Reply-To: | | [log in to unmask][log in to unmask], 9 Aug 2000 10:47:11 -0500680_us-ascii On born-to-be-saints, John Kitchen, in Saints' Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender (Oxford UP, 1998) - a book with which I have some serious quarrels - does a very nice job of contrasting Venantius Fortunatus's portrayal of born-to-be saints with Gregory of Tours's portrayals of saints-despite-themselves, cranky and rude characters, rough around the edges, who nonetheless achieve sanctity. There are many hagiographies in which the saint exhibits saintly qualities from an early age (Boniface, for example, began to consider the advantages of the monastic life at the age of four), I can't recall any that involve prophecies or omens, though [...]40_9Aug200010:47:[log in to unmask] |