Saints Alive!

Abstract

Saints Alive! Peter Heinegg Robert Bartlett Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013. xvii + 787 pp. $39.95. St. Augustine's question, which gives this massive tome its title, was prompted by the many reports of miracles worked by (strictly speaking, through) the saints. Bartlett, who teaches medieval history at St. Andrews in Scotland, doesn't try to explain why, how, or if the long‐dead Christian heroes could perform the mighty deeds attributed to them. Instead, he downplays theology and presents a minutely detailed taxonomic guide to the cult of the saints, one of the features of Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Eastern Orthodoxy that most vividly distinguishes them from other Christian churches (not to mention Judaism or Islam). The density and thoroughness of Bartlett's survey can be numbing at times, but this is a magisterial achievement. The cult of the saints, he argues, is based on three components: the name (specific identification) and day (the liturgical feast, often assigned to the day the saint died), the body (or at least some physical remnant of the person), and the literary commemoration or hagiography. The reasons for the appeal and success of the cult are obvious: The Lord God could seem vague and inaccessible, if not terrifying. Saints were like us, only much better (and hence explicit proof of the ultimate in human potential). God was everywhere, but saints had particular national, regional, or local roots, which they shared with believers. They were the patrons of religious orders, guilds, and monasteries, as well of countries (although England's beloved St. George was a mostly fictitious martyred soldier from the eastern Mediterranean). They served both as a source of pride and help in time of need. If they delivered that help, they could be honored by votive offerings, such as gold or wax images of body parts healed through their intercession. Veneration (doulia, as opposed to latria, divine worship) was a quid pro quo affair. The first saints were the Virgin Mary, the apostle, and martyrs. Once Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire, opportunities for martyrdom drastically diminished (except for missionaries); and its place was taken by monastic asceticism, along with the more quotidian categories of “confessor” (though that could rise to the lofty title of “Doctor of the Church”) and virgin. A bit confusingly, the archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael were also venerated as saints, despite their celestial status, since all three are mentioned in the Bible or the Apocrypha as helpers of humans. And in one bizarre episode, a French greyhound was canonized as St. Guinefort. The dog had been slain by its master, thinking it had killed a baby (whom it had in fact tried to save). Neighboring peasants honored the dog as a martyr, but a Dominican friar named Stephen de Bourbon (whose order had close ties to the Inquisition), indignantly dug up the animal's grave and burned its bones. There were limits to sainthood. Statistics for the gender of saints are disputed, but starting from a low of 8% in the 6th century, by the 15th century perhaps as many as 28% of canonized saints may have been women. The proportion has never climbed higher than that. Canonization itself was loosely regulated throughout western Christendom, until about the year 1200, when the papacy claimed supreme authority in the matter. And the popes have been at it ever since: John Paul II canonized a record 480‐plus saints during his long reign. New canonizations still make headlines, and people still talk about the devil's advocate. The fame of outstanding saints like Anthony of Egypt (d. 356) or Martin of Tours (d. 397), gave birth to the incredibly voluminous genre of hagiography, rife with fantastic legends, spectacular miracles, and (for the martyrs) sadistic horrors. A majority of the miracles involved the cure of diseases, but they spanned a gamut from relieving sterility to raising the dead to predicting the future, driving out demons, levitating, and receiving the stigmata. Classics like The Golden Legend (ca. 1260) and The Little Flowers of St. Francis (ca. 1390) enjoyed a steady...