Table Of ContentOUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,27/4/2020,SPi
OXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES
GeneralEditors
GillianClark AndrewLouth
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,27/4/2020,SPi
THEOXFORDEARLYCHRISTIANSTUDIESseriesincludesscholarlyvolumeson
the thought and history of the early Christian centuries. Covering a wide range of
Greek, Latin, and Oriental sources, the books are of interest to theologians, ancient
historians,andspecialistsintheclassicalandJewishworlds.
Titlesintheseriesinclude:
TheRomanMartyrs
Introduction,Translations,andCommentary
MichaelLapidge(2017)
PhiloofAlexandriaandtheConstructionofJewishness
inEarlyChristianWritings
JenniferOtto(2018)
StTheodoretheStudite’sDefenceoftheIcons
TheologyandPhilosophyinNinth-CenturyByzantium
TorsteinTheodorTollefsen(2018)
GregoryofNyssa’sDoctrinalWorks
ALiteraryStudy
AndrewRadde-Gallwitz(2018)
TheDonatistChurchinanApocalypticAge
JesseA.Hoover(2018)
TheMinorProphetsasChristianScriptureintheCommentaries
ofTheodoreofMopsuestiaandCyrilofAlexandria
HaunaT.Ondrey(2018)
PreachingChristologyintheRomanNearEast
AStudyofJacobofSerugh
PhilipMichaelForness(2018)
GodandChristinIrenaeus
AnthonyBriggman(2018)
Augustine’sEarlyThoughtontheRedemptiveFunction
ofDivineJudgement
BartvanEgmond(2018)
TheIdeaofNicaeaintheEarlyChurchCouncils,AD431–451
MarkS.Smith(2018)
TheManyDeathsofPeterandPaul
DavidL.Eastman(2019)
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,27/4/2020,SPi
Visions and Faces
of the Tragic
The Mimesis of Tragedy and the Folly of Salvation
in Early Christian Literature
PAUL M. BLOWERS
1
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3
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To Richard Major
non alienus a tragoedia
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OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,27/4/2020,SPi
Preface and Acknowledgments
Inthespringof2001,IperformedtheroleofPoloniusintheMilliganCollege
theatre department’s production of Hamlet. Toward the end of Act II, the
pretentiousPoloniusannouncesanactingtroupelatelyarrivedatthecastleof
King Claudius. The lines were not easy to memorize, but they are altogether
memorable:
Thebestactorsintheworld,eitherfortragedy,
comedy,history,pastoral,pastoral-comical,
historical-pastoral,tragical-historical,tragical-
comical-historical-pastoral,sceneindividable,or
poemunlimited:Senecacannotbetooheavy,nor
Plautustoolight.Forthelawofwritandthe
liberty,thesearetheonlymen.
Amid this announcement, Hamlet scorns Polonius as witless, calling him a
“Jephthah,” the infamous tragical-comical character from Judges 11 who
fatefullysacrificedhisowndaughtertofulfillavowtoGod.Hamletisreferring
to the events preceding, in which Poloniushas effectively sacrificed the good
reputeofhisowndaughterOpheliainhisfoolishschemetoidentifytheroot
ofHamlet’spurportedmadness.Ostentationaside,Polonius’sintroductionof
the actors betrays Shakespeare’s admiration for the amazing diversity and
cross-fertilization of dramatic forms that had descended from Greek and
Roman theatre and captured audiences for centuries. Hamlet’s scoffing of
Polonius as a Jephthah-figure, on the other hand, bespeaks Shakespeare’s
ingenious sense of the thin line between mimesis and reality. Tragedy and
comedy are in the Bible and in the great classics of old, but they are also all
aroundus.Weareallcharactersontheworldstageplayingthemoutregularly
andmostlyunwittingly.
