Publisher's Synopsis
From the Introduction.
WHAT is the secret and so potent attraction of the Saints? Renan says somewhere that he would have given everything he had to have seen St. Mary of Egypt pacing the desert in ecstasy, half-starved and turned to the semblance of Nebuchadnezzar. And Renan liberally discounted the value, not only of Theology, but also of the particular virtue, the loss of which had driven that Saint to such an unusual mode of life. The interest in sanctity evidently survives theological and ethical pre-occupations. Indeed, to-day, the Saint is perhaps an object of higher intrinsic interest to " unbelievers" than to the faithful. For to the faithful he is primarily "useful," either as being efficacious in various troubles of life or, on a higher plane, as a sort of spiritual agent, obtaining graces for his clients. "O admirabile commercium" But, like everything else, this celestial intercourse suffers from the defects of its qualities. I do not wish to be understood as making light of superstition. The humblest blossom of that luxuriant garden is of infinite value, nor do the roots of our most highly rationalised opinions grow outside it. Nevertheless the important position of the Saint in the Catholic economy does tend to conceal his real personality from his worshippers. He inevitably tends to be considered more as a means to an end, than as an object intrinsically worthy of contemplation. In these circumstances the actual historical value of his personality is apt to be obscured by legend and fancy. Legend, of course, if at all contemporaneous, is of the highest value as illustrating his effect on those with whom he came in contact. We could ill spare in the life of St. Francis the Wolf of Gubbio. Modern devotional fancy is less illuminative. It throws no light upon the character of St. Anthony of Padua to learn that centuries after his death he recovered some papers lost by that devout man King Charles II. What then is it that constitutes the intrinsic interest of the Saint when his supernatural value has gone?
