Appendix C: Comparisons with Later Christian Hagiography 857
Appendix C Comparisons with Later Christian Hagiography T he usual historiographic procedure is to examine proposed parallels from the milieu of the works in question, not from a milieu that existed only centuries later. Although I have addressed healing claims in this book from a much later period than those in the Gospels and Acts (most frequently from our own era), these comparisons are for the purpose of addressing philosophic questions specifically regarding miracles and the possibility of eyewitness claims, not for adducing literary parallels. Medieval hagiography is not a genuine literary parallel, nor does it often provide the sociological sort of parallel to eyewitnesses and secondhand sources claiming miracles that the modern reports I have included do.
It can illustrate that late accounts can include substantial elaboration or fiction, but that premise is not in dispute, though given the dates of our documents, it is also less relevant than some suppose. I must, however, survey some examples of later
Christian hagiography because these have been cited by others as a determinative grid for interpreting first-century miracle accounts.
Methodological Questions On occasion, some scholars have compared the Gospels and Acts not only with pagan and Jewish accounts from their own time or the centuries immediately following but also with medieval hagiography and later German folktales.1 The 1. Cf. medieval saints' lives in Dibelius, Tradition, 177 (following K. L. Schmidt); anchorite traditions in Dibelius, Tradition, 172–76; German and other folktales in, e.g., Bultmann, Tradition (1963), 229 (or
Appendix C
nature of these stories' preservation and growth differs substantially from that of first-century biographies (like the Gospels) and historical monographs (like Acts).
Scholars have long recognized a significant difference between legends often accumulated over centuries, on the one hand, and firstand second-generation sources, on the other.2 As one writer a century ago noted, "As a rule, the miraculous element is exhibited in these medieval biographies of saints very much in proportion to the interval of time between the events and the date of writing."3 He contrasts the more modest claims offered for Martin of Tours nearer his decease with more fantastic claims offered by Ailred centuries after his protagonist Ninian,4 though he finds significant oral elaboration even in the life of Columba, written a century after his passing.5 Yet stories of Jesus's healings appear in Mark within a generation, and healings appear in "we" material even in the final chapter of Acts, closer in time to that work's composition. As such, closer functional analogies for the rapid rise of claims in the Gospels and Acts should be with the sorts of modern signs claims I cite later in this book, which appeal to eyewitnesses.
One can hardly call such first-generation claims "legendary accretions" such as we have in the hagiographic literature. Even a cursory reading of the healing accounts that I have noted in the book will reveal that some of them, including my own, are recalled years or even decades after the event. While this means that some details will be vague or forgotten, however, it hardly means that the events were invented; neither I nor any of my informants was suffering from dementia. In fact, the more dramatic the experience, and the more often it has been rehearsed, the more that it will be remembered, albeit in the fixed form surrounding the details most often rehearsed.6 Records of firsthand memories from the witness's lifetime, particularly recent years, differ from secondor thirdhand accounts often generations later and without identifiable witnesses. The first two generations are far less likely to generate legendary accretions on average than are later sources.
"fairy" stories, e.g., 6, 229, 236); elaboration in Renaissance artwork in Bultmann, Tradition, 317; also comparison with a Buddhist tale of water walking in Dibelius, Tradition, 116; idem, Jesus, 84; Bultmann,
Tradition, 237. Early form critics readily identified many Gospel materials as legends, often through content criticism (e.g., Dibelius, Tradition, 104–32l; in Acts, Dibelius, Studies in Acts, 24–25). Karris,
Saying, 41, calls Luke "the first hagiographer," though not necessarily implying that Luke follows the later elaborative techniques. More recently, Borg, Vision, 74n37, has compared a third-century bishop who, after his decapitation, carried his head to his church and "sang the mass"; he does not provide a date for the tradition. None of these analogies is as extreme as Schamoni, Parallelen, who (according to Sabourin,
Miracles, 265) uses later practices for canonizing saints as parallels to early Christian miracles.
2. E.g., Bernard, "Miracle," 392, who dates most Gospel reports within a half century of the events narrated (390); cf. Young, "Miracles in History," 115. In the early Roman Empire, biographies of persons from the previous generation or two tend to be substantially historical (see data in Keener, "Otho"; cf.
