Lives Of Saints Research Articles

Aaron J Kleist and Robert K Upchurch (eds). Ælfrician Homilies and Varia: Editions, Translations and Commentary, 2 vol

Aaron Kleist and Robert Upchurch have assembled a monumental tome that includes the Ælfrician homilies not already published in the major Ælfrician collections, which are The First Series (ed. Peter Clemoes), The Second Series (ed. Malcolm Godden), Supplemental Homilies (ed. John C. Pope), the Lives of Saints (eds Mary Clayton and Juliet Mullins), Homilies of Bodley 343 (ed. Susan Irvine), and the Hexameron (ed. Samuel Crawford). Nine of these homilies have never been published before; others are published but in hard-to-find and hard-to-access places like dissertations. Of the 31 texts published here, there are 15 distinct homilies, five related homilies printed as appendices, two alternative versions of a homily, and nine varia, that is, texts that are not homilies, but related to Ælfric’s homiletic work. Kleist and Upchurch have chosen the word ‘Ælfrician’ in their title carefully, as the authorship of many homilies has been and continues to be disputed. They explain, ‘Fifteen of the homilies are, or almost certainly are, by Ælfric. Four others might be. And in view of such certainties, near certainties, and clear uncertainties, we thus use “Ælfrician” in the title to characterize the works edited here’ (viii). (Notably to reach these numbers, they are counting the 15 distinct homilies, the five related homilies, and the two alternative versions, for 22 total homilies.) The editors are correct in this choice: even in homilies where Ælfric’s sole authorship is disputed, it is still useful to print these homilies together in order to see the connections between different texts, some of which are certainly authored by Ælfric. It is also particularly helpful for anyone interested in the construction of composite homilies, as Ælfric frequently rewrites and reuses his own material. Equally, the editors print the homilies in the versions that exist in the best manuscript without correcting the text to Ælfric’s Late West Saxon. Therefore, the current state of homilies like I.2 (In Natali Domini) offers an important lens into the continuing use of English-language homilies in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Lives Away from Home and Precarious Writing as Life: Reading Bienvenido Santos’s Postscript to Saintly Life

Lives Away from Home and Precarious Writing as Life: Reading Bienvenido Santos’s Postscript to Saintly Life

Педагогический аспект изучения агиографической литературы

The article actualizes the problem of registration in a separate scientific field of teaching the bases of the Orthodox Faith, and as part of it - the methodology of working with hagiographic literature. The purpose of the proposed article is the justification of the pedagogical aspect of working with hagiographic literature, with its emphasis on the semantic, ideological framework of hagiography to solve problems of spiritual and moral development and education of students in the lessons of the basics of the Orthodox Faith. Materials and methods. The leading research methods were the analysis and synthesis of information from contemporary scientific articles, historical and pedagogical literature, normative documents in the field of education, school textbooks; comparison of scientific ideas and concepts, pedagogical experience of the past and the present. Results. The article substantiates the importance of hagiographic literature for solving the problem of spiritual and moral development and education of schoolchildren. The authors of the article proceed from the fact that the task requires at the first stage of its solution the formation of value representations of students, which have a high degree of abstraction, uncertainty in the wording of the relevant concepts. These problems can be solved by hagiographic literature, illustrating in visual and verbal form spiritual and moral qualities of personality, values which are difficult to define precisely, but whose manifestations can be observed through thoughtful reading and analysis of hagiographic literature. The authors of the article offer readers an analysis of pre-revolutionary editions of hagiographic literature for children and focus on the diversity of modern books on the lives of saints, as well as features of the modern presentation of hagiographic text that complicates the work of the teacher and requires him to carefully select books in accordance with the tasks, age and individual characteristics of children. Also the authors offer a sequence and the maintenance of stages of work with hagiographic literature at a lesson with the purpose of realization of a knowledge component, the emphasis on relevance and simultaneously complexity of work on a conclusion of a moral conclusion from the read hagiography is made. Conclusions. The proposed ideas about the importance of hagiographic literature for the formation of ideas about the spiritual and moral qualities of personality and the value foundations of Christianity can be put into the development of a separate topic of scientific research related to the study of hagiographic literature in the pedagogical aspect. To do this you must, firstly, to explore the moral meanings, worldview framework of the lives of saints, and secondly, to develop a method to work with these meanings and worldview attitudes consistent with age, social experience of children and their experience of church life, establishing interdisciplinary links and rationally linking the study of hagiography with other subjects of the school curriculum

