Early Christian ritual from the perspective of affect and emotion studies

Abstract

Affect and emotion theory and the work of Angelos Chaniotis and his collaborators on unveiling emotion in the ancient Greek and Roman world provide this chapter with the means for approaching and analyzing the affects and emotions associated with the ritual practices reflected in early Christian literary sources. This paper presents two case studies informed by affect theory and Chaniotis et al.: (1) one concerning the emotions depicted in narratives about baptism and (2) the other concerning emotions aroused by early Christian dietary and dining practices. The first case study establishes that the emotional transformation of those undergoing baptism—as described in many ancient Christian writings—mirrored the human anxiety/fear and hope/joy that attended encounters with the divine across the Greco-Roman world (as documented by Chaniotis in ancient Greek and Latin sources). Attention to emotion, therefore, brings to light the epiphanic aspect of that ritual. As for the second case study, it concludes that depictions of early Christian dietary and dining practices, particularly ritual discourse about consuming Jesus, would have triggered disgust. In doing so, such depictions functioned both (1) to challenge existing ritual conventions and the identity they supported and (2) to create and define a new (nascent Christian) identity.