Jesus Christ and Dionysus

The cento Christus patiens takes about one-third of its c.2,600 iambic trimeters from tragedies by Euripides, telling in dramatic form the story of Christ’s Passion, death, and resurrection. This chapter argues that for metrical and lexical reasons the cento’s much disputed authorship has to be decided against Gregory of Nazianzus and in favour of a twelfth-century Byzantine author. An analysis of the adaptation of the Euripidean verses demonstrates the cento not to be viewed as mere learned play. The aim of this centonic transformation is to reveal the true, hidden sense of the famous pagan original, by employing various different modes of transferral and alteration, which confirms the findings in Chapter 4. The chapter’s groundbreaking contribution consists in elaborating the cento’s ultimate and highly original goal to contrast the vindictive pagan destroyer Dionysus with the merciful redeemer Jesus Christ in this Christian anti-tragedy with its new and different world-view.

Art · Jesus christ · Literature · Passion · Theology · Tragedy (event) · Byzantine Studies and History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology