlettered, Paulinus cannot envisage material images without an explanatory or illustrative text.”85 Thus, the ekphraseis I focus on here are not the architectural or artistic ones, but the narrative ekphraseis, in which Paulinus made no claim to be describing inanimate objects of the present, but instead sought to describe events of the past in the hopes of bringing them before the eyes of the crowd. Included in these ekphraseis are the interpretations that Paulinus
82
Paulinus, Carmen 20.144-189 Paulinus, Carmen 18.254-312 84 See Rudolf Carel Goldschmidt, Paulinus’ Churches at Nola: Texts, Translations, and Commentary (Amsterdam: N.V. Noord-Hollandische Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1940), 19-20. See, too, Tomas Lehmann, Paulinus Nolanus und die Basilica Nova in Cimitile/Nola : Studien zu einem zentralen Denkmal der spätantik-frühchristlichen Architektur (Weisbaden: Reichert, 2004). 85 Conybeare, Paulinus Noster, 96, discussing Carmen 27.584-585. 83
201
deemed necessary: in each of these examples the ekphrasis concludes with a form of expository instruction. In the Natalicium of 401, Paulinus used an extended ekphrasis to compel his readers to sympathize and identify with the monk Theridius, who, in his moment of need, relies on and is saved by his closeness to Felix. The episode, despite being in some senses tedious and emphatically mundane, is cinematic—reminiscent, in fact, of a modern, suspense-driven horror film. The monk, a man grauis in age and in body,86 navigates the darkened hallways during an all-night vigil, seeking fresh air. He travels through the pitch-black hallways with the confidence of the familiar—“alas!” Paulinus exclaims87—unaware that an unusual obstacle lies in his path: a spiky, hook-laden lamp, hanging unlit at eye-level while a careless servant changed its oil. The audience has all the clues they need: we know that Theridius is about to suffer, and gruesomely. It is at this point that Paulinus decides to interrupt his own narrative ekphrasis to digress for ten lines on the fact that oil and water do not mix. P. G. Walsh comments, rather indignantly, that “this disquisition on the chemical phenomenon of ignited oil floating on water is a long-winded irrelevance unfortunately inserted at the dramatic moment of the story.”88 Walsh’s frustration highlights precisely why Paulinus included this digression: by digressing here, he is piling on the suspense that the audience feels, in much the same way that a horror or suspense film might present all of the necessary ingredients for catastrophe and then cut to a different location or character, saving the denouement for later. It highlights the “dramatic moment,” rather than dampening it. Topically it may be “an irrelevance,” but it is crucial to what Paulinus was trying to accomplish. Phillip Pullman highlights exactly this tactic as evidence of Alfred Hitchcock’s storytelling genius: “you can depict four men sitting around a table calmly playing cards, and
86
Paulinus, Carmen 23.269 Paulinus, Carmen 23.123 (CSEL 30, 198): heu! 88 Walsh, Poems of St. Paulinus of Nola, 363-364. 87
202
the audience will be on the edge of their seats with tension—as long as the audience knows what the card-players don’t, namely that there is a bomb under the table about to go off.”89 And for Theridius the bomb does go off. He walks into the darkened lamp, into the metal prongs that jut from its sides, so that one of the spikes enters his eye: Therefore (see the hand of Christ!) that badly hanging rope, longer than usual, was dangling through the shadows below its accustomed space in the air; and thence was balanced at the level of his head as [Theridius’] stature was, alas! With a triple spear, the sharp point, having slipped, captured the unwitting face of the one coming and, running into the eye, impaled it with a tender hook through the innermost places and leapt into the upper eyelid, where scarcely a hand cautious in the art of mending is accustomed to lead a light probe into the eyelid with trembling control and which is accustomed to tear up with a light touch.90 Paulinus ensures that his audience suffers alongside Theridius, first by lingering suspensefully on the position of the lamp, then by introducing his hapless monk into the mix with an authorial exclamation, Alas! Then, to add to his audience’s discomfort, Paulinus uses paradoxical (or at least tension-filled) transferred epithets (unco... tenero; trepido moderamine) and some particularly tortured Latin, after which Paulinus needlessly explains how painful it is to get a sharp object in one’s eyes and how dangerous it is to remove it. Following this passage, Paulinus then offers another ten-line digression on the anatomical structure of the eye,91 yet again building suspense, before returning to the story and its resolution. To free himself, Theridius—standing with his head upturned, clutching the lamp to his face so as not do more damage, and actively despairing of a human solution—turns to
89
Phillip Pullman, “Introduction,” in Paradise Lost: An Illustrated Edition with an Introduction by Philip Pullman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 7. 90 Paulinus, Carmen 23.160-169 (CSEL 30, 200): ergo (uidete manum Christi) male pendulus ille / per tenebras solito funis submissior infra / aeris adsuetum spatium pendebat; et inde / e capitis regione pari libramine factus, / ut status huius erat, securam heu! cuspide trina / excepit faciem uenientis et induit unco / occurrens oculum teneroque per intima lapsus / mucro salit cilio, qua uix solet arte medendi / cauta manus leuem trepido moderamine melen / ducere palpebramque leui suffundere tractu. 91 Paulinus, Carmen 23.174-183.
203
Felix. After lamenting his own sinfulness (which must have been egregious to warrant such an injury on such a normally festive day92) and claiming that he knows that Felix can hear him, wherever he may be (whether at the shrine next door or in the company of Christ in heaven),93 Theridius begs Felix to come to his aid and save his eye: Therefore come, Felix, patron of my soul eternally and doctor of my body now! Run to me in my trial. Run, I pray, and place your holy hands on the eye that is threatening to fall out, and pluck out the iron which you see affixed to it, which I do not dare to take out by my own hand, lest I ruin my sight, while I try to loosen the spike. For thus within me I sense the bolt driven in, the nail inserted under the innermost opening of my eye. But you, divine hand which established those very eyes in us, who, skillful, gave us you, powerful, with health-bringing strength, by which you master the black demons through torture, by which you are able to expel every torment of the perishable body through the lofty name of Christ, powerful in the omnipotent Lord—through him, the protector, now undertake to heal me! And let not my crimes conquer me, but let them instead fall, conquered, by you.” 94 We see here Theridius’ reliance on Felix’s power, the conflation of Felix’s power with Christ’s, and Theridius’ own reluctance to act. He cannot remove the spike with his own hand, and feels he must rely on God’s hand, administered through Christ and then through Felix. After more reflection on his own sin, Theridius enumerates what he has done to
92
Paulinus, Carmen 23.201-205 (CSEL 30, 201): ei mihi! quanta meos urgent peccata labores, / qui tantam merui plagam Felice patrono / uicinoque simul Felicis et insuper ipso / natali miser excipere? heu! magno reus ingens / crimine, quem tunc poena ferit, cum soluere sueuit. 93 Paulinus, Carmen 23.206-213 (CSEL 30, 201-202): sancte, precor, succurre tuo; scio, proximus adstas / et de contigua missis huc auribus aede / audisti, Felix, fletum infelicis alumni; / siue modo excelso lateri coniunctus adhaeres / ante thronum magni regis confessor amicus, / pauperis hanc, uenerande, tui trans nubila uocem / accipis aure dei neque temnis, sed petis illic / quam mihi deportes Christo miserante salutem. 94 Paulinus, Carmen 23.214-229 (CSEL 30, 202): ergo ueni, Felix animaeque perenne patronus, / nunc pro corporeo medicus mihi curre periclo. / curre, precor, sanctasque manus oppone minanti / lapsum oculo et fixum quod conspicis erue ferrum, / quod propria reuocare manu non audeo, ne me / lumine despoliem, dum conor soluere telo. / sic etenim penitus mihi sentio fulmen adactum / inserto sub operta oculi penetralia clauo. / tu tantum, diuina manus, quae condidit ipsos / in nobis oculos, quae te quoque dextra potentem / sanifera uirtute dedit, qua daemonas atros / excruciando domas, qua corporis omne caduci / pellere tormentum potes alto nomine Christi, / omnipotente potens domino; quo praesule nunc me / suscipe sanandum. nec te mea crimina uincant, / sed magis a te uicta cadant.
204
overcome that sin and make himself worthy of Felix’s intercession, or at least his worthiness to be held up as an example of Felix healing his own: I long ago began to be part of your [community], whom I followed not for love of the earth of my homeland but for desire, on account of which I dedicated myself to you, o Saint, I came through despised perils of sea and land; and I broke the chains of earthly family by [your] example of the good,95 so that I might serve you along with those companions with whom I throw myself as yours. 96 Theridius thus makes it clear that he sought to imitate Felix, who had also left his family and scorned his patrimony, in order to live alongside the saint and his felices. With one final imprecation for Felix’s miraculous intervention, Theridius concludes his speech and promptly, without further ado, removes the spike from his own eye.97 To a modern reader, this seems like a rather anticlimactic end to such an epic ordeal, commemorated with such intense speechifying. Even to an ancient audience, the DIY resolution may have seemed mundane. But, again, the delight is in the details. Theridius has established that no human hand could possibly have saved his eye. He has begged for Felix’s intervention, confident that his healing will occur with the help of Felix, Christ, and God. And he has asserted his own imitation of Felix. This all adds up, ultimately, to an identification. By removing the spike from his own eye, Theridius is acting as Felix, showing what an imitation-based embodied reorientation to God can accomplish. Paulinus does not
95
This breaking of familial chains to serve alongside other similar-minded people seems to be in imitation of Felix’s rejection of his patrimony in order to live as a poor tenant farmer. 96 Paulinus, Carmen 23.241-247 (CSEL 30, 202-203): ...ut dudum coepi pars esse tuorum, / quos ego non patriae telluris amore secutus / sed desiderio, quo me tibi, sancte, dicaram, / per maris et terrae contempta pericula ueni; / exemploque boni cognatae uincula terrae, / ut tibi seruirem, rupi, consortibus illis, / cum quibus et me iacto tuum 97 Paulinus, Carmen 23.255-264 (CSEL 30, 203): talia dum plorat simplex, manus ecce beati / prospera mox Felicis adest dubiamque timentis / adspirans tacite firmat mentemque manumque, / ne timeat tuto ausurus producere ferrum./ uix hoc conatus fuit, et quasi lubricus uncus / ex oculo cadit absque oculo; tantum unda secuta / euomuit lacrimis quem subpurauerat aestum. / mox oculus tanti purgatus nocte pericli / tam puro enituit speculo, quam nunc quoque sanus / cernitur aeterni conlucens munere Christi.
205
call Theridius a martyr (though he does treat the rescued eye as a relic!98), but he is clearly, within the story, acting as one—acting as Felix, specifically. Moreover, the audience, viscerally invested in this story, wincing as Theridius is injured, fidgeting as his trouble escalates and Paulinus digresses, is invited to share in Theridius’s imitation and identification, feeling the same tension and relief through the vivifying effects of the ekphrasis. The audience identifies with Theridius, thus identifying with Felix, Christ, and ultimately God as well. And then Paulinus speaks directly to his listeners, recalling them to themselves and reminding them of their distance from Theridius, which they can bridge through faith and contemplation of his example: “Therefore, faithful ones, / see now in your souls the image of such a great crisis, / and equally weigh the act of such a great gift.”99 The ekphrasis thus calls for and inculcates the embodied reorientation toward God which Paulinus was advocating. Paulinus used a similar tactic to cultivate the embodied reorientation in his listeners by having them identify with Felix himself in the Natalicium of 398, which describes Felix’s escape from prison. Paulinus describes Felix’s divine deliverance in a way that compels the listener to feel that same experience of release, and then concludes with instruction that reinforces the ethic of imitation and its efficacy. Paulinus begins his description of events using the perfect tense (tulit, elegit, uenit)100, which is fitting because he is describing what he claims is a historical occurrence. But after God sends an angel to lead Felix to freedom, the narrative jumps into the present tense, bringing the historical past into the here and
98
Paulinus, Carmen 23.265-266 (CSEL 30, 203): et puto plus hodie solito niteat, quia lumen / addit et ipse dies qui reddidit. 99 Paulius, Carmen 23.266-268 (CSEL 30, 203): ergo fideles / cernite nunc animis tanti discriminis instar / et pariter tanti perpendite muneris actum. 100 tulit in 15.232, elegit in 15.234 (in mss BDGR, eligit in others—though Hartel saw eligit as the better reading, I think the perfect tense makes more sense in context, especially given the ensuing uênit in 15.238)
206
now.101 As an angel appears to lead Felix to freedom, Paulinus emphasizes Felix’s mental and physical experience of imprisonment, inviting the readers to feel as Felix does, to include them in his suffering. He describes Felix as trembling (excussus tremit, 15.243) and as astonished and anxious (stupet anxius, 15.245), and he even has his hero enumerate for the angel all of the impediments to escape: the chains, the door-bolts, the guard.102 The angel nonetheless orders Felix to rise, and no sooner does he speak than the chains are loosed. And subito!,103 sponte!104, all barriers fall away. These two adverbs, delivered in quick succession, at the start of two consecutive lines, drive home the immediacy of Felix’s freedom, an immediacy that Paulinus confirms for his audience by interjecting his own voice, exclaiming: “mira fides!”105 This authorial interruption both signifies a collapse between the world of the narrative and the world of the author, and provides a guideline for how the world of the narrative is supposed to affect the listener. Following this exclamation, Felix leaves the prison, now fearless, and Paulinus abandons his narrative for several lines, to point out how Felix’s story parallels Peter’s, asserting that even in Felix’s day such refigurations can occur, and implying by extension that these same refigurations can occur in the present.106 The audience, who has accompanied Felix in prison and experienced the excitement and joy of his release, is itself again released, this time from the world of the narrative and into the notion that refiguration is still a reality, that imitation is still effective.
101
See the abrupt switch at 15.241 Paulinus, Carmen 15.245-247 (CSEL 30, 62): se / causatur non posse sequi prohibente catena / insuper et claustro simul et custode teneri / carceris obsessi 103 Paulinus, Carmen 15.250 104 Paulinus, Carmen 15.251 105 Paulinus, Carmen 15.253 106 Paulinus, Carmen 15.257-270 (CSEL 30, 62-63): nonne unus in omni /Christus adest sancto? sicut uiget omnibus idem /spiritus in Christo genitis, sic ipsa piorum / gratia concordat. ueterem remeare recenti / historia uideo speciem, qua iussus abire / bisseno sublimis in agmine discipulorum / Petrus sponte sua uinclis labentibus eque / carcere processit clauso, qua praeuius illum / angelus Herodi praedam furatus agebat. / sic meus educente deo geminata per atra / carceris et noctis reliquis obscura sed uni / inlustrata sibi Felix inpune per ipsos / custodes constante premens uestigia passu / callibus ignotis directus iussa petebat. 102
207
By such rhetorical tactics and poetic parallels, Paulinus helped his audience imitate Felix, the martyr, and thus to embark on their own martyr-journeys. He not only enjoined his listeners and readers to martyrdom through interior imitation of the martyrs, he helped to enact that imitation through the literary and rhetorical devices he employed.
WITNESS IN PAULINUS
Given the centrality of imitation, axiomatic statements of truth, and visually- and viscerallyengaging rhetoric to Paulinus’s construction of martyrdom, it would seem logical for witness to play as large a role in Paulinus’s embodied orientation as it does in Prudentius’s worldview construction. But it does not. In fact, Paulinus uses the language and trope of witness much less frequently than Prudentius, and even portrays it in an ambiguous light at key moments in his poems. Ultimately, however, the ambivalence makes sense: in a martyrological system where orientation is key, external manifestations of martyrdom cannot be relied upon or fixated upon for imitation. The martyr is deemed worthy of martyrdom by God’s witness, in Paulinus’s calculation, and the ultimate verdict relies on that divine evaluation; the martyr is still essentially a witness, but his witness is potentially illegible to outsiders. Like Prudentius, Paulinus understands testis and martyr to be interchangeable, as we can see from his use of testis to mean martyr in the Natalicium of 397: There is, ultimately, nothing [in Felix] unequal to these witnesses who poured forth blood, with both title and virtue received at once. He demonstrated the merit of a martyr, when with a powerful oath He exorcised demons, and released chained bodies.107
107
Paulinus, Carmen 14.21-24 (CSEL 30, 46): denique nil inpar his, qui fudere cruorem, / testibus et titulo simul et uirtute recepti / martyris ostendit meritum, cum iure potenti / daemonas exercet deuinctaque corpora soluit
208
Additionally, testes fidei serves as shorthand for the martyrs in his letter 18 to Victricius, while in the Natalicium of 407 martyrs are referred to as consecratis passione testibus in distinction to confessors.108 Notably, however, and in contrast to Prudentius, the most frequent entities described as testes are God and scripture—witnesses with inherent authority. Despite its similarity to what is occurring in Prudentius’s work, the connection between martyrdom and witness in Paulinus is hardly unproblematic. To highlight the issue here, I want to return to the trifold schema of witness that I introduced in the Prudentius discussion. In Chapter 2 I distinguished between three aspects or levels of witness— witness/see, which designates all forms of observing; witness/say, which designates the communicative aspect of witness, that is, the act of testifying in some way; and witness/be, which designates the moment where the witness is witnessed or herself observed as the object of witness. Witness/be is communicative as well, but more passively so than witness/say. Each of these was crucial to the way that Prudentius configured witness to be the central, essential component of martyrdom. This was not the case for Paulinus. Witness/see is a central component of the audience’s witness alone, witness/say is not uniformly advocated, and witness/be is only possible with the addition of an authoritative authorial voice and includes within it the seeds of its own undoing: the witness that Paulinus presents for Maximus and Felix in particular preserves their own rejection of proclaiming their witness. The following chart should help illustrate this uneven valuation of the various forms of witness in Paulinus:
108
Paulinus, Epistula 18.7 (CSEL 29, 135); Paulinus, Carmen 21.138-139 (CSEL 30, 162).
209
Witness/See • F’s own seeing, hearing, and observing are not emphasized—light/dark imagery and sight language appear in his prison and rescue tale (Carmen 15.177186, 230-286), but not nearly to the extent that they do in Prudentius’s comparable treatment of Vincent. • After death, F. sees and hears the goings-on at his shrine, however, and responds with intercession (e.g. Carmen 18.313-318)
•
Felix
•
• M’s own seeing, hearing, observing are not emphasized—mentioned only once, when he wakes up from his “coma” to see Felix’s face in Carmen 15.308.
•
Maximus
•
Witness/Say F’s own speech is largely absent (Paulinus only gives him direct speech three times— once to present Maximus to his servant-woman, once to deflect his persecutors, and once to reject the idea of reclaiming his wealth to distribute it to the poor. Each speech is brief, and the latter two play a role in obscuring Felix’s witness, representing moments where he places his personal salvation above his performance for others). Conceptually, F’s communicative efforts are not emphasized, except in Carmen 12.4: qui dominum Christum non uincta uoce professus) Hides himself from the prying eyes of persecutors and supporters alike, gives himself over to be witnessed by God alone. Speaks to and about Felix to bless him, acting as Abraham, God, and interceding martyr (Carmen 15.351-361)
210
Witness/Be • Paulinus configures him as a model for imitation. • This model includes F’s abnegation of communicative witness: the Jedi mind-trick, the woman who unwittingly feeds him, his hiding in a cistern, and his unostentatious poverty are all moments of hiddenness that Paulinus recovers and publishes.
• Paulinus is adamant that M’s witness not be overlooked (asserts that God wanted to prevent him from dying hidden: non tulit obscuro consumi funere corpus [Carmen 15.221]). • However, Paulinus holds M up as a martyr even though he fled to the wilderness precisely so that no one could witness his end but God (Carmen 15.307-328).
• V’s teaching and proselytizing are highlighted (e.g. Epistula 18.4). • V’s martyrdom was based on a very public example (proclaiming himself a Christian very visibly at a military parade, Epistula 18.7)
Audience
Felices
Theridius
Victricius
• V’s own seeing, hearing, observing are not noted at all.
