To begin this essay, I needed to draw on a few concepts and authors, attempting to bring this context closer to the human drama. Thus, my aim here is not to produce a theological essay but, as a novelist, to assess the text of the Gospel of Matthew 19 and from there try to approach the drama suffered by the rich young man upon receiving Christ’s words.
Catharsis: Concept and Example in the Parable of the Rich Young Man in Matthew 19
Catharsis is a concept originating in Ancient Greece and discussed in philosophy, literature, and psychology. It represents a process of emotional or spiritual purification that allows an individual to release inner tensions, attaining a state of renewal or clarity.
In the Aristotelian context, as described in the Poetics, catharsis occurs through tragic theatre, where the spectator experiences emotions such as fear and pity, resulting in a purifying release. In modern psychology, especially in Freudian psychoanalysis, it manifests as the expression of repressed emotions, promoting therapeutic relief.
The story of the rich young man in Matthew 19:16–30 exemplifies this concept by portraying a moment of inner confrontation which, although painful, offers the potential for purification and transformation of his own life and highlights the tension between material attachment and eternal salvation.
The Tragic Hero
In Greek theatre, the tragic hero is someone who commits an error (hamartia) and, because of it, is led to the recognition of that error (anagnorisis), until, finally, he suffers the inevitable consequences (pathos).
As they follow this process, the audience feels pity for the hero, because they recognise his humanity, and fear (because they know they too could fall in the same way). These intense feelings purify the soul, and the spectator leaves the theatre transformed, more aware of their own condition.
This purification is not merely emotional: it is also ethical and spiritual. It is the moment when the human being perceives the limits of pride, the force of destiny, and the necessity of virtue.
This process is not mere entertainment but an ethical tool, arguing that tragic art educates morally by evoking empathy and reflection. In the nineteenth century, with the advent of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer expanded the term in Studies on Hysteria (1895), describing catharsis as the release of repressed affects through the verbalisation of traumas, which relieves neurotic symptoms, thereby giving catharsis a therapeutic slant and arguing that confrontation with the unconscious is essential for mental health.
In a broader and more argumentative sense, catharsis transcends the individual, applying to collective or spiritual contexts. In Christian theology, although not explicitly named, it can be interpreted as a moment of “metanoia”, repentance and a change of mind, where the encounter with divine truth provokes an emotional crisis that leads to purification.
Catharsis in the Encounter of the Rich Young Man with Jesus (Matthew 19:16–30)
When we carry the idea of catharsis over to the Gospel according to Saint Matthew 19:16–30, it serves as a paradigmatic example of catharsis. Greek tragedy ends in destruction; Christian tragedy, however, transforms destruction into redemption.
In this drama, the rich young man experiences a confrontation that exposes his inner repressions, arguing for the need of detachment for true salvation. The “catharsis” of the rich young man is an enlightened sadness: he understands the truth, the call of Christ, and although he does not fully accept it, he feels the weight of grace. That pain is not mere remorse; it is the beginning of an inner purification.
In spiritual language, we might say that catharsis is the instant in which the soul recognises its own attachment and begins to desire freedom. Even if liberation has not yet occurred, recognition is already a step towards healing. In the text, a young and wealthy man approaches Jesus asking:
“Master, what good deed must I do to obtain eternal life?” (v. 16). Jesus first responds by citing the commandments, which the young man claims to have obeyed since youth, but he asks: “What do I still lack?” (v. 20).
Here the cathartic process begins: Jesus, perceiving the young man’s attachment to wealth, exposes that which binds him to worldly life and prevents him from seeking the path of holiness, as we shall see below: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all you have, give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (v. 21).
The climax of the catharsis occurs in verse 22: “On hearing this, the young man went away sad, for he had many possessions.” This sadness is not superficial; it represents a deep emotional release, a confrontation with interior pathos, the fear of losing material security that repressed his full spiritual surrender.
I argue that this moment is cathartic because it expels the illusion of self-sufficiency: the young man, who saw himself as righteous for external obedience to the commandments, is forced to recognise that his wealth enslaves him, preventing him from entering the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus reinforces this to the disciples, highlighting human impossibility and divine necessity for salvation:
“Truly I tell you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Again, I tell you: it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God” (vv. 23–24).
This interpretation argues that catharsis in the rich young man does not culminate in immediate redemption—he leaves in sorrow—but it plants the seed for a possible future purification.
Unlike Aristotelian tragedy, where catharsis is collective for the audience, here it is personal, spiritual, and invitational, prompting the reader to reflect upon their own attachments. The young man’s sadness is an implicit argument for catharsis because it illustrates how the encounter with Christ provokes a crisis that can lead either to renewal or to abandoning a path in pursuit of something that transcends human striving.
