Tag: Hagiography

Notes upon the Acts / Passion of St. Saturninus

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An online forum asked about an ancient text named the Acts of St. Saturninus.  I had not heard of these, and my investigation is perhaps worth writing up.

The Passio S. Saturnini is a text which describes the death of Saturninus and other martyrs of Toulouse in Gaul during the Decian persecution.  It belongs to that category of martyrdoms which Ruinart labelled “sincera”, i.e. authentic rather than merely a later invention.[1].  The text is numbered BHL 7495-6.  (Note that a later, 7-8th century text is much longer and numbered BHL 7491, and  was edited in 2002 and published by Herder).

In its current state, the Passio S. Saturnini is a late text, edited in the second decade of the 5th century (certainly before 450 AD), two centuries after the death of the bishop, at the moment when his cult began, thanks to the translation of his relics from the modest tomb where he had been buried into a new basilica. The author of it is very definitely a clergyman of Toulouse living at the time of bishop Exuperius, or soon afterwards.[2]

Cabau wrote notes on the bishops of Toulouse in this period, which may be found here.

Edition:

  • Patrice Cabau, “Opusculum de passione ac translatione sancti Saturnini, episcopi Tolosanae ciuitatis et martyris. Édition et traduction provisoires”, in: Mémoires de la Société archéologique du Midi de la France 61, 2001, p. 59-77.  This includes a full bibliography.  Online here.

French translation:

  • Pierre Maraval, Actes et Passions des martyrs chrétiens des premiers siècles. Introduction, traduction et notes, in: Sagesses Chrétiennes, Cerf, 2010, pp. 181-192.  Online here.

I have found no sign of a translation into English, unfortunately.

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  1. [1]Thierry Ruinart, Acta Martyrum sincera et selecta, 1689, p.109-113; 2nd ed.  here has text on p.128 f, and a list of manuscripts used on p.lxxix.↩
  2. [2]From the introduction to Marival’s translation.↩

The Ashgate companion to hagiography

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I had a weak moment at the Patristics conference last week.  It cost me rather a lot of money.  But I succumbed to the lure of “50% off” and bought a copy of the Ashgate Research Companion to Hagiography, volume 1.

From the website:

Hagiography is the most abundantly represented genre of Byzantine literature and it offers crucial insight to the development of religious thought and practice, social and literary life, and the history of the empire. It emerged in the fourth century with the pioneering Life of St Antony and continued to evolve until the end of the empire in the fifteenth century, and beyond. The appeal and dynamics of this genre radiated beyond the confines of Byzantium, and it was practised also in many Oriental and Slavic languages within the orbit of the broader Byzantine world.

This Companion is the work of an international team of specialists and represents the first comprehensive survey ever produced in this field. It will consist of two volumes and is addressed to both a broader public and the scholarly community of Byzantinists, Medievalists, historians of religion and theorists of the narrative. The present volume covers, first, the authors and texts of the four distinctive periods during which Greek Byzantine hagiography developed, and then the hagiography produced in Oriental and Slavic languages and in geographical milieux around the periphery of the empire, from Italy to Armenia. A second volume will deal with questions of genres and the social and other contexts of Byzantine hagiography

Contents: Introduction, Stephanos Efthymiadis; Part I The Periods of Byzantine Hagiography: The Life of St Antony between biography and hagiography, Tomas Hägg; Greek hagiography in late antiquity (4th–7th centuries), Stephanos Efthymiadis with Vincent Déroche (with contributions by André Binggeli and Zissis Aïnalis); Hagiography from the ‘dark age’ to the age of Symeon Metaphrastes (8th–10th centuries), Stephanos Efthymiadis; The hagiography of the 11th and 12th centuries, Symeon A. Paschalidis; Hagiography in late Byzantium (1204–1453), Alice-Mary Talbot.

Part II The Hagiography of the Byzantine Periphery and the Christian Orient: Palestinian hagiography (4th–8th centuries), Bernard Flusin; Italo-Greek hagiography, Mario Re; Syriac hagiography, Sebastian P. Brock; Georgian hagiography, Bernadette Martin-Hisard; Armenian hagiography, S. Peter Cowe; Hagiography in Coptic, Arietta Papaconstantinou; Arabic hagiography, Mark N. Swanson; Slavic hagiography, Ingunn Lunde; Latin hagiographical literature translated into Greek, Xavier Lequeux; Indexes.

I’ve started in on this.  It begins with a very sensible introduction, in which the editor acknowledges the disgust that a normal historically-minded reader will tend to feel when confronted with hagiographical texts.  He also adds that often there are as many versions of a hagiographical text as there are manuscripts.

I have read as far as part way into the section on the Life of Anthony.  It’s not bad at all.

Here’s hoping that the rest is as good!

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The Halkin “Life of Constantine” is now online in English

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The 9th century Saint’s life of Constantine the Great, known after its discoverer as the Halkin ‘Life’, was translated into English by Mark Vermes, but never published.  The translator has kindly sent me a copy, and given permission for it to appear online.  Today I did the deed, and the translation is now here.

The work is entirely fictional, of course.  It derives in a very large part from an earlier work by Alexander the Monk, who himself made use of earlier sources.  Such “history” as it contains is very shaky indeed, and derives from common Byzantine sources.

Neverthless it is good to have it accessible on the web.  Thank you, Dr Vermes.

UPDATE (29th August 2012): I find that there is a copyright issue.  This evening I came across an email a year old, from Dr. Samuel Lieu, stating that he owns the translation, that his grant paid for the production of the work, and that he hopes to get it published formally (although he can’t find his own copy; I must send him one) and so would be reluctant to have it circulate electronically.  This is all understandable, and, while the matter is resolved, I have removed it from the web.

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