The making of Christian biography.

An approximation.
Adrià Fernández Lull

Religious Diversity in a Globalised World (2023/24)

Universidade de Coimbra – University of Groningen

Greek and Roman Cultures – Prof. Dr. Paula Barata Dias

Introduction
Biographical texts were a cultivated genre in ancient Greek and Roman literacy,
both in written and oral sources. There is no need to mention the scarcity of trustful
examples, since “we are especially ignorant about the period of its origins in the fifth
and fourth centuries B.C.” (Momigliano, 1993: 8). Nevertheless, we can figure out what
their origins should have been according to different testimonies across the
mediterranean shore. Although Latin literature adapted almost all Greek genres, it is
also possible to track a particular type of biographical text that sprouted in Rome: the
funeral laudationes. They were originated within Roman aristocracy, linked to the social
competition usually displayed among the political elite (Shuttleworth Kraus, 2005: 253).
Somehow, it was the only genre that treated the life and the deeds of individuals after
their death —also because of it. Others, such as memoirs and epigraphic inscriptions,
show the deeds of upper-class citizens during their lives, and they were often written
or commissioned by them. In Greece, by contrast, we find texts that define themselves
as ἔπαινος, a praise: Xenophon’s Agesilaus and Isocrates’ Euagoras.1 The object of this
kind of accounts was no other than the praise of remarkable historical or mythical
characters, as could be a hero, a poet, a politician or a philosopher. We can find several
examples of each one of them, but what we cannot find is a text explicitly defined by
its author as a biography until the Hellenistic period.
Greeks were especially sensible about defining genres. The fact is that we lack
biographical works from the fifth to the second centuries B. C. Nevertheless, some texts
could be considered as biographies by us, but they indeed classified them in other
terms. The first collection of biographies that reached us is the work of Cornelius Nepos,
in Latin. Nicolaus of Damascus and Satyrus were the earliest in Greek, unfortunately
both fragmentary (Momigliano, 1993: 9). There are testimonies that ensure the
existence of earlier examples, although we do not know whether these missing texts
were classified as history, as biography or as other genre. Certainly, historiography was
less problematic regarding text transmission, even though the distinction with
biography was sometimes blurred. Plutarch expressed this separation as follows:
οὔτε γὰρ ἱστορίας γράφομεν, ἀλλὰ βίους, οὔτε ταῖς ἐπιφανεστάταις πράξεσι πάντως
ἔνεστι δήλωσις ἀρετῆς ἢ κακίας, ἀλλὰ πρᾶγμα βραχὺ πολλάκις καὶ ῥῆμα καὶ παιδιά

1
The exact moment in which both authors consider their own work as an encomium, or ἔπαινος are
these: Xenophon, Agesilaus 1, 2 and Isocrates, Evagoras (orat. 9) 6.
 τις ἔμφασιν ἤθους ἐποίησε μᾶλλον ἢ μάχαι μυριόνεκροι καὶ παρατάξεις αἱ μέγισται
καὶ πολιορκίαι πόλεων2.
We want to emphasize the bold word: Plutarch’s aim is at showing someone’s
ἦθος, their character, through the exposition of the life of that person. The interest
here lies rather in mannerisms and customs than in big epic actions. We could say that
the focus on remarkable characters moved from the heroic paradigm to the depiction
of the quotidian affairs. Straight after this extract, he defines the writers of lives as
ζῳγράφοι, referring to those painters who depict nature and life. Maybe this concept
was the antecedent for “biographer”. From this, we can draw the importance of day-to-
day realistic detail that probably history does not have, since an account about
individuals would more likely evince the virtues and the flaws of each character. And
this model could be also applied to nations, since βίος is both the life of a person and
the life of a people, in any case showing a very particular paradox of partem pro toto:
achieving “completeness by selectiveness” (Momigliano, 1993: 11).
The political structure of the principate and the germination of the Roman
Empire helped at generating a very specific interpretation of history as dependent on
the only one person in charge of power, the emperor (Shuttleworth Kraus, 2005: 249-
250). Before, biographies could be examples of behaviour for singular ethical systems
or realistic figures: the perfect orator, poet, philosopher, etc. We say realistic since
other superhuman accounts show the case of immortal individuals, such as heroes or
gods, whose death did not imply the end of the narrative, since it supposed just a new
period of activity (Momigliano, 1993: 11-12).
Certain types of biography in the imperial period often displayed supernatural
details in their narratives, as it has always been a recurring trend in any kind of
literature —even in historiography. We refer to the lives of emperors, saints and some
philosophers. For the last case, we can mention the third-century Life of Apollonius of
Tyana by Philostratus, which includes several wonders worked by the Pythagorean
priest and philosopher that gives name to the work. For example, in its fourth book, we
find the use foresight, the exorcism of demons, putting an end to a plague, his ability to
understand animals, or his knowledge of any language on the earth, among others. The
presence of these mystical interferences is remarkable, since former biographies were
more likely to deal with non-magical examples with historical value and interest in
scandal rather than wonders, such as Nepos, Suetonius or even Plutarch (Shuttleworth
Kraus, 2005: 253; Tsakmakis, 2016: 229). These cases link perfectly with emperors’ Lives,
as they could be expected to be more secular, therefore lacking divine intervention or
miracles. It is an assumption that probably comes from our modern point of view, as
Momigliano remarks (1993: 15), regarding our expectations of historicity in this kind of
texts. As Menander Rhetor stablished in his work, the βασιλικὸς λόγος is supposed to
have some wonderful features that prove the superiority of the emperor, even though
they are made up by the biographer (Race, 2019: 145).
After the widespread of the imperial cult, it is true that the figure of the emperor
was furnished with a divine aura, which became even more evident after the
popularisation of Christianity. The legitimation of the emperor’s power was inevitably