The Gospel as Dramaturgy of the Soul
In Greek theatre, tragedy ends in the death or irreversible destruction of the hero. The error (hamartia) leads to ruin (pathos), and recognition (anagnorisis) arrives too late to avert destiny. The function of tragedy is pedagogical: the audience feels pity and fear, and leaves purified by catharsis.
The rich young man lives precisely these three stages. Hamartia: the error of trusting in one’s own works and goods as a guarantee of salvation. Anagnorisis: the recognition, when on hearing “sell all you have”, he perceives his inner slavery. Pathos: the suffering, expressed in the sadness born of the conflict between desire and fear.
Everything that composes a tragedy is present. But there is a decisive difference: Greek tragedy ends with death; evangelical tragedy ends with the possibility of grace.
There are texts written for the stage of history and texts that are born for the stage of conscience. The Gospel of the rich young man belongs to the second group. In just seven verses (Matthew 19:16–22), it stages the universal drama of the soul before God: the conflict between faith and attachment, between the call to perfection and the refusal of detachment. It is a brief narrative, yet constructed like a classical tragedy.
As in every tragedy, it begins with a question: “Master, what good must I do to attain eternal life?” The young man who approaches Jesus appears to be a moral hero, wealthy, educated, and just. He keeps the commandments, seeks the truth, and desires the good. But the Gospel is not a eulogy to outward virtue: it is the proposal of a mirror that shows the soul; and when we observe it under Christ’s light, we perceive our imperfections and smallness. In him the character discovers that even his perfection was full of a refined form of pride.
If Aristotle, in the Poetics, defined tragedy as the imitation of a serious and complete action that arouses pity and fear, leading to catharsis, centuries later Joseph Campbell would show that every human narrative follows the same pattern: the hero is called to adventure, resists, is tested, and returns transformed. And Stanislavski would teach that there is no true character without inner action; the actor must live the conflict for the scene to be authentic.
Long before them, two Doctors of the Church, Saint Gregory the Great and Saint Thomas Aquinas, already saw in this episode the spiritual portrait of every Christian. Gregory interprets it as the story of one who desires God but fears freedom; Thomas distinguishes between the fulfilment of the commandments (the way of salvation) and the living of the evangelical counsels (the way of perfection).
Under these four lenses—tragedy, myth, theatre, and theology—the encounter of Christ with the rich young man reveals itself as a play in three acts, whose stage is the road of Galilee and whose backdrop is the human heart.
Act I — The Call
“Master, what good must I do to attain eternal life?” (Mt 19:16)
1. Hybris: the pride of self-righteousness
In Aristotelian tragedy, the hero falls not through malice but through hybris—excessive confidence in himself. The rich young man approaches Jesus as one who seeks a deserved prize. He wants to know “what to do”, as though eternal life were the result of human merit. His hybris is subtle: the illusion that salvation can be won by performance.
Christ, however, responds with a divine provocation: “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only One who is good.” With this, He dismantles the basis of pride. The good is not a deed; it is a Person. The young man does not yet perceive that what he seeks stands before him, but he treats Him as a moral teacher, not as the Lord.
The tragedy begins the instant the hero confuses virtue with possession. He deems himself good and therefore worthy of the Kingdom. This self-confidence is his invisible fall—prior to the very refusal of detachment.
2. The ordinary world and the call to adventure
Through Campbell’s lens, the young man lives in the “ordinary world”: the safe territory of good works. He is the hero before the crossing, supported by the law and protected by certainties. The call to adventure arrives when Jesus says: “Keep the commandments.” He already keeps them, yet he feels that something is lacking. The question “What do I still lack?” reveals the moral emptiness that no rule can fill.
This is the precise point of the Call to Adventure: the moment when a man discovers that conforming to norms is not enough. In myth, the call comes through a supernatural messenger; here, it comes through Christ’s gaze, which invites him to cross the frontier between duty and love.
3. The actor before the role of faith
Stanislavski teaches that the actor must believe in the given circumstances, living in such a way that the “if” becomes real. The rich young man is an actor before the role of faith, but he has yet to embody it. He asks “what must I do?”, as one who seeks instructions to rehearse a scene. Christ, however, invites him to something that cannot be performed: interior transformation.
The character remains bound to external action, to visible gestures, and not to the inner action that moves the soul. He observes the drama, but does not live it. When Jesus calls him to detachment, the Gospel ceases to be text and becomes improvisation: faith is not acting; it is incarnation.
