RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Leg-ates and Nuncios, Papal Leg-end, Legendary
erable number of permanent nunciatures. According to the order of precedence adopted at the Congress of Vienna, legates and nuncios are considered by secular governments to have the rank of ambassadors. This recognition of the pope's right to send diplomatic representatives formerly rested, of course, partly on his position as a temporal sovereign; since 1870 it has been based not upon his still asserted claims to that position, but upon his undoubted social importance as the absolute spiritual ruler of so many millions. The recognition, however, extends only to the matters in which the nuncio is accredited to the government, not to the internal ecclesiastical matters for the regulation of which he holds powers from the pope. In a word, the attitude of modern non-Catholic governments toward this matter is the same which has been assumed in the making of Concordats.
(J. F. VON SCHULTEf.) Bibliography: P. A. Gambarus, Tractatus de officio atque auctoritate legati de latere, Venice, 1521; S. F. de la Torre, De auctoritate, gradu et terminis legati a latere, Rome, 1656; L. Thomassin, Vetus et novoz ecclesios disciplina, part i., book ii., chaps. 107-108, 117-118, 3 vols., Paris, 1728; A. J. Binterim, Denkwurdigkeiten, iii. 162 sqq., Mainz, 1826; P. Hinschius, Kirchenrecht, i. 498-499, Berlin, 1870; J. F. von Schulte, Die Stellung der Konzilien, Papste und Bischofe, pp. 64 sqq., Prague, 1871.
LEGEND, LEGENDARY: In present usage " legend " denotes almost any fictitious narrative, ancient or modern, or a recital of true history distorted by the fancy or subjectively colored. It is well, however, to confine the term to the religious domain, as many recent literary historians have done. Legends and saints belong together. Only in so far as heroes, ancient and modern alike, enjoy a sort of saint-worship, may one speak of legend in respect to them; and since worship of saints is not restricted to the Christian medieval era, one may transfer the idea of legend to other religions. This usage is modern. About 1180 Johannes Beleth (De divinis officiis, he., in MPL, ccii. 66; cf. William Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum, VI., i. 29) calls the book " which treats of the life and death of confessors and is read at their festivals " a legendary. This presupposes the term legenda (i.e., "things to be read"), which, however, first appears in the thirteenth century and more frequently in the fifteenth. Originally distinguished from the passiones of martyrs, legendce or legendarii later included the entire aggregate of the lives and passions of the saints; and their ecclesiastical use in public reading or chanting receded in favor of private edification.
Christian legend is as old as Christianity itself. Like a wild vine it soon encircled the Gospel and created an apocryphal history of the apostles, wherein they are heroes at once of asceticism and of martyrdom. It transformed genuine martyrology according to the taste of later times and created incredible monastic tales. The products of the fourth and fifth centuries constitute the foundation story, the common fund of Christendom's hagiography, but legendary creation continued, finding new motives in every new saint, in every translation of relics, and in every church foundation.
Of literary affinity with fiction, legend aims to
entertain, but likewise to edify along definite religious and moral lines. The hero is supposed to serve as a pattern of beneficence, renunciation, selfsacrifice, constancy, and triumph over the devil. The invisible is to appear tangibly — God's providence toward the devout, the hearing of their prayers, the reward of the righteous, and the punishment of the impious. Miracle displays God's intervention in its broadest light. In self-defense the legend also appropriates rationalizing traits, and seeks to enhance its credibility by proclaiming the refutation and punishment of doubters.
Legend borrows its materials first of all from historic reminiscence, but adorns the same and combines it with motives of its own. The fancy is ever creating new forms by transferring details from place to place and from one person to another. The same motive often occurs in an Indian myth, a tale of the Thousand and One Nights, and a medieval legend of the saints. From this fact Grimm's school inferred a common Indo-Germanic origin. Of late there has been talk of literary migrations. Usener's theory of myths which have undergone a Christian transformation has been sharply criticized by Delehaye; the points of contact are frequently of a purely external kind, and the features really common are story- telling motives.
The legend was early incorporated into the liturgy. Records of martyrdom were collected to be read aloud as early as by Eusebius, and afterward Palladius, Rufinus, and others gathered ascetic narratives for the edification of monks. From these beginnings arose the great collective works (see Acta Martyrtjm, Acta Sanctorum). Legends were worked over into sermons (Symeon Metaphrastes, Sermones de Sanctis), and also largely utilized as poetry (Prudentius, Peristephanon; Paulinus of Nola, Carmina natalicia). In the medieval era the rhapsody of the Madonna and the praise of heroic renunciation occur as the counterparts of secular minstrelsy and chivalrous adventures. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries turned the entire Legenda aurea (see Jacobus da Varagine) into verse and found edification in miracle plays. Graphic art, especially church painting, considered its most important task to be the illustration of legend. Thus the legend enveloped the whole intellectual life of the Middle Ages.
In the later Roman Catholicism legends still have a place, though the critics have taken much away from them. Luther defamed legends as Liigenden ( " lie-gends"), yet he appreciated their practical utility. Hence an Evangelical history of martyrs could thrive on Lutheran soil, whereas Calvinism assumed an attitude of gruff rejection. While the Enlightenment saw nothing in legends but superstition and priestcraft, romanticism found in them the revelation of the deepest secrets of the popular soul. Modern philological and historical investigation has discovered rich mines in this field. Indeed ecclesiastical history itself is taking more and more note of the fact that the legend, with ceremonial and custom, offers the best embodiment of the popular theology. E. von Dobschutz.
Bibliography: J. G. von Herder, Werke, ed. B. Suphan. xvi. 387-398, xxviii. 167-246, 31 vols., Berlin, 1877-93;
L,eg-er Leibnitz