2
Alexander-Caesar 1, 2. The bold is ours, and so it is the following translation: “For we are not writing
histories, but lives. Nor is it always the most distinguished actions which reveal virtue or vice, but a small
action, a saying or a game, often gives better insight into someone’s character than combats where
thousands die, or the greatest battles, or sieges of cities”.
entangled in the divine sanction. For Christianity it was easier to explain the imperial
figure as the representation of God on earth (Momigliano, 1986: 291-292). But even
before the triumph of the Church, the apotheosis —in other words the divinization or
deification of the emperor— was a common practice when roman traditional religion
was predominant. It consisted of a whole ceremony around the recent death of the last
emperor and his resulting ascension to the divine realm. As the temples for emperors
were also for Rome, some scholars have analysed this worship as a “form of adoration
which Rome exacted for herself” (Ferguson, 1970: 95). The emperor was a God because
he was an emperor: it was not his natural condition, but an acquired one. Still, Christian
emperors could not be rendered nor worshipped as gods for obvious reasons, but rather
as emissaries or envoys of God to rule the earth. After, the Roman Empire was
understood as a necessary element to help the spread of Christianity (Momigliano, 1986:
292). But it is also true that the secular powers were threatened by the religious
authority of the Church. In other words: if the win of the Church supposed the loss of
the State, how could the emperor be the leader of a universal community? If religion is
the main interest for Christians, who must they obey, the Church or the emperor?
These questions were also present in Origen (Momigliano, 1986: 289), and one of his late
students, Eusebius of Caesarea, understood this tension when he was writing his Life of
Constantine. The depiction of this emperor as a bishop was nor casual nor innocent.
Rather, it showed and proposed a new ideal of imperial sainthood that proved the needs
of a new behavioural paradigm for the emperor.
As we mentioned above, we observe another example of interest on supernatural
events with the spread of Christianity: the lives of the Christian heroes, the saints. Even
though the first actual hagiography was published in the fourth century, by Athanasius
of Alexandria —the Life of Saint Antony (BHG 140)—, some other texts shared its nuclear
features. For example, this first text has been related to the ‘pagan’ examples of
Xenophon’s Agesilaus, the Life of Plotinus by Porphyry, or the abovementioned Life of
Apollonius of Tyana (Narro, 2019: 26). There’s another example that could be the starting
point for the genre, but it is not a work in itself, but a part inserted in a major text: the
sixth book of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History about the life of Origen (Insley, M. Saint‐
Laurent, 2018: 378). Hagiography almost monopolised the biographical texts in late
antiquity. They were the imitators of Christ in every sense, but they were not active in
the secular administration —or at least, they were not meant to. It is important to
mention that the first examples of sainthood were opposed to the Roman and Jewish
authorities, and they were often condemned to death (Narro, 2019: 20). This conformed
the initial cases of saints through martyrdom, which was a guise of imitatio Christi in
itself. Some have proposed that they are the heirs of the ‘pagan’ heroes (Narro, 2019:
17). We may not be oblivious about the apostles and the impact they had in the lives we
are now looking at, and the same could be said about other biblical characters from the
Old Testament. Their relevance in shaping the ideals of sainthood helped the
construction of this late genre. Nevertheless, it became an old-fashioned when the
prosecutions were not a worry anymore.
The purpose of this work is no other than to expose and compare biographies that
pretended to be secular or religious. To come to grips with it, we are focusing only into
two examples from the fourth century: the Life of Constantine, as a pretended model for
the highest secular authority, and the Life of Saint Antony, as the first proper
hagiography. Although both texts are biographical and were written during the same
century, there is a gap between them and their main characters. In both cases, the
author is trying to create an ideal figure that will be the basis for a certain social and
political attitude (Diem, 2020: 126). We will show the specific moments in these lives
where it is possible to peer at such intentions.
Constantine, emperor and bishop
Following Florovsky, we can acknowledge that “all doctrinal movements in the
Early Church (and possibly, all doctrinal and philosophical movements) were, in some
sense, ‘politically involved’ and had political and social implications, and even
monotheism itself was ‘a political problem’. Yet, by no means were they just an
ideological superstructure over a political or economic foundation” (1950: 79). We are
not in a position of denying the political implications of any social, cultural or even
individual phenomenon. The fact of the Church turning into an official institution was
a conflict, for it came forth being formerly a clandestine universalist institution that
gathered Christians physically and spiritually in a large community of believers. Once
Constantine got baptized and Christianity stopped being prosecuted, a new challenge
for the Roman political apparatus appeared: to determine the place of the Church in
the Empire (Dagron, 2003: 129). Origen (185/6-254), the Christian theologian who wrote
the famous treatise against Celsus, had already proposed that it is necessary for
believers to serve the Church instead of the Empire under the absence of a Christian
