|
Poli 311.01
(W,IT) Professor Sammy
Basu |
|
History of Christianity and Humor
Christianity
had trouble with laughter.
The
Fall of Adam became a fall into seriousness, laughter a "wart on the human
soul."
Many Western religious texts, too, suggest that laughter is essentially hostile. The Bible seldom mentions laughter, but when it does, laughter is almost always the laugh of scorn.
In the
First Book of Kings (18:27), for example, Elijah taunts the priests of Baal,
ridiculing their gods as powerless compared with Yahweh. After laughing at
them, he has them slain.
In the
Second Book of Kings (2:23), the prophet Elisha meets a group of children, who
laugh at him for his baldness. This derision is so great an offense to the prophet
that he curses the children in the name of the Lord, and immediately two bears
come out of the woods to maul them.
Ecclesiastes XXI, 20: "A fool lifteth
up his voice with laughter, but a wise man doth scarce smile a little."
One of
the recurring problems for talking about Christianity and humor is that while
we have the verse "Jesus wept", there is no mirror verse, "Jesus
laughed".
1. Early Church
St. John Chrysostom the fourth-century bishop of Constantinople,
("Golden
Mouth," for his oratory as Patriarch of Constantinople, 398-404),
Homily
XVII : “Christ is crucified and dost thou laugh? “
"This
world is not a theater in which we can laugh; and we are not assembled together
in order to burst into peals of laughter, but to weep for our sins....It is not
God who gives us the chance to play, but the devil."
“To
laugh, to speak jocosely, does not seem an acknowledged sin, but it leads to acknowledged
sin. Thus, laughter often gives
birth to foul discourse, and foul discourse to actions still more foul. Often
from words and laughter proceed
railing and insult; and from railing and insult, blows and wounds; and from
blows and wounds, slaughter and murder. If, then, you would take good counsel
for yourself avoid not merely foul words and foul deeds, or blows and wounds
and murders, but unseasonable laughter
itself.[11] “
St.
John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood; Ascetic Treatises; Select Homilies and
Letters; Homilies on the Statues, vol. 9 of A Select Library of the Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff (New York:
Christian Literature Co., 1889). p. 442.
"Truly
it is not for us," he said, "to pass our time in laughter."
“Laughter
does not seem to be a sin, but it leads to sin."
http://www.piney.com/FatChrysTheodLetter1.html
St. John
Chrysostom An Exhortation to Theodore After His Fall.
Read
no.3
http://www.synaxis.org/ecf/volume19/ECF00012.htm
HOMILIES
OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM ON THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW, HOMILIES XXXIX
& XLIII (MATT. 12)
Rule
of St Benedict
also
saintbenedict.org/
stblonglife.htm
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/rul-benedict.html
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02436a.htm
The Rule of St. Benedict, composed in Italy about 530 but
based on earlier compilations came to define the cenobitic type monastic life
that came to be accepted throughout the West.
And
when the Rule of St. Benedict was written a century and a half later, it
stated, "As for coarse jests and idle words or words that lead to
laughter, these we condemn with a perpetual ban."
The
Rule of St. Benedict read, "As for coarse jests and idle words that lead
to laughter, these we condemn with a perpetual ban."
Another
influential writer, Hugh of St Victor,
said: "Joy may be good or evil, depending on its source, but laughter is
in every respect evil."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07521c.htm
2. Medieval church: Christianity, both at
Christmas and at Easter, makes a point of rejoicing. That Christ is risen,
after being crucified, may bring a laughter
of joy, in which an enemy has indeed been overpowered and defeated, but the
enemy is simply death itself. Since this is the removal of the greatest defect
in life, laughter would be in
The Name of the Rose
3. Protestant Reformation
catholic clergy in hell
http://research.yale.edu/divdl/images/eire16.gif
monk with bagpipe
http://research.yale.edu/divdl/images/eire4.gif
http://research.yale.edu:8084/divdl/adhoc/objectdetail.jsp?objectid=3101
saints
http://research.yale.edu:8084/divdl/adhoc/objectdetail.jsp?objectid=2463
http://research.yale.edu/divdl/images/cd5/5im23.gif
iconoclasts
http://research.yale.edu:8084/divdl/adhoc/objectdetail.jsp?objectid=3104
http://research.yale.edu/divdl/images/eire7.gif
luther preaching as pope
goes to hell
http://research.yale.edu:8084/divdl/adhoc/objectdetail.jsp?objectid=3108
http://research.yale.edu/divdl/images/eire11.gif
lucs cranach
http://search.famsf.org:8080/view.shtml?record=53201&=list&=1&=&=And
http://wwar.com/masters/c/cranach-lucas.html
turks/islam
http://research.yale.edu:8084/divdl/adhoc/objectdetail.jsp?objectid=3146
turk atrocities linked
with pope
http://research.yale.edu/divdl/images/eire50.gif
http://research.yale.edu:8084/divdl/adhoc/objectdetail.jsp?objectid=3147
4. The Renaissance
Dante
Erasmus
Thomas More
Francois Rabelais
Montaigne
More Later
5. Early-Modern
Era
English
Revolution, 1640s
Later
6. Modern Era
Soren
Kierkegaard: who wrote on irony and Socrates: "Therefore, must the
religious man, most of all men, discover the comical," and "Humor is also the joy which has
overcome the world."
7. Contemporary
The Fellowship of
merry christians
http://www.joyfulnoiseletter.com/hhsunday.htm
In the beginning was the laugh
Simon
Jenkins, Co-founder of “Ship of Fools,” London
St
Paul’s Episcopal Church, Akron, Ohio
Sunday
22 February 2004
http://stpaul-akron.org/SimonJenkinsAkronSermon22-2-04.htm
http://www.postmillennialism.com/