AGIOGRAFIA

HAGIOGRAPHY. – From Greek ἀγιος “saint” and γράφω “I write,” also called hagiology, it is the science that deals with the lives and legends of the saints and all related matters. It may be considered a branch of ecclesiastical history. In the strict sense, hagiography concerns the saints and the blessed whose cult is recognized by the Catholic Church or may one day be recognized; in a broader sense it embraces all Christian hagiographical literary production of all times and places. This is especially true of early Christian antiquity and the early Middle Ages, which abound in hagiographical texts written not only in Greek and Latin but also in Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Ge’ez, and Arabic.

Hagiography is a historical discipline to which the rules of historical method apply, but to deepen its study knowledge of theology and mysticism is also necessary. Today much emphasis is also placed on the psychology of the saints. Owing to specialization, now introduced in all sciences, various other disciplines have branched off from hagiography proper, such as research on relics, on patrons of churches and of various arts and crafts, on erotiology (from Greek ἐορτή “feast”), that is, on the origin of the feasts of the saints, on their iconography, on the Acts of the Martyrs, and on the Martyrologies.

The authors of lives and legends of the saints are called hagiographers, who must be carefully distinguished from the biblical hagiographers, the name by which Catholic exegetes designate the authors of the inspired books. In a broader sense, the term hagiographers also applies to scholars of hagiography, such as the Bollandist hagiographers, continuators of Jean Bolland, who began the *Acta Sanctorum*. When applying the rules of criticism to hagiography, one must not lose sight of the fact that it is not the saints who are being criticized but the authors of their lives, who wrote according to their talent, their culture—very different in the various epochs—and their good faith, and sometimes even bad faith. Indeed, hagiography has not lacked genuine forgeries and fabrications inspired by vanity and more often by particular interests or local claims. Hence the necessity of criticism to ascertain the truth, a necessity fully recognized by the Church with the establishment of the historical section within the Sacred Congregation of Rites (1930). Nor can one in this regard draw a clear distinction between scholarly hagiography and popular or practical hagiography, for from the beginning both have been intertwined and interdependent.

Leaving aside the Acts of the Martyrs (q.v.), which are the oldest hagiographical documents, a brief outline will be given of Latin hagiographical literature in the various epochs. In general it may be said that periods of intense religious life also produce notable hagiographical works, whose form varies according to the character of the time.

The earliest lives of the saints (not martyrs) are those of St. Anthony the Abbot, written in Greek by St. Athanasius but immediately translated into Latin and eagerly read; of St. Ambrose composed by the deacon Paulinus; of St. Martin of Tours written by Sulpicius Severus; of St. Augustine composed by Possidius; and of St. Melania the Younger written by the priest Gerontius, surviving in Greek (perhaps the original) and in Latin. These lives are far removed from the later type of saintly biographies. They are written in the style of ancient classical biographies, especially those of Suetonius. The life of the monk St. Malchus, written by St. Jerome, reads like a novella. The *Dialogues* of St. Gregory the Great, with their predilection for legendary and popular elements, already belong to the following period.

The Merovingian period produced a copious output in hagiographical literature, though of very disputed value. With the decline of classical traditions following the barbarian invasions, the lives of the saints took on a different form. The marvelous and the miraculous predominate. This is especially evident in the writings of St. Gregory of Tours (d. 594): *De gloria martyrum*, *De gloria confessorum*. In many of these hagiographical accounts, written with naive faith, only miracles are recorded, to the greater glory of the saints and for the edification of the people. It must be acknowledged, however, that some lives of contemporary confessors are excellently drawn. On the occasion of the numerous translations and elevations of the bodies of saints, then considered equivalent to canonization, there arose a desire to know the life of the saint; to satisfy this desire, hagiographers—often ignorant of the true circumstances of the hero’s life—resorted to vague popular traditions, invented or even copied other legends, changing only the name of the saint. The rather rough Merovingian literary form was sometimes refined during the Carolingian Renaissance. It is therefore difficult in some cases to determine whether one is dealing with an original or a later reworking. B. Krusch, editor of the lives of the Merovingian saints in the *MGH*, applies very severe criticism in this regard.

