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hagiography

Definition of hagiography

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Like biography and autograph , the word hagiography has to do with the written word. The combining form - graphy comes from Greek graphein, meaning "to write." Hagio - comes from a Greek word that means "saintly" or "holy." This origin is seen in Hagiographa , the Greek designation of the Ketuvim , the third part of the Jewish Scriptures. English's hagiography, though it can refer to biography of actual saints, is these days more often applied to biography that treats ordinary human subjects as if they were saints.

Examples of hagiography in a Sentence

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Word History

see hagiographa

1821, in the meaning defined at sense 1

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“Hagiography.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hagiography. Accessed 27 Apr. 2024.

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Hagiography

• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 11 June 2018
• Cite this living reference work entry

• Karen Pechilis 5  

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Indian Religions ((EIR))

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Autobiography ; Biography ; Carita ; Saints

A literary genre that describes the lives of saints.

Introduction

“Hagiography” is composed of Greek words that mean “to write the holy” and in Western tradition the term has historically been understood to denote a literary genre that describes the lives of revered persons, especially saints. As such, the category is considered to be a subgenre of biography, one that is expressly concerned to demonstrate that the subject is a moral exemplar, often but not exclusively according to religious standards. In Eastern and Western Christendom, hagiography was a predominant genre in medieval times, and it exhibited distinctive patterns, such as the presence of miracles and martyrdom [ 15 , 22 , 43 ]. Scholarly discussion of life-writing in other religious and cultural traditions is a modern phenomenon, and the term hagiography is actively, though not unproblematically, deployed. India has a long and continuous tradition of...

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Comparative Religion Department, Drew University, Madison, NJ, USA

Karen Pechilis

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Correspondence to Karen Pechilis .

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Dept of Anthropology, The University of North Texas Dept of Anthropology, Denton, Texas, USA

Pankaj Jain

The Graduate Theological Union , Berkeley, California, USA

Rita Sherma

Jamia Millia Islamia, Centre for the Study of Comparative Reli Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India

Madhu Khanna

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Pechilis, K. (2018). Hagiography. In: Jain, P., Sherma, R., Khanna, M. (eds) Hinduism and Tribal Religions. Encyclopedia of Indian Religions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1036-5_148-1

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1036-5_148-1

Received : 10 November 2016

Accepted : 12 March 2017

Published : 11 June 2018

Publisher Name : Springer, Dordrecht

Print ISBN : 978-94-024-1036-5

Online ISBN : 978-94-024-1036-5

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3.18.4 Hagiography

Alice-Mary Talbot is Director of Byzantine Studies, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.

• Published: 21 November 2012
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The term "hagiography", which literally means "writing about saints", refers to edifying compositions about the life and deeds of a holy man or woman, and may also be defined as a scholarly discipline that studies saints and the literature related to them. Hagiography is often classified as a genre of Byzantine literature, but it also includes all kinds of literary works that promote the veneration of saints, including acts of martyrs ( passiones ), vitae (lives), enkomia , accounts of translations of relics and miracles, and even hymnography. One form of hagiographic literature that arose in Late Antiquity was collections of miracles. This article focuses on hagiographical composition as a type of literature, the cult of saints, and the history of scholarship in this field. It outlines hagiography in the early Christian centuries and Late Antiquity, along with Middle Byzantine hagiography (eighth-twelfth centuries), and the revival of hagiography in the Palaiologan Era.

Introduction

T he term hagiography (lit. ‘writing about saints’) bears multiple meanings. Its two principal definitions are (1) edifying compositions about the life and deeds of a holy man or woman and (2) a scholarly discipline which studies saints and the literature related to them. This essay will focus on the first definition and discuss hagiographical composition as a type of literature, but inevitably will also deal in part with the cult of saints (whose development was necessarily intertwined with the writing of biographies, panegyrics, and the like) and with the history of scholarship in this field.

Hagiography is frequently described as a ‘genre’ of Byzantine literature (e.g. ODB 897); however, this is a conventional term implying a ‘unified category’, which is ‘filled in fact with … varied sub-genres’ (Kazhdan 1999 : 141). More appropriate is a functional definition of hagiography, which would include all kinds of literary works promoting the veneration of saints, such as acts of martyrs ( passiones ) , vitae (lives), enkomia, accounts of translations of relics and miracles, and even hymnography. Even within a ‘sub-genre’ such as a vita , there can be wide variation in level of style, length, content, format, and literary models. Some vitae closely resemble historical chronicles (e.g. the vita of patriarch Euthymios of Constantinople), others fairy-tales or romances ( vita of Alexios homo dei , Philaretos the Merciful), yet others a basilikos logos ( vita of empress Theodora, wife of Theophilos), a letter (Gregory of Nyssa's ‘letter’ on the life of his sister, St Makrina), or a funerary oration (Gregory of Nazianzos' orationes on his sister Gorgonia and on Basil of Caesarea).

Hagiography in the Early Christian Centuries and Late Antiquity

The development of hagiography as a new subject of literary composition went hand in hand with the emergence of Christianity as the dominant religion in the Mediterranean area and the rise of the cult of saints, beginning with Christ's apostles in the first century ce . One of the earliest new forms of hagiographie composition was the Acta of martyrs, of two primary types (Delehaye 1921 ). The first, dating from the second and third centuries, was the official shorthand records of a martyr's trial, later transcribed and deposited in an archive. The second, usually referred to by the Latin term passio or Greek term martyrion , is the accounts of eyewitnesses or contemporaries, describing the arrest, trial, and execution of Christian martyrs. The earliest date from the second and third centuries, and are sometimes of considerable literary merit (e.g. the martyrion of Perpetua and Felicitas). The Acta Pauli et Theclae can be seen as a Christianized version of the Greek romance, in which the young virgin refuses marriage with her lover, embarks on adventurous travels and suffers various torments as a result of her Christian faith. Such martyria were often rewritten in later centuries.