4. Natural good and the beginning of illumination
Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches that the commandments are the beginning of moral life, but not its perfection. The young man symbolises human nature guided by reason, capable of recognising the good but still unable to love it above all else. Christ leads him pedagogically: first He confirms the law (“keep the commandments”), then He invites him to grace (“if you wish to be perfect”).
Gregory the Great, for his part, reads the scene as the race of the zealous man: “He ran to the Lord and asked.” But, Gregory comments, “he ran with his feet, not with his heart.” The body desires, but the soul hesitates. The initial running represents human enthusiasm; the later retreat, spiritual limitation.
Thus the first act ends with the call that resounds yet is not yet heeded.
Act II — The Conflict
“If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all you have, give it to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” (Mt 19:21)
1. Anagnorisis: the recognition of truth
The second act is the tragic centre of the play. In the Aristotelian structure, this is the moment of anagnorisis, recognition. The hero sees the truth, but too late. The young man understands, for the first time, the abyss between the law he keeps and the love he does not possess.
Christ’s utterance is the axis of the drama: “If you wish to be perfect…” It is the phrase that separates the human from the divine.
Until now, he lived on the terrain of the possible; now he is invited to the impossible, and tragedy is born of this clash: man encounters the Absolute and perceives that he cannot master it.
The anagnorisis is spiritual: he recognises himself as prisoner of what he believed he possessed. His riches cease to be goods and the stage is lit; he sees the truth with clarity, but cannot bear the light.
2. The threshold and the supreme ordeal
In Campbell’s journey, this is the threshold. The hero is invited to cross the boundary that separates him from the unknown. It is the moment of “Go, sell all.” But instead of crossing, he hesitates.
Campbell describes this phase as the refusal of the call: the hero fears the sacrifice and returns to the ordinary world.
The difference is that, in the Gospel, the refusal is not merely fear; it is divided love. The young man desires the Kingdom but loves his possessions. He wants the infinite but clings to the finite. It is the supreme ordeal: the struggle between two loves. He does not understand that Christ offers a dichotomy.
Every myth has a guardian of the threshold, the being who prevents passage until the hero proves his faith. Here the guardian is Christ Himself. He is not an enemy; He is a mirror. His presence reveals what is most intimate in the young man. The struggle is not physical: it is the struggle of one who must die to himself.
3. Emotional truth and the break in inner action
Stanislavski called “inner action” the movement of the soul that sustains outward action. When the actor loses this connection, his performance becomes mechanical. The rich young man lives the collapse of this inner action. He understands the scene, comprehends the text, but cannot act.
In theatre, this is the instant in which the character freezes and is overcome by paralysis—the most authentic gesture he could make. He cannot lie before the truth. It is the apex of emotional veracity: he feels, but does not respond.
Stanislavski said the actor must discover the “supertask”, the purpose that unifies all actions. The young man believed his supertask was “to attain eternal life”, but Jesus reveals that the true supertask is to love without reserve. He perceives, with horror, that his inner script was another. And it is there that his character unravels.
4. The evangelical counsels and the purification of love
For Thomas Aquinas, Christ distinguishes here the two levels of spiritual life: the commandments, which turn us from evil, and the counsels, which remove obstacles to love. “Go, sell all you have” is the counsel of poverty; “follow me” is that of obedience; and “you will have a treasure in heaven” is that of hope.
Thomas explains that the young man “kept the commandments”, but “lacked the perfection of charity”. Perfection is not the absence of fault but the fullness of love. The young man does not sin through avarice so much as through incapacity to empty himself. He wants God, yet still wants to own his own soul.
Gregory the Great reads the same moment with gentleness: “To sell everything is not only to leave one’s goods, but to expel from the heart the love for them.” Many leave their goods, but not the desire; others, without leaving anything, leave everything, because they love nothing outside of God.
It is the purification of love—the fire that transforms exterior gold into interior light.
Act III — The Fall and the Silence
“The young man, having heard this, went away sad, for he possessed many goods.” (Mt 19:22)
1. Catharsis: sadness as purification
In Aristotelian tragedy, the end is catharsis: the purification of emotions through the recognition of loss. The audience feels pity and fear because it sees in the hero its own human fragility. The sadness of the young man is the reader’s catharsis. He is the figure of the man who has known the Truth and not embraced it—and we tremble, because we recognise him in ourselves.
But evangelical catharsis has a crucial difference: it is not merely aesthetic purification; it is an invitation to conversion. The young man’s pain is the beginning of grace. He leaves sad, but leaves enlightened. And here lies the difference between classical and Christian tragedy. The Greek ends in death; the Christian tragedy ends in consciousness.
