illustrations, as when James cites Job for his patience. But such examples hardly constituted comprehensive biographies.
"Why, then, no lives?" asks Wilken. "The most obvious reason was that the gospels stood in the way. The supreme model for Christian life was Jesus.. .. At this early stage of Christian history, it would have been presumptuous to bring other persons into competition with the primal model." That changed, however, with the Council of Nicaea, called in A.D. 325...