Another new form of hagiographie literature was the apophthegmata patrum , or sayings of the desert fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. These were collections of stories about the Egyptian hermit saints and sayings attributed to them, and are a Christian counterpart to collections of pagan maxims. There are several types of collection, organized in alphabetic order by author (Ward 1980 ), a group of 400 anonymous sayings (Ward 1975 ), and a systematic collection organized according to topic, such as self-control, fornication, and patience (Guy 1993 ). These sayings present a vivid picture of the daily lives of the monks who lived in the Egyptian desert and the challenges they faced.

The vita of the Egyptian hermit saint, Antony the Great ( c .250–356), usually attributed to Athanasius ( c .295–373), patriarch of Alexandria, is considered the earliest example of a new genre of Christian biography (Gregg 1980 ). Written very soon after Antony's death, in the form of a very long letter to monks living abroad, it displays many of the features that came to be considered typical of a saint's vita: a description of the holy man's native land, parents, childhood and education, his embrace of ascetic discipline and adoption of monastic life, his struggle against temptations (often in the form of demonic visions), withdrawal to a place of greater solitude to escape growing crowds of disciples and pilgrims, control over wild animals, the exorcism of demons, healing miracles, clairvoyance and the gift of prophecy, and prediction of his death. The vita contained several long rhetorical passages, purporting to be discourses of Antony himself on the theory of asceticism and demonology, Greek philosophy, and the errors of the Arian heresy, but more likely due to the pen of Athanasius. It also contained numerous comparisons of the holy man with personages of the Old and New Testaments. This new form of biography had various sources: the classical enkomion, that praised the virtues of a hero; biographies of pagan philosophers; and the Scriptures. The avowed purpose of Athanasius' biography was to present Antony as an edifying model for emulation by Christians. The vita of Antony had immediate success, was translated into Latin and oriental languages, and spread all over the Mediterranean world. It was indeed to provide a model for much future hagiography.

From this time on hagiography flourished, reflecting and documenting the rapid spread of the cult of saints. In addition to the life of Antony and the apophthegmata patrum , monastic life in Egypt, both coenobitic and eremitic, is vividly portrayed in the vita of Pachomius (d. 346), the Historia monachorum in Aegypto (late fourth cent.), and the Lausiac History of Palladlos ( c .419).

Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus (393–466), recorded the simultaneous appearance of monasticism in northern Syria, here more often eremitic than coenobitic in form. His Religious History or History of the Monks of Şyna, composed c .440, presents short biographies of about thirty ascetic monks who lived in the fourth and fifth centuries. Theodoret wrote in atticizing style with classical vocabulary, but his tales are vivid narratives. This celebration of the strong ascetic and individualistic tendency of Syrian monasticism continues in the sixth and seventh centuries with the lengthy vita of Symeon the Stylite the Younger (d. 592), the pillar saint on the Wondrous Mountain near Antioch, who attracted many pilgrims and performed numerous healing miracles, and of Symeon of Emesa, the holy fool (late sixth century?).

In the sixth century the hagiographer Cyril of Skythopolis ( c .525– c .559?) eulogized coenobitic monasticism by composing a corpus of lives of early Palestinian monks from c .400 to 550, most notably Euthymios the Great (d. 473) and Sabas the Great (d. 532), both founders of communities in the JudaeanDesert. Cyril's vitae are characterized by a simple and straightforward style and detailed recording of dates, toponyms, and events, so that his works are a reliable historical source. His vitae reveal a deep knowledge of prior monastic literature, such as the Lives of Antony and Pachomius, and the work of Theodoret.

Characteristic of both Syrian and Egyptian hagiography are the vitae of repentant harlots, such as Mary of Egypt and Pelagia of Antioch, and women disguised as monks, like Mary/Marinos and Anastasia/Anastasios (Patlagean 1976 ). In both scenarios women turn to a life of asceticism, and seek to obtain spiritual virility by shedding their feminine identity, through adoption of male clothing or mortification of the body that led to shrivelled breasts.

Hagiography developed more slowly in Anatolia, with some of the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers being among the earliest hagiographie compositions in this region. Thus, Gregory of Nyssa's vita of his sister St Makrina ( c .380) celebrates the pursuit of virginity in the context of a household convent, while Gregory of Nazianzos' panegyric of his sister Gorgonia (d. c .370–4) demonstrates that a married woman could also lead a life of saintly piety and spiritual fulfilment. Later vitae , such as those of Nicholas of Sion (d. 564) and Theodore of Sykeon (d. 613), are written in a lower style, more accessible to the general public, and are full of miraculous stories and picturesque vignettes of rural life.

In Constantinople as well, monasticism (and hagiography) was somewhat slower to develop; the vitae of important monastic founders (such as Hypatios of Rouphinianae, Markellos the Akoimetos, and Matrona of Perge) and the urban stylite Daniel date from the late fifth and sixth centuries.

Miracle Collections

Another new form of hagiographie literature that arose in Late Antiquity was collections of miracles. Descriptions of posthumous miracles, especially those that occurred in the years immediately following the death of a holy man or woman, were frequently incorporated into a vita , and may be considered a standard feature of many saints' lives. A tradition also developed of documenting the miracles that occurred over a long period of time at the healing shrine of a saint, obviously as a way of promoting his or her cult. It is assumed that records must have been kept of miraculous cures at these shrines, and that at a later date a selection could be written up for wider dissemination.

The earliest collection of miracula , from the fifth century, describes the miracles that took place at the shrine of St Thekla at Meriamlik in Asia Minor; as is typical of this type of hagiographical composition, the stories are vivid in style, with charming descriptions of everyday life, and provide useful information on the continuity of pagan customs such as incubation, and on disease and medical practice (Johnson 2006 ). The collection of miracles of Kosmas and Damian, focused on their healing cult at the Kosmidion monastery just outside the walls of Constantinople, seems to date primarily from the late sixth century. We learn that stories of successful healings were related by the grateful patients on Saturday evenings to groups of assembled pilgrims. The period of the late sixth and seventh centuries saw the composition of several other important miracle collections: the miracula of Sts Kyros and John at the Menouthis shrine in Egypt, written by Sophronios of Jerusalem ( c .560–638); the miracula of St Demetrios, written by John I of Thessalonike in the first half of the seventh century for the saint's shrine in that city; and the miracles of St Artemios, who specialized in healing hernias and diseases of the testicles at the church of St John the Prodromos in Constantinople.

