(Jody Gray) This is just one of my Blog Posts related to Religion, Origins: where did what exists now, come from? And, why am I your enemy? See, Blog Post: Religion, Cross Reference. http://indextoblogposts.*
Hagiography provided priests and theologians with classical handbooks in a form that allowed them the rhetorical tools - words used in a certain way to convey meaning or to persuade, can also be used to evoke emotion… When one contrasts it to the popular heroic poem, such as Beowulf, one finds that they share certain common features… Both genres tend focus on the hero-warrior figure, but with the distinction that the saint is of a spiritual sort… Over the years, the genre of the lives of the saints had absorbed a number of narrative plots and poetic images (often, of pre-Christian origin, such as dragon fighting, etc.), medieval parables, short stories and anecdotes. Related: BP: Supernatural Powers, Miracles. http://indextoblogposts. and BP: Superstitions, omens, symbols. http://indextoblogposts.
*Hagiography [https://en.wikipedia.] is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader. Christian hagiographers focus on the lives, and notably the miracles of men and women canonized by the Roman Catholic church, the Anglican Communion, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Church of the East. Hagiographic works, especially those of the Middle Ages, can incorporate a record of institutional and local history, and evidence of popular cults, customs, and traditions. Development. Hagiography constituted an important literary genre in the early Christian church, providing some informational history along with the more inspirational stories and legends. A hagiographic account of an individual saint an consist of a biography, a description of the saint’s deeds and/or miracles, and account of the saint’s martyrdom, or be a combination of these. The genre of lives of the saints first came into being in the Roman Empire as legends about Christian martyrs were recorded. The dates of their deaths formed the basis of martyrologies. In the 4th century, there were three main types of catalogs of lives of the saints.
In Western Europe hagiography was one of the more important vehicles for the study of inspirational history during the Middle Ages. The Golden Legend of Jacob de Voragine compiled a great deal of medieval hagiographic material, with a strong emphasis on miracle tales. Lives were often written to promote the cult of local or national states, and in particular to develop pilgrimages to visit relics.
Medieval England. Many of the important hagiographical texts composed in medieval England are written in the vernacular dialect Anglo-Norman. With the introduction of Latin literature into England in the 7th and 8th centuries the genre of the life of the saint grew increasingly popular. When one contrasts it to the popular heroic poem, such as Beowulf, one finds that they share certain common features. In Beowulf, the titular character battles against Grendel and his mother, while the saint, such as Athanasius’ Anthony (one of the original sources for the hagiographic motif) or the character of Guthlac, battles against figures no less substantial in a spiritual sense. Both genres tend focus on the hero-warrior figure, but with the distinction that the saint is of a spiritual sort.
Imitation of the life of Christ was then the benchmark against which saints were measured, and imitation of the lives of saints was the benchmark against which the general population measured itself. In Anglo-Saxon and medieval England, hagiography became a literary genre par excellence for the teaching of a largely illiterate audience. Hagiography provided priests and theologians with classical handbooks in a form that allowed them the rhetorical tools [words used in a certain way to convey meaning or to persuade; can also be used to evoke an emotion] necessary to present their faith through the example of the saints’ lives.
Of all the English hagiographers no one was more prolific nor so aware of the importance of the genre as Abbot Aelfric of Eynsham. His work The Lives of the Saints comprises of a set of sermons on saints’ days, formerly observed by the English Church… The text spans the entire year and describes the lives of many saints, both English and continental, and harkens back to some of the earliest saints of the early church.
Eastern Orthodoxy. In the 10th century, a Byzantine monk Simeon Metaphrastes was the first one to change the genre of lives of the saints into something different, giving it a moralizing and panegyrical character [eulogist speech, high praise of a person, not expected to be critical]. His catalog of lives of the saints became the standard for all of the Western and Eastern hagiographers, who would create relative biographies and images of the ideal saints by gradually departing from the real facts of their lives. Over the years, the genre of the lives of the saints had absorbed a number of narrative plots and poetic images (often, of pre-Christian origin, such as dragon fighting, etc.), medieval parables, short stories and anecdotes.
Today, the works in the genre of lives of the saints represent a valuable historical source and reflection of different social ideas, world outlook and aesthetic concepts of the past.
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*Related, The Golden Legend, 1260 AD.
*an example of Vorgaine’s writing style -notice the symbolic use of #’s and trees.
Many tales of miracles and other marvels were attributed to relics beginning in the early centuries of the church. These became popular during the Middle Ages… Provenance of the True Cross. The Golden Legend, 1260 AD, contains several versions of the origin of the True Cross… Voragine writes that the True Cross came from three trees which grew from three seeds from the “Tree of Mercy” which Seth (third son of Adam and Eve) collected and planted in the mouth of Adam’s corpse… the True Cross came from a tree that grew from part of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil… that Seth planted on Adam’s grave where it “endured there unto the time of Solomon” -after fourteen generations, the wood taken from the bridge was fashioned into the Cross used to crucify Jesus.
