Abstract
Christian saints smell to high heaven. “We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved,” St. Paul told the Corinthians (II Cor. 2:15); “Some men are good smelling and some are stinking to God,” John Wycliffe informed the faithful.¹ Greco-Roman divinities are suffused with the aroma of immortality. Homer houses Zeus in a fragrant cloud; “When Bacchus approached,” Ovid notes, “the air was full of sweet scent of saffron and myrrh” (Metamorphoses, I. iv). But in a world in which cleanliness is considered next to godliness, the approach of divinity is heralded by the scent
