BYZANTINE SAINTS’ LIVES IN TRANSLATION

Hory WOMEN OF BYZANTIUM

Byzantine Saints’ Lives in Translation

Series Editor: Alice-Mary Talbot

Advisory Board

John Duffy

Elizabeth A. Fisher Angela C. Hero Alexander P. Kazhdan Angeliki E. Laiou Henry Maguire Michael McCormick

Thor Sevcenko

Denis F. Sullivan

Titles in Preparation 2. Byzantine Defenders of Images

3. St. Lazaros of Mt. Galesios

HOLY WOMEN OF BYZANTIUM

TEN SAINTS’ LIVES IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Edited by Alice-Mary Talbot

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection

Washington, D.C.

© 1996 Dumbarton Oaks

Trustees for Harvard University Washington, D.C.

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Library of congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Holy women of Byzantium : ten saints’ lives in English translation / edited by Alice-Mary Talbot. p. cm.—(Byzantine saints’ lives in translation ; 1) Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: Life of St. Mary/Marinos—Life of St. Matrona of Perge —Life of St. Mary of Egypt—Life of St. Theoktiste of Lesbos— Life of St. Elisabeth the Wonderworker—Life of St. Athanasia of Aegina—Life of St. Theodora of, Thessalonike—Life of St. Mary the Younger—Life of St. Thomais of Lesbos—Life of St. Theodora of Arta. ISBN 0-88402-241-2 (alk. paper) 1. Christian women saints—Byzantine Empire—Biography. 2. Byzantine Empire—Church history. I. Talbot, Alice-Mary Maffry. II. Series. BX393.H65 1996 281.9'092—dc20 95-53109 [B] CIP

CONTENTS

General Introduction Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations A. Nuns Disguised as Monks 1. Life of St. Mary/Marinos Nicholas Constas

2. Life of St. Matrona of Perge Jeffrey Featherstone and Cyril Mango

B. Female Solitaries 3. Life of St. Mary of Egypt Maria Kouli 4. Life of St. Theoktiste of Lesbos Angela C. Hero C. Cenobitic Nuns 5. Life of St. Elisabeth the Wonderworker Valerie Karras 6. Life of St. Athanasia of Aegina Lee Francis Sherry 7. Life of St. Theodora of Thessalonike Alice-Mary Talbot D. Pious Housewives 8. Life of St. Mary the Younger Angeliki E. Laiou 9. Life of St. Thomais of Lesbos Paul Halsall E. A Saintly Empress 10. Life of St. Theodora of Arta Alice-Mary Talbot F. Indices Index of People and Places General Index

Index of Notable Greek Words

vil XVii

XIX

13

65 95

117 137 159

239 291

323

335

346 352

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The Lives (vitae) of medieval saints reflect the great variety of individuals who came to be venerated as holy men and women: hermits, monks and nuns, abbots and abbesses, emperors and empresses, popes and _ patriarchs, housewives, former soldiers and prostitutes, even Jews who had converted to Christianity. The process of sanctification is still not fully understood and needs further study, especially in the case of Byzantium, but can be summa- rized as follows. In both the western and eastern medieval worlds, popular veneration preceded official church recognition of the sanctity of a holy man or woman. Usually a cult developed first at the local level (e.g., at a parish church or monastery): pilgrims would flock to the saint’s tomb in hope of receiving healing from his or her relics; there would be a special annual com- memoration, usually on the anniversary of the saint’s death, which became the saint’s feastday; a vita might be written and an icon painted; eventually the saint might be recognized by the local church hierarchy and his or her name inscribed in a register of feastdays. But canonization in the strict sense, that is, official ecclesiastical acknowledgment and proclamation of the sanctity of an individual by pope or patriarch, did not occur in the West until the tenth century, and in Byzantium only in the thirteenth century.'

Hagiography (i.e., writings on the lives and miracles of saints) has been the focus of study in recent decades by both western medievalists and Byzanti- nists. Vitae were originally written to demonstrate the sanctity of the holy man or woman portrayed, and to serve as sources of edification for the faithful. The biographies describe the ways in which these pious individuals manifested their sanctity: through mortification of the body, performance of miracles, prophecy, and charitable activity. Vitae have long been used by medievalists as a source of data on the life history of saints, religious controversies, and

1 See A.-M. Talbot, “Canonization,” in ODB 1:372, and eadem, Faith Healing in Late Byzantium: The Posthumous Miracles of the Patriarch Athanasios I of Constantino- ple by Theoktistos the Stoudite (Brookline, Mass., 1983), 21-30, with further bibliog- raphy.

Vill Hoty WoMEN OF BYZANTIUM

monastic institutions. More recently, scholars have come to realize that the incidental information provided by these texts is invaluable for understanding everyday life and mentalites;? in contrast to histories and chronicles, which were usually written in Constantinople and focus on political, military, diplo- matic, and ecclesiastical affairs, many saints’ Lives have an urban middle-class or rural setting, and thus present useful data on life in provincial cities and the countryside, and on the routine existence of ordinary families. In addition to shedding light on historical events—such as church councils and religious controversies; famines, plagues, and enemy invasions; the foundation of mon- asteries and daily monastic routine—hagiographical narratives illuminate as- pects of everyday life, such as diet, clothing, child-rearing, education, modes of travel, accidental injuries and diseases, the cult of relics, the construction of churches, and the role of icons.

Dumbarton Oaks is launching a series of English translations of medi- eval Greek Lives of saints to bring a selected group of these biographies of holy men and women to the attention of a wider public. It is hoped that this new series will make available in translation a genre of medieval Greek text that has hitherto been relatively inaccessible. At present, the majority of the Byzantine Greek texts that have been translated into English are narrative histories or writings of the Church Fathers;? these should now be comple- mented by other types of materials. This project to translate saints’ Lives is not, in fact, a new idea, but one rooted in tradition, for many of the Greek Lives of saints were translated into Latin, Slavonic, Syriac, Armenian, Geor-

2 Although a pioneering study was made_in the early 20th century by A. P. Rudakov (Ocerki vizantijskoj kul'tury po dannym greceskoj agiografij [Moscow, 1917; repr. Lon- don, 1970]), western European Byzantinists long remained unfamiliar with his work and were slow to follow his lead in using hagiographic texts as a source for Byzantine social and cultural history. This approach has now been embraced by such scholars as A. P. Kazhdan, A. E. Laiou, E. Patlagean, H. Magoulias, G. Vikan, and H. Maguire, to name but a few. A Dumbarton Oaks project is establishing a computerized database of information on everyday life and realia derived from the Lives of saints of the 8th through 10th centuries. For recent work on this subject by western medievalists, see D. Weinstein and R. M. Bell, Saints and Society: The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000-1700 (Chicago, 1982).

3 The best list of Byzantine sources available in translation has been compiled by

E. A. Hanawalt, An Annotated Bibliography of Byzantine Sources in English Translation (Brookline, Mass., 1988).

GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1x

gian, and Arabic during the early Christian and Byzantine centuries to make them accessible to non-Greek speakers.*

The new Dumbarton Oaks series will focus on the Greek Lives of holy men and women of the eighth to fifteenth centuries, few of which have been previously translated, but will include a few earlier vitae as well. For the initial phase of the series three volumes are planned, the first two comprising collec- tions of vitae of holy women and of saints of the so-called iconoclastic period (ca. 730-843), the third being the lengthy Life of the eleventh-century monk Lazaros of Mt. Galesios. The series is aimed at a broad and multitiered audi- ence: students and general readers who wish to learn more about the cult of saints, monasticism, and everyday life in Byzantium; scholars of the western medieval and Slavic worlds who want to do comparative studies in hagiogra- phy and monasticism; and Byzantine specialists who will find these volumes convenient selections of important vitae, accompanied by relatively extensive annotation and bibliography.

The rationale for devoting the first volume of the series to selected Lives of female saints is the notable paucity of translations in English (or indeed any western European language) of the vitae of Byzantine holy women, espe- cially for the post-Justinianic period.> Therefore, an attempt has been made to include most of the vitae of holy women of the middle and late Byzantine

“ For example, as early as 373 the vita of St. Antony the Great was translated into Latin. See the introductions to the vitae of Mary/Marinos and Mary of Egypt for dis- cussion of the widespread translations of these popular texts.

> For female saints of the 7th to 15th centuries, the single vita translated into English is J. O. Rosenqvist, The Life of St. Irene Abbess of Chrysobalanton (Uppsala, 1986). The picture is rosier, on the other hand, for holy women of the 4th to 6th centuries: see K. Corrigan, The Life of Saint Macrina (Toronto, 1987); the vita of Synkletike, trans. by E. A. Castelli, in Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook, ed. V. L. Wimbush (Minneapolis, Minn., 1990), 266-311; the vita of Olympias in E. A. Clark, Jerome, Chrysostom and Friends (New York, 1979), 127-57; Symeon Metaphrastes’ vita of Matrona of Perge in K. Bennasser, Gender and Sanctity in Early Byzantine Monasti- cism: A Study of the Phenomenon of Female Ascetics in Male Monastic Habit (University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1984), 118-54. It should be noted that the Lives of repentant harlots (Mary of Egypt; Pelagia; Thais; and Mary, the niece of Abraham) translated by B. Ward (Harlots of the Desert [Kalamazoo, Mich., 1987]) are all based on medieval Latin translations of the original Greek texts.

x Hoty WoMEN OF BYZANTIUM

centuries,° which are relatively few in number, in addition to some earlier saints who exemplify certain types, such as nuns who adopted male monastic habit and female hermits.

The issue of female sanctity in Byzantium has received considerable at- tention in recent years, sparked by the pioneering article of Evelyne Patlagean in 1976.’ The attitude of Byzantines toward female saints reflects their general ambivalence about women: they were torn between the Old Testament state- ment that God made humankind, both male and female, in His image (Gen. 1:27), and the portrayal of Eve as causing Original Sin by succumbing to the temptation of the serpent (Gen. 3). The teachings of the New Testament sent mixed messages as well: Paul wrote that in Christ “there is no male and fe- male” (Gal. 3:28), but at the same time taught that women should be subordi- nate to their husbands (Eph. 5:22—24, Col. 3:18), should cover their heads while praying (1 Cor. 11:5), and remain silent in church (1 Cor. 14:34); Christ’s chosen disciples were all male, but Mary was the instrument of man’s salvation by giving birth to Christ. The cult of the Virgin was highly developed in By- zantium; countless church dedications to the Mother of God and Her wide- spread depiction in icons and monumental painting, on seals and coins, testify to Mary’s enormous popularity.

