Konstanze Schiemann, University of Amsterdam
For the Christians of late antiquity, the resurrection of the mortal body was a cornerstone of their faith. While the Nicene Creed of 325 AD enshrined the resurrection of the dead in a general statement of faith, the concept had been much disputed in the preceding centuries. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries several treatises were written in response to pagans who questioned what exactly would happen on the Day of Judgement (e.g., Tatian, Ps.-Athenagoras, Tertullian). A particular challenge was the so- called problem of chain consumption (Gilhus 2014; Kiel 2015): What would happen if a human body was partially or completely consumed by an animal, which was then - potentially - eaten by a human? How could the material body possibly rise in this case? These questions challenged the human-animal binary by blurring the boundaries between human and animal bodies. Christian leaders had to come up with satisfactory answers so as not to alarm existing followers and potential converts. While discussions about the exact nature of the resurrection died down in the 4th century, a continuing concern about chain consumption can be traced in late antique sources, for example in Christian polemics against animal hunts (venationes). While most of the criticism of spectacles was directed at the corrupting effect that such exciting shows had on spectators (Jiménez-Sánchez 2010), a closer look at the arguments against venationes reveals a discomfort with human-animal interactions in the arena. Christian critics raise the issue of animal fighters (venatores/bestiarii) possibly being killed and partially or completely devoured by wild animals, as well as the impossibility of properly burying these bodies, to make their case against venationes (e.g., Salvian of Marseilles, John Chrysostom, Procopius of Gaza, Priscian of Caesarea). As Kyle has argued in 1994, it is possible that at the end of a game day the meat of the arena animals was distributed as food to the spectators. This made chain consumption in the context of venationes conceivable, and thus plausible for Christian critics to invoke this fear in their attempt to dissuade their fellow Christians from attending the shows. The proposed paper draws on Latin and Greek treatises on resurrection and polemics against venationes to interrogate the connection between the problem of chain consumption and Christian arguments against animal hunts. It argues that while the resurrection debate had been settled theologically by the 4th century, the anxieties surrounding chain consumption persisted and were instrumentalised against the spectacles. Furthermore, by focusing on this liminal case in which human and animal bodies merged, the paper aims to shed light on how the boundaries between “the human” and “the animal” were negotiated and reinforced in early Christianities.