The Belgian Jesuit Hippolyte Delehaye (1859-1941) was a distinguished member of the Society of Bollandists, named for the seventeenth-century Jesuit Jean Bolland, who was assigned the task of collating and editing the various versions of the lives of saints and martyrs. This work in French was published in 1909, and considers the various legends, originating in the Greek Orthodox Church, about the lives of soldier-saints, from the most famous, such as St George and St Theodore, to those, such as St Procopius of Scythopolis, where there is not unanimous agreement that they were soldiers at all. A long appendix gives the Greek texts (with variants) of several versions of the lives and martyrdoms of Sts Theodore, Eutropius, Procopius, Mercurius and Demetrius. Delehaye in his introduction points out that Christianity spread rapidly through the Roman army, and that this accounts in part for its dissemination across the Roman world.

H. Delehaye's work on Greek hagiography remains fundamental and a collection of his research on the Byzantine sources has long been called for. This volume assembles his articles on the Metaphrastes' compilation brought up to date by Fr. Halkin with a bibliographical addendum, and the first publication of the foundation typica of two important monasteries in Constantinople - a mine of religious and prosographical information on the city and its upper classes in the Paleologan period.

The Legends of the saint-facts about the saints. How often these two are thought to be the same thing, and everything which we read in saints' biographies we take to be unadorned truth. But this is simply not so-the lives of the saints have from the earlier times been a mixture of fact, legend, fabrication and confusion. As Fr. Delehaye says: 'The conditions in which many accounts of martyrs and lives of saints were composed are too little known to people in general to allow of a ground of understanding...We therefore believe we shall be doing a useful work by trying to set out, more clearly than usual, the various kinds of writings our pious authors produced, by outlining the origins of their compositions and by showing how far they were from being protected from making errors that exact history is bound to point out. The aim of this book is to briefly show the spirit in which hagiographical documents should be read, to sketch the method for discriminating between materials that the historian can use and those that he should leave to poets and artists as their property, and to put readers on their guard against being led away by formulas and preconceived ideas. There is no question of our waging war on legends. It would be a senseless thing to do...The work of legend can be numbered amongst the great unconscious natural forces. As such one cannot ignore it. Only, do not mistake it for history.' Since 1905, when it was first published, Delehaye's study has been acclaimed as a classic example of impartial scholarship. His great learning, the balance of his mind, the economy of his style, the wit and humanity which inform the whole - these make a fascinating book, a delight to read for sheer enjoyment, and an invaluable source of information. The new translation, by Donald Attwater, does full justice to the original, so that the flavour of Delehaye's personality and style are conveyed in the English. The text used is that of the revised edition of 1955.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1907 Edition.

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An Analysis Of The Problem, From Pagan Survivals To Current Misrepresentations.

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

An Analysis Of The Problem, From Pagan Survivals To Current Misrepresentations.

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

An Analysis Of The Problem, From Pagan Survivals To Current Misrepresentations.

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.