Despite the ambivalence of Christian teachings, misogynistic attitudes that resulted in the inferior status of women came to predominate in Byzan- tine society.® It is, thus, not surprising that after the early Christian era of martyrdom few women came to be considered holy. The Synaxarion of Con- stantinople (a late tenth- or early eleventh-century liturgical collection of short hagiographical notices, organized according to the church calendar) reflects the drastic decline in the numbers of female saints over the centuries: it in-

® The vita of the empress Theophano has been excluded because an English transla- tion is promised by P. Cesaretti; the vita of the empress Theodora, wife of Theophilos, will appear in the volume of iconodule saints.

7 Patlagean, “La femme deguisee.”

8 To cite a few recent monographs and articles on these subjects: J. Beaucamp, Le statut de la femme a Byzance, 2 vols. (Paris, 1990-92); A. E. Laiou, “The Role of Women in Byzantine Society,’ JOB 31.1 (1981), 233-60; eadem, “Observations on the Life and Ideology of Byzantine Women,” ByzF 9 (1985), 59-102; C. Galatariotou, “Holy Women and Witches: Aspects of Byzantine Conceptions of Gender,’ BMGS 9 (1985), 59-102; L. Garland, “The Life and Ideology of Byzantine Women,” Byzantion 58 (1988), 361-93.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION Xi

cludes fifty-five women (exclusive of groups) martyred during the persecutions of the third and early fourth centuries, fourteen holy women of the fourth and fifth centuries, four from the sixth century, none from the seventh, and eight from the iconoclastic era of the eighth and ninth centuries. By way of contrast, the Synaxarion lists sixty-four male saints for the iconoclastic period.’ For subsequent centuries, the numbers of new female saints provided with vitae are also very low: five in the tenth century, one each for the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, one for the fourteenth, and none in the fifteenth.!° How- ever, these figures may not present a completely accurate picture, as textual evidence always depends upon accidents of survival of manuscripts. More- over, because so many saints were venerated at the local level, in some cases no vita may have ever been produced."

The reasons for the imbalance between male and female saints are still not fully understood, but must reflect societal attitudes toward women, the phasing out of most consecrated offices for women after the sixth century,!” the much larger proportion of monks compared with nuns, and the greater opportunities during the middle and late Byzantine centuries for monks to

° These figures are taken from A. Kazhdan and A.-M. Talbot, “Women and Icono- clasm,” BZ 84-85 (1991-92), 392, 395, 405-7.

0 Nonetheless, in the post-Byzantine period some new women saints were recog- nized by the Orthodox church, both in Greece and Russia; cf. E.M. Walsh, “The Women Martyrs of Nikodemos Hagiorites’ Neon Martyrologion,’ GOrThR 36 (1991), 71-91; C. Cavarnos, St. Methodia of Kimolos [Modern Orthodox Saints, 9] (Belmont, Mass., 1987); B. Meehan, Holy Women of Russia (San Francisco, Calif., 1992).

| Cf., for example, the cases of Irene-Eulogia Choumnaina and Thomas, both ab- besses of the Palaiologan period. Although miracles took place at Choumnaina’s tomb (Nicephorus Gregoras. Byzantina historia, ed. L. Schopen and I. Bekker, II [Bonn, 1855], 238), she was never recognized as a saint because of her anti-Palamite views. Further on her, see A. C. Hero, “Irene-Eulogia Choumnaina Palaiologina, Abbess of the Convent of Philanthropos Soter in Constantinople,” ByzF 9 (1985), 119-47. The historian Sphrantzes included a “mini-vita” of his godmother Thomais in his History, stating that she was viewed as a holy woman by her contemporaries; yet her name was never inserted into the official church calendar of commemoration of saints. See Geor- gios Sphrantzes. Memorii 1401-1477, ed. V. Grecu (Bucharest, 1966), chap. 18, pp. 32-36; Eng. trans. M. Philippides, The Fall of the Byzantine Empire: A Chronicle by George Sphrantzes, 1401-1477 (Amherst, 1980), 21, 37-40.

” After the 6th century the offices of widow and deaconess, so important during the formative years of Christianity, virtually disappeared, as did the consecrated lay virgins.

Xil Hoty WoMEN OF BYZANTIUM

adopt a solitary and rigorously ascetic lifestyle, in contrast to the cenobitic form of monasticism exclusively approved for women.!? Women’s convents also became more cloistered and contemplative in contrast to those of late antiquity, which placed greater emphasis upon charitable service in the com- munity.'* It must also be remembered that even though the numbers of new female saints decline during the later centuries of the Byzantine Empire, the dearth of holy women was offset by a tremendous surge in the veneration of the Theotokos from the sixth century onward" and by the continuing popular- ity of biblical women saints and female martyrs (e.g., Thekla and Barbara). A definite transformation in type of female saint occurs over time. The women martyrs of the first four Christian centuries were followed by transves- tite nuns and female hermits in the fifth and sixth centuries,’ then by cenobitic nuns and married laywomen in the eighth through tenth centuries.'” The gory deaths of female martyrs are succeeded by a trend to harsh mortification, which renders the female body virtually sexless (e.g., Mary of Egypt), or by a form of asceticism in which women deny their gender by dressing as monks (Mary/Marinos, Matrona), or wanton depravity followed. by sincere repen- tance and a life of abstinence and isolation (Pelagia; Thais; Mary of Egypt; Mary, the niece of Abraham). There is also the occasional virgin who is con- secrated to monastic life at a tender age (Elisabeth the Wonderworker). After the seventh century there is a remarkable shift to married women in the ranks of female saints,'* although earlier types of saints are occasionally

3 On this, see A.-M. Talbot, “A Comparison of the Monastic Experience of Byzan- tine Men and Women,” GOrThR 30 (1985), 1-2, 16-18.

4 This observation was made by an anonymous referee who commented that as a result “one has far less public context for establishing sanctity.”

'S As demonstrated compellingly by Av. Cameron in her articles “The Theotokos in Sixth-Century Constantinople,” JTS 29 (1978), 79-108, and “The Virgin’s Robe: An Episode in the History of Early Seventh-Century Constantinople,’ Byzantion 49 (1979), 42-S6.

'6 The classic study of Byzantine transvestite nuns is Patlagean, “La femme de- guisee.”

'7 This observation was first made in Patlagean, “La femme deguisee,” esp. 617-23.

18 Although the numbers of married holy women are particularly striking in the 9th and 10th centuries, there were earlier role models such as the mother and sister of Gregory of Nazianzos. Gregory commemorated his sister St. Gorgonia (d. 370) in a funeral oration that resembles a vita in many aspects, praising her devotion to her husband and children, piety, asceticism, and charity. He eulogized his mother Nonna

GENERAL INTRODUCTION Xiil

found.'’? Many holy women of the ninth through thirteenth centuries entered monastic life after being widowed (Athanasia, Theodora of Thessalonike, Theodora of Arta); other married women attained sanctity without ever hav- ing taken monastic vows (e.g., Mary the Younger, Thomais, plus the empresses Theophano, Irene, and Theodora, wife of Theophilos).”° In contrast, relatively few male saints of the middle Byzantine period were ever married.”! It must be admitted, however, that while marriage is not viewed as an obstacle to sanc- tity, it is not always presented in a positive manner. Matrona, Mary the Younger, and Thomais were all abused by their husbands in one way or other, and found marriage a form of martyrdom.

The few women whose sanctity was recognized in the middle Byzantine period were restricted to local cults” and, with one exception, their vitae are preserved in a limited number of manuscripts.”? Moreover, no strong icono- graphic tradition developed for the women saints of the middle and late Byz- antine periods; surviving images are known only of Theodora of Thessalonike and Theodora of Arta.”

Judging from the number of surviving manuscripts of their vitae and the

for similar virtues in his funeral oration on his father. Cf Gregory of Nazianzos, or. 8 and 18, chaps. 7-12, 21, in PG 35:789-818 and 992-1000, 1009; Eng. trans. in L. P. McCauley et al., Funeral Orations by Saint Gregory Nazianzen and Saint Ambrose (Washington, D. C., 1953), 101-18, 124-28, 135.

9 Thus a transvestite nun, Anna/Euphemianos, and a female hermit, Theoktiste of Lesbos, are known from the 9th century. On the decline in female hermits, see Talbot, “A Comparison,” 16-17.

20 For more extensive discussion of the phenomenon of the married laywoman saint, see A. Laiou’s introduction to the Life of St. Mary the Younger, below, pp. 239-52.

21 Among the few who come to mind are St. Philaretos the Merciful (8th century), Euthymios the Younger (9th century), Philotheos of Opsikion (uncertain date), and Cyril Phileotes (11th—12th centuries).

2 FE. g., Athanasia at Aegina, the two Theodoras at Thessalonike and Arta respec- tively, Mary the Younger at Bizye. Although Thomais was a Constantinopolitan saint and venerated at the local convent of the Theotokos to uikpa ‘Popotov, her feastday is not included in the Synaxarion of Constantinople, so her cult must have been very minor indeed.

23 One each in the case of Athanasia and Thomais, two each for Theodora of Thessa- lonike and Mary the Younger. Only the vita of Theoktiste achieved wide popularity, as attested by the twenty-seven manuscripts in which it survives.

4 The former is depicted in a fresco at Hagia Sophia in Thessalonike, the latter in a bas-relief on her sarcophagus in her convent at Arta. The sculpted image of Theodora

Xiv Hoty WoMEN OF BYZANTIUM

frequency of their artistic representation in monumental church decoration, icons, and seals, the most popular female saints of the Byzantine era were, in fact, those of the first through sixth centuries: martyrs (e.g., Thekla, Euphe- mia, Barbara, and Catherine); transvestite nuns (e.g., Theodora of Alexan- dria, Euphrosyne of Alexandria); and repentant harlots (e.g., Mary of Egypt). To their number can be added images of sainted empresses like Helena, the mother of Constantine, and to a lesser extent the iconodules Irene and The- odora.”°

A recent study has emphasized that not only women embraced the cult of female saints: the audience for the vitae of holy women included both sexes, and virtually all known hagiographers were male.*° This latter conclusion is borne out by the evidence of the ten Lives in this volume, of which six were definitely written by men.’’ There is no conclusive evidence as to the gender of the anonymous authors of the other four vitae.

