Concept

Saint

Overview

In Christian belief, a saint, also known as a hallow, is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term saint depends on the context and denomination. Official ecclesiastical recognition, and veneration, is conferred on some denominational saints through the process of canonization in the Catholic Church or glorification in the Eastern Orthodox Church after their approval. The saints are honored in the liturgical calendars of Evangelical Lutheranism and Anglicanism. In other nonconformist denominations, such as the Plymouth Brethren, and following from Pauline usage, saint refers broadly to any holy Christian without special recognition or selection.

While the English word saint (deriving from the Latin sanctus) originated in Christianity, historians of religion tend to use the appellation "in a more general way to refer to the state of special holiness that many religions attribute to certain people", referring to the Hindu rishi, Sikh bhagat or guru, the Shintoist kami, the Taoist immortal or zhenren, the Jewish tzadik, the Islamic walī/fakir, and the Buddhist arhat or bodhisattva also as saints. Depending on the religion, saints are recognized either by official declaration, as in Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy or Eastern Orthodoxy, or by popular acclamation (see folk saint).

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Saint is discussed.

Fourthly, that so we may show due honour to them all. Fifthly, because sometimes a favour may be gained at the prayer of many which would not be gained at the prayer of one alone. 3. Christ, even as man, is termed _the Saint of Saints_;[281] and it belongs to Him, as man, to pray. Yet we never ask Christ to pray for us. Hence it is superfluous to make the Saints our intercessors with God. But prayer is an act. And…
Aquinas Thomas, On prayer and the contemplative life
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It was this most inclusive community that first elected the saints, whereupon smaller groups and finally individuals, guided by motives that were frequently quite external, selected specific patron saints from among the number of ecclesiastical saints. When the Church set apart a certain day of the year for the particular worship of one of its saints, this day was called by the name of the saint; to those…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
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Compared with these beaked and taloned graspers of the world, saints are herbivorous animals, tame and harmless barn‐yard poultry. There are saints whose beard you may, if you ever care to, pull with impunity. Such a man excites no thrills of wonder veiled in terror; his conscience is full of scruples and returns; he stuns us neither by his inward freedom nor his outward power; and unless he found within us an…
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
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According to this description a saint is not one who is made of wood and never feels any lusts or desires of the flesh. A true saint confesses his righteousness and prays that his sins may be forgiven. The whole Church prays for the forgiveness of sins and confesses that it believes in the forgiveness of sins. If our antagonists would read the Scriptures they would soon discover that they cannot judge rightly of…
Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians
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Go rather to the animals! Why not be like me—a bear amongst bears, a bird amongst birds?” “And what doeth the saint in the forest?” asked Zarathustra. The saint answered: “I make hymns and sing them; and in making hymns I laugh and weep and mumble: thus do I praise God. With singing, weeping, laughing, and mumbling do I praise the God who is my God.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
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Saint

Overview

In the original texts

Philosophers who discussed Saint

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