Vera Figura Sancti: The Hagiographical Readings in the Roman Breviary

Abstract

This article investigates the role of hagiography as a mediating genre between Scripture and liturgy. Hagiographical readings for saints (legenda) have been featured in the office of Matins in Rome from at least the eighth century. By the early modern period, these texts came under scrutiny for a lack of historical credibility, a concern echoed in the reform of the breviary after the Second Vatican Council which pruned the office of much legendary material. Yet recent scholarship on hagiography suggests that the dominant postconciliar concern—historicity—failed to fully understand the genre. Legenda were not bad history, but forms of narrative exegesis, a means to “display to the faithful fitting examples for their imitation” (SC 111). The liturgical function of the hagiographical readings emerges clearly in four case studies comparing Matins of the Breviarum Romanum 1568 to the Liturgia Horarum of 1971 for Agatha, Cecilia, Agnes, and Lucy. These feasts demonstrate both the motivation and the result of the directive to reform the readings of the saints to accord with the “facts of history” (SC 92c). This study demonstrates the need for further work on these understudied hagiographical readings, which use the liturgical and Scriptural context to propose saints as living extensions of the Gospel, rendered concrete and attractive through narrative.

1. Introduction

This article explores how hagiography—the genre of writings relating to the saints which proposes them for veneration and imitation—relates to Scripture and liturgy. This intersection between hagiography, liturgy, and Scripture emerges most clearly in short readings for the saints’ feasts in the office. Specific readings for saints’ feasts appeared within Christian liturgy already in antiquity and are found to this day in the current Roman office. Though considerably reduced and modified from medieval precursors, they testify through their inclusion in the modern Office of Readings to a still-effectual place of the saints in the dialog between Scripture and liturgy.

Scholarship on these hagiographical readings has been minimal by both scholars of liturgy and scholars of hagiography alike (Reames 2021). This is, perhaps, because the texts prove a difficult subject to study: they are by nature incomplete, derivative, and diffuse, especially before the modern period. Scholars interested in hagiography often focus on the longer passio or vita from which a liturgical reading might draw, leaving aside the liturgical context in which hagiographical selections appear. The most sustained attention to the texts and their liturgical context occurs in studies of medieval saints’ cults, where the hagiographical readings in breviaries offers a wealth of information about local manifestations of saints’ cults within the complex networks of medieval liturgy (Reames 2021).

Beyond medieval studies, the other main body of scholarship which deals with the hagiographical readings are studies of the history and reform of the office (de Gaiffier 1954; Campbell 1995; Amore 1972; Bugnini 1990). The twentieth century liturgical reforms were decisively shaped by these assumptions about hagiography as a legendary and popular genre, assumptions which in some cases led scholars to conclude that the genre of hagiographical readings were “quite foreign to the key ideas of the liturgy” (Salmon 1962, p. 76).1

Of course, scholars of medieval liturgy have long recognized the sophistication of the hagiographical literature in the saints’ cults, while recent scholarship on hagiography as a genre has complicated this older assumption of naivete or credulity (Astell 2024; De Temmerman and Van Pelt 2023; Harvey 2008). Yet there remains a need for an evaluation of how the twentieth century presuppositions about hagiography guided the reform of the breviary, and how an essentially medieval genre finds a place within modern liturgy.

Thus, the present study extends the scholarly re-evaluation of hagiography in the field of liturgical studies, with particular attention to the modern period, in two ways. First, I propose the hagiographical readings as a case study for the contextual nature of liturgical reform. This investigation supplements the scant scholarship on the hagiographical readings in the postconciliar century reform of the breviary, and bridges insights between scholars of hagiography and scholars of the medieval and modern Roman office by examining the presuppositions about the genre of hagiography which guided modern liturgical reforms. Second, I offer a concrete evaluation of the liturgical function of hagiographical readings through four case studies which compare the intertextuality of hagiography and Scripture in the early modern and contemporary Roman office.

Ultimately, I argue that the hagiographical readings in the office serve a sophisticated liturgical role as loci of Scriptural reflection. They extend and concretize ecclesial interpretation of Scripture through the life of the saint. In what follows, I first outline the emergence of hagiographical readings, specifically in the Roman office and prior reforms leading up to the revised office in the Liturgia Horarum (LH1971).2 I then take up the question of hagiography as a genre, arguing that the origins and development of the genre encourage a re-evaluation of reform’s focus on history. Finally, I turn to case studies of the hagiographical readings for Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, and Cecilia, allowing the comparison of the feasts in the Breviarium Romanum of 1568 (BR1568) and the LH1971 to reveal the implications of the postconciliar focus on historicity. The comparison invites concluding reflections on how saints’ feasts serve as those loci of ecclesial reflection on Scripture through a dynamic intertextuality between saints’ legenda, liturgical chants, and Scriptural readings for each feast.

2. Hagiography in the Breviary: History and Reform(s)

2.1. Saints in the Breviary: Historical Context

Understanding the modern readings for saints’ feast in the office demands a brief overview of two related developments: the emergence of the cult of saints and related writings, and the consolidation of the Roman office into a single liturgical book, the breviary.

The emergence of a “cult of saints” stems from early veneration of martyrs as exemplary Christians, which broadened by the fourth century to veneration of other holy men and women (Brown 1971, [1981] 2015). The complex development(s) of the cult of saints in both late antique and medieval periods have been well studied, from the intense locality of cults, to material practices like relics or pilgrimage, to shifting paradigms of holiness which inspired the narration and re-narration of saints’ lives (Brown [1981] 2015; Vauchez 1987; Cobb 2016; Harvey 2008).3 Most important to the present discussion is how the remembrance of saints on the date of their death (dies natalis) grew into a relatively full calendar of liturgical commemoration (the sanctorale).

Evidence specifically in Rome points to the veneration of local martyrs with liturgical commemoration, usually observed at the saints’ tombs (Taft 1986).4 But Rome was comparatively late in allowing saints’ lives to be read during the daily office on those commemorations (Salmon 1962, p. 76).5 Yet the liturgical commemoration at the tombs (vigils and masses) eventually moved into the city along with the saints’ relics in the sixth century, and by the eighth century under Hadrian I (d. 795) the “gesta” of the saint was read in the office on the commemoration (Salmon 1962, pp. 74–76). Of course, it was not until after the Council of Trent that standardization of the sanctorale and the office could be expected (Taft 1986, p. 310).6

Interestingly, Baudouin de Gaiffier, a Bollandist eventually involved in the reform of the breviary, suggested that the long Roman “ban” on public reading of saints’ lives led to a disappearance of the “authentic acts of the Roman martyrs,” which turned into legend in the absence of the “control” which they would have undergone if read in assemblies (de Gaiffier 1954, p. 141).7 The official approval of legenda for use in Roman office possibly spurred the increase in new liturgical material for the office as legends were composed for forgotten saints and new feasts proliferated in subsequent centuries.8

If the cult of saints can be characterized by a trend toward proliferation and increasing complexity, the development of the Roman office shows similar tendencies (Taft 1986). In the complex history of the Roman office, the present discussion is interested mainly in comparatively late development of one book containing the liturgical texts for the office; in place by at least by the thirteenth century, this development corresponds to a privatization and clericalization of the office (Taft 1986, pp. 297–306, 309).

Yet that office still showed the roots of earlier periods in the communal hours of daily prayer organized around the recitation of psalms (and readings from Scripture). That Scriptural core was increasingly affected by the saints’ feasts as these grew in number and elaboration; Salmon notes that in the “Gallican books of the eighth century,” there were only about fifteen feasts; by the thirteenth century he counts about 200 saints’ feasts a year, “and their number kept increasing” (Salmon 1962, pp. 98–99). These feasts displace the ordinary liturgy of the temporale, interrupting the continuity of Scriptural reading or psalmody (Salmon 1962, p. 77).9

Important saints, like apostles or local patrons, demanded “propers,” liturgical elements for the hours or the mass composed and arranged especially for the saint (e.g., hymns, readings, prayers, antiphons). Other saints of lesser importance would receive commemoration through the “commons,” or fixed sets of liturgical material related to the category to which that saint belonged (virgin, martyr, bishop, etc.). The hagiographical readings appear within the hour of Matins or vigils (Taft 1986, pp. 165–209). That hour was divided into three nocturns, each with psalmody, antiphons, and readings from Scripture or patristic authors (for the structure in the BR1568, see Supplementary Materials S3).