It is also clear that both male and female pilgrims visited the shrines of women saints; in fact, a tabulation of miraculous cures effected by the holy women in this volume reveals a fairly even balance in the gender distribution

of Arta should perhaps be discounted, as it is not intended to be a holy icon, but rather a dynastic portrait. [After this volume went to press, an article appeared questioning the identification of the figure as Theodora; cf. vita of Theodora of Arta, below, note 53]

25 For research in progress on these questions, see C. L. Connor, “Female Saints in Byzantine Monumental Decoration,” BSCAbstr 17 (1991), 48-49, and J. Cotsonis, “Women and Sphragistic Iconography: A Means of Investigating Gender-Related Pi- ety,” BSCAbstr 19 (1993), 59. I thank Sharon Gerstel for advice on this subject.

76 T am grateful to Claudia Rapp for sharing with me a copy of her unpublished paper, “Figures of Female Sanctity: Byzantine Edifying Manuscripts and their Audi- ence” (scheduled to appear in DOP 50 [1996]). Her conclusions are supported by the observations of J. Cotsonis; see note 25, above. The only two attested medieval Greek female hagiographers are Sergia, who wrote an account of the translation of the relics of St. Olympias (BHG 1376), and Theodora Raoulaina, who composed a vita of Theo- dore and Theophanes Grapti (BHG 1793). The Syriac vita of St. Febronia (written in the late 6th to early 7th century) was supposedly written by Thomais, a fellow nun; cf. S. P. Brock, S. A. Harvey, Holy Women of the Syrian Orient (Berkeley-Los Angeles, Calif., 1987), 150 and 176.

27 The vitae of Matrona, by an anonymous male hagiographer; Mary of Egypt, at- tributed to Sophronios, and indubitably composed by a male author; Theoktiste of Lesbos, by Niketas Magistros; Athanasia of Aegina, by an anonymous male author; Theodora of Thessalonike, by Gregory the Cleric; Theodora of Arta, by the monk Job.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION XV

of those who sought healing.*® Women occasionally sought healing from fe- male saints for specifically female complaints, such as menstrual disorders, breast cancer, and drying up of breast milk,” but they also approached holy men (or their relics) with similar complaints.*°

One may conclude then that only a small percentage of Byzantine saints were women and that, with the exception of a few early martyrs and ascetics, they were not widely venerated in the Byzantine church. Thus the Lives of those women who did achieve sanctity are of particular interest for the insights they give us into attitudes toward the status of women in Byzantium. More- over, these texts present a considerable amount of information on Byzantine domestic households, the spiritual life of laywomen and the plight of battered wives (as in the vitae of Mary the Younger and Thomais), the foundation and growth of monasteries (vita of Matrona), the daily monastic routine (vita of Theodora of Thessalonike), and the development of popular cults (especially the vitae of Athanasia, Theodora of Thessalonike, Mary the Younger, and Thomais). Our understanding of the everyday life of Byzantine women would be much poorer without these sacred biographies, which open a door into the cloister and into the homes of ordinary people.

A Note on the Translation

The aim of the translators has been the production of a text that is close to the original Greek, yet at the same time readable and comprehensible. It has proved impossible to impose stylistic uniformity on the work of nine different

°8 Five of the vitae in this volume include accounts of miracles. Elisabeth healed four men and one woman (plus other unspecified women), Athanasia five men and six women, Theodora of Thessalonike seven men and nine women, Mary the Younger twenty-one men and eleven women, and Thomais eight men and five women.

?° See vitae of Elisabeth (pp. 117, 130-31), Mary the Younger (Chap. 15), and Thomais (Chaps. 13-14). See also the remarks of P. Halsall in his introduction to the vita of Thomais, note 7.

3° Thus, hemorrhaging women were healed by Athanasios of Athos and patriarch Athanasios I of Constantinople, and women with lactation problems were cured by Symeon the Stylite. Cf. J. Noret, Vitae duae antiquae Sancti Athanasii Athonitae (Turn- hout, 1982), vita B, chap. 72; A.-M. Talbot, Faith Healing in Late Byzantium: The Post- humous Miracles of the Patriarch Athanasios I of Constantinople by Theoktistos the Stou- dite (Brookline, Mass., 1983), 112; P. van den Ven, La vie ancienne de S. Symeon Stylite le Jeune, | (Brussels, 1962), chap. 138, p. 129.

Xvi Hoty WoMEN OF BYZANTIUM

contributors, hence variations in style reflect the taste of the individual trans- lator rather than that of the hagiographer. The editor has attempted, however, to maintain consistency in the translation of terms such as “blessed” for ooo¢ (ova), “superior” for nyovunEevos (nyovuevn), and “steward” for otcovouoc.

Greek proper names and technical terms have been strictly transliterated for the most part, except in instances where a traditional latinized or angli- cized form (e.g., Homer, Thebes, Constantinople) is well known. The angli- cized form of Greek first names that are common in English (e.g., Mary, John, Peter) has also been adopted.

The use of pointed brackets (< .. . >) indicates the insertion of words to clarify the meaning of a phrase, for example, “the <previous> miracle,’ while square brackets ([ . . . ]) represent an additional phrase of identification, e.g., "the mother superior [Anna].”

Scriptural citations are taken from the Lancelot Brenton translation of the Septuagint and from the King James Version of the New Testament.*!

31 The King James Version was chosen over the more accurate translation of the New Revised Standard Version, because its archaizing language harmonizes better with the Brenton translation of the Septuagint. In a few cases where the Brenton or King James translations are misleading, the translators have substituted their own rendering.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want first of all to express my appreciation to the translators, who were valued collaborators and colleagues in the preparation of this volume; their cooperative response to deadlines and requests for revisions enabled the book to go to press in a timely fashion. I should also like to acknowledge the invalu- able assistance of the members of the Advisory Board for the series, who helped to define the scope and contents of the initial volumes, and advised on the selection of translators and on the format of the volumes. John Duffy, Elizabeth Fisher, and Angela Hero deserve special thanks for carefully re- viewing my translation of the Lives of Theodora of Thessalonike and Theo- dora of Arta. My colleagues Alexander Alexakis, Robert Browning, Ste- phanos Efthymiades, Paul Magdalino, and Lee Sherry helped to solve some thorny problems of translation and emendation. A word of thanks also to three students, Deborah Fitzl, Rachel Rezek, and Jonathan Talbot, who re- viewed portions of the typescript and made useful suggestions from the view- point of the undergraduate reader. In addition, I should like to convey my gratitude to the two anonymous referees for the Dumbarton Oaks press who made many excellent suggestions for improving the introductions and notes. Finally, I am grateful to the copy editor, Susan Higman, and to members of the Dumbarton Oaks publications staff who oversaw the transformation of typescript to printed book, especially Glenn Ruby and Robin Surratt.

Various publishers have graciously granted permission to translate works still under copyright: St.-Pietersabdij Steenbrugge (vita of Mary/Marinos), the Center for Hagiological Studies in Thessalonike (vita of Theodora of Thessa- lonike), and the Societe des Bollandistes in Brussels (vitae of Elisabeth the Wonderworker, Athanasia of Aegina, Theoktiste of Lesbos, Mary the Younger, and Thomais of Lesbos).

The National Endowment for the Humanities and Dumbarton Oaks pro- vided generous financial support for preparation of the translations. I am par- ticularly grateful to the director of Dumbarton Oaks, Angeliki Laiou, who first suggested a series of hagiographic translations and has herself translated one of the vitae, and to Henry Maguire, director of Byzantine Studies, who has offered encouragement and advice over the past three years.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Scriptural Citations

Septuagint (all citations are based on the numbering of the L.C.L. Brenton edition, The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English [London, 1851])

Gen. Genesis

Ex. Exodus

Lev. Leviticus

Num. Numbers

Deut. Deuteronomy

Josh. Joshua

Judg. Judges

Ruth

Ki. Kings

N.B. 1-2 Sam. in OT = 1-2 Kings in Sept.

1-2 Kings in OT = 3-4 Kings in Sept.

Chr. Chronicles ( = Paralipomenon of Sept.)

Ezra

Esth. Esther

Job

Ps. Psalms (first number = Sept. numbering, number in parentheses = OT numbering)

Prov. Proverbs

Eccl. Ecclesiastes

Song of Sol. Song of Solomon

Is. Isaiah

Jer. Jeremiah

Ezek. Ezekiel

Dan. Daniel

Hos. Hosea

Joel

Amos

Obad. Obadiah

XX Hoty WoMEN OF BYZANTIUM

Jon. Jonah

Mic. Micah

Nah. Nahum

Hab. Habakkuk

Zeph. Zephaniah

Hag. Haggai

Zach. Zachariah

Mal. Malachi

Apocrypha

Macc. Maccabees

Tob. Tobit

Jdth. Judith

Sir. Siracides (Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, Ecclesiasticus) Sap. Wisdom of Solomon (Sapientia Solomonis)

New Testament

Mt. Matthew

Mk. Mark

Lk. Luke

Jn. John

Acts

Rom. Romans

Cor. Corinthians Gal. Galatians Eph. Ephesians Phil. Philippians Col. Colossians Th. Thessalonians Tim. Timothy

Tit. Titus

Philem. Philemon Heb. Hebrews James

Pet. Peter

John epistles to John Jude

Rev. Revelation

LIsT OF ABBREVIATIONS XX1

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BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift

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Delehaye, Deux typica : H. Delehaye, Deux typica byzantins de l'epoque des Paleologues (Brussels, 1921) Demetrakos, Lexikon . ; D. B. Demetrakos, Meya Ae§ikov tic “EAAnvixiis yawoons, 9 vols. (Athens, 1933-51) DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers DuCange, Glossarium Glossarium ad Scriptores Mediae et Infimae Graecitatis (Leiden, 1688; repr. Paris, 1943)

EEBS "Enetnpts thc Etaipevac BuCavtiwav Zrovbav EO Echos d’ Orient EtBalk : Etudes balkaniques

Gautier, “Kecharitomene” ; P. Gautier, “Le typikon de la Theotokos Kecharitomene,” REB 43 (1985), 5-165 Goar, Euchologion J. Goar, Euchologion sive Rituale Graecorum (Venice, 1730; repr. Graz, 1960) GOrThR Greek Orthodox Theological Review GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies Gryson, Ministry of Women R. Gryson, The Ministry of Women in the Early Church (Collegeville, Minn., 1976)

