ABSTRACT
The question of literary genres concerns the literary audience and their reception of a text according to their expectations of a particular genre, as developed by former experiences. For hagiographical texts, the false belief prevails that they mechanically repeat or modify given topoi without introducing any significant variation. If one examines hagiographical texts as literary phenomena (as they chiefly are!) and not as historical sources, this view is demonstrated to be totally erroneous. This chapter emphasizes on the testimony of the Byzantine authors themselves as well as their readership. The three distinctive categories of hagiography on the grounds of their theme are: Life (vita), Martyrdom (Passio) and Account-Narration of miracles. In addition, together with the enkomion and the hagiographical text of liturgical poetry, they form the majority of texts.
