In the earlier versions of epic literature the organising power was myth or an organic intuition and empathy of divine substance. In the modern novel, by contrast, it is the solitary individual, for whom mundane society represents the only transcendency. Solitude is one of the keynotes in epic literature, but this solitude is either of an extrinsical kind, which does not tear the individual away from the overall embrace of the community/Philoctetes is "lonely", but his loneliness will at once cease should the community wish it so/, or an alienation from the world so that the individual who had thus been left to his own would devote his energy to the love of God /St. Bernard/. In both instances, solitude is a mere loneliness, which, however, postulates not only the existence of others, but also a relationship with the Universe. Neither the community nor God will forsake the solitary person. And indeed, since there is no complete state of exclusion, it is worth considering whether either the desire for, or the existence of, loneliness may be entertained in the modern sense. Prior to the Renaissance, works treating stories of individuals usually gave small attention to the individual traits -called "characteristics features" in these days. But is stemmed not from a lack of observation, but from the simple fact that the writers had other things in mind. Most stories written in the Middle Ages and dealing with the individual are firmly didactic: the stories of the saints were written with a didactic tendency in mind, their purpose being a representation of the individual's identification with sanctity. The saints are also individuals, who, through their physical reality, personify the sanctity of the eschatologically triumphant grace for the faithful. As Karl Rahner puts it: the intervention of the saints on our behalf cannot be regarded as a new historical initiative, independent of our historical life; the intervention of the saints is objectively nothing else but the standing validity of our life for the world before God.' The inherent mystery of sanctity is that the saint's flesh-and-blood individuality unites with divine grace, to form a single reality. The teaching implied in the story of a saint is symbolic to begin with, and therefore it is void of a logical nuance. In the Old Testament, sanctity represents a shifting away from the profane world/in Hebrew, the term sanctity is derived from the word separation/; according to the New Testament, however, ultimate universal salvation is guaranteed by Christ's being. Or to put it somewhat differently, sanctity does not separate from the world radically, it does not create a gulf between God and the profane world. Still there is a difference between God and the profane being of creation, and the saint is destined to establish contact between the two, finding home in God and in the being of creation alike. The saint is present in all spheres of being. That is why his form is symbolic, mysterious and, in the last analysis, inexpressible. It was this outlook upon life that left its mark on the religious literature of the Neophilologus 73 (1989) 1-13