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JTS Journal of Theological Studies JWalt Journal of the Walters Art Gallery

Kazhdan, List of Saints A. Kazhdan, The List of Saints of the 1st—10th Centuries in a Chronological Order ({1993], unpublished typescript, available at Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Library) :

Koukoules, Bios Ph. Koukoules, BuCavtivev Bioc Kar MOALtLOMOG, 6 vols. (Athens 1948-57) :

Kurtz, Theodora E. Kurtz, Des Klerikers Gregorios Bericht uber Leben, Wunderthaten und Translation der hl. Theodora von Thessalonich nebst der Metaphrase des Johannes Staurakios (St. Petersburg, 1902)

Laiou, “Historia henos gamou” . wea : ;

A. Laiou, “"H iotopia Evog yopov: 0 Biog tis GyLac Owpardos tig Acofiac,” in “H ckaOnpepivyn Con oto BuCavtio, ed. Ch. Maltezou (Athens, 1989), 237-51

Laiou, Mariage A. Laiou, Mariage, amour et parente a Byzance aux XTe—XTITe siecles (Paris, 1992)

Lampe, Lexicon G. W.H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford, 1961-68)

XXIV Hoty WoMEN OF BYZANTIUM

LCI Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, ed. E. Kirschbaum and W. Braunfels, 8 vols. (Rome- Freiburg-Basel-Vienna, 1968-76) Leutsch-Schneidewin, Corpus Corpus Paroemiographorum Graecorum, ed. E. L. Leutsch, F. G. Schneidewin, 2 vols. (Gottingen, 1839-51; repr. Hildesheim, 1958) Liddell-Scott, Lexicon H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, A Greek- English Lexicon (Oxford, 1968) Majeska, Russian Travelers G. Majeska, Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (Washington, D.C., 1984) Mango, “Byzantine Church” C. Mango, “The Byzantine Church at Vize (Bizye) in Thrace and St. Mary the Younger,’ ZRVI 11

(1968), 9-13

Nicol, Epiros I D.M. Nicol, The Despotate of Epiros (Oxford, 1957)

OCA Orientalia Christiana Analecta

ODB Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, ed. A. Kazhdan et

: al., 3 vols. (New York, 1991) Oikonomides, Listes : -_ N. Oikonomides, Les listes de preseance byzantines du IXe et Xe siecle (Paris, 1972) Papageorgiu, “Vita” P. Papageorgiu, “Zur Vita der hl. Theodora von Thessalonike,” BZ 10 (1901), 144-58 Paschalides, Theodora ; ; S. A. Paschalides, ‘O Biog tig Oo1opvpopAvtidog Oeodapac tig Ev Oeooadrovicy (Thessalonike, 1991) Patlagean, “La femme deguisee” to E. Patlagean, “L’histoire de la femme deguisee en moine et l’evolution de la saintete feminine a Byzance,” Studi Medievali ser. 3, 17 (1976),

List OF ABBREVIATIONS XXV

597-623, repr. in eadem, Structure sociale, famille, chretiente a Byzance, IVe-XTe siecle (London, 1981), pt. XI

Patlagean, “Theodora” ;

E. Patlagean, “Theodora de Thessalonique. Une sainte moniale et un culte citadin (IXe-XXe siecle),” in Culto dei santi istituzione e classi sociali in eta preindustriale, ed. S. B. Gajano and L. Sebastini (Rome, 1984), 39-67

Peeters, Recherches, 1

P. Peeters, Recherches d’histoire et de philologie

orientales, | (Brussels, 1951)

PG Patrologiae cursus completus, Series graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne, 161 vols. (Paris, 1857-66)

PLP Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, 12 vols. (Vienna, 1976-94)

PLRE The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, ed.

A. H. M. Jones and J. R. Martindale et al., 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1971-92)

PO Patrologia orientalis (Paris, 1903-)

REB Revue des etudes byzantines

Reg F. Dolger and P. Wirth, Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des ostromischen Reiches, 5 vols. (Munich-Berlin, 1924-65)

RegPatr Les regestes des actes du Patriarcat de Constantinople,

ed. V. Grumel, V. Laurent, and J. Darrouzes, 2 vols. in 8 pts. (Paris, 1932-79) Rhalles-Potles, Syntagma . ; ’ G. A. Rhalles, M. Potles, Luvtaypo. tov Sermv Kat lep@v Kavoveov, 6 vols. (Athens, 1852-59; repr.

1966)

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Sophocles, Lexicon E. A. Sophocles, Greek Lexicon of the Roman and

XXV1 Hoty WoMEN OF BYZANTIUM

Byzantine Periods (New York, 1900; repr. New York, 1957) Stephanus, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae H. Estienne, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, 8 vols. (Paris,

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TIB Tabula imperii byzantini, ed. H. Hunger, vol. 1- (Vienna, 1976-)

TM Travaux et memoires

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LIsT OF ABBREVIATIONS XXVIi

Vasiliev, Byz. Arabes A.A. Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes, 2 vols. in 3 pts. (Brussels, 1935-68) Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims J. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims: Before the Crusades (Warminster, 1977) Zepos, Jus J. and P. Zepos, Jus Graecoromanum, 8 vols. (Athens, 1931; repr. Aalen, 1962) ZRVI Zbornik radova vizantoloskog Instituta

1. LIFE OF ST. MARY/MARINOS translated by Nicholas Constas

Introduction

St. Mary (also called Marinos) belongs to the remarkable group of so-called transvestite nuns (i.e., nuns who disguised themselves as monks) popular in Byzantine hagiography from the fifth to the ninth centuries. Their popularity was by no means limited to the Greek-speaking world, and the story of Mary/ Marinos appeared in Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Arabic, and much later, medieval German and French versions.! Thus, in contrast to many of the holy women in this volume who had only localized cults, Mary/Mari- nos, whose geographic origins are shrouded in legend, was venerated through- out the medieval world, in both east and west. She is commemorated in the Synaxarion of Constantinople on 12 February.”

According to her vita, Mary, with hair cut short, dressed like a man, and renamed Marinos, followed her father into a monastery where she lived undetected as a monk. Remaining in the monastery after her father’s death, “Marinos” was eventually accused of fathering a child. She did not deny her “crime,” but voluntarily accepted severe punishment and raised the infant in the monastery. Her sex, and with it her innocence of the paternity charges, was not revealed until after her death. Although the story does not locate Mary in any specific historical or geographical context, it has been suggested that the original vita was written in Greek sometime between the early sixth

' The Latin vita was edited by L. Clugnet, ROC 6 (1901), 357-78; the Syriac by F. Nau, ROC 6 (1901), 283-89; the Coptic by H. Hyvernat, ROC 7 (1902), 136-52; the Ethiopic by E. Pereira, ROC 8 (1902), 614-22; the Arabic by I. Guidi and E. Blochet, ROC 7 (1902) 245-64; and the medieval German and French versions by L. Clugnet, ROC 7 (1902), 478-500, 647-67; for the Armenian version, see P. Peeters, Bibliotheca hagiographica orientalis [= SubsHag, 10] (Brussels, 1910), 151, no. 690.

2 SynaxCP 460.

2 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

and mid-seventh centuries, probably in Syria.* The vita of Mary/Marinos translated here, termed by Richard the vita antiqua, is in his view the version closest to the original Life of the sixth or seventh century, which underwent considerable changes over time as the result of oral transmission. The vita antiqua is preserved in three Athonite manuscripts, the oldest of which (Va- topedi 38) dates to the tenth century.* The anonymous author writes in a sim- ple and vivid style, making extensive use of dialogue and omitting the charac- teristic prooimion. The vita is also notable for the almost total absence of scriptural citations.

Monastic writers and their audiences were fascinated by stories of holy transvestites, and despite the injunction of Deuteronomy 22:5,> more than a dozen different vitae were composed on this theme, which seems to have origi- nated in the second-century Acts of St. Thekla.* One thus reads of St. Anasta- sia Patrikia, who fled the advances of the emperor Justinian (and the jealousy of his wife Theodora) by hiding in the Egyptian desert as the monk Anastas- ios, or St. Matrona of Perge,’ whose transvestite masquerade as the monk Babylas was exposed by her pierced earlobes, or St. Euphrosyne of Alexan- dria, who, as the attractive novice Smaragdos, was removed to an isolated cell

3 Basing his conclusions on a later redaction of the vita, L. Clugnet suggested that Mary lived near Tripoli in Syria in the Sth century (“Histoire de sainte Marine,’ ROC 6 [1901], 276-77). According to M. Richard, “La Vie Ancienne de Sainte Marie sur- nommee Marinos,” in Corona Gratiarum, I (Brugge, 1975), 112, the original vita was written between 525 and 650. Richard discusses the various versions of the vita on pp. 83-87 of his article. A Syrian provenance for the motif of the transvestite nun has recently been reasserted by S. A. Harvey, Asceticism and Society in Crisis. John of Ephe- sus and the Lives of the Eastern Saints (Berkeley, 1990), 115-16, who remarks that the “(transvestite nun) motif crystallized the misogynism that had become an integral part of the Syrian church.”

4 Richard, “La Vie Ancienne,” 86—87.

° “The apparel of a man shall not be on a woman, neither shall a man put on a woman’s dress; for every one that does these things is an abomination to the Lord thy God.”

6 The connection with St. Thekla was made by an anonymous referee. A catalogue of twelve female transvestite saints, citing editions and manuscripts, can be found in Patlagean, “La femme deguisee,” 600-602. Patlagean’s list does not include St. Susan- nah/John (AASS, Sept. 6:153-59 and SynaxCP 58-59).

7 See Life no. 2 in this volume.

St. Mary/MARINOS 3

when “he” became a source of temptation to the other monks. Others, such as St. Apollinaria/Dorotheos, St. Eugenia/Eugenios, St. Susannah/John, and St. Theodora/Theodore, refused to disclose their true identity even though, like Mary/Marinos, they too were falsely accused and peremptorily con- demned for seduction and rape.’

