Welcome to season six of Enter the Bible, a podcast where we share "Everything You Wanted to Know about the Bible...but were afraid to ask."

Jennifer Wojciechowski joins co-hosts Katie Langston and Kathryn Schifferdecker. Wojciechowski is an assistant professor of church history and has been teaching at Luther Seminary since 2019. Before this, she taught in the religion department at Augsburg University.

Today, our theologians will answer the listener-submitted question, "Where do saints come from?"

Do you have Bible questions you would like answered? Go to our website at https://enterthebible.org/about to get started.

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8snWmQ8dlgc.

Mentioned in this episode:

Stepping Up to Supervision

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Welcome to the Enter the Bible podcast, where you can get answers or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible. But we're afraid to ask. I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker.

Katie Langston: and I'm Katie Langston, and today on the podcast, we have a very, very special guest, our very own Jenny Wojciechowski, who is Assistant Professor of Church History at Luther Seminary and author of the wonderful book Women and the Christian Story: A Global History. And she is also the instructor of a wonderful course on our faith lead platform, faithlead.org called, "Faithfully Gifted: Women in Church History." So yay! Welcome, Jennie. So glad to have you with us.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Thanks for having me back. I've got another course on, uh, that'll be coming up on just general church history too on Faith +Lead.

Katie Langston: Yay! So exciting. That's it's so good. Church history is so important. I think sometimes it's like, maybe a little bit neglected in the theological disciplines. And it really shouldn't be because it's very important to sort of know, like, how did we get here? What 's happened? So.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: And to quote Ecclesiastes, there's nothing new under the sun.

Katie Langston: Yes.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: My favorite quote.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Like church conflict, like, um.

Katie Langston: Heresies.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah. Other things .

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: They're always perennial.

Katie Langston: All right.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: My little tagline on my email is that quote from Ecclesiastes. Yeah.

Katie Langston: It's good. Yeah, I love it.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah.

Katie Langston: Cool. Well, we have a question today, um, that we are, uh, we turn to Jennie to kind of help us, um, figure out. And that is a question about sainthood. And since Jennie is both a church history scholar and a Roman Catholic, um, which has maybe more emphasis on the saints, I think to our detriment, uh, honestly, in the, in the Evangelical and Protestant, uh, traditions, um, you know, we thought you would be the perfect person to sort of help us think through it. And if you have a question, by the way, wonderful listener or, uh, viewer of this podcast, uh, you can ask your own question at Enter the Bible org. And, um, we do our best. We read every question. We do our best to answer as many of them as we can on the podcast. The question that we have today is, um, how did the concept of saints develop, uh, in the Bible and then in history as well?

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Yes. Thank you. You know, we Catholics do love our saints, so I'm happy to I'm always happy to talk about them. I can talk about my favorite saints later, if we have time. Yeah. Um, so, I mean, most of us now know, like, the very complicated process of canonization, we probably, you know, Mother Teresa was canonized recently. Oscar Romero, some of those folks. Sainthood in the early church was basically nothing like what it is today. So in the early church, really what, who the Saints were were the martyrs. You remember, for the first 300 years of Christian history, Christianity was illegal. And so a lot of people died for the faith. Um, the persecutions weren't, um, constant, but they were ever present, right? There was always the risk that you could die for your faith. All right. And so Christians tended to be pretty serious, right? If you could possibly be thrown in an arena with lions and eaten, then you're probably, you know, you're probably not going to be just the like, you know, I show up on Christmas and Easter, you know, you're pretty dedicated people, right? If that's the consequence. All right. And so martyrdom becomes this huge, huge deal in the early church. And we have a number of martyrdom accounts from first person accounts. We have trial accounts. We have really stylized accounts that probably weren't like, didn't actually happen. Um, but but it was a big, big deal. All right. And so one of the, the first instances we have, um, and then this is another Catholic thing that Protestants are kind of uncomfortable with, but we're going to handle this too. There we go.

Katie Langston: Let's dive in.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: We're gonna we're gonna talk about relics. All right. Because these two things come up together, right? So like when Polycarp, one of the kind of first famous martyrdoms we have a martyrdom account of it is killed. You see people taking bits of Polycarp and keeping him as relics to.

Katie Langston: Like, like pieces of his bone. Right?