• T’s sight is emphasized by the • T’s speech is possible loss of his eye emphasized through his (Carmen 23.160-264). lengthy address to Felix, which announces his own situation as well as Felix’s power to remedy it (Carmen 23.201-254). • Seeing the miracles of Felix • Acting as community at the shrine (e.g. cernere and (e.g. in relation to water spectare at the shrine are dispute in Carmen 21) intimately connected to • Showing through audience members becoming imitation/identification felices in Carmen 14.104(e.g. hoping to live 107).109 felices after the manner of Felix’s name in Carmen 21.858) • Seeing at the shrine (e.g. • Enjoined by the axiom Carmen 26.384: Omni “Giving testimony of namque die testes sumus). devotion is the height of service” (Carmen • Seeing through ekphrasis 14.12). (e.g. Carmen 23.160: uidete manum Christi). • Hearing Paulinus recounting Felix’s life and miracles. • Hearing the testimony of the cured at the shrine (e.g. the live-chicken-eating demoniac in Carmen 26:307-323). • Hearing the testimony of tortured demons (14.21-35). • Feeling through engagement with poetry.
• Paulinus configures him as a light and a beacon. • V’s role as object of witness in a judicial context is central to his depiction as a martyr (Epistula 18.7). • Despite V’s status as beacon, Paulinus (through his sinful ignorance) did not recognize him as a martyr when they met (Epistula 18.9). • The audience sees him (through ekphrasis) acting as Felix and Christ (Carmen 23.255261).
• The audience hears them referred to as new Felixes: their imitations are observed and reported as identifications.
• These martyrs will be recognized by God (based on Paulinus’s axiomatic statements). • They will not necessarily be recognized as martyrs by others (based on Paulinus’s lack of pronouncements on this as well as his other exempla).
109
Paulinus, Carmen 14.104-107 (CSEL 30, 49): nos quoque felices, quibus istum cernere coram / et celebrare diem datur et spectare patroni / praemia praestantique suis tam grandia Christo / gratari et laetos inter gaudere tumultus
211
For his three primary martyrs (Felix, Maximus, and Victricius), Paulinus does not place any emphasis at all on their witness/see; for Felix and Maximus their witness/say is negligible (and problematic) and their witness/be contains a paradoxical rejection of witness, while Victricius’s witness/say is strong but his witness/be is undermined by Paulinus’s own former inability to see it correctly. Paulinus uses all aspects of witness more evenly in his treatments of Theridius and the felices, but when it comes to the audience (which occasionally intersects with the felices) Paulinus emphasizes the observational component of witness while largely neglecting both communicative components. This complexity may have been born of ambivalence—Paulinus may have wanted to use the concept of witness, but was wary of its power and potential outside of a controlled ecclesiastical context. It could, on the other hand (or additionally), be attributed to his rhetorical aim. Paulinus may be embracing a complex valuation of witness with his audience’s affective experience in mind, positing as the object of imitation a figure who resists imitation in order to communicate uncertainty and to cultivate humility. In both cases, Paulinus, representing the ecclesiastical community, stands as the authority asserting, interpreting, and controlling the witness. In the first instance, Paulinus’s imprimatur sanctions the witness as something worthy of imitation; in the second, Paulinus provides the resolution to the audience’s paradox-driven tension. Both possibilities would have aided Paulinus as he sought to cultivate the martyrdoms of his listeners.
CONCLUSION
Paulinus encouraged his audience and his readers to imitate Felix and the biblical types he connected to Felix, with the express goal of granting them identification with the martyr and 212
earning them the same rewards. He illuminated the principles by which martyrdom is defined in such a way that they became axiomatic for the audience. And, finally, he used a wide range of rhetorical, literary, and poetic techniques to achieve the embodied and sympathetic response his audience needed to complete their imitation of the martyrs and thus to achieve martyrdom themselves. The question remains, however: Given the special status and high regard he conferred upon Felix as savior of Nola, the pedestal on which he placed his most beloved martyr and special friend, is it really plausible to say that Paulinus wanted to dilute the privilege and generate countless hordes of martyrs? Would they not diminish the glory due Felix, or, at the very least, run counter to Paulinus’ own sense of vocation and the lingering exceptionalism he evinces so clearly when his aristocratic friends come to call? Did he really think martyrdom was possible for all who listened to his poems? My answer is yes: Paulinus understood martyrdom as a possibility for all of his audience-members. First, while Paulinus was certainly invested in promoting Felix’s cult at Nola over and above that of competing saints and cities, he also seems firmly convinced that that status is warranted: as we have seen, Felix is “distinguished in strength” even among the martyrs.110 He is Nola’s special cure, assigned to the town because of its former sinfulness, its unparalleled need for cleansing.111 Even if everyone became a martyr, they would not necessarily challenge Felix’s dominance. More basically, however, martyrdom may have been accessible to all, but that did not mean that all could achieve martyrdom. Paulinus offered his listeners a path to martyrdom where there was none before, but following that path was treacherous and difficult, requiring
110
Paulinus, Carmen 26.207-210 (CSEL 30, 253-4): sic potiora eius uenerando in corpore membra / martyres, e quibus est insigni robore Felix / inter diuini capitis sacra lumina fulgens, / iure deo ualidi, quia Christo proxima passi. 111 Paulinus, Carmen 19.164-236.
213
the correct orientation and a spotless will. Because God knows the interior parts of people and judges them based on that, actions become subordinated to interiority, and no slip-ups are ever invisible. Paulinus himself in a letter to Delphinus in 401 lamented the thorns and thistles in his own heart, denying Delphinus’ praise of his actions because of them; he did not always feel the grace he knew he should have as one of Delphinus’ spiritual offspring.112 Thus, opening this line of access to martyrdom was not about making everyone martyrs; it was about making everyone capable of becoming a martyr. It was about giving everyone something to strive for, footsteps to follow and rewards to hope for.
112
Paulinus, Epistula 19.4
214
CHAPTER 5 NON POENA SED CAUSA
INTRODUCTION
Before concluding this project, I would like to turn to Prudentius and Paulinus’s contemporary and (in Paulinus’s case) correspondent Augustine, who, in his sermons (primarily his sermones ad populum), enjoined his listeners to adopt a similar martyrial worldview. Augustine explicitly defined martyrdom in terms that enabled martyrial imitation without death and flat-out asserted that his listeners could become martyrs without dying if the cause for which they were willing to die was a worthy one. Adding Augustine’s perspective serves several aims. First, we can establish firmly that the discourse of living martyrdom in Paulinus and Prudentius was not mere coincidence but rather representative of a trend that had significant import and compelling utility in a particular historical age. Second, we can highlight that each of these three influential authors answered the question of how Christians can now be martyrs in much the same way — by changing their worldview rather than by heeding the call to the nascent monasticism that both Paulinus and Augustine were in the process of establishing and with which, in his retreat to otium, Prudentius seems to have sympathized. Third, we can see how the mode of advocacy shifts when it takes place in a homiletic context rather than a poetic one. Augustine’s message is direct and insistent, and his method for making martyrs of his audience is evocative but not transformative in the way that Paulinus’s and Prudentius’s advocacy was— Augustine uses rhetorical techniques to engage and persuade, but only rarely do we see his words doing the work of transformation that we saw with Paulinus, where the audience’s 215
emotions are manipulated to mirror those of the martyrs, or with Prudentius, where the reader is invited to re-enact the martyrs’ triumphs through reading aloud. Augustine demands martyrdom of his parishioners; for the most part he leaves the “doing” up to them and, more precisely, to God’s grace working within them. Finally, we can demonstrate the importance of the martyrial worldview to late ancient Christian spirituality and self-understanding. In this chapter, I will explore Augustine’s construction of martyrdom, including his famous dictum non poena sed causa—it is not the punishment but the cause that makes a martyr—and show how it expanded the possibilities for contemporary martyrdom and formed, in fact, an essential component of Augustine’s program for dealing with his particularly North African pastoral concerns: this formula supports his responses to pagans, Pelagians, and Donatists as well as his preservation of the legacy of Cyprian. I will address as well, how he presents this construction of martyrdom, assess the rhetorical strategies that he employs to make his case, and explore to what extent, if any, those strategies help to make his audience into martyrs.
AUGUSTINE ON THE MARTYRS
Martyrs and martyrdom were a frequent topic in Augustine’s sermons, not least because the martyrs’ feast days comprised a significant part of the liturgical calendar, and offering sermons on those occasions was Augustine’s pastoral duty.1 But Augustine drew upon martyrdom also for other sermons, on topics that ranged from scripture to society to current events to theological debates. Most of the time, his references to martyrdom seem
1
Approximately one fifth of Augustine’s extant sermons (102 out of roughly 546) were delivered on the feast days of martyrs and saints. See Anthony Dupont, “Imitatio Christi, Imitatio Stephani: Augustine's thinking on martyrdom based on his sermones on the protomartyr Stephen,” Augustiniana 56 no. 1-2 (2006), 29.
216
conventional in their assessment of death’s role: he highlights the martyrs’ suffering to the point of death, which seems to be the real signifier of martyrdom. At other times, although less frequently,2 Augustine makes forceful claims about the continued possibility of martyrdom, even without death or physically-inflicted suffering: Anyone who preaches wherever he can is, indeed, a martyr.3 You will ever be crowned and depart from here a martyr, if you overcome the temptations of the devil.4 If you do not consent [to using pagan amulets], do not think that you are not a martyr. Your feast day might not be celebrated, indeed, but your crown awaits.5 Many, therefore, go to martyrdom on a sickbed: many indeed.6 It would be easy to dismiss these claims as pandering or as Augustine the preacher’s lapses in logic, rather than as reflecting Augustine the theologian’s systematic thought on martyrdom. In fact, however, Augustine’s thinking about martyrdom was remarkably consistent, centered on the doctrine of non poena sed causa—it is not the punishment but the cause that makes a martyr—a “proverbial phrase”7 he repeated frequently throughout his sermons on martyrdom—“almost to the point of cliché.”8 The torments and deaths of robbers, heretics, schismatics, and martyrs might look the same from the outside, but the martyr, according to Augustine, is the one whose cause, or reason for being persecuted, is true and
2
These sorts of claims appear in one fifth of the sermons on the martyrs (21 out of 102): Sermones 4, 94A, 128, 274, 260E, 285, 286, 296, 299F, 301A, 303, 305A, 306, 306B, 306E, 314, 318, 328, 335A, 335C, 335D 3 Augustine, Sermo 260E, 2 (MiAg 1, 503): ubi potest praedicet, et martyr est. 4 Augustine, Sermo 4, 37 (PL 38:52): semper coronaris et martyr hinc exies, si omnes tentationes diaboli superaueris. 5 Augustine, Sermo 306E, 8 (Dolbeau 18, 215): Si ergo non consenseris, noli te existimare non martyrem. Non quidem celebratur sollemnitas tua, sed parata est corona tua. 6 Augustine, Sermo 286, 7 (PL 38:1300): multi ergo ducunt martyrium in lecto: prorsus multi. 7 Jan den Boeft, “‘Martyres sunt, sed homines fuerunt’: Augustine on Martyrdom.” In Fructus Centesimus: Mélanges offerts à Gerard J. M. Bartelink à l’occasion de son soixante-cinquième anniversaire, edited by A. A. R. Bastiaensen, A. Hilhorst, and C. H. Kneepkens (Steenbrugis: In abbatia S. Petri, 1989), 188. 8 Alan Dearn, “The Polemical Use of the Past in the Catholic/Donatist Schism” (PhD dissertation, Oxford, 2003), 315. Augustine, Sermones 53A, 13; 94A, 1; 274; 275,1; 285, 2; 306, 2; 306A; 325, 2; 327, 1; 328, 4; 331, 2; 335, 2; 335C, 5ff; 335G, 2; and 359B, 16-20.
217
just. And it is only the cause that matters. Thus, even when expounding on martyrs who have died, Augustine tended to point to things other than their deaths as the factors that prove their martyrdoms, and those are the features of the martyrs that he asked his audience to imitate in order to attain martyrdom themselves. Thus, when he made his more radical statements about martyrdom being achievable without death or even physically inflicted suffering, Augustine was not departing from his systematic thinking about martyrdom, but rather fulfilling it. Augustine’s pronouncements on the possibility of martyrdom without death have not escaped the notice of scholars. But they have not been incorporated into our reading of Augustine’s overall thought on martyrdom, nor have they had much effect on the way that Augustine’s thinking on martyrdom more broadly has been understood.9 For example, although Jan den Boeft pays particular attention to Augustine’s coining of non poena sed causa, acknowledges that he classifies the three boys in the fires of Babylon as on par with the Maccabean martyrs, and traces the idea that martyrdom consists in witness, he neither entertains the possibility of martyrdom without death in Augustine’s thinking nor evaluates the impact of any of those features of martyrdom discourse on the lived spirituality of Augustine’s audiences. The contrast between the Maccabees and the boys of Babylon becomes for den Boeft a question of theodicy, and the redefinition of martyrdom to include witness does not displace the essential criterion of death.10 Carole Straw, meanwhile, identifies witness as the central feature of Augustine’s definition of martyrdom and highlights the importance of cause to martyrdom, but nonetheless identifies death as central, calling martyrdom without death—though the cause be fitting and the martyr testifying as a
9
Dearn (in “Polemical Use of the Past”) and Collin Garbarino (“Augustine, Donatists, and Martyrdom” in An Age of Saints? Power, Conflict and Dissent in Early Medieval Christianity, edited by Peter Sarris, Matthew Dal Santo, and Phil Booth [Leiden: Brill, 2011], 49-61) have both acknowledged the living martyrs as such, in the context of larger inquiries into the Donatist controversy. Neither dwells on the possibility of causa without poena, instead treating the idea in limited fashion as an artifact of a polemic, and neither has, to my knowledge, been cited since; Garbarino is not familiar with Dearn. 10 Den Boeft, “Martyres sunt,” 120-124.