In a certain way related to Merovingian hagiography is the rich Irish hagiography, in which the marvelous element is often in abundance. Examples are the numerous lives of St. Brigid of Kildare, whose cult was widely spread by Irish monks even on the Continent, and the lives of St. Brendan, even apart from the *Navigatio Brendani*, an extremely fantastic and popular work that was later woven into older lives.

In the 7th–8th centuries notable biographies were written of the great Anglo-Saxon missionary saints, St. Willibrord, St. Boniface, and others.

In the 9th–10th centuries there is a great abundance of hagiographical literature, which was the principal literary production of the time, collected in vol. 15 of the *MGH*. These are especially lives of saintly bishops and abbots. L. Zoepf (q.V. below), who has studied deeply the hagiography of the 10th century, divides it into three categories: legends, lives, and biographies, meaning by the first those works in which the legendary and marvelous element predominates; by the second those that, alongside positive data, contain miracles performed during the saint’s lifetime; while the biography is properly historical, with individual traits and references to the events of the epoch and without miracles performed in life. While the latter category is not abundant, the other two abound in the 10th century and, it may be added, in the following centuries.

L. Hertling (*Zeitschrift für Aszetik und Mystik*, 8 [1933], pp. 260–68) has noted another peculiarity in the legends of the 6th–12th centuries: the catalogue of virtues. That is, at a given moment the author, although treating the individual virtues separately, gathers them together in a rhetorical outburst into a single bundle of all the virtues he attributes to his hero, according to a pattern that varies from author to author but is always of the same content. This is thus a *Comune Sanctorum*. Examples of this are still found in the 13th century.

In the 13th century we have the veracious lives of St. Bernard of Clairvaux written by various contemporary authors, while the *Liber miraculorum* of Herbert, Bishop of Salisbury, and the *Exordium magnum cisterciense* are already legendary.

Also historical are the life of St. Norbert by an anonymous author and that of St. Hugh of Cluny written by Raymond of Semur. Alongside these veracious lives, the usual popular legends are not lacking.

The 13th century is exceptionally rich in both great and humble figures of saints. Their lives, written by contemporaries, inspire trust and arouse our admiration for the great artistry displayed (the *cursus*). It suffices to recall the lives of St. Francis of Assisi by Thomas of Celano and St. Bonaventure, true literary monuments and masterpieces of hagiography. Notable as well are the lives of St. Dominic, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and the life of St. Mary of Oignies, written by Cardinal James of Vitry. However, the 13th century also produced hagiographical works of dubious quality, such as the *Dialogus miraculorum* of Caesarius of Heisterbach, the *Bonum universale de apibus* of Thomas of Cantimpré, and the exceedingly implausible life of Christina Mirabilis by the same author, or of very doubtful value, such as the legend of St. Emilian, an Irish bishop (7th–13th century), who died in Faenza, or finally of pure fantasy, such as the legend of St. Gunifort of Pavia.

From the 13th century onward, we have Latin collections of saints' lives. The Order of St. Dominic distinguished itself in this field. Omitting the *passionaria* or lectionaries for cathedral churches, we must mention the numerous hagiographical texts (100 chapters) included in the *Speculum historiale* of Vincent of Beauvais and especially the *Golden Legend* (*Legenda aurea*) of James of Varazze (Varagine), which enjoyed immense diffusion after its printing from the 15th century (about 90 Latin editions and several translations). This work, naive and lacking any criticism, owed its great popular success to its influence on iconography and folklore.

