Preaching the Gospel in Barlaam and Blanquerna: Pious Narrative and Parable in Medieval Spain

Abstract

"Preaching the Gospel in Barlaam and Blanquerna: Pious Narrative and Parable in Medieval Spain." This study focuses on the ascetic typology of holiness and the apostolic narratology of parables as key aspects of sacred narrative manifested in two fictional hagiographies that appear in late thirteenth-century Spain: Barlaam e Josafat, a Castilian translation of the Christianized life of Buddha, and Blanquerna, a religious utopia written in Catalan by the missionary and mystic Ramon Llull. In the first part, the eremitical type is examined in relation to (1) the Christian's spiritual home as pilgrim and hermit; (2) the double conversion to the life of devotion and way of perfection; and (3) the apostolic contexts of exemplary forms of asceticism for all Christian society. In the second pan, the function of parables is analyzed according to (1) the ideology of "classical" asceticism vs. urban apostolate; (2) the scriptural intertexts and contexts of Buddhist/Christian "prophecy" in the world vs. apostolic acts in the community; and (3) the pious rhetoric and reception of sacred cult vs. social utopia. The protagonists' "stories," as vitae and exempla, represent vernacular hagiographic romances that recontextualize the apostolic age's kerygma and catechesis. Barlaam and Blanquerna's exemplarism promotes the formation and reform of latter-day Christians by way of biblical models of narration and contemporary (medieval) contexts of reception.