"Assumptions"), as opposed to works involving characters from centuries past.
3. Wilson, "Miracles," 22.
4. Ibid., 22–23.
5. Ibid., 23–26 (esp. 23).
6. See Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 331–34. I can often recall faces, feelings, and other details of such events three decades ago that I never deliberately memorized, though of course I cannot recall all the events and conversations that I would recall had the events taken place only last night.
Comparisons with Later Christian Hagiography
Of course, we do see hagiographic embellishment in various ancient sources, whether second-century apocryphal gospels and acts7 or in pseudepigraphic stories valorizing the patriarchs or 1 Enoch reporting Noah's miraculous birth. But second-century gospels and acts (using the model of more accurate first-century sources) are generally more than a century later than the characters they depict,8 and haggadah about earlier Jewish heroes many centuries after the sources first reporting those characters. Embellishment becomes more common in thirdand fourth-century descriptions of earlier works,9 and the tendency grew in time.
Especially following ca. 1000 c.e., when hagiographic miracle collections became part of the growing canonization process, miracle accounts were used propagandistically by those campaigning for a location's or order's saint.10 These included not only claims of miracles worked during the saint's life (the greater analogy to be made with the Gospels and Acts) but also claims of posthumous miracles.11 Some of these traditions will be earlier and more reliable than others,12 but historians must approach them very critically, especially in cases where sources date from many generations after the miracle in question.
Because some scholars have employed medieval hagiography for comparisons (at least pleasantly, since it offers graphic ones), I want to offer the reader here a taste of later hagiography, including at greatest length a case from one of my favorite later stories.13 It is admittedly more fanciful than most of the secondand thirdcentury apocryphal works, though even these are far enough removed from our first-century sources about Jesus and his first followers (see the fuller discussion of these sources in the introduction to my commentary on Acts).14 Clearly hagiographic
7. Cf., e.g., Bultmann, Tradition, 241 (citing Gos. Nic. 7); Dibelius, Tradition, 106 (citing, e.g., Acts John
38ff.; Acts Paul 33); cf. Dibelius, Tradition, 273 (citing Odes Sol. 24; Ignatius Eph. 18.2; Justin Dial. 28.3).
8. Cf. also discussion in Blomberg, Gospels, 113–15, and the sources he cites. Their heyday, like that of Greek novels, is the late second and early third centuries (Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 322).
9. Frost, Healing, 162.
10. See Andric, Miracles, 2. Analogous techniques in inquisition procedures show how testimony was often selected and shaped to fit objectives (Goodich, "History," 135–37), though much valuable information nevertheless survived (see, e.g., Goodich, "History," 152–56). For medieval understanding of miracles ca.
1000–1215, see Ward, Miracles. For the development of the conception of miracles ca. 1150–1350, see
Goodich, Miracles; for their apologetic use against theological competitors such as Waldensians, Cathars, and Jews, see Goodich, Miracles, 69.
11. Andric, Miracles, 3.
12. Cf. also other cautions, e.g., in Goodich, Miracles, 87: "in canonization cases the canon lawyers, notaries, and theologians who were charged with determining the authenticity of miracles received a list of questions to which witnesses testifying under oath were asked to respond." The requirement of sworn depositions arose under Innocent III (1198–1216; Bolton, "Signs," 165); note also "vivid local details" in some accounts (Bolton, "Signs," 168).
13. Elsewhere, while hagiographies can echo the Gospels and Acts, they also can include fanciful tales not originally meant to be taken seriously. Such "pure fairy-tale incidents" include "when a missionary crosses the sea on a floating altar, or a monk hangs his clothes on a sunbeam" (Ashe, Miracles, 66, noting that such folklore is "often adapted from pre-Christian legend").
