The word 'hagiography' is now used to denote an exaggerated and inaccurate rendering of someone's life - it is a conceit and probably also a deceit which glosses over faults and magnifies what meagre virtues may have been present in the life of the person thus eulogised. The genre is assumed to be the antithesis of biography and is, therefore, rejected by the scientific mind in its quest for the truth about a person. But for many centuries, hagiographies were one of the main sources of spiritual formation for less learned Christians. Were they simply being deceived by a hierarchy seeking to impose compliant behaviour on ignorant masses?
The truth is, I think, considerably more subtle and interesting than that. I have recently been reacquainting myself with some of the early Franciscan texts in order to reconnect with the spiritual tradition that has formed me since early adulthood. St Francis was well provided with accounts of his life, including those written by Thomas of Celano shortly after his death. These earliest Lives were reworked by Bonaventure in the 1260s into a text that became the Order's definitive presentation of the saint's life. There were also later, more popular collections of anecdotes about Francis and his companions, notably the Fioretti - The Little Flowers of St Francis - which includes many of the tales we now popularly associate with the saint.
But how does all this material stack up as history? And to what extent does that matter? Bonaventure was clear that his task was both a historical and a spiritual one. He was careful about the analysis of his sources and interviewed the surviving companions of Francis to corroborate them. But his work is probably most interesting for its spiritual intent. Bonaventure was seeking not so much to inform his readers as inspire them and to offer them a vivid picture of how the soul/mind's journey into God (the title of his most famous work of mystical theology) is worked out in practice in the life of the man whose example of Christian living he follows. Francis left few writings - though what he did leave is important - but it was his life that bore testimony to his spiritual insight. Indeed, his very body became the image of the Christlike humility and the illuminated union with God that he sought. His stigmata are as much an image of transfiguration as of the identification with Christ's suffering.
So in the case of Francis, works of hagiography are the best way to offer insight into a life lived towards God. A hagiography is somewhat like a biography but finds its distinctive character in the interpretive purpose of the work. In our modern context, a work of hagiography should have nothing to fear from the rigours of historical inquiry. Indeed, an honest presentation of a person's life is a spiritual discpline in itself. But the key difference in hagiographical writing is that it intends to 'excite the reader to holiness' not by mere imitation but by offering the possibility that lives can, indeed, be transformed through spiritual discipline and openness to God.
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