ABSTRACT
Late antiquity is by now a firmly established term to denote the time-span which runs from roughly the fourth to the mid-seventh century CE and has been understood by scholars as either a period of transition or a period in its own right during which the Greco-Roman world, especially its religion, gradually disappeared while Christianity progressively gained an absolute supremacy in spiritual matters. In particular, the period from the end of the Great Persecution (303-313) to the rise of Islam witnessed an explosive growth in the popular veneration of saints. The proliferation of this new phenomenon was reflected in and to a large extent supported by the literary form known as hagiography, which was practised in different regions, languages and genres. The writing of Passions, biographies, panegyrics and all kinds of stories about holy men and women went hand-in-hand with other social and political developments typical of this period such as the rise and spread of monasticism, the increase in bishops’ spiritual and institutional authority, the emergence and vigour of theological disputes, as well as conflict between religions such as between Christianity and paganism including Persian Zoroastrianism. As outlined in the introduction, the fact that several regions within the orbit of the empire or outside of it cultivated their own distinctive hagiographies, produced in Greek or in local languages, accounts for their being examined in separate chapters in this volume. This chapter will offer a survey of Greek hagiography produced after the pioneering vita Antonii in areas of the empire other than Palestine, South Italy and Egypt (though some Egyptian material will be included). The texts will be discussed in chronological order and by region. At the same time, a broad distinction will be maintained between monastic and urban hagiography. Given that, in the majority of cases, both saint and author were monks in urban settings, this distinction will not be enforced too strictly. It is chiefly concerned with the landscape where the life of a saint and his biography were situated: in the desert or in an urban centre and its hinterland.