2.2. Saints in the Breviary: Early Modern Reforms

By the fifteenth century, the clerics obligated to pray the office complained about the length of prayer, the quality of readings, and the burden of complex rubrics for negotiating the conflicting sanctorale and temporale (Campbell 1995, p. 11). Even less welcome seemed to be “apocryphal legends, incredible tales, unlikely and absurd ‘facts’” scattered throughout the hagiographical readings in the breviary (Salmon 1962, p. 82). As discussed below, the late antique and medieval goal for hagiography was to demonstrate sanctity through typology or miraculous efficacy, not to narrate a strictly factual biography. Intellectual and religious shifts into the early modern period, however, created increasing distance from these medieval modes of narration and introduced modern expectations of factuality, historicity, and sophistication (Astell 2024).

The popularity of a breviary of Cardinal Quiñones, which appeared briefly with papal approval in 1535, demonstrated the desire for simplification and facilitated easier private recitation by clergy through radical departures from tradition, i.e., eliminating choral elements like antiphons (Salmon 1962, p. 87; Kwatara 1980, p. 19). Quiñones also modified the hagiographical legends, shortening the texts, refining the Latin, and eliminating the marvelous elements (Taft 1986, p. 310; Kwatara 1980). Salmon notes that the Quiñones breviary focuses too much on edification and departs dramatically from tradition; a similar judgment, perhaps, motivated the eventual suppression of his breviary and a much more conservative reform of the traditional Roman office in the sixteenth century after the council of Trent.

This Tridentine breviary was a response not only to humanistic critiques of the breviary, but to the challenges against the cult of the saints brought by the Reformers. The last session of the council had vehemently defended the cult of saints, and the breviary was ultimately rather conservative in both structure and content, retaining the legenda and a multitude of feasts. This conservative approach left two lingering problems: the negotiation of the sanctorale and temporale, and the problem of legenda which increasingly stretched the limits of credibility for modern readers.

2.3. Saints in the Breviary: Twentieth Century Reforms

Yet after the promulgation of the BR1568, few notable changes were made to the hagiographical readings at Matins (except additions for new feasts) until the twentieth century. In 1911, the revised rubrics of Pius X introduced changes relating to saints’ feasts in a new breviary (BR1911). Promulgated with an eye toward a later and more comprehensive reform, the BR1911 took action to address the problem of a proliferating sanctorale by combining the observance of temporale and sanctorale. Optional shorter hagiographical readings for saints’ feasts were provided to account for the effects of stricter rubrics about commemoration (Kwatara 1980, p. 31). Those admirably concise readings became the only hagiographical readings at Matins under another provisional breviary, that of John XXIII promulgated in 1960 (BR1960) in anticipation of the more thorough reforms of a council already in preparation.

2.4. Reforms of the Second Vatican Council: Principles

The Second Vatican Council took on an enormous task in the reform of the liturgy, a priority reflected in the first major document of the council, Sacrosanctum Concilium, (henceforth SC). The group tasked with implementing the directives of the Council outlined in SC, the Consilium, convened in 1964. It was divided into groups devoted to reforming various aspects of the liturgy. Their deliberations and drafts are recorded in various texts (schemata) circulated internally or to the members of the Consilium at large.10 The groups assigned to the breviary were guided by general directives about the office in SC (i.e., SC 89c on making Matins as a moveable hour with fewer psalms and longer readings, or SC 92 calling for greater treasure from Scripture and the “Fathers”).

This work of the Consilium was well documented and has been well studied.11 As one tiny part of the whole work, hagiographical readings have received comparatively little attention, though two studies deserve mention. One thesis by Michael Kwatara published in 1980, shortly after the reforms, made a case for the value of the legenda which had been excised in the LH1971. His attention to the “spiritual value” of the texts is compelling, but his treatment neglects the other hagiographical material (broadly considered) in the breviary. A more recent article outlines the deliberation of the Consilium regarding the hagiographical readings, but offers little commentary (Stefański 2011).

Yet commentary abounds when one turns to the deliberations recorded in the schemata: Campbell notes that the “most troublesome of the elements in the Office of Readings seems to have been the hagiographic reading” (Campbell 1995, p. 280). Initial meetings of Coetus VI, the group assigned to the hagiographical readings, noted that their work depended on changes to the calendar and the structure of Matins (Amore 1972, pp. 239–49). In other words, assigning readings for saints depended on which feasts were retained, and the final arrangement about the various liturgical units of the hour (psalmody, responsories, antiphons, readings from Scripture, patristic texts, hagiographical texts). Campbell reads these debates as fundamentally about “the role of the cult of the saints in the Office” (Campbell 1995, p. 280). While SC had made it clear that saints would be retained in the office (SC 111, 104), the document was also clear that the hagiographical readings were to “accord with the facts of history” (SC 92c).

The difficulty of this simple directive is best grasped through an example like the case of Cecilia. In a lecture at the start of the group’s work in 1964, de Gaiffier used the case of this virgin martyr of Rome as particularly exemplary of the difficulties they faced in reforming the hagiographical readings (Stefański 2011).12 Hers, it seems, was an instance where the “authentic” acta of a martyr must have been lost and substituted with a legend—a fifth century passio that held little historical value. Yet her cult was enormously popular, and her inclusion in the Roman canon meant that her feast could not be excised.

The basic difficulty returns in a summary a few years later, in a collection of proposed hagiographical readings for November circulated in 1967.13 There, Fr. Augustine Amore, OFM, the relator of Coetus IX (which oversaw the breviary as a whole) explains two proposed reading for Cecilia’s feast of 22 November by first noting the “disagreement” about “the person, the dating, and the death of this saint.” Yet

from the fifth century there was reliable evidence of her veneration and today—perhaps unmerited, but throughout the whole world—she is considered the patron of music. Her passio deserves no credit, but since there are no credible records from anywhere else, rather than fables (potius quam fabellas) we propose for the reading a sermon of Augustine.14

In other words, the difficulty was proposing appropriate hagiographical reading for saints like Cecilia, who lacked credible historical sources yet commanded powerful popular devotion and held universal importance (SC 111). Undergirding this concern is the assumption that the hagiographical readings serve a fundamentally historical purpose, giving access to the saint in much the same way as a skillful memoir. The hagiographical readings were therefore tested by modern standards of factuality, rather than the medieval frameworks which guided their composition. The solution noted here, then, could only be to remove the “fables” of the older breviary, replacing them with sermon(s) which do not reference the saint beyond a general connection to the theme of martyrdom. Thus, Cecilia’s reading accords with the “facts of history” by wholly omitting any explicit (or implicit) historical claims in the hagiographical reading for her feast.

The strategy demonstrated here for Cecilia was deliberate: a few months prior, at a plenary session on 10–19 April 1967, the Consilium had approved six principles from Coetus VI to govern the selection of readings:

For saints of antiquity, ‘legends’ are to be expunged, and replaced by ‘true acts’ (acta sincera) if available. Otherwise, let the readings be taken from writings of the Fathers about the saint being celebrated, even if those contain certain small elements from popular tradition that are not historically certain (parva elements de traditionibus vulgaribus non historic [sic] probatis), or writings of the saint being celebrated, if any exist. For saints of the middle ages or more recent times, let a new reading be composed, in which not only historical truth (historiam fidem) but spiritual profit (utilitatem spiritualem) may be found.15

These principles propose an approach which approximates history: for older saints without authentic acts (acta sincera), the reading would be selected from a writing by the saint or a presumably contemporaneous sermon about the saint. An interesting qualification allows that these homiletic texts can be used even if they contain historically dubious elements from the same “popular” traditions as a legenda, an important point not emphasized by Campbell or Stefański (Campbell 1995, pp. 220–21; Stefański 2011, pp. 317–18). This admission suggests a concession to antiquity, but only for homiletic sources. Why did the genre of hagiography receive a more rigid evaluation? Perhaps due to an assumption that the genre of homily was more transparently rhetorical than hagiography, so deviations from strict factuality would not lead a reader astray. In contrast, the genre of hagiography invites a direct comparison to history: it incorporates both what modern readers would consider historical fact and literary construction (fiction) (De Temmerman and Van Pelt 2023, pp. 11–12). As discussed below, the scholarship on hagiography in this period encouraged a focus on “historicity,” but this small concession for homiletic texts showed how the Consilium was able to envision a value of preserving in liturgical texts some elements of “popular tradition” which were not historically certain.