The miracula collections tended to be written in low-or middle-level style, with both levels on occasion being used in the same collection: the proemium and certain rhetorical or ekphrastic passages in middle-level style, the descriptions of the miracles and dialogue at a lower level. In the miracles of St Thekla, in which references to pagan antiquity abound, citations of classical authors outnumber scriptural quotations, but the other collections for the most part limit their citations to the Psalms and New Testament.

Revival of Hagiography in the Palaiologan Era

Following a marked decline in the appearance of new saints in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries (Magdalino 1981 ), and a concomitant decrease in the production of hagiographical texts, the Palaiologan era (1261–1453) saw a resurgence of Byzantine holy men and the composition of vitae celebrating their exploits (Laiou-Thomadakis 1980 ). For reasons that are still not fully understood, virtually no female saints were recognized in the late Byzantine era; the latest firmly attested holy woman was St Theodora of Arta, who died in the 1270s (Talbot 1996 : 323–33). Among the likely explanations for the noticeable increase in saints at this time are: (1) the rise in religious controversies related to the Union of Lyons and hesychasm, which led to persecution of supporters of Greek orthodoxy and Palamism; (2)the flourishing of monasticism in Constantinople (with the reconstruction or new foundation of monasteries after the Byzantine recovery of the capital in 1261), Thessalonike, Mt Athos, and Meteora; (3) the development of a formal procedure of canonization (Macrides 1981 ; Talbot 1983 : 21–30). Thus, the majority of the thirty-two new saints of this era were opponents of Union, hesychasts, wandering monks or neo-martyrs killed by Turks or Egyptians.

The authors of their vitae tended to be monks or ecclesiastics, very often disciples of an older ascetic monk about whom they wrote at the remove of one generation. One of the most distinguished Palaiologan hagiographers, the patriarch of Constantinople Philotheos Kokkinos (d. c .1377–8), composed four biographies of hesychast saints, including his fellow patriarch Isidore I Boucheir (1347–50) and Gregory Palamas, metropolitan of Thessalonike (1347–50). His compositions were in part motivated by pride in his birthplace, since all four of his subjects were connected with Thessalonike, and he incorporated panegyrics of the city in his vitae . Many Palaiologan vitae of new saints are longer than those of earlier eras, and are written in high style with extensive passages of rhetoric. Some of the authors were quite erudite, despite their monastic background; Philotheos Kokkinos was a student of Thomas Maģistros, Makarios Chrysokephalos was a professor, and Theoktistos the Stoudite had access to an excellent library at the Stoudios monastery.

The Palaiologan era also saw a renewed interest in the composition of separate accounts of miracles, such as Máximos the Deacon's miracula of Sts Kosmas and Damian ( c .1300), Nikephoros Kallistus Xanthopoulos' miracula of the Pege monastery ( c .1308–20), Theoktistos the Stoudite's account of the posthumous miraeles of the patriarch Athanasius I (1330s), and John Lazaropoulos' collection of the miracles of St Eugenios at his monastery in Trebizond (1360s). The final three of these texts are characterized by an unusual fascination with the aetiology and symptoms of human disease, and suggest that their authors were familiar with medical literature (Rosenqvist 1995 ).

Another prominent feature of Palaiologan hagiography was intense interest in rewriting the vitae of earlier saints (Talbot 1991 ). About 80 percent of hagiographic production in this era, or approximately 125 works by forty-five different authors, is devoted to holy men and women who lived before the thirteenth century (excluding the apostolic age). The hagiographers of the saints of olden days came from the ranks of secular literati, as well as monks and churchmen. Especially noteworthy is Constantine Akropolites, an imperial official under Andronikos II, who wrote twenty-eight works on holy men and women of earlier eras. For his heroic efforts he was compared to Symeon Metaphrastes and earned the epithet of ‘the new translator’. Motivations for metaphrasis , the rewriting of older Vitae, were various; they included gratitude for miraculous healing by a saint's relics, a commission to produce an oration for a saint's feast day, civic loyalty (numerous enkomia of St Demetrios were produced by natives of Thessalonike), promotion of the cult of a saint at the monastery that held his/her relics, the desire to improve the style of an earlier version, and replacement of a lost vita .

The composition of hagiographical texts continued until the fall of Constantinopie in 1453. Very few new holy men appeared in the fifteenth century, however, so production focused on vitae and enkomia of older saints.

The History of Scholarship

For almost four centuries the leading scholars in the field of hagiography have been the Bollandists, a group of Jesuit scholars active first in Antwerp and later in Brussels, devoted to the critical study and publication of the lives of saints, Latin, Greek, and oriental (Delehaye 1920 , 1959 ). They take their name from the founder of their society, Jean Bolland (1596–1665), who first formulated the plan for the Acta Sanctorum , a series of edited texts of saints' lives, and oversaw the publication of its early volumes (for January and February). The seventeenth-century golden age of the Bollandists was followed in the eighteenth century by a decline in scholarship; the Bollandists were forced to abandon their work at the end of the century following the suppression of the Society of Jesus. The Bollandists were revived in 1837, and continue their work to this day ( http://www.kbr.be/~socboll ). Publication of the Acta Sanctorum is nearly complete, having reached the Propylaeum for the month of December; 68 volumes have appeared so far and a full electronic database of the Acta Sanctorum is now available. In 1882 the Bollandists began publication of a periodical, Analecta Bοllandiana , and in 1886 the series Subsidia hagiographica , which includes repertories, critical editions, and translations of vitae , and catalogues of hagiographical manuscripts. Primary focuses of Bollandist scholarship are the production of reliable editions of lives of saints and critical analysis of the authenticity of saints, some of whom have been shown to be legendary personages.

