''Interpretatio Christiana'' (Latin for Christian interpretation, also Christian reinterpretation) is
adaptation of non-Christian elements of culture or historical facts to the worldview of
Christianity. The term is commonly applied to recasting of religious and cultural activities, beliefs and imageries of "
pagan
Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. ...
" peoples into a Christianized form as a strategy for
Christianization. From a Christian perspective, "pagan" refers to the various religious beliefs and practices of those who adhered to non-
Abrahamic faiths, including within the
Greco-Roman world
The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were di ...
the
traditional public and domestic religion of ancient Rome,
imperial cult,
Hellenistic religion
The concept of Hellenistic religion as the late form of Ancient Greek religion covers any of the various systems of beliefs and practices of the people who lived under the influence of ancient Greek culture during the Hellenistic period and the ...
, the
ancient Egyptian religion
Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals that formed an integral part of ancient Egyptian culture. It centered on the Egyptians' interactions with many deities believed to be present in, and in control ...
,
Celtic and
Germanic polytheism
Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Germ ...
,
initiation religions such as the
Eleusinian Mysteries and
Mithraism
Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, was a Roman mystery religion centered on the god Mithras. Although inspired by Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity (''yazata'') Mithra, the Roman Mithras is linke ...
, the
religions of the ancient Near East
The religions of the ancient Near East were mostly polytheistic, with some examples of monolatry (for example, Yahwism and Atenism). Some scholars believe that the similarities between these religions indicate that the religions are related, a be ...
, and the
Punic religion
The Punic religion, Carthaginian religion, or Western Phoenician religion in the western Mediterranean was a direct continuation of the Phoenician variety of the polytheistic ancient Canaanite religion. However, significant local differences dev ...
.
Reformatting traditional religious and cultural activities and beliefs into a Christianized form was officially sanctioned; preserved in the
Venerable Bede's ''
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
The ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'' ( la, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum), written by Bede in about AD 731, is a history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict be ...
'' is a letter from
Pope Gregory I to
Mellitus, arguing that conversions were easier if people were allowed to retain the outward forms of their traditions while changing the object of their veneration to God, "to the end that, whilst some gratifications are outwardly permitted them, they may the more easily consent to the inward consolations of the grace of God".
Bede
Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...
, ''The Ecclesiastical History of the English People'', Digireads.com Publishing, Jan 1, 2004,
p. 45
/ref>
Practices
Reinterpretation of sacred sites
The Christianization of sites that had been pagan occurred both as a result of spontaneous conversions in early Christian times, and an important part of the strategy of ''Interpretatio Christiana''. The landscape itself was Christianized, as prominent features were rededicated to Christian saints, sometimes quite directly, as when the island of Oglasa in the Tyrrhenian Sea was christened Montecristo.
Missionaries to the pagan nations enthusiastically turned pagan sites immediately over to church use. For example, Sulpicius Severus, in his ''Vita'' of Martin of Tours
Martin of Tours ( la, Sanctus Martinus Turonensis; 316/336 – 8 November 397), also known as Martin the Merciful, was the third bishop of Tours. He has become one of the most familiar and recognizable Christian saints in France, heralded as the ...
, a dedicated destroyer of temples and sacred trees, remarks "wherever he destroyed heathen temple
A heathen hof or Germanic pagan temple was a temple building of Germanic religion; a few have also been built for use in modern heathenry. The term ''hof'' is taken from Old Norse.
Background
Etymologically, the Old Norse word ''hof'' is the s ...
s, there he used immediately to build either churches or monasteries"
''Vita'', ch xiii
, and when Benedict took possession of the site at Monte Cassino, he began by smashing the sculpture of Apollo and the altar that crowned the height.
The letter from Pope Gregory I to Mellitus copied by Bede says in part:[
]
...that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed; let water be consecrated and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected, and relics placed there. For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God; that the nation, seeing that their temples are not destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God, may the more freely resort to the places to which they have been accustomed.
Reinterpretation of calendar and feasts
In the context of Christianization of Germanic tribes, Herbert Schutz notes that eventually old local gods were still "celebrated on their feast days, on their former sacred sites", replaced with some particular saints.
The letter from Pope Gregory I to Mellitus copied by Bede continues thus:[
]
...And because they are used to slaughter many oxen in sacrifice to devils, some solemnity must be given them in exchange for this, as that on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of the holy martyrs, whose relics are there deposited, they should build themselves huts of the boughs of trees about those churches which have been turned to that use from being temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting, and no more offer animals to the Devil, but kill cattle and glorify God in their feast, and return thanks to the Giver of all things for their abundance; to the end that, whilst some outward gratifications are retained, they may the more easily consent to the inward joys.
However some scholars question the significance of the reinterpretation of pagan feasts.
Reuse of cultural artifacts
In the context of art, ''interpretatio christiana'' amounted to renaming (e.g., by added or changed inscription) or unnaming objects, as well as Christian allegorization of them. For example, a Roman cup or vase would be consecrated and used as a chalice in church. A notable example of the latter is the Cup of the Ptolemies
The Cup of the Ptolemies (French: ''Coupe des Ptolémées''), also known as the Cup of Saint Denis, is an onyx cameo two-handled cup, or '' kantharos''. The cup, decorated with Dionysiac vignettes and emblems, was carved at some point in Clas ...
