‎Julia Doroszewska, Mateusz Kusio (eds)‎
‎Boundaries of Holiness, Frontiers of Sainthood. Negotiating the Image of Christian Holy Figures and Saints in Late Antiquity‎

‎, Brepols, 2025 Hardback, 284 pages, Size:156 x 234 mm, Illustrations:1 b/w, 4 col., 1 tables b/w., Language: English. ISBN 9782503614212.‎

Reference : 70974

‎Summary Many excellent studies have been published on the phenomenon of holy (wo)men and saints. As a rule, however, they focus on successful candidates for holiness who played the roles of charismatic leaders and patrons of social and religious life. This volume offers a new perspective on ancient and medieval holiness - its main focus is holiness as defined by its peripheries, and not by its conceptual centre. The contributors explore stories of men and women whose way to sainthood did not follow typical 'models', but who engaged with it from its outskirts. Several essays examine the strategies employed by hagiographical authors to tailor the images of candidates for holiness whose lives provided less obvious examples of moral and/or religious ideals. These include attempts to make saints out of emperors, heretics, and other unlikely or obscure figures. Other case studies focus on concerns with false holiness, or unusual cases of holiness being ascribed prior to a saint's death. Another concept explored in the volume is space. The spatial boundaries of holiness are discussed in relation to the transmission of relics, to the opposition between urban and rural spaces, holy sites, and even imagined space. Holiness and sainthood have been crucial concepts for Christianity from its inception. By exploring their 'marginal' and 'peripheral' aspects, the essays in this book offer vital new perspectives on the religious world of Late Antiquity. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction JULIA DOROSZEWSKA, MATEUSZ KUSIO Part I. Negotiating the Boundaries of Holiness and Sainthood The Holy Men Beyond the Limits of Humanity in Hagiography, Documentary Papyri, and Graffiti from Western Thebes PRZEMYS?AW PIWOWARCZYK How to Portray an ?????? The ???????? of Stephen within the ????????? ????? of Gregory of Nyssa MATTIA C. CHIRIATTI Beatissima Lucina, Matrona Nobilissima: Lucina and the Shifting Boundaries of Female Holiness in Late Antique Rome RAÚL VILLEGAS MARÍN Gregory of Tours and the Boundaries of Sainthood SIMON LOSEBY AND BRYAN WARD-PERKINS Healing and Being Healed: Justinian, Imperial Illness, and the Emperor's Body between Human Vulnerability and Divine Protection JONAS BORSCH Part II. Spatial Boundaries of Holiness and Sanctity Establishing Imperial Holiness in Liminal Spaces: Heraclius's Transformation into the Saviour of Byzantium during his Persian Campaigns Mirrored in the Panegyrical Writings by George of Pisidia NIKOLAS HÄCHLER, SONSOLES COSTERO-QUIROGA The Saint in and out of the Late Antique City: The Evidence of Greek Hagiography STEPHANOS EFTHYMIADIS Holy Places and Liminal Spaces in John Moschos's Spiritual Meadow FOTIS VASILEIOU Telling Spaces and Stories in a Greek Narrative of the Passion of Agatha (BHG 37) ANNA LAMPADARIDI A Palestinian Holy Man at the Constantinopolitan Court: Stretching the Boundaries of Holiness at the Turn of the Sixth Century MAURITS DE LEEUW Index‎