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Yeah, yeah. Pieces of his body. Yes.

Katie Langston: Cool.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Yeah. So. So we can we can have lots of fun talking about relics through this, too. Um, so the saints were the people who died for the faith, right? Okay. Um, and so we have big lists of martyrs. All right. Um, so there's the martyrs, and then there's also, the piece of, you know, people that, um, once they died, people believing to be saints, believing that there should be kind of a cult of devotion around them. Right. And at this point, it's not it's not like a unified thing. The pope isn't doing it. Okay, first we go from just popular devotion. All right. This is a really holy person in my community. We saw them die for their faith. And, you know, we are. We think that they're in heaven. All right. Being canonized means you're put on a list. All right? The list isn't exhaustive. It is just an official list that the church keeps that these people are. They were holy people, that they lived a good Christian life and that their witness is, um, you know, strong enough to be kind of a point of devotion for the faithful. Right?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: When you say devotion, can you can you elaborate on that? What does that mean exactly?

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Yeah. So not worship. They were not worshiped. I need to be very, very, very clear. Yeah. But the you can learn from their lives, you can look at their witness and you can be like, wow, like I like that is the Christian life. Like I could emulate them in some ways. All right. Um, I can, you know, and there's like all sorts of different types of saints. There's the, you know, the saints, like, okay. Wow. They died well, right?UNder persecution. That's that. Or then there's other saints like Saint Augustine where. Wow, look at his faith journey. Um, you know, I can emulate that. Um, so kind of, uh, sometimes, like the cult. Uh, it's it's an unfortunate because the word cult has so much baggage now, but that was, um, you know, the worthy of, like, kind of a public cult. Public devotion.

Katie Langston: Yeah. And it doesn't mean, like, a weird, creepy cult. It just means the ways that the saints were honored in, you know, in culture and in liturgy and, you know, in, in the, in the church context, it's not like something it's not like the occult. It's not like a new thing. No, not.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: The occult, not Jonestown. It's nothing like that. It's like, right, that they lived a good Christian life. Um, and so that was that was the early church. It was more just like people saying, hey, this person's a saint. And then, you know, by the early Middle Ages you have bishops taking this over because you can imagine this is rather freewheeling then right. You know people are right. So okay, the bishops are like oh we need, we need some parameters here. Um, and then by the High Middle Ages there's a real call for actually I think we need like a centralized list and we need, like, a real authority here. And so, um, in the year 1234, the pope officially gets the right to canonize. And so from that point forward, it's actually the pope who does it.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: So at that point in the 1200s, when the Pope does, does the Pope take. Uh, the old list and like, approve that or decide on who's. And then from that point forward decides who's on the list. Who's canonized. Is that right?

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Exactly. Yep. The old lists are kept. So we have all these folks in the early church where it's like. Was this person even real? Like there's lots of questions or, you know, you know, like Saint Valentine. This could maybe it's this guy, maybe it's this guy we don't know. I mean, there's just, you know, Saint George a favorite, you know, the dragon slayer. I mean, there's always Saint Christopher. There's always like, was he real? So, yes, it takes the saint. But then from that point on, it becomes sort of the, the hierarchy, the pope who does it. And then, of course, there's really good things about that. And there's, you know, obviously, um, there's some political things about that too. You know, who what type of people do we want to lift up as kind of heroes of the faith, right. Um, the process gets a lot more complicated, right? Now it's such a complicated process.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: What is, what is the process now? If you'd say.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Yeah. So, uh, I wish I had the whole thing laid out. The person has to have died a number. I think it's like five years before you can start the process, and then they're beautified, and then you need proof of miracles, and then you actually need papal approval after that. Uh, within the Catholic Church, I did not say that, mention this. The Catholic Church is the only church that has a process right of, of canonization. Um, the Anglican and the Lutheran churches also have saints. Um, but it's not this process. So I was I was actually it's kind of funny how this ended up, um, I was reading about this recently. Oscar Romero was canonized in 2018, Catholic priest from El Salvador. He actually made it onto the Anglican and Lutheran lists before the Catholic list because the Catholic process was so long.

