Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T15:12:12.774Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 8 - Painting and Polyphony

The Christos Paschon as Commentary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2023

By
Margaret Mullett
Edited by
Baukje van den Berg ,
Divna Manolova  and
Przemysław Marciniak
Baukje van den Berg
Affiliation:
Central European University, Vienna
Divna Manolova
Affiliation:
University of York
Przemysław Marciniak
Affiliation:
University of Silesia, Katowice
Get access

Summary

This chapter looks at an unexpected text of the twelfth century and explores its engagement with ancient literature, specifically the Medea, Hippolytus and Bacchae of Euripides and the Rhesus, no longer thought to be by him. The text is the Christos paschon, a composite tragedy and Virgin’s lament, with prooimion, two prayers and a colophon, which tells the story of the Easter weekend in three plays of a trilogy by means of a Euripidean cento. The chapter proceeds source text by source text to indicate what passages are used and why. It then compares the reading of each source text in the Christos paschon with more modern receptions. The use of the source texts is then compared to painting as it is either dotted or sloshed on to the canvas. It can also be seen as polyphony as each source text enters in turn and interacts with the others. The trilogy’s reading of Euripides is examined and its possible performance context in the twelfth century. Finally, the text’s credentials as commentary are tested against criteria arrived at by recent students of classical commentary: it is certainly reception, possibly appropriation or emulation – and conceivably commentary.

Keywords

tragedycentoTheotokosEastercrucifixionburialresurrectionEuripidesemotionreception
Type
Chapter
Information
Byzantine Commentaries on Ancient Greek Texts, 12th–15th Centuries , pp. 214 - 239
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agapitos, P. A. (1998) ‘Narrative, Rhetoric and “Drama” Rediscovered: Scholars and Poets in Byzantium Interpret Heliodorus’, in Studies in Heliodorus, ed. Hunter, R., 125–56. Cambridge Philological Society, Supplementary Volume 21. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Alexiou, M. (1975) ‘The Lament of the Virgin in Byzantine Literature and Modern Greek Folk-Song’, BMGS 1: 111–40.Google Scholar
Alexopoulou, M. (2013) ‘Christus patiens and the Reception of Euripides’ Bacchae in Byzantium’, in Dialogues with the Past 1: Classical Reception. Theory and Practice, ed. Bakogianni, A., 123–37. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplements 126.1. London.Google Scholar
Baun, J. (2011) ‘Apocalyptic Panagia: Some Byways of Marian Revelation in Byzantium’, in Brubaker and Cunningham (eds.), 199–218.Google Scholar
Bernier-Farella, H. (2015) ‘Ritual Voices and Social Silence: Funerary Lamentations in Byzantium’, Voice and Voicelessness in Medieval Europe, ed. Kleiman, I. R., 47–63. Basingstoke–New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brambs, J. G. (ed.) (1885) Christus Patiens: Tragoedia quae inscribi solet CHRISTOS PASCHON Gregorio Nazianzeno falso attributa . Leipzig.Google Scholar
Browning, R. (1963) ‘A Byzantine Treatise on Tragedy’, in Geras: Studies Presented to George Thomson on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday, ed. Varcl, V. and Willetts, R. F., in collaboration with B. Borecký, J. Burian, J. Frel and J. Pečírka, 67–81. Acta Universitatis Carolinae. Prague.Google Scholar
Brubaker, L. and Cunningham, M. B. (eds.) (2011) The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium: Texts and Images. Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies. Farnham.Google Scholar