During the twentieth century secular scholars also developed an interest in hagiography, following in the footsteps of pioneering editors like A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus and E. Kurtz. These scholars have studied hagiographical texts for a variety of purposes, as historical sources (on this, see Halkin 1966 ), as evidence for realia and everyday life, and as literature (ševčenko 1995 ; Kazhdan and Talbot 1998 : introduction). Saints' lives are of particular value to the historian because so many of them describe aspects of Byzantine civilization not to be found in the narrative histories, such as childhood and family life, village society, and popular piety among the lower classes. There is also an increasing trend to prepare translations of vitae of Byzantine saints in order to render them accessible to Greekless students and medieval scholars in neighbouring fields.

D elehaye , H. (ed.) 1902 . Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae: Propylaeum ad Acta ss Novembris (Brussels).

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—— 1920 , 1959 (2nd edn.). LʼŒuvre des bollandistes à travers trois siècles 1615–1915 (Brussels).

—— 1921 . Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires (Brussels).

E fthymiadisi , S. 1996 . ‘The Byzantine hagiographer and his audience in the ninth and tenth centuries’, in C. Høgel (ed.), Metaphrasis: Redactions and Audiences in Middle Byzantine Hagiography (Oslo).

G regg , R. C. 1980 . Athanasius: The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus (New York).

G uy , J.-C. 1993 . Les apophtegmes des pères: collection systématique, chapitres I–IX (Paris).

H alkin , F. 1966 . ‘ LʼHagiographie byzantine au service de lʼhistoire ’, Thirteenth International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Oxford 1966. Main Papers Xl (Oxford): 1–10.

J ohnson , S. F. 2006 . The Life and Miracles of Thekla: A Literary Study (Washington, DC—Cambridge, Mass.).

K azhdan , A., and T albot , A.-M. 1998 . Dumbarton Oaks Hagiography Database. Introduction (Washington, DC) ( http://www.doaks.org/Hagio.html ).

—— with S herry , L., and A ngelidi , C. 1999 . A History of Byzantine Literature (650–850) (Athens): esp. 22–35, 37–41, 52–9, 75֊7, 84–7, 107–11, 127֊–31, 169–203, 281–308, 327–48, 352–79.

L aiou-Thomadakis , A. E. 1980 . ‘Saints and society in the late Byzantine empire’, in eadem (ed.), Charanis Studies: Essays in Honor of Peter Charanis (New Brunswick, NJ): 84–114.

L uzzi , A. 1995 . Studi sul Sinassario di Costantinopoli (Rome: Dipartimento di filologia greca e latina, Sezione bizantino-neoellenica, Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’).

M acrides , R. 1981 . ‘Saints and sainthood in the early Palaiologan period’, in S. Hackel (ed.), The Byzantine Saint (London): 67–87.

M agdalino , P. 1981 . ‘The Byzantine holy man in the twelfth century’, in S. Hackel (ed.), The Byzantine Saint (London): 51–66.

R osenqvist , J. O. 1995 . ‘ Miracles and medical learning: the case of St. Eugenios of Trebizond ’, Byzantinoslavica 56: 461–9.

Š evčenko , I. 1977 . ‘Hagiography of the iconoclast period’, in A. A. M. Bryer and J. Herrin (eds.), Iconoclasm (Birmingham): 113–31.

—— 1995 . Observations on the Study of Byzantine Hagiography in the Last Half-Century or Two Looks Back and One Look Forward (Toronto).

T albot , A.-M. 1983 . Faith Healing in Late Byzantium: The Posthumous Miracles of the Patriarch Athanasius I of Constantinople by Theoktistos the Stoudite (Brookline, Mass.).

—— 1991 . ‘Old Wine in New Bottles: the rewriting of saints' Lives in the Palaeologan period’, in S. ćurčić and D. Mouriki (eds.), The Twilight of Byzantium: Aspects of Cultural and Religious History in the Late Byzantine Empire (Princeton): 15–26.

—— 1996 . Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints' Lives in English Translation (Washington, DC).

W ard , B. 1975 . The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers: Apophthegmata Patrum from the Anonymous Series (Oxford).

—— 1980 . The Desert Christian. Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection (New York).

FurtherReading

For editions of the texts referred to in this section, consult in the first instance Halkin 1957 and 1984, and Talbot 2001 (under Electronic Resources , below). The following also will be helpful:

A igrain , R. 1953 and 2000 . LʼHagiographie: ses sources, ses méthodes, son histoire (Mayenne; repr. Brussels, with bibliographical supplement).

B eck , H.-G. 1959 . Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Munich): 267–75, 402–13, 459–67, 506–14, 557–82, 638–42, 697–701, 793–6. Bibliotheca sanctorum . 1961–70. Rome: Istituto Giovanni XXIII nella Pontificia Università lateranense, 13 vols.

D elehaye , H. 1991 . LʼAncienne hagiographie byzantine: les sources, les premiers modèles, la formation des genres (Brussels).

E fthymiades , S. 1999 . ‘ Greek Byzantine collections of miracles: a chronological and bibliographical survey ’, Symbolae Osloenses 74: 195–211.

H alkin , F. 1957 . Bibliotheca hagiographica graeca (Brussels).

—— 1984 . Novum Auctarium Bibliothecae hagiographicae graecae (Brussels).

H øgel , C. (ed.) 1996 . Metaphrasis: Redactions and Audiences in Middle Byzantine Hagiography (Oslo).

L u dwig , C. 1997 . Sonderformen byzantinischer Hagiographie und ihr literarisches Vorbild (Frankfurt am Main).

O dorico , R, and A gapitos , P.(eds). 2004 . Les vies des saints à Byzance: genre littéraire ou biographie historique? (Paris).

P ratsch , T. 2005 . Der hagiographische Topos: griechische Heiligenviten in mittelbyzantinischer Zeit (Berlin).

R ydén , L. 1986 . ‘New forms of hagiography: heroes and saints’, in The 17 th International Byzantine Congress: Major Papers (New Rochelle, NY): 537–44.