218
witness—“spiritual martyrdom” as opposed to “literal martyrdom,” even though Augustine himself did not make those distinctions and, in fact, as we shall see, repeatedly emphasized that the literal meaning of “martyrdom” was “witness.” In Straw’s reading, the only witness that truly constitutes martyrdom is “witness through suffering,” which is why she is forced to frame Augustine’s affirmation of life and the body (and his disavowal of “pathological fascination with death and torture”) as an outlook he held “despite” his position on martyrdom, rather than one that was entirely consonant with it.11 Augustine’s take on the possibility of martyrdom without death has been hiding in plain sight, obscured by our own scholarly biases about the necessity of death to martyrdom. In fairness to den Boeft, Straw, and others, the vast majority of Augustine’s references to the martyrs appear to reflect the conventional view that martyrdom requires death. In passing references, he identified the martyrs by their deaths, for example identifying Eulogius and Fructuosus as martyrs who “died for Christ”12 and asserting that John the Baptist and the Maccabees were indeed martyrs because they died for the truth, which is to say they died for Christ despite preceding him in death.13 He also regularly connected the blood of the martyrs with seed, borrowing Tertullian’s famous image, to emphasize that the blood of the martyrs strengthens the Christian community and its faith.14 For example, he linked the Church to the mother of the Maccabees, “everywhere encouraging her sons to die for [God’s] name... Thus the world is filled with the blood of martyrs [and] the crop of the church has sprouted from the scattered seeds.”15 In all of these statements, Augustine was speaking of suffering, death, and blood in a way that assumed the centrality of death to
11
Straw, “Martyrdom,” 538-541. Augustine, Sermo 273, 2 (PL 38:1249): mortui pro christo... essent. 13 Augustine, Sermones 94A, 2 and 300, 2. 14 Augustine, Sermones 22, 4; 286, 3; 301, 1; 313B, 2; 313D, 3; 360B, 19. 15 Augustine, Sermo 301, 1 (PL 38:1380): ubique exhortantem filios suos pro illius nomine mori, de quo eos concepit et peperit? Sic sanguine martyrum impletus orbis praeiactatis seminibus seges ecclesiae pullulauit. 12
219
martyrdom, or at least did nothing to dislodge that connection. He dwelled on the various ways in which the martyrs surrendered their temporal lives in favor of life eternal,16 and, noting the difficulty of such otherworldliness, identified death as the primary obstacle that the martyrs have overcome: “If there were no bitterness in death, there would not be such great bravery in martyrdom.”17 In a sermon on the martyr Quadratus, Augustine extolled the heroism of the martyrs: “How many things the martyrs suffered, how much they endured! What chains, what squalor, what prisons, what tortures, what flames, what beasts, what types of death! They trampled them all.”18 There is variety within martyrdom, but here that variety seems to exist within the category of traditionally understood persecution culminating in death.19 Biblical sources also feature prominently in Augustine’s treatment of martyrdom and support the idea that death in persecution is essential to earning martyrdom. Augustine frequently referenced Psalm 116:15 (“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his servants”)20 and Psalm 126:5 (“Those who sow in tears will reap in joy”)21 in his sermons, sometimes dwelling on the passage and sometimes mentioning it only in passing, as if there could be no question of martyrdom’s association with death and suffering. The scripture that Augustine most emphatically associated with the martyrs is Hebrews 12:4 (“You have not yet
16
e.g. Augustine, Sermo 273, 2. Augustine, Sermo 173, 2 (PL 38:939): si ergo nulla esset mortis amaritudo, non esset magna martyrum fortitudo. 18 Augustine, Sermo 113A, 4 (MiAg 1, 145): quanta martyres passi sunt, quanta tolerauerunt. quas catenas, quos squalores, quos carceres, quos cruciatus, quas flammas, quas bestias, quae genera mortis. calcauerunt omnia. 19 For moments where Augustine seems to identify martyrdom with death, see Sermones 31, 1-2; 138, 1-2; 155, 12; 159, 1; 229H, 3 (it was because of their faith in the resurrection that the martyrs were not afraid to die); 229J, 3 (baked fish signify the martyrs proven by fire); 284, 3; 286, 5; 295, 3; 299, 3, 8-9; 302 3-6, 12; 329, 1 (blood is witness to martyrs’ faith); 334, 1; 335B, 1-5; 335C, 2-5; 335J, 1; 375B, 1-2; 399; 13. 20 Augustine, Sermones 28A, 4; 113A, 9; 173, 1; 275, 3; 276, 4; 286, 3; 298, 3; 299E, 1; 306, 1; 310, 3; 313A, 5; 318, 1; 321; 328, 1; 329, 1; 335E, 2; 335I, 1; 335I, 4; 359B, 16; and 399, 13. 21 Augustine, Sermones 31; 313D, 3; and 358A, 1. 17
220
striven against sin up to the shedding of blood).22 I say most emphatically because it was frequently something that Augustine lingered on to explain or expand upon the glory of the martyrs, as he did in the first lines of a sermon from 410-412: “We bless the holy martyrs... who struggled against sin up to the shedding of blood (usque ad sanguinem); we bless them, however, because they endured death for the truth, and discovered life by dying.”23 Here, as often in the sermons, usque ad sanguinem seems to be synonymous with usque ad mortem— as Augustine explained in a sermon on the feast day of Marianus and James, “they struggled against sin up to the point of shedding blood. They fulfilled what is written: ‘strive for the truth up to the point of death.’”24 But it is nonetheless here, in this very same terminology of usque ad sanguinem, that we can see Augustine’s argument for a different understanding of martyrdom. Two of those he cited as struggling against sin to the point of shedding their blood were Susannah and Joseph, neither of whom actually died amid their trials. Augustine says: They themselves are perfect, who struggled against sin up to the shedding of blood. What is “against sin”? Against the great sin: against denying Christ. You know how Susanna struggled against sin up to the shedding of blood. But lest women alone should have consolation, and men search their number for some such hero as Susannah: You know how Joseph struggled against sin up to the shedding of blood. The case (causa) is similar. On the one hand she had as false witnesses those very same men to whom she was unwilling to consent, lest she sin; on the other he has her, herself, to whom he did not consent. And both parties to whom there was not consent for sinning gave false testimony; and those who heard believed them: but they did not conquer God. She was freed, and he was freed... Thus they struggled to the point of blood—she against sin (that is, against adultery), and he against the same sin.25
22
Augustine, Sermo 318, 2 (PL 38:1439): nondum enim usque ad sanguinem aduersus peccatum certastis. Augustine uses the formula usque ad sanguinem adversus peccatum in Sermones 159, 1; 284, 5; 297, 11; 306B, 3; 335B, 1; and 335J, 1. Similar or incomplete references appear in Sermones 90, 6; 286, 1; 306E:2, 6; and 310, 3. 23 Augustine, Sermo 335B, 1 (MiAg 1, 557): beatificamus martyres sanctos ... qui aduersus peccatum usque ad sanguinem certauerunt; beatificamus autem, quia pro ueritate mortem subierunt, et moriendo uitam inuenerunt. 24 Augustine, Sermo 284, 5 (PL 38:1291): certauerunt enim aduersus peccatum usque ad sanguinem. impleuerunt quod scriptum est, certa pro ueritate usque ad mortem. See also Sermones 286, 1; 306E, 6; 310, 3. 25 Augustine, Sermo 318, 2 (PL 38:1439): ipsi sunt perfecti, qui aduersus peccatum usque ad sanguinem certauerunt. quid est aduersus peccatum? aduersus magnum peccatum: aduersus negationem christi. nostis
221
Retelling their stories, Augustine makes no effort to hide that these two did not die. In fact, his choice of exemplars is wholly surprising—there is nothing elsewhere in the sermon that indicates a need to draw from the Old Testament or to focus on adultery. It is a sermon on the feast day of Saint Stephen, but one that does not—unlike most of Augustine’s sermons on this particular saint—emphasize his preaching to and demonstrating his love for the Jews who were stoning him. Furthermore, Augustine even points out that both Susannah and Joseph would have been better off had God chosen to let them die: they would no longer have been subject to the temptations of the flesh and would have received their crowns right then and there.26 But Augustine has chosen these two figures deliberately, as illustrations of what it means to struggle usque ad sanguinem, despite the distinct lack of blood in their stories, and despite God’s intervention to save them. Both received vindication, and Augustine lauds both for their steadfast resistance to temptation no matter the cost. Augustine points to these figures as fulfilling the criterion of struggling to the point of shedding blood because that is what they were willing to do for their cause. This interpretation of “shedding of blood” is even clearer in sermon 306E, from 397: In these temptations of the world, therefore, let us plan (meditemur) to struggle daily against sin up to the point of shedding blood, which in another saying goes: “Struggle for truth up to the point of death.” What is referred to there as “against sin” is here referred to as “for truth.” And what is there referred to as “to the point of shedding blood,” here is referred to as “to the point of death.” That ought to be the mindset of the martyr, for God does not delight in the shedding of blood: he has many hidden martyrs.27
quomodo certauerit aduersus peccatum susanna usque ad sanguinem. sed ne solae feminae hinc habeant consolationem, et uiri de numero suo aliquid quaerant tale, quale in susanna extitit: nostis quemadmodum ioseph contra peccatum usque ad sanguinem certauit. similis est causa. et illa habuit falsos testes eos ipsos, quibus consentire noluit, ne peccaret; et ille eam ipsam, cui noluit consentire. utrique quibus non est ad peccatum consensum, falsum dixerunt testimonium; et qui audierunt crediderunt: sed deum non uicerant. liberatur illa, liberatur et ille.... et illa ergo contra peccatum, id est contra adulterium, et ille contra tale peccatum, usque ad sanguinem certauerunt. 26 Augustine, Sermo 318, 2. 27 Augustine, Sermo 306E, 6 (Dolbeau 18, 214): In his ergo omnibus temptationibus saeculi - non enim iam arsit Sodoma, alia quidem magna Sodoma, nam illa arsit ad exemplum, alia seruatur ad iudicium -, in his ergo temptationibus saeculi, meditemur cottidie certare aduersus peccatum usque ad sanguinem, quo alio
222
God does not rejoice in the blood itself, but rather the willingness to struggle against sin and for the truth, even to the point of blood or death. This is why Susannah and Joseph are such excellent exemplars for Augustine’s purposes: they highlight the daily resolve Christians should have in such a way that no mistaken desire for death can be derived from their precedent. Both were willing to die, if need be, but neither of them sought out death, and neither were killed. Similarly, Augustine looked to Daniel and the young men in the furnace of Babylon as martyrial exempla, despite the fact that God’s intervention spared them from immediate peril. As Augustine asked about the three boys in a sermon about Peter and Paul in 411: “Will we deny that they are martyrs, because the flame did not burn them?”28 They are martyrs, he argues, even though they did not die, because they were willing to die for their cause: “Ask about the fire: They did not suffer. Ask about the will: They were crowned.” 29 Augustine illustrates their willingness to die by repeating and glossing the words they spoke to Nebuchadnezzar: “‘God is powerful enough,’ they said, to pluck us from your hands: but if not’—there are the resolved chests, there is the stable faith, there the unshaken courage, there the sure victory—‘But if not, let it be known to you, king, that we do not worship the statue which you have set up.” 30 Augustine emphasizes the boys’ “if not” by interrupting it to assert that that is where their martyrdom came from: even if God did not choose to show his power by saving them from the flames, they would still have refused to worship
dicto dicitur: Certa pro ueritate usque ad mortem. Quod ibi dictum est aduersus peccatum, hoc dictum est hic pro ueritate. Et quod ibi dictum est usque ad sanguinem, hoc dictum est hic usque ad mortem. Ipse animus esse debet martyris, non enim deus fuso sanguine delectatur: multos habet martyres in occulto. 28 Augustine, Sermo 296, 5 (PL 38:1354-1355): quemadmodum tres pueri arsuri missi sunt in caminum, non uicturi: negabimus eos martyres, quia eos flamma urere non potuit? 29 Augustine, Sermo 296, 5 (PL 38:1355): interroga ignes, passi non sunt; interroga uoluntatem, coronati sunt. 30 Augustine, Sermo 296, 5 (PL 38:1355): potens est deus, dixerunt, eruere nos de manibus tuis: sed et si non - ibi sunt certa pectora, ibi stabilis fides, ibi inconcussa uirtus, ibi secura uictoria - sed et si non, notum tibi sit, rex, quia statuam quam statuisti non adoramus.
223
Nebuchadnezzar’s idols. And when God did intervene so that the boys’ example could “extinguish the flame of idolatry in the soul of the king,”31 the intervention did not rob them of their crowns. Their commitment to their cause, signalled in their willingness to die for it, trumped what actually happened to them. Augustine clarified the non-necessity of physical bloodshed to martyrdom by juxtaposing the three boys of Babylon with the Maccabean martyrs. He compared the two sets of saints in thirteen of his sermons, highlighting the fact that they deserved the crown of martyrdom equally, despite their differing fates. Indeed, their differing fates were what Augustine emphasized in his sermons: He omits many details from both stories, simplifying them to their points of parallel and the one point where they diverge. As Catherine Brown Tkacz points out, the effect of these simplifications is that “the contrast is thus clearly on the difference of outcome for two groups who suffered by fire for their faith, with ‘Sidrach, Misach et Abdenago’ unhurt but the seven brothers dead.” 32 The former were “openly freed,” while the latter were “crowned in secret.”33 But all were saved: “these evaded the fire, those were tortured by fires. But both, however, were victorious in the eternal God.”34 The Maccabees may have received a greater reward, inasmuch as their crown led to immediate release from the world and its temptations, while the Babylonian martyrs had to navigate a lifetime of temptations,35 but the fact remains that both groups received the crowns of martyrdom, and Augustine used both as martyrial exempla.36
31
Augustine, Sermo 296, 5 (PL 38:1355): potens est deus, dixerunt, eruere nos de manibus tuis: sed et si non - ibi sunt certa pectora, ibi stabilis fides, ibi inconcussa uirtus, ibi secura uictoria - sed et si non, notum tibi sit, rex, quia statuam quam statuisti non adoramus. aliud deo placuit, non arserunt, sed ignem idololatriae in animo regis extinxerunt. 32 Catherine Brown Tkacz, “The Seven Maccabees, the Three Hebrews and a Newly Discovered Sermon of St. Augustine (Mayence 50),” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 41 (1995): 63. 33 Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 148, 11.33 (PL 36, 67):illos aperte liberauit, istos occulte coronauit. 34 Augustine, Sermo 32, 15 (PL 38:202): illi de igne euaserunt, illi ignibus cruciati sunt. utrique tamen in deo sempiterno uicerunt. 35 Augustine, Sermones 286, 6; 301, 2. 36 See Den Boeft, “Martyres sunt” 121-122.
224
It all boils down, ultimately, to the doctrine of non poena sed causa, which underlay all of Augustine’s martyrial thinking. God may choose to vary the punishments to which his faithful are subjected, but the cause for which a Christian is willing to suffer marks the true martyr. If martyrdom were solely about suffering, Augustine reasoned, even the Devil could be a martyr: “If one ought to be glorified on account of suffering, then even the Devil can boast. Look how much he suffers, whose temples are everywhere overthrown, whose idols are everywhere broken, whose priests and prognosticators are everywhere slaughtered. Can even he be able to say: And I am a martyr, too, because I have suffered so!”37 Suffering is a far from reliable indicator of martyrdom. But if it is not the punishment but the cause that makes the martyr, would it not be possible for a Christian to be a martyr without any punishment at all? This is, indeed, what Augustine argued. The causa to which one is committed trumps all other considerations, including how much—if at all—one suffers, and this is true through every stage of Augustine’s thinking on martyrdom, which scholars generally differentiate according to periods in his life. From his conversion until the turn of the fifth century, he was not particularly concerned with martyrdom or martyrs and their cults. After his ordination in 391 he addressed the topic as it came up, mostly to warn his audiences away from improper veneration—Jan den Boeft remarks that martyrdom’s absence from the Confessions indicates that “martyrdom had not really entered the heart of his thinking.”38 From 401 until 415, however, Augustine became interested in the martyrs, largely as a result of his interactions with the Donatists and his need to respond to their claims of being the Church of the Martyrs. Finally, from 415, when the relics of the martyr Stephen were discovered and disseminated, until his death, Augustine was an energetic champion of the
37
Augustine, Sermo 328, 4 (PL 38: 1453): Si de passione gloriandum est; potest et ipse diabolus gloriari. Videte quanta patitur, cuius ubique templa evertuntur, cuius ubique idola franguntur, cuius ubique sacerdotes et arreptitii caeduntur. Numquid potest dicere: Et ego martyr sum, quia tanta patior! 38 Den Boeft, “Martyres sunt,” 117.
225
cults of the martyrs, though his underlying wariness of their misuse did not change.39 Despite these clear developments in Augustine’s thought about martyrdom, the ideas that martyrdom is separable from death and that the criterion of martyrdom is the cause for which one is willing to suffer are present even in Augustine’s earliest writings as priest (even if the phrasing of non poena sed causa does not appear until 396 at the earliest) and remains largely unchanged throughout his career as bishop.40 The stability of the non poena sed causa paradigm is remarkable because Augustine employed it in so many different contexts. It served to assert and reinforce the boundaries of the Christian cultural community over against what he deemed non-Christian practices, to clarify for his parishioners the error of the Donatists and the falsity of their claims to martyrdom, and to illustrate for his audiences the operation of grace in his arguments against the Pelagians. Against challenges from pagans as well as against the continued temptations that pagan traditions and practices presented for Christians, Augustine used the logic of non poena sed causa to help Christians steel themselves for conflict. As we shall see, the use of “pagan” medical interventions was one of the temptations that Augustine most frequently exhorted Christians to avoid: the idea that Christians must hold fast against their use appeared in sermons from all three stages of Augustine’s thinking on martyrdom.41 In these sermons, Augustine points to resisting the use of pagan healing amulets as a form of martyrdom because the invalid adheres to the truth of Christ even in the face of death. Thus the path to
39
T. J. van Bavel, “The Cult of Martyrs in St. Augustine: Theology Versus Popular Religion?” in Martyrium in Multidisciplinary Perspective, edited by Mathijs Lamberigts and Peter Van Deun (Leuven: University Press, 1995), 351. 40 For early inclusions of the concept in Augustine’s writing, see Augustine, De Sermone Domini in Monte 1.22.77 (393) andAugustine, De Agone Christiano 23.25 (396). For the first use of the precise formula non poena sed causa, see Augustine, Sermo 335G, which may have been delivered in 396; Sermo 285 was likely delivered in 397. At the very latest, the phrasing non poena sed causa begins to appear in Augustine’s sermons in 405. 41 Augustine preached Sermo 306E on August 21, 397, according to Dolbeau, while Sermo 286 was preached somewhere between 405 and 411, and Sermo 318 was preached in 425.
226
Christian perfection includes the rejection of pagan custom and cure, even in the absence of overt antagonism from those who adhere to traditional Roman religion. Moreover, in sermon 296, in which Augustine defended the status of the Babylonian martyrs, he suggested how Christians should respond to pagans who accuse Christianity of causing the recent sack of Rome: they should say, on the one hand, that the city had also been sacked while under pagan rule and, on the other, that it is a Christian prerogative to suffer in this world and hope for the next.42 This response mirrors non poena sed causa in its dismissal of the legibility of suffering outside of the Church. By offering his parishioners a clear reward for their perseverance, Augustine fueled their resistance to temptations from paganism. By showing them that suffering signifies nothing in itself, Augustine helped them reject criticism from pagan intellectuals. Non poena sed causa here served to underscore the depth of the struggle in which Christians were engaged, the value of committing fully to the Christian faith, and the otherworldly ambitions of Christians over against the temporally minded (as Augustine characterized them) pagans. When he argued against the Donatists, Augustine relied on non poena sed causa to undercut the Donatists’ claims to martyrdom and to highlight why their schism was so destructive.43 The Donatists claimed to be martyrs, but how could that be true when they were really dying for disunity (stealing sheep from the flock of Christ rather than feeding Christ’s flock and refusing to make peace with their Christian brothers), love of violence (murdering themselves through suicide or forcing other men to become murderers in order to make them martyrs), factionalism (placing Donatus before Christ), and pride (boasting of
42
Augustine, Sermo 296, 9-10. For a discussion of how Augustine’s sermons on martyrdom established his position against the Donatists, see Garbarino, “Augustine, Donatists, and Martyrdom.” 43
227
their purity and martyrdom)?44 They were not martyrs for unity, for the church, or within the church, and so therefore people can identify them, Augustine argued, as false martyrs, spurred by the devil to confuse the Christian community of faith.45 The logic of non poena sed causa here encourages Augustine’s flock to disregard the suffering they see, even if it appears heroic, and to instead interrogate the reasoning behind the suffering. After all, as we have seen, even the devil can make a claim to martyrdom, if suffering is all that counts. Augustine did not employ non poena sed causa as prominently in his anti-Pelagian sermons (as Anthony Dupont notes, “the distinction is not completely absent in his antiPelagian sermons, the emphasis here however is on gratia”46), but its logic underscored Augustine’s claims about grace. Mirroring his assertions that humans cannot accomplish any good works without God’s grace, Augustine argued that humans are not in control of their own fates. As we saw with the example of the Maccabees vs. the three boys in the fires of Babylon, God intervenes when, how, and to what aim he sees fit. Rather than focusing on the ends, the “works” of suffering and death, Christians should instead focus on their own faith (which itself relies on Christ) 47 and their caritas. Augustine returned, for instance, to 1 Corinthians 13 in an anti-Pelagian sermon of 416, to remind his audience that true martyrdom only comes when motivated by love: “The one in whom love is crowned—he will be the true martyr.”48 Non poena sed causa allowed Augustine’s listeners to focus not on the outcome but on the process of martyrdom. Even if God is the ultimate instigator and Christians have
44
Stealing sheep: Augustine, Sermones 299A, 2; 295, 5; 296, 3-4. Refusing peace: Augustine, Sermo 359B, 6. Violence: Augustine, Sermo 313E, 5. Factionalism: Augustine, Sermo 198, 45. Pride: Sermo 138, 1-2, 5. 45 See, for example, Augustine, Sermo 359B, 16. 46 Anthony Dupont, “Augustine’s Homiletic Definition of Martyrdom:The Centrality of the Martyr’s Grace in his Anti-Donatist and Anti-Pelagian Sermones ad Populum,” in Christian Martyrdom in Late Antiquity (300-450 AD): History and Discourse, Tradition and Religious Identity, edited by Peter Gemeinhardt and Johan Leemans, 155-178 (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2012), 177. 47 See Augustine, Sermo 283, 4, where the martyrs’ causae are given by God. See also Augustine, Sermo 333, 1 (PL 38:1464): Paratam ergo habent martyres voluntatem in martyrio: sed praeparatur voluntas a Domino. 48 Augustine, Sermo 169, 15 (PL 38:924): In quo charitas coronatur, ipse erit verus martyr.
228
no say over their commitment to a particular causa, it is there that their attention should be focused, not on the eventual outcome, which is (as was the prevenient grace) in God’s hands. The logic of non poena sed causa here demands that Christians focus on perfecting their commitment to their cause, rather than the results to which that commitment will lead. Because cause is the priority for Augustine, and because it, rather than death, is the sine qua non of martyrdom, Augustine is, in actuality, redefining martyrdom even for those martyrs who have died. Collin Garbarino observes, focusing on the way that Augustine used non poena sed causa to characterize martyrdom as witness of divine truths, that “When Augustine preached, the martyr’s message eclipsed the martyr’s death.”49 Martyrs die for a number of worthy causes, including love or caritas (including love of enemies, love of good and justice, and correctly ordered love), unity, truth, justice, faith, and their commitment to striving against the devil, sin, and temptation. 50 They are not martyrs because they died, but because they devoted themselves so wholeheartedly to these causes that they were willing to die for them. As Augustine said in 404 of Vincent’s endurance of torments: “It would be madness, if love were lacking.”51 Preaching to the Carthaginians in 411 or 412, Augustine elaborated on this theme, drawing on 1 Corinthians 13:
49
Garbarino, “Augustine, Donatists and Martyrdom,” 52. Garbarino, in addition, highlights that while martyrdom for Augustine’s predecessors had largely been about sacrifice, Augustine disagreed: “Augustine takes on the language of the martyrs’ sacrifice and bends it until it is no sacrifice on the part of the martyrs at all. Instead, he turns it squarely back to martyrdom as bearing witness to the divine work of Christ in the martyrs’ lives” (Garbarino, “Augustine, Donatists and Martyrdom,” 53). 50 On Caritas generally: Augustine, Sermones 53A; 94A; 138, 2 (PL 38:764): Ecce venitur ad passionem, ecce venitur et ad sanguinis fusionem, venitur et ad corporis incensionem: et tamen nihil prodest, quia charitas deest. Adde charitatem, prosunt omnia: detrahe charitatem, nihil prosunt caetera; 169, 15 (PL 38:924): in quo charitas coronatur, ipse erit uerus martyr; 274, 275, 277A, 285, 299F, 306, 306A, 325, 327, 328, 331, 335, 335C, 335G, 359B; Love of enemies: Augustine, Sermones 314; 315; Love of good: Augustine, Sermo 335C; Love of justice: Augustine, Sermo 159; Correctly ordered love: Augustine, Sermones 344; 345 (indifference to present life); 368; 138, 2; On Unity: Augustine, Sermones 274; 280; On Truth: Augustine, Sermones 94A; 274; 295; 300; 306E; 311; On Justice: Sermones 274; 159; On Faith: Augustine, Sermones 51; 64; 229H; 229J; 260E; 274; 299; 306; 311; 328; On striving against the Devil: see, for example, Augustine, Sermo 4. Against sin: Augustine, Sermones 284; 297; 306E; 318; 335J; Against Temptation: Augustine, Sermones 4; 306E; 328; 335D. 51 Augustine, Sermo 359B, 13 (Dolbeau 2, 337): Caritas desit, insania est.