More critical in the 14th century were the *Speculum sanctorale* of Bernard Guidonis (d. 1331) and the *Legendae de Sanctis* of Peter Calo (d. 1348). These two collections remained unpublished; however, Calo’s work was widely exploited by Peter de Natalibus (d. c. 1400) in the *Catalogus Sanctorum*, published in Vicenza in 1493 and reprinted several times thereafter. As for historical criteria, the *Catalogus* does not surpass the *Golden Legend* by much. Far more appreciated today is the *Sanctuarium Vitae Sanctorum* of Bonino Mombrizio, published in Milan c. 1480 and reprinted by the monks of Solesmes in 2 vols. in-4°, Paris 1910. Mombrizio follows the alphabetical order of the names of the saints. His legendary is valuable because it has preserved ancient hagiographical texts of which the manuscripts are now lost.

Humanism and the pseudo-Reformation of the 16th century greatly influenced hagiographical works. The former affected their style, the latter their critical approach. The collections of Lipomano and Surius sought to eliminate stylistic shortcomings and focused on the spiritual benefit of readers. St. Pius V, in a brief addressed to Surius on June 2, 1570, praised the work for being admirably suited to refute “the evil words of heretics against the same histories of the holy Fathers” (G. Laderchi, *Annales eccl.*, ad annum 1570, n. 3).

Historical criticism and philological accuracy in this field were seriously initiated in the 17th century by the Bollandists, who published the first two volumes of the *Acta Sanctorum*, covering the month of January, in Antwerp in 1643. The work, continued for over three hundred years and still not completed, now consists of 70 folio volumes. In 1882, the neo-Bollandists began the journal *Analecta Bollandiana*, a true center and rich mine of hagiographical studies. The principles guiding such studies are expounded in several monographs by Fr. H. Delehaye (d. 1941). Useful working tools are also the *Subsidia hagiographica* published by the same Bollandists. Following these works, the interest of scholars of all countries and beliefs in ancient hagiographical texts has grown immensely, and today we witness a true revival of hagiographical studies, while popular taste for saints' lives is nourished by editions and collections in the vernacular, which are numerous in various modern languages. As early as the 16th century, P. Ribadeneyra, following Lipomano and Surius, published in Spanish a *Flos Sanctorum* (Madrid 1599), translated multiple times into Italian, e.g., Venice 1743, 2 vols. in-4°. The Oratorian Carlo Massini published in two series in-16°, each of 13 vols.: *Raccolta di Vite de' santi per ciaschedun giorno dell'anno* (Rome 1763–67), which went through several editions, the fourth Roman edition appearing in 1819–21. Well known are the collections of A. Butler (in English, recently reworked by Thurston, 12 vols., London 1926–38), translated into Italian from the French version by G. Godescard, *Vite dei Padri, dei Martiri e degli altri principali santi*, 2nd ed., Venice 1857, 15 vols.; that of P. Guérin, *Les Petits Bollandistes*, Paris 1878, 17 vols. in-8°, 7th ed., Paris 1888. An example of sound criticism and pleasing style is the collection *Les Saints*, published in Paris under the direction of H. Joly, with more than 100 volumes, partly translated into Italian (Rome, Desclée). Collections by various religious orders can be seen under their respective names.

