Portraying Holy Men and Women in Early Christian Literature and Late Antique Hagiography

This book explores the literary connections between the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles and saints lives from a multidisciplinary perspective.

In the early Christian era, the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles were composed to quench the thirst for knowledge of the first communities of believers interested in the Apostolic missions. Centuries later, comparable narrative impulses shaped the accounts of martyrs, monks, virgins, and other ascetic figures who embodied new models of holiness in changing historical contexts. The apocryphal Acts drew creatively on biblical paradigms, while subsequent martyr acts and saints lives reworked and reinterpreted Apostolic narrative patterns, motifs, and scenes. Rather than tracing a simple line of in uence, this volume explores the dynamic literary processes through which early Christian and late antique hagiography constructed sanctity, negotiated authority, and reshaped inherited traditions across diverse linguistic and cultural settings. Across a rich spectrum of Greek, Latin, Slavic, and Syriac traditions, this volume uncovers how late antique and medieval authors reshaped narratives of Apostles, saints, martyrs, and holy figures to explore identity, conversion, gender, and devotion. From apocryphal Acts and hagiographic legends to novelistic motifs and political-theological reworkings, the chapters reveal a vibrant literary world where chastity, miracle, martyrdom, and moral transformation are continually reimagined. Together, these studies illuminate how diverse cultures adapted shared narrative patterns to address evolving spiritual ideals, communal memory, and the shaping of Christian literary imagination.