State (Momigliano, 1986: 289). This opposition was already exposed through a biblical
expression: “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God”
(Mark 12:17 and Matthew 20:21). Both institutions related in an unbalanced way, since
the one oppressed the other. But after, a back-and-forth silent competition substituted
the previous unidirectional repression. The two of them tried to gain as much power as
they could, and their first step was to separate clearly one form the other. Nevertheless,
this division has always been fictional, since both powers often displayed a certain
propension to absorb the other (Dagron, 2003: 282-295).
The Life of Constantine is not a minor case on this behalf, as it is the life of an
emperor holding episcopal honours. To begin with, it was written by Eusebius, a
remarkable priest at Caesarea during the first half of the fourth century, and a prolific
writer on Christian religious affairs. He studied with Pamphilus, a renowned follower
of Origen. Thus, Eusebius was educated in a tradition that was used to refute the
arguments of so called pagan or non-Christian scholars and writers. Even though he
cultivated several genres, the most influential ones were the history and the biography,
being the Life of Constantine the last of them and published posthumously (Corke-
Webster, 2020: 268; Gurruchaga, 1994: 7). The extension is considerably longer than
other earlier biographies, and the unambiguous Christian devotion of Constantine does
not match with the actual eclecticism of his creed in Sol Invictus and in the resurrection
of Jesus (Dagron, 2003: 127-130). Rather, the construction of his character is doubtlessly
the result of his whole career as a writer: he is portraying the ideal Christian ruler inside
the yet imperfect Roman Empire (Corke-Webster, 2020: 271). This assumption of
Constantine’s Christianity is revealing when we consider that this work is probably the
result of Eusebius’ experience and ideological exploration. He wanted to build a
concrete fiction in which Constantine is depicted “as the emperor chosen by God to
reveal to the world the power of the cross, but within a ‘divine economy’ in which the
empire was already the providential instrument of salvation” (Dagron, 2003: 132;
Gurruchaga, 1994: 145-146; Vita Constantini 1, 4-5.6). This one could be one of the
features of the Life, since in other Christian biographies such as saints’ lives the
salvation is provided by God just in case you perform according to certain appraisable
virtues like virginity, chastity, moderation or piety, as we will see below. In fact, he was
made a saint “so as to avoid making him a model of kingship” (Dagron, 2003: 143),
therefore implying the natural opposition of this title and the imperial one, and
rejecting all his traits.
The work is obviously a link between secular and religious biography. Some
scholars tend to define it as encomium, biography or history, but the case is
controversial since it has elements from all of them, and yet the differences between
them are subtle (Corke-Webster, 2020: 268-269; Delahaye, 1962: 4-6; Gurruchaga, 1994:
72-76; Momigliano, 1993: 12). Shuttleworth Kraus, trying to separate history and
biography, states the following: “The difference is partly one of quantity rather than
quality: as the many political and military leaders of the republic are reduced to the
single person of the emperor and those around him, especially the ‘royal’ family, so the
new concentration on an individual subject intensifies historia’s concentration on the
multiple great leaders of the Roman past” (2005: 250). Similarly, Menander Rhetor
defined the boundaries of the βασιλικὸς λόγος, that is, the “imperial discourse”, and
Eusebius followed this scheme almost verbatim. The former advised to compare
emperors to model examples such as Romulus or Cyrus3 (Race, 2019: 146-147), that is,
founders or ideal individuals. Eusebius decided to stablish a constant analogy between
Constantine and Moses, the lawgiver. On the one hand, this comparison gives the
emperor the power of both a spiritual and a political leader chosen by God (Corke-
Webster, 2020: 269). Even though its form is very similar to the βασιλικὸς λόγος, it is
easy to understand it as a historical account, thus exposing the events as a pretended
truth. Constantine as a bishop is more than a detail about his univocal Christianity: it is
the determination of a new role for the ideal emperor. The model for them must be
Moses, who was also Constantine’s model, and it implies the superior religious
authority of the emperor, who may have the rank and the power to determine
ecclesiastical policy. Consequently, many scholars have analysed it as a trait of a
caesaropapist ideology in Eusebius (Corke-Webster, 2020: 269-270; Dagron, 2003: 148).
On the other hand, the influence of Menander Rhetor in the structure of this Life
is evident, although not absolute. Constantine’s father is praised and deemed as the
example for his child: ζῆλος ἐνῆγε πατρικὸς ἐπ’ ἀγαθῶν μιμήσει τὸν παῖδα
προκαλούμενος4 (Vita Constantini 1, 12.3). The advice of Menander on this regard is to
present the lineage of the emperor as divine, coming from the traditional Gods. In a
Christian cosmovision, this is not possible since God had only one child. Therefore, his
divinization is made through the exemplar sainthood of his own lineage. The praise of
Constantius takes six chapters in the Life, all of them mentioning his divine qualities
and a magnificent piety (Gurruchaga, 1994: 154-161; Vita Constantini 1, 13-18). These
divine qualities that are highlighted are also referred in Menander, namely
φιλανθρωπία (Gurruchaga, 1994: 157; Vita Constantini 1, 14.6; Race, 2019: 154-157), and
those that are considered the most important (Race, 2019: 150): ἀνδρεία5, δικαιοσύνη6,

