Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity Book Review

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Brown’s Cult of Saints

The Author’s Argument

The argument that Peter Brown makes in The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity is that the “cult of saints” was essentially promoted by the cultural leaders of the time—the bishops and elites of society who had a hand in shaping the perceptions of others. Through them, the Church expressed the idea that Heaven and Earth could be joined through the intercession of the saints,[footnoteRef:2] whose bodies were vestiges of grace and holiness, conduits through which Heaven could bridge the fault above the earth and reach out for Christians interested in making it to the other side, in holiness. As Brown notes, “the joining of Heaven and Earth was made plain even by the manner in which contemporaries designed and described the shrines of the saints.”[footnoteRef:3] The saints and their resting places represented the jointure—the point where the divine and the earthly merged—a point to be honored, revered, and utilized for holy purposes. The Jews, Brown makes clear, believed in no such notion: for the Christians, it was part and parcel of their belief in a God-Man Who had done what no other could do. The fact that the cult of the saints took its rise outside the realm of the Roman world—i.e., “in the great cemeteries that lay outside the cities”—indicates that the cult was an alternative to what the past and present Roman culture offered: it was something distinct, new, unique and outside the main.[footnoteRef:4] This in its own right had a special allure, as journeying to the land of the dead was symbolic in itself of the spiritual pilgrimage the Christian believed himself to be on. It also encapsulated the paradoxical mystery of the faith—that among the dead there could be found the grace of life. [2: Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (University of Chicago Press, 1981), 6] [3: Ibid 4.] [4: Ibid, 4.]

This idea, this essence of the faith, was what Brown argues inspired the cult of the saints. He rejects the idea of modern historians that the cult came about as the result of a “democratization of culture,” facilitated by the culture elites of late antiquity who allowed the “vulgar” ideas of the masses to become commonplace.[footnoteRef:5] Rather, Brown argues that the “two-tiered model” fails to explain what really transpired because, in fact, there was no historical basis for the “vulgar” idea upon which the cult of the saints flourished: it was wholly unique among Mediterranean pagans and therefore not an outgrowth of any vulgar cannon. It was not something that the elites consented to in order to appease the lower-level intellectuals of the Christian crowd.

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On the contrary, it was an organic development within the Christian community, sanctioned by the leaders of the community. [5: Ibid 17.]

Execution of the Argument

Brown executes the argument, first, by showing what is gained when one rejects the “two-tiered model” that “invents” more than it explains.[footnoteRef:6] Specifically, Brown emphasizes the fact that “differences of class and education play no significant role”[footnoteRef:7] in the practice…

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…the rise of the cult of the saints was something that could not have stemmed from practices or beliefs originating outside the Christian Church. He shows how Church leaders like Gregory and Fortunatus assisted in the rise of the cult of saints by embracing the idea of victory over death, the theme of the “emotional inversion of suffering,”[footnoteRef:14] and enhancing it through art, architecture and work: “both men turned the summum malum [greatest evil] of physical death preceded by suffering into a theme into which all that was most beautiful and refined in their age could be compressed.”[footnoteRef:15] Brown’s intention, thus, is to proved that the rise of the cult of the saints was wholly organic the Christian belief system. [14: Ibid 84.] [15: Ibid 85.]

I personally feel that Brown pursues his argument very well: he has precise command and control of the topic and writes with careful attention to detail, highlighting the most significant aspects of the topic and underscoring the arguments that should be considered to see why his argument holds water. He does not embellish facts or use an emotional appeal to make his case: everything is presented straight-forward and reasonably well. He emphasizes how the idea of pilgrimage was central to the tenets of the faith and how the concept of spiritual pilgrimage related to the cult of the saints—it was about seeking assistance to the other world and breaking down the barrier for oneself in this life, too—what Brown refers to as the “therapy of distance”[footnoteRef:16]—the intercession of the saints, an idea upon which the Church….....

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Bibliography

Brown, Peter. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.

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