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Lives and Legends of the Evangelists, Apostles, and Other Early Saints
Lives and Legends of the Evangelists Apostles and Other Early Saints Author:N. D'Anvers Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PREFACE The subject treated in this volume is full of fascination, and should appeal with equal force to the young and old, the learned and unlearned, of what... more »ever religious denomination. To sift the true from the legendary, to trace the original significance of the symbols now inseparably connected with each Saint represented in art, to go back to the primal cause of the choice of some special patron by this or that section of the community, are tasks of no uncommon difficulty, but those who have the courage to undertake them will be fully repaid by the keen intellectual enjoyment of success. Moreover, the knowledge thus acquired will throw a fresh light not only on the history of art and art symbolism, properly so called, but also on that of the equally interesting evolution of popular belief. The student of humanity will recognise with reverence the indications of the pathetic yearning after some outward form in which to express the veneration felt for those set apart from the rest of their race, by real or supposed intercourse with the Divine. The student of religion, though unable always to repress a smile at the wildly improbable legends which have gathered about the memories of men, who in this life would have been the first to deprecate any claim to supernatural power, will not fail to honour in many a quaint story a priceless gem of truth, undimmed even by its incongruous setting. It would be presumptuous for the author of this book to- claim to be in any sense an initiator in a field in which so many have already worked with good results. Whilst recognising fully, however, the debt of gratitude due to such earnest students as Helmsdoerfer, Von Radowitz, Parker, Mrs. Jameson, and others, it is felt that the time has come to supplement their publications by embodying,...« less