H. Delehaye’s reductive characterization of Mary’s vita as a “pious novel- ette,” the plot of which was a “favorite subject of the purveyors of edifying fiction,’? probably underestimates the significant social, psychological, and religious concepts embodied in the dramatic figure of the saintly female trans- vestite. The holy transvestite nun is an enigmatic, though compelling figure. Unified in her contradictions of the masculine and the feminine, indeed consti- tuted by those very contradictions, the transvestite nun is a symbol of the ambiguities, tensions, and hostility that often comprised Early Christian atti- tudes toward women.’ Although these attitudes are difficult to characterize without caricaturizing, women were generally perceived as having to tran- scend their inferior feminine nature to attain spiritual virility and manliness. In this vertiginous conquest of manhood by woman, Mary/Marinos is a hero of virile temperament, and at the same time a hero who suffers, voluntarily accepting marginalization, victimization, and helplessness. Ironically, her ex- ploits suggest that the feminine element is part of the ambivalence of virile strength, and that it may serve to balance and amplify that strength, as well as subvert its authoritative claims to dominance and hegemony.

8 It should be noted that late antique hagiography also included tales of men who were falsely accused of impregnating a woman and who endured this calumny with humility; see, for example, C. Butler, The Lausiac History of Palladius (Cambridge, 1898), chap. 70, pp. 165-67; Eng. trans. R. T. Meyer, Palladius: The Lausiac History (London, 1965) 151-52; Apophthegmata Patrum, chap. 40.1 (PG 65:257-60), with Eng. trans. by B. Ward, The Desert Christian: Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The Alphabetical Collection (New York, 1965), 124-125.

° H. Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints (New York, 1962), 51; see also 150-54. The book was originally published in Brussels in 1905 as Les legendes hagiographiques.

10 These attitudes have been surveyed by Patlagean in “La femme deguisee,” 605-9. See also W. A. Meeks, “The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of Symbol in Earliest Christianity,” History of Religions 13 (1973-74), 165-208; A. Rousselle, Porneia. On Desire and the Body in Antiquity, trans. F. Pheasant (Oxford, 1988), esp. 24-46, 141-59; and K. Aspegren, The Male Woman: A Feminine Ideal in the Early Church, ed. R. Kieffer (Uppsala, 1990).

4 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

Modern attempts to interpret the saintly transvestite have ranged from the psychological" and the literary,’ to the socioreligious'’ and theological.'* Although there is something of value in each of these interpretive approaches, it should also be noted that the story of Mary/Marinos is primarily a drama of elaborate personal transformation, a grand exchange of otherness. The dra- matic movement of the vita consequently unfolds as a harrowing ritual of initi- ation, a mysterious rite of passage marked by three characteristic stages: sepa- ration, liminality, and reaggregation.'* Accordingly, the initiate is deprived of the old status at the beginning and accorded the new status at the end. The middle phase is marked by a dark ambiguity, isolation, the threat of annihila- tion, and often an inversion of the role that the final phase will confer (i.e., the saint putting on a man’s clothes before being accepted as a “man’’). There is often a segregation of those being initiated, as if they were dangerous or unworthy. Mary/Marinos, like many transvestite nuns, was thought to be a

| M. Delcourt, “Le complexe de Diane dans lhagiographie chretienne,’ RHR 153 (1958), 1-33, and eadem, “Female Saints in Masculine Clothing,’ Hermaphrodite: Myths and Rites of the Bisexual Figure in Classical Antiquity, trans. J. Nicholson (Lon- don, 1961), 84-102. Delcourt explains the story in (Freudian) terms of the heroine’s psychology and suggests that the change of clothes is a form of self-mutilation in pur- suit of androgynous perfection.

2 J. Anson, “The Female Transvestite in Early Monasticism: The Origin and Devel- opment of a Motif?’ Viator 5 (1974), 1-32. Anson, arguing that the story neither records real female behavior nor shows any interest in female characterization, contextualizes the motif in a male society dedicated to celibacy and given to an excess of anti- feminism. Anson suggests that the story is a “wish-fulfillment dream of domestication of the demonic seductress,” and that the “secret longing for a woman in a monastery is brilliantly concealed by disguising the woman as a man and making her appear guilty of the very temptation to which the monks are most subject. After being punished for their desires, their guilt is compensated by turning her into a saint with universal re- morse and sanctimonious worship” (pp. 17, 30).

3 Patlagean, “La femme deguisee,” and V. L. Bullough, “Transvestism in the Middle Ages,” in Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church, ed. V. L. Bullough and J. Brundage (Buffalo, New York, 1982), 43-54.

4 E.g., S.A. Harvey, “Women in Early Byzantine Hagiography: Reversing the Story,” in ‘That Gentle Strength’: Historical Perspectives on Women in Christianity, ed. L. Coon, K. Haldane, and E. Sommer (Charlottesville, Va., 1990), 46-50.

'S For this, and what follows, see A. Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, trans. M. B. Vizedom and G. L. Caffee (London, 1960), and K. Dowden, Death and the Maiden: Girl's Initiation Rites in Greek Mythology (London, 1989).

St. Mary/MARINOS 5

eunuch and lived on the periphery of the community. Transvestite nuns are creatures of the margins.'®

The process of initiation and transformation is a passage from one social role or status to another, and as such it marks boundaries and defines catego- ries. It suggests that society consists not of individuals but of types, signified by costume and dress.'” If monastic culture defines and privileges certain val- ues, thus making monasticism possible, these values may often be restrictive and confining, such as the notion that women are spiritually inferior to men. In contriving a ritual of transition, the culture attempts to address and solve a problem that it has itself created. Accordingly, the lives of the saintly trans- vestite nuns suggest a moment when monastic androcentrism became a prob- lem, or at least a question, to itself. In the symbolic process of redefinition, undefined and uncontrollable human potential is momentarily released, and the saint abandons structured relations in recognition of a more fundamen- tal unity.

'6 The marginalization of the eunuch may be more than a literary commonplace; cf. the numerous instances of separate monasteries established exclusively for eunuchs cited in R. Guilland, “Les eunuques dans l’empire byzantin,’ REB 1 (1943), 197-238, esp. 202-5. The most recent treatment of the Byzantine eunuch is found in K. M. Ring- rose, “Living in the Shadows: Eunuchs and Gender in Byzantium,” in Third Sex, Third Gender. Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History, ed. G. Herdt (New York, 1994), 85-109, 507-18, esp. 97-98.

Cf. J. Herrin, “In Search of Byzantine Women: Three Avenues of Approach,” in Images of Women in Antiquity, ed. A. Cameron and A. Kuhrt (Detroit, 1983), 179: “Apparel, far more than physique, identified a person. The monastic disguises adopted by women enabled them to simulate a holiness reserved by male ecclesiastical authori- ties to men only. To the church fathers, the very idea of a holy woman was a contradic- tion in terms, which women could only get round by pretending to be men.”

6 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

Bibliography

Edition Used for Translation '

(no BHG no.) M. Richard, “La Vie Ancienne de Sainte Marie surnommee Marinos,” in Corona Gratiarum. Miscellanea patristica, historica et litur- gica Eligio Dekkers O.S.B. XII Lustra complenti oblata, | (Brugge, 1975), 83-94; repr. in M. Richard, Opera minora, II (Leuven, 1977), no. 67.

Other Editions

(BHG 1163) L. Clugnet, “Vie et office de sainte Marine,’ ROC 6 (1901), 575-77; repr. in idem, Vie et office de sainte Marine [ = BHO 8] (Paris, 1905), 36-38.

Translations

(French trans.): M. Richard, “La Vie Ancienne,” 95-99.

(English trans. of Syriac vita): A. S. Lewis, Select Narratives of Holy Women from the Syro-Antiochene or Sinai Palimpsest [Studia Sinaitica, 10] (Lon- don, 1900), 36-45.

Related Texts L. Clugnet, “Histoire de sainte Marine,’ ROC 6 (1901), 572-92.

Secondary Bibliography , Patlagean, “La femme deguisee,” 606.

St. Mary/MARINOS 7

[p. 87] THE LIFE AND CONDUCT OF THE BLESSED MARY

WHO CHANGED HER NAME TO MARINos!®

1. There was a certain man named Eugenios who lived in purity, piety, and in the fear of God. He had an honorable and devout wife,’? who bore him a daughter whom he named Mary. When his wife died, the father raised the child with much teaching and in <the ways of> a pious life.

2. When the young girl grew up, her father said to her, “My child, behold, all that I own I place in your hands, for I am departing in order to save my soul.” Hearing these things <said> by her father, the young girl said to him, “Father, do you wish to save your own soul and see mine destroyed? Do you not know what the Lord says? That the good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep?””® And again she said <to him>, “The one who saves the soul is like the one who [p. 88] created it.”

3. Hearing these things, her father was moved to compunction at her words, for she was weeping and lamenting. He therefore began to speak to her and said, “Child, what am I to do with you? You are a female, and I desire to enter a monastery. How then can you remain with me? For it is through the members of your sex that the devil wages war on the servants of God.” To which his daughter responded, “Not so, my lord, for I shall not enter <the monastery> as you say, but I shall first cut off the hair of my head, and clothe myself like a man, and then enter the monastery with you.”

4. The <father>, after distributing all his possessions among the poor, followed the advice of his daughter and cut off the hair of her head, dressed her in the clothing of a man, and changed her name to Marinos.*! And he charged her saying, “Child, take heed how you conduct yourself, for you are about to enter into the midst of fire, for a woman in no way enters a <male>

'8 This title is based on Richard, “La Vie Ancienne,” 113. The numbering and divi- sion of paragraphs follow the Richard edition.

Tn another version of the vita, the wife is called Eugenia; cf. L. Clugnet, ROC 6 (1901), 575.3.

0 Jn. 10:11.

21 In this vita, the father transformed the gender of his daughter (although it was her idea), whereas in the vita of Matrona she herself was responsible for the disguise.

8 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

monastery. Preserve yourself therefore blameless before God, so that we may fulfill our vows.” And taking his daughter, he entered the cenobitic monastery.

5. Day by day, the child advanced in all the virtues, in obedience, in hu- mility, and in much asceticism. After she lived thus for a few years in the monastery, <some of the monks> considered her to be a eunuch, for she was beardless and of delicate voice. Others considered that <this condition> was instead the result of her great asceticism, for she partook of food only every second day.

6. Eventually it came to pass that her father died, but <Mary, remaining in the monastery>, <continued> to progress in asceticism and in obedience, so that [p. 89] she received from God the gift of healing those who were trou- bled by demons. For if she placed her hand upon any of the sick, they were immediately healed.