229
“If I give,” as Paul says, “all my possessions to the poor, and hand over my body so that I might burn”—There are the martyrs! But look what follows: “But if I do not have love, it is of no use to me.” Behold it has come to suffering, behold it has come to the effusion of blood, and even to the point of burning one’s body: and nonetheless it is of no use, because love is lacking. Add love, and everything is worthwhile; subtract love, the rest are worth nothing.52 Or as he related more simply in 416: “the one in whom love is crowned will be the true martyr.”53 Each of these examples dealt with caritas, but the way that Augustine emphasizes the cause over the punishment applies also to unity, truth, justice, faith, and resistance to temptation. It is this adherence to divine causes that Augustine urged his listeners to imitate, rather than the martyrs’ deaths. He constantly called those hearing his sermons to imitate the martyrs, but what they should imitate was never death itself—it was always the martyrs’ commitment to something Augustine deemed good. For instance, in order to receive the crown that Stephen earned, Christians need not die, but rather love their enemies: “Heed, brothers! Let us follow him; for if we follow Stephen, we will be crowned. However, we must especially follow him and imitate him in the love of our enemies.”54 In another instance, Augustine explained to his audience that, if we want to imitate the martyrs, our best bet is to imitate their choice of and commitment to a good cause: If you wish to imitate true martyrs, choose a cause for yourselves, so that you may say to the Lord: “Judge me, Lord, and distinguish my cause from an unholy nation (quoting Ps. 43:1); not my punishment; for even an unholy nation has this; but my
52
Augustine, Sermo 138, 2 (PL 38:764): si distribuero, inquit, omnia mea pauperibus, et tradidero corpus meum ut ardeam. iam ipsi sunt. sed uide quid sequitur: charitatem autem non habeam, nihil mihi prodest. ecce uenitur ad passionem, ecce uenitur et ad sanguinis fusionem, uenitur et ad corporis incensionem: et tamen nihil prodest, quia charitas deest. adde charitatem, prosunt omnia: detrahe charitatem, nihil prosunt caetera. See also Augustine, Sermo 335G, 1 (PLS 2, 803): itaque martyres nostri multum amauerunt deum. quia perfectam in se habebant caritatem, propterea non timuerunt saeuitiam persecutoris. ergo perfecta caritas martyrum fecit eos nihil timere. 53 Augustine, Sermo 169, 15 (PL 38:923-924): si enim in te fuerit charitas dei, communicabis christi passionibus et uerus eris martyr. in quo charitas coronatur, ipse erit uerus martyr. 54 Augustine, Sermo 314, 2 (PL 38:1426): eia, fratres, sequamur eum; si enim sequimur stephanum, coronabimur. maxime autem sequendus et imitandus est nobis in dilectione inimicorum.
230
cause, which no one has but the holy race.” Therefore choose for yourselves a cause, hold a good and just cause, and with the Lord’s help do not fear any punishment.55 We see this again in an undated sermon, when Augustine described the White Mass, the Utican Christians who were martyred together after Cyprian’s death in 258: Let us have a well-chosen cause, lest punishment harm us. For a bad cause holds no reward, only just torment. It is not, therefore, within the power of man [to determine] by what exit he will end this life: but it is in the power of man [to determine] how he lives, so that he ends his life secure. Nor would even this have been in his power, unless the Lord had granted the power to become sons of God. But to whom [did God grant this power]? To those who believe in his name. This is the primary cause of the martyrs, this is the white mass of the martyrs. If the cause is white, the mass is white.56 Augustine is here even more explicit: we cannot control how we die, but we can control, with God’s help, what cause we choose to commit to. Augustine did not exhort his audience to imitate Lawrence’s death on a grill in Rome, but instead asked: “Let us follow his footsteps in faith, and let us follow in contempt for the world.”57 Correct causa was what made one a martyr, in Augustine’s reckoning, and it was therefore the causa that Augustine urged his listeners to imitate.58 Since this was Augustine’s operative paradigm of martyrdom, it should not be too surprising that he extended the possibility of martyrdom to his contemporaries, even if they did not suffer or die in persecution. Resisting temptation, being a witness to the truth, preaching Christ, following one’s conscience, and suffering illness without the aid of pagan
55
Augustine, Sermo 285, 7 (PL 38: 1297): proinde si uultis martyres ueros imitari, causam uobis eligite, ut dicatis domino: iudica me, domine, et discerne causam meam a gente non sancta. discerne, non poenam meam; nam habet hanc et gens non sancta; sed causam meam, quam non habet nisi gens sancta. causam ergo uobis eligite, causam bonam et iustam tenete, et in adiutorio domini nullam poenam timete. 56 Augustine, Sermo 306, 2 (PL 38:1400): sit nobis electa causa, ne nobis noceat poena. nam mala causa nullum habet praemium, sed iustum tormentum. non est igitur in hominis potestate quo exitu hanc uitam finiat: sed est in hominis potestate quomodo uiuat, ut uitam securus finiat. neque hoc in potestate esset, nisi dedisset dominus potestatem filios dei fieri. sed quibus? credentibus in nomine eius. haec est prima martyrum causa, haec est candida martyrum massa. si causa candida, et massa candida. Augustine concludes the sermon by reiterating his emphasis on faith: etiam fide simili imitari non formidemus (Sermo 306, 10 [PL 38:1405]). 57 Augustine, Sermo 303, 2 (PL 38:1395): sequamur uestigia eius fide, sequamur et contemptu mundi. 58 See Augustine, Sermones 4, 37; 64, 1-2, 8; 64A, 1-3; 159A, 1; 300, 6; 302, 9; 304, 2; 305A, 4; 311, 1, 3; 317, 1; 325, 2; 328, 8.
231
remedies were all paths to martyrdom that did not necessitate dying. The crown could be earned by such activities, Augustine insisted, because persecution did in fact continue to the present; in this world Christians are all always subject to temptation and strife. They are always called to struggle. Christians, then, need not despair of martyrdom. At the end of a lengthy sermon on Jacob and Esau, contrasting the divine chosenness of Jacob with the materialistic worldview exemplified by Esau and urging his audience to strive for the attitude of the former, Augustine concluded: Why have we said these things, brothers? So that when you celebrate the birthdays of the martyrs, you might imitate the martyrs, lest you think for some reason that the occasions for a crown could be lacking to you, because such persecutions are lacking now. For even now daily persecutions from the devil are not lacking, whether through suggestion or whether through some annoyance of the body... And you will ever be crowned and depart from here a martyr, if you overcome the temptations of the devil.59 Elsewhere Augustine asserted, even more directly, “But no one should say: ‘I can’t be a martyr because there is no persecution now.’ Temptations haven’t ceased. Fight, and the crown is prepared [for you].”60 The causes that Christians struggle for are the same, regardless of the consequences of that struggle, and so martyrdom, for Augustine, was just as possible in fifth-century Africa as under Decius or Diocletian. Nor was resisting temptation the only means to achieving martyrdom. Augustine frequently identified martyrdom with witness.61 At times he made the connection without comment or explanation, simply equating the two by treating them as synonyms.62 At other
59
Augustine, Sermo 4, 37 (PL 38:52): quare ista diximus, fratres? ut quando celebratis natalitia martyrum, imitemini martyres, nec putetis ideo uobis deesse posse occasiones coronae, quia modo desunt tales persecutiones. nec modo enim desunt quotidie persecutiones a diabolo, siue per suggestionem, siue per molestias aliquas corporis. ... et semper coronaris et martyr hinc exies, si omnes tentationes diaboli superaueris. For similar calls not to discount the possibility of martyrdom, see Augustine, Sermones 94A, 2; 299F, 4; 301A, 5; 305A, 5; and 306E, 8. 60 Augustine, Sermo 328, 8 (RBen 51,19): sed nemo dicat: non possum martyr esse quia non est modo persecutio. non cessant tentationes. pugna et corona parata est. 61 Straw, “Martyrdom,” 538; Den Boeft, “Martyres sunt,” 122-123. 62 As in Sermo 299D, 1 (MiAg 1, 75): martyres sancti, testes dei; Sermo 299D, 5 (MiAg 1, 78): nihil tam proximum animae suae, quam caro sua; fames et sitis et aestus in carne sentis: ibi te uolo uidere, martyr
232
times he expanded on the conceptual connection as if his audience would be familiar with the link: “Aren’t martyrs witnesses of Christ, and don’t they offer testimony to the truth?”63 At still other times, however, he explicitly directed his audience’s attention to the etymological and conceptual association. In a 413 sermon on the Scillitan martyrs, for example, Augustine was clear that nothing had been lost in translation from Greek to Latin: “They declare themselves witnesses of Christ, but those who are called “witnesses” in Latin are called “martyrs” in Greek.”64 This is a fairly typical formulation65 and indicates that Augustine wanted the connection to be not only clear to his parishioners, but foremost in their minds when they thought about martyrdom. In a sermon on Protasius and Gervasius roughly fifteen years later, Augustine opened with the term’s etymology and usage as a way to clarify what exactly martyrdom is: Martyrs—the name is Greek, but now custom uses that very name in Latin. In Latin, however, they are called ‘witnesses.’ There are, therefore, true martyrs, and there are false, just as there are true witnesses and false ones. If a witness is false he will not escape punishment, nor will the true witness escape a crown.66
bone, testis dei; Sermo 319, 1 (PL 38:1440): hoc tantum exhortor ad charitatem uestram aedificandam, ut sciatis sanctum stephanum honorem christi quaesisse, ut sciatis sanctum martyrem testem christi fuisse, ut sciatis eum tanta tunc miracula in nomine christi fecisse; and Sermo 335J, 1 (PLS 2, 839): martyres sancti, testes christi, usque ad sanguinem contra peccatum pugnauerunt, quia ipse in illis fuit, per quem uicerunt. In Sermo 334 he refers to Christ as martyrem martyrum, testem testium. 63 Augustine, Sermo 128, 3 (PL 38: 714): martyres nonne testes sunt christi, et testimonium perhibent ueritati? See also Augustine, Sermo 335A, 1 (MiAg 1, 219-220): sic enim scriptum est; corpus christi loquitur in psalmo, quod est ecclesia: exsurrexerunt mihi testes iniqui, et mentita est iniquitas sibi. testes et testes: testes iniqui, et testes iusti: et testes diaboli, et testes christi. utriusque testis genus uidimus, spectauimus, audiuimus, cum beatorum martyrum, quorum dies sollemnitatis agitur, passio legeretur. interrogati responderunt, collectam se egisse, quia christiani essent. hoc est testimonium ueritatis. iudex dicebat: quoniam de scelere confessi estis. hoc est testimonium iniquitatis. 64 Augustine, Sermo 260E, 1 (MiAg 1, 502): professi sunt se testes christi; testes autem qui dicuntur latine, graece martyres uocantur. 65 See Augustine, Sermo 299F, 1 (PLS 2, 789): martyres, graecum nomen est, latine testes dicuntur; Sermo 319, 3 (PL 38:1441): quod enim interpretatus est latinus, minister; graecus habet, diaconus; quia uere diaconus graece, minister est latine: quomodo martyr graece, testis latine; apostolus graece, missus latine; and Sermo 328, 2 (PL 38:1452): martyr enim, uerbum graecum, latine testis dicitur. 66 Augustine, Sermo 286, 1 (PL 38:1297): martyres, nomen est graecum, sed iam isto nomine consuetudo utitur pro latino: latine autem testes dicuntur. sunt ergo martyres ueri, sunt falsi: quia sunt testes ueri, sunt falsi. si testis falsus non erit sine poena, nec testis uerus sine corona.
233
Augustine is using what his audience knows about courtroom witnesses (i.e., that they can be true or false) to make the point that not all those who are claimed as martyrs are in fact true martyrs and also to highlight witness as essentially what the martyrs do. They witness, as den Boeft enumerates, to what they themselves have seen, to the truth of Christ, to faith, and to eternal life.67 This witness could occur without death. It was not the martyrs’ deaths, but the fact that they witnessed while willing to die that distinguished them as martyrs. In this same sermon on Protasius and Gervasius, Augustine identifies witness unto death specifically as a “great work” and designates the Maccabees’ crown as “more splendid” than the crown offered to the three young men in Babylon’s furnace. But he also asserts that the position from which “there is nothing left to be desired” is that of the Christian who “in his confession is prepared to die for Christ” (emphasis mine).68 Thus death was not a necessary part of the witness that martyrs needed to make. It is this connection of witness and martyrdom that enables Augustine’s clearest assertion of the possibility of living martyrdom: “Say, then—even you: ‘We cannot not speak to what we have heard.’ Anyone who preaches wherever he can is, indeed, a martyr.”69 Like the martyrs witnessing to what they have seen, Augustine’s contemporaries should witness to what they have heard. And Augustine was serious about the “wherever” part of this statement: he immediately followed up with the example of a Christian attending a dinner party alongside pagans and being embarrassed to be called a Christian.70 Augustine urged his parishioners in contrast to “preach Christ, therefore, wherever you can, to whomever you can,
67
Den Boeft, “Martyres sunt,” 123. Augustine, Sermo 286, 1 (PL 38:1297): et paratus est in sua confessione mori pro Christo...ut nihil sit amplius quod restet. 69 Augustine, Sermo 260E, 2 (MiAg 1, 503): dicite ergo et uos: non possumus quod audiuimus non loqui et praedicare dominum christum. quisque ubi potest praedicet, et martyr est. 70 Augustine, Sermo 260E, 2 (MiAg 1, 503): contingit illi conuiuari, uerbi gratia, inter paganos, et erubescit se dici christianum. si expauescit conuiuatorem, quomodo potest contemnere persecutorem? 68
234
and however you can.”71 Here we can once again see Augustine’s advocacy clearly: he identifies what it takes to be a martyr (preaching wherever one can) and then urges those listening to implement it in their own lives. In order to illustrate martyrdom without persecution, Augustine most often pointed to the many Christians who “go to martyrdom on a sickbed.”72 Augustine adduced this example several times, each time dwelling on it at length to unfold his argument about martyrdom.73 We can see a typical treatment in an undated sermon on Jacob and Esau, where Augustine expounds on the martyrs who suffer illness without the use of pagan remedies and thus suffer more (and possibly to the point of death) because of their commitment to truth. The pious (hypothetical) Christian, after being offered a “remedy of the devil,”74 responds by saying that he would rather die than resort to such a cure, and that if he is saved from this illness, it will be by God’s will alone.75 Augustine then elaborates on how this constitutes martyrdom: Many have been crowned in the amphitheater, fighting the beasts: many are crowned, conquering the devil in their beds. They seem as if they cannot move, and within the heart they have such bravery! They fight such a battle! But where the battle is hidden, there the victory is hidden.76 Augustine finds clear parallels with standard persecution narratives: the Christian’s life is in danger; the body is wracked with pain, and mind is consumed with thoughts of imminent death; and corporal salvation is within reach, only a blasphemous word or action away. But in this case the sick man is being tormented by the devil, who is testing him just as the earlier martyrs had been tested by their persecutors. The fight is real, as is the willingness to die for
71
Augustine, Sermo 260E, 2 (MiAg 1, 503): praedicate ergo christum, ubi potueritis, quibus potueritis, quomodo potueritis. 72 Augustine, Sermo 286, 7 (PL 38:1300): multi ergo ducunt martyrium in lecto: prorsus multi. 73 Augustine, Sermones 4, 36; 286, 7; 306E, 7-8; 318, 3; 328, 8; 335D, 3, 5. 74 Augustine, Sermo 4, 36 (PL 38:52): remedia diaboli. 75 Augustine, Sermo 4, 36 (PL 38:52): Moriar potius, quam talibus remediis utar; si vult Deus, flagellat et liberat me; si novit quia necessarium est, liberet me; si autem scit quia debeo exire de hac vita, sive contrister, sive laeter, sequar voluntatem Domini. 76 Augustine, Sermo 4, 36 (PL 38:52): Multi coronati sunt in amphitheatro pugnantes ad bestias: multi in lecto vincentes diabolum coronantur: videntur non se movere posse, et intus in corde tantas vires habent, tantam pugnam exercent. Sed ubi est occulta pugna, ibi occulta victoria.
235
the cause, even if no one ever knows about it. The martyr appears to be lying on his sickbed, but is in fact “reigning in heaven.”77 We should linger on Augustine’s brilliance in choosing the sickbed martyr as his goto example. Augustine plays upon the similarities of the sickbed martyr to the arena martyr to show that the experience is truly analogous, but then he also uses the differences to highlight the interiority of true martyrdom in his own time. To illustrate: Arena Martyr Physical Persecutor, usually inspired by the Devil Pagan enemy Visible “athleticism”: torments are seen by others
Life and Death struggle, with physical death looming
Adherence to cause at the expense of physical life
Sickbed Martyr Devil himself as Persecutor, with Pagans or Pagan-leaning Christians as tempters Pagan or Pagan-leaning Christian enemy Invisible “athleticism”: torments either not seen by others (in case of paralytic) or seen by others but not acknowledged as “contest” Life and Death struggle, with physical death a real possibility Adherence to cause at the possible expense of physical life78
Living Martyr Devil himself as Persecutor, temptations from every side Unspecified enemy Varied visibility of torments.
Life and Death struggle, with spiritual death a real possibility and physical death present on the imaginative horizon Adherence to cause without regard for possible expense of physical life (threat not imminent).