Electronic Resources

A full text database of the original edition of the 68 volumes of the Acta Sanctorum is available by subscription from Chadwick-Healey.

http://www.doaks.org/research/byzantine/translations_byzantine_saints_lives.html

http://www.doaks.org/publications/doaks_online_publications/ATHW.html

http://www.doaks.org/publications/doaks_online_publications/Lazi.pdf

http://www.doaks.org/Hagio.html

The Dumbarton Oaks Hagiography Database of the vitae of saints of the eighth-tenth cent, provides a subject index on many aspects of Byzantine civilization organized in a tripartite hierarchy, and includes the Greek texts of a majority of the vitae .

http://www.tlg.uci.edu

Very recently the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae has begun to include hagiographical texts in its online web version.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook3.html

A substantial number of Greek saints' lives in English translation can be found on Paul Halsall's website, Internet Medieval Sourcebook: Saints' Lives .

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hagiography

[ hag-ee- og -r uh -fee , hey-jee- ]

• the writing and critical study of the lives of the saints; hagiology .
• a biography that treats the person with excessive or undue admiration.

/ ˌhæɡɪˈɒɡrəfɪ; ˌhæɡɪəˈɡræfɪk /

• the writing of the lives of the saints
• biography of the saints
• any biography that idealizes or idolizes its subject

Discover More

Derived forms.

• hagiographic , adjective

Other Words From

• hag·i·o·graph·ic [ hag-ee-, uh, -, graf, -ik, hey-jee- ] , hagi·o·graphi·cal adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of hagiography 1

Example Sentences

This movie is not a hagiography, and it stops short of treating Larson like a genius.

Birdsall gives us a portrait of Beard that is neither a take-down nor hagiography.

She wants a “hagiography,” and the conflicts and confusions that ensue provide The Last Word with its comic momentum.

We Could Be King is, of course, part of a larger emergent genre, that of the high school football hagiography.

Surfing on an ocean of media hagiography, Christie seemed unbeatable just when it was time for Democrats to declare themselves.

And thank God, given the current glut of baseball hagiography on the market.

One has to be careful not to descend into a mess of hagiography.

But the great and absorbing subject of poetry in this age is Hagiography.

Hagiography was now a lost branch of art, as completely lost as wood carving, and the miniatures of the old missals.

The second version, though LB calls it miraculum insolitum, is one of the commonplaces of hagiography.

Space would now fail us to trace the development of hagiography in the Church.

The hagiography of the Eastern and the Greek church also has been the subject of important publications.

ENGL 4892: Medieval Manuscripts & Where to Find Them (Camp): Hagiography (The Saints)

• Hagiography (The Saints)
• Books of Hours
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Hagiography

Medieval hagiography comprises narratives that recount the saints' lives ( vitae ). Typically, these texts include the deeds and miracles associated with the saint, the conditions of their death ( passio  or passion) and martyrdom.

The hagiographical literature, which often describes a saint's life in graphic detail, is a vital source for medieval social, cultural and intellectual history. The resources below include a very small selection of basic tools for researching the lives of the saints. Both primary sources and secondary sources are available via the UGA Libraries.  

For even further reading on the subject, the following websites are especially comprehensive:

Internet Medieval Sourcebook: Saint's Lives   http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsall/sbook3.asp

Ménestrel ​ http://www.menestrel.fr/spip.php?rubrique427&lang=en  ​ Guide to Internet resources about Medieval hagiography, in a web site dedicated to the Middle Ages and run by a group of French and Belgian historians.  (The website has an English version, linked above.)

(Image Credit:  Saint Margaret with a Lady Donor.  Attributed to the Luçon Master, ca. 1405, Princeton University Art Museum, http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/)

Primary Sources

• Patrologia Latina Database Writings of the major Christian writers from Tertullian to the death of Pope Innocent III in 1216.

Researching Saints (Secondary Sources)

Religious Iconography

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What is a Hagiography?

A hagiography is a biography of a saint. The term is also used to describe the study of saints, although some people prefer to describe the study of saints as hagiology. Hagiographies have an ancient and esteemed history in Christian culture, and they are also present in several other religious traditions, especially Buddhism and Islam .

The art of hagiography arose early in the days of the Christian church, when it was used primarily as a propaganda tool. The idea was that by disseminating information about the lives of the saints, Christians could conceivably win converts. Hagiographies were far from dull accounts of history; they included inspirational stories and set up legends and myths about the people in them. Many hagiographies also included ghoulish descriptions of martyrdom, undoubtedly to appeal to people with more base sentiments.

In addition to being used to spread Christianity, hagiographies were also utilized as a tool to sanctify people. Many notable ecclesiastical figures and other church authorities commissioned hagiographies of themselves in the hopes that they would later be venerated as saints, and this was sometimes successful. In all cases, a hagiography typically stressed the subject's bravery, intrepid spirit, and Christian faith.

The heyday of the hagiography occurred in the medieval era, when numerous hagiographies were produced, both individually and in collections. During this era, many people created calendars of the saints, and those who could read were able to learn about a different saint each day; a medieval version of the page a day calendar, as it were. Many of these calendars have since been canonized, and a calendar of saints days exists today in both the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Although the hagiography is treated as a bit old fashioned in the modern era, it is still possible to find well-researched scholarly works on the lives of the saints, along with more traditional hagiographies. Some of these materials are quite interesting, documenting the lives and works of early moves and shakers in the Christian church, as well as the activities of more modern saints.

Because a hagiography was typically designed to present its subject in the best possible light, you sometimes hear “hagiography” used as a slang term to describe a secular biography. When used in this sense, a hagiography is a fawning, uncritical, and often poorly researched biography which paints a very adulating picture of its subject, rather than an accurate discussion of someone's life and works.

Ever since she began contributing to the site several years ago, Mary has embraced the exciting challenge of being a LanguageHumanities researcher and writer. Mary has a liberal arts degree from Goddard College and spends her free time reading, cooking, and exploring the great outdoors.

