Storytelling as Spiritual Communication in Early Greek Hagiography: The Use of Diegesis

What he had read through once, he repeated from memory. So that his reading of Holy Scripture might not be a mere rapid running through the words, he portrayed in his acts the passage that he had read. If he read a book of the Prophets, one saw him, having set aside the book, transformed from reader into prophet. If he had read the books of the ancient law, he proceeded, a worthy emulator of Moses, just as if bands of Israelites were following him through the desert. Or if his Scriptural guide, tempering the severity of the Law, had revealed the sweetness of the Apostle’s words and the love and tenderness of Christ’s passion, speech sweeter than the honeycomb immediately flowed from his lips. In fine, his life made manifest the lessons he had learned from the Sacred Scriptures.1