3
Actually, Constantine was compared to Cyrus and Alexander the Great, but as a better example of
them for being Christian (Gurruchaga, 1994: 146-147; Vita Constantini 1, 7).
4
We propose this translation: “paternal ambition, like an invitation, encouraged the child to imitate his
virtues”. The Spanish one is less accurate, in our opinion: “el deseo de emular al padre acuciaba al niño a
la imitación de las virtudes paternas” (Gurruchaga, 1994: 154).
5
In the Life is produced by the symbol of the cross (Gurruchaga, 1994: 183; Vita Constantini 1, 40.2).
6
Even though this word is not largely used in the Life, Constantine is constantly portrayed as a justice-
bearer, as for example in a particular case of a practical case in Gurruchaga, 1994: 334-335; Vita Constantini
3, 2-4).
σωφροσύνη y φρόνησις7. All his virtues come from God, even those that Menander
considers the top qualities in an emperor, therefore implying that this charge must be
chosen by God and hold religious power as well. These are just a few examples of how
Menander —or the secular paradigm of imperial discourse— was re-signified in order
to create a certain Christian ideal of emperor, attributing to God as the source of all the
imperial virtues.
New time, new tune: the eremite Antony
The Life of Antony is widely considered the first hagiography, or at least one of the
firsts (Narro, 2019: 26). This new type of biography has been catalogued and defined by
several scholars, but almost all of them agree with the fact that it is a document “of a
religious character and aim at edification […] inspired by religious devotion to the
saints and intended to increase that devotion” (Delahaye, 1962: 3). Of course it can be
multiform, including collections of miracles, martyrologies, lives, panegyrics, etc. The
case of the Life of Antony is particularly remarkable because it was a letter sent to the
monks in Alexandria. It was an answer to their previous interest in this figure, as the
pinnacle of early monasticism. The whole text is full of biblical topics (Diem, 2020: 124),
also present in apocryphal and canonical Acts of the Apostles: Antony sells all his goods
and leaves all his properties to the poor (Rupérez Granados, 1995: 34-35; Vita Antonii, 2-
3); Athanasius acknowledges the greatness of the topic and the humbleness of his
account, which will probably be insufficient to portray accurately his dignity —known
as the topic of magnitudo rerum— (Rupérez Granados, 1995: 32; Vita Antonii 1.4); he
displayed a spiritual moral dualism, disdaining the body as a source of evil and extolling
the soul as a source of goodness (Rupérez Granados, 1995: 41; Vita Antonii 7.9); the usual
ability to perform healing miracles as an avatar of God’s power in several occasions
(Rupérez Granados, 1995: 49; Vita Antonii 14.5); the lack of fear for the death and the
martyrdom (Rupérez Granados, 1995: 87; Vita Antonii 52, 3-4), or even the will of being
martyrized in the prosecutions of Maximinus Daza (Rupérez Granados, 1995: 81; Vita
Antonii 46.2), among other recurrent examples like debating with pagans, facing
demons, etc.
This is not the right place to make an extensive analysis of this matter, but rather
to give a hint of the perfect inclusion of this work in the previous Christian literature,
presenting the saint with the same terms as Christ and with the same terms as his first
imitators, the Apostles. It is remarkable that Antony is never called ἅγιος, as Diem notes
(2020: 124-125). Nevertheless, he was indeed called μακάριος in the title of the work, in
the eighth line of the proem, and at the moment of his death (Vita Antonii 92, 3), and
also ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ ἄνθρωπος, just once, by the end of the text (Vita Antonii 93, 1.4), unlike
Diem states in the quoted paper. He was characterized as a saint since the beginning,
and as a martyr (Rupérez Granados, 1995: 82; Vita Antonii 47, 1.4). Diem uses this detail
to propose the fact that our saint was “thus constructed not only by the author of his
vita but also by the readers of this text. […] One could almost say that Antony
retroactively got modelled after the saints that who were modelled after him” (2020:
125). His point was that, although these words were not in the text in the older versions,

