This collection of eleven chapters is laid out in three parts that come under a general title which encapsulates the broad and flexible character of hagiographical narrative itself. This character is chiefly reflected in the wide range of saintly heroes to whom literary attention was given in late antiquity, the period on which all chapters of this volume focus. The Hagiographical Experiment analyzes the empirical procedure that a new form of writing went through after it was introduced in the fourth century CE, first in the Greek East and then in the Latin West. As the editors point out in their introduction: “The selection of topics and methodologies reveals a rich variety in hagiographical writings,” adding that the latter were the arena in which the debate over sanctity took place (20–21). All contributors take hagiography's literary value for granted, although, we must note, their approach and points of focus are not always literary.

The majority of studies included in this volume take us back to Greek and Latin authors and texts that either shaped the genre in its first and critical phase (the second half of the fourth century) or call for scholarly attention on account of the holy figure who is the subject of the narrative and/or the literary fashion in which he or she is portrayed. Interestingly, the imposing place that the Vita Antonii by Athanasios of Alexandria traditionally occupies as the first hagiography is somehow nuanced by James Croke-Webster's analysis of its debts to and points of differentiation from Eusebios of Caesarea and his Life of Pamphilos (chap. 1). By the same token, the Vita Pauli by Jerome is interpreted as an attempt to “undermine” the authority of the figure of Saint Antony as it evolved in the text of Athanasios (132). As Alan J. Ross demonstrates (chap. 4), a new genre was created by means of both imitation and competition. The hagiographical legacy of Jerome is likewise at the center of attention in both Christa Gray's discussion of the rhetoric of supplication that gained prominence first in the Vita Pauli, then the Vita Malchi, and finally the Vita Hilarionis (chap. 8) and Klazina Staat's analysis of the literary depictions of chaste marriage in the Vita Malchi and Stephen the African's Life of Amator (chap. 10). Significantly, as Zachary Yuzva argues (chap. 5), the parameters and constraints of hagiographical narrative are defied in Sulpicius Severus's Life of Martin, a text that leaves us with the impression that it is unfinished, both for the very extensive array of miracle stories that it includes and because of the idea that there can be no dividing line between the saint's ante- and postmortem activity. All these papers reveal aspects of the “early classics” of monastic hagiography that, in addition to their intertextuality and versatile character, confirm their double tendency to both adhere to and depart from the literary expectations of the age when they were produced.

As fruitfully analyzed by Robert Wiśniewski (chap. 3), clerical hagiography stands at odds to its monastic counterpart only if it refers to saintly bishops with a nonmonastic past. Those who, prior to their consecration, excelled as monastics still represent a high portion of the overall late antique record. The concluding remark that “one was made a cleric because one was a saint already, and not the other way round” is worth keeping in mind (114). The model of the holy monk who later excelled as bishop prevails in late antiquity and beyond. This double identity and the trajectory of lives that passed from monastic isolation to public performance were also typical of holy fools, among whom the most famous were Symeon of Emesa and Andrew of Constantinople. Their vitae are discussed here by Julie Van Pelt (chap. 2) but from the viewpoint of the hagiographers who, in line with their holy subjects, disguise themselves in their endeavor to edify their readers/listeners. The Life of Symeon the Holy Fool is revisited by Konstantin M. Klein (chap. 9), yet here set beside Macarius of Tkōou, the subject of a panegyricus (in reality, not an encomium, but a standard hagiographical compilation in Coptic) which is notable for the humorous content of its stories. As a holy man, Macarius appears enmeshed in situations that flesh out the comic element that also marks the Life of Symeon. As Klein argues, besides providing entertainment, the panegyricus on Macarius—a humble, if not naive, figure of a saint—was meant to portray him as a sacred sidekick, who would implicitly support the real central figure of Coptic Christianity that was Shenute.

In a paper with a different orientation (chap. 6), Michael Stuart Williams surveys Paulinus of Nola's letters to pinpoint examples where hints at building up a kind of autohagiography can be detected. This is indeed a delicate issue that requires caution and, interestingly enough, entails a broader discussion that quite often draws attention to other chapters of the book. In his own contribution (chap. 7), Todd E. French revisits John of Ephesos's Lives of the Eastern Saints in the context of hagiographical compilations which, as a subgenre, proliferated in late antiquity and were literary agents of polyphony. Finally, Anne Alwis (chap. 11) is right in underscoring that, compared to the “showing” in Byzantine literature (mimesis), much work remains to be done on the “telling” (narrative) of Byzantine authors. She proceeds to a discussion of the metaphrasis (i.e., the rhetorical reworking) of the Passio of Tatiana of Rome and of the more famous Life of Mary of Egypt, applying the narratological tools of “voice” and “focalisation.” In a postscript, Lucy Grig brings together the points made by each contributor before offering her own suggestions as to which directions research on hagiography as literature still needs to take.

All in all, the reader of this collective volume gratefully acknowledges all contributors’ engagement with questions that occupy or must occupy the study of hagiography today. They have offered us useful insights into the potential of this field by delving into well-chosen topics of discussion that are treated with an originality of approach.