A Brief History of Saints (E-Book) von Lawrence S. Cunningham

List of Illustrations vii

Introduction 1

1 The Saint: Beginnings 5

Beginnings 8

The Martyrs 11

Literature 13

Veneration 16

After Constantine 18

2 The Bureaucratization of Sanctity 28

Liturgical Memory of the Saints 28

The Saintly Legend 31

Regularizing Sainthood 36

A Test Case: Francis of Assisi 39

The Christian East 44

The Many Meanings of the Saints 46

Pilgrimage 49

Venerating Saints: A Theological Clarification 51

3 Reformations: Protestant and Catholic 54

The Age of the Reformers 54

The Catholic Reformation 61

The New Martyrs 68

The Papal Curia and Canonization 72

The Saints and Scholarship 74

4 Towards the Modern World 78

Worlds Divided 78

New Forms of Religious Life 81

Doctors of the Church 87

The Starets 91

The Tractarians and the Saints 96

5 The Twentieth Century 102

Schools of Spirituality 102

A New Saintliness? 107

The New Martyrs 115

John Paul II: Saints and Evangelization 120

Anglican and Lutheran Calendars 123

6 The Saints, World Religions, and the Future 127

Some Terminology 130

Saints as a Theological Resource 136

Saints and the Continuity of Religious Tradition 139

Appendix I: Patron Saints 148

Appendix II: Iconography of the Saints 151

Notes 155

Select Bibliography 162

Index 169

A Brief History of Saints follows the rise of the cult of saints in Christianity from its origin in the age of the martyrs down to the present day.

• Refers to both well-known saints, such as Joan of Arc, and lesser-known figures like the 'holy fools' in the Orthodox tradition
• Ranges over subjects as diverse as the history of canonization processes, the Reformation critique of the cult of saints, and the role of saints in other religious traditions
• Discusses the relevance of sainthood in the postmodern era
• Two appendices describe patron saints and the iconography of saints in art.