Religious songs teach people about God, but they also teach about the human condition. Narrative displays of sinners and saints show the faithful how to behave and how not to behave. Christian poetry can be read as an interpretation of human life and a script for corporeal performances. How did late ancient Christians in Constantinople construe their embodied selves in song? What role and significance did they assign to their sexuality and senses? And how did they imagine other bodies - angelic or inanimate - to act? How did their ritual texts script gendered performances? Their songs did not merely describe spiritual ascents; late ancient hymns spoke body language.
