'A spectacle to the world': The performance of Christian virgins and monks in late antiquity

A commonplace in the history of western theatre is the antipathy of the Church towards the “theatrum,” long evident in the writings of the Greek and Latin Fathers. In this dissertation I argue that although “theatre” was anathema to Orthodox Christianity, the idea of performance was embraced, albeit covertly, as a means by which late-ancient Christians could express a new kind of subjectivity, of which the first exemplum is Paul. Activated by their “Christian subjectivity,” the Fathers of the early Church constructed Christian identity in terms of behaviors and habits that would make orthodoxy “visible,” and thus performative. The practices of virginity and monastic asceticism represent the border of the performance of Christian identity as live, embodied praxis during this period. Based on my close reading from a performance-theoretical perspective of select early Christian apologetics, polemics, and vitae, the dissertation demonstrates that performance was essential to the formation, expansion, and “triumph” of orthodox Christianity in late antiquity.