Customer Reviews

Cult of the Saints (its rise and function in Latin Christianity)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Peter Brown has given us a wonderful history of a fascinating period in early Christianity, a time when believers could communicate with Christ through the preserved relics of saints. One cannot fully understand the spread of Christian ideals and traditions into the late Roman Empire without first consulting this book. Those unfamiliar with the cult of the saints will be surprised at the seeming preoccupation with death associated with early Christian traditions--in addition to preserving and displaying bones of deceased bishops (which supposedly held the power to heal and cure), ceremonies and festivals were often held at tombs and burial sites.

This book is not for the casual reader whose approaches ancient history as a hobby (I fall into that catagory). It isn't a consistantly linear text, and Brown often uses Latin terminology that is left undefined, and even uses direct quotes from Latin sources without translating them. While historians and scholars will probably have no problems (I assume they are used to this approach), an average history buff like me will have to consult a buddy who's fluent in Latin.

Nonetheless, Peter Brown is thorough and precise in his study on the workings of the early church. He shows us not only how saints to the masses, but how an individual believer could form a relationship with the dead saint, thus connecting himself to the divine. Although I had difficulty reading it for recreation, I know it will be a valuable reference text for future projects.

Peter Brown investigates the rise and function of the Christian "cult of saints" in late antiquity between the third and sixth centuries A.D. (1). In each chapter, he demonstrates a comprehensive framework of explaining how the cult of saints became prominent. He offers an original and alternative perspective that counters modern scholarship. He focuses on cemeteries, shrines, and relics, which embody the cult of the saints. He provides comprehensive explanations for the function of these powerful elements, which had a profound effect on the spread and growth of Christianity in the late Roman world. Chapter 1 is essentially a diatribe towards modern scholarship and the "armchair anthropology" that helped shape Enlightenment thought (13). He argues that modern scholars have inherited traditional attitudes that lack the sensitivity to understand the cultural contexts, which led to the cult of the saints' rise and expansion. He takes particular issue with the categories "true religion" and the "vulgar" which David Hume is famous for initiating (16). In addition, Brown offers an alternative to the "two-tiered" model offered by modern scholarship (17). The two-tiered model assumes that historically, changes arising in late antiquity were a grass-roots phenomenon. In this sense, the cult of the saints lies in the category of "popular religion" or vulgar religion, and that its rise is due to the capitulation of the enlightened Christian elites (18). Brown vehemently disagrees, arguing in the following chapters, that it is the exact opposite, which occurs during this time-period.

In chapter 2, Brown argues that originally the tension over saint worship became a debate over the "privatization of the holy" arising not between the masses and the elite, rather the elites and the clergy (34). Early church leaders Augustine and Vigilantus worried that "loyalties to the holy dead" disrupted the ideal community and could cause a "neglect of the local church" (32). Bishops, like Ambrose of Milan, began playing the part and seizing more power during this conflict. Burial practices, shrines, and the remains of the saints became tools compiled by the elites and ecclesiastics. The rise of the cult of saints was purposeful and deliberate. In other words, the saints and the procedures involved with saint reverence would provide identification for the Christian community. The clergy used the graves of the martyrs to "buy off envy" assuaging the gap between the masses and the elites. Shrines and cemeteries also provided a new definition and strengthening of the urban Christian community by including women and the poor. They offered a sort of escape for the marginalized. This would further support Brown's claim that the cult's rise is an elitist construction appeasing the masses. The "democratization of culture" in late antiquity is democratization from the top (48).

