Of Materiality, Cultic Spaces, and Agency … and Discourse in Between: The Entanglement of Religious Space, Discourse, and Practice in Two Case Studies—Two Mithraea and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Abstract

This programmatic essay builds on Jane Bennett’s concept of material vitality in exploring “the agency of the things that produce effects in human and other bodies,” while simultaneously broadening the perspective to take in the concept of discourse in order to elucidate human–matter interaction and the effects produced. Taking its bearings from critical spatiality theory, this essay argues that space (as arranged matter) is both constructed through discourse, and in turn constructs and mediates discourse. In that sense, religious spaces exert agency in the construction and mediation of discourse. This is demonstrated by means of two case studies of “agentic” material religious spaces. The first case study concerns the material arrangement of the typical mithraeum with its cave-like structure and the astral symbolism embedded in the material structure, and how this materiality shaped the ritual performances and the discourse of integration into a cosmic order. The second case study concerns the material arrangement of the fourth-century Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem encompassing all the core events central to Christianity, and which material space is enlivened and made “agentic” through liturgical performances (particularly those of the Easter Octave), in effect creating the experience of resurrection. Some fifth century discourses are drawn on to highlight how the intersection of material space and performance constructed a Christianity as mystery performance.