A Staggering Vision: The Mediating Animal in the Textual Tradition of Saint Eustachius

Abstract

The paper concentrates on the story of St. Eustachius and discusses the famous episode in which the protagonist is led to conversion through an epiphanic encounter with a stag. This episode, known as Eustachius' vision, highlights the semiotic polyvalence of the animal mediating between God and human. The paper analyses the discourse on animals in the vulgate version of the passion of Eustachius. It shows how the representation of the stag differs between redactions of the story, outlines the alternative readings of the vision episode suggested by this textual variance, and points out their relation to different contexts.