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• By: Eray Like many other religions, Islam has a long history of hagiography.
• By: kostin77 Hagiographies are found in Buddhism.

Hagiography

Hagiography is the writing of saints ' lives. It comes from the Greek words άγιος; and γραφή = "holy writing" or "writing about the holy (ones)."

• Hagiography refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy persons; specifically, the biographies of persons publicly glorified (canonized) by the Church.
• Hagiology , by contrast, is the study of saints collectively, without focusing on the life of an individual saint.
• 1 Hagiography as a form of biography
• 2 Development of hagiography
• 3 Usefulness
• 5 External links

Hagiography as a form of biography

Hagiography is unlike other forms of biography in that it does not necessarily attempt to give a full, historical account of the life of an individual saint. Rather, the purpose of hagiography is soteriological —that is, the life of the saint is written so that it might have a salvific effect on those who encounter it.

As such, hagiography often fails to include details which are standard for most biographical works, such as birthdate, childhood, career, and so forth. Rather, the details included are those which pertain to the saint's life as an icon of Christ, as one who points us to the abundant life available from our Lord.

The secondary purpose of hagiography is to glorify persons in whom Christ has powerfully worked. Therefore, one often can notice a dearth of mention of the saint's sins in this life. Sometimes, those sins are mentioned (as with St. Mary of Egypt or the Prophet King David ) so that their great repentance can be demonstrated, but other times, hagiography includes no mention of the saint's sins at all. This character of the genre should not be understood as propaganda—after all, it is axiomatic that only Christ is without sin—but rather that such details are not germane to the purpose of hagiography.

Development of hagiography

Hagiography comprised an important literary genre in the early millennia of the Church, providing informational history as well as inspirational stories and legends. A hagiographic account of an individual saint is often referred to as a vita or life .

The genre of lives of the saints first came into being in the Roman Empire as collections of traditional accounts of Christian martyrs , called martyrologies . In the 4th century, there were 3 main types of catalogues of lives of the saints:

• Menaion , an annual calendar catalogue (in Greek, μηναίον menaios means "month") (biographies of the saints to be read at sermons )
• Synaxarion , or a short version of lives of the saints, arranged by dates
• Paterikon (in Greek, πατήρ pater means "father"), or biography of the specific saints, chosen by the catalogue compiler

In Western Europe hagiography was one of the more important areas in the study of history during the Middle Ages. The Golden Legend of Jacob de Voragine compiled a great deal of mediæval hagiographic material, with a strong emphasis on miracle tales.

In the 10th century, the work of St. Simeon Metaphrastes —an Orthodox monk who had been a secretary of state—marked a major development and codification of the genre. His Menologion (catalogue of lives of the saints), compiled at the request of Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus while Simeon was still a civil servant, became the standard for all of the Western and Eastern hagiographers. Over the years, hagiography as a genre absorbed a number of narrative plots and poetic images (often of pre-Christian origin, such as dragon fighting etc.), mediaeval parables , short stories and anecdotes. Simeon's contribution was to collect these saints' lives from written and oral traditions, copying directly from some sources and reworking others, then arranging them in order of the saints' feast days.

The genre of lives of the saints was brought to Russia by the South Slavs together with writing and also in translations from the Greek language. In the 11th century, the Russians began to compile the original life stories of the first Russian saints. In the 16th century, Metropolitan Macarius expanded the list of the Russian saints and supervised the compilation of their life stories. They would all be compiled in the so called Velikiye chet'yi-minei catalogue (Великие Четьи-Минеи, or "Grand monthly readings"), consisting of 12 volumes in accordance with each month of the year.

Even though some of the writings seem to contain embellishments, as one may assume when reading of the life of St. Nicholas of Myra , they are still quite useful. In the words of Fr. Thomas Hopko :

• Article adapted from Wikipedia:Hagiography
• The Orthodox Faith Written by the V. Rev. Thomas Hopko ( OCA web site )

External links

• The Great Collection of the Lives of the Saints English translation of the work by Saint Demetrius of Rostov from Chrysostom Press
• Great Synaxaristes - Lives of Saints English translation from Greek from Holy Apostles Convent and Dormition Skete

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Making of a poem: maureen n. mclane on “haptographic interface”.

The art and life of Mark di Suvero

The poem begins. Photograph courtesy of Maureen McLane.

For our series Making of a Poem, we’re asking poets to dissect the poems they’ve published in our pages. Maureen N. McLane’s poem “ Haptographic Interface ” appears in the new Spring issue of the Review.

How did this poem start for you? Was it with an image, an idea, a phrase, or something else?  

This poem took wing, or distilled itself, during a conference on “Writing Practice” at Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf in September 2022. I started writing while listening to the closing remarks. The scholar Andrew Bennett had given a talk on Keats vis-à-vis haptographics, a term I hadn’t heard before—that was one spur. Keats is someone I’ve read and thought about for a long time (in one wing of my life I work on Romantic-era poetry). Bennett had spoken about Keats’s handwriting—how moving it can be to encounter it—and his letters, and the matter of “literary remains.” Some months after the conference, I looked up haptographics—one of the first hits on Google tells you that “haptographic technology involves highly sensorized handheld tools”—is a pen such? Haptography is a technique for “capturing the feel of real objects”—is this what Keats was up to, capturing the feel of things (experiences, emotions, movements of thought)? I think so. Is this still poetry’s aim? These are questions the poem implicitly pursues, but I can only say that having written the poem. There was no thesis-in-advance.

At the conference, I was intermittently taking notes and making notes while others were talking. Having a pen in my hand probably spurred that kind of dreamlike composition. The conference raised questions about writing, mediation, materiality, of the intersections between technology and art, of the sensorium. The human sensorium is key Keatsian terrain, and he is preoccupied too with poetic ambition. Other things in the mix included ambient concerns about AI. During the conference, one scholar invoked the term human writers , about which I noted in my notebook, “oy retronym.” A lot of floating things were concretized in the drafting.

Notebook pages. Photograph courtesy of Maureen McLane.