Bryant Davies, R. (2017) ‘The Figure of Mary Mother of God in Christus patiens: Fragmentary Tragic Myth and Passion Narrative in a Byzantine Appropriation of Euripidean Tragedy’, JHS 137: 1–25.Google Scholar
Budelmann, F. (2002) ‘Classical Commentary in Byzantium: John Tzetzes on Ancient Greek Literature’, in Gibson and Kraus (eds.), 141–69.Google Scholar
Cameron, A. (2014) Dialoguing in Late Antiquity . Cambridge, ma.Google Scholar
Cameron, A. (2016) Arguing It Out: Discussion in Twelfth-Century Byzantium . Budapest.Google Scholar
Cameron, A. and Gaul, N. (eds.) (2017) Dialogues and Debates from Late Antiquity to Late Byzantium . Abingdon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carr, M. (2002) By the Bog of Cats . New York.Google Scholar
Cribiore, R. (2001a) ‘Euripides’ Phoenissae in Hellenistic and Roman Education’, Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity, ed. Too, Y. L., 241–59. Leiden.Google Scholar
Cribiore, R. (2001b) Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. Princeton–Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dostálová, R. (1982) ‘Die byzantinische Theorie des Dramas und die Tragödie Christos Paschon’, JÖByz 32: 73–82.Google Scholar
Dübner, F. (1846) Christus patiens, Ezechieli et christianorum poetarum reliquiae dramaticae . Paris.Google Scholar
Dyck, A. R. (ed. and trans.) (1986) Michael Psellus, The Essays on Euripides and George of Pisidia and on Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius. Byzantina Vindobonensia 16. Vienna.Google Scholar
Easterling, P. E. (2003) ‘The Infanticide in Euripides’ Medea’, in Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Euripides, ed. Mossman, J., 177–92. Oxford.Google Scholar
Fries, A. (2018) ‘The Rhesus’, in Greek Tragedy after the Fifth Century: A Survey from ca. 400 bc to ca. ad 400, ed. Liapis, V. and Petrides, A. K., 66–89. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Gaul, N. (2018) ‘Performative Reading in the Late Byzantine Theatron’, in Reading in the Byzantine Empire, ed. Shawcross, T. and Toth, I., 215–33. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Gaul, N. (2020) ‘The Letter in the Theatron: Epistolary Voice, Character, and Soul (and Their Audience)’, in Companion to Byzantine Epistolography, ed. Riehle, A., 353–73. Brill’s Companions to the Byzantine World 7. Leiden–Boston.Google Scholar
Gibson, R. K. and Kraus, C. S. (eds.) (2002) The Classical Commentary: Histories, Practices, Theory. Mnemosyne Supplements 232. Leiden–Boston–Cologne.Google Scholar
Given, J. (2009) ‘Constructions of Motherhood in Euripides’ Medea’, in Text and Presentation 2008, ed. Constantinidis, S., 42–54. Jefferson, nc.Google Scholar
Green, R. P. H. (1991) The Works of Ausonius . Oxford.Google Scholar
Hall, E. (2004) ‘Introduction: Why Greek Tragedy in the Late Twentieth Century?’, in Hall, Macintosh and Wrigley (eds.), 1–46.Google Scholar
Hall, E. F. Macintosh, and Taplin, O. (eds.) (2000) Medea in Performance 1500–2000 . Oxford.Google Scholar
Hall, E., Macintosh, F. and Wrigley, A. (eds.) (2004) Dionysus since 69: Greek Tragedy at the Dawn of the Third Millennium. Oxford.Google Scholar
Hatlie, P. (2009) ‘Images of Motherhood and Self in Byzantine Literature’, DOP 63: 31–57.Google Scholar
Henderson, J. (2002) ‘The Way We Were: R. G. Austin, In Caelianam’, in Gibson and Kraus (eds.), 205–34.Google Scholar
Hilberg, I. H. (1886) ‘Kann Theodoros Prodromos der Verfasser des Χριστός Πάσχων sein?’, WS 8: 282–314.Google Scholar
Hill, B. (1999) Imperial Women in Byzantium, 1025–1204: Power, Patronage and Ideology. London.Google Scholar
Hörandner, W. (1988) ‘Lexikalische Beobachtungen zum Christos Paschon’, in Studien zur byzantinischen Lexikographie, ed. Trapp, E., Diethart, J., Fatouros, G., Steiner, A. and Hörandner, W., 183–202. Vienna.Google Scholar
Horna, K. (1929) ‘Der Verfasser der Christus patiens’, Hermes 64: 429–31.Google Scholar
