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  • 32 - Hagiography

  • from A - LITERARY GUIDE
  • Edited by Frances Young, University of Birmingham, Lewis Ayres, Emory University, Atlanta, Andrew Louth, University of Durham
  • Assisted by Augustine Casiday, University of Durham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    01 April 2004, pp 358-361

  • Summary

    Lives of the saints became one of the most popular forms of Christian literature: indeed for some periods of the Middle Ages, both in the East and the West, the literary sources are dominated by the hagiographical. The origin of the notion of the saint in the cult of the martyrs had a marked effect on the genre of the saint's Life. The saint's Life, is concerned to depict one whose closeness to God is a source of power, manifest in miracles, not just the miracles worked by the saint during his lifetime, but also the miracles he continues to work through his earthly remains: his relics. The vast majority of saints' Lives is monastic: the Life of St Antony is an important piece of monastic literature, as well as the archetypal saint's Life; there are several versions of the Life of St Pachomius: another early monastic saint's Life is the Life of Paul the Hermit by Jerome.