. Unnaming could include deliberate omission of traditional pagan interpretations of the imagery in descriptions of artifacts, leading to their oblivion, whether intentionally or by ignorance.
Crosses were inscribed on old architecture and its reused remnants ( spolia). Liz James observes. "Inscribing a cross works similarly o upsetting pagan statues
O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), plu ...
/small>, sealing the object for Christian purposes".
Martin Henig describes a number of personal intaglio seals with clearly pagan motifs, augmented with Christian inscriptions, such as "IESVS EST AMOR MEVS" ("Iesus est amor meus", "Jesus is my love").
The Protestant Transylvanian Saxon
The Transylvanian Saxons (german: Siebenbürger Sachsen; Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjer Såksen''; ro, Sași ardeleni, sași transilvăneni/transilvani; hu, Erdélyi szászok) are a people of German ethnicity who settled in Transylvania ...
s acquired rugs from the Ottoman Empire, sometimes with Islamic motifs, and used them as prestigious decorations for their churches.
Only their material value as a good of luxury, and their purely ornamental, non-figural design seems to have made these rugs appear as appropriate adornments of Protestant churches. A report about the great fire which had destroyed the Black Church of Brașov in 1689 mentions the loss of a large rug which "according to legend was woven by St. Paul the Apostle
Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
(who was a rug weaver by profession)" It seems likely that the Christian owners of the rugs did not understand the original Islamic context, but created a new legendary context around these objects.
Reinterpretation of pre-Christian knowledge and lore
Pre-Christian sources and myths were subject to Christian reinterpretation during their transmission or placed in Christian settings. This presents difficulties for historical studies of the periods of conversion. A number of early Christian writers noted similarities between elements of Christianity and some pagan traditions, such as cult of Dionysus
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans ...
or Mithras, however in order to defend Christianity they insisted that these are plots of the devil to corrupt Christianity. Also, when translating pagan notions into a Christian worldview, pagan deities themselves were reinterpreted as demon
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies, ani ...
s.
An example is the Finnish name of the Devil, Perkele
Perkele () is a Finnish word meaning "evil spirit" and a popular Finnish profanity, used similarly to English " god damn", although it is considered much more profane. It is most likely the most internationally known Finnish curse word.
Origins
T ...
, probably derived from the Proto-Indo-European god of thunder Perkwunos.
Though never a part of the doctrine or theology of any Christian group (and often attracting criticism), some rural Christian communities have continued to sacrifice animals (which are then consumed in a feast) as part of worship, especially at Easter. The animal may be brought into the church before being taken out again and killed. Some villages in Greece sacrifice animals to Orthodox saints in a practice known as kourbania. Sacrifice of a lamb, or less commonly a rooster, is a common practice in the Armenian Church,[Burkert, Walter (1972), '']Homo Necans
''Homo Necans: the Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth'' (german: Homo Necans: Interpretationen Altgriechischer Opferriten und Mythen) is a 1972 book on ancient Greek religion and mythology by the classicist Walter Burkert. ...
'', pp. 8-9
google books
/ref> and the Tewahedo Church of Ethiopia and Eritrea
Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...
. This tradition, called matagh, is believed to stem from pre-Christian pagan rituals. Additionally, some Mayans following a form of Folk Catholicism in Mexico today still sacrifice animals in conjunction with church practices, a ritual practiced in past religions before the arrival of the Spaniards.
A thorough analysis of Christian reinterpretation of ancient learning was carried out by Hervé Inglebert, with special attention to cosmography, geography, ethnography, and historiography.
Scholarship
Humanistic studies of Antiquity and the Reformation combined in the 16th century to produce works of scholarship marked by an agenda that was occupied with identifying Roman Catholic practices with paganism, and identifying the emerging Protestant churches with a purgative "re-Christianization" of society. The Lutheran scholar Philip Melanchthon
Philip Melanchthon. (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the Lu ...
produced his ''Apologia Confessionis Augustanae'' (1530) detailing the rites derived from pagan practices. Heinrich Bullinger, ''De origine erroris libris duo'' (1539) detailed the pagan "origins of (Catholic) errors".
Isaac Casaubon, ''De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticus exercitationes'' (1614) makes a third familiar example, where sound scholarship was somewhat compromised by sectarian pleading. Thus such pagan precedents for Christian practice have tended to be downplayed or even sometimes dismissed by Christian apologists as a form of Protestant Apologetics.
The 20th century saw more purely historical inquiries, free of sectarian bias; an early historicist classic in this field of study was Jean Seznec's ''The Survival of the Pagan Gods: the mythological tradition and its place in Renaissance humanism and the arts.''.[ Jean Seznec
*''The La Survivance des dieux antiques'', 1940
*English translation: ''The Survival of the Pagan Gods: Mythological Tradition in Renaissance Humanism and Art'', 1953]
See also
*'' Interpretatio graeca'', recasting of myths and traditions of other peoples in terms of the traditions of Ancient Greece, in an attempt to understand them
* Inculturation
* :Supernatural beings identified with Christian saints
References
Further reading
*Norberto Gramaccini, ''Mirabilia: das Nachleben antiker Statuen vor der Renaissance'', 1996,
* Erwin Panofsky, ''Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art'', 1960 and later re-editions
{{Cultural assimilation, sp=ize
Christianity in the Middle Ages
Christianization
Christian terminology
Christianity and religious syncretism
Religious interpretation