7
He is described as a perfect example of classical καλοκαγαθία in Gurruchaga, 1994: 161-162 and Vita
Constantini 1, 19.2. Nevertheless, the most important virtues, says Eusebius, were the spiritual ones:
σωφροσύνῃ πρώτιστα πάντων τὴν ψυχὴν κοσμούμενος, κἄπειτα παιδεύσει λόγων φρονήσει τ’ ἐμφύτῳ
καὶ τῇ θεοσδότῳ σοφίᾳ διαφερόντως ἐκπρέπων (the bold is ours). Translated by Gurruchaga as follows:
“la templanza era el principal ornato de su alma; después destacaba de manera singular por su formación
retórica, su prudencia innata y la sabiduría que procede de Dios”.
later copyists added the Latin versions of these words —sanctus or beatus— in the Latin
translations of this Life, and that it was not the original form of the text, and therefore
that Antony was not built to be the model he ended up being. Anyhow, our text is
relevant as it was inserted in a current tradition of religious literature focused on
portraying exemplar characters, often linked to popular legends and absorbing features
of previous characters, since “heroes do not live in memory side by side but replace one
another, the latest comer inheriting all the qualities and achievements of his
predecessors” (Delahaye, 1962: 15-16). It is also a particular case in many senses, as
Antony proposes a new example of sanctity and martyrdom based on ascetism, and it
leads to a new ethical and political attitude for Christianity: to reject the empire. We
find some examples of it throughout the text, namely the fact that the Devil feared that
he could turn the desert into a “city of asceticism” (Rupérez Granados, 1995: 42; Vita
Antonii 8, 1.6-8), and he actually did it in the end (Rupérez Granados, 1995: 49; Vita
Antonii 14, 7). This city of asceticism would be ruled by no other than God, therefore
needing no emperor and no empire. To attack this new ascetic moral and political
system is synonym to defending another political pre-existing rule, the Empire, linked
in so many ways to the Devil during the very first years of Christianity and the
prosecutions. He rejects the earthly goods as valuable, since the only and real realm is
that of God, eternal and perfect, as he exhorts to the monks that conformed the city of
ascetism (Rupérez Granados, 1995: 51; Vita Antonii 16-17).
In addition to this, Antony interacts with two figures that were the main
exponents of secular biography before saints came in: the emperor and the
philosopher. He disdains both, somehow implying their inability to perform as ethical
examples. To begin with the case of the philosophers8, their sin is to believe that reason
is previous that faith, and therefore giving priority to logical conclusions and syllogisms
(Rupérez Granados, 1995: 110; Vita Antonii 77). The result of these interactions is no
other than the philosophers completely amazed by Antony’s intelligence and his
dialectic abilities (Rupérez Granados, 1995: 113; Vita Antonii 80, 5). In the immediately
following chapter, he receives a letter from the emperor Constantine —so renowned
was his reputation. The other monks were astonished by this event, but Antony,
scorning the imperial authority, speaks as follows:
Τί θαυμάζετε, εἰ γράφει βασιλεὺς πρὸς ἡμᾶς, ἄνθρωπος γάρ ἐστιν; Ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον
θαυμάζετε, ὅτι ὁ θεὸς τὸν νόμον ἀνθρώποις ἔγραψε καὶ διὰ τοῦ ἰδίου Υἱοῦ
λελάληκεν ἡμῖν9.
The emperor is just another human, and the things that may produce our
astonishment are the laws of God and the intercession of his son, Christ. If anyone had
doubts of his political loyalty, he writes back to the emperor after the insistence of the
other monks, and he recommends him to focus on future goods rather than present
ones, and to consider Christ as the only true and eternal βασιλεύς. Moreover, the