In the record of the votes to approve these six principles, twenty-eight members expressed reservations.16 One concern was that this proposed strategy could lead to a loss of vivid reality for the saint: “the hagiographical readings ought to be truly historical (vere historica) so that from the reading emerges the real person (vera figura) of the saint, and not some generic figure, which fits all of the saints—and none of them.”17 This concern about a real figure of a saint (vera figura Sancti) hints at an awareness in the postconciliar conversations that hagiography deals with a reality—sanctity—which in some sense exceeds historical evidence, strengthened by the suggestive use of vere historica (cf. Kwatara 1980, pp. 144–87). The reservation testifies to an anxiety that if the saints lose individuality they would therefore lose their particular power as concrete witnesses. The concern for individuality appears again in a report compiled for the tenth plenary session. In that report, dated to 15 March 1968, the group affirmed that the hagiographical readings should offer the “specific spirituality of the saint, suited to the conditions of today,” and show their “importance to the life and spirituality of the Church.”18

As the Consilium deliberated how to enact the directives of SC, they attempted to negotiate a difficult task: reforming hagiographical readings to accord with history without losing the specificity necessary for a saint’s efficacy. The discussions hint at some consideration for broad approaches to the value of the readings (the vera figura, the concession for “popular” elements in homilies, the emphasis on spirituality). Yet the ultimate emphasis remained historicity.

2.5. Reforms of the Second Vatican Council: Results

Thus, when Paul VI promulgated the new Liturgia Horarum on 1 November 1970, he offered to the Roman church a breviary which went “further than previous reforms in expunging almost all legends and legendary material” (Kwatara 1980, p. 37). Indeed, between the older breviary and the LH1971, only a few acta were retained (e.g., Polycarp, Perpetua and Felicity, Cyprian). Of the saints who remained on the universal calendar, fully half offered the saint’s own writing as the hagiographical readings, while the rest were supplied by sermons, letters the documents of the Second Vatican Council, or homilies of recent popes at the canonizations of more recent saints (Stefański 2011; Amore 1972). Even where hagiographical material remained unchanged from the prior breviary, the revised structure introduced considerable changes. In the LH1971, the Office of Readings (formerly Matins) had a hymn, three psalms with antiphons, a Scriptural reading and responsory, and a second reading with responsory.19 Those last two elements would be the only ones proper to most saints on the calendar, with the other elements supplied from the relevant commons. The office in the LH1971 thus reduced the overall length and complexity of saints’ feasts, thereby reducing the places where hagiographical elements might appear.

The revised office in the LH1971 had numerous advantages. But why did the reforms of the LH1971 look so radical in the elimination of legendary material? Two assumptions undergirded the revisions: first, that the purpose of the hagiographical readings was to propose a historical figure. A second, related assumption was hagiography could be separated into two categories: acta sincera (true) and “fables” like Cecilia’s passio (false). The latter category was impossible to bring into accord with the “facts of history.” These revisions to the hagiographical readings received pointed critique, exemplified in Kwatara’s argument for the spiritual benefit of legenda which lack historical certainty (Kwatara 1980). However, even Kwatara’s argument implicitly accepts the foundational distinction between the “authentic” and “legendary,” focusing on an argument of spiritual legitimacy. But what if the distinction itself was less stable than the members of the Consilium were able to assume sixty years ago? What if the genre of the hagiographical readings authentically included both fabellas and acta sincera? What if the hagiographical texts fulfilled a function beyond the historical? This is, in fact, the suggestion of recent scholarship on hagiography, which reveals that decisions of the Consilium were based on a historically contextual—and incomplete—understanding of the genre beneath the hagiographical readings. To that genre I now turn.

3. The Genre of Hagiography

As seen above, the dominant thread linking the historical reforms of the breviary and the Consilium’s deliberations about the Office of Readings is an uneasy tension between the legends and the “facts of history.” This tension, however, stems from the scholarship on hagiography available to the Consilium in the twentieth century, which focused on history. More recent approaches approximate an understanding of hagiography closer to how medieval readers and authors might have understood it, helping to illuminate the ecclesial, Scriptural, and liturgical roots of the genre.

3.1. Origins of Hagiography: Presuppositions

When early modern interest in the genre began, scholars assumed that “truly” historical events or sources can be discerned among the “merely” fabricated legends (Harvey 2008). That view can be traced back to the pioneering work of the Bollandists, seventeenth century Jesuit scholars who inaugurated the critical study of hagiographical texts through collection and comparison (Astell 2024, p. 253). A focus on legitimating the saints’ lives through historical study shaped a distinctive approach to the texts which valued the historical “wheat” within the legendary “chaff” (Heffernan 1988, p. 57; De Temmerman and Van Pelt 2023, p. 10). The medieval popularity of the chaff—more legendary saints’ lives—was explained through the naivete or credulity of medieval practitioners (Delehaye 1936, 1961).

Hippolyte Delehaye, a preeminent Bollandists, defined the category of “hagiography” by excluding “pure” sources like eyewitness accounts or authentic historical records (acta sincera), as well as the more sophisticated productions of educated authors (like Athanasius) (Astell 2024, p. 6). Hagiography, for Delehaye, refers to the product of popular imagination, originating in the naive simplicity of the “people” whose collective intelligence is approximated, in his opinion, by the intellectual level of a child: impressionistic, simple, sensory, and incapable of nuanced approach to sources (Delehaye 1961). Similarly to de Gaiffier’s suggestion that the “authentic” acta of Roman martyrs disappeared to be replaced by the legends which grew up outside ecclesial control, the effect of such a scholarly approach was to suggest that the traditional writings about the saints were an unhappy mix of authentic historical details and popular fables.

3.2. Origins of Hagiography: An Exegetical Genre

If history dominated the concern of the Bollandists, more recent approaches, however, approach these hagiographical “fables” differently. They do not excavate facts from popular “fictions,” but seek to understand the literary, cultural, and theological context of the genre which gave shape to both the historical and legendary elements of the texts (Harvey 2008, especially bibliography).

In a helpful introduction of both the genre of hagiography and the scholarship surrounding it, Susan Ashbrook Harvey traces the development from eyewitness accounts (e.g., the Martyrdom of Polycarp, ca. 155) to the post-legalization development of both epic passio (elaborated re-narrations of older martyrdom accounts) and new vitae for non-martyr saints like Athanasius’s Life of Anthony, often taken as the beginning of the genre proper (Harvey 2008, pp. 604–5, 608–9). Though Harvey mainly outlines the earlier stages of the genre’s development, she identifies two points which directly bear on the examination of hagiographical readings in the later medieval and modern breviaries. First, she points to Scripture as a key source for the genre of hagiography: it “became a literature that conveyed biblical narrative as an ongoing aspect of history” as salvation continued to unfold in the lives of contemporary Christians (Harvey 2008, p. 614). Second, she notes the “collective” narrative voice of hagiography, which is always a communal product, especially as the author strives to present a saint who is recognizably holy to the audience’s traditions and expectations (Harvey 2008). That communal context also guides recent arguments for approaching hagiography through the lens of “fictionality.” This explains how readers could approach hagiography, a genre which represents itself as truthful, without subjecting the sources to the rigorous historical scrutiny which even true “histories” of the medieval period are unlikely to survive (De Temmerman and Van Pelt 2023). In other words, far from Delahaye’s assumption that the medieval period saw naïve acceptance of clear fables, taking the literary and cultural context seriously shows how a the texts of the medieval period strove to present a vera figura according to different criteria than modern biography.