7. Living together within the cenobitic monastery were forty men. Now once a month four of the brethren were officially sent forth to minister to the needs” of the monastery, because they were responsible for looking after other monks as well, the solitaries, <who lived> outside <the community>. Midway on their journey was an inn, where both those going and those coming were, on account of the great distance, accustomed to <stop and> rest. Moreover, the innkeeper provided <the monks> with many courtesies, accommodating them each with particular solicitude.

8. One day, the superior, summoning abba? Marinos, said to him, “Brother, I know your conduct, how in all things you are perfect and unwaver- ing in your obedience. Be willing then to go forth and attend to the needs of the monastery, for the brethren are annoyed that you do not go forth unto service. For in doing this you will obtain a greater reward from God.’* At

2 “To minister to the needs”-dmeoteAAovto Eic tag GmoKpioetc. Cf. Dorotheos of Gaza, On Refusal to Judge our Neighbor (PG 88:1696a; Eng. trans. in E. P. Wheeler, Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourses and Sayings [Kalamazoo, Mich., 1977], 138): “Those who run messages (01 doKptotoptoL), who have outside ministries, are the feet... . Are you the foot? Do your errands.” For the term dnoxptiotaptos, cf. also Cyril of Scytho- polis, The Life of St. Abraamius, ed. E. Schwartz, Kyrillos von Skythopolis (Leipzig, 1939), 244.7; trans. R. M. Price, Lives of the Monks of Palestine (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1991), 273.

3 Abbas or abba was a term of respect for monks in general, not limited to abbots.

4 Cf. Justinian, Novella 133.5 (CIC 3:672), which strongly urges the appointment of either aged or eunuch monks to the position of apokrisiarios to avoid the likelihood of sexual liaisons.

St. Mary/MARINOS 9

these words, Marinos fell down at his feet and said, “Father, pray for me, and wherever you direct me, there I shall go.”

9. One day, therefore, when Marinos had gone forth unto service along with three other brethren, and while they were all lodging at the inn, it came to pass that a certain soldier deflowered the innkeeper’s daughter, who thereupon became pregnant. The soldier said to her, “If your father should learn of this, say that ‘It was the young monk who slept with me.” Her father, upon realiz- ing that she was pregnant, questioned her closely, saying, “How did this hap- pen to you?” And she placed [p. 90] the blame on Marinos, saying, “The young monk from the monastery, the attractive one called Marinos, he made me pregnant.”

10. Thoroughly outraged, the innkeeper made his way to the monastery, shouting accusations and saying, “Where is that charlatan, that pseudo- Christian, whom you call a Christian?” When one of the stewards** came to meet him, he said, “Welcome.” But the<innkeeper> replied, “The hour was an evil one in which I made your acquaintance.” In like manner he said to the father superior, “May I never see another monk,” and other such things. When he was asked why he was saying these things, he answered, “I had but a single daughter, who I hoped would support me in my old age, but look at what Marinos has done to her, he whom you call a Christian—he has deflowered her and she is pregnant.” The superior said to him, “What can I do for you, brother, since <Marinos> is not here at the moment? When he returns from his duties, however, I will have no recourse but to expel him from the monastery.”

11. When Marinos returned with the three other monks, the superior said to him, “Is this your conduct, and is this your asceticism, that while lodging at the inn you deflowered the innkeeper’s daughter? And now her father, com- ing here, has made us all a spectacle to the laity.’ Hearing these things, Mari- nos fell upon his face, saying, “Forgive me, father, for I have sinned as a man.” But the superior, filled with wrath, cast him out saying, “Never again shall you enter this monastery.”

12. Leaving [p. 91] the monastery, <Marinos> immediately sat down out- side the monastery gate, and there endured the freezing cold and the burning heat. Thereafter, those entering the monastery used to ask him, “Why are you sitting outdoors?” To which he would reply, “Because I fornicated and have been expelled from the monastery.”

13. When the day arrived for the innkeeper’s daughter to give birth, she

25 “Steward” = GmoKploLapLoc.

10 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

bore a male child, and the girl’s father took the <infant> and brought it to the monastery. Finding Marinos sitting outside the gate, he threw the child down before him and said, “Here is the child which you have wickedly engendered. Take it.” And immediately the innkeeper departed.”®

14. Marinos, picking up the child, was filled with distress and said, “Yes, I have received the just reward for my sins, but why should this wretched babe perish here with me?” Accordingly he undertook to procure milk from some shepherds, and so nursed the child as its father. But the distress that over- whelmed him was not all, for the child, whimpering and wailing, continually soiled his [Marinos’] garments.

15. After the passage of three years, the monks entreated the superior saying, “Father, forgive this brother; his punishment is sufficient, for he has confessed his fault to all.’ But when they saw that the superior remained un- moved, the brethren said, “If you do not receive him back, then we too will leave the monastery. For how can we ask God to forgive our sins, when today marks the third year that he has been sitting in the open air [p. 92] beyond the gate, and we do not forgive him?”

16. The superior, considering these things, said to them, “For the sake of your love, I accept him.” And summoning Marinos he said to him, “On ac- count of the sin which you have committed, you are not worthy to resume your former position here. Nevertheless, on account of the brethren’s love, I accept you back into our ranks, but only as the last and least of all.’ At this Marinos began to weep and said, “Even this is a great thing for me, my lord, for you have deemed me worthy to come inside the gate, so that I might thus be given the honor of serving the holy fathers.”

17. Consequently the superior assigned him the lowliest chores of the monastery, and he performed them <all> scrupulously and with great devo- tion. But the child was forever following him about, crying and saying, “Dada, Dada,” and such things as children say when they wish to eat. Thus, in addi- tion to the <usual> trials and temptations that beset a monk, Marinos was continually anxious about procuring and providing sustenance for the child. When the boy grew up, he remained in the monastery, and having been raised in the practice of virtues he was deemed worthy of the monastic habit.

18. One day, after a considerable passage of time, the superior inquired

6 Cf. J. Boswell, The Kindness of Strangers. The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (New York, 1988), 138-97, esp. 189-97.

St. Mary/MARINOS 11

of the brethren, “Where is Marinos? Today is the third day that I have not seen him singing in the choir. He was always the first to be found standing there before the start of the service. Go to his cell, and see whether he is lying ill’ Going [p. 93] to his cell, they found him dead, and informed the superior, saying, “Brother Marinos has died.” But the <superior> said, “In what state did his wretched soul depart? What defense can he make for the sin that he committed?” <Having thus spoken, the superior then> directed that <Mari- nos> be buried. But as they were preparing to wash him, they discovered that he was a woman, and shrieking, they all began to cry out in a single voice, “Lord, have mercy.”

19. The superior, hearing their cries, asked them, “What troubles you so?” And they said, “Brother Marinos is a woman.” Drawing near and seeing <for himself>, the <superior> cast himself down at her feet, and with many tears cried out, “Forgive me, for I have sinned against you. I shall lie dead here at your holy feet until such time as I hear forgiveness for all the wrongs that I have done you.” And while he was uttering many such lamentations, as well as things yet more remarkable, a voice spoke to him saying, “Had you acted knowingly, this sin would not be forgiven you. But since you acted un- knowingly, your sin is forgiven.”

20. The superior thereupon sent <word> to the innkeeper to come and see him. When he arrived, the superior said to him, “Marinos is dead.” The innkeeper replied, “May God forgive him, for he has made of my house a desolation.” But the superior said [p. 94] to him, “You must repent, brother, for you have sinned before God. You also incited me by your words, and for your sake I also sinned, for Marinos is a woman.” Hearing this, the innkeeper was astonished and wondered greatly at his words. And the superior took the innkeeper and showed him that <Marinos> was a woman. At this <the innkeeper> began to lament and to marvel at what had happened.

21. They buried her holy remains and placed them in blessed caskets,?’ all the while glorifying God with psalms and hymns. When these things were

27 “Blessed caskets” = Onkatc oorats. It is not clear whether this phrase is simply a poetic plural (as in the vita of Athanasia of Aegina [no. 6 in this volume], ed. Halkin, chap. 9, p. 186), or if it designates a double casket, perhaps similar to the one described by Sozomenos, Ecclesiastical History, {X.17 (PG 67:1629a): “A double casket, the inner one of wood, and the outer of lead (Aapvaka dinAjy, Evawnv thy evoov, Ev LoAvpdiy tH e€m0ev). L. Robert has noted, however, that “le mot O@nkn est des plus vagues dans la terminologie des monuments funeraires” (Hellenica 11-12 [1960], 387).

12 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

completed, the innkeeper’s daughter appeared, possessed by a demon, and confessing the truth that she had been seduced by the soldier. And she was immediately healed at the tomb of the blessed Mary, and everyone glorified God because of this sign, and because of <Mary’s> patient endurance, for she vigorously endured <her trials> until death, refusing to make herself known. Let us then, beloved, zealously emulate the blessed Mary and her patient en- durance, so that on the day of judgment we may find mercy from our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom belongs glory and dominion to the ages of ages. Amen.

2. LIFE OF ST. MATRONA OF PERGE

translated by Jeffrey Featherstone introduction and notes by Cyril Mango

Introduction

The vita of Matrona evokes many themes found in the Lives of women saints: like Mary/Marinos, she lived for a while as a transvestite nun; like Mary of Bizye and Thomais of Lesbos, she had an abusive husband, and while still a laywoman led a pious and ascetic existence, marked by acts of charity; like Elisabeth the Wonderworker and Athanasia of Aegina, she was the abbess of a convent. At the same time, her vita presents some distinctive features, espe- cially her extensive travels, the prominent role played by women,! and the fact that she and the nuns of her convent openly wore a male monastic habit.

Although Matrona spent many years as the abbess of a nunnery in Con- stantinople, she is most renowned for the first three years of her monastic career, which she spent in disguise in the male monastery of Bassianos;? this is the aspect of her life normally featured in the sources.

At the same time, she is known to have been a historical figure who in her old age opposed the Monophysite policy of the emperor Anastasios I (491-518). She is documented, for example, in the Ecclesiastical History of Theodore Lector (ca. 525), which is preserved only in summary form. With a chronological reference point of A.D. 460 (when Daniel the Stylite mounted his column), the text states that many persons excelled at that time in monasti- cism, “among them the famous Matrona, who had abandoned her home, her wealth and her husband, and pretending to be a eunuch, entered a men’s mon- astery. ... The wonderful Bassianos, too, distinguished himself at that time’”?