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*Related, other influential writings.
[https://en.wikipedia.] The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis is a Christian devotional book; first composed in Latin ca. 1418-1427 (written anonymously in the Netherlands, Kempis is generally accepted as the author). It is a handbook for spiritual life arising from the Devotio Moderna movement, of which Kempis was a member. The Imitation is perhaps the most widely read Christian devotional work next to the Bible, and is regarded as a devotional and religious classic. Its popularity as immediate, and it was printed 745 times before 1650.
The approach taken in the Imitation is characterized by its emphasis on the interior life and withdrawal from the world, as opposed to an active imitation of Christ by other friars. The book places a high level of emphasis on the devotion to the Eucharist as key element of spiritual life.
Saint Augustine viewed the imitation of Christ as the fundamental purpose of Christian life, and as a remedy for the imitation of the sins of Adam. Saint Francis of Assisi believed in the physical as well as the spiritual imitation of Christ, and advocated a path of poverty and preaching like Jesus who was poor at birth in the manager and died naked on the cross. The theme of imitation of Christ existed in all phases of Byzantine theology, and in the 14th century book Life in Christ Nicholas Cabasilas viewed “living one’s own personal life” in Christ as the fundamental Christian virtue.
Against this backdrop, the Devotio Moderna movement was started by Geert Groote who was highly dissatisfied with the state of the Church and what he perceived as the gradual loss of monastic traditions and the lack of moral values among the clergy. The initial focus of Devotio Moderna was the rediscovery of genuine pious practices and conversion and reconversion of the lukewarm clergy. The Imitation was written within the Devotio Moderna community, as it was flourishing in Northern Europe, but grew far beyond that movement which came to an end with the Protestant Reformation.
Book One. deals with the withdrawal of the outward life -so far as positive duty allows and emphasizes an interior life by renouncing all that is vain and illusory, resisting temptations and distractions of life, giving up the pride of learning and to be humble, forsaking the disputations of theologians and patiently enduring the world’s contempt and contradiction… stresses the importance of solitude and silence, “how undisturbed a conscience we would have if we never went searching after ephemeral joys nor concerned ourselves with affairs of the world…” World and all its allurements pass away” and following sensual desires leads to a “dissipated conscience” and a “distracted heart”... meditate on death and “live as becomes a pilgrim and a stranger on earth… for this earth of ours is no lasting city.”
Book Two. “Directives for the Interior Life.” instructions concerning “inward peace, purity of heart, a good conscience -for moderating our longings and desires, for patience, for submission to the will of God, for the love of Jesus, for enduring the loss of comfort, and for taking up the Cross.” We must not attribute any good to ourselves but attribute everything to God.
Book Three. “On Interior Consolation” a form of a dialogue between Jesus and the disciple. Jesus advises the disciple that all is not lost when the result is not as planned, when one thinks he is farthest from Jesus, it is then that Jesus is nearest, when one thinks that all is lost, it is then that victory is close at hand. Jesus says to to react to a difficulty as if there were no hope of being freed from it. “My son, to the degree that you can leave yourself behind, to that degree will you be able to enter into Me. Just as desiring nothing outside you produces internal peace within you, so the internal renunciation of yourself unites you to God.”
Book Four. “On the Blessed Sacrament” also in the form of a dialogue between Jesus and the disciple. In this Sacrament spiritual grace in conferred, the soul’s strength is replenished, and the recipient’s mind is fortified and strength is given to the body debilitated by sin. “Unless you renounce all that you have, you cannot be my disciple.” To receive the Sacrament, Jesus says “make clean the mansions of your heart. Shut out the world world and all its sinful din and sit as a solitary sparrow on a housetop and, in the bitterness of your soul, meditate on your transgressions.” Jesus says that there is no offering more worthy, no satisfaction greater, for the washing away of sins and to offer oneself purely and completely to God at the time the Body of Chris is offered in the Mass and in Communion.
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*-examples of Hagiography and Biblical numerology aka Numerical symbology.
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Charlemagne died Jan. 28, the seventh day from the time that he took to his bed… in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh of his reign.
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*Hagiographer
Osbert de Clare (d. ca 1158) [https://en.wikipedia.] was a monk, elected prior of Westminster Abbey and briefly abbot. He was a prolific writer of letters, a hagiographer and forger of charters. He wrote a Latin Life for Saint Eadburh, daughter of Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons.
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