Lives of the Saints and Historical Accuracy

 Bishop Chrysostomos of Etna

THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS AND HISTORICAL ACCURACY

The holy fathers of the Church constantly refer to the lives of the saints and regularly urge Christians to read them as a source of courage and an example of proper Christian living. Reading the lives of the saints (from the synaxaria) plays an important role in the Christian home. In the services, in monasteries, and in parishes, we hear about the struggles of the friends of God, the saints. No serious Christian can claim to know the Church and its spiritual life if they have never felt the significance of the lives of the saints.

Although we, Orthodox Christians, read the lives of the saints, we nonetheless live in a world where the saints are subjected to attacks and sometimes ridicule. That is, we are faced not only with occasional doubts and temptations that the deceitful demon—who despises the saints of the Church—plants in our minds, but increasingly with university scholars—sadly, even theologians—who question the authenticity of all these things told in the synaxaria, calling them pious fables: the history of the ignorant and superstitious!

Here, our aim is not to address the "natural" doubt that may perhaps seize even the most sincere Christian when reading about the wondrous deeds of the martyrs and other saints. As we said, this is the result of the envy of the devil, who hates the good; the likelihood of his victory is proportional to the fervor in our spiritual life: the less spiritual we are, the more fantastic these lives seem to us. The more we advance spiritually, the more these lives reveal to us a spiritual world that we admire, desire, and strive to enjoy by imitating the lives of the saints. But our goal is to examine the doubts that scholars and historians sow in our hearts regarding the historical accuracy of the collections of saints' lives.

1. It seems that many lives of saints recount the same events.

This first observation has led many doubters to claim that the lives of saints are simply pious stories that convey certain religious values but do not describe the actual lives of real people; they merely transmit moral lessons in various ways, using different mythical figures. At first glance, this statement seems to possess a certain credibility. But let us consider something simple: if we were to compare the lives of all people, wouldn't they appear quite similar? Don’t we all have similar stories to tell? It may happen that fifty people have an uncle named "Dimitrios," and twelve of these Dimitrioses might come from the same region of Greece, and perhaps some of them were even born on the same day. Despite all these coincidences, we do not doubt that the different Dimitrioses actually exist. Strangely, however, if two or three saints are said to have performed similar miracles, certain scholars immediately suggest we must doubt their existence. This phenomenon in psychology is called "generalization." It occurs not because university scholars have real reasons to question the historicity of these saints, but rather because their disbelief in the reported miracles generalizes to the point of rejecting the saints themselves.

Moreover, the lives of the saints are like icons. They present to us spiritual reality through symbols and methods that are not typical of ordinary—secular—history. The saints, during their earthly lives, experienced a transcendent reality, aligning their will with God's will; they entrusted their entire being to God; they became deified by grace, that is, they restored within themselves, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, the capacities of human nature before the Fall and added to it the incomprehensible blessings that come from communion with the God-man, our Savior. Thus, when the synaxaria speak of this life of the saints in Christ, they use "iconic" language. For example, they may describe a great ascetic by telling us that he refused to be nursed with his mother’s milk on Wednesdays and Fridays or during Lent. This, of course, may have been something that one saint did only for a few months, while another may have exhibited this gift throughout his entire infancy. We cannot know, nor would this detail have any special significance for us. However, this miraculous phenomenon presents us with something of the saint’s character, giving us an "icon" of his life in grace, of his non-worldly state. From the fact that some insignificant details are omitted, it does not necessarily follow that the mentioned events did not happen or that the individuals described in a life are not real. At the very least, it is absurd to think so.

2. If the lives of the saints are trustworthy and, as the Church teaches, there are saints in every era, why don't we see the same miracles today?

Based on this objection, many have come to believe that the lives of the saints are strange novels from the past, which only people from a less developed era could have believed in. I remember that when I was young, I had the privilege of studying with a famous biologist. One afternoon, I asked him privately if he believed in God. He replied: "I have never seen a black swan. However, that does not give me the right to believe that black swans do not exist." This answer carries much more weight than it seems at first glance. The fact that we do not have evidence of things unseen is not sufficient reason to deny their existence. A denial based on such a hypothesis is, at the very least, naive.