14. Keener, Acts, introduction ch. 2. Most scholars recognize the similarities of these later works to novels; see, e.g., Aune, Environment, 151–52; Lalleman, "Apocryphal Acts," 67; Rebenich, "Historical
Prose," 307–8; Bauckham, "Acts of Paul"; Keylock, "Distinctness," 210; Krasser, "Reading," 554; Hofmann,
Appendix C
practices grew over time. Some critics occasionally cite later hagiography against our first-century sources' reliability,15 but I would cite such material, if at all, to the opposite effect, believing that contrasts should be obvious. That is, while modern
Western antisupernaturalists may lump all miracle accounts together, a more critical approach should be able to distinguish among different kinds of miracle reports, including the usual contrast between firstor second-generation sources and later ones that reflect considerable development. I have already argued that the nt accounts preserve the basic core of the events.16 The tendency of some hagiography to emphasize the saints more than the God who answered their prayers drew some reactions even in antiquity17 and may reflect the milieu of hero cults in late antiquity.18
Various Tales Stories of saints written closer to their time in general carry more historical reminiscences; those written centuries later can sometimes be almost pure fiction.19
Later accounts were also often contextualized for local interests; Andean culture, which had flying religious figures, envisioned St. Francis as flying.20 Probably an early case of hagiography surrounds St. Helena's discovery of Jesus's true cross at Golgotha. There is very strong evidence that the site of the Holy Sepulchre is near the place of Jesus's original tomb, in the early second century already venerated as a holy site that Hadrian sought to desecrate.21 Notwithstanding such evidence, there is no clear connection to Helena having a revelation about this site, or discovery of three crosses, the nails, and the crown of thorns, until at least seven decades later.22 This deficiency is particularly striking in view of the silence of a contemporary source on this matter that describes her pilgrimage to the holy
"Novels: Christian," 846–48; Perkins, "World." Bultmann notes novelistic development of Jesus's miracles in these later sources and retrojects it into first-century sources (Tradition, 241). I have offered one more sustained contrast with novels in Keener, "Official."
15. I.e., to argue that if one accepts reports of phenomena attributed to supernatural sources in the canonical Gospels or Acts, one may as well believe such hagiography.
16. See again Keener, Historical Jesus; idem, Acts.
17. Haldon, "Essay," 46.
18. See, e.g., Philostratus Hrk. passim, and comments in Maclean and Aitken, Heroikos. Even some specific traditions like halos had ancient pagan counterparts (though one could postulate divine contextualization); see, e.g., Valerius Maximus 1.6.1, 2; Pliny Nat. 36.70.204. The veneration of Christian saints apparently developed from the veneration of Christian martyrs, ca. 160 c.e. (Fröhlich, "Saints," 871).
19. See examples in Bentley, Relics, 67–68 (esp. comments on St. Ithamar, used to restore English pride in the twelfth century). The story of holy anointing oil brought to St. Remi by a heavenly dove is first attested three centuries after Remi's time (83). Some miracle stories about Brigit (written perhaps two centuries after her) are tamer (see in Davies, Spirituality, 127).
20. Much to the disdain of contemporary Protestant critics; see Lara, "Joachim," 268–69.
21. For a number of details supporting the genuine antiquity of the site, see, e.g., Brown, Death, 1279–83;
Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism, 124; Wahlde, "Archaeology," 578–79; Keener, John, 1134–35, 1165–66;
McRay, Archaeology and New Testament, 206–17.
22. Bentley, Relics, 48–49.
Comparisons with Later Christian Hagiography
land.23 In this case, rumor and pious speculation apparently hardened into tradition in less than a century. These conditions differ, however, from the earlier situation of the apostolic church, which remained small enough, with sufficiently identifiable guarantors of the Jesus tradition (as I argue elsewhere). Likewise, the early miracle tradition is on some of the most dramatic points attested early enough (especially in Paul) to render later hagiographic comparisons with the Gospel tradition of Mark and Q tenuous.24 Mark stems to within four decades, and Q probably less, of the events narrated, within not only living memory but probably also the lifetime of, as well as continued leadership of, some eyewitnesses.
Somewhere around 635, Princess Osyth of Essex is said to have resisted pirates' sexual advances and been beheaded. As the story goes, she picked up her severed head, walked three leagues to a holy church, and there offered her head to God.25
Many people were subsequently healed through her relics.26 While some of the subsequent claims to healings may be authentic, most people today would doubt the story of her headless perambulation. Unlike healings, the purported event seems to lack any purpose beyond itself.
