Pain, Emotion, and Identity in Early Christianity

Abstract

Pain has been a topic of sustained study in early Christian history, not least in its role in the construction of a distinctive Christian self and identity. This article addresses the significance of pain in early Christian identity by reframing pain as an emotion and an affective practice, an approach that reflects scholarly re- evaluations of pain in both the neuroscience of emotion and the history of emotions. The essay first addresses pain's function as an emotion, as well as the emotional contours of pain relief. It then traces the role of pain as a marker of identity in Christian literature, including Paul, the Gospel of John, early homiletic and moral exhortations, and martyr literature. Early Christian authors differ in significant ways among themselves on the meaning of pain, but they share a general perspective that the conceptualisation and experience of pain, as part of an overall discourse of passions and emotions, mark Christian identity and set Christians apart from others. Early Christian sources provide an extraordinary and relatively unrecognised resource for observing the development and change of emotional communities, as Christians understood themselves to feel different from others, to feel pain differently.