Drawing on comparative literature, ritual and performance
studies, and the history of asceticism, Derek Krueger explores how
early Christian writers came to view writing as salvific, as
worship through the production of art. Exploring the emergence of
new and distinctly Christian ideas about authorship in late
antiquity, "Writing and Holiness" probes saints' lives and hymns
produced in the Greek East to reveal how the ascetic call to
imitate Christ's humility rendered artistic and literary creativity
problematic. In claiming authority and power, hagiographers
appeared to violate the saintly practices that they sought to
promote. Christian writers meditated within their texts on these
tensions and ultimately developed a new set of answers to the
question "What is an author?"Each of the texts examined here used
writing as a technique for the representation of holiness. Some are
narrative representations of saints that facilitate veneration;
others are collections of accounts of miracles, composed to
publicize a shrine. Rather than viewing an author's piety as a
barrier to historical inquiry, Krueger argues that consideration of
writing as a form of piety opens windows onto new modes of
practice. He interprets Christian authors as participants in the
religious system they described, as devotees, monastics, and
faithful emulators of the saints, and he shows how their literary
practice integrated authorship into other Christian practices, such
as asceticism, devotion, pilgrimage, liturgy, and sacrifice. In
considering the distinctly literary contributions to the formation
of Christian piety in late antiquity, "Writing and Holiness"
uncovers Christian literary theories with implications for both
Eastern and Western medieval literatures.
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