The Old Norse–Icelandic Hagiography of St Ambrose of Milan: Manuscript Tradition, Sources, and Composition

The Old Norse–Icelandic Hagiography of St Ambrose of Milan: Manuscript Tradition, Sources, and Composition

Stretching the Heavens: The Life of Eugene England and the Crisis of Modern MormonismEugene England: A Mormon Liberal

Stretching the Heavens: The Life of Eugene England and the Crisis of Modern MormonismEugene England: A Mormon Liberal

Жанрово-стилистические признаки рассказа о прижизненном чуде (на материале русских житий)

The research is carried out on the basis of the lives of Russian saints and holy fools. The purpose of the study is to reveal constant genre and stylistic features that allow identifying the genre “the story of a lifetime miracle” and substantiating its independence. The article uses the following methods and techniques: observation, continuous sampling, description, comparison, linguistic and genre-stylistic analysis. As a result of the study, in addition to the previously revealed genre parameters, such significant features of a story about a lifetime miracle were identified as the presence of typical linguistic representations of the genre parameters, the obligatory grammatical and lexical indicators of time, indicating the suddenness of miraculous events and emphasizing causeand-effect relationships, as well as the imagery of the narrative, which is created through comparisons and antitheses — figurative artistic techniques that reveal the nature of the miraculous in stories.

The William A. Wilson Digital Folklore Archives

The William A. Wilson Digital Folklore Archives

A Critical Companion to Old Norse Literary Genre

A Critical Companion to Old Norse Literary Genre

Глагол в лексической структуре житийного текста: синтагматический аспект

Using a comprehensive approach to the analysis of linguistic facts, a fragment of the lexi­cal structure of hagiographic text formed by verbal units is characterized. The material for the study consists of hagiographic lives of saints and martyrs from the Synodal edition, which are part of the May cycle of the Menaion Reader. The authors focus on the syntagmatic aspect of the lexical structure of the hagiographic text, manifested in the distribution of lexical units and their collocations. As a result, a quantitative dynamics of verbal units is identified, re­flected in the increase in the proportion of verbs in the part of the hagiography describing the saint’s journey to righteousness. The distribution of verbs throughout the text of different lexical-semantic groups is determined by the type of monastic or martyric asceticism of the saint and the content of the compositional part embodying various hagiographic topoi. The role of lexical repetition in expressing the content of the text is demonstrated. The specificity of hagiographic lives is established, characterized by the use of verbal units whose meaning has evolved through semantic derivation, reflecting the metaphorical reinterpretation of a specific action in a spiritual plane.

Going Down in Herstory

Throughout her writing career, Michèle Roberts has been one of the contemporary women writers who has re-constructed and retold the lives of previously forgotten, silenced or marginalised women. In an attempt to re-inscribe their voice, Roberts has re-written history from the female perspective by going back to the lives of female saints, Biblical figures and other female writers. In her last collection of short stories, Mud: Stories of Sex and Love, all the protagonists are women taken from historical or literary texts, to whom she has given voice, providing the reader with new visions of reality. This paper focuses on “On the Beach at Trouville”, and analyses the strategies Roberts has used both to present the lives of Thérèse of Lisieux and Camille Monet from their own perspectives and to subvert the patriarchal construction of history.

Emplotting total devotion: secrecy, fame, and imitation in late antique Lives of Christian ascetics

ABSTRACT This article concentrates on ideals of total devotion in Latin late antique Lives of secret saints. It argues that total devotion is narrativised according to a standardised plot structure or ‘masterplot’. The plot starts with the saints’ performance of total devotion in religious competition, which increases their fame and emotional attraction among the followers. Imitating the example of earlier ascetics, the saints withdraw in isolation to avoid the followers’ attention, but to no avail: the more they hide, the more they become known through the spreading of rumours. The saints’ subsequent disclosure intensifies their emotional attraction, and results in the people’s demonstration of total devotion. In a final step, the audience of the hagiographical tales is invited to follow the saints’ example. Laying bare the recurring plot elements, the article highlights the nexus of ascetic withdrawal, secrecy, fame, emotions, storytelling, and imitation in the constitution of total devotion.