In chapter 3, Brown posits that Augustine used the cult of martyrs to invert the traditional hierarchy of the universe. They could bind fellow men closer to God because martyrs were more authentic than angels were. The need for patronage also offered a "perpetual hope of amnesty" in regards to sin and the last judgment (65). In chapter 4, the "relic" became a new therapeutic tool helping in the inevitable negotiation with death (78). The relic's removal from the cluttered grave and direct association with physical death heightened the "imaginative dialectic" which was the notion that the saints were still alive in Heaven and on Earth (79). This helped perpetuate the immortality motif essential for Christianity's growth. In chapter 5, Brown notes that originally, the holy was available in one place. If one lived outside the proximity of a shrine, a pilgrimage was the only means to experience the holy. Church leaders were innovative when enacting the notion that if relics could travel then those believers that were not in the proximity of shrines or cemeteries could experience "praesentia" or the physical presence of the holy (88). Another function the cult of saints provided was "concord and the unsullied exercise of power" (93). The saint's praesentia offered protection and prestige for the individual and power over evil. In chapter 6, Brown notes that the late-antique shrine was also a place for an exorcism, demonstrating the "potentia" or ideal power of the saint through God (107). The saint's power shows the ability to change the "social status" of the healed recipient (113). The healed could either keep their status or become property of the "invisible lord" or saint from whose shrine they were healed (113).

The Cult of the Saints does not read like modern scholarship, and I believe this is Brown's intention. There is no introduction or conclusion, Brown just begins pouring information out from the beginning to the end. This gives the book a rather authentic appeal insinuating that Brown has no agenda other than deriding the analytical methods of modern scholarship. Brown, however, is guilty of doing this himself in some cases. He uses terms like "therapy of distance" when discussing pilgrimages in chapter five (87). In addition, he refers to exorcism as a "psychodrama" and posits that exorcisms were alternatives to the traditional penal system aiming for the reintegration of individuals back into the community (111). This, however, in no way takes away from the scope of Brown original arguments presented in this erudite work.

Damon Neely

This monograph has become the classic work on the cult of the saints, and is part of Peter Brown's monumental contribution to the study of early Christianity.
Brown takes on the complex phenomenon of the cult of the saints, countering the prevalent view, expoused by no less a thinker than David Hume, that the cult of the saints was merely a folk continuation of a pagan world view.
Indeed, just the opposite was true. The cult of the saints dramatically reversed the pagan view of the universe. In pagan thought, heaven and earth were distinctly separate, but now through the cult heaven and earth were linked by the physical presence of saints and their relics on earth. Rather than being a supersition of commoners, the cult was developed and perpetuated by the most educated and cultured elites of the church.
Brown shows that the cult was not "medieval." Indeed it developed from the classical values that permeated the late antique world. Saints become "spiritual friends," reflecting the warm sense amicitia that was so cherished Roman elites, and saints were said to be "patrons," who could intermediate before God in the same fashion that a patron would mediate for a client before a Roman official.
Brown paints a vivid picture of early Christian piety, a world filled with genuine emotion and profound spirituality.

Dr. Brown's classic lectures on the source of the cult of the saints is an anthropological more than theological study of those sources. In the first lecture Dr. Brown demolishes the 'two-tiered' popular historical model that assumes a vast difference between the educated Christian elite and less educated members of the faith. He finds that the cult of the saints did not arise from the undereducated and superstitious as has been theorized by modern post-enlightenment biased historians. Indeed, there is evidence that the cult arose from the very elite with which the modern historian so quickly identifies. In this, Dr. Brown has done a great service to identify our tendency to project our modern bias in historical thought.

But, while Dr. Brown identifies modern bias he may hold some of his own. He consistently refers to the rise of the cult in the 4th century as so many have asserted in the past. But such an assertion ignores how fully developed the cult had already become from such early 2nd century writings as the martyrdom of Polycarp or the martyrdom of Perpetua. Dr. Brown talks little about the early development of the cult focused on martyrs of the early centuries. And, he makes no mention of some of the roots in Jewish traditions. Assuming a 4th century explosion of the cult on Christendom loses much of the continuity of earlier centuries and leaves us grasping for the theological mindset that could apparently create the cult as a theological reality from nothing. By focusing so much on the anthropological roots, Dr. Brown loses the continuity of the theological roots. His myopic approach to history results in many of the same historical biases he rightly decries. Because of this one-sided approach, his anthropological arguments are very interesting but not as enlightening as they might have been.