Many miracles attributed to St. George are associated ultimately with the holy mother of God.27 Written by St. George's disciple Antony ca. 634, The Life of Saint
George of Choziba is what its modern editors call "subdued hagiography."28 When an old monk was cruel to George as a boy, the man's arm stiffened; George took him to the tomb of the saints, where they prayed and the man's arm was restored.29
As a young monk, he prayed, and a man's dead only son was restored to life.30 More unusually (though not in tales of monks), George was disturbed by a lion who would not get out of his way and felt around in the lion's mouth before sending it on its way.31 An arrogant brother was assailed by ants while resting, as Abba
George had warned, and repented.32 A demon who would not cooperate properly was forced to do a chore for a monk and learned not to disobey them.33 A monk
23. Ibid., 49.
24. See fuller discussion in Keener, Historical Jesus, and sources cited there.
25. Bentley, Relics, 68.
26. Ibid., 68–69. Cf. an early Muslim saint whose decapitated head was said to perform miracles
(Sindawi, "Head"). Relic veneration and miracle claims remained common throughout the medieval period; see, e.g., Denomy and Bruckmann, "Version," on St. Magloire.
27. Vivian and Athanassakis, "Introduction," 28–30; see esp. Miracles of the Holy Mother of God at Choziba, e.g., a healing in 1; deliverance from a snake in 4. Antony's work speaks also of more direct faith in God (e.g., Antony Life of St. George 5.20). For one artistic survey with many Marian miracle claims, albeit without critical analysis of their dates, see Durham, Miracles of Mary. Some are implausible legends
(e.g., the sick man healed by milk from her breast in Durham, Miracles of Mary, 160–61), but others refer to recent, dated events such as the healing of Sister Agnes's "incurable" deafness (178) on May 30, 1982.
28. Vivian and Athanassakis, "Introduction," 27. For archaeological treatment of the early monastery and known historical context, see 3–27.
29. Antony Life of St. George 1.4–5.
30. Ibid., 2.8.
31. Ibid., 2.10.
32. Ibid., 3.14
33. Ibid., 5.20
Appendix C
witnessed the mother of God miraculously put out a dangerously spreading fire by touching it.34 Such accounts are more sober than some of those composed centuries after their protagonists' deaths. The section to which the narrator, Antony, was an eyewitness, however, consists mostly of St. George's teachings.35
Artemios died some time after 360 c.e., a death first recorded or transformed into a martyrdom less than a century later.36 The author of the Miracles of St.
Artemios probably completed his work between 658 and 668, probably roughly three centuries after Artemios's death.37 The miracles recorded are posthumous ones and thus could be closer to the time of writing; many are similar to, and probably replace, earlier incubation miracles at Asclepius sanctuaries.38 One supplicant with terrible foot pain dreamed that St. Artemios was squeezing his testicles; when he awoke, he found himself cured.39 Another was gradually cured of a painful boil on his testicles through Artemios's gift of a poultice.40 Another, unable to be helped by physicians, had seven sores on his male organ; Artemios appeared to him in a dream and prescribed white vinegar with salt on the sore, which cured it in two days.41 (For some reason, many tales of this saint specialize in restoring the health of this valuable organ.) In yet another case, Artemios appears in a dream as a butcher, slices the patient open, removes and cleans his innards, and restores them, and the man awakes to find himself cured.42
Although the earliest extant source indicates that James son of Zebedee was martyred in Judea no later than 44 c.e. (Acts 12:2), in other words, probably within fourteen years of Jesus's execution, this fate did not spare him from being pressed into hagiographic service in local medieval traditions, in his case associated with Spain.43 According to a popular legend, early ninth-century shepherds dug at a site in Galicia over which a bright star shone and discovered a tomb, which the local bishop attributed to James.44 Because this site was the only apostolic tomb
34. Ibid., 5.24.
35. Ibid., 8–10.
36. Crisafulli and Nesbitt, Miracles, 1–3.
37. Ibid., 6–7 (on 7 allowing for one sign of a post-680 date being an interpolation). Some material may have been added later (33).