Text Collections: The Bollandists’ Acta SS., of which there are three editions: 1st ed., orig. Antwerp-Brussels 1643–1940; 2nd ed., Venice 1734–70 from January to vol. V of September; 3rd ed., Palmé, Paris 1863–70 up to vol. XII of October. The number of volumes counted for the individual months in these editions is not always the same. The lives of the Merovingian saints are found in the MGH, Scriptores rerum merovingicarum, II–VII, Hanover 1888–1920, partly re-edited by B. Krusch and K. W. Levison. The volume containing the works of St Gregory of Tours, 1884–85, is not yet complete in the new edition. — Irish Saints: Joh. Colgan, Acta SS. Hiberniae, Louvain 1645, in-fol. (January–March); C. De Smedt–Ios. De Backer, Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae ex codice Salmanticensi, Edinburgh and London 1887, in-fol.; Carolus Plumer, Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, 2 vols., Oxford 1910 (excluding the lives already published in the previous work); id., Miscellanea hagiographica hibernica, Brussels 1925 (texts in Gaelic with English translation, etc.). An important commentary on these lives is given by J. F. Kenney, The Sources for the Early History of Ireland, I, Ecclesiastical, New York 1920; also useful is A. Tommasini, I santi irlandesi in Italia, Milan 1932. — For England: C. Horstmann, Nova Legenda Angliae, 2 vols., Oxford 1901 (by John of Tynemouth, reworked by John Capgrave). — Acta SS. Belgii, 6 vols., Brussels–Tongerloo 1782–04; J. Mabillon, Acta SS. Ordinis s. Benedicti, 9 vols. in-fol., Paris 1668–1701, 2nd ed., 6 vols. in-fol., Venice 1733–40. A new edition, edited by the monks of Solesmes, was undertaken by the publisher Protat, Mâcon 1935.

Of the medieval Greek hagiographical collections the most complete is that of Simeon the Logothete, called Metaphrastes (10th cent.): PG 114–116, widely exploited by Lignomnus and Surius. On Greek hagiography: A. Ehrhard, Überlieferung und Bestand der hagiographischen und homiletischen Literatur der griechischen Kirche, 2 vols. (Texte und Untersuchungen, L–LI), Leipzig 1937–38 (on Metaphrastes: II, pp. 360–709), a fundamental work but left incomplete (only a few fascicles of vol. III have appeared); Le Synaxaire de Sirmond, in Anal. Boll., 14 (1896), pp. 396–434; Les Mémoires grecs, ibid., 16 (1897), pp. 311–291; H. Mertel, Die hagiographische Form des griechischen Heiligenlebens, Munich 1906; against him R. Holl, Die schriftstellerische Form des griechischen Heiligenlebens, in Gesammelte Aufsätze, II, 1, Tübingen 1928.

Dictionaries: Abbé Pélin, Dictionnaire hagiographique ou vies des Saints et Bienheureux honorés en tout temps et en tous lieux, 2 vols., in-4°, Paris 1848–50 (vols. 40–41 of Migne, Encyclopédie Théologique), a reduced and updated work by J. Baudot, Dictionnaire d’hagiographie, Paris 1925; J. Stadler–I. Heim, Vollständiges Heiligenlexikon, 5 vols., in-8°, Augsburg 1883–62; F. G. Holweck, Dictionary of the Saints, St Louis–London 1924, rich in information; Donald Attwater, Dictionary of the Saints, London 1938, is essentially the index of the new edition of A. Butler, The Lives of the Saints, ed. H. Thurston, 12 vols., London 1926–38. Also falling into this category is The Book of Saints, London 1921, a work of the Benedictines of Ramsgate. Precious scholarly tools in the field of ancient and medieval hagiography are: 1° the BHL, Brussels 1898–1901, with supplement of 1911; 2° the BHG, ibid. 1895, 2nd ed. 1909; 3° the BHO, ibid. 1910.

On the Martyrologies: Filippo Ferrari, Catalogus generalis Sanctorum qui in Martyrologio Romano non sunt, Venice 1625; H. Quentin, Les Martyrologies historiques du moyen âge, Paris 1908; V. martirologio.

On the psychology of the saints: H. Joly, La psychologie des saints, Paris 1897; Italian trans., Rome 1909; A. Rademacher, Das Seelenleben der Heiligen, 2nd ed., Paderborn 1917; J. Familler, Das Heiligenleben in der modernen Psychopathographie, Ratisbon–Rome 1915; M. de Montmorand, Psychologie des Mystiques catholiques orthodoxes, Paris 1920. All these authors are Catholic; not so: F. Mocren, Die Psychologie der Heiligkeit, Halle a. S. 1908.

Aglotzia: V. Agiografia.

Agiografia: V. Agiografia.