Preaching as Communication of Education in Late Antique Christianity

在古代晚期（及以后），讲道是传播基督教信仰和生活方式的主要手段，因此也是基督教教育最重要的机构。宗教言论是发展和稳定基督教身份和实践的基础。讲道在常规礼拜和节日中进行，也在教理教学中进行。在这样做的过程中，传教士使用了古代修辞。然而，争论仍然是人们能否以“巧妙”的方式传达信仰。一个人如何谈论信仰，谁被授权这样做，宗教交流如何在实践中形成并在理论上得到反映？本项目旨在分析晚期古代讲道中具体的言语行为（从微观层面的个别话语元素到宏观层面的整个讲道），并将这些行为实践与古典和基督教修辞学理论联系起来。同样，布道的内容- -在知识和行为方面的基督教教育- -应该传达的内容也岌岌可危；最后，对这种教育过程的可能性和局限性进行反思。简而言之，该项目将调查晚期古代基督教布道是如何运用教育的，也就是说，使用修辞手段（形式方面）；b)在同一过程中传达教育（与主题相关的方面）；c)在形式、内容和机构方面反思这种教育事业（说教方面）。调查的框架将是高卢和意大利，这两个文化空间，在古代晚期，受到严重的社会、政治和宗教变革的影响，并以一种范例的方式提供了重建不同教育星座衰落的可能性。两名博士生将分别对拉文纳主教彼得·克里索洛斯（公元458年）和阿尔勒主教凯撒留斯（公元542年）的布道进行研究。从比较的角度来看，其他的布道集将被触及，例如维罗纳的芝诺（公元370年之后）和都灵的马克西姆斯（公元423年之前）。奥古斯丁（公元430年）的论著《论基督教教义》是一本关于晚期古代讲道的手册，我们将分析它是否成为基督教讲道实践的规范或反映后者的问题。通过这种方式，该项目将密切关注古代晚期基督教教育传播的目的和手段。Marrou曾经著名但错误地宣称“一个衰退期”——并且，从更普遍的角度来看，为在过渡时期将教育作为一种稳定和活跃基督徒身份的方式进行研究提供了新的视角。

In Late Antiquity (and beyond), preaching was the principal means of communication about Christian faith and lifestyle and thus the most important institution of Christian education. Religious speech was foundational for the development and stabilization of Christian identity and practice. Preaching was carried out in regular worship and on festive days as well as within catechetical instruction. In doing so, preachers made use of ancient rhetoric. However, the dispute remained whether one could communicate faith in an “artful” manner. How could one talk about the faith, who was authorized to do so, and how could religious communication be shaped practically and reflected upon theoretically?The present project aims at analyzing late antique sermons with regard to concrete speech acts (ranging from the micro-level of individual elements of speeches to the macro-level of entire sermons) and relating these performative practices to classical and Christian theories of rhetoric. Equally, the content-matter of the sermons – Christian education in terms of knowledge and behaviour – which should be communicated is at stake; finally, the reflection upon possibilities and limits of such educational processes will be scrutinized. In short, the project will investigate how late antique Christian sermonsa) employed education, that is, used rhetorical devices (formal aspect)b) communicated education in the same process (subject-related aspect) andc) reflected upon this educational enterprise with regard to form, content-matter, and agency (didactic aspect).The framework of the investigation will be Gaul and Italy, two cultural spaces which, in Late Antiquity, were subject to severe social, political, and religious transformations and which offer the possibility to reconstruct the fading of different constellations of education in a paradigmatic way. Two doctoral students will do research on the sermons of bishops Peter Chrysologus of Ravenna (d. 458) and Caesarius of Arles (d. 542) respectively. In comparative perspective, other collections of sermons will be touched upon, e.g. of Zeno of Verona (d. after 370) and Maximus of Turin (d. before 423). Augustine’s (d. 430) treatise On Christian Doctrine, a handbook on late antique preaching, will be analyzed considering the question whether it either became normative for Christian homiletical practice or reflected the latter. In this way, the project will pay close attention to the aims and means of the communication of Christian education in Late Antiquity – which H.-I. Marrou once famously but erroneously declared “a period of decline” – and, in a more general view, generate new perspectives for doing research on education as a way of stabilization and dynamization of Christian identity in a period of transition.