The Beginnings of an Abstract

So I'm looking at the story of Saint Petronilla (I'd include a link, but both wikipedia and new advent have failed me by giving either weird versions of the story or no real story at all) for a paper to give at Kalamazoo this coming year. The version I'm working with comes from Ælfric's Lives of Saints.

The summed up story is that Peter makes her ill for her benefit. Then Titus asks him why he lets her be ill when he heals everyone else and Peter says that it's good for her, but to prove that he can heal her, he tells her to get up and make dinner. So she does and she's totally healthy; she makes dinner, then goes to lie down and Peter makes her ill again. And from this she learned to fear God and later God healed her again and she went on to heal many others.

Now, aside from the fact that Peter comes off as looking like an arrogant jerk, it is interesting that in this time of healing for all, it is illness -- imposed illness, even -- that is edifying for her. The whole passage (there are a lot more miracles and the most detailed sound lifted out of Acts and dropped into other places) is meant to tell the miracles of Saint Peter to honour him and to edify the reader. However, the second story about Petronilla (there are two at the end of this series of tales of Saint Peter) is very different stylistically. So I am hoping to examine the intent of these exact tales. And in any event, it's a neat story.