History & Area Studies / Thematic History / Social & Cultural History

Holy Texts Were Geopolitical Weapons: How Bilingual Scribes Rewrote History

Bilingualism and Hagiographic Writings

Vincenza Milazzo, Francesco Scorza Barcellona

We think of ancient saints' biographies as peaceful, pious records. But a groundbreaking collection of research, 'Bilingualism and Hagiographic Writings' by Vincenza Milazzo and Francesco Scorza Barcellona, reveals a shocking truth: these texts were the ultimate stealth weapons of geopolitical power. From the 3rd to the 17th centuries, bilingual scribes used translation as a silent battlefield. In Carthage, a single name erased from a martyr's diary was a desperate act of survival against an imperial purge. In Sicily, cities like Catania and Syracuse waged a cold war by rewriting each other's saints' dreams to claim political supremacy. In Sardinia, a local saint's story was plagiarized from a Palestinian martyr to build a theological firewall against the Byzantine emperor. And in Portugal, Jesuits used a dead language, Latin, to turn a gruesome execution in Japan into a global recruitment ad. This video unpacks how translating sacred texts wasn't about communication—it was about control. Learn how the grammar of Europe was reprogrammed, how pagan myths were overwritten, and why every translation is a political act. Watch to see how the invisible algorithms of language shaped our world.