All Saints' Writings

The Renaissance Biologist is a reader's blog. November 1 is the commemoration of All Saints. So . . . what should you read to learn about saints?

Find Out What a Saint Is

All Saints' Day has been celebrated since at least the 8th century on its present date, but a variation commemorating martyrs at a different time of year since at least the 4th century. As a Christian practice, it is therefore fairly old, not quite to the first few generations of Christians, but once there formed a critical mass of those who had died in the faith, there was a need to regularly remember them.

What does Scripture say?

In the Old Testament, several references (21 in the English Standard Version) contain a Hebrew word or term translated "saint" - most of which occur in Psalms and Daniel. A quick spot check on a few of these indicates the following:

• Psalm 16:3 - Strong's 6918 "sacred, holy, Holy One, saint, set apart"
• Psalm 37:28 - Strong's 2623 "faithful (ones)" among other senses
• Daniel 7:18 - Strong's 6922 "angels, saints" (sense 2)
• Daniel 8:24 - Strong's 6918

The sense shared among these terms is that a "saint" is someone "holy" or dedicated/set apart for a particular purpose. Old Testament scholar John Walton goes more deeply into this concept as it relates to the covenant God established with Israel.

In the New Testament, many more references (link above, 61 in ESV) contain a Greek term translated "saint" - most of which are in Revelation, Romans, and the longer pastoral epistles. A peek at a few of them indicates the following:

• Romans 8:27 - Strong's 40 "set apart by (or for) God, holy, sacred"
• 1 Corinthians 6:2 - Strong's 40
• Ephesians 3:8 - Strong's 40
• Revelation 8:3 - Strong's 40

What do Christians Say?

To keep the scope of this post narrow, I will focus on currently held beliefs of major Christian denominations in the US about sainthood. A recently written guide to denominations lists 17 distinct families, but I will further collapse those by going a step or two back in their family trees.

• Roman Catholic/Orthodox (lumped together by historical proximity): saints are believers and only Jesus can address the Father on our behalf (these teachings have evolved significantly over time); all Christians are saints, but some by performing documented miracles or living entirely in line with orthodox teaching may be canonized. As the Orthodox link says:
• "We glorify those whom God Himself has glorified, seeing in their lives true love for God and their neighbors. The Church merely recognizes that such a person has cooperated with God’s grace to the extent that his or her holiness is beyond doubt."
• Anglican/Episcopal (including Methodist and Pentecostal/Holiness): any faithful Christian; some saints may be canonized or recognized more formally by the church as a whole.
• Baptist (including Adventist, Congregationalist, and Evangelical due to shared beliefs): any Christian who has consciously decided to follow Jesus (which excludes very young children).
• Anabaptist (including Mennonite): Zwingli is given as an example of an iconoclast, which also involved forbidding the veneration of saints.
• Reformed (including Presbyterian and Calvinist): Christians who are "preserved" in the faith throughout their lives.
• Lutheran: all Christians, especially focusing on those who have proclaimed Christ Jesus more thoroughly by their lives, works, and words.

For a perspective of a relatively famous Brit on some errant practices related to All Saints' Day, I would commend you to N. T. Wright's For All the Saints?, a quick read explaining heaven vs the new creation with bodily resurrection, and the truer/broader definition of a saint. Bottom line: Don't celebrate All Souls' Day (Nov. 2)!

Read Primary Sources

Primary sources are directly linked to the experience being described, usually by being written by eyewitnesses or those otherwise immediately present.

What Did Saints Write?

For the purposes of this post, I’m focusing on New Testament-era saints. The records we have from various Christians are (surprisingly to some) robust in quantity and quality. 

Ancient and Modern Autobiography

Modern autobiography, by definition, must be written while its subject is still alive. Ancient biography, while perhaps not as well preserved, is subject to the same limitation. I asked Husband for examples of this, and the only autobiography in his list was that of the Jewish historian Josephus. 

Teaching and Sermons

Perhaps the most obvious examples of saints’ teaching are found in the New Testament epistles. Sermons included (such as Paul’s address on Mars Hill) are, in ancient biography fashion, summarized. 

However, more complete sermons are written in other places. The writings of the Apostolic Fathers are an excellent place to start. From there, the Ante- and Post-Nicene Fathers form a corpus of slightly later (4th century AD) writings. 

Read Secondary Sources

Secondary sources are written by non-experiencers of the event in question. Sometimes writers are contemporaneous, sometimes not. While these sources lose the immediacy of the events and experiences being described, a large benefit is hindsight lent by a different, later perspective. 

Ancient and Modern Biography

As a youngster, I had biographies of modern-day Christians (saints) as part of the family library available to me. In the North American tradition, these included Hudson Taylor, David Livingstone, and others. You can probably find several more on your home shelves!

What about ancient biography? Here are Husband’s recommendations on biography and books about how biography worked in in the early New Testament era:

• Most general: C. W. Fornara's The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome
• NT: R. Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony
• NT: M. Licona's Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn From Ancient Biography
• NT: C. Keener's Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels
• Indirect: N. T. Wright's The New Testament and the People of God (methodological/genre-related questions, not referencing genre per se)
• Greco-Roman biographies:
• Plutarch's Parallel Lives
• Diogenes Laertius's Lives of Eminent Philosophers
• NT biographies: don’t forget about the 4 canonical Gospel accounts

Other Source Types

For this post’s purposes, the main type of secondary source about saints is historiography. Per Husband, "Since Greco-Roman biography was so tightly related to Greco-Roman historiography, ancient historiographies would also be recommended, especially

• Herodotus's The Histories
• Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War
• Xenophon's Hellenica, Anabasis, and Apology of Socrates
• Plato's Apology
• Polybius's The Histories
• Lucy's From the Founding of the City (excerpts)
• Tacitus's Annals, Histories, and Agricola
• Suetonius's The Twelve Caesars

Sources that best combine historiography and biography include Greek sources (5 major accounts of Alexander the Great's life/campaigns by Arrian, Diodorus Siculus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Marcus Junianus Justinus Frontinus (Justin-not-Justin-Martyr), and Plutarch (already mentioned--parallel life was Julius Caesar). They also include Jewish historiography + biography:

• 1-4 Maccabees
• Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews and The Jewish War
• Philo of Alexandria's Life of Moses

Hymns are another excellent source of information. As I pointed out last week, hymns and songs teach by their poetry, in rough proportion to how deeply one considers the words. “For All the Saints” (affectionately abbreviated FATS by the cantor who taught it to me) is a prime example. Check out stanza 3:

O blest communion, fellowship divine!

We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;

yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

Retain the Material

Two strategies I recommend to my students and myself to increase long-term retention of material are (1) taking notes after reading rather than during it (here are 2 short videos of less than 3 minutes each supporting this strategy with expert opinion) and (2) testing yourself with the book/notes closed.

Happy reading!

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