There are two other works that are a bit more rounded with the theological continuity that balances Dr. Brown's work. The reader would do well to pick up a copy of 'Let us die that we may live': Greek homilies on Christian Martyrs from Asia Minor, Palestine and Syria c.350-c.450 AD or The Cult of the Saints (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press Popular Patristics) for homilies through the 4th century that provide inside evidence of the cult of the saints. In these works we find the early development of the cult and the continuity of its theological roots.

Dr. Brown gives us some interesting insight into the anthropological roots of the cult of the saints. But, in the end, the reader will want to round their understanding more with other works to truly understand the phenomena. Still, a worth-while work with some interesting insight that counters much of the popular historical bias.

The Cult of the Saints is a scholarly look into how the saints, who were after all only human, came to occupy such exalted places in the minds of Catholics. The entire Christian world, it must be remembered, was nothing but Catholic for centuries. Peter Browns series of essays shows how, far from being a pagan holdover, the use of saints as mediators between earth and heaven became so popular and so accepted.

This is not a book to breeze through; rather, it requires careful, line by line reading. Recommended for readers who have the patience necessary to glean understanding from this scholarly material.

Peter Brown's book on the Cult of Saints has become a classic work on the formation of the cult of saints in Late Antiquity/Early Medieval Europe. Meticulously researched (as always with Peter Brown), this is essential reading for anyone interested in the cult of saints. It is highly recommended for all students of Medieval history and religion. Though dense and scholarly, this is a worthy read for anyone interested in the topic.

In the Cult of Saints, readers are offered a fascinating glimpse into the religious and cultural life of Late Antique and early Medieval civilization. Peter Brown's narrative is gripping and his expositions on the topics he addresses are learned, informative and lively. Now some of the main points of interest will be his discussions on the (1) affinities and differences between Pagan and Christian views on death, burial and the afterlife. For instance, he does a fine job isolating the pagan concepts of guardian spirits, or daemons [=genius, Latin], from the developing cultus linked to deceased Christian holy men and martyrs. Also, Brown brilliantly (2) explains the foundation and formation of the Cult of Saints--its genesis at the humble graves of the holy dead to its maturation and rise to prominence in the Church, in civic life and in the daily lives of believing men and women. Other valuable aspects of this work are: (3) Brown's survey on the significance and power of relics and (4) the interesting insight he sheds upon the development of saints as patrons, protectors, healers and as invisible agents that exorcise demons. Perhaps the most notable feature of this work is this--that such was the importance and power of the cult of saints in late and post-classic life that the tombs, shrines and relics of sainted men became the meeting ground for Heaven and Earth.

I have to admit, I haven't finished the book yet so I could not give it the full 5 stars. I used it for a research paper I wrote on the topic - I read into the 5th chapter. As a student, I rarely have time to read anything outside of coursework.

As an outsider to the history behind the Catholic Cult of the Saints, I found (what I read from) Brown's book to be very knowledgeable in the historical aspects. It is a great introductory book for anyone beginning to dig deeper into his faith's history. Brown's style of writing keeps one focused (unless you're reading at 1 in the morning) and intrigued throughout his writing. The worst part about it is probably the untranslated Latin but that was only because I didn't have a computer to translate for me while reading it.

Brown proves to be a great authority on retrieving an ancient tradition for the modern world. I will definitely have to finish this book before I return to school for the Spring semester.

I've always like Peter Brown's works. This one covers the early history of Christianity that you don't read about in Bible class. Lots of weird practices and almost a general argument on why it's good to have some organization in your religion.

A very interesting and refreshing look at how some of the beliefs of the Catholic Church came about. It is a good read even for non scholars even if it gets a bit dry in places. It is not written for entertainment so it is not something everyone would enjoy, but if you want to make sense of medieval history and the church's influence, this is a good bet.