religious literature

…time immemorial men have carved religious monuments and have drawn and painted sacred icons. Triumphal arches and chariots have symbolized glory and victory. Religious art makes wide use of allegory, both in its subject matter and in its imagery (such as the cross, the fish, the lamb). Even in poetry…

Their literature was not produced with aesthetic intentions. Nevertheless, the pulpit offered scope for oratory (as in Melito of Sardis’s Homily on the Pascha, c. 170). Desire for romance and adventure was satisfied by apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, recounting their travels, with continence replacing love.…

…of a specific category of literature known as hagiography, which told the story of a saint’s life. Hagiography was not biography in the modern sense but was a work of religious devotion that portrayed the saint as a model of Christian virtue. If available, authentic tradition would be used, but…

…the reform of the English Church and the problems the controversies raised in matters of authority, obedience, and conscience. The fragile ecclesiastical compromise threatened to collapse under the demands for further reformation made by Elizabeth’s more godly subjects, and its defense culminated in Richard Hooker’s Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical…

…elevated to the status of sacred literature. Their heroes, Krishna and Rama, were incorporated into Vaishnavism as avatars (incarnations) of Vishnu. The concept of incarnations was useful in subsuming local deities and cults.

Although lectures, articles, and other prosaic admonitions have tended to take their place, sermons, funeral orations, allegories, and the visions of eternal punishment brandished by theologians constitute some of the most unforgettable prose. This form of nonfictional prose literature dates from before the…