Beyond Babel: Translations of Blackness in Colonial Peru and New Granada

Beyond Babel: Translations of Blackness in Colonial Peru and New Granada

Erken Dönem Hıristiyanlığın İlk Doktor Azizeleri:Zenais, Philonella, Hermoine

The holy persons (saints), who have an important place for Byzantine Art and Christianity, have been kept alive in depictions, religious buildings, temples and churches in Anatolia and Europe since early times. The fact that the information about the lives of these saints, who are described as the representatives and servants of God on earth, is missing in the Turkish literature, has been effective in recent studies in this field. After the studies on doctor saints, reaching very little data about these three women saints is an important deficiency for those who study Byzantine medicine and saint lives. With this study, data on the lives of doctor saints were compiled and new information was brought to the literature by evaluating their lives, lifestyles and the location of their graves. The study was supported with new records and finds, and a suggestion was made about the school where the saints were educated. It was tried to determine the place of the saints in the Christian world by discussing the accuracy of some claims. These saints, who are considered as "Mothers of Medicine", should be given the necessary dedication in the society. Although the data about these three saints are scarce, it is considered worthy to be researched and introduced with their exemplary lives and aspects, as they are prominent professionally. The belief that the continuation of their cults in the places they live and the belief that the region will also contribute to faith tourism makes it necessary to think and research on the subject.

Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions

Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions

Celtic Saints and Animal Stories: A Spiritual Kinship

In Celtic Saints and Animal Stories, Edward C. Sellner weaves together various known, and many less well-known, stories of animals in the hagiographies of the Celtic saints. His goal is to illuminate the relationships, what he terms a “spiritual kinship” between the saints and animals. Sellner's work will find an audience with those interested in theology and the Celtic saints in general. But it has a wider appeal to those interested in animals and spirituality. Written in a popular, rather than an academic, tone, it is full of enchanting stories of the lives of saints and animals to delight well beyond an academic audience.This short work is divided into three sections: a comprehensive introduction, the stories of the saints, and a conclusion. The introduction situates the stories within the Celtic worldview and explores the ancient Celts’ connection with animals. Sellner introduces the reader to the world of mystics and storytelling as foundational to Celtic Christianity.The stories of the saints are divided into sections on “The Holy Trinity of Celtic Saints,” who are Patrick of Armagh, Brigit of Kildare, and Columcille of Iona, and another section on “And the Others,” the others being the largest part of the book, covering 17 saints. Each piece on a saint begins with a summary of biographical details and their feast day, before Sellner selects a few examples of the saint's relationship to animals. For example, in his treatment of St. David of Wales, Sellner focuses on the prophecy of his greatness and how it was linked to “a stag, fish, and a hive of bees” (p. 60). Most noteworthy, David founded a monastery where no animals were used for labor, and the monks kept a simple vegetarian diet. That the Patron Saint of Wales led a vegetarian monastery may come as a surprise to many, but this is just one of the interesting stories in this insightful book.While some saints seem to have closer connections to animals than others, and some are more proactive in their protection of animals—Kevin of Glendalough, for example, saves a free-living boar from hunters (p. 77)—the stories as a whole illustrate a culture of concern for animals within the Celtic Christian tradition. Sellner argues that the impact of the Celtic saints is much more extensive than might be assumed. For example, he traces the spiritual kinship with animals through not just the Celtic lands, but through monasteries administered by Irish monks, such that this attitude to animals is seen in the lives of Hildegard of Bingen, St. Disibod, and St. Francis of Assisi, who grew up in the part of Italy where Christianity was brought by St. Columban (pp. 93–94). Columban apparently went into the forest to pray and called the animals to him, and the animals would accompany him in his devotions (p. 54).The central argument of the book is that the Celtic saints exemplify a spiritual kinship with animals. Gently but profoundly, he demonstrates how a closer union with God ought to result in a greater communion with God's other creatures. The relationship between the saints and animals is one of reciprocity “that transcends species-differences so that all benefit in the circle of life. Kindness, compassion, loving respect on the part of the saints elicits from their creature-partners trust, caring, and love—which in turn increases the happiness of everyone” (p. 96). Sellner concludes with reflections upon what this kinship might mean in terms of our ethical treatment of animals. He suggests that “Patrick's protection of innocent deer . . . might challenge those who consider hunting ordinary” and that “from Brigit's concern for a terror-stricken boar and a flock of wild ducks, we might consider how animals are treated today in labs and factory farms” (p. 97). The ethical questioning is posed in the same gentle, spiritual tone as the rest of the book, and as such, Sellner mostly leaves it to the stories of the saints to enlighten rather than expound on the moral treatment of animals.In short, Sellner's book is a delightful look at the world of Celtic saints and animals, shining a light on some of the positive, overlooked narratives about animals found within the Christian tradition. It is an excellent primer to the riches of animal-friendly spirituality.