2. The denial of the crossing and the unfinished myth
In Campbell’s structure, this is the moment of return—after overcoming the ordeal, the hero brings back the elixir of wisdom. But the young man does not return; he does not complete the cycle, and thus he is an interrupted hero, the sacred anti-hero.
Campbell would call this an “unfinished myth”, a story that ends before transformation. Yet the incompleteness here is deliberate: the Gospel leaves room for the reader to complete the journey. The absence of an ending is an invitation to continuation. The “return” may occur later, when the seed of sadness germinates into repentance.
Christ does not pursue him, nor condemn him. Jesus’ silence is the final act: love that respects freedom. He lets him go, because only free love is true. The tragedy, then, is not the loss of the Kingdom; it is the momentary refusal to enter it.
3. Failure as revelation of truth
For Stanislavski, failure is a moment of revelation. When the actor errs yet remains truthful, the audience believes him. The force of the scene lies not in technical perfection but in the sincerity of emotion.
The rich young man, as he departs in sorrow, is perhaps the most authentic character in the Gospel. He does not dissemble, does not perform faith, does not feign detachment. He is real—and therefore moving. His sadness is the silent recognition of his own inner slavery.
Stanislavski said that the good actor does not represent feeling: he lives it. The young man lives his pain to the full. He is the divided man who understands the call but cannot bear it. And in this spiritual realism, he reveals what is most human in faith: the distance between knowing and willing, between understanding God’s will and being able to carry it out.
Unlike the apostles, who left everything and followed Christ, the young man disappears into anonymity. We do not know his name, story, or destiny. But perhaps it is precisely this silence that makes him so universal—he is each of us, when we understand the Gospel yet do not yet have the courage to live it.
4. Implicit grace and the beginning of conversion
Thomas Aquinas affirms that grace operates even when it is resisted. The young man does not obey, but he is touched. Sadness is a sign of prevenient grace, the first movement of a heart that recognises its prison.
Gregory the Great sees the same gesture in another light: “He went away sad because he loved gold more than the author of joy.” And he adds: “Whoever prefers what passes to what remains departs in sorrow, for the love of the world produces sadness, and only the love of God begets joy.”
This is the most delicate reading of Christian tragedy: pain as the beginning of healing. The young man is not condemned—he is in process. The Gospel closes the scene but not the destiny. The lights go down, but the story of the soul continues offstage.
V. The Theatre of Salvation
1. The synthesis of four lenses
The encounter between Jesus and the rich young man is an Aristotelian tragedy, a Campbellian journey, a Stanislavskian scene, and a theological parable. Each lens illuminates one dimension of the soul:
Aristotle shows the structure of human drama: pride, recognition, purification. Campbell reveals the dynamics of calling and refusal: the universal myth of conversion. Stanislavski unveils the inner stage: the authenticity of emotion and faith as “inner action”. Saint Gregory the Great and Thomas Aquinas reveal the spiritual meaning: the call to perfection and the grace that operates even in refusal.
United, these readings compose what could be called the theatre of salvation—the divine drama staged in the human heart.
2. The hero who did not depart
The rich young man is the hero who does not cross the threshold. But this does not reduce him to a moral failure; it makes him an archetypal figure. He is the mirror of modern man—educated, ethical, saturated with spiritual information, yet still unable to surrender. His tragedy is our tragedy: knowing the way and lacking the courage to walk it.
Campbell says that “the hero is the one who gives his life for something greater than himself.” The young man did not give his life, and it is precisely for this reason that the story remains alive—because it does not close in the past but repeats itself in every conscience.
3. The spectator as successor
In classical tragedy, the audience is purified by the hero’s suffering. In the Gospel, the reader is invited to become the hero the character could not be. Catharsis is not just emotion; it is vocation.
Contemplating the young man who goes away sad, the reader feels pity and fear, but also hears the echo of the call: “Follow me.” The play ends in us, and the stage changes place—it leaves Galilee and enters our hearts.
4. The overcoming of tragedy
The difference between Greek tragedy and evangelical tragedy lies in the end. Ancient tragedy purifies through the awareness of finitude; Christian tragedy purifies through openness to eternity.
In Sophocles, Oedipus recognises and destroys himself. In Matthew, the young man recognises and is left free, so that, one day, he may meet again the gaze that called him.
True catharsis is hope. Christ does not close the scene with death, but with silence—and with the space where grace works invisibly.