The similarities cement the sickbed martyr as a clear inheritor of the arena martyr’s legacy. But when the audience admits this equivalence, the differences between the two serve to extend martyrdom beyond the sickbed: if, for example, the sickbed martyr (who has so much in common with the arena martyr!) can struggle to the point of death invisibly, with no one aware of his crown, then what is to keep other Christians from struggling against sin invisibly? The sickbed martyr thus serves as a bridge between the traditional conception of
77
Augustine, Sermo 335D, 3 (PLS 2, 778): in lecto iacentem et in caelo regnantem. Augustine leaves open the possibility of God healing the sickbed martyrs (306E, 8, in addition to what we saw in 4, 36 above). 78
236
martyrdom by death in persecution and his own conception of less outwardly visible martyrdom based on cause, not punishment.79 The sickbed martyr was the tool Augustine used to move his audience from the familiar to the unfamiliar, the foundation for a more radical structure, the perfect stepping stone to forms of martyrdom that would depart even further from the audience’s customary understanding and did not, in fact, involve death. Augustine’s sickbed martyr is instructively different from his Egyptian monastic contemporaries who grappled with the question of illness. While in the case of Joseph of Thebes illness was a trial to be embraced with patience and thanksgiving, here the martyr endures with patience but gives no thanks for the opportunity for martyrdom.80 Unlike Pachomius’s mentor Palamon, Augustine’s sickbed martyr does nothing to invite sickness; he pursues no extreme fasting or bodily austerity that leads to illness.81 And unlike the sickly Syncletica, the sickbed martyr is not distinguished by the extent and variety of her physical suffering. Amma Syncletica’s medical woes are enumerated in graphic, loving, lingering detail in the Vita Syncleticae, while Augustine only describes torments insofar as they illustrate the sickbed martyr’s failure to appear triumphantly martyrial.82 There is no problematic fetishizing of the pain itself. The illness-ridden Egyptian monastics emphasized (erroneously, Augustine would say) the poena of sickness, the actual suffering it entailed, rather than the underlying commitment to a divine causa. Because there are so many types of continued persecution, Augustine argued, martyrdom can take many forms. Having just told his listeners that “Temptations do not stop. Fight, and the crown is prepared for you,” he interrupts himself with their anticipated
79
Thanks to Eva Mrozcek for pointing out the persuasive efficacy of the sickbed-martyr’s example. Andrew Crislip, “‘I Have Chosen Sickness’: The Controversial Function of Sickness in Early Christian Ascetic Practice,” in Asceticism and Its Critics: Historical Accounts and Comparative Perspectives, edited by Oliver Freiberger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 197. 81 Crislip, “I Have Chosen Sickness,” 185. 82 See Vita Syncleticae 104-106, 111 (PG 28.1551-1553; 1555). 80
237
question: “When?” Answering both the question of when his audience can fight and when his audience will receive the prepared crown, Augustine (before moving on to the example of the Christian going to martyrdom on his sickbed) makes clear that there are countless manifestations of martyrdom: Because it is tedious (longum) to recount in what ways the Christian soul is tempted, in what ways it conquers and achieves a great victory with God’s favor, with no one seeing, enclosed in a body; [the soul] fights within the heart, is crowned in the heart, but by him who sees within the heart.83 Living loyally in Christ, fighting for the truth, refusing to give false evidence in a trial, generosity (in light of indifference to the world), unashamedly attending church, and even standing with patient attention in church on a feast day are all ways of attaining martyrdom without having to die or even suffer visibly.84 Augustine cemented his calls to contemporary martyrdom with vivid descriptions of what it might look like to be a living martyr. For example, he instructed his hearers in what they should do to secure martyrdom: “Truly—Seek the invisible things of the martyrs, my brothers! What they loved, love! What they endured, though you might not endure it, prepare your souls to endure it! But first, choose their cause, as far as you are able!”85 He is calling his listeners to mimic the interior qualities of the martyrs they are there to venerate, to match
83
Augustine, Sermo 328, 8 (RBen 51, 19): non cessant tentationes. pugna et corona parata est. quando forte? ecce, ut aliquid commemorem - quia omnia longum est enarrare in quibus tentatur anima christiana et propitio deo uincit et facit magnam uictoriam, nemine uidente, in corpore inclusa; pugnat corde, coronatur in corde sed ab illo qui uidet in corde. See also Sermo 306E, 7 for a similar apophasis on the varied ways of earning the martyr’s crown. 84 Living loyally in Christ (94A, 2 [MiAg 1, 253]: omnes qui pie uolunt uiuere in christo iesu, persecutionem patientur. omnes, ait: neminem exclusit, neminem separauit. si uerum uis probare quod dixit, incipe pie uiuere in christo, et uidebis uerum esse quod dicit); fighting for the truth (94A, 4 [MiAg 1, 254]: et erunt martyres ueri, si pro ueritate, quod est christus, certentur, et legitime coronantur; see also 94A, 6 [MiAg 1, 255]: quod si prosperitas temporum arriserit, state in domino; quod si aduersitas temporum fremuerit, stabiles estote in domino. nolite ab illo cadere, qui semper stat, et stans pugnantem expectat, et adiuuat uos, ut stando et pugnando uincatis, et demum ad illum coronandi ueniatis); refusing to give false evidence (Sermo 306E, 11); generosity (Sermo 301A, 5; Sermo 345, 1); attending church (Sermo 306B, 67); standing (Sermo 274 [PL 38:1253]: Novimus quia patienter audistis, et diu stando et audiendo tanquam martyri compassi estis. Qui audit vos, amet vos, et coronet vos.). 85 Augustine, Sermo 335C, 12 (PLS 2, 753): uerum, inuisibilia martyrum quaerite, fratres mei. quod amauerunt amate. quod sustinuerunt, etsi non sustinueritis, ad sustinendum animos parate. causam primitus, quantum potestis, eligite.
238
them in mind and heart, and to be prepared internally for whatever might happen. This emphasis on interiority is key. In a sermon on St. Lawrence from 401, Augustine recalled Cyprian’s saying that, “in persecution it is soldiering, in peace it is conscience that is crowned,” and explained: Therefore no one ought to think to himself that the time [for martyrdom] is past: it is not always the season for suffering, but it is always the season for devotion. Nor should anyone think himself weak, when God is supplying the courage: lest, while fearing for himself, he despairs of that very supplier. 86 Any of Augustine’s sermon-goers who would like to become martyrs themselves must take Cyprian’s saying to heart, and should devote themselves to God, showing the conscience, the interior qualities, that God looks for in his witnesses. And lest the Christian despair of being able to accomplish the daunting task of all-encompassing, life-long devotion, she should remind herself that God will do much of the work for her—the end result is not only a feeling of a life blessed by cooperative grace, but a devotion which includes profound faith, personal humility, and gratitude toward God. This is the martyrial consciousness that Augustine sought to develop in his audience. We can see this martyrial consciousness more thoroughly described in a later Laurentian sermon. Augustine once again looked to Cyprian, concluding the sermon with lengthy, unattributed quote from Ad Fortunatum, at the end of which Augustine modifies Cyprian’s dictum: “In persecution it is soldiering, in peace it is constancy, that is crowned” (emphasis mine).87 This saying comes at the end of a lengthy description of what that constancy might look like for “those who follow Christ with complete faith and perfect
86
Augustine, Sermo 305A, 2 (MiAg 1, 56): audistis beatum cyprianum, martyrum et exemplum et tubam: in persecutione, inquit, militia, in pace conscientia coronatur. nemo ergo sibi putet deesse tempus: non semper adest tempus passionis, semper autem est deuotionis. nec se quisquam infirmum putet, ubi deus uires operatur: ne, cum sibi timet, de ipso operatore desperet. 87 Augustine, Sermo 303, 2 (PL 38:1395): in persecutione militia, in pace constantia coronatur. The quote is taken from Ad Fortunatum 13. Many thanks to Bridget Balint for noting the textual issues here.
239
caritas.” 88 After quoting Matthew 19:29 (“There is no one who abandons home, or field, or parents, or brothers, or wife, or children, and does not receive seven times that much in that time, in that future age when he will have eternal life”), Augustine appropriates Cyprian’s words, and expands: What is more glorious for a man than to sell his property and buy Christ, to offer to God the most acceptable gift: the uncorrupted virtue of the mind, the unimpaired praise of devotion? To accompany Christ when he starts coming to take his vengeance on his enemies, to assist him at his side when he sits to judge, to become co-heir with Christ, to be joined to the angels, to rejoice in the possession of the kingdom along with the patriarchs, apostles, and prophets? What persecution could conquer these ruminations? What torment could overcome them? Durable, brave, and stable is the mind founded in religious meditation, and against all the terrors of the devil and the threats of the world the spirit which is fortified by certain and solid faith in future things remains unmoved.89 The Christian aspiring to martyrdom is constantly meditating on the heavenly rewards of his renunciation and his unreserved devotion; this mentality will then itself overcome all persecution and temptation. Augustine continues, describing for his audience what this new death in martyrdom will look like, the new exitus that his “living martyrs” can hope for: The eyes are closed in persecutions, but heaven lies open. Antichrist threatens, but Christ preserves. Death is introduced, but immortality follows. The world is snatched away from the slain one, but paradise is shown to the restored one. The temporal life is extinguished, but the eternal one is revived. How great is the dignity, and how great is the security of departing hence happy, to leave gloriously amid trials and difficulties. To close in a moment the eyes by which men and the world are seen and to open them immediately, so that God is seen.90
88
Augustine, Sermo 303, 2 (PL 38:1394): integra fide et perfecta charitate christum sequentibus. Augustine, Sermo 303, 2 (PL 38:1394): quid est gloriosius homini, quam sua uendere, et christum emere, offerre deo acceptissimum munus, incorruptam uirtutem mentis, incolumem laudem deuotionis; christum comitari, cum uenire coeperit uindictam de inimicis recepturus; lateri eius assistere, cum sederit iudicaturus; cohaeredem christi fieri, angelis adaequari, cum patriarchis, cum apostolis, cum prophetis, coelestis regni possessione laetari? has cogitationes quae persecutio potest uincere, quae possunt tormenta superare? dura, fortis, et stabilis religiosis meditationibus fundata mens, et aduersus omnes zabuli terrores et minas mundi animus immobilis perstat, quem futurorum fides certa et solida corroborat. 90 Augustine, Sermo 303, 2 (PL 38:1395): clauduntur oculi in persecutionibus; sed patet coelum. minatur antichristus; sed tuetur christus. mors infertur; sed immortalitas sequitur. occiso mundus eripitur; sed restituto paradisus exhibetur. uita temporalis exstinguitur; sed aeterna reparatur. quanta est dignitas et quanta securitas exire hinc laetum, exire inter pressuras et angustias gloriosum; claudere in momento oculos, quibus homines uidebantur et mundus; aperire eos statim, ut deus uideatur. 89
240
This is the ideal end—one shuts one’s eyes to this world and opens them to God’s. But this is not an experience reserved for those who die in the arena. And Augustine draws to a close by summarizing the single-minded devotion needed to obtain such an end: It is necessary to embrace these things in mind and thought, and to meditate on them day and night. If persecution should find such a soldier of God, the virtue ready for battle will not be able to be conquered. But if the summons should arrive beforehand, the prize will be given without delay, with God judging, to faith that was prepared for martyrdom.91 The devotion is the same, regardless of the actual means of death, and it is the devotion that receives the crown. It is here that Augustine brings in the modified Cyprianic saying, highlighting the ultimate rationale for appropriating so much of the earlier bishop’s text: “In persecution it is soldiering, in peace it is constancy, that is crowned.”92 This constancy, like the conscience something that can only truly be judged by God, is what makes a martyr. There is one aspect in which Augustine asserted the living martyrs differed from their slaughtered counterparts: they do not receive veneration as martyrs. This lack of commemoration makes clear that these living martyrs should not expect any recognition on earth, either in this lifetime or the next. While they will be martyrs, both in their own minds and as crowned by God, they will not receive the same earthly veneration or celebration as the martyrs whose feast days occasioned Augustine’s sermons. These are the “hidden martyrs” we saw above, the ones crowned in secret. On the one hand, Augustine urged the Christian who struggles against earthly temptations not to discount his own martyrdom (“Do not think that you are not a martyr”93). On the other hand, he cautioned this martyr not to expect his
91
Augustine, Sermo 303, 2 (PL 38:1395): haec oportet mente et cogitatione complecti, haec die ac nocte meditari. si talem persecutio inuenerit dei militem, uinci non poterit uirtus ad praelium prompta. uel si accersitio ante peruenerit; fidei, quae erat ad martyrium praeparata, sine damno temporis, merces deo iudice redditur. 92 Augustine, Sermo 303, 2 (PL 38:1395): in persecutione militia, in pace constantia coronatur. 93 Sermo 306E, 8 (Dolbeau 18, 215): Si ergo non consenseris, noli te existimare non martyrem.
241
own feast day: “Your feast day is not celebrated, but your crown is prepared.”94 This was important for several reasons. The first is that, while a martyrdom may have been earned, nothing in this life is ever, for Augustine, fixed, not even sanctity. So while death was not the sign of martyrdom in Augustine’s reckoning, it was the seal of martyrdom. Second, it prevented self-assurance and promoted humility. Third, reserving the veneration due the crown for after the martyr’s death echoed Cyprian’s anxieties about confessors being granted schism-inducing charismatic authority and being corrupted by excessively ambitious assessments of their own holiness.95 To assume one’s own holiness leads to bad behavior, either on one’s own part or by setting up a model (for instance by living with virgines subintroductae) that would cause others to stumble.96
Making Martyrs through Rhetoric?
In addition to the explicit arguments and assertions he makes about martyrdom, and in conjunction with his desire to champion the causes that underlie martyrial success, Augustine extends his pastoral mission through his rhetorical choices in ways somewhat similar to what we saw in Prudentius and Paulinus, particularly in the realms of apostrophe and ekphrasis. But because Augustine is so explicit in his definition of martyrdom and his calls for his parishioners to aspire to it, less of the burden of martyr-making lies in the rhetorical strategies he employs during his sermons than was the case for either of our poets. Furthermore, the
94
Sermo 306E, 8 (Dolbeau 18, 215-216): Non quidem celebratur sollemnitas tua, sed parata est corona tua. Eorum enim sollemnitas celebrari moris est, qui publice certauerunt. Quam multi martyres de lecto exierunt, et ab illa infirmitate uictores ad superna transierunt. Scias ergo temptari te, si quid tale pateris, si quid tale tibi suadetur; ibi opus est ut habeas animum martyris, quoniam spectat te qui fecit te, et adiuuat te qui uocauit te. Ibi est ut dicas illam sanctorum IIIum uocem: 'Potens est deus et de ista mortifera febre liberare me, sed et si non'. Certamen sit tibi incantator, quia cui loqueris non sit praeuaricator. Ita post haec uerba quod placuerit de te domino tuo fiet. Aut redderis uiuus, aut iungeris angelis. Ille faciet quod de te elegerit: tu ad utrumque esto paratus, si uis esse quadratus. 95 Cyprian, De Lapsis, 17-19 (PL 4:480A-482B). 96 Cyprian, Epistula 13 (PL 4:235A-240A).
242
form of the sermons, which may have been circulated for private use but whose readers would not likely have been intended to identify with the speaker, leaves fewer possibilities for martyrial re-enactment. Additionally, these sermons were given as addenda to the stories of martyrs, which the congregation would have heard read aloud only moments prior— recreating that lost intertext is not within our power. Finally, we know that these sermons were given extemporaneously, recorded primarily by designated but not infallible secretaries, edited after the fact by Augustine himself in several cases, and edited long afterwards by subsequent clerics in search of inspiration, and so our grasp on what the original rhetorical decisions might have been is occasionally tenuous.97 Nonetheless, there are repeated rhetorical choices to which we can point that indicate that Augustine engaged the full force of his rhetorical skill in order to persuade his audience of the reality of living martyrs and the doctrine of non poena sed causa. This was not a doctrine that could simply be asserted, or even one that Augustine could rely on logical argument to inculcate in his audience. It was a pivotal, urgent message that the preacher needed to argue persuasively and compellingly so that his congregation would be sure to adopt it wholeheartedly. Augustine’s sermons as a whole feature elements peculiar to the homiletic form, stylistic features that make the arguments intelligible and broadly palatable in an oral/aural context. As Vincent Hunink summarizes: In these sermons, Augustine employs a plain style of Latin proper to his purpose. Sentences are relatively short and display a syntax that is markedly less complex than in his other works. Much the same goes for word order and choice of vocabulary. The oral setting of the sermons also shows a certain degree of repetition, and often a
97
See Rebillard, “Sermones” in Augustine Through the Ages, 790-791 and Cardinal Michele Pellegrino, “Introduction,” in The Works of Saint Augustine, III/1:15-19.
243
relatively loose structure of the text, characterized at many places by associative reasoning and improvisation.98 The sermons dealing with living martyrdom and non poena sed causa are no exception, and so to highlight the ways that Augustine is being persuasive on this particular point, I will be adducing examples of a few of the more frequent techniques Augustine employs to make his case: repetition and parallelism, “improvisational” interruptions and exclamations that render the monologue dialogic, allusions and intertextual references, and ekphrasis. Augustine often used repetition to drive home his points and make them both memorable and influential. When he intoned: “Many, therefore, go to martyrdom on a sickbed: many indeed,99 Augustine began and ended with multi, signalling the point he was attempting to make, namely that this sort of martyrdom was so common that it deserved the same attention as more visible forms of martyrdom and that, because of this type of martyrdom, martyrdom was both accessible to more people and more ubiquitous than Augustine’s audience may have thought. Augustine’s triple repetition of potueris in his injunction to “preach Christ, therefore, wherever you can, to whomever you can, and however you can”100 serves a similar function, highlighting the repeated word and concept (“You can!”) and instilling the overall concept in his audience’s mind and practice. Augustine’s message is that the martyrial consciousness is totalizing and difficult to cultivate, but it is nonetheless possible. Parallelisms serve also to highlight the concepts Augustine wants his audience to absorb, but they have the additional impact of expanding the audience’s imaginary, establishing links between stories and concepts that can then prove useful to the community
98
Vincent Hunink, “Singing Together in Church: Augustine’s Psalm Against the Donatists,” in Sacred Words: Orality, Literacy, and Religion, edited by André Lardinois, Josine Blok, and M. G. M. Van Der Poel (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 389-390. 99 Augustine, Sermo 286, 7 (PL 38:1300): multi ergo ducunt martyrium in lecto: prorsus multi. 100 Augustine, Sermo 260E, 2 (MiAg 1, 503): praedicate ergo christum, ubi potueritis, quibus potueritis, quomodo potueritis.
244
as it tackles daily life. We saw such parallelism in the Susannah example, where Augustine invokes Joseph as a masculine parallel, even as Susannah is being called upon as a martyrial parallel and a parallel to anyone tempted to adultery. Within this conceptual parallel, Augustine uses repetitive grammatical parallels to aid in emphasis: On the one hand she had as false witnesses those very same men to whom she was unwilling to consent, lest she sin; on the other he has that woman, the very one to whom he did not consent.... She was freed, and he was freed... Thus they struggled to the point of blood—she against sin (that is, against adultery), and he against the same sin.101 The grammatical parallels highlight the conceptual parallels, helping the audience accept them more fully, remember them more clearly, and fold them into their moral makeup more thoroughly.102 We see a similar dynamic when Augustine is paralleling the Babylonian boys in the furnace to the Maccabean martyrs: “Ask about the fire: They did not suffer. Ask about the will: They were crowned.” 103 The parallelism here draws attention to the difference in the stories (and the difference in the audience’s expectations of the martyrs) but ultimately helps reconcile the two, since the operative distinction—whether they had the will to martyrdom— is the same, as is their reward. By expanding the repertoire of Christian martyrial comparanda, these conceptual parallels help make martyrdom seem more accessible to Augustine’s audience, while the grammatical parallels work to make those conceptual parallels even more memorable.
101
Augustine, Sermo 318, 2 (PL 38:1439): et illa habuit falsos testes eos ipsos, quibus consentire noluit, ne peccaret; et ille eam ipsam, cui noluit consentire... liberatur illa, liberatur et ille.... et illa ergo contra peccatum, id est contra adulterium, et ille contra tale peccatum, usque ad sanguinem certauerunt. 102 Stanley P. Rosenberg, “Orality, Textuality, and the Memory of the Congregation in Augustine’s Sermons,” in Studia Patristica XLIX: Papers Presented at the Fifteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2007: St. Augustine and his Opponents, edited by J. Baun, A. Cameron, M. Edwards, and M. Vinzent (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 173-174. 103 Augustine, Sermo 296, 5 (PL 38:1355): interroga ignes, passi non sunt; interroga uoluntatem, coronati sunt.
