Letter 40: To my learned friend,

To my learned friend, You have asked my opinion on the vita you have composed of our holy confessor, and I want to give you an honest response rather than simply praise your efforts. The writing is clear and the Latin is good. The narrative of the saint's life is well organized. What I find less satisfying are the miracle stories, not because I doubt that such miracles occurred, but because the way you have presented them makes them feel formulaic — they follow a pattern that is recognizable from dozens of other vitae, in a way that makes the reader wonder whether the specific details are genuine memories or borrowed conventions. The best vitae I have read are the ones where the individuality of the saint comes through: their specific virtues and specific struggles, their particular way of dealing with particular people, the details that could not have been borrowed from another text. Sulpicius Severus on Martin of Tours, or Possidius on Augustine — these read like portraits of specific men, not generic saints. I would ask you: what was genuinely distinctive about this particular person? What did those who knew him remember that was specific to him? What stories do the people of this community tell about him that they would not tell about anyone else? Those are the details that make a vita live, and they are the details that will be read five hundred years from now. The framework you have is good. Fill it with the man himself. Your colleague, Braulio