hagiography

is the style called for in describing the subject's relation to the other, wishing to be neither a sermon nor the confession of a beautiful soul.

Recast in definition form from: “… neither a sermon nor the confession of a "beautiful soul. …”

in saints' lives, badly written and mixed with superstition and nonsense as they are, is immeasurably more instructive to the philosopher than Plutarch and Livy.

Recast in definition form from: “In this respect, therefore, for the philosopher, these accounts of the lives of holy, self-denying men, badly as they are generally written, and mixed as they are with superstition and nonsense, are, because of the significance of the material, immeasurably more instructive and important than even Plutarch and Livy.”

hagiography, n.Definitions

hagiography