Housman, A. E. (1901) ‘Fragment of a Greek Tragedy’, Cornhill Magazine 10: 443–5.Google Scholar
Hunger, H. (1968a) ‘Die byzantinische Literatur der Komnenenzeit’, Anzeiger der philologisch-historischen Klasse der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 105: 63–5.Google Scholar
Hunger, H. (ed.) (1968b) Der byzantinische Katz-Mäuse-Krieg: Theodoros Prodromos, Katomyomachia. Einleitung, Text und Übersetzung . Byzantina Vindobonensia 3. Graz–Vienna–Cologne.Google Scholar
Jeffreys, E. M. and Jeffreys, M. J. (2009) Iacobi Monachi Epistulae . Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca 68. Turnhout.Google Scholar
Kazhdan, A. P. and Wharton Epstein, A. (1985) Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries . The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 7. Berkeley–Los Angeles–London.Google Scholar
Kraus, C. S. (2002) ‘Introduction: Reading Commentaries/Commentaries as Reading’, in Gibson and Kraus (eds.), 1–27.Google Scholar
Kraus, C. S. and Stray, C. A. (eds.) (2016a) Classical Commentaries: Explorations in a Scholarly Genre . Oxford.Google Scholar
Kraus, C. S. and Stray, C. A. (2016b) ‘Form and Content’, in Kraus and Stray (eds.), 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lauriola, R. and Demetriou, K. (eds.) (2015) Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Euripides . Brill’s Companions to Classical Reception 3. Leiden–Boston.Google Scholar
Laird, A. (2002) ‘Juan Luis de la Cerda and the Predicament of Commentary’, in Gibson and Kraus (eds.), 171–203.Google Scholar
Liapis, V. (2011) A Commentary on the Rhesus Attributed to Euripides. Oxford.Google Scholar
McGill, S. (2005) Virgil Recomposed: The Mythological and Secular Centos in Antiquity . Oxford.Google Scholar
McKee, T. L. (2017) ‘A Rich Reward in Tears: Hippolytus and Phaedra in Drama, Dance, Opera and Film’, unpublished PhD thesis, The Open University.Google Scholar
Macrides, R. (1985) ‘Poetic Justice in the Patriarchate: Murder and Cannibalism in the Provinces’, in Cupido Legum, ed. Burgmann, L., Fögen, M. T. and Schminck, A., 137–68. Frankfurt am Main.Google Scholar
Marciniak, P. (2004) Greek Drama in Byzantine Times . Katowice.Google Scholar
Marciniak, P. (2007) ‘Byzantine Theatron – A Place of Performance?’, in Theatron: Rhetorische Kultur in Spätantike und Mittelalter / Rhetorical Culture in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. Grünbart, M., 277–85. Millennium-Studien 13. Berlin–New York.Google Scholar
Marciniak, P. (2013) ‘Theodore Prodromos’ Bion Prasis: A Reappraisal’, GRBS 53: 219–39.Google Scholar
Marciniak, P. (2022) ‘Sophocles, Euripides and the Unusual Cento’, in After the Text: Byzantine Enquiries in Honour of Margaret Mullett, ed. L. James, O. Nicholson and R. Scott, 167–75. Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies. Abingdon.Google Scholar
Mills, S. (2013) Euripides, Hippolytus. Duckworth Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy. London.Google Scholar
Most, G. W. (ed.) (1999a) Commentaries = Kommentare. Aporemata: Kritische Studien zur Philologiegeschichte 4. Göttingen.Google Scholar
Most, G. W. (1999b) ‘Preface’, in Most (1999a), vii–xv.Google Scholar
Mullett, M. (1984) ‘Aristocracy and Patronage in the Literary Circles of Comnenian Constantinople’, in The Byzantine Aristocracy, ix to xiii Centuries, ed. Angold, M., 173–201. BAR International Series 221. Oxford.Google Scholar
Mullett, M. (2020) ‘Contexts for the Christos Paschon’, in The Eloquence of Art: Studies in Honour of Henry Maguire, ed. Olsen Lam, A. and Schroeder, R., 204–17. Abingdon.Google Scholar
Mullett, M. (2021) ‘Spoiling the Hellenes: Intertextuality, Appropriation, Embedment’, in Spoliation as Translation: Medieval Worlds in the Eastern Mediterranean, ed. Jevtic, I. and Nilsson, I., 99–115. Convivium, Supplementum 2021.2. Brno.Google Scholar