Harvey’s point about the relationship of hagiography and Scripture has been amply demonstrated in a recent study by Ann Astell (Astell 2024). Tracing a series of exemplary hagiographical texts from antiquity to modernity, she argues that during the centuries in which hagiography flourished (the fourth through fifteenth), the best exemplars of the genre show a sophisticated use of Scripture both in direct citation and in narrative structure—for example, in Athanasius’s Life of Anthony. These narratives interpret the saint’s life in light of God’s primary action of “authoring” both saint and Scripture (Astell 2024, p. 7). Astell argues that though a saint’s vita is not Scripture, “by its intertextual participation in, and imitative extension of, the Scriptures, a saint’s Life [can bear] witness to what the Bible reveals and demands” (Astell 2024, p. 215). In other words, hagiography illuminated and extended Scriptural narratives, offering late antique and medieval audiences an effective narration of God’s continued action, recorded in Scripture and now witnessed in the saints. The genre emerged as a “form of narrative commentary upon Scripture” (Astell 2024, p. 6). With this frame, Astell offers a Scriptural ground for the “fictionality” of saints’ vitae, a way to appreciate how the truthfulness of hagiography in medieval context rested not in historical (biographical) detail, but in Scriptural conformity.

Thus, hagiography took shape from and toward a communal memory which presented a particular life according to expectations of sanctity rooted in Scriptural patterns. Hagiography ideally revealed the extension of God’s action beyond Scripture into a concrete and particular life, in narratival terms suited to the ages by which and for which the saints’ lives were authored.20

3.3. Shifts in the Genre: Hagiography in the Later Medieval Period

Astell and Harvey present a convincing argument for the Scriptural origins of hagiography and seeing this as a sophisticated exegetical genre. But if this is the case, why did the later medieval reformers find the legends of the saints so dissatisfying and absurd? Further, does the argument about hagiography as a genre hold for the excerpted and adapted nature of hagiographical lections?

To take the first question, Astell outlines how the changing canonization process of the second millennia was a key factor in moving the genre of hagiography away from an original biblical pattern into a juridical key. The lives of contemporary saints began to be written as preemptive answers to “juridical questions regarding set proofs of holiness,” rather than the narrative demonstration of the saint’s conformity to Christ’s life. (Astell 2024, pp. 4 and 7).21 This internal shift in the genre, away from what Astell presents as its roots in Scriptural commentary, was exacerbated by external pressure, most acute during the crisis of the sixteenth century when the Reformers’ critique of hagiography opposed biblical truth with the legends of the saints. They focused on the clear vulnerabilities of the genre already apparent by the fifteenth century: improbable miracles, clear fabrications, or mythic elements. Though defensive of the saints, the early modern reformers of the Roman breviary and later scholars of hagiography also fell prey to the assumption that the genre was popular and “impure,” a compilation of pious morals and credulous folk tales, assumptions glimpsed also in the reforms narrated above.

To take the second question, the excerpted nature of hagiographical readings in a liturgical setting seems to limit the room for successful Scriptural commentary. But the liturgical setting actually reveals the claim most fully, for it enables the vita or passio to be placed in direct conversation with Scripture through the liturgy. Indeed, the medieval “proliferation” of saints’ feasts meant that many of these hagiographical readings were written specifically for the liturgy, consciously inserted into the Scriptural and liturgical matrix (Salmon 1962, p. 76). In multiple ways, the hagiographical readings participate in what Benini has called the “liturgical hermeneutic of Scripture.” (Benini 2023).22

It was precisely this liturgical context that motivated the severe reforms, since it seemed impossible to knowingly offer anything unhistorical in a liturgical context which might seem to approve or verify it.23 This was a legitimate concern. But what Astell suggests is that hagiography communicates far more than history: the “simple facts” of the saint’s life and deeds are not related to merely communicate historical information, but to reveal sanctity.24

In sum, the scholarship which was foundational to the twentieth century understanding of hagiography considered the texts along historical lines. This frame guided the members of the Consilium, like de Gaiffier, and shaped decisions about the reformed readings. Yet newer scholarship suggests a broader frame of “truth” than historicity. In the long centuries of selection and adaptation, the readings themselves become cumulative layers by which local communities engaged in the continual re-narration of the saints—and Scripture—for their own time and place. In this light, the twentieth century, the reforms outlined above were merely another layer of re-interpreting the “place of the saints.”

4. Case Studies

The foregoing discussion invites a turn to concrete evidence: how does a saint’s hagiographical reading interpret Scripture in a liturgical context? What occurred when the LH1971 omitted legendary material? In this final section, examining the readings for four saints—Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, and Cecilia—reveals how the BR1568 and the LH1971 each incorporate the saints into liturgy. For these saints, what would a vera figura look like? Astell’s argument implies that the legenda should express hagiography’s origin as communally oriented exegesis upon Scripture which strategically narrates the saint to illuminate biblical holiness. Do the readings of the BR1568 witness to the intertextuality with Scripture which Astell identifies as foundational to the origin of the genre of saints’ lives? For their part, do the hagiographical readings in the LH1971 in the Office of Readings present the saints as part of the whole interpretive framework which enables a richer encounter with Scripture?

In the following case studies, I argue in the affirmative by attending especially to how the BR1568 utilizes hagiographical elements to propose the saint as a concrete and attractive model. Importantly, the intertextuality does not remain strictly between the hagiographical lesson and the Scriptural reading for the feast; the other liturgical elements (responsories, psalms, and antiphons) collaborate in allowing the reciprocal illumination of the saint’s life and Scripture. In particular, the BR1568 shows how the whole office conspires to present a vera figura, especially in contrast to the simplified Office of Readings in the LH1971.

The case studies were selected by following the logical thread that the saints most vulnerable to disappearing under the criterion of historicity would be the women of antiquity; I thus analyze the feasts of four virgin martyrs four virgin martyrs: Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, and Cecilia. The cadence of their names alone signals their “universal importance” as four of the eight women commemorated in the Roman canon (SC 111).The early medieval formation of the canon provides evidence for the antiquity of their cults in Rome.25 But these four saints leave little trace in the historical or written record (cf the Carthaginian acta of Perpetua and Felicity). Their lives were preserved in ecclesial memory in the vitae or passio which form the basis of the legends in the BR1568. Each of the four follows a shared patterns of most epic passions of virgin martyrs: threats to chastity, dramatic confrontations with pagans, firm profession of Christianity, miracles, and prolonged tortures (Harvey 2008, p. 607; Winstead 1997, pp. 5–18).

In this section I proceed as follows: for each saint I first summarize the general outlines of the hagiographical tradition.26 I then focus on the liturgical material for the feasts as they appear in the BR1568, examining the readings for the office of Matins to show how the hagiographical lection manifests as a “narrative commentary on Scripture” in collaboration with the other liturgical elements (see Supplementary Materials S1.1 for the relevant texts).27 I compare that with the readings proposed and chosen for the LH1971 to evaluate how each revised hagiographical reading evokes—or erases—a vera figura of the saint in connection to Scripture. The goal is not to comprehensively evaluate the traditions surrounding these saints, nor to offer a full reading of their liturgical feast, but simply to offer several overlapping examples of how hagiography can function as a mediating genre between Scripture and liturgy. A secondary goal is to suggest that even if the postconciliar reforms eliminated much explicitly hagiographical content from the breviary, the resulting readings still hint at the exegetical potential of the saint’s life when read in a liturgical context.

4.1. Agatha

4.1.1. Agatha in Tradition

Agatha, celebrated on February 5th, was a martyr with an early and well attested cult; tradition holds that she was killed in Catania around 251 in the Decian persecution.28 Her Latin Martyrdom (BHL 133) dates to between the fifth and seventh centuries.29 Agatha’s passio emphasizes her noble birth and her choice of consecrated virginity which brings her into dramatic confrontation with the (pagan) governor of Sicily, Quintianus; Agatha defeats his argument and survives imprisonment in a brothel unscathed. The passio culminates in a series of dramatic tortures including the mutilation of her breasts which became a common iconographic trope for the martyr (Easton 1994). When read as a whole, the narrative introduces carefully layered contrasts, as Agatha’s nobility, purity, courage, and total trust in Christ are highlighted by the impotence, lust, and cruelty of Quirinius.

