medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Tuesday, November 25, 2008, at 11:55 pm, Marjorie Greene wrote:
> "Catherine of Alexandria (d. ca. 305, supposedly). The virgin martyr
> C.'s historicity is very poorly attested."
>
> How to pose my questions without sounding testy or argumentative...???
> Do ancient tradition and a huge corpus of icons (in the broadest sense
> of the term) count for nothing?
How old is that ancient tradition? How old are the icons? Where is the evidence of a cult site before the seventh century?
Catherine is one of the most
> frequently portrayed saints in both the eastern and western churches
> and her cult is one of the most ancient. She was apparently wildly
> popular and becomes ever more so the farther back we go in time. One
> may discount the angelic translatio without throwing out the woman, no?
Saying that someone's historicity is very poorly attested is hardly tantamount to denying that person's existence.
> Assuming she did not exist, what grain of something accounts for her
> putative existence? The legends surrounding other saints are equally
> fantastic yet they endure. Could such a widely venerated woman have
> been completely fictitious?
Yes, she could (not that it's proven that C. is completely fictitious).
Best,
John Dillon
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