! A point emphasized by Topping, “Matrona.”

? St. Bassianos and the monastery which took his name are usually spelled with a double “s” (from the Latin Bassianus); see, e.g., Janin, EglisesCP, 60 f. In the Synaxa- rion of Constantinople and in the Greek text of the vita, however, the name is rendered Baotavoc. To avoid confusion, the name will be spelled throughout as Bassianos.

3 Theodoros Anagnostes. Kirchengeschichte, ed. G. C. Hansen (Berlin, 1971), 109.36.

14 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

A story told by the chronicler Theophanes (d. 818), which also appears to stem from Theodore Lector,* recounts that the emperor Anastasios, acting through his patriarch Makedonios IT (496-511), applied pressure on a number of prominent monasteries of Constantinople to force them into line with his anti-Chalcedonian religious policy. Among the monasteries in question were those of Matrona and Bassianos. A certain deacon Chrysaorios was deputized to enforce compliance, but Matrona, a staunch supporter of the Council of Chalcedon of 451, stood firm in refusing communion with the official church. Makedonios wisely decided to leave the recalcitrant monasteries in peace and not to start a persecution. This incident is placed by Theophanes, whose dates are not always reliable, in the year from Creation 5991, corresponding to A.D. 498/499.

No Life of Bassianos has survived, but a notice in the Synaxarion of Constantinople® states inter alia that he “flourished” in the reign of Marcian (450-457) and set up a monastery at Constantinople, which Matrona entered in disguise.

Yet another source is a mutilated hymn (kontakion) attributed to Ro- manos the Melode (d. after 555), which relates that Matrona came of a distin- guished family, was forced into marriage by her parents, did her best to avoid intercourse with her husband, but nevertheless gave birth to a daughter. At this point the text breaks off.°

The Life of Matrona presented here (the so-called vita prima) is preserved in an eleventh-century manuscript, Par. gr. 1519. As the editor of the vita, H. Delehaye, has suggested, its anonymous male author may have been a monk at Bassianos’ monastery who made use of the notes taken by the nun Eulogia.’ The vita is written in a conventional and straightforward hagiographic style, but is distinguished by its length, unusual for a female saint.®

4 Theoph. 1:141—42 = Theodore Lector, ed. Hansen, 129.18—25. > SynaxCP 127-28.

6 Sancti Romani Melodi cantica dubia, ed. P. Maas and C. A. Trypanis (Berlin, 1970), no. 89.

7 Cf. AASS, Nov. 3:789a. The hypothesis of E. C. Topping (“Matrona,” 223-24) that the author must have been a woman, most probably a nun at Matrona’s monastery, is invalidated by the hagiographer’s use of masculine participles to refer to himself (7914, 792p, 812A).

8 In this volume, only the vita of Theodora of Thessalonike is longer.

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 15

Delehaye declared the text to be of dubious value, written not earlier than the middle of the sixth century.? He was unfavorably impressed by the romantic story of Matrona’s wanderings in the Near East, skeptical of the alleged prevalence of idolatry at Beirut, and inclined to question the promi- nent role assigned to the deacon Markellos of Emesa, who, by a strange coin- cidence, bore the same name as the author of a well-known opuscule concern- ing the discovery of the head of St. John the Baptist at Emesa,'° an incident that does figure in our Life. Delehaye might have been even more skeptical had he noticed the anachronistic reference to the church of St. Mary the New at Jerusalem, dedicated in 543.'' His intuition that the Life as we have it could not have been composed before the middle of the sixth century is thereby confirmed. Certain other elements, however, strongly suggest that the author was not guided only by oral tradition and his own imagination, but that he had, as he himself claims, a written source (whether it was or was not in the form of notes taken down by the nun Eulogia). Particularly significant is his extraordinary reticence about Matrona’s courageous stance in the face of the emperor Anastasios. The coded reference to the “tempest” and “upheaval” that overtook the Church at the time!? would be understandable on the part of an author writing while Anastasios was still alive. But why omit one of Matrona’s most famous achievements, especially one in the cause of ortho- doxy, if the text was first written in the second half of the sixth century or later? References to certain named persons, such as the mother of the ex- prefect Elias and the mother of the scholastikoi, who accompanied Matrona from Beirut to Constantinople, the soon to be forgotten empress Euphemia, and Antiochiane, wife of Sphorakios, also suggest a source close in time to the events narrated.

It is a matter of conjecture how much of the information given in the Life is genuine and how much was added by the later redactor. Statements to the effect that the vegetable garden at Bassianos’ monastery and the buildings put up by Matrona “still exist today” point to the later date, although it should be remembered that monastic foundations at Constantinople in the fifth and

° AASS, Nov. 3:786 ff.

10 The text is to be found only in the 17th-century edition of C. DuCange, Traite historique du chef de S. Jean Baptiste (Paris, 1655), 215 ff.

1! See below, note 59. 2 See below, note 115.

16 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

sixth centuries were often of short duration. The incident relating to the dis- covery of the head of St. John the Baptist, introduced for the sole purpose of associating a miracle with Matrona, may also be regarded as suspect and it certainly strains the chronology of the early part of the Life. Indeed, the Bap- tist’s head was discovered in February of 452 or 453."3 By that time, we are told, Matrona had already risen to the position of superior of the monastery of Hilara in Emesa (i.e., had been there more than a few months), prior to which she had spent three years at Bassianos’ monastery at Constantinople. Yet, from what little is known, the latter monastery was established only in the 450s. If, therefore, the discovery of the Baptist’s head is eliminated, only two chronological anchors remain: Matrona’s return to Constantinople seems to have taken place between 472 and 474" and her contest with the emperor Anastasios in ca. 500. Assuming that she entered Bassianos’ monastery not before 455, she may have been born ca. 430 and died by 510-515.

Matrona’s Life cannot be regarded, therefore, as an entirely sincere docu- ment, and it certainly contains a good part of padding. At the same time it offers some unique glimpses into conditions in the Byzantine capital in the fifth and sixth centuries.

Little is known of the cult of Matrona. She was commemorated in her own convent on 9 November at least until the twelfth century according to a twelfth-century manuscript of the Synaxarion of Constantinople. A notice on her is included in the tenth-century Menologion of Basil IT, complete with a miniature depicting her in a nun’s habit.'® Her cult seems to have died out by the Palaiologan period, as there is no mention of her in the accounts of Russian pilgrims.

'3 The indications of the sources (i.e., the opuscule of Markellos cited above in note 10 [452 and 453], and Marcellinus Comes and the Chronicon Paschale [sub anno 453}), though unusually detailed, are discordant. The more likely date appears to be 452.

14 See below, notes 85 and 88.

15 SynaxCP 203.53-54; 8 November is also listed by the Synaxarion as an alternate feastday.

16 Cf. Il Menologio di Basilio IT (Cod. Vaticano Graeco 1613) (Turin, 1907), fol. 169; see also LCI 7:587.

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 17

Bibliography

Edition Used for Translation anf (BHG 1221) Acta Sanctorum Novembris, 3 (Brussels: Societe des Bollandistes, 1910), 790-813.

Related Texts vita altera by Symeon Metaphrastes: (BHG 1222) AASS, Nov. 3:813-22.

Modern Translations

partial English translation (chaps. 1-3, 10, 12, 29, 38-42, 51-52) by K. Bennas- ser in “Gender and Sanctity” (see below), 155-77; translation of vita al- tera, 118—54.

Secondary Literature

Topping, “Matrona.”

K. Bennasser, “Gender and Sanctity in Early Byzantine Monasticism: A Study of the Phenomenon of Female Ascetics in Male Monastic Habit, with a Translation of the Life of St. Matrona,” Ph.D. dissertation, Rut- gers University, 1984 (University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Mich.).

Patlagean, “La femme deguisee,” 610-14.

18 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

[p. 790] THE LIFE AND CONDUCT OF THE BLESSED AND Hoty MATRONA

1. The books entitled Paradise,'7 which are indeed paradise, have passed on to us the lives of men and women who have practiced monasticism, both in communities and in solitude, including those whose light shone forth in Egypt. It is fitting, however, to add to these the Life, full of benefit for our souls, of the blessed and holy Matrona, a woman who, as we shall presently relate, displayed the traits of holy men in the midst of monastic men and mastered the feats of accomplished solitaries. That she was no ordinary woman or in any wise deficient, but rather, greater than those women who had already dis- tinguished themselves in asceticism, is evident from the holy flock about her, quite large in number and bedecked with the cultivation of virtue, <a flock> which she gathered together and brought as an offering unto God. Even if one were to leave the rest of her story untold, this alone would suffice to her praise: the constitution of such a flock; which, we have no doubt, she will increase and protect and shepherd. For though she has left this life, she has not de- parted from those here: she stands by and abides with every soul which prac- tices monasticism and strives after her way of life and teaching, especially now that she has ceased from her labors of asceticism; existing as a mere soul, free of all toil, she is released from the warfare over her own thoughts and is able by divine grace to cleanse our thoughts. With boldness she appears in the company of those who have lived lives such as hers, and she comes even to us, with the longing and understanding and foresight of a loving mother. All this notwithstanding, a detailed account of her achievements must be undertaken, insofar as this is possible; for one may with justice marvel at her on account of each and every one of the facts related and may also derive no ordinary benefit from these same. Now, I wish to begin at an earlier point in the story of her life, but attend ye with diligence and share in the contest. For whereso- ever speech is wise and pious, it behooves the listener to give heed to the

7 This was the title of the Lausiac History by Palladios, the most famous collection of stories about the earliest Egyptian monks, and of the Apophthegmata Patrum. The Meadow (Leimonarion) of John Moschos was also known as the New Paradise (cf. Pho- tios, Bibliotheca, cods. 198, 199). Moschos himself (PG 87:3104c) mentions yet another similar collection entitled Paradise.

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 19

speaker, in order that the latter may follow the example of the careful hus- bandman and the former that of the good ground receiving the seeds;'® other- wise, the teacher will have cast his words aimlessly and in vain, and the listener retire empty-handed, having learnt naught from what has been said. But Iam persuaded better things of you, though I speak thus,'® after the manner of the blessed Paul, [p. 791] and I shall relate her story from the beginning, following the practice of narrators.