Indeed, at their best, tragedy and comedy seek not merely to move and to
amuse,buttointrudethemselvesintoourownlivedreality,evenvicariouslyto
interpret that reality for us. As I have undertaken research for a book on the
visions and faces of the tragic in early Christian literature, I have needed the
collective help not merely of historians of theatre, cultural historians of late
antiquity, specialists in literary criticism, biblical critics, and fellow patristics
scholarsandhistoricaltheologians.Ihaveneededtheartist’seye,theintuitions
of the dramaturge, and the strivings of the director and actor to understand
dramatic interpretation and performance from the inside out. Professor
Richard Major, my friend of more than forty years who directed Hamlet in
2001,andwithwhomIhavecollaboratedinnumerousstageproductionsover
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viii PrefaceandAcknowledgments
the years,has helpedme immenselyin all theserespects. Inrehearsals where
he has been as much a teacher as a director, I have learned much about that
fine line between mimesis and reality, and of the ways that tragical and
comical vision, duly vetted, are a boon to Christian faith. I am pleased to
dedicatethisbooktohiminrecognitionofourlongfriendshipaswellasofhis
deepartisticinsightandhishiddencontributionstothisbook.
I am also very grateful to have received a Henry Luce III Fellowship in
Theology for the academic year 2017–18, by the generosity of the Luce
FoundationinNewYorkCity,whichenabledmetotakeafullyearsabbatical
to complete the present book through research undertaken for extended
periods in the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and in the Bodleian
Library at the University of Oxford. While in Leuven, Prof. Johan Leemans
was a gracious faculty host and allowed me use of his office in the main
theological Library. I am thankful as well for fruitful exchanges with other
Luce Fellows in conferences hosted in 2017 and 2018 by the Association of
TheologicalSchoolsatPittsburgh.
Thereareotherstothankaswell.Thisbookgreworiginallyoutofresearch
ontragicalpityandChristianmercyformypresidentialaddresstotheNorth
American Patristics Society at our annual conference at Chicago in 2009.
Subsequently, I was able to give further presentations from this body of
research in lectures at the Sophia Institute conference at Union Theological
Seminary (NY) in 2009 by invitation of Prof. John McGuckin; at Duke
Divinity School in 2010 and again in 2019 by invitation of Prof. J. Warren
Smith; at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011 by invitation of
Prof. Andrew Crislip; and at the Medieval Institute of the University of
Notre Dame in 2019 by invitation of Prof. Thomas Burman. All these occa-
sions provided me good feedback from scholars and non-scholars alike and
gavemeanopportunitytotestmyideaswithothersbesidesspecialistsinearly
Christianity.
I must express a very special thanks as well to Dr. Suzanne Abrams
Rebillard,anesteemedscholarofGregoryNazianzen,whoreadandcritiqued
the fourth chapter of this book,and who also, in personal conversations, has
shared her classicist’s expertise on the bishop’s autobiographical poetry. Her
insightshavebeenextremelyvaluabletome.Also,IamtrulygratefultoTom
Perridge, Karen Raith, John Smallman, my copy editor Joanna North, and
othersattheOxfordUniversityPress(UK)fortheirencouragementandhelp
inbringingthisbooktopublication.
Certainly I need to acknowledge the publishers who have allowed me to
incorporate material from some previously published essays. First, the Johns
HopkinsUniversityPress,forpermissiontousecontentfrommyessay“Pity,
Empathy, and the Spectacle of Human Suffering: Exploring the Emotional
Culture of Compassionin LateAncient Christianity,” Journal ofEarly Chris-
tian Studies 18 (2010): 1–27. Second, Wiley-Blackwell, for permission to
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PrefaceandAcknowledgments ix
integratecontentfrommyessay“Envy’sNarrativeScripts:Cyprian,Basil,and
the Monastic Sages on the Anatomy and Cure of the Invidious Emotions,”
ModernTheology25(2009):21–43.
Onefinalnote.Inthechapterstofollow,alltranslationsfromancienttexts
aremyownunlessapreexistingtranslationisindicated.
PaulM.Blowers
MilliganCollege,Tennessee
May2019