245
Allusions and intertexts also expand the imaginative tools Augustine’s audience will have to hand when they pursue their own martyrdoms by adhering to divine causae. We have already seen how heavily Augustine relies on Psalm 43 and 1 Corinthians 13 to establish non poena sed causa. This is not unusual—his sermons are steeped in such references. But there is no lessening of allusion and intertext in these martyrial arguments. Augustine used these allusions and intertexts as frequently here as elsewhere—non poena sed causa was just as dependent upon allusive support as Augustine’s doctrines on faith, grace, and church unity. Meanwhile, Augustine relies unusually heavily on dialogic rhetorical constructions in these explications and illustrations of non poena sed causa. For example, as we saw with his gloss of the Babylonian martyrs’ words to Nebuchadnezzar and with his reiteration of Paul’s emphasis on caritas, Augustine would interrupt his readings of biblical quotations to comment on them to his audience, explicitly drawing them in to his reading, forcing them to focus on the same points that he was focusing on: “God is powerful enough,” they said, to pluck us from your hands: but if not’—there are the resolved chests, there is the stable faith, there the unshaken courage, there the sure victory—‘But if not, let it be known to you, king, that we do not worship the statue which you have set up. 104 “If I give,” as Paul says, “all my possessions to the poor, and hand over my body so that I might burn”—There are the martyrs! But look what follows: “But if I do not have love, it is of no use to me.”105 Not only is this self-interruption pedagogically effective as a pace-changer, it demands that the audience come along with Augustine. It reminds them that they are a necessary part of his oratory, that they themselves, not just him, must be biblical readers, drawing knowledge from
104
Augustine, Sermo 296, 5 (PL 38:1355): potens est deus, dixerunt, eruere nos de manibus tuis: sed et si non - ibi sunt certa pectora, ibi stabilis fides, ibi inconcussa uirtus, ibi secura uictoria - sed et si non, notum tibi sit, rex, quia statuam quam statuisti non adoramus. 105 Augustine, Sermo 138, 2 (PL 38:764): si distribuero, inquit, omnia mea pauperibus, et tradidero corpus meum ut ardeam. iam ipsi sunt. sed uide quid sequitur: charitatem autem non habeam, nihil mihi prodest. ecce uenitur ad passionem, ecce uenitur et ad sanguinis fusionem, uenitur et ad corporis incensionem: et tamen nihil prodest, quia charitas deest. adde charitatem, prosunt omnia: detrahe charitatem, nihil prosunt caetera.
246
scripture. It’s not enough for Augustine to tell them what to do, they need to see it for themselves. In similar fashion, Augustine frequently interrupts himself to answer the questions he anticipates his audience having. Granted, this is a controlled “dialogue,” so Augustine may have been attempting to forestall other questions rather than to address his audience’s accurately anticipated concerns.106 Nonetheless, the effect is to produce a multivocal text and the illusion of participation, both of which would have made these arguments more compelling to a congregation. To draw some examples from passages we have already seen: They themselves are perfect, who struggled against sin up to the shedding of blood. What is “against sin”? Against the great sin: against denying Christ.107 Temptations do not stop. Fight, and the crown is prepared for you. When? Look, so that I might recount...108 Why have we said these things, brothers?109 These disruptive questions give the impression of an audience-inclusive dialogue, but in fact help Augustine clarify the points he is himself trying to make, offering signposts to his audience about why he is progressing in the pattern he is. This courtesy is not one that Augustine always reverts to—he is not universally concerned with keeping his audience so focused and entertained.110 Also contributing to the dialogic feel of the sermons are the exclamations and rhetorical questions Augustine inserts into his sermons. The questions provide invitations for
106
Actually not an unusual tactic for Augustine: his letter (194) to Sixtus (PL 33:874-891; PLS 2, 359) is rife with answers to questions that skirt the real qualms his opponents had about the possibility of free will. 107 Augustine, Sermo 318, 2 (PL 38:1439): ipsi sunt perfecti, qui aduersus peccatum usque ad sanguinem certauerunt. quid est aduersus peccatum? aduersus magnum peccatum: aduersus negationem christi. 108 Augustine, Sermo 328, 8 (RBen 51, 19): non cessant tentationes. pugna et corona parata est. quando forte? ecce, ut aliquid commemorem. 109 Augustine, Sermo 4, 37 (PL 38:52): quare ista diximus, fratres? 110 See, for example, his January 404 three-hour “filibuster” to prevent his congregation from participating in the pagan festival ongoing at Carthage (Sermo 198 [Dolbeau 26]), labeled as such by Hill, Works of Saint Augustine, III/11:229.
247
engagement and calls to specific answers: “Will we deny that they are martyrs, because the flame did not burn them?”111 “No!” the audience would supply, vocally or mentally. “Aren’t martyrs witnesses of Christ, and don’t they offer testimony to the truth?112 “Yes!” the audience would agree, responding to the bishop’s nonne. The exclamations, on the other hand, invite the audience to mirror Augustine’s emotions, rather than supply their own: What chains, what squalor, what prisons, what tortures, what flames, what beasts, what types of death!113 Many have been crowned in the amphitheater, fighting the beasts: many are crowned, conquering the devil in their beds. They seem as if they cannot move, and within the heart they have such bravery! They fight such a battle!114 In both cases, Augustine models for the audience the appropriate emotion and evaluation. Augustine reaches dialogic heights with his example of the sickbed martyr in his 397 sermon on Quadratus, when he places the exemplum in the second-person: “You are feverish, you struggle. You are lying in bed, and you are an athlete. You are sick, and you fight, and you conquer.” 115 He then adds another interlocutor, a tempter, who promises health through incantations and amulets; next he adds a chorus of testimonials from others healed or witness to healings.116 Against all this, Augustine reminds his audience members, “If you do not
111
Augustine, Sermo 296, 5 (PL 38:1355): negabimus eos martyres, quia eos flamma urere non potuit? Augustine, Sermo 128, 3 (PL 38:714): martyres nonne testes sunt christi, et testimonium perhibent ueritati? 113 Augustine, Sermo 113A, 4 (MiAg 1, 145): quas catenas, quos squalores, quos carceres, quos cruciatus, quas flammas, quas bestias, quae genera mortis. 114 Augustine, Sermo 4, 36 (PL 38:52): Multi coronati sunt in amphitheatro pugnantes ad bestias: multi in lecto vincentes diabolum coronantur: videntur non se movere posse, et intus in corde tantas vires habent, tantam pugnam exercent. 115 Augustine, Sermo 306E, 7 (Dolbeau 2, 214): ... febris, et certas. In lecto es, et athleta es. Infirmus es, et pugnas, et uincis. 116 Augustine, Sermo 306E, 7 (Dolbeau 2, 215): Quid si enim febrienti et in periculo mortis constituto aduenit aliquis qui se promittat quibusdam incantationibus pellere febrem tuam, atque illae incantationes sint illicitae, diabolicae, detestandae atque anathemandae, deinde tibi ab eo qui hoc suadet, et eorum qui sic sanati sunt multa proponantur exempla et dicatur tibi: 'Ille cum hoc haberet, fecit ei, incantauit ei, lustrauit eum, adfuit ei, et sanus est factus. Quaere ab illo, interroga illum, audi illum'. Dicant etiam illi: 'Vere factum est, paene mortui eramus, et sic liberati sumus, fiatque tibi fides quod si illam incantationem admiseris, illico ab illa peste liberaberis'. 112
248
consent, will you not be a martyr?117 Not only is Augustine engaging his audience as a partner in his dialogue, he is asserting his audience’s role in further dialogue, outside the context of the sermon and the feast day. Although the bishop is firmly in control, the audience member is the hero of his own martyrdom drama, and Augustine is exerting his oratorical power to make them so. The high concentration of these dialogic moves within Augustine’s treatments of non poena sed causa is, to my mind, an indication that Augustine anticipated more objections and more skepticism on this point than on others. It required more coaching, more persuasion, and was, ultimately, worth Augustine’s extra effort to “sell.” We can see Augustine’s exertions at work in his argument for non poena sed causa during his sermon on Utica’s massa candida: It is not, therefore, within the power of man [to determine] by what exit he will end this life: but it is in the power of man [to determine] how he lives, so that he ends his life secure. Nor would even this have been in his power, unless the Lord had granted the power to become sons of God. But to whom [did God grant this power]? To those who believe in his name. This is the primary cause of the martyrs, this is the white mass of the martyrs. If the cause is white, the mass is white.118 Here we see parallelism (in hominis potestate), repetition (with causa, martyrum, and candida), and interruptive question (sed quibus?) all employed to make non poena sed causa persuasive. Finally, Augustine uses ekphraseis to make the concept of living martyrdom compelling. In an undatable sermon on unknown martyrs, Augustine recounts the trials of a sickbed martyr:
117
Augustine, Sermo 306E, 7 (Dolbeau 2, 215): Si non consentias, nonne martyr eris...? Augustine, Sermo 306, 2 (PL 38:1400-1401): non est igitur in hominis potestate quo exitu hanc uitam finiat: sed est in hominis potestate quomodo uiuat, ut uitam securus finiat. neque hoc in potestate esset, nisi dedisset dominus potestatem filios dei fieri. sed quibus? credentibus in nomine eius. haec est prima martyrum causa, haec est candida martyrum massa. si causa candida, et massa candida. 118
249
There are, therefore, men (from the number of the sons of men who hope under the shelter of God’s wings) who wrestle on their sickbeds and conquer, who conquer and are crowned. [There are] men, however, who are not sons of man, but who reach for human things, because they only care for this health which, when it has passed, they think nothing will follow; when this health of theirs begins to be endangered (even though they are called Christians!) they seek soothsayers, they send for astrologers, they hang illicit remedies around their necks. They desire health and bind their necks; they bind the neck of the exterior man and suffocate the throat of the interior man. He, however, who says: “I will not do it”—with a friend suggesting it, even a muttering neighbor or nearby handmaiden, sometimes even his own lifelong nurse— who says, “I will not do it, I am a Christian! God prohibits this. They are sacraments of demons. Hear the apostle: ‘Do not become companions of demons,’” let him be answered by that one who suggests: “Do it and you will be healthy! That fellow and that other fellow did it. What? Are they not Christians? Are they not faithful? Do they not go to Church? And nonetheless they did this and they are healthy. That one did it and he was immediately healed. Do you not know him? Because he is a Christian, a faithful one. Look, he did it and he’s healthy. That sick man, however, because he does not love the health common to men and beasts, says: “If that one was saved in such a way, I do not want to be saved in that way. For he is able to save me, to whom it was said: ‘men and beasts you will save, Lord, just as you, God, have multiplied your mercies.’” You see the athlete of God! You hear the athlete of Christ! O man, sick and healthy. O [you who are] weak and strong! O [you who are] lying in bed and reigning in heaven!119 With this vivid, dramatic ekphrasis, Augustine brings the struggle of the sickbed martyr before the eyes of his congregation, inviting them to partake in the scene unfolding before their eyes, to see and hear the martyr struggling. By giving this example for his audience to see, to hear re-enacted, Augustine is creating a spectacle for them to see, much as he claims
119
Augustine, Sermo 335D, 3 (PLS 2, 778): sunt ergo homines de isto numero hominum sperantium sub tegmine alarum dei qui in lecto suo luctantur et uincunt, uincunt et coronantur. homines autem pertinentes ad hominem, non filii hominis, quia non curant nisi istam salutem quam, cum transierit, nullam existimant secuturam, quando eis coeperit salus ista periclitari, etiam si christiani uocentur, sortilegos quaerunt, ad mathematicos mittunt, remedia inlicita collo suo suspendunt. salutem desiderant et collum sibi ligant, ceruicem exterioris hominis ligant et guttur interioris suffocant. qui autem dicit: non facio - suggerente amico, et mussitante uicino aut uicina ancilla, aliquando et dematricula ei - qui dicit: non facio: christianus sum; deus prohibet hoc; sacramenta sunt daemonum; audi apostolum: nolo uos socios fieri daemoniorum, respondetur illi ab illo qui suggerit: fac et sanus eris; ille et ille fecerunt. quid? non sunt christiani? non sunt fideles? non ad ecclesiam currunt? et tamen fecerunt et sani sunt. ille fecit et continuo sanatus est. illum non nosti quia christianus est, fidelis? ecce fecit et sanus est. ille autem aeger, quia non amat salutem hominibus iumentis que communem, dicit: si ille inde saluus factus est, ego inde saluus fieri nolo. ille enim me saluum facere potest cui dictum est: homines et iumenta saluos facies domine sicut multiplicasti misericordias tuas deus - uides athletam dei, audis athletam christi. o uirum aegrum et sanum. o infirmum et fortem. o in lecto iacentem et in caelo regnantem.
250
the martyr acta read before the sermons were meant to do. Augustine explicitly configured those acta as visual spectacles, akin to visiting the arena.120 As Alan Dearn summarizes: In a sense therefore, Augustine makes his audience into witnesses of the martyr’s passio. By doing this, he seeks to collapse the time that separates his congregation from the martyrs, in order to present the martyrs as capable of emulation. The Passio Cassiani had told the story of an exceptor witnessing the trial of Marcellus, and imitating him to the point of his own martyrdom. Augustine seeks to place his audience in an analogous position, where they will not simply celebrate the martyrs, but imitate them. By doing so, he also seeks to show that the imitation of Christ is possible for all, because the martyrs have demonstrated this to be the case. Indeed, a metaphor he uses several times is that of the path of the Lord, once narrow and thorny, worn smooth by the passage of the apostles and martyrs.121 Ekphrasis leads to a collapse in time and space whose ultimate aim is to encourage imitation of the martyrs. Now, by depicting the acta of his sickbed martyr in this ekphrasis, Augustine is adding his spectacle to that of the martyrs that his parishioners had come together to celebrate, with the same imitative goal. Again, Augustine is employing the full force of his rhetorical skill to convince his congregation that living martyrdom is not only real but accessible.
CONCLUSION
Augustine argued, with full ideological and rhetorical investment, that his audiences could aspire to martyrdom, but did not need to aspire to death. All they needed to do was ensure that their causes were true and within the Catholic Church, and to hold fast to them through constant interior devotion to God. Should they succeed, they would be martyrs, obtaining all the heavenly, if not the earthly, accolades due the soldiers of God. Non poena sed causa refocused martyrdom around the interior motivations of the Christian, and obviated the need for any physically-inflicted punishment at all.
120 121
See Augustine, Sermones 280, 1; 274, 1; 275, 1; 277A, 1; 300, 1; 301, 1; and 301A, 7 Dearn, “Polemical Use of the Past,” 314. Augustine, Sermones 286.2; 295.8; and 297.1.
251
None of this should be news. In fact, every example of non poena sed causa or martyrdom without death that I have adduced has been read (and most of them have been cited) by previous scholars. Even the idea that Augustine’s definition of martyrdom did not center on death is a commonplace, as we saw above while discussing den Boeft and Straw. To add a further example: T. J. Van Bavel discusses non poena sed causa extensively, asking what it means to die for justice or for truth. But he never gets past death, failing to discuss any of the martyrs who do not die, and insisting that there must be a poena and that it must be death.122 Van Bavel thus regards non poena sed causa as an additional condition that a death has to meet in order for the death to be classified as martyrdom. This despite referencing Wojciech Lazewski’s (widely ignored) 1987 dissertation, “La Sentenza Agostiniana Martyrem Facit Non Poena Sed Causa,” in which Lazewski came to the conclusion that, for Augustine, martyrdom was achievable without death: Thus, despite the end of pagan persecution, the Christian could still be the special witness of Christ if he endeavored to preserve all these values for which the martyrs fought. If the Christian is ready to sacrifice his life rather than betray Christ, his concern with preserving the 'good cause' has the value of the testimony given by the martyrs.123 Lazewski not only identified the equality of value for martyrdoms based on causa rather than on outcome, he also asserted that this sentenza led Augustine to a deepening of his thought on the nature of martyrdom more generally,124 that it led him to emphasize imitation of cause rather than death,125 and that he supported this call to imitation with rhetorical engagement
122
Van Bavel, “Cult of Martyrs in Augustine,” 357-358. Pontifical Lateran University, 414-415: “Così, nonostante la fine delle persecuzioni pagane, il cristiano può rimanere il particolare testimone di Cristo quando si sforza di conservare tutti questi valori per i quali hanno combattuto i martiri. Se il cristiano è pronto a sacrificare la sua vita anzichè tradire Cristo, la sua sollecitudine per conservare la 'buona causa' ha il valore della testimonia data dai martiri.” 124 Lazewski, “Sentenza Agostiniana,” 414: “l'occasione per un approfondimento del pensiero sulla natura del vero martirio.” 125 Lazewski, “Sentenza Agostiniana,” 391: “Agostino mette in rilievo che imitare i martiri significa realizzare, nella vita del cristiano, le stesse componenti della 'causa' per le quali quei testimoni di Cristo hanno subito la morte." 123
252
designed to make martyrdom accessible to his parishioners.126 Because of the enduring assumption that death is necessary for martyrdom, all that van Bavel takes from Lazewski is the enumeration of qualifying causae; death remains, for van Bavel, the true price of martyrdom. I am not suggesting that we discount death as a criterion for martyrdom—Augustine clearly thought it important, even if it was not necessary. By not including the living martyrdoms in our calculations, however, we miss a broad swathe of what Augustine sought to accomplish with his sermons: the martyrial consciousness he sought to inculcate in his audience by using non poena sed causa. To use a color-wheel analogy: if we assign martyrdom by death the color red and martyrdom without death the color blue, all of our current understandings of non poena sed causa are a brilliant and unmottled red. The blue instances disappear; they do not change the color of our non poena sed causa. By eliding Augustine’s assertions of living martyrdom with martyrdom by death, by rounding them up to “real” martyrdom, our picture of non poena sed causa has remained blood-red, rather than the purple it ought to be. By attending to the reality of martyrdom without death in Augustine’s sermons, by following Augustine in taking non poena sed causa to its logical extreme, we see that non poena sed causa is not an addition to or a qualification of an inherited treatment of martyrdom. It recharacterizes martyrdom for all martyrs, even those who die as part of their witness, and it fuels a martyrdom-based consciousness and worldview among Augustine’s listeners—it is a sweeping and pastorally significant rethinking of martyrdom.
126
Lazewski, “Sentenza Agostiniana,” 414: “Agostino pastore propone ai fedeli, nelle sue prediche, un non convenzionale modo di partecipare alle feste dei martiri. Si tratta di una riscoperta della natura del vero martirio, fatta con gli occhi della fede. La lettura degli Atti dei martiri diventa lo spettacolo cristiano che coinvolge lo spettatore in modo esistenziale. La scelta della 'buona causa' e la vita concorde con essa, diventano i frutti di questa particolare partecipazione allo spettacolo del martirio.”