38. For incubation here, see ibid., 23–25.
39. Miracles of Artemios 2 (Crisafulli and Nesbitt, Miracles, 78.23–80.20).
40. Miracles of Artemios 3 (Crisafulli and Nesbitt, Miracles, 80.21–82.18). A vast number of the cures involve the touching or curing of testicles (e.g., Miracles of Artemios 12, 13, 14, 21, 25, 28, 29, 30, 32, 35,
41, 42, 43, 44, 45; Crisafulli and Nesbitt, Miracles, 100–103, 124–27, 144–47, 154–63, 166–67, 184–89,
210–11, 216–17, 218–19, 222–23); hernias also appear particularly commonly (e.g., Miracles of Artemios
37; Crisafulli and Nesbitt, Miracles, 192–93; see the index, 313). St. Artemios seems to have specialized in particular kinds of cures.
41. Miracles of Artemios 20 (Crisafulli and Nesbitt, Miracles, 122–25).
42. Miracles of Artemios 25 (Crisafulli and Nesbitt, Miracles, 144–47).
43. See Coffey, Davidson, and Dunn, Miracles, xxiii–xxiv. For later development of some medieval miracle-working Spanish traditions, see Lappin, "Miracles."
44. Coffey, Davidson, and Dunn, Miracles, xxiv. Excavations in 1878–79 uncovered a sarcophagus with bones from three distinct persons; in 1884, Pope Leo XIII officially proclaimed these the bones of St. James and two of his disciples (xxxiii).
Comparisons with Later Christian Hagiography
farther west than Rome, it became a key pilgrimage site by the middle of the eleventh century.45 Miracle tales associated with the saint spread widely throughout the late Middle Ages and subsequent centuries.46 Comparing geographically and chronologically divergent versions of the miracle stories attests how they grew over time.47 James interceded with the Virgin Mary, and miracles were attributed to the relic of his hand.48 Posthumous miracles include a pilgrim hanged on the gallows for thirty-six days, whom St. James kept alive;49 a dead boy that James (though himself dead) raised, after the boy's mother threatened suicide if he were not;50 a pilgrim who killed himself at the instigation of a demon purporting to be St.
James was restored to life by the apostle, with the mother of God's aid;51 another man, captured by Saracens, was sold as a slave thirteen times yet freed thirteen times by James.52
Another Example: Takla Hâymânôt But posthumous miracles, especially those accomplished through incubation at a healing site (like those attributed to St. Artemios), bear closer resemblance to the Asclepian tradition than to the charismatic healer tradition, so I return to hagiography about a saint's life. My favorite (and significantly later) example is the story of the Ethiopian saint Takla Hâymânôt (ca. 1215–ca. 1313).53 Takla
Hâymânôt very probably was reputed as a miracle worker during his lifetime, but the form in which we have the stories, from at least two centuries after his death,54 includes considerable folklore.55
45. Ibid., xxix.
46. Ibid., xxxi–xxxii.
47. See ibid., xlv–xlvi, xlix–l.
48. Ibid., lviii.
49. Miracles of St. James ch. 5 (in Coffey, Davidson, and Dunn, Miracles, 69–70). Cf. other hanging survival miracle claims in Walsham, "Miracles," 298–99.
50. Miracles of St. James ch. 3 (in Coffey, Davidson, and Dunn, Miracles, 64–65).
51. Miracles of St. James ch. 17 (in Coffey, Davidson, and Dunn, Miracles, 84–89).
52. Miracles of St. James ch. 22 (in Coffey, Davidson, and Dunn, Miracles, 95–96). Many of the stories claim to reflect eyewitness information, the dominant source being Callixtus, whose reports would not be much earlier than the likely date of this collection (Coffey, Davidson, and Dunn, Miracles, xlvi–xlix).
Multiple elements, however, show conclusively that the introductory letter attributed to Pope Callixtus is fabricated (xxxix–xl), which raises questions about the integrity of the collection's editing as a whole.
Despite its dependence at many points on earlier tradition, the late authorial claims of knowledge may be as fabricated as the introduction.
53. These are the dates often given; Huntingford, "Takla," 37, gives "the twelfth and thirteenth centuries" and notes manuscript variation in his age of death. Both major versions of the story agree on their central features, despite diverging on details (35).
54. For this time lapse, cf. ibid., 35 (dating the earlier Life to the early fifteenth century) with 37.
55. Huntingford finds some reliable information in the accounts. This was a time of literary revival; thus, for example, Ethiopian texts in Ge'ez were reaching a peak in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries c.e. (Ricci, "Ethiopian Literature," 977).