Mullett, M. (2022) ‘Tragic Emotions? The Christos Paschon’, in Emotions through Time: From Antiquity to Byzantium, ed. Cairns, D., M. Hinterberger, A. Pizzone and M. Zaccarini, 281–302. Tübingen.Google Scholar
Mullett, M. (forthcoming a) ‘Performability, Lament, and the Tragedy Christos Paschon’, in Lament as Performance in Byzantium, ed. Tsironi, N.. Abingdon.Google Scholar
Mullett, M. (forthcoming b) ‘Christos Paschon: Sacred or Secular?’, ed. Tsironi, N..Google Scholar
Mullett, M. (forthcoming c) ‘Performance Issues in the Christos Paschon’, ed. Tsironi, N..Google Scholar
Murgia, C. E. (1984) ‘Tacitus auctus’, CP 79: 314–26.Google Scholar
Nilsson, I. (2017) ‘To Touch or Not to Touch: Erotic Tactility in Byzantine Literature’, in Knowing Bodies, Passionate Souls: Sense Perceptions in Byzantium, ed. Ashbrook Harvey, S and Mullett, M., 239–57. Washington, dc.Google Scholar
O’Donnell, J. (2000) Review of Most (1999a), BMCR 2000.05.19.Google Scholar
Pizzone, A. (2017) ‘The Historiai of John Tzetzes: A Byzantine “Book of Memory”?’ BMGS 41.2: 182–207.Google Scholar
Pollmann, K. (1997) ‘Jesus Christus und Dionysos’, JÖByz 47: 87–106.Google Scholar
Powers, M. (1999) ‘The Reception of Euripides’ Bacchae in Performance from 1960 to the Present’, unpublished MSt thesis, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Sampatakakis, G. (2005) ‘Bakkhai-Model: The Re-Usage of Euripides’ Bakkhai in Text and Performance’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London.Google Scholar
Sargologos, E. (ed.) (1964) La vie de saint Cyrille le Philéote, moine byzantine (+1110) . Subsidia Hagiographica 39. Brussels.Google Scholar
Sihra, M. (2005) ‘Greek Myth, Irish Reality: Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats …’, in Rebel Women: Staging Ancient Greek Drama Today, ed. Dillon, J. and Wilmer, S., 115–35. London.Google Scholar
Sluiter, I. (1999) ‘Commentaries and the Didactic Tradition’, in Most (ed.), 173–205.Google Scholar
Stuttard, D. (ed.) (2014) Looking at Medea . London.Google Scholar
Stuttard, D. (ed.) (2016) Looking at Bacchae . London.Google Scholar
Taplin, O. and Billings, J. (2010) ‘What Does Tragedy Do for People?’, podcast (Oxford) http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/what-does-tragedy-do-people 1 March 2010, accessed 27 December 2019.Google Scholar
Tóibín, C. (2012) The Testament of Mary . London.Google Scholar
Tuilier, A. (ed.) (1969) Grégoire de Nazianze, La Passion du Christ, Tragédie: introduction, texte critique, traduction, notes et index . Sources Chrétiennes 149. Paris.Google Scholar
Vakonakis, N. (2011) Das griechische Drama auf dem Weg nach Byzanz: Der euripideische Cento Christos Paschon . Classica monacensia 42. Tübingen.Google Scholar
Warcaba, K. (2017) Bizantyński epos dla średnio zaawansowanych: Katomyomachia Teodora Prodromosa jako tekst trzeciego stopnia (Byzantine Epic Poetry for Intermediate Students: The Katomyomachia by Theodore Prodromos as an Example of Genette’s ‘Literature in the Third Degree’). Katowice.Google Scholar
Wilmer, S. E. (2005) ‘Irish Medeas: Revenge or Redemption (An Irish Solution to An International Problem)’, in Rebel Women: Staging Ancient Greek Drama Today, ed. Dillon, J. and Wilmer, S., 136–48. London.Google Scholar
Wojtylak-Heszen, A. (2004) Tragedia Późnoantyczna ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΠΑΣΧΩΝ a jej źródła klasyczne . Biblioteka Tradycji 29. Krakow.Google Scholar
Woods, M. C. (2019) Weeping for Dido: The Classics in the Medieval Classroom . Princeton–Oxford.Google Scholar
Zuntz, G. (1965) An Inquiry into the Transmission of the Plays of Euripides . Cambridge.Google Scholar
Zeitlin, F. I. (2004) ‘Dionysus in 69’, in Hall, Macintosh and Wrigley (eds.), 49–75.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×