The image of a Saint-warrior in the Latin hagiographic literature of the fourth – sixth centuries

Abstract

The article deals with the creation of the image of a Saint-warrior using military vocabulary in the Latin hagiographic literature of the 4th–6th centuries. The author analyzes the evolution of this model of sanctity and gives various options for using military allusions in the hagiography of the considered period. The article is based on the historical and anthropological approach, it also uses the achievements of narratology, semiotics and imagology. The main sources for the study were the Vita Hilarionis by St. Jerome, the Vita Hilarii by Honoratus Massiliensis, Stephanus Africanus’s Vita Amatoris, and the Vita Martini by Sulpicius Severus, Constantius of Lyon’s Vita Germani and the Vita Epiphani by Magnus Felix Ennodius. The development of the Saint model in Western European hagiographic literature leads to the formation of the image of the Saint-ambassador, in which the military context is used to strengthen the authority of the Saint in the eyes of the reader. In the future, the new model influenced the formation of the image of the Saint-rhetorician. Military terms were still used by the hagiographer, but for a different purpose. They emphasized the Romanitas of the Saint, who now wields the word as opposed to the weapon.