4.1.2. Agatha in the BR1568

This passio forms the main source for the hagiographical readings at Matins in the BR1568, as well as some of the responsories and antiphons (see Supplementary Materials S1.1). Along with the psalms, two scriptural readings anchored the office: in the first nocturn, Sirach 51:1–17 (a song of thanksgiving narrating how the one encompassed by flame and enemies cried out to the Lord from the mouth of the grave), and in the third nocturn, Matthew 25:1–13 (the parable of the wise and foolish virgins). The excerpted nature of the hagiographical readings highlights the layered contrasts evident in the longer passio: for example, the first reading of the second nocturn ends with a typical exchange, where the governor’s pointedly asks how a noble woman is not ashamed to live the humiliating life of a Christian. This question gives Agatha the opportunity to point to Christian humility as greater than all pride or power, a triumphant conclusion emphasized by its position at the end of that nocturn’s reading.

Several elements of the readings, however, might strike a modern ear as precisely the “marvelous” elements purged in the reforms, like the surely stylized exchanges between Agatha and Quintinius, the gratuitous torture, and the miraculous nocturnal healing by the apostle in her prison cell. In context, however, these details in Agatha’s passio enable a mutual illumination between her life and the theme of God’s deliverance found in explicit and implicit Scriptural references in her office.

How do the graphic torture and miraculous healing help illuminate Scripture? The first nocturn’s reading from Sirach 51:1–17 had offered a first-person narration of calling to God for rescue. In light of this, the dramatization of the tortures in the subsequent nocturn suggest Agatha as the one saved by the Lord from the fire (Sir. 51:6), the one surrounded by enemies and lying accusations (v. 7). The healing, which she at first refuses out of trust in God alone, allows her to become the one whose body was preserved from destruction (Sir. 51:3, 15). Likewise, the description of Agatha going to prison “rejoicing and glorifying” God (R 1.2), and an earthquake (Lectio 6), evoke for a reader the apostolic imprisonments and divine rescues narrated in Acts 5, 12, and 16. These details highlight the Scriptural paradigm underlying the nocturnal visit and miraculous healing by an apostle in her prison cell (Lectio 5, R 2.2): what God did for Peter and Paul (Acts 5, 12, and 16), he does again for Agatha.

Equally important to the Scriptural intertext is the liturgical context: the inclusion of Agatha’s own speeches in the readings and responsories encourage the reader to hear Agatha as the speaker of the first-person prayers of Sirach 51 and Psalms 3, 4, 5, 8 and 15. The liturgical setting allows Agatha, the psalmist, and the one praying the office to join together in this first-person speech. Thus, in the second nocturn, where the reading has just concluded the narration of her torture, the responsory Ego autem adjuta a Domino, drawn from Psalm 54:8, places on Agatha’s lips a confident proclamation of her perseverance and her security in the God who saves her (qui me salvam fecit).

In other words, Agatha’s hagiographical reading utilizes familiar Scriptural topoi and liturgical context to evoke the depths of her crisis and the power of divine salvation. In this way, the proclamation of God’s saving power witnessed in the Psalms, Sirach, and Acts see a renewed proclamation in Agatha: the one who hopes in God and is not disappointed.

4.1.3. Agatha in the LH1971

In the breviary promulgated by John XXIII (BR1960), Agatha’s hagiographical reading is a full third shorter. It still manages to preserve the essential outlines of her noble birth, the series of tortures interrupted by the nocturnal healing, and the final earthquake followed by her death. Yet the BR1960 limits the effective presence of Scriptural intertext by removing direct speech and rendering the tortures an impressive catalogue rather than scripturally layered demonstrations of Agatha’s perseverance and God’s healing power. This flattened accumulation of tortures and miracles failed to impress the Consilium, who counted hers among the legends to be expunged.

The short heading prefacing the reading for Agatha’s feast in Schema 339 asserts that she died a martyr in the Decian persecution (a hand later inserted “probabiliter” into the sentence to soften the statement).30 Noting the antiquity of her cult, but the lack of any sure historical facts, they propose a reading taken from a homily given by Methodius, bishop of Constantinople (d. 847). The selections from the homily name the antiquity of Agatha’s cult and the daily miracles which make her triumph present. She is praised for her virginity and martyrdom, a witness to the power of God who shows wonders through weakness.

The Scriptural intertext in this proposed hagiographical reading from Methodius is both more obvious and less effective: Methodius explicitly cites Pauline teachings on virginity and John’s gospel to connect Agatha’s virginity to the Christian filiation made possible through the (virginal) generation of the Word. It is worth emphasizing that the office which surrounds the (single) reading in the LH1971 looked vastly different than the BR1568: rather than a long vigil, the Office of Readings was much shorter and, for many saints, relied on the commons to supply most of the material for the feast. For Agatha and the other three virgin martyrs, the psalms, antiphons, and Scriptural readings would be taken from either the common of virgins or the common for one martyr (Supplementary Materials S2); only the hagiographical reading, responsory, and final prayer would be proper for Agatha.

By the printing of the LH1971, different portions from the homily of Methodius had been ultimately selected: the emphasis on her miracles fades and the selections instead focus on Agatha as the virgin espoused of Christ whose royal purple (blood-soaked) robe proclaims her fidelity. The homily ends with an elaboration on Agatha’s name—meaning “good” in Greek—as pointing to God, the source of all good. Yet like the other selections, this version of the homily fails to evoke any reality or individuality to her life or death, as the intense focus on Agatha’s body and courageous speech which characterized the readings in the BR1568 is absent. Instead of a concrete, bodily saint—bleeding, healed, and triumphant—Agatha becomes merely a name.

Hints of the richness outlined in the BR1568 still remain for an attentive reader. If, for example, the common of one martyr is chosen for Agatha’s feast, the first reading would be 1 Cor 4:7–5:8, an evocative description of perseverance in bodily affliction. Further, a reader can still hear the prayers for deliverance in Psalms 10 and 16 as Agatha’s own. Though the hagiographical reading no longer presents the bodily tortures of Agatha, the contrast between outer affliction and inner renewal remains a possible resonance, especially for a reader familiar with Agatha’s hagiographical tradition. The characterization of Agatha as the faithful witness is aided by the responsory after the hagiographical reading in the LH1971, which contains a first-person proclamation of standing firm in confessing the Lord after having received God’s help.31

4.2. Lucy

4.2.1. Lucy in Tradition

Turning to Lucy immediately highlights the “communal” implications of hagiography suggested by Harvey above, for Agatha appears as a key figure in Lucy’s Latin Martyrdom (BHL 4992).32 The narrative of Lucy’s sanctity begins with a healing miracle at Agatha’s tomb, revealing the close relationship between the saints and their cults (Lampadaridi 2023). Tradition holds that the miracles worked at Agatha’s tomb had spread the reputation of the virgin martyr of Catania far and wide, causing Lucy to travel there in search of a cure for her mother’s flow of blood. The miracle prompts her own vow of consecrated virginity. Lucy eventually follows Agatha not only in virginity but also in martyrdom, persevering through tortures which, by the twelfth century, give Lucy her own graphic iconographic symbol: her severed eyes (Wisch 2015).

4.2.2. Lucy in the BR1568

The office of Matins for Lucy’s feast on December 13th incorporates abundant Scriptural intertext: her passio shares the office with a first reading drawn from the common of virgins (1 Cor. 7:25–40, the classic exhortation about virginity) and a reading in the third nocturn of Matthew 13:44–52. That passage, the parables of the kingdom of heaven, is interpreted by a homily from Gregory the Great, whodraws out the treasure buried in a field to exhort his listeners to desire heaven over earthly praise. Nestled between these two readings is Lucy’s martyrdom, which focuses less on graphic torture than on her serene endurance and miraculous triumph. Whereas Agatha’s readings had included Scriptural citation only indirectly, Lucy directly cites Scriptural texts in her confrontation with the Roman prefect, Paschasius. He threatens her that her defiant words (verba) will cease when the blows (verbera) begin; Lucy responds with a lengthy Scriptural citation of Matthew 10:19–20 (that it is the Spirit who speak in the one accused).33 Asked whether she has the Spirit in her, and receiving the reply that those living chastely and piously do have the Spirit, Paschasius with cruel logic attempts to drag her to where her chastity will be violated. Lucy is unable to be moved, and when a fire kindled around her does not harm her, she is killed by a sword piercing her throat. She dies predicting the peace of the Church and the death of Diocletian and Maximian.

