The “Enemy” of the Saint in the Vita Fulgentii
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6092/1593-2214/461Keywords:
Hagiography, Vita Fulgentii, Religious identities, Polemic against heretics, Hagiographical modelsAbstract
This paper aims to analyze the traits that characterize the “enemy” of the saint in the Vita Fulgentii. The work tells in twenty-nine chapters the life of the bishop of Ruspe Fulgentius, troubled by exile and persecutions both in the monastic phase and in the episcopal one, in the context of the vandalic invasion in Africa between 5th and 6th century. The “enemy”, that identifies, in the most cases, with the invader of arian faith, presents a stereotyped nature, summarizing the tipical characteristics of barbarian and the ones specific to the heterodox. In order to achieve the goal of the reader’s moral edification, the text presents antithetical models, the saint ant his opposer, and all the account revolves around this dialectic; so it is worthy of interest to pick out the elements that define, throught a relationship of opposition, the collective identities, that in this text are represented by Catholics invaded and by barbarian and heretic invaders.
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