5. The Stanislavskian method of faith
Faith, like theatre, requires inner action. It is not enough to understand the text; it must be lived. Christ does not ask the young man to admire the ideal of poverty; He asks him to live it. Christianity, therefore, is the most radical of theatres: in it, each believer is actor and character, and the director is the Holy Spirit.
Stanislavski proposed a decisive exercise to the actor: the magic “if”. “If I were that man, in that situation, what would I truly feel?” This question does not seek pretence but radical empathy. It is what transforms the interpreter into a living character.
On the stage of faith, this same question echoes powerfully: What if I were the rich young man? What if Christ were now before me, saying: “Sell all you have”? What if “all” were not money, but that in which I place my identity, my success, my power, my youth, my need for control?
It is here that the Gospel becomes sacred theatre. The spiritual magic if is the first step of conversion: the capacity to place oneself in the scene and allow the word to penetrate reality. It is not about imagining oneself in Jesus’ time, but recognising that Jesus’ time happens now—in every decision where the heart is called to prefer the Eternal to the ephemeral.
Stanislavski believed that when the actor sincerely lives the if, the scene ceases to be representation and becomes truth. Likewise, when the soul allows itself to imagine in faith—“What if I believed fully?”—the Gospel ceases to be text and becomes life.
Thus theatre and faith touch: both require real presence, vulnerability, and risk. The art of the actor is a pedagogy of incarnation; faith is the Incarnation turned into the art of life.
The Inner Stage and the Divine Actor
Stanislavski said the outer stage is only the reflection of an inner stage. It is in the invisible that action is born, and from there that it radiates truth. The Gospel confirms this: God’s stage is the heart. All true transformation occurs when the soul ceases to “perform” and begins to exist before the One who created it.
Christ is the perfect actor, the one who lives the truth of His mission fully. He does not “interpret” the love of God; He is the love of God incarnate. Before Him, every human being is invited to abandon moral performance and enter the real role of sonship.
The rich young man cannot do it. He remains a hesitant actor, aware that the role is sublime yet unable to surrender it to the body. He understands the truth of the text but does not allow himself to be seized by it. The theatre of salvation requires a kind of courage that is not learnt in rehearsals; it requires faith—the most difficult art of all.
Spiritual Catharsis: from Fear to Love
Aristotle saw catharsis as the purification of fear and pity. In the Gospel, this purification is fulfilled more deeply: fear is transformed into love. The pain of the rich young man, his sadness, is the first purification of a soul that begins to perceive the abyss between “I” and “Thou”.
Gregory the Great saw this sadness not as punishment but as remedy: “The pain that comes from God is already the beginning of healing.” Thomas Aquinas would call this gratia praeveniens—the grace that precedes the adhesion of the will.
God acts in the heart even when it turns away. The tear that does not fall is already a prayer in raw form.
Greek tragedy ended in ruin; Christian tragedy begins in ruin and ends in the possibility of resurrection. Hence the rich young man is an unfinished figure: he does not die—he remains alive, with the wound open; and it is in that wound that God works.
True catharsis is not aesthetic relief but the awakening of conscience. The Gospel does not seek applause; it seeks conversion. The spectator leaves the text transformed not because he saw a hero die, but because he saw himself die in the hero.
Drama as a Path of Salvation
All authentic art leads to truth, and all truth leads to the Word. Aristotle, Campbell, and Stanislavski, each in their own way, speak of the same inner dynamic that the Fathers of the Church call conversio cordis—conversion of the heart.
The theatre of Greece sought to purify the emotions; Christian theatre seeks to purify love. Campbell showed that the hero returns with the elixir; Gregory and Thomas show that the elixir is God Himself. Stanislavski sought the sincere actor; Christ seeks the true man.
The rich young man is the prototype of one who lives on the threshold between art and grace—one who understands the text, feels the emotion, but does not dare to cross the portal of surrender—and yet it is precisely there, on the frontier of refusal, that the miracle may begin.
Because sadness is a form of faith that has not yet learnt to smile.
Epilogue: The Silence that Continues
The Gospel ends in silence: “And the young man went away sad.” But, in a way, the text does not end—it extends to us. Every person who hears this story becomes the new actor summoned to the scene.
Aristotle would say that tragedy is complete because it brings a perfect action to a close. But the Gospel reverses this logic: it is perfect because it does not close. The divine action continues in every generation, rewriting the script of freedom.
Christ remains on the stage, looking at each one of us with the same gaze He directed at the rich young man. He does not force; He does not correct the text—He simply repeats the invitation:
“If you wish to be perfect, come, follow me.”
The audience, now, is us. The play awaits the response. And all of heaven, like a theatre suspended, falls silent to hear whether we shall say “yes”.