The Saint's Life and the Senses of Scripture

Ann W. Astell is professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of many books, including Eating Beauty: The Eucharist and the Spiritual Arts of the Middle Ages, and the editor of Saving Fear in Christian Spirituality.

Acknowledgments


Illustrations


Abbreviations


Introduction: Brief Candle: The Saint’s Life as Biblical Illumination


Part 1. The Saint’s Life in the Age of Monasticism


1. Psalm Use, Prayer, and Prophecy in the Lives of Saint Guthlac


2. Hexaemeral Miracles in Saint Ælred of Rievaulx’s Life of Ninian


3. The Song of Songs and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux’s Life of Saint Malachy


4. Eadmer’s Parabolic Life and History of Saint Anselm of Canterbury: A Twice-Told Tale.


Part 2. The Saint’s Life in the Scholastic Age


5. Saint Francis of Assisi as “New Evangelist” in Thomas of Celano’s Vita Prima and Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior


6. Heroic Virtue in Blessed Raymond of Capua’s Life of Catherine of Siena


7. Mary Magdalene and the Eucharist: Reading Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea with Catherine of Siena, Raymond of Capua, and Osbern Bokenham


Part 3. The Saint’s Life in Modernity


8. The Ends of Hagiography: Erasmus’s Jerome, Harpsfield’s Life, and More’s Epitaph


9. Modern Literary Experiments in Biblical Hagiography


Conclusion: Historical Truth, Biblical Criticism, and Hagiography