Riprese eschilee nel Christus patiens

Christus Patiens is a long ‘Christian tragedy’ ascribed in the medieval manuscripts to St. Gregory of Nazianzus; both the date and the authorship of the poem are much disputed among modern scholars. It is extensively a cento of Euripidean tragedies (Hecuba, Orestes, Hip- polytus, Medea, Trojan Women, Rhesus, Bacchae); Sophocles is surprisingly absent, but the memory of Aeschylean tragedies is recognizable. This paper aims to evaluate the quotations and the allusions to Aeschylean dramas (Agamemnon and Prometheus Bound) in the context of the Passion of Christ narrated by his mother, the Virgin Theotokos.