The Body of Christâs Barbarian Limb: John Chrysostomâs Processions and the Embodied Performance of Nicene Christianity

Jonathan P. Stanfill

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Chapter 20 The Body of Christâs Barbarian Limb: John Chrysostomâs Processions and the Embodied Performance of Nicene Christianity

In: Revisioning John Chrysostom

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Jonathan P. Stanfill

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 670â697

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004390041_021

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Abstract

Walking in the street functioned as a critical site for the public performance of identity in the Roman world. Doing so in the company of others, whether as part of an entourage or a procession, was especially important for visibly establishing oneâs membership in a patronage network or politeia. For Christians in late antiquity, liturgical processions were similarly utilised as a tool for reifying group identity and demarcating the boundaries between different ecclesial communities. John Chrysostom, in particular, recognised the significance of processions for cultivating his vision for Nicene Christianity. As this chapter will demonstrate, one overlooked feature of Chrysostomâs citywide liturgical processions was the participation of Nicene Goths. However, it is also shown that their participation would have been viewed with suspicion and hostility by a faction that believed the Goths were uncivilised and heretical. Thus, the participation of the Goths in Chrysostomâs processions provides another avenue by which we can see the fault lines between the bishop and his antagonists as they competed over the boundaries of the Nicene church in Constantinople. Yet there is no record of the bishopâs rationale for incorporating them. This chapter, therefore, draws upon Judith Butlerâs theory of performative assembly to interpret the visible participation of the Goths in Chrysostomâs processions as a speech act in its own right; one that could function both as the embodied performance of Nicene identity by the Goths and the public enactment of Chrysostomâs inclusive brand of Nicene Christianity.

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Revisioning John Chrysostom

New Approaches, New Perspectives

Series:Â Critical Approaches to Early Christianity, Volume: 1

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004390041

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Mar 2019

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Chapter 20 The Body of Christâs Barbarian Limb: John Chrysostomâs Processions and the Embodied Performance of Nicene Christianity

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Revisioning John Chrysostom

New Approaches, New Perspectives

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Chapter 20 The Body of Christâs Barbarian Limb: John Chrysostomâs Processions and the Embodied Performance of Nicene Christianity