Folklore and Greek Hagiography: Some Preliminary Notes

Based on personal experience and previous academic research, this article aims to lay the foundations for an interdisciplinary approach to Greek hagiography. It represents the first attempt to define the coordinates of the study of ancient hagiographical texts (lives of saints, collections of miracles, praises, etc.) through methodologies from folklore studies. By presenting a concrete example from a collection of miracles of healing dreams, I hope to show the potentialities of such an approach to scholars of my field, who are generally unaware and skeptical of it. At the same time, I would like to outline the richness of data that Greek hagiography has to offer to folklorists. To sum up, mutual exchange is expected (and needed) in the future.

Resisting the Oppressive Paternal Metaphor of God in Michèle Roberts’s "Impossible Saints"

The protagonist of Michèle Roberts’s Impossible Saints, Josephine, establishes a nonconformist convent for women who seek communion with God by following an unorthodox path of sensual spirituality. Impossible Saints intersperses Josephine’s story with a number of miniature narratives depicting fictional lives of saints, rewritten in a feminist manner, portraying both the female predicament in the patriarchally structured society and women’s struggle for empowerment in which they rebel against masculinist conventions. The article employs feminist thought, derived mainly from Julia Kristeva, to examine the way in which Roberts problematizes the relation of the Catholic Church to the position of women as well its concern with the human body. The bodily dimension of the divine, as proposed by Luce Irigaray, manifesting in the emancipatory communal experience of women in Josephine’s convent, greatly contrasts with the Catholic regulatory character of religiosity. The analysis also situates the patriarchal institution of the Church in the context of the Lacanian order of the symbolic and his notion of the Name-of-the-Father. It culminates in exploring the issue of the metaphor of God as seen through the traditional patriarchal frame which pictures God as masculine.

Els <i>exempla</i> en els sermons de sant Vicent Ferrer: una aproximació etnopoètica

Summary: The exempla were stories reported in sermons with essentially doctrinal functions. They often had a sacred origin: they came from the anecdotes of the Church Fathers, from the lives of saints, from the collections of miracles or directly from the Bible. However, sometimes these stories could also come from the oral tradition. This contribution is an ethnopoetic approach to a specific repertoire of examples from the sermons of St. Vincent Ferrer that correspond to universal motifs, perfectly cataloged and typified in The Types of International Folktales. This adscription not only clarifies the communicative strategies of Vincentian preaching, but also the characteristics of the popular narrative in the early fifteenth century in the Kingdom of Valencia. Keywords: ethnopoetics, Saint Vincent Ferrer, preaching, exempla, folktale, ATU 1, ATU 280A, ATU 763, ATU 985*, ATU 1331.

Finding Joy in Being Counter-cultural: Lessons for Catholic Medical Professionals.

Catholic medical professionals face increasing challenges to adhering to the faith in the exercise of their professional functions. Growing opposition to traditional Church teaching-particularly with regard to issues of human sexuality and end-of-life care-threaten faithful Catholic clinicians with a form of "white martyrdom," characterized by loss of professional standing. Threats to rights of conscience come from various segments of contemporary society, including professional medical societies and publications that increasingly resemble strident activists rather than dispassionate and measured consensus-builders. Reflection on the relationship between counter-culturalism and joy can be a source of strength for those Catholic physicians facing opposition based on their adherence to the faith in their practice. A review of the historical developments of Christian medicine highlights its counter-cultural stance in contrast to the ancient Greco-Roman traditions that preceded it. Counter-cultural figures such as Ss. Cosmas and Damian, St Basil, and St Philip Neri serve as examples of courageous Christian counter-cultural witnesses in their times. Additionally, St Philip Neri's cheerful ministry in Rome also exemplifies Christian joy as a means of evangelizing in the midst of a culture in decline (as was the Eternal City in the 16th century). The lives of saints who suffered for the Faith remind us that being counter-cultural has consequences. While being called to "speak the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15), Catholic medical professionals are to show compassion in words and actions as the singular signs of a faithful Christian.

Vida y muerte de San Cristóbal

Vida y muerte de San Cristóbal