Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Dorothea Legend; Its Earliest Records, Middle English Versions, and Influence on Massinger's "Virgin Martyr" A Dissertation Presented to the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
As Gunter says in the introductory chapter of his legenden-studien the legends of the saints are, cum gram salis, older than the saints themselves. Their pro totypes originated in the era preceding Christian martyr dom. Many features of these stories are, for instance, variations of the miracles of the canonical and apocryphal books of the Bible. The literatures of the Orient, especially their supernatural and miraculous elements, have likewise contributed their quota to the lives of the saints. As the cult itself, the worship of saints, has been traced back in practically all its features to pre-christian institutions and so are the marvellous stories found recorded in the martyrologies, Without doubt in far the greater number of cases, traceable to sources anterior to the Christian era.
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