253
CONCLUSION HISTORY, HISTORIOGRAPHY, AND POWER
In the preceding chapters, I have uncovered and elaborated the particular constructions of martyrdom used by Prudentius, Paulinus, and Augustine and the uses to which each author put those constructions. Each rejected death as the primary criterion for martyrdom; each employed his construction of martyrdom to promote the idea that martyrdom was still a possibility for Christians after the age of persecution; each used rhetoric in some fashion to make that martyrdom more accessible to his contemporaries. In Chapters 1 and 2, I demonstrated that Prudentius used his martyrological poetry to configure a martyrdom that was based on witness, not on death, even for those martyrs whose stories would otherwise have seemed to fit the traditional, death-driven definition of martyrdom: even the martyrs’ requests for death underscored the role of witness, as it is their parrhesia and their persuasive power that are truly on display. Witnesses—those who observe, announce, and refigure the truth—take the place of the dead as exemplars of martyrdom, and witness becomes the new focal point of martyrial experience. By involving his readers in his martyrologies through rhetoric, Prudentius makes them witnesses, too—or at least invites them to become, like the mother of Peristephanon 10, martyrs without physically-inflicted suffering. Prudentius’s method for advocating this new martyrdom is sophisticated and subtle, ultimately only finding purchase in readers who not only possessed the literary-cultural fluency to understand his machinations but who also would be willing to take the same heroic typological journey as had the child martyr’s mother. Paulinus, too, provided the tools necessary for his contemporaries to become martyrs without dying and, again like Prudentius, used poetry as a vehicle to advocate continued 254
martyrdom. In Chapter 3, I explored how Paulinus characterized Felix, Victricius, and Maximus as martyrs, determining both how he defended his constructions (he pointed to their power, their recognition by God, and their typological connections to Christ) and how he thought these men had earned their title (through an embodied orientation to God). In Chapter 4, I showed how Paulinus attempted to extend that martyrdom to his audience by instilling in them an imitative ethic—a project he pursued through exhortations to imitation, assertions of universal principles, and rhetorical manipulation of his audience. He sought to encourage his listeners to imitate Felix, Victricius, and Maximus in an embodied orientation to God that would constitute martyrdom. Finally, in Chapter 5, I established that Augustine likewise rejected death as a requirement for martyrdom and that he actively and explicitly urged his parishioners to become martyrs themselves by imitating the martyrs’ adherence to their causae, without concern for consequences. He employed an array of rhetorical techniques to make his case more persuasive, though he did not—perhaps because of the homiletic genre or perhaps because of his overarching understanding of the operation of grace—use the same level of subtlety or the same types of audience engagement that Paulinus and Prudentius brought to bear in their poetry. In consequence, however, his exhortations were plainer and more egalitarian, accessible (in concept, at least) to all who heard his preaching. Despite sharing a rejection of death as a requirement for martyrdom and an interest in helping their contemporaries achieve their own martyrdoms, Prudentius, Paulinus, and Augustine did not have wholly homogenous ideologies of martyrdom. They disagreed in emphasis—witness, for example, was important for Augustine and Paulinus but was not the overriding determinant that it is for Prudentius. And Augustine’s emphasis on intent alone stands in tension with Paulinus’s desire for embodiment and Prudentius’s need for witness and acknowledgement. 255
To highlight the intersections and divergences among these three constructions of martyrdom, it is helpful, I think, to ponder what each author’s judgment of the others’ martyrs might have been. What, for instance, would Prudentius and Paulinus make of Augustine’s sickbed martyr? Prudentius would probably not have recognized the sickbed martyr as a martyr, because his struggle and performance of martyrdom would not have been witnessed or recognized by anyone but God. For Prudentius, the communicative aspect of martyrdom is crucial. Paulinus would likely have agreed with Augustine, since God’s witness is all that matters and he believes in the primacy of will—the sickbed martyr is an excellent example of an embodied orientation toward God. What about the mother in Peristephanon 10? We see the fruits of her rethinking of martyrdom, we see that she is wearing “Christcolored glasses,” but we do not have access to her inner monologue, except to assume that her instructions to her son (to make the desire to see Christ the “one fire that burns” in his “soul and marrow”1) are ones that she herself follows. If we assume that, then we can state with confidence that both Paulinus and Augustine would have recognized her as a martyr. But it is significant that Prudentius does not seem to see a distinction between interior and exterior—the mother’s interpretation is so all-encompassing that her motivation, commitment, and will have been entirely fused with her performance of her interpretation. Turning to Paulinus’s audience members and felices (looking to where they overlap), we can say with some confidence that Prudentius would have recognized them as martyrs, while Augustine would not. That their imitation was so successful that it resulted in an identification through which others could see Felix (and consequently Christ) would have made them martyrs in Prudentius’s reckoning, while Augustine would not identify them as martyrs because, first, they are still alive and not eligible for veneration and, second, because we all we have to go
1
Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.731-5 (CCSL 126, 355): Venies ad illud mox fluentum, si modo / animo ac medullis solus ardor aestuet / uidere Christum, quod semel potum adfatim / sic sedat omnem pectoris flagrantiam / vita ut beata iam sitire nesciat.
256
on is their presentation as martyrs. Augustine would concede that the felices and audience members could be martyrs, but would be wary of saying that they are. Paulinus, by contrast, feels perfectly comfortable telling Victricius that he is a living martyr. The distinctions between these three accounts of martyrdom may seem minor, but they are important, given that each lay at the center of an image that was utilized for selffashioning by their communities, or which was at least intended to be used in such a manner. They are thus of historical importance, giving us better access into the spirituality of these authors’ intended reception communities and reiterating the sheer variety of ways that martyrdom has been conceived in Christian history, even within “mainstream” orthodox Christianity, and even within the subset of Christian thinkers who claimed that martyrdom did not require death. These differences thus highlight the conceptual breadth of what martyrdom can mean and also the historical contingency of the term. This is the historical corrective I have sought to make with this dissertation. But this historical corrective is only possible if we adopt the historiographical and scholarly corrective I noted in the Introduction: redefining martyrdom so that our definition does not hinge on death. Drawing from the treatments of martyrdom found in Prudentius, Paulinus, and Augustine, I defined a martyr as “an individual who, by virtue of suffering, willingness to suffer, mimetic identification with an exemplary sufferer, and/or death, is employed by an author or community to serve as a witness to some communally accessible truth,” and martyrdom as the way that an author configures his or her subject as witnessing to a communally accessible truth. Though it is drawn from their work, this definition would not be familiar or acceptable to Prudentius, Paulinus, and Augustine, and it is not intended to supplant their own definitions. Rather, it is a means of helping us to see their martyrs more clearly, of enabling a deeper consideration of their constructions of martyrdom, of better accessing what their own definitions are, so that, for example, when the figure of the martyr 257
appears without the explicit label attached, we can still recognize the full ramifications of the images and ideas introduced. And it can do the same for other treatments of martyrdom, helping us both to see what is actually going on in the texts we are investigating and to evaluate what we discover in comparison to and conversation with other instances of martyrdom across a wide variety of texts and contexts. In other words: were we to look for martyrs only where we saw death, we would not be able to see all the other martyrs that our authors have created—the child martyr’s mother, the felices and pilgrims to Nola, the sickbed martyrs. And we could not acknowledge the martyrs our authors sought to make out of their reading audiences, listening audiences, and parishioners. We need to change how we define martyrdom, so that we do not dismiss our subjects’ views, and so that we do not miss the work our subjects are attempting to accomplish. Which brings me to a final “corrective,” namely, that we need to recognize the full power of martyrdom discourse. Making martyrs has consequences. When martyrologists argue for their martyrs, they are doing so for a reason, pointing toward a communallyaccessible truth in order to edify and strengthen their communities, and perhaps even to spur them to some action, imitative or not. Making martyrs of your audience likewise has consequences, and not solely for the individuals who are able to become martyrs themselves. The Christian who succeeds in imitating the orientation to God that Paulinus advocates will not only enable his own salvation, he will affect those around him—by leaving his family, forfeiting his property, “harmonizing” with Paulinus’s verses, or otherwise showcasing his devotion. Imitation was, after all, transformational in Paulinus’s reckoning. Augustine’s martyrs, committed to divine causae, may not be recognizable to their peers as martyrs, but their daily devotion, quiet though it might be, would color their interactions with others. And Prudentius’s active reader turned martyr will, through her totalizing typological interpretation, 258
fundamentally change her mode of interacting with the world, ultimately refiguring for others what she herself has witnessed. Cultivating these martyrial worldviews in individuals, then, would have led to broader shifts in the late antique episteme, and could even have laid the groundwork for Christianization, which required the construction of a worldview capable of adapting to transformations of the physical, political, and social landscape. Certainly the worldviews that Prudentius, Paulinus, and Augustine posited were adaptable, capable of surviving any change in external circumstance. Prudentius’s worldview allowed any and every experience to be typologically linked to Christ, and we saw how Paulinus and Augustine both advocated their worldviews in times of social, political, and military upheaval. Whether and to what extent these authors were successful is hard to gauge, but, ultimately, it does not matter—the very fact that they attempted to cultivate these sorts of worldviews is evidence of their possibility in late antiquity, and thus, of their possibility of success.2 Scholars, then, need to recognize that martyrdom was a potent, potentially culturallydeterminative discourse in late antiquity. But we also need to recognize that the power of martyrial discourse, its potential as a driver of cultural, societal, and religious change, did not end in late antiquity. It is an inherent feature of any discourse that hinges on attempting to influence a community; wielding witness, that is, verbalizing and imaging that communallyaccessible truth, is a powerful thing. Therefore we, as scholars and citizens, must recognize the discourse and its potential effects. Doing so will help us appreciate better the rhetorical and persuasive brilliance of our subjects as well as their full ideological commitments, and it
2
For a discussion of moments where rhetoric fails to have the intended effect, see Theodore S. DeBruyn, “Ambivalence Within a Totalizing Discourse: Augustine’s Sermons on the Sack of Rome,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 1, no. 4 (1993). Augustine’s failure to persuade his audience of his interpretation of the sack highlights the reality that rhetorical prowess was no guarantee of success in worldview construction. Nonetheless, pace DeBruyn, partial success is not total failure: even moderate success would have had a cultural impact.
259
will also give us the time and the tools to respond to martyrdom’s deployment if necessary. We can identify and demystify the discourse when it becomes part of a potentially genocidal nationalist program (for instance in Slobodan Milošević’s infamous speech at Gazimestan on June 28, 1989, the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo),3 or we can acknowledge and strategize around its deployment in a political context (for instance in the crisis surrounding the 2013 government shutdown).4 But first, we must recognize it, and it is my hope that this dissertation has contributed to our ability to do so.
3
Standing on the site of the battle where the “Christ-Prince” Lazar had been killed by the Muslim Ottomans, Milošević gave a speech to an estimated one million assembled Serbs outlining the Serbian destiny within Yugoslavia and Europe. The festivities were accompanied by an unprecedented translation and unveiling of Lazar’s relics as well as a visual program of emblems, symbols, and images (e.g. Lazar and Milošević side-by-side on picket signs) that stoked Serb religious nationalism. Milošević mimetically identified himself and the entire Serb nationality with exemplary sufferers (Christ and Lazar) to serve as witness to the higher truth of Serb supremacy. While the speech contained nods to religious tolerance and interethnic unity, the overarching message was one of Serb exceptionalism and supremacy, including a call for his contemporaries to mimic Lazar and the Serb soldiers of 1389: “Six centuries later, now, we are being again engaged in battles and are facing battles. They are not armed battles, although such things cannot be excluded yet. However, regardless of what kind of battles they are, they cannot be won without resolve, bravery, and sacrifice, without the noble qualities that were present here in the field of Kosovo in the days past. Our chief battle now concerns implementing the economic, political, cultural, and general social prosperity... For this battle, we certainly need heroism, of course of a somewhat different kind, but that courage without which nothing serious and great can be achieved remains unchanged and remains urgently necessary” (stable url at: http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/spch-kosovo1989.htm). Connecting past and present, Milošević implicitly called his audience to a battle of their own, against their very own Muslim “invaders”—the Kosovars and Bosniaks who were winning the demographic “war” and encroaching on Serbian economic and intellectual privilege. For a fuller discussion of the spectacle, see Michael A. Sells, “Christ Killer, Kremlin, Contagion” in The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy, edited by Michael A. Sells and Emran Qureshi (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 355359. Milošević’s speech called for a martyrdom to match Lazar’s, in battle against the Muslim invaders. Though the terminology of martyrdom does not appear, identifying this as the discourse in play would have helped observers understand what Milošević was really goading his listeners to do, and allowed them to anticipate the danger, which was roundly disbelieved, even by the Bosnian Muslims who soon became the Serbs’ targets (See Norman Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of “Ethnic Cleansing” [College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1995], 107-122). 4 Pointing to contemporary American politics, Candida Moss notes the damage that a martyr’s mentality can do to civil discourse: “There can be no compromise and no common ground... Framed by the myth that we are persecuted, dialogue is not only impossible, it is undesirable” (Moss, Myth of Persecution, 255-256). Moss calls for an end to this mentality, but discarding the martyr’s mentality would only be another form of compromise to be rejected. What would be more useful would be to recognize that this is happening as it is happening, so that, for example, instead of identifying the obstructionist Republicans of 2013 as an inexplicable “suicide caucus” (ala Charles Krauthammer: http://mediamatters.org/video/2013/09/12/suicide-caucus-krauthammer-criticizes-gop-push/195865), we could identify them as a “martyrdom caucus,” since they sought to promote a communally-accessible truth through their performance of rebellion and potential suffering. With that knowledge, their opponents might focus instead on removing the opportunity for martyrdom—in the 2013 government shutdown, for example, which centered on an attempt by the “martyrdom caucus” to defund the Affordable Care Act, opponents of
260
the shutdown could have removed the opportunity for martyrdom either by capitulating (at least in part, by delaying the individual mandate during negotiations on the debt ceiling) or by coming up with a martyr of their own, muddying the waters, so to speak, so that the reputational entrepreneurs working to make the obstructionists into martyrs would have a more difficult job. The former would merely have delayed the fight (removing the scaffolding for a few months), but the latter was entirely within reach and, as Henry J. Aaron suggested in an Op-Ed for the New York Times, would have been ultimately beneficial to democracy: were Barack Obama to have disregarded the debt ceiling altogether (and face censure and possible impeachment), he would have positioned himself to become a martyr for the left (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/opinion/obama-should-ignore-the-debt-ceiling.html?_r=0).
261
WORKS CITED
Pre-Modern Works Acts of Paul and Thecla. In Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha. Edited by R. Lipsius and M. Bonnet. Leipzig, 1891. Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, Blackfriars Edition, v. 42. London, 1966. Asterius of Amasea. Ekphrasis on Saint Euphemia. Edited by François Halkin, in Euphémie de Chalcédoine: Légendes Byzantines. Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1965. Augustine of Hippo. Confessiones. Edited by Pius Knöll, CSEL 33. Vienna: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1896. Augustine of Hippo. Vingt-six Sermons au Peuple d'Afrique. François Dolbeau ed. Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Antiquité 147. Paris: Institut d'Études Augustiniennes, 1996. Augustine of Hippo. Sermones. PL 38-39; PLS 2. Augustine of Hippo. Sermones. In Miscellanea Agostiniana, volumes 1-2. Rome: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1930-1931. Augustine of Hippo. Sermo 328. Edited by C. Lambot in Revue Bénedictine 51 (1932):15-20. [Cicero]. Ad C. Herennium De Ratione Dicendi (Rhetorica ad Herennium). Translated and edited by Harry Caplan, LCL 403. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954. Cyprian of Carthage. Opera I. Edited by R. Weber and M. Bévenot, in Sancti Cypriani Episcopi Opera, 3A, CCSL. Turnhout: Brepols, 1972. Cyprian of Carthage. Epistulae. Edited by G. F. Diercks, in Sancti Cypriani Episcopi Opera, 3B, CCSL. Turnhout: Brepols, 1994. Donne, John. Pseudo-Martyr. Delmar, N.Y., Scholar's Facsimiles & Reprints, 1974. Gregory the Great. Dialogi. Edited by A. de Vogüé, SC 260 and 265, 1979. Gregory of Tours. In Gloria Confessorum. Edited by B. Krusch, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 1-2 (1885): 294-370 (744-820). Gregory of Tours. In Gloria Martyrum. Edited by B. Krusch, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 1-2 (1885): 34-111 (484-561). Jerome of Stridon. Epistulae. Edited by I. Hilberg, CSEL 54-56. Vienna: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996). 262
Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne. Musurillo 5. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. Martyrdom of Polycarp. Musurillo 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. Mirk, John. Mirk’s Festial: A Collection of Homilies, ed. Theodor Erbe, Early English Text Society, extra series 96 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., for the Early English Text Society, 1905). Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis. Musurillo 8. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. Paulinus of Nola. Carmina. Edited by W. Hartel, CSEL 30. Vienna: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1894. Paulinus of Nola. Epistulae. Edited by W. Hartel, CSEL 29. Vienna: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1894. Prudentius. Aurelii Prudentii Clementis Carmina. Edited by Maurice Cunningham, CCSL 126. Turnhout: Brepols, 1966. Quintilian. Institutions. ed. L. Radermacher, Institutionis Oratoriae Libri XII, 2 vols. Leipzig: Teubner, 1971. Sulpicius Severus. Opera. Edited by C. Halm, CSEL 1. Vienna: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1866 Uranius. De Obitu Sancti Paulini. PL 53:859-866. Vetus Latina (Italica). Edited by Pierre Sabatier, in Bibliorum sacrorum latinae versiones antiquae seu Vetus italica, et caeterae quaecunque in codicibus Mss. et antiquorum libris reperiri potuerunt, quae cum vulgata latina, et cum textu graeco comparantur: accedunt praefationes, observationes, ac notae, indexque novus ad vulgatam e regione editam, idemque locupletissimus. Remis: Reginald Florentian, 1743. Vetus Latina (Hispanica). Edited by Teófilo Ayuso Marizuela, in La Vetus Latina Hispana: origen, dependencia, derivaciones, valor e influjo universal : reconstrucción, sistematización y análisis de sus diversos elementos : coordinación y edición critica de su texto : estudio comparativo con los demás elementos de la 'Vetus Latina", los padres y escritores eclesiásticos, los textos griegos y la Vulgata / V, El salterio : introducción general y edición crítica. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto "Francisco Suarez," 1962. Vita Syncletica PG 28:1487-1558.