Katie Langston: That's interesting. But the, um, the Anglican like, sort of the more Protestant lists, those aren't um, there's not like a, there's not like a saint committee that does that, right? That's, that's just people say, hey, this was a person that we ought to emulate, look to their life, you know, learn more about kind of a thing. But but the process isn't as like you were saying. It's not as, um, precise or, you know controlled, I guess, as in the in the Roman Catholic Church.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Right, right. And you don't need, like, proof of miracles and things like that which really like, elevate it.

Katie Langston: Yeah, sure. Sure, sure. Yeah. That makes sense.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: I mean, is there a is there a Lutheran list or do we just borrow from the Catholics like like this last Sunday we talked about Saint Patrick. Right. The commemoration of Saint Patrick as a missionary to Ireland. But I just always assumed, I guess, that we borrowed that from the Catholics.

Katie Langston: My understanding. And not like I have a great deal of knowledge about this, but. Friend of the pod, Sarah. Hinlicky Wilson. Yeah, she has a she has a lot of interest in, like, what she calls like evangelical saints or evangelical hagiography, hagiography being a fancy word for, like, telling the story of like, the saints and cool people who have done cool things in the faith. So she has like lists that she has kept. And I think there's informal. I mean, I don't think that there's like an official body in, in, say, the Lutheran tradition that says we, we hereby dub thee a saint. But the, um, I'm sure that's the exact word that the Pope uses. We here by...

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: In that voice, too.

Katie Langston: Exactly. Exactly like that. Um, but, um, but yeah, I think yeah, there are, there are people that publish lists and, and I mean, I think it's a thing that we, I mean, personally, I agree with Sarah on this, that it is a thing that we could, you know, that we could stand to kind of reclaim a bit in the Protestant traditions, um, because it is a beautiful thing to look at the lives of people who have lived well in the faith and to take inspiration, you know, from, from their lives and to tell their stories. Because what's more powerful than a story in terms of helping us sort of like put into practice the things that we believe and, and are called to know?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: That's true. That's true. Yeah. I think about, you know, uh, biblically speaking, there are lists in Scripture, of course, probably most famously, uh, Hebrews chapter 11. "Now, faith is the the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen," which is a famous verse, but what follows that is all these is this list of examples of people who lived by faith. So, uh, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, um, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, who through faith conquered kingdoms, women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release in order to obtain a better resurrection. Uh, they were stoned to death. Uh, people of whom the world was not worthy, you know, in time, uh, the author of Hebrews says, and what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of, you know, all these other people. So, uh, I think that impulse to find examples of people of faith, the people who lived exemplary lives, who lived lives devoted to God, trusting in God, uh, they they can teach us a lot. Uh, and so it goes back, right? Even if we don't talk about them, uh, you know, about a canonization process. Certainly. Uh, you know, the author of Hebrews goes on to say, "therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us, you know, run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith." So this idea of this communion of saints that have gone before us, that have, that have modeled for us what a faithful Christian life looks like. Or in this case, you know, the people that are listed in Hebrews are from the Old Testament, right? A faithful Israelite Jewish life, um, that's who we should emulate. And of course, Jesus, uh, most of all, who is more than a saint. But yeah, being surrounded by that great communion of saints and sometimes the saints aren't going to be, you know, people in that whatever official list or unofficial list, right? Some of the Saints are going to be my grandma Esther. Right? Or Grandpa or Uncle Herbert or right. We all have those saints in our own personal lives who have gone before us. My father, Jim, right, who have who have taught us what it means to live a faithful Christian life. Right. So I think that's what you know. That's what when we celebrate All Saints Day, uh, in the Lutheran church, we, we talk about that right, that it is these saints, these great exemplars of faith that everybody knows. And then there's also the saints in our own lives. I have a picture of my Grandpa , but so, uh, so anyway. Right.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: You know, the kind of the viewing the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant, you know, as one church and we have our, our people on the side of that, that are the church triumphant.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah. So just a define those terms, Jennie.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Oh, yes. Because it might sound a little scary. The Church militant, those of us who are still alive on Earth and those who have died, the Church Triumphant. Yeah. Those who are, who have gone to, you know, and and so that's another thing, you know, um, within the Catholic Church, the saints. Absolutely. All of that. And then, of course, you know, we have our lists where you have these saints that we sort of elevate and, and can kind of view as like friends almost, you know, it's not just it's not even just that they, um, are examples. It's, you know, you can petition them to pray for you and things like that. Yeah. Same goes for in the Catholic Church.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Say more about that, because that is a uniquely Catholic thing. I think it.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Is a uniquely Catholic thing. Yes. And I always, always get tons of questions on it. So I thought this might be a good place. You know, the first question is like, why do you pray to the saints? And it's like, well, actually we don't, you know, I want to be clear, Catholics don't pray to the saints. Um, but the idea is like, well, you could petition a saint to pray for you because they're already in heaven and they live this pious life. And so it's like just, you know, if I were having a hard time, I might be like, hey, Kathryn, could you pray for me? It's sort of like that. Except for that, my friend might be, you know, the 16th century Carmelite nun, Teresa of Avila. Right? Who I love, who I just love. And I would absolutely ask her to pray for me. Um, um, so, yeah, they're both examples.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, that's a helpful way of thinking about it. A friend that you ask?

