This volume discusses, from an historical and literary angle, the ways in which sanctification and the inscription of saintliness take place. Going beyond the traditional categories of canonization, cult, liturgical veneration and hagiographical lives, the work raises fundamental issues concerning definitions of saints and saintliness in a period before the concept was crystallized in canon law. As well as discussing sources and methodology, contributions cover contextual issues, including relics and veneration, life and the afterlife, and examinations of specific sources and texts. Subjects raised include the idea of hagiography as intimate biography, perceptions of holiness in writings by and about female mystics, and bodily aspects of the Franciscan search for evangelical perfection.

The studies in this volume are drawn together from a widely scattered set of publications, many difficult of access. They exemplify the variety of influences - religious, cultural, political - that interacted in Syria in Late Antiquity, and the range of responses that these evoked in changing historical circumstances. The first section of the book is concerned with the development of Syriac Christianity, with particular articles looking at the relations between Christians and Jews, and at the position of holy men. There follow two sections focusing on Marcionism and on Manichaeism, while the final studies examine aspects of Syriac Christianity after the Arab conquests.