Legendary Material in Christian Hagiography - Early Modern Protestant Reception

Early Modern Protestant Reception

The stories of the saints were supplemented and embellished according to popular theological conceptions and inclinations, and the legend became to a large extent fiction. The Protestant Reformation received the legend in this form. On account of the importance which the saints possessed even among Protestants, the legends have remained in use. The edition of the "Vitæ Patrum", which Georg Major published at Wittenberg in 1544 by Martin Luther's orders, closely follows Athanasius, Rufinus, and Jerome, rejecting merely some obvious fantasies and aberrations, such as, for example, were to be seen in the "Vita s. Barbaræ", the "Golden Legend" of the 13th century, or in the "Vita s. Simeonis Stylitæ" of Pseudo-Antonius.

But the legends of the saints shortly disappeared from Protestantism. It is only in the 19th century, that they again find entrance into official Protestantism in connexion with the Oxford Movement in the Church of England, and the attempts of Ferdinand Piper (d. 1899 at Berlin) to revive the popular calendars.