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Yeah. And, you know, I'm sure there are some people who take it too far, but I mean, that is the correct doctrine of like, no, they are kind of friends in Christ. And they could pray for you. And, you know, there's funny things. If you lose something, you can, you know, petition Saint Anthony or if you, you know, there's a saint for every. There's a saint for every thing, every country, every place. If you got a problem, there's a saint for you.

Katie Langston: There's a saint for that.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: There's a saint for that.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Do you have a favorite saint or a favorite, uh, activity that a saint is associated with?

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: So my. So Saint Teresa of Avila is my favorite saint, hands down. Um, so it's kind of funny. I was born on her feast day. I remember reading, like, a little thing about her, and she just seemed kind of boring. And then when I was a church historian, really diving into her life, I was like, she is like the coolest woman ever. And just really, really enjoying, um, she was she wrote a ton. She she's funny. If you read her work. She's very, very funny. Um, so she's my favorite. Uh, there's the saint. Saint Bede the Venerable is the patron saint of historians.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Oh, there you go.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: That's one of your guy. I'm having a. Yeah, yeah, if I'm having a really hard time with, like, a history deadline, you know, I could petition him. I lose things all the time. So, Saint Anthony, you know, that's a good one.

Katie Langston: I love it.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: That's good.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: But it of course was just Saint Patrick's Day, which is always a it's always a fun one.

Katie Langston: Is he the same? Is he the patron saint of beer?

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: No, of Ireland.

Katie Langston: Oh, of Ireland.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Yeah, yeah. People just drink a lot of beer on his day.

Katie Langston: Oh, got it, got it, got it, got it. That's hilarious. No. It's good. Yeah.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: So just to be clear, you're not praying to the saints, but. But you, uh, you pray. Catholics still pray directly to God.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Absolutely .

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Not praying just through the saints. Yeah.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: No, no, no. Absolutely. Pray, pray to God. Yes. The saints are just also there as models of devotion and things. And and I think one of the things that's really nice about the saints, especially for women, you have a lot of women who are kind of elevated, who are lifted up, who are very visible in the tradition and how that and always have been, um, in that tradition, which is nice.

Katie Langston: Yeah. Because there can be there can be less of those. Right. There's fewer women in the Bible. And so to have sort of this way of remembering and honouring the many, many, many faithful women of the, of the faith, that's, that's a that is a very beautiful thing. Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Or even church history often really neglected women. But then you'd have these, you know, women saints that you could look at. So yeah.

Katie Langston: That's cool. That's great.

Katie Langston: Well, wonderful. Thank you so much, uh, Jennie, for joining us today on the, uh, Enter the Bible podcast. Uh, a little more Enter the Church history, you know, podcast made the episode today, but that's, uh, that is fine. That is also very important and good stuff. Uh, and of course, as we talked about, certainly has its, um, parallels and roots in scripture as well. So just appreciate you being here and, and, and uh, sharing a bit about the saints and sort of the development of that tradition.

Jennifer Wojciechowksi: Thank you so much for having me.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, really good to have you, Jennie.

Katie Langston: Thanks. This is fun. Um, and thank you to our listeners and viewers on, on YouTube. Um, we're so glad you're with us. Uh, you can go to Enter the bible.org for more podcasts, videos, courses, commentaries, all kinds of stuff, anything you would need to know, uh, to dive in, uh, more deeply into the Bible and into the Christian faith. And, um, we will see you next time.