Appendix C
According to a lavishly illustrated story of this Ethiopian saint, his miracles began in his infancy. Three days after his birth he offered praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.56 At about the age of one year and three months, he signaled to his mother to bring him the basket with wheat flour, and when he inserted his hand, it suddenly overflowed;57 he also turned water to wine as a child.58 When judgment came on a person who did evil to his father and himself, Takla Hâymânôt healed him.59 St. Michael the archangel appeared to Takla Hâymânôt, who fell before him like a dead man; Michael then promised to be his guardian angel.60 Jesus appointed him to be a new prophet,61 and he drove out demons,62 including by dealing with demonized trees63 and serpents.64 He also healed the sick,65 raised the dead,66 and in the course of his conflict with magicians died and returned to life forty times.67
Climaxing his conflict with magicians, the earth swallowed them.68 Demons stoned him, but St. Michael healed him.69 Although his opponents threw him over a cliff more than once, St. Michael rescued him on each occasion.70 After King Matalômê had killed thousands of Christians,71 he was converted through seeing wonders,72 and Takla Hâymânôt baptized more than one hundred thousand people.73 Takla Hâymânôt convinced the king to believe in resurrection by raising from death one thousand men—who had died by lightning on an occasion twentyfive years earlier.74 Using a chariot of light, Takla Hâymânôt traveled, healing the sick on the way.75 He made a nonbelieving woman's "house to be as bright as the 56. M. Takla Haym. introduction (in Budge, Takla Hâymânôt, 270).
57. L. Takla Haym. ch. 22 (in Budge, Takla Hâymânôt, 45); more briefly, M. Takla Haym. introduction
(p. 270).
58. L. Takla Haym. ch. 23 (pp. 49–51). For water turned to olive oil, see M. Takla Haym. 8, 37.
59. L. Takla Haym. 26.
60. L. Takla Haym. 29 (after this Jesus appeared to him, on Michael's wings). In Jewish tradition,
Michael was Israel's guardian angel (3 En. 44:10; 1QM XVII, 6–7 [see further Delcor, "Guerre," 374]; cf. 1 En. 20:5 [trans. M. Knibb, 107; but contrast E. Isaac, 24); certainly he was among the chief angels
(1 En. 9:1; 54:6; 3 En. 17:1–3; 3 Bar. 11:2; 1QM VIII, 15–16; Sib. Or. 2:214–20; Gen. Rab. 78:1; Lam.
Rab. 3:23, §8; Pesiq. Rab. 46:3; cf. 1 En. 40:9; b. B.M. 86b; Deut. Rab. 5:12; Song Rab. 2:4, §1; 6:10, §1;
Pesiq. Rab. 21:9; Coptic charm in Goodenough, Symbols, 2:174–88), sometimes the chief angel (2 En.
22:6; 33:10; probably T. Ab. 1:13A; 2:1, 13–14 and passim A; 4:6; 14:7B).
61. L. Takla Haym. 33.
62. E.g., L. Takla Haym. 31, 43.
63. Ibid., 37, 40.
64. Ibid., 89, 100 (a sixty-cubit-long serpent).
65. E.g., L. Takla Haym. 43; M. Takla Haym. 2, 3, 28, 29, 42, 46. Cf. the woman who conceived after drinking rainwater (M. Takla Haym. 18).
66. E.g., L. Takla Haym. 38, 61, 82. With St. Michael's help, he also walked on a lake (L. Takla Haym. 77).
67. Ibid., 44.
68. Ibid., 44–45 (the earth swallows them in 45).
69. Ibid., 45.
70. Ibid., 51–52.
71. Ibid., 53.
72. Ibid., 54–58.
73. Ibid., 59.
74. Ibid., 61. European hagiography also includes raising accounts (Loos, Miracles, 563–64).
75. L. Takla Haym. 65. He and a monk travel in the chariot of light in 67.
Comparisons with Later Christian Hagiography
day," and when she was terrified, he gave her a cross that led her, as if by a pillar of fire, to the land of the Christians, where she was converted.76 We also learn of children who emerged unharmed from a fiery furnace77 and cattle that spoke.78
Takla Hâymânôt became bishop of half of Ethiopia;79 miraculously, his monks and nuns could sleep in the same beds without succumbing to any temptation.80
It should be obvious that the level of elaboration contrasts with what we find in our earliest Christian accounts; medieval Christians had a much more thoroughly developed tradition of a hagiographic genre than did first-century biographers and especially historians, particularly those about recent characters. Indeed, it tended to be more elaborate even than other narrative genres of that earlier period.81 The legends develop some miracle motifs from both canonical and later stories about Jesus and others, but their magnitude knows few bounds. (In fact, the combination of elements omits few of the individual sorts of feats of Takla's predecessors.)