The account offers layers of Scriptural allusion. If Agatha’s feast presented the paradigmatic martyr whose confidence in God disregards bodily harm, Lucy’s feast in the B1568 sketches the paradigmatic virgin, elaborating on the nuptial themes of Psalm 44, which begins the second nocturn. The antiphon preceding the psalm (A 2.1) draws out a verse which emphasizes the beauty of the bride (Psalm 44:5).34 The nuptial theme is heightened by citations from the Song of Songs in three antiphons (A 2.3 Aquae multae, Cant. 8:7; A. 3.1 Nigra sum, Cant. 1:4; and A 3.2 Trahe me post te, Cant. 1:3). These citations heighten the contrast between the corruption of the brothel and the pure love of virginity (Lectio 5). Indeed, the citation of Cant. 1:3 (A 3.2, trahe post me) offers particular irony in light of the futile order that Lucy be dragged away to where her “virginity would be violated” (Luciam eo trahi iussit, ubi eius virginits violateretur).35 The bride’s desire to be drawn after the one she loves in the Song of Songs contrasts with an impotent attempt to drag Lucy away, while the pitch, resin, and perfumed oil (oleo perfusam) poured around the virgin to enkindle a fire evoke the sweet smell and oil named in the canticle.36 The sensory details give a vivid reality to the narrative, and thus, to Lucy.

These details of the legenda in the BR1568—a young girl unable to be moved by grown men, a fire kindled with perfumed oil—allow the attentive reader to see in Lucy the bride of Psalm 44 and the Song of Songs, a living manifestation of “love as strong as death” who reveals the contrast between depraved earthly lust and a purified virginal love for God.

4.2.3. Lucy in the LH1971

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the twentieth century evaluation of Lucy’s passio found little of historical value. In the collection of proposed readings in Schema 339, the introductory note for Lucy’s feast of December 13 expresses with moderate confidence that Lucy died in Syracuse under the persecution of Diocletian; her cult, like Agatha’s, was diffused throughout the whole earth from antiquity and she is invoked for diseases of the eye.37 Yet, because acta sincera for Lucy did not exist, a reading from Cyprian’s Ad Fortunatum was proposed for the hagiographical reading. The selections of the passage discuss the rewards of martyrdom in light of Scriptural promises and examples of paradoxical reversal (the sowing in tears, reaping in joy of Psalm 125 (126); the blessedness of the persecuted in Luke 6:22, and finding one’s life through losing it as indicated in Matthew 16:25). While Agatha’s proposed reading in that schema had at least mentioned her by name, Lucy’s proposed reading bears no individual connection to the saint: selected passages from Cyprian speak only generically of a martyr. Lucy’s reality as a concrete figure essentially disappears.

Perhaps for this reason, the proposed reading did not ultimately make it into the LH1971; instead, the hagiographical reading for Lucy’s feast in the final revision offers a passage from the De Virginitate of Ambrose of Milan (d. 397). Though Ambrose’s text is also devoid of specific reference to Lucy, the reading does enable a more dynamic connection to the saint by means of a continued second-person address (“You are one of God’s people…a virgin among virgins”).38 This direct address (“you”) conflates the virgin, the listener/reader, and the whole Church, which each take on the identity of the bride from the Song of Songs, a text Ambrose cites extensively. He exhorts each “bride” to fidelity and perseverance in the long wait for Christ’s return. Thus, the theme of spousal love articulated in Lucy’s feast in the BR1568 finds softer—but still effective—echo here in Ambrose’s connection of virginity with the nuptial love of the canticle. The responsory in the LH1971 picks up the theme of love (Dominus…dilexit eam), further reinforced by Psalm 44 when the common of virgins is chosen for Lucy’s feast.39

4.3. Agnes

4.3.1. Agnes in Tradition

Agnes proves a particularly interesting case among the four due to a striking continuity in her hagiographical reading, and an unusual level of historical evidence. The virgin martyr was distinguished by her youth and her popularity in the city of Rome after her death (ca. 304).40 Early evidence for her cult survived in inscriptions by Pope Damasus (d. 384) and the sermons of Ambrose of Milan. In his De Virginibus, given as sermons in 377 (and not the same as the De Virginitate), Ambrose recounts how Agnes, a child, was martyred at twelve years old. Her commitment to virginity compelled her to refuse marriage and to suffer execution. He emphasizes her fearlessness, quoting her final words rejecting both threats and persuasion; in his telling, the girl exhorts the executioner not to delay his task. A later Latin Martyrdom (BHL 156), composed likely after the fifth century, elaborates on these details. It purports to be a letter from Ambrose and freely adds details to the basic fourth century narrative (for example, adding an incident where Agnes was brought to a brothel but was miraculously covered by her hair to preserve her modesty).

4.3.2. Agnes in the BR1568 (and Beyond)

That pseudo-Ambrosian Martyrdom formed the basis of the hagiographical readings at Matins in the BR1548 for Agnes’s feast. The readings of the second nocturn are balanced by Scriptural texts already discussed: the first nocturn presents Sirach 51:1–17 while the final nocturn offers Matthew 25:1–13 interpreted by the same Gregorian homily elucidating the difference between the “wise” and “foolish” virgins in relation to the ecclesial mixture of mali cum bonis. The responsories and antiphons are drawn, largely, from the later passio, excerpted from Agnes’s long refusal of the advances of the son of the praetor of the city; the youth tries to seduce Agnes with promises and jewels, but she refuses by citing her marriage to Christ and the incomparable gifts and ornaments he has given.

The prior two case studies had used the details of the legenda to illuminate Scriptural types: Agatha, paradigmatic martyr with confidence in God, and Lucy, paradigmatic virgin and bride of Christ. While both types recur in Agnes’s feast, her liturgy demonstrates how seemingly superfluous details of a legenda can illuminate Scripture. One such superfluous detail is an insistent emphasis on jewels: the first responsory of the first nocturn names the precious stones, priceless pearls, and sparking jewels which Agnes’s heavenly spouse has given her (R 1.1).41 It is the second nocturn which exposes the depth of the image; a responsory cites the rich divine gifts found in Isaiah 61:10: “The Lord clothed me in the garments of salvation, and surrounded me with the vestment of joy, and adorned my head like a bride” (R 2.1).42 The verse for this responsory cites a moment in the passio where Agnes refuses of the jewels of the besotted youth, explaining that Christ has given her gems already: “He has given priceless pearls (inaestimabiles margaritas) for my ears, surrounding me with gleaming and sparkling gems” (R 2.1, verse).43 Liturgically, the effect is to propose Agnes as the bride adorned by these divine gifts named in Isaiah 61.

Moreover, the specific line naming the pearls (margaritas) is repeated in several responsories and antiphons (A 1.2; R 1.2; R 2.1verse; R 3.1verse). Though the gospel in the BR1568 for Agnes’s office is Matthew 25, the reference to pearls (margaritas R 2.1, verse) and treasure (thesauros, R 2.2, verse) directly evoke the parable in Matthew 13:44–46 where the kingdom of heaven is compared to both treasure (thesauro abscondito in agro) and a priceless pearl (pretiosa margarita).44 While the connection is not explicitly present in the gospel for the feast, the liturgical elements show how Agnes exemplifies the one who prefers the treasure and pearls to all else—even her life. These hints allow Agnes to become a living illustration of the parables of the kingdom of heaven.

By the BR1911, however, her office at Matins uses an authentic treatise from Ambrose’s De Virginibus; this series of homilies on virginity begins with Agnes because it falls on her feast (hodie natalis est Virginis…natalis est sanctae Agnetis). Unlike the passio, Ambrose’s homily does not centralize the rejected suitor who causes Agnes’s martyrdom, though he does hint at a refusal of marriage. Instead, he meditates on her fearless death and the marvel of courage in such a youth. Her witness prompts a meditation on the close connection between virginity and martyrdom, but always through the concrete figure of Agnes.

In this intervening period between the BR1568 and the LH1971, the responsories and antiphons remain unchanged, though the potential of the references to pearls and treasures to evoke Matthew 13:44–46 weakens without the legenda as context.