8
The complete passage of these debates takes throughout eight chapters, in Vita Antonii 72-80 (=Rupérez
Granados, 1995: 105-113). Several philosophers and sages arrive to debate with him. In the beginning, he
is even portrayed as Sócrates, as he used to acknowledge his ignorance when some other sages came to
debate with him, and also making them accept his point very easily with simple questions in a kind of
“maieutic emulation”. Moreover, there is another moment in which he is silently compared to the
Athenian, in Vita Antonii 82, when he stood quietly for a long time having some internal conflict and after
some time, proceeding with the tasks he had stopped before. Cfr. Plato, Symposium, 220c.
9
Rupérez Granados, 1995: 114; Vita Antonii 81. We propose the following translation: “why are you amazed
if the emperor writes to us? For he is a human. Rather, you should be more amazed that God has written
his law for humankind and has spoken to us through his own Son”.
imitatio Christi was one of the main traits of this type of biography, and so was a trait of
the emperor, who was expected to be the emulator of God on earth. Rejecting his
authority is rejecting all this political theology.
Conclusions
As far as we have seen, these two lives share some elements in a certain tradition
of secular and religious works, also inheriting several traits from them. Nevertheless,
the differences cannot be hidden behind a slightly similar shape. The political stands of
their authors arise and create some of the questions that will determine the tracks of
development for future literary and ideological currents. On the one hand, Eusebius
created a caesaropapist figure in his construction of Constantine, whose religiosity was
purely Christian. His interest in an effective and official ecclesiastical activity shows
how the sprouting Christian environment was concerned about Church and Empire as
antagonist authorities that must be unified, or at least a Church that needs to be
subordinated to the emperor. On the other hand, Athanasius was rather a defender of
a rather different stance. Antony rejects the secular authority of the emperor and the
philosophers, thus implying that they are not useful examples for anything and
disregarding their presence in biographical genres. The city he wants to live in is not
the imperial urban society, but the city of ascetism in the desert, ruled by Christ, the
only and true emperor.
With this analysis, we can prove the fact that the genre of biography evolved in
at least two different ways to get adapted to Christianity. The Eusebian example, closer
to an active political stance and to the historical discourse, could be the paradigm for
other hagiographies or biographies of secular and religious officials. The Athanasian
case is rather a model for another kind of political ideology that could lead to certain
kinds of hagiography more focused on piety and the rejection of political authority,
creates a passive attitude towards the empire, closer to martyrdom and legends.

Abbreviations
BHG Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca
Vita Constantini Winkelmann, F. (ed.) (1975). Eusebius Werke, Band 1.1: Über das
Leben des Kaisers Konstantin. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
Vita Antonii Bartelink, G. J. M. (ed.) (2004). Athanase d'Alexandrie, Vie d'Antoine.
Paris: Éditions du Cerf.
Alexander-Caesar Ziegler, K. (1968). “Ἀλέξανδρος καὶ Καῖσαρ”, in Plutarchi vitae
parallelae (vol. 2.2), Leipzig: Teubner, 152-253.

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