It should also be noted: although there are believers today, the primary interests of modern man are technological and materialistic. Very little importance is given to the spiritual. We neither seek nor recognize people who stand out in this regard. Indeed, there are saints of great stature in the modern world, though they are fewer. If we genuinely desired it, we could still find individuals today who are in the wondrous state of the saints of old. But the truth is that we do not want it. We would rather focus on cases of spiritual delusion and deception, generalize them to encompass all spiritual people, and remain with the hypothesis that the saints of the past are nothing more than mythical relics.

3. In the various editions of the synaxaria, there are differences in details – something that proves they are not reliable.

Recently, while teaching at the University of Uppsala (Sweden), I had the opportunity to speak with the well-known biblical scholar Dr. Harald Riesenfeld, who is distinguished by his deep piety. He told me that many scholars find that the differences in details among the four Gospels lead many to doubt their reliability. However, these scholars, according to him, are completely mistaken; on the contrary, the holy Gospel texts, although they reach us in four different versions, written by different individuals, do not differ in their essence, but only in minor details. The purpose of the holy texts is to convey to us the inspired Word of God, not unnecessary details. The fact that they agree on this divine message is something wonderful and proves their reliability.

The same applies to the lives of the saints. The fact that they have been preserved in the form they have, despite significant differences in content, testifies to their spiritual superiority and inspired nature. The different synaxaria aim to convey to us the message of the spiritual life of the saints, not, of course, useless details—and they achieve this excellently. Now, if different editions of the synaxaria omit, add, or even mix certain secondary elements, this fact does not mean that they distort the main message they contain: the encouragement to live the life of Christ and to imitate the spiritual giants who lived before us. The reliability of the synaxaria is expressed and proven precisely through this message. Historical details are irrelevant, and historical gaps tell us nothing about the authenticity of the lives of the saints, which the Fathers have handed down to us.

4. Many things in the lives of the saints seem exaggerated to us, and some feats of the saints appear impossible—thus increasing suspicions about the accuracy of the synaxaria.

It is said that dinosaurs, unknown to us today, once roamed the earth. Various other animals in our time are disappearing due to ecological catastrophe. Just as it would be foolish for someone to claim that dinosaurs never existed simply because they do not exist today, it would be equally foolish if, fifty years from now, someone denied the existence of an animal that is currently an endangered species. Therefore, we cannot seriously claim that dragons and other creatures, unknown to us today, did not exist during the time when the saints lived. This is obvious. Moreover, since dragons generally symbolize evil in the symbolism of hagiography, the same necessarily applies to the literary image of the dragon. There is a literary meaning beyond the question of the actual existence of dragons.

As for the feats of the saints, which sometimes seem exaggerated to us, we must consider the demonic nature of such doubts. It is well known that in certain states of biochemical induction (for example, the so-called GAS: General Adaptation Syndrome), the human body can perform feats that are ordinarily impossible. For example, a sudden surge of adrenaline triggers almost superhuman strength. So, if chemical substances can logically explain the supernatural properties of the human body (such as the possibility of someone, in a state of fright, running at an incredible speed, even if they are not trained), why should we not believe that the action of the Holy Spirit can endow the mind and body of a person with abilities that are usually unknown? Only a "rationalization" and "demythologization" of our holy faith could lead us to doubt and fully reject the martyrdoms, ascetic feats, and miracles of the saints. The saints accomplished far more than what is described in their lives, which the graceless mind cannot bear to hear. The saints did not act autonomously or with self-satisfaction, but they accomplished everything through the grace and help of Almighty God.

5. The lives of the saints tend to exaggerate numbers, especially when mentioning the number of martyrs.

The only way to justify such an accusation would be to accept the unconditional reliability of historians. But historians have made several significant mistakes. For example, for many years, Thucydides' accounts of various events were considered inaccurate and exaggerated. However, recent research has proven that he was correct. Similarly, historians now acknowledge that they have underestimated the population sizes of ancient cities in the field of demography, while some accept that ancient sources were accurate. Therefore, it is not right, when we find "exaggerations" in the lives of the saints, to evaluate them with prejudice and doubt. Another rhetorical device, well-known in literature—and the lives of the saints are exemplary literature—is the use of exaggeration to emphasize a point. We must keep this device in mind, without assuming that every statistic or piece of information is incorrect. Otherwise, anything that surpasses the limits of logic and enters the realm of faith is surely an "exaggeration," but not one that is inadmissible or necessarily "mythical" in content.