4.3.3. Agnes in the LH1971

As expected, the note prefacing the reading for Agnes’s feast in Schema 339 admits that there are no “genuine records of her passion” (genuinae notitiae de eius passione desunt). Historical authentication can, however, can be found from Pope Damasus, who decorated Agnes’s tomb, and the “many Fathers” who praised her, like Ambrose, whose homily De Virginibus they propose for Agnes’s feast.45 Though the choice is similar to the choice of Methodius’s homily to replace Agatha’s legenda, the selection of Ambrose’s homily is striking because the homily is because the homily is much more akin to the hagiography it replaces: it follows a narrative structure, adds details from “popular tradition,” and includes direct citation from the martyr.

Thus, this reading for Agnes provides a perfect example of that earlier-noted qualification to the six principles guiding the selection of saints’ lives: where legends are expunged and authentic acts are lacking, homiletic material is preferred even with “certain small elements from popular tradition that are not historically certain.” This enabled the rhetorical exaggerations in Ambrose’s homily to survive into the LH1971. Foremost among those elements which rarely survived from the BR1568 to the LH1971 is direct speech of a martyr: the reader hears, for example, in Ambrose’s rhetorical elaboration, the famous final words of Agnes who proclaim her fidelity to her heavenly spouse and fearlessly encourages her executioner to hasten her death.46

Further, if the BR1568 had offered the image of the precious pearl to show through Agnes how to prefer the kingdom of God to the world, the LH1971 achieves a similar effect through Ambrose’s vivid narration of how Agnes scorns the world. When prayed with the texts in the common of virgins, this would be reinforced by the second antiphon (“I have scorned the kingdoms of the earth and the whole world for love of my Lord Jesus Christ”) (Supplementary Materials S2).47 Further, though Ambrose in the sermon draws a negative contrast between Agnes and an earthly bride, the first responsory to the first reading (an echo of Psalm 44) reinforces Agnes’s claim of God as her spouse who had chosen her.48 The reading for her feast remains the closest to an unequivocally hagiographical reading, and unsurprisingly she is the most vivid of all the women discussed so far in the LH1971.

4.4. Cecilia

4.4.1. Cecilia in Tradition

The move from Agnes to Cecilia emphasizes the differing levels of “historical evidence” facing the Consilium: Agnes’s passio was attested by Ambrose, an early and eminently reputable source, while evidence for Cecilia’s life and cult was both late and unreliable.49 Structurally, the fifth century passio (BHL 1495) looks like the expected virgin martyrdom, with similar themes to the hagiographical texts for the three virgin martyrs above. Yet Cecilia’s martyrdom has some interesting divergences: for one, the threat of marriage forms the beginning, not the end, of her narrative. The first drama centers around Cecilia’s fasting and prayer before her wedding night, when she successfully convinces her husband Valerian to join her in chastity and receive baptism. After Valerian and his brother Tiburtius are martyred, Cecilia faces her own trial with a Roman judge; a failed beheading and prolonged death give her time to donate her possessions and house to the church. The basilica which bears her name stood as the preeminent evidence for her existence, and a miraculous invention of her relics in the ninth century furthered her popularity. An unexpected addition to her cult was her sixteenth century attribution as patroness of music, which grew a short moment in the passio’s suggesting that Cecilia sang in her heart during her wedding, popularized likely through the antiphon Cantantibus organis (Rice 2022).

4.4.2. Cecilia in the BR1568

For Cecilia’s feast of 22 November in the BR1568, the reading of the second nocturn is complemented by familiar passages: 1 Cor 7:25–40 and Matthew 25:1–13 (this time interpreted by a homily of John Chrysostom). The psalms, as seen in Lucy’s feast, are Ps. 8, 18, 23, 44, 45, 47, 95–97.

If Cecilia proved an exemplary case for the difficulty of reforming the readings, she proves no less difficult for the thesis of the present argument, that the hagiographical lections formed a privileged locus for mutual exegesis of Scripture and saint’s life. Whereas Lucy’s feast had elaborated a common structure for feasts of virgins, or Agnes had personified the rejection of the world for the treasures of heaven, and Agatha embodied the steadfast trust in God proper to the martyrs, a dominant thread of Scriptural interpretation fails to appear in Cecilia’s feast.

Scriptural intertexts are, of course, woven through her liturgy: the citation of Psalm 118:80, another direct citation of Acts 12:7 and Matthew. 28:2 in a responsory verse, hints of the books of Judith and Esther in descriptions of Cecilia’s fasting, sackcloth, and supplication.

But the selections adapted from her passio offer a confused impression of her sanctity. Her hagiographical readings focus on the conversion of Valerian (Lectio 4); the subsequent conversion of Tiburtius, martyrdom of the brothers, and Cecilia’s arrest (Lectio 5); and the (failed) burning and beheading before Cecilia’s death and burial (Lectio 6). The responsories emphasize Cecilia’s prayer and fasting for days before her wedding, and her persuasive power in converting Valerian and Tibertius to Christianity. Overall, the readings and responsories present her more as a wise teacher (a virgo sapiens who calls Tibertius and Valerian to martyrdom and defeats Alamachius in argument) or as a penitent (clothed in sackcloth, supplicating with outstretched hands and fasting before her wedding).

The liturgical adaptation of her passio omits the debate with the pagan prefect Alamachius, and the conversion of numerous other pagans, which limits an effective characterization as teacher. The passio had been clear that Cecilia survives three days after botched beheading half-alive (semivivum) and reveals that it was divine will, not human incompetence, which delayed her martyrdom, since in the passio the flames refresh her, rather than merely not touching her. Cecilia uses the three days to exhort fellow Christians and to bequeath her possessions and house to the bishop, a culmination of her identity as teacher and patroness. These important details fail to emerge in the BR1568, where the condensed wording of the sixth reading in the BR1568 gives the impression that she was killed not for her faith, but out of Alamachius’s anger that she distributed her wealth to the poor.

In other words, looking merely at the words on the page would suggest that Cecilia’s feast offers little support for the claim that the saint’s liturgical legenda illuminates Scripture. Her feast instead offers an example of how the abridgement of longer hagiographical texts for liturgy can lead to confusion without the larger context. Cecilia’s feast in the BR1568 thus proves a helpful final case study, for it guards against uncritical nostalgia for the older books and reveals the importance of tradition or extra-liturgical, popular (even if official) ways in which the saint takes on a vera figura.

Yet if the Scriptural citations fail to offer a dominant theme for exegesis, the feast is enlivened by a misreading; the image of Cecilia as penitent or teacher gives way in the sixteenth century to Cecilia as musician. This reveals the importance of looking at the hagiographical reading in their liturgical context, for it is a responsory, not the hagiographical reading in the BR1568, which becomes the most influential line from her passio: while instruments played, Cecilia “sang in her heart” to the Lord (R 1.1).50 Like the contrast between the earthly gems of Agnes’s suitor and her heavenly treasure, the reference to Cecilia’s internal song might have originated as an ironic contrast between earthly wedding song and virginal prayer. The misreading of music as a centerpiece of Cecilia’s life proved so popular that by the twentieth century, Schema 232 easily claimed that she is venerated over “all the earth” as the patroness of music.51

4.4.3. Cecilia in the LH1971

This popularity was, in some sense, a problem. As noted above, Cecilia’s feast was notoriously difficult for a reform focused on history. Delehaye once called her case “the most tangled question in all Roman hagiography;” he ultimately proposed that the patroness of the Roman church which bore her name had been mistaken in later centuries for a martyr (Delehaye 1936, pp. 194–220). Again, the easiest solution to a total lack of history—to remove her feast from the calendar—was barred both by her popularity and her universality (inclusion in the Roman canon). Thus, since other genuine records are lacking, as “better than fables,” (potius quam fabellas), the Consilium proposed two potential readings: a sermon from John Chrysostom (d. 407) and a sermon from Augustine of Hippo (d. 430). Both sermons speak in general terms of martyrdom: Chrysostom exhorting imitation of the martyr through mortification of the flesh and Augustine exhorting that his listeners take up their cross and follow Christ to receive the promised reward. Neither mention Cecilia. Like the reading proposed initially for Lucy, the readings attempt to present the general spiritual contours of the saint’s life without making strong claims about a vita of questionable veracity.