How did writing the first draft feel to you? Did it come easily, or was it difficult to write? (Are there hard and easy poems?)  

It was quite easy to write, a kind of channeling—I was probably usefully disinhibited, doing this while also listening, a kind of parallel play … or lyric dispossession.

Who is the speaker of this poem?

I guess you could say that the speaker of the poem emerges en route as “John Keats”—some amalgam of the figure of Keats, a kind of AI Keats, and me. So there’s an “I” generated out of some weird processing of “John Keats”—as poet, historical figure, representative case of and for poetry, persona/mask. The speaker is a kind of Keats-bot, perhaps. Our bots, ourselves.

How did you come up with the title for this poem?  

I was drawing on the title of Bennett’s talk, and my poem title was first “Haptographics,” as you see in the notebook, but ultimately became “Haptographic Interface.” I hovered for a while between the two, but the bot poet / poet-as-bot ultimately seemed to be an interface, and that seemed central to the poem.

A printed revision of the poem. Photograph courtesy of Maureen McLane.

Were you thinking of any other poems or works of art while you wrote it?   

I don’t know that I was thinking of anything, per se. Things came to mind and popped up organically—or robotically!—as I was writing, including Keats’s “Isabella, or the Pot of Basil,” and his sonnet “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” where he invokes a “peak in Darien.” “Isabella” is a very strange, creepy-sexy gothic neomedieval poem, and it probably occurred to me because I was working with a kind of creepy “John Keats” figure, and maybe because another conference-goer had mentioned the poem. To be honest, a lot of Keats can spontaneously bubble up for me—key phrases and lines. So too, motifs from romantic literature, including debates about fancy versus imagination—Coleridge is crucial for that.

My poem is in part a tissue of quotation and a kind of weird channeling of those Keatsian motifs. In this way, the poem navigates between the logic of AI—which presumes a massive devouring and sifting of existing databases—and more local or traditional instances of poetic composition, what Susan Stewart has called lyric possession, or Derrida, in another key, has called hauntology. A Keats-bot brings its own hauntings with it.

Also in the hinterland of my mind may have been two great recent books by critics—Anahid Nersessian’s  Keats’s Odes: A Lover’s Discourse  and Erica McAlpine’s  The Poet’s Mistake . Nersessian’s book gives us a deeply lovable, charismatic, politically progressive, and brilliantly sensual Keats. Keats’s biography haunts the poem in various ways—his frustrated love for Fanny Brawne, his incredibly rapid development as a poet in his early twenties, his terrible early death in Rome from tuberculosis. The Keats-bot figure of the poem is partially that biographical Keats and partially a furious or alienated posthumous Keats, which he could also be, despite general hagiography. McAlpine has a great reading of “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” which famously features a mistake, placing the conquistador Cortez upon that “peak in Darien,” gazing at the Pacific with a wonder analogous to Keats’s on first reading George Chapman’s translation of Homer. As McAlpine notes, it was Balboa, not Cortez, who first looked at the Pacific from the isthmus of Darien. Now we’re really in the weeds, but McAlpine’s exploration of poetic intentionality and error points to the challenges raised by a Keats-bot—what accounts of poetic intention or poetic making are plausible for us, at this juncture?  What versions of poetry are obsolete—and are “human writers” obsolete? The poem circles and does not answer these questions.

Maureen N. McLane’s most recent book is the essay collection My Poetics .

Critics Have Seen Unsung Hero, See What They’re Saying About The Faith-Based Story Of A Famous Musical Family

Joel Smallbone's film hits theaters April 26.

Christian music fans are likely familiar with the Australian duo For King + Country and their sister Rebecca St. James. The family has been making music for years, even earning five Grammy Awards between them, and now fans will get a chance to see their family’s story and the upbringing that led to those careers in the upcoming faith-based film Unsung Hero . Critics have seen the movie, so let’s take a look at what they’re saying.

Joel Smallbone stars as his father David, with Daisy Betts playing his wife Helen, and the cast also features plenty of recognizable names, including Candace Cameron Bure (who now also produces faith-centered movies ), Jonathan Jackson, Terry O'Quinn and Hillary Scott. Smallbone pulls triple duty on the film, as he also wrote and directed the project with Richard Ramsey. Let’s take a look at the reviews, starting with Nicolas Rapold of the New York Times . The critic didn’t seem to think too much of the movie, calling it “cringe” and writing: 

Viewer beware: Between the uplift and the cringe, this movie may cause whiplash. Joel Smallbone plays his own father, David, who faces financial and reputational ruin after booking a big concert and failing to pack the house. He resettles the family in the United States, but no job materializes. His pep-talking spouse, Helen (Daisy Betts), and their beatific children pull up bootstraps and practically whistle while they work, but it’s not enough. … Despite the fuzzy good intentions, it’s tough to make much of this making-of story.

Katie Walsh of the L.A. Times also understands the movie’s intention and recognizes that it will inspire its audience members. However, the story is predictable, and Joel Smallbone is too close to the situation to properly reflect on his family’s experience and offer anything meaningful, Walsh writes. The critic says:  

It’s a humble story, one with the capacity to inspire in its simple message of perseverance. But the film itself, as an artistic product, feels limited in its observational scope, because the filmmaker doesn’t have any distance from the material. Smallbone is a fine actor, but alongside Ramsey, he’s a limited filmmaker. Their visual style is drab at best, and the storytelling lacks the kind of self-reflection that might elevate this project. As it is, Unsung Hero feels more like band merch than an insightful family portrait.

Others, however, seem moved by the Smallbones’ story and the family’s faith amid so many hardships. Linda of Linda’s Lunacy says she didn’t want the movie to end, and she recommends it as a family film, noting that it’s suitable for all ages. Linda writes: 

I was moved to tears several times over the things that God did for them. I actually lost track of the number of times I was moved to tears. But Unsung Hero is not just a tearjerker. It’s a story of faith, hope, and love of family. And what God can do in our lives. … So many things happened to knock them down. A health scare, hospital bills, no vehicle, depression, among others. The whole time, the family prayed, worked, and stuck together.