6. Many of the things told in the lives of the saints could only have been known to them. How can we believe these things, and how did we come to know about them?

This question, which—whether consciously or out of ignorance—stems from our arrogance and pride, assumes that our predecessors were foolish and naive. However, if we humble our minds, we must accept that the compilers of the synaxaria were not only not foolish, but were, in fact, often great fathers of the Church, educated and gifted writers, rare thinkers, and great minds. Therefore, it is impossible that they would have simply speculated on certain matters regarding the saints and then recorded them, believing that no one would possess our "great" intellect to think, "Only the saints could have known these things!" We assume that the authors of the saints' lives were foolish, but they, being pious, virtuous, and gifted, did not assume the same about those who would come after them, about us. They addressed their hagiological texts to other pious members of the Church and hoped that they would be marked by the spirituality in Christ to understand that, out of humility, the authors did not have the opportunity, nor was it permitted, to reveal that they knew certain things by revelation. It would have been inappropriate to state this outright, though such "statements" were not entirely unknown when there was appropriate spirituality for our edification in Christ.

We must also bear in mind that many saints, driven by humility, did not allow their [spiritual] experiences to become public knowledge while they were still in this life but shared them with their disciples, who, after their holy repose, passed them on to the faithful. They avoided being glorified while alive and always sought the glory of God. Some of the disciples of the saints also compiled the lives of their spiritual fathers and guides, so it is not an inexplicable fact that we know of the personal [spiritual] experiences of God's saints.

Epilogue – Conclusions

It may not be necessary to mention that a suspicious attitude towards the synaxaria has a Western origin; it was provoked after the Second Vatican Council removed many saints, especially Orthodox ones, from the papal calendar. We must bear in mind that Western lives of saints often have a mythical character. It is difficult to determine the cause of this. It resembles the ancient riddle: "Which came first—the chicken or the egg?" Perhaps the estrangement of the West from the Orthodox Church, and therefore from true spirituality, led to a distortion of personal [spiritual] experience in sanctification, so that the supposed saints were in fact just the result of vivid imaginations or the addition of inauthentic events to their lives? Or perhaps this estrangement and the disappearance of authentic sanctity led to the depiction of fantastical saints, whose lives were later imitated by spiritual people who adopted in their spiritual lives the characteristic mark of deception, which arose from artificial and falsified spirituality? We will never know. The only thing we do know is that the separation of the Western Christian world from authentic Orthodox spirituality led to the creation of "synaxaria" that may be subject to suspicion and depict false and non-historical events. Therefore, we must be very careful not to allow Westerners to mix the Eastern patristic tradition of composing hagiological texts with [the methods of] Western philology, thus blending the true with the false and subjecting the genuine to strict criticism and disbelief—something that is only appropriate for the counterfeit. Indeed, we must all be cautious of those who, with the so-called critical eyes of university scholars, approach spiritual matters and grace-filled events, such as the life of a saint. Very often, such individuals lack the humility that is fitting for true science, and they are merely slaves and victims of the deceitful one, prophets of a godless worldview aimed at spiritual death. Our caution toward such "theologians" is entirely necessary, especially since they are not only slaves of the devil but have themselves become deceitful. If you have doubts, turn to the lives of the saints, where you will find descriptions of such individuals and how their lives are characterized.

Originally published in Greek in Agios Kyprianos, March-April 1988, pp. 273, 280, May-June 1988, pp. 287-288, and September-October 1988, pp. 317-318.

Translated from the online Bulgarian edition:

https://bulgarian-orthodox-church.org/rr/lode/ChrysostomArchb_LOfS/Zhitiiata%20na%20sviettsitie%20i%20istorichieskata%20tochnost%20-%20Ietniiski%20arkhiiepiskop%20Khrizostom.txt