By the promulgation of the LH1971, both sermons proposed in Schema 232 had been rejected in favor of a different sermon of Augustine, this time on Psalm 32. In that sermon, he elaborates the “new song” of the psalmist to emphasize the renewal of humanity; he exhorts his listeners to sing well to God, not with human art but in the inexpressible iubilatione which moves beyond words in joy. Though her connection to music postdates Augustine, the selection clearly nods to the popular attribution of Cecilia as patroness of musicians. In this instance, a “popular” element shapes choices about “official” liturgical texts. Though her legend merits no confidence, and historical basis for her patronage of music is equally unverified, the tradition gives decisive shape to liturgy.

This point reappears in the short biographical note introducing the feast on 22 November, which informs the reader that

the cult of St. Cecilia, under whose name a fifth century basilica was built in Rome, was diffused early and widely because of her Passio, in which is she is raised up as the most perfect exemplar of a Christian woman who embraced virginity and suffered martyrdom for love of Christ.52

Note the careful wording which avoids any historical details about the saint. It is the basilica, not the person, who is dated; her passio is attested as witness to the cult it evoked rather than the woman it purported to describe. Yet despite this care, or perhaps because of it, the short note seems to confirm exactly the argument Kwatara makes about the legendary material excised from the LH1971: even without historical truth, a text like Cecilia’s passio offered a fitting example of Christian perfection of virginity and martyrdom (SC 111). That exemplarity is strengthened precisely through the “generic” reading of Augustine’s sermon, which leverages her popular identification as the patroness of music to present her as the example of the “new song” and iubilatione expected of all the baptized. With Agatha’s feast, the liturgy implies that the saint is the one whose proper speech is Scripture; with Cecilia’s feast, the liturgy implies that the saint is the one whose “joyful song” continues into eternity.

In sum, her feast in the BR1568 did not offer strong evidence for the mutual interpretation of legenda and Scripture. Despite this, her feast contributes to the study by inviting a final consideration of how liturgy cannot be separated from the larger contexts for veneration of the saints—Cecilia’s feast in the LH1971 works because a popular tradition illuminates from outside, as it were, the short and fixed texts in the current office.

4.5. Concluding Remarks on the Case Studies

This examination of the hagiographical readings for these four saints between Matins of the BR1568 and the Office of Readings in the LH1971 raises several important points.

First, reading the hagiographical texts in a liturgical context show how the extensive liturgical material in Matins of the BR1568 allows for a sustained Scriptural reflection. While Cecilia’s feast remains diffuse, each of the others feasts offer at least one theme from Scripture which is concretely elaborated through the liturgical combination of the hagiographical elements, as the hagiographical readings refract the themes found in the Scriptural readings, the psalms, and the other liturgical texts.

Second, the contrast between the BR1568 and the LH1971 reveals how the reforms of the hagiographical readings in the LH1971 affect the liturgical function of hagiography. Despite the concern reflected above that the hagiographical readings of the reformed office reflect a vera figura, the effect of the LH1971 tends toward the “generic,” especially the tendency to replace the legenda of ancient saints with less vivid homilies. Here, Ambrose’s evocation of Agnes offers the exception which proves the rule demonstrated in Methodius’s homily on Agatha. Likewise, most saints’ feasts are celebrated with the commons (here, of virgins and one martyr). The changes—from legenda to homily and from full feast to commons—offer fewer occasions to highlight the intertextual relationship between Scripture and hagiographical readings. Taken together, these points suggest that the vera figura of the saint relies not on narratival drama, nor historical accuracy, but on a demonstration of a living relationship with Scripture. This, then, explains how there are still places in the LH1971 where the liturgical function of hagiography as Scriptural exegesis can be faintly discerned, even as the concrete “personalities” of Cecilia or Agatha fade from view.

Third, and finally, those hints of a still-evident liturgical function of hagiography depend on knowledge which exceeds the pages of the breviary: knowledge of Scripture and knowledge about the saints. In both the BR1568 and the LH1971, the efficacy of the hagiographical readings as Scriptural exegesis depends on a wider frame of Scriptural texts; the reader’s memory of Matthew 13 (the “pearl of great price”) brings a layer of insight to the repeated references to jewels and pearls in the liturgy for Agnes in the BR1568. Likewise, the efficacy of hagiographical readings depends on a wider hagiographical frame, taking meaning from traditions not visible in the liturgical texts, as the selection for Cecilia’s reading in the LH1971 capitalizes on her popular attribution as patroness of music to present her through Augustine’s otherwise “generic” homily on singing to the Lord.

5. Conclusions

I have argued here that the hagiographical readings of the Roman office show how hagiography stands squarely in the dialogue between Scripture and liturgy, as a living record of the ecclesial reflection on lives transformed by the Gospel.

As the historical background suggests, the legends of the saints were a central part of the office since the early medieval period. The narratival strategies of the legenda dealt more in typology than historicity, which became a source of tension in the early modern period as religious and intellectual currents brought hagiography under new scrutiny. This tension lingered into the later twentieth century, where conciliar documents and deliberations of the Consilium reveal the difficult adjudication between retaining the feasts of saints and adapting their readings to provide both historical truth and spiritual benefit. The ultimate decision to prefer patristic homilies for saints without historical sources affirms an important commitment to the reality of the saints not as mythic figures but real people; the concern with history enjoined in SC92 thus stemmed from an important commitment.

Yet these hagiographical texts in older Roman breviaries had a function which far exceeded the “historical.” To judge the legenda by history alone risks missing the deeper function of those “fables.” Attending to the exegetical origins of the genre demonstrated by Astell suggests that hagiographical deviations from “historical truth” might serve a similar function to the rhetorical elaboration on Scripture witnessed in homilies. While the LH1971 still offers opportunities for the saints’ lives to illuminate Scripture, neither the brief biographical notes before each feast nor the hagiographical readings in the LH1971 fully accomplish the function as well as the “folklore” which elaborated the deeds of martyrs and saints in the BR1568. There, the hagiographical readings both illuminate Scripture and enflesh a concrete person, perhaps best witnessed in Agatha’s embodiment of the confidence in God proclaimed in Sirach 51:1–17. There, Scriptural proclamations gain new potency from narrative details of tortures and miracles. The hagiographical readings provided, like homilies, hymns, and antiphons, one further way of reflecting on the word of God acting in concrete lives.

To propose hagiographical readings of the previous Roman breviaries ought to be considered as witnesses to an ecclesial contemplation of the word of God, however, does not suggest that they ought to be forced back into the pages of the Office of Readings. But neither does it suggest that they should be forgotten. Instead, a fruitful reading of the saints in the modern era demands the formation of individual and ecclesial memory beyond the pages of the breviary: a formation into the traditions of saints like Cecilia and Agnes. Indeed, though this discussion has focused on the “official” texts of the printed breviaries, even those pages reveal the inescapable presence of the popular tradition which surrounds and informs the reception of the liturgical texts. This is most clear in the reading for Cecilia’s memorial in the LH1971, where a “generic” sermon on music relies on the popular attribution of Cecilia as patroness of music. When heard within this popular (“perhaps unmerited”) tradition, Augustine’s preaching on Psalm 32 reveals Cecilia as the one who perfectly fulfills the Scriptural exhortation to sing to the Lord.

Thus, the Consilium’s instinct to replace legenda with homilies affirms the close relationship between hagiographical readings and the Scriptural core of the office. Indeed, from this perspective, the description of the patristic readings in the General Introduction to the Liturgy of the Hours (GILH) might equally apply to the hagiographical readings which replace them on saints’ feasts: these readings “offer meditation on the word of God as it has been accepted in the Church’s tradition,” a meditation which leads to “deeper reflection on sacred Scripture and to a relish and love for it [since the] writings of the Fathers are an outstanding witness to the contemplation of the word of God” by the Church (GILH 163–164). These readings hold out the “priceless spiritual treasures that form the unique patrimony of the Church and provide a firm foundation for the spiritual life and a rich source for increasing devotion” (GILH 165). I have attempted, here, to suggest that the hagiographical readings form another set of spiritual treasures as living witnesses to the ongoing tradition of ecclesial meditation on Scripture through the saints.