Adam R. Holz of Plugged In calls the family’s story “quietly remarkable,” saying the “warts and all” approach to David’s struggles gives Unsung Hero a feeling of refreshing realism. Holz says: 

In some ways, the saga of this Australian family’s sojourn in the United States, strangers in a strange land, is an archetypal Christian movie, with a pure Hollywood ending to boot: The underdogs win, persevering through a seemingly unending series of unfortunate, Job-like events that might’ve capsized the faith of other families. In the end, Rebecca St. James launches her triumphant career. Redemption, hope and beauty win the day... But Unsung Hero is no airbrushed hagiography of the Smallbone family. Their path to beauty has been fraught with jagged, startling, even ugly brokenness.

The Christian movie review site Movieguide writes that Unsung Hero delivers in a big way. The Smallbones’ story is compelling, and all of the actors turn in impressive performances. The review continues: 

Unsung Hero is a powerful story of faith and family. The saga of a large family uprooted, experiencing culture shock, and seeking to work together toward a common goal is compelling. The filmmakers tell the story with lots of sincerity and heart. The acting is very good with singer songwriter, Joel Smallbone, of For King and Country fame, turning in a convincing performance as his father, David. Indeed, all the family members are well portrayed, They all have their own unique affinities. The music throughout Unsung Hero is fitting for both the low and high points of the family’s journey, as is the writing.

While Unsung Hero isn’t to the liking of all of the critics, it sounds like those hitting the theater to see a story about a family’s faith and perseverance won’t be disappointed. The movie will be on the big screen starting Friday, April 26, and be sure to check out our 2024 movie release calendar to see what else is coming soon to theaters. 

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• young adult

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Mixed-Media Experience ‘Noire' Tackles Civil Rights Struggle With Literary, Theatrical Pedigree

Given the NewImages Festival's remit to welcome diverse artistic voices into the immersive space, programing "Noire" was an obvious choice. An augmented reality adaptation of a lesser-known case from the Civil Rights era, "Noire" brought much pedigree to this year's Paris XR showcase.

The project tracks the true story of Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl in the segregated South who refused to give up her seat on the bus nine months before Rosa Parks did the same. Colvin's act helped kick off the Montgomery bus boycott, but her courage never quite got the same traction as that of Parks – in part because she didn't make for as compelling a media figure.

Ironically, that's exactly what compelled French author Tania de Montaigne, who sought to explore that era – and its wider questions of racism and resistance – using figures untouched by hagiography. The author's 2015 biographical essay would then inspire a theatrical adaptation directed by Stéphane Foenkinos, and then, after moving from page to stage, where else was there to go but the digital future?

"[The interplay between] Tania's text and Stephane's staging already created a kind of augmented reality," said co-director Pierre-Alain Giraud at a NewImages panel. "We then wanted to place users within that play, allowing them to move through it – and to do so, we had to create our own grammar and staging. Nobody understood what we were doing, because it hadn't really been done before."

Working from a volumetric capture studio in Taiwan, the production team worked out problems on the fly, troubleshooting through trial and error, and inventing new techniques as they went along. "There, we discovered just how universal that story could be," added Giraud. "Obviously, this island had its history with colonialism, creating a whole trajectory made Claudette's story just as affecting for the Taiwanese."

The mixed-media installation premiered at Paris' Centre Pompidou last year before winning raves at Montreal's Phi Center – where it has been programed since February. Next up is a slot at the Cannes Film Festival's inaugural immersive competition in two weeks' time – a prospect that gives co-director Foenkinos an ironic kick.

"I undertook this project as a way to get away from cinema," he laughs. "I thought it was my way to leave that world behind. Now, all I'm waiting for is for Tania to pick up a prize!"

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Bon Jovi, Forever Young, Comes Face-to-Face With Mortality in ‘Thank You, Good Night’

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You can’t watch Thank You, Good Night: The Bon Jovi Story and walk away with anything but respect for Jon Bon Jovi . The four-part, nearly five-hour documentary about the singer-songwriter and his namesake New Jersey rock band (streaming now on Hulu ) unflinchingly addresses the vocal problems that plagued Bon Jovi’s 2022 tour. If you’ve seen the YouTube videos of him struggling through “You Give Love a Bad Name” or “Wanted Dead or Alive,” you know how brutal it was to hear.

Bon Jovi does too. In one scene, he walks offstage after a concert in Indianapolis and collapses on the rug in his dressing room. “By far the worst show,” he mutters.

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The film’s dissection of the Bon Jovi/Sambora dynamic will delight longtime fans of the band, and vintage footage of the twosome during the group’s early days and in their acoustic appearance on the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards reminds you how electrifying their onstage chemistry was, especially as singers. In one segment, Bon Jovi is shown listening to the isolated vocal tracks of “Livin’ on a Prayer” with longtime engineer Obie O’Brien. “I don’t think that’s been replaced,” he says later of he and Sambora’s musical interplay.

Nearly all past and present members sit for interviews, from gruff drummer Tico Torres and gregarious keys man David Bryan to Sambora’s replacement, Canadian shredder Phil X, and bassist Hugh McDonald. (Founding bass player Alec John Such, who died in 2022 , is seen in archival clips.) Bruce Springsteen, one of Bon Jovi’s chief influences when he led his first band, the Atlantic City Expressway, also appears, and we learn that the two Garden State heroes often take 100-mile drives together, without their phones, to talk about music and mortality.

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“I don’t have a messiah complex…,” Bon Jovi says in one interview, before his voice trails off and he chokes back tears. “Anyway, that’s why the legacy matters.”

In the end, Thank You, Good Night is a story about how you react when the very thing that makes you who you are begins to let you down. Such a change is a jarring, physical eye-opener, and also a crisis of conscience. But as Bon Jovi himself wrote, sometimes you’ve gotta keep the faith.

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This exhibition features a variety of works from the UAMA’ contemporary art collection that reflect on themes related to religion, social justice and other pressing issues of the past thirty years.

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