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to earlier examples.
34 Although rarely treating officially canonized subjects, these texts use the formulas of hagiographic writing, wherein comparisons to biblical models serve to prove the sanctity of their subjects. In several instances, for which the life of the monk John of Gorze is illustrative, authors justify their treatment of their subjects as saints by citing the example of the Baptist. The preface to the Life explains, “And now we may pass over the rest in silence, for John himself, compared to whom, according to the gospel witness, no one was greater among those born from woman, made no miracle [
signa]. It has been put to sleep for perpetuity in the silence of all of Scripture whether while he was struck by the sword in prison, he was distinguished by some last miracle [
signa] from any type of murderers or thieves.”
35 Here the author reveals his purpose: he cannot or will not prove John of Gorze’s holiness by establishing that he performed miracles. Rather, as with much of the hagiography written under the influence of the tenth-century reforms emerging from Gorze and Cluny, the biography constructs John of Gorze’s sanctity primarily by means of cataloguing the monk’s virtues and good deeds.
36 The Baptist, like John of Gorze, did not perform miracles but was nonetheless among those saints whom exegetes acknowledged to be most like Christ.
