The passion narratives in the four Gospels contain different scenes of mockery in the context of torture and abuse. Violent language enhances violent bodily actions but is, at the same time, destabilized by the text. In my research project, I address the question of how verbal and physical violence interact in these scenes. Ancient rhetorical discourses on mockery and the limits of humor, that is, discussions about the difference between humor and violent language, are analyzed alongside possible strategies to face violent speech. Mockery in the passion narratives is, then, compared to other texts, where mockery and physical abuse cooccur, that is, apocryphal texts that contain passion accounts and Martyrdom accounts. The aim is to assess the pragmatic functions of mockery in situations of torture throughout ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish texts to further our understanding of the passion narratives.
Mockery and Torture in the Passion Narratives and Their Ancient Contexts
Clarissa Breu
"Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries", 1898, by Rodolfo Lanciani, chapter 5, Wikimedia Commons