Modern Works Aaron, Henry J. “Our Outlaw President? Obama Should Ignore the Debt Ceiling.” New York 263
Times, September 29, 2013 (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/opinion/obamashould-ignore-the-debt-ceiling.html). Basson, André. “A Transformation of Genres in Late Latin Literature: Classical Literary Tradition and Ascetic Ideals in Paulinus of Nola." In Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity, edited by Ralph W. Mathisen and Hagith S. Sivan, 267-276. London: Aldershot, 1996. Boyarin, Daniel. Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Brakke, David. Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006. Brown, Bill. "Thing Theory." Critical Inquiry 28 (2001): 1-21. Brown, Peter. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. Brown, Peter. Through the Eye of A Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012. Bryson, Norman. “Philostratus and the Imaginary Museum,” in Art and Text in ancient Greek Culture, edited by Simon Goldhill and Robin Osborne, 255-83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Budde, Michael L. and Karen Scott, eds. Witness of the Body: The Past, Present, and Future of Christian Martyrdom. Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2011. Butler, Alban. Lives of the Saints: With Reflections for Every Day in the Year. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1894. Burrus, Virginia. "Reading Agnes: The Rhetoric of Gender in Ambrose and Prudentius." Journal of Early Christian Studies 3 (1995): 25-46. Cameron, Averil. Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991. Castelli, Elizabeth A. Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Castelli, Elizabeth A. "Persecution and Spectacle: Cultural Appropriation in the Christian Commemoration of Martyrdom." Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 7 (2005): 102-36. Castelli, Elizabeth A. "The Ambivalent Legacy of Violence and Victimhood: Using Early Christian Martyrs to Think With." Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 6 (2006): 1-24. 264
Cigar, Norman. Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of “Ethnic Cleansing.” College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1995. Conybeare, Catherine. Paulinus Noster: Self and Symbols in the Letters of Paulinus of Nola. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Crislip, Andrew. “‘I Have Chosen Sickness’: The Controversial Function of Sickness in Early Christian Ascetic Practice,” in Asceticism and Its Critics: Historical Accounts and Comparative Perspectives, edited by Oliver Freiberger, 179-209. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Crossan, John Dominic. The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. Culler, Jonathan. “Apostrophe.” Diacritics 7, No. 4 (1977), 59-69. Davis, Natalie Zemon. Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in SixteenthCentury France. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987. DeBruyn, Theodore S. “Ambivalence Within a Totalizing Discourse: Augustine’s Sermons on the Sack of Rome,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 1, no. 4 (1993): 405-421. Dearn, Alan. “The Polemical Use of the Past in the Catholic/Donatist Schism.” PhD diss., Oxford University, 2003. Den Boeft, Jan. “‘Martyres sunt, sed homines fuerunt’: Augustine on Martyrdom.” In Fructus Centesimus: Mélanges offerts à Gerard J. M. Bartelink à l’occasion de son soixantecinquième anniversaire, edited by A. A. R. Bastiaensen, A. Hilhorst, and C. H. Kneepkens, 115-124. Steenbrugis: In abbatia S. Petri, 1989. DeSoucey, Michaela, Jo-Ellen Pozner, Corey Fields, Kerry Dobransky, and Gary Alan Fine. "Memory and Sacrifice: An Embodied Theory of Martyrdom." Cultural Sociology 2, no. 1 (2008): 99-121. Dupont, Anthony. “Augustine’s Homiletic Definition of Martyrdom:The Centrality of the Martyr’s Grace in his Anti-Donatist and Anti-Pelagian Sermones ad Populum.” In Christian Martyrdom in Late Antiquity (300-450 AD): History and Discourse, Tradition and Religious Identity, edited by Peter Gemeinhardt and Johan Leemans, 155-178. Berlin: DeGruyter, 2012. Dupont, Anthony. “Imitatio Christi, Imitatio Stephani: Augustine's thinking on martyrdom based on his sermones on the protomartyr Stephen,” Augustiniana 56 no. 1-2 (2006): 29-61. Dykes, Anthony. Reading Sin in the World: The Hamartigenia of Prudentius and the Vocation of the Responsible Reader. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: 265
Pantheon Books, 1971. Fowler, Don P. “Narrate and Describe: The Problem of Ekphrasis.” The Journal of Roman Studies 81 (1991): 25-35. Frank, Georgia. The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Frankfurter, David. "Martyrology and the Prurient Gaze." Journal of Early Christian Studies 17, no. 2 (2009): 215-45. Gaddis, Michael. There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ : Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire, The Transformation of the Classical Heritage, 39. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Garbarino, Collin. “Augustine, Donatists, and Martyrdom.” In An Age of Saints? Power, Conflict and Dissent in Early Medieval Christianity, edited by Peter Sarris, Matthew Dal Santo, and Phil Booth, 49-61. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Gleason, Maud W. Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995. Glucklich, Ariel. Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Goldhill, Simon. “The naïve and knowing eye: ecphrasis and the culture of viewing in the Hellenistic world,” in Art and Text in ancient Greek Culture, edited by Simon Goldhill and Robin Osborne, 197-223. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Goldschmidt, Rudolf Carol. Paulinus’ Churches at Nola: Texts, Translations, and Commentary. Amsterdam: N.V. Noord-Hollandische Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1940. Gregory, Brad S., Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. Green, Roger P. H. The Poetry of Paulinus of Nola: A Study of his Latinity. Brussels: Latomus, 1971. Grig, Lucy. Making Martyrs in Late Antiquity. London: Duckworth, 2004. Harvey, Susan Ashbrook. Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Hijmans, Steven Ernst. “Sol: The Sun in the Art and Religions of Rome.” PhD Dissertation, University of Groningen, 2009. Hill, Edmund, trans. Sermons. In The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century. Edited by John Rotelle, Volumes III:1-11. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 266
1990-1997. Hunink, Vincent. “Singing Together in Church: Augustine’s Psalm Against the Donatists.” In Sacred Words: Orality, Literacy, and Religion, edited by André Lardinois, Josine Blok, and M. G. M. Van Der Poel, 389-404. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Ingram, Jason. “Plato's Rhetoric of Indirection: Paradox as Site and Agency of Transformation.” Philosophy & Rhetoric 40, No. 3 (2007), 293-310. Johnson, Barbara. “Apostrophe, Animation, and Abortion.” Diacritics 16, No. 1 (1986), 2847. Kelley, Nicole. “Philosophy as Training for Death: Reading the Ancient Christian Martyr Acts as Spiritual Exercises.” Church History 75:4 (2006): 723-747. Knott, John R. Discourses of Martyrdom in English Literature, 1563-1694. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Langlands, Rebecca. “Can you tell what it is yet? Descriptions of Sex Change in Ancient Literature.” Ramus 31:1-2 (2002): 91-110. Lausberg, Heinrich. Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study, trans. Matthew Bliss, Annemiek Jansen, and David E. Orton. Leiden: Brill, 1998. Lavarenne, Maurice. Étude sur la Langue du Poète Prudence. Paris: Société Française d’Imprimerie et de Librairie, 1933. Lazewski, Wojciech. “La Sentenza Agostiniana Martyrem Non Facit Poena Sed Causa.” PhD dissertation, Pontifical University at Rome, 1987. Lehmann, Tomas. Paulinus Nolanus und die Basilica Nova in Cimitile/Nola: Studien zu einem zentralen Denkmal der spätantik-frühchristlichen Architektur. Weisbaden: Reichert, 2004. Leinhard, Joseph T. Paulinus of Nola and Early Western Monasticism, With a Study of the Chronology of His Works and an Annotated Bibliography, 1879-1976. Köln-Bonn: Peter Hanstein Verlag, 1977. Leinhard, Joseph T. “Paulinus of Nola.” In Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, edited by Allan D. Fitzgerald, 628-629. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999. Levine, Robert. “Prudentius' Romanus: The Rhetorician as Hero, Martyr, Satirist, and Saint,” Rhetorica 9 (1991): 5-38. Limberis, Vasiliki. “Making the Body Remember: Violence in First Invective Against Julian the Emperor by Gregory of Nazianzus.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Boston MA, November 2008. 267
Lincoln, Bruce. Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Malamud, Martha A. A Poetics of Transformation: Prudentius and Classical Mythology, Cornell Studies in Classical Philology, 49. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989. Malone, Edward E. The Monk and the Martyr: The Monk as the Successor of the Martyr. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1950. Markus, Robert A. The End of Ancient Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Marshall, Cynthia. The Shattering of the Self: Violence, Subjectivity, and Early Modern Texts. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Mastrangelo, Marc. The Roman Self in Late Antiquity: Prudentius and the Poetics of the Soul. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Media Matters. “‘Suicide Caucus’ - Krauthammer Criticizes GOP Push To Shut Down Government Over Obamacare.” Video. September 12, 2013 (http://mediamatters.org/video/2013/09/12/suicide-caucus-krauthammer-criticizesgop-push/195865). Middleton, Paul. Radical Martyrdom and Cosmic Conflict in Early Christianity. New York: T&T Clark, 2006. Miller, Eugene F. “Positivism, Historicism, and Political Inquiry.” The American Political Science Review 66, no. 3 (1972): 796-817. Miller, Patricia Cox. The Corporeal Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late Ancient Christianity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Milošević, Slobodan. Speech delivered 28 June, 1989, translated and compiled by the National Technical Information Service of the Department of Commerce of the U.S. (http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/spch-kosovo1989.htm). Moss, Candida R. The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Moss, Candida. The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom. New York: HarperOne, 2013. Mratschek, Sigrid H. “Multis enim notissima est sanctitas loci: Paulinus and the Gradual Rise of Nola as a Center of Christian Hospitality.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 9, no. 4 (2001): 511-553. Muehlberger, Ellen. “Salvage: Macrina and the Christian Project of Cultural Reclamation,” Church History 81:2 (2012): 273-297. 268
Musurillo, Herbert, ed. and trans. Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. Nasrallah, Laura. Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture: The Second-Century Church Amid the Spaces of Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Norrick, Neal R. “How Paradox Means.” Poetics Today 10, No. 3 (1989), 551-562. Osbourne, Robin. “Introduction: Roman Poverty in Context.” In Poverty in the Roman World, edited by Robin Osbourne and Margaret Atkins, 1-20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Palmer, Anne-Marie. Prudentius on the Martyrs, Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Pearcey, Nancy. Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2004. Pellegrino, Michele. “Introduction.” In The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century. Edited by John Rotelle, Volume III:1. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1990. Petruccione, John F. "The Persecutor's Envy and the Rise of the Martyr Cult: "Peristephanon" Hymns 1 and 4." Vigiliae Christianae 45, no. 4 (1991): 327-46. Petruccione, John F. "The Martyr Death as Sacrifice: Prudentius, Peristephanon 4. 9-72." Vigiliae Christianae 49, no. 3 (1995): 245-57. Piroyansky, Danna. "'Thus May a Man Be a Martyr': The Notion, Language and Experience of Martyrdom in Late Medieval England." In Martyrs and Martyrdom in England, C. 1400-1700, edited by Thomas S. Freeman and Thomas F. Mayer, 70-87. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007. Pullman, Philip. “Introduction.” In John Milton’s Paradise Lost: An Illustrated Edition with an Introduction by Philip Pullman, 1-12. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Rapp, Claudia. Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995. Rebillard, Eric. “Sermones.” In Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, edited by Allan D. Fitzgerald, 773-792. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999. Roberts, Michael John. The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989. Roberts, Michael John. Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs: The Liber Peristephanon of Prudentius, Recentiores: Later Latin Texts and Contexts. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993. 269
Rogerson, Anne. “Dazzling Likeness: Seeing Ekphrasis in Aeneid 10.” Ramus 31:1-2 (2002): 51-72. Rosenberg, Stanley P. “Orality, Textuality, and the Memory of the Congregation in Augustine’s Sermons.” In Studia Patristica XLIX: Papers Presented at the Fifteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2007: St. Augustine and his Opponents, edited by J. Baun, A. Cameron, M. Edwards, and M. Vinzent, 169174. Leuven: Peeters, 2010. Ross, Jill. “Dynamic Writing and Martyrs’ Bodies in Prudentius’ Peristephanon.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 3, no. 3 (1995): 325-355. Rothschild, Babette. The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment. New York: Norton, 2000. Rubin, Miri. “Choosing Death? Experiences of Martyrdom in Late Medieval Europe.” In Martyrs and Martyrologies: Papers Read at the 1992 Summer Meeting and the 1993 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed Diana Wood, 153-184. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993. Sandwell, Isabella. Religious Identity in Late Antiquity: Greeks, Jews, and Christians in Antioch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Schroeder, Caroline T. “‘A Suitable Abode for Christ’: The Church Building as Symbol of Ascetic Renunciation in Early Monasticism.” Church History 73, no. 3 (2004), 472521. Sells, Michael A. “Christ Killer, Kremlin, Contagion” in The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy, edited by Michael A. Sells and Emran Qureshi, 352-388. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Shaw, Brent D. "Body/Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs." Journal of Early Christian Studies 4, no. 3 (1996): 269-312. Shoemaker, William H. “Fernando de Basurto's "Lost Play" on the Martyrdom of Santa Engracia,” Hispanic Review 6, no. 1 (1938), 35-45. Sizgorich, Thomas. Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity: Militant Devotion in Christianity and Islam. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Smith, J. Mark. “Apostrophe, or the Lyric Art of Turning Away.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 49, No. 4 (2007), 411-437. Smith, Jennifer Lynn. “The Natalicia of Paulinus of Nola and the Embodiment of Authority at the Shrine of Saint Felix.” PhD Dissertation, Indiana University, 2004. Storin, Bradley K. “The Letters of Gregory Nazianzus: Discourse and Community in Late Antique Epistolary Culture.” PhD Dissertation, Indiana University, 2012. 270
Straw, Carole. “Martyrdom.” In Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, edited by Allan D. Fitzgerald, 538-542. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999. Tkacz, Catherine Brown. “The Seven Maccabees, the Three Hebrews and a Newly Discovered Sermon of St. Augustine (Mayence 50).” Revue des Études Augustiniennes, 41 (1995): 59-78. Thomson, H. J. trans. and ed. Prudentius I. LCL 387. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949. Thomson, H. J. trans. and ed. Prudentius II. LCL 398. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953. Trout, Dennis E. “Christianizing the Nolan Countryside: Animal Sacrifice at the Tomb of St. Felix.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 3, no. 3 (1995): 281-298. Trout, Dennis E. Paulinus of Nola: Life, Letters, Poems. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Van Bavel, T. J. “The Cult of the Martyrs in St. Augustine: Theology Versus Popular Religion?” In Martyrium in Multidisciplinary Perspective, edited by Mathijs Lamberigts and Peter Van Deun, 351-361. Leuven: University Press, 1995. Van Fleteren, Frederick. “Confessiones.” In Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, edited by Allan D. Fitzgerald, 227-232. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999. Walsh, P. G. The Poems of St. Paulinus of Nola. Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, 40. New York: Paulist Press, 1975. Ward, Benedicta. “Signs and Wonders: Miracles in the Desert Tradition.” Studia Patristica 17.2 (1982), 539-542. Webb, Ruth. Ekphrasis, Imagination, and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice. Farnham, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009. Weinstein, Donald, and Rudolph M. Bell. Saints and Society: The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000-1700. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. White, Carolinne. Christian Friendship in the Fourth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. White, Carolinne. Early Christian Latin Poets. New York: Routledge, 2000. Woolf, Greg. “Writing Poverty in Rome.” In Poverty in the Roman World, edited by Robin Osbourne and Margaret Atkins, 83-99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 271
Diane Shane Fruchtman [email protected]
Education Ph.D., Religious Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana (August 2014) Ph.D. Minor: History Ph.D. Area Certificate: Medieval Studies • Dissertation: “Living in a Martyrial World: Living Martyrs and the Creation of Martyrial Consciousness in the Late Antique Latin West.” • Abstract: This dissertation examines the attempts of early fifth century Latin authors to make martyrdom accessible to the masses, despite the end of official persecution in the fourth century. Through rhetorical techniques, biblical realism, and outright advocacy for martyrs who did not die in persecution—”living martyrs”—the poets Prudentius and Paulinus of Nola (among others) attempted to create a new paradigm of martyrdom that did not require the martyr’s death. While their views did not ultimately prevail, the intricacies of their martyrological discourse illuminate the variety of ways that martyrdom is and can be mobilized to construct new, community-creating worldviews. • Committee: David Brakke (Chair), Constance Furey (Co-Chair), Bridget K. Balint (Classical Studies), Edward Watts (History), Jeremy Schott, Aaron Stalnaker. M.A., Religious Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana (2008) • M.A. Project Translation and Commentary: “De Singularitate Clericorum: A ThirdCentury Treatise Against Spiritual Marriage.” • Committee: David Brakke (Chair), Constance Furey, Aaron Stalnaker. B.A., Religion (Honors) and Latin (High Honors), Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania (2004) • Thesis: “‘Becoming the Worthy Heir’: The Old Testament and Witness in Prudentius’ Construction of Christian Identity.” • Advisors: Anne McGuire and Catherine Conybeare (Bryn Mawr College).
Areas of Research Specialty & Teaching Competency • Early & Medieval Christian theology, history, and literature, with a focus on the Latin West • Biblical Studies • Martyrdom, sainthood, identity politics, community-formation, and the imitatio Christi in Christian traditions • History of Christianity, first century to present • Academic study of religion
Publications “Modeling a Martyrial Worldview: Prudentius’ Pedagogical Ekphrasis and Christianization.” Journal of Late Antiquity 7.1, Fall 2014.
Review of Candida R. Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom: Diverse Practices, Theologies, and Traditions. Anchor Yale Bible reference library. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2012. xiv, pp. 256. Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2012.12.24.
Awards, Fellowships, and Honors • • • • • • • • • • •
Andrea S. McRobbie Fellowship (2013) American Association of University Women American Fellowship (2013-2014) North American Patristics Society Outstanding Student Paper Prize (2013) C. Clifford Flanigan Fund Travel Award (2013) Religious Studies Department Graduate Student Annual Paper Prize (2010) Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Fellowship, Indiana University (2005-6) Howard Comfort Prize in Latin, Haverford College (2004) Mechling Award (MVP), Haverford College Women’s Fencing Team (2004) Center for Peace and Global Citizenship Internship Grant, Haverford College (2003) Class of 1896 Award in Latin for Sophomores, Haverford College (2002) Class of 1902 Award in Latin for Freshmen, Haverford College (2001)
Presentations “Martyrdom without Death in Augustine’s Feast-Day Sermons,” North American Patristics Society Annual Meeting, May 2014 “Paulinus and Actual Poverty; Or, the Casualties of Helping the ‘Imagined’ vs. ‘Actual’ Poor,” Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, Baltimore, November 2013 “Paulinus and the Living Martyr: Making Martyrs in the Nolan Countryside,” North American Patristics Society Annual Meeting, May 2013 “The Changing Picture of Faith: Religious Diversity in Contemporary America,” (Invited Lecture) Good To the Last Word Librarian Education Day at the Mitchell Public Library, April 2013 “Lamenting the Loss of a Child: Dispelling Grief Through Faith and Reason in Paulinus’ Carmen 31,” Medieval Studies Symposium, “Lamentations,” Indiana University, April 2013 “Martyrs ‘Carried into Heavenly Honor without Blood’: Paulinus of Nola and Fifth-Century Christian Martyr-Making,” Vagantes 2013, University of Wisconsin-Madison, March 2013 “Modeling the Living Martyr: Prudentius’s Pedagogical Ekphrasis,” Vandalia, the Ohio State University, November 2011 “Stoic Paradigms in Augustine’s Account of Grace and Free Will,” North American Patristics Society Annual Meeting, May 2010 “Prudentius and the Power of Violence: Harnessing Violent Images for Opposite Ends,” The Art of Religion, Indiana University, March 2009 “The Enclosure of Clare of Assisi as a Site of Materialist and ‘Postmodern’ Convergence,” Violence, Conflict, and Humor (20th Annual Medieval Studies Symposium), Indiana
University, March 2008 “The Cloistered Clare: Female Franciscan Devotion and the Monastic Setting,” Religion: Practicing Theory/ Theorizing Practice, Indiana University, March 2007 “Becoming the Worthy Heir: Old Testament Images in Prudentius’ Reformulation of Martyrdom for the Post-Persecution Era,” Medieval Images: Inspiration and Condemnation (19th Annual Medieval Studies Symposium), Indiana University, March 2007 “Riches to Rags: Images of Self-Sacrifice in Medieval Art,” Gallery talk presented at the Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, August 2001.
Teaching Experience Courses taught at Indiana University: • REL A-250: Introduction to Christianity (4 semesters in classroom setting; 18 semesters online) • REL R-133: Introduction to Religious Studies (1 semester) • HPER E-127: Introduction to Foil Fencing (3 semesters) Courses assisted at Indiana University: • COLL E-103: Original Sin and Free Will (with Constance Furey) • REL R-180: Introduction to Christianity (with Constance Furey) • COLL E-103: The Hebrew Bible and its Interpreters (with Steven Weitzman) • REL A-220: Introduction to the New Testament (with J. Albert Harrill) • REL R-170: Religion, Ethics, and Public Life (with Lisa Sideris) Other teaching experience: • Course Designer, “Introduction to Christianity,” School of Continuing Studies, Indiana University • Teaching Assistant, “Introduction to Religion,” Haverford College (Spring 2003, with Anne McGuire) • Education Intern, The Cloisters, New York (Summer 2001)
Service •
• • • • • • •
Organizer, “Aspirations Unmet: Failure and its Fruits in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.” 49th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 8-11, 2014. Chair, Finance and Keynote Committees, Medieval Studies Symposium, “Lamentations,” held at Indiana University April 5-7, 2013. Chair, Vagantes 2012 Conference Committee, Fall 2011-Spring 2012, “Vagantes 2012,” held at Indiana University March 29-31, 2012. Founding Member and Indiana University Representative, Indiana Medieval Graduate Consortium, Fall 2011-present. Board Member, Vagantes, Fall 2010-Summer 2013 Chair, Medieval Studies Graduate Advisory Committee, Fall 2010-Summer 2011 o Religious Studies Representative, Fall 2009-Spring 2013 Co-Chair, Medieval Studies Symposium, “Making Manifest: Revelation and Illumination in the Middle Ages,” Indiana University, held March 27-8, 2009 Co-Chair, Medieval Studies Symposium, “Violence, Conflict, and Humor,” Indiana
• •
University, held March 28-9, 2008 Co-Chair, Religious Studies Graduate Conference, “Religion and the State,” Indiana University, held March 21-22, 2008 Co-Chair, Religious Studies Graduate Conference, “Religion: Practicing Theory/ Theorizing Practice,” Indiana University, held March 8-9, 2007
Relevant Professional Experience Special Projects Assistant, Medieval Studies Institute, Indiana University Fall 2007-Spring 2009; Fall 2011-Summer 2013 Communications, outreach, and event organization for the Institute. Research Assistant/Proofreader, Haverford College Spring 2002-Summer 2004 Proofreading, research assistance, and clerical work for Religion department faculty (Michael Sells, Naomi Koltun-Fromm, Ken Koltun-Fromm, John Modern)
Research Languages • Latin (Classical, Medieval, and Modern) • Greek (Classical and Patristic) • Coptic (Sahidic)
• Syriac • French • German
Professional Affiliations Member, Society of Biblical Literature Member, American Academy of Religion Member, North American Patristics Society