Medieval European Christian hagiography also grew through assimilating motifs from various European traditional religions and tales.82 Even with medieval accounts, one cannot always arrange versions chronologically based on wondrous elements; some hagiography reduced miraculous elements, favoring theological explication.83 Hagiography nevertheless tends to include more elaborate wonders, as we have seen, generally increased over time.
Conclusion If we read the Gospels and Acts in light of tales developed over centuries and in a milieu with few historical controls, we will read them skeptically (as we should read the majority of these later tales, historically speaking), but this approach is
76. M. Takla Haym. 1 (quote from 276).
77. Ibid., 10.
78. Ibid., 30. Cf. the stopped flood in M. Takla Haym. 45. For talking animals, see earlier, e.g., Livy
24.10.10; 27.11.4; Arrian Alex. 3.3.5; Statius Silv. 2.4.1–2; Pliny Nat. 10.117; as omens, Homer Il. 19.404–7;
Livy 24.10.10; 27.11.4; 35.21.4; 41.13.2; 41.21.13; Valerius Maximus 1.6.5; Appian Bell. civ. 4.1.4; Lucan
Bell. civ. 1.561; the talking tree of T. Ab. 3:1–4 A; 3:1–4 B might evoke Greek examples like Dodona's oak
(Allison, "Tree"; cf. Apollodorus Bib. 1.9.16; Apollonius Rhodius 1.526–28; Ps.-Dionysius Epideictic
1.258–59). Yet even statues were held to speak at times (see Aune, Revelation, 762–64).
79. L. Takla Haym. 96.
80. Ibid., 103. He himself became a hermit (L. Takla Haym. 105), undoubtedly following the paradigm of the Egyptian St. Anthony, as also when he gave up his possessions (L. Takla Haym. 30).
81. Again, this is not to deny some hagiography in Philostratus's Apollonius or rabbinic stories of holy sages, but to invite us to keep comparisons analogous. In general, the more generations (and esp. centuries) that pass, the more hagiographic accretions one finds. Our extant first-century Christian biographic or historic documents were composed within living memory of the witnesses of most of their subjects.
Also, medieval reports were more fanciful because they employed a genre that had developed conventions accommodating such portrayals, far more than ancient historiography about the recent past would. The genres are quite different, apart from being narratives with theological interest.
82. See Porterfield, Healing, 73.
83. See Crostini, "Miracles" (esp. 86–87).
Appendix C
less useful historically than reading the Gospels and Acts in light of sources composed at comparable remove from the events that they depict and of comparable genre. I have suggested in this book that even modern accounts, if they are from relatively soon after the events they depict, offer stronger analogies from a sociological standpoint. While medieval hagiography and the Gospels may both involve claims of what is extranormal, an eyewitness account of an extranormal event is historically worth much more than an account from a significantly later generation.
Given the much greater span of time involved in the development of the legends (which tend to proliferate more quickly once the eyewitnesses are deceased or fail to function as successors), I treated early in the book the more pressing issue of ancient Mediterranean parallels, both Jewish and Gentile, and later analogies to firstand secondhand sources. Western children of the Enlightenment are not entitled to blend all miracle accounts together simply because they claim miracles
(a procedure that assumes what a critic of miracles claims to prove); it is the denial of the supernatural that is more idiosyncratic historically, and we need to distinguish more critically among various miracle accounts. The premedieval parallels tend to prove closer in chronology, form, and content, though some are closer than others. Thus it is on these earlier parallels that I focused in the book's first section. Historical analogies for firstand second-generation sources, the focus of much of this book, provide the sort of parallels in function most relevant to the accounts in the Gospels and Acts.