A New Dictionary of Saints

For a regular member of the Catholic chat team on AOL (keywork: Catholic), a good book of saints is a must. Every day of the Catholic calendar brings up a new name, and the more you learn about the Christian saints, the more fascinating the whole past 2000 years become. As a child, there was at home an illustrated book of saints for children, full of lurid pictures of St. Stephen shot full of arrows, or people getting literally roasted, or of virgins who refused important kings and lords the pleasure of their bodies, based on their beliefs, and therefore died as martyrs.What is missing in this more modern version of the saints is the old CAtholic portrayal of woman as "virgin and martyr". In this book, the woman is described as "laywoman" if she's not a nun or abbess. That many were martyrs in the early Church is a given, but that they were virgins was once a very important fact. Meanwhile, the men too are often beheaded, whipped and left to starve by angry rulers, but rarely does their virginity come up. Another interesting fact you'll learn is how many of these folks were quite affluent young people who bucked the life of luxury their families desired for them. In the case of women, they often either refused to marry appointed suitors, or they started their own convents (with the family money). It's rare to find a simple shepherdess or coal miner who becomes a saint. Apparently , one must have education - or at least literacy - and have power and money somehow, to gain any kind of notice at all in the old history books.Well, that's no big surprise, but if you read this in a "deconstructed way", it's very interesting, no matter your religion. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!

This is a useful and readable book for young students and/or beginners on Christian saints . However it contains mainly saints of Latin church(Roman Catholic Church), and Eastern Saints---Russian, Coptic, Ethiopian etc.--- are incongruously few. I'd like to read a more comprehensive and impartial dictionary, since most of Japanese are well acquainted with such a common Christian saints often depicted in visual arts .