Preaching as Communication of Education in Late Antique Christianity

在古代晚期(及以后)，传教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徒身份和实践的基础。传教是在常规礼拜和节日期间进行的，也是在问答教学中进行的。在这样做的过程中，传教士使用了古老的修辞手法。然而，争论仍然存在，一个人是否能以一种“巧妙的”方式传达信仰。如何谈论信仰，谁被授权这样做，宗教交流如何在实践中塑造和在理论上反思？本项目旨在分析关于具体言语行为的晚期古代布道(从演讲个别元素的微观层面到整个布道的宏观层面)，并将这些行为实践与古典和基督教修辞理论联系起来。同样，布道的内容--知识和行为方面的基督教教育--也岌岌可危；最后，将仔细审查对这种教育过程的可能性和局限性的思考。简而言之，该项目将调查晚期古代基督教布道如何使用教育，即使用修辞手段(正式方面)b)在同一过程中(与科目相关的方面)传达教育，c)在形式、内容-内容和机构(说教方面)方面反映这一教育事业。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经历了严重的社会、政治和宗教变革，并提供了以范例的方式重建不同教育星座衰落的可能性。两名博士生将分别研究拉文纳(公元458年)和阿尔勒(公元542年)主教彼得·克里斯洛格斯的布道。从比较的角度来看，将涉及其他布道集，例如维罗纳的泽诺(公元370年后)和都灵的马克西姆斯(公元423年之前)。奥古斯丁(四430)关于基督教教义的论文，一本关于晚期古董布道的手册，将考虑到它是否成为基督教说教实践的标准或反映后者的问题进行分析。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--H-I·马鲁曾错误地宣称这是一个“衰退期”--从更广泛的角度来看，该项目将产生新的视角，将教育作为过渡时期基督教身份的稳定和活跃的一种方式进行研究。

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.