2. There is a certain large and broad district subject to the Romans that lies along the borders of Cilicia and Isauria and is known as Pamphylia, most probably so called because of its populousness and the fact that its inhabitants come from all over the earth.”” There are forty cities in this district, one of which is called Perge?!: it is here that this glorious and blessed Matrona had her origins. Now, once she had received the customary upbringing and a lib- eral education from her parents, and had come to the age of marriage, she was united with a man by the name of Dometianos,” and became the mother of a daughter by the name of Theodote;”? and indeed, as we shall show presently, abandoning everything, she was to give her to God. How, after her marriage, she was humble and moderate, taking no care whatsoever for the adornments and cosmetics that worldly women are accustomed to use, cultivating instead manners of piety and prudence; and how she neglected all indulgence of the body, neither bathing nor allowing intercourse with her husband, being mind- ful of the blessed Paul’s saying that those that have wives should be as though they had none,” I shall refrain from relating at length, for the sake of brevity. However this may be, she left her homeland by the wish of the God of all and

18 Cf. Lk. 8:15. 19 Cf. Heb. 6:9.

20 Pamphylia, a province of southern Asia Minor, means literally “land of all races” or “of mingled races.”

21 The site of Perge, a short distance northeast of Attaleia (modern Antalya), has been excavated. For a general account, see G. E. Bean, Turkey's Southern Shore (Lon- don, 1968), 45-58.

» Otherwise unknown, Dometianos appears to have been a man of some standing; cf. below, note 61. He may have gone to Constantinople on official business.

23 Her name means “given to God.” 4 Cf. 1 Cor. 7:29.

25 The author evidently knew nothing about Matrona’s early life and did not take the trouble to fill it out with usual commonplaces.

20 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

with the assent of her husband, who accompanied her, though he was not privy to her well-made plans, and came to the Queen of Cities, Constanti- nople. Once arrived in the imperial city, she hastened to the sanctuaries of the saints; and therein she remained, not only by day but also by night, in prayer and vigils, humbling her body with fasting, that it might be obedient to the pious designs of her soul. She did not consider the body to be the most evil of foes, after the manner of the hateful and loathsome Manichaeans,”* but constrained its unreasonable urges with great wisdom, correcting it as is neces- sary, in obedience to the blessed Paul who says, Make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof?’ Now, she was not satisfied with this alone, nor did she think it a great thing to humble the body unless she also brought consolation to those in need. In secret, then, from her husband, she cared for the poor to the extent of her ability—all the more remarkably as her body was young and vigorous, when the waves of passion are wont to be strongest. For she was then twenty-five years old,”* when she accomplished ascetic feats be- fore becoming an ascetic, training herself in advance and preparing for the future. In this good and God-pleasing exercise she had as a teacher the blessed Eugenia,” who not only in name but also in deed showed nobility of soul, chastity of body, and manliness of heart. For she was one of those women who devoted themselves to all-night psalmody,” displaying the traits of martyrs for the martyrs’ sake.

3. Now while the blessed Matrona was thus engaged, great sorrow weighed down upon her husband Dometianos, who was carried away by ab- surd notions and thought that the blessed one was leading the life of a courte- san because of her frequent attendance at the all-night vigils. Wherefore a dispute arose between them, Dometianos forbidding her to go to the services

26 Manichaeans were adherents of a dualist system of religious belief, allegedly founded by the Persian Mani, which emphasized the conflict between good and evil.

27 Rom. 13:14.

°8 See introduction, p. 16, for discussion of the chronology of her life.

> As suggested by E. C. Topping (“Matrona,” 215 n. 28), it is probably not coinci- dental that Eugenia, Matrona’s first spiritual teacher who led her to the monastery of Bassianos, bears the same name as an earlier Alexandrian nun who lived in disguise in a male monastery; cf. BHG 607w—608..

3° Probably as a member of a voluntary confraternity (cf. ODB, s.v.) centered on a shrine, like the one recorded in the 7th century at the church of St. Artemios in Con- stantinople.

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 21

and Matrona constraining him to allow her to do so. After many days and with many words she won him over, and she went off to the church of the Holy Apostles?! There she concentrated her thoughts with all zeal and in- voked them with tears: “Have compassion with me,” said she, “O holy apostles and lights of the universe! Beseech the Lord Christ on my behalf, that I may be delivered from this vain life and be deemed worthy truly to serve Him, for I fear the <Last> Judgment and I am afraid of the punishments <hereafter>. Scorn not, O holy apostles, my wretched petitions, nor reject me as unworthy, but bring me unto yourselves and all the world unto God Who loves mankind. Soften the heart of my husband, for it is he who hinders and thwarts me. Give me aid, I pray, and grant me succor, I beg.” After the blessed one had prayed for such and similar things, when evening came on, the keepers of the church called out to all, as is the custom, that they should leave; and the blessed one, finding the abode of a certain Susannah,” an acquaintance of hers, in the porticoes adjoining the church, remained with her on account of her virtuous way of life. This Susannah had been enrolled from an early age in the order of widows® there, embracing chastity and a life devoted to God. <Matrona>, then, remained with her that evening, and on the morrow she went off to her teacher Eugenia and spoke again yet more fervently of her intentions, this [p. 792] being the result of her great longing for the Lord and rejection of the delights of this world. Many opinions were put forth: neither did the student give way nor the teacher relent, and special consideration was given to the matter of the child Theodote. Then the blessed Matrona uttered something in the vein of Abraham and quite beyond nature itself: “Let there be nothing in common between me and my affections,” said she. “Let the honest Susannah take my child, and let the monastic life sustain me.” The matter did not remain one of words, but became fact: the blessed Susannah accepted the child Theo- dote and took the place of her mother.

31 The famous church built by Constantius II (337-361) on the fourth hill of Con- stantinople. Next to it were the imperial mausolea.

» Like Eugenia, Susannah bears the same name as an earlier woman (Susannah of Eleutheropolis) who lived as a monk; cf. Topping, “Matrona,” 214 n. 25 and 216 n. 44.

33 The order of widows, an ancient institution of the Church, was a consecrated office of women devoted to good works; see Gryson, Ministry of Women, 35-41. The state- ment that Susannah had been enrolled in the order from an early age is, however, some- thing of a contradiction, as members of the order normally had to be at least fifty years old.

22 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

4. There remained, then, the consideration of how and where she was to become a nun and, once she had become one, how she would escape the notice of her husband. Said the blessed Matrona, “Heaven forbid that Dometianos should cause trouble for the convent which receives me and thus should keep me from the goal of my salvation!” Now while they were occupied in these counsels, merciful God showed them in a nocturnal vision what was to be done. In a dream the blessed Matrona thought herself to be fleeing her hus- band and rescued by certain monks. From this she understood that she was to enter a male monastery and thus escape the notice of her husband. Cutting her hair and dressing herself as a eunuch she went off to the church of the Holy Apostles with the aforementioned <Eugenia>. After extended prayer she took up the holy Gospel, and by God’s providence this lesson came up: The Lord said to His disciples, “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”** O declaration of blessed and divine words! O clear and manifest revelation! O faith of the souls of them who have discovered God’s will! Without hesitation, then, after these revelations, put- ting all their hope in God and making Him counselor and assistant of their actions, they went off, the blessed Eugenia leading the way and the blessed Matrona following her; and God’s grace guided them to the monastery of the blessed Bassianos.* There pious hunger made strong those who struggled <in the monastic life>; there frailness of body carried off the prizes of victory over the ranks of demons, and gold was trodden underfoot and reckoned as naught; there poverty was esteemed together with virtue. To such an honor- able flock did the blessed Eugenia bring the holy Matrona and enrolled her among the pious monks: she was now completely transformed into a man and bore a man’s name, Babylas. For like that valiant and holy martyr of Christ,*® the holy instructor of those meek and blessed youths, or like Eleazar, the

4 Mk. 8:34.

35 This monastery was situated outside the Constantinian walls, not far from the cistern of Aspar (modern Sultan Selim); cf. Janin, EglisesCP, 60-61. The monastery must have been quite new at the time of Matrona’s arrival if it is true, as related in the Synaxarion of Constantinople (SynaxCP 127.5—13), that Bassianos came to Constanti- nople under Marcian (450-457) and set up his establishment with the assistance of John, a man of consular rank ( = John Vincomalus, consul in 453). Cf. above, p. 14.

36 St. Babylas of Nikomedeia, allegedly martyred under Diocletian (284-305), is rep- resented as a schoolmaster. His Passion is edited by F. Halkin, Inedits byzantins d’Och- rida, Candie et Moscou (Brussels, 1963), 329-39.

ST. MATRONA OF PERGE 23

teacher and companion of the seven youths in the Old Testament,’ so also did Matrona accomplish feats of endurance and asceticism in a frail body; she was honest toward God and solicitous toward those who sought salvation. After this digression, then, let me bring the narrative back to the monastery of the holy Bassianos, which, as has been said, the blessed Matrona had en- tered as a man. The multitude of the brethren** there marveled at her strug- gles, taking into account, as was right, the fact that a eunuch, one frail by nature, endeavored not only to vie with them in ascetic labors, but strove to do yet more, fasting patiently and taking little nourishment, tempering his anger and resisting desires, abiding in prayer, abounding in love, most eager in obedience, persevering in labors of the earth and, greater than all these things, not giving in to the despair that besets those who practice continence. Nor did they envy her, for the striving for virtue is not subject to envy, but rather, they strove to imitate and gave heed to her way of life as to a most important lesson. This great zeal of the blessed one for the Lord very nearly revealed her secret to those who shared in the contest with her, but she quickly diffused suspicion with the wisdom of her soul, and contrived to escape every- one’s notice. What happened was this.

5. There is even today a garden*®’ belonging to the disciples of the blessed and holy Bassianos. Now, while the blessed Matrona was working the ground there, as is the custom for monks, and comporting herself most eagerly with her fellow worker (this was the remarkable Barnabas, the later superior of the same monastery, who had at one time led a life on the stage, but had now [p. 793] chosen a way of life like hers, striving for piety), the latter was affected by a certain human weakness, inasmuch as he had only recently turned from his vain and frivolous life. Said he to her in a jocular manner, “How is it, brother, that the lobes of both your ears are pierced?” But the blessed Ma-

37 Cf. 2 Macc. 6:18—41, which tells the story of Eleazar, a teacher of the law, who was martyred under King Antiochos for his refusal to eat sacrificial meat, as were the seven brothers who followed his example. The memory of the Maccabean martyrs was celebrated on 1 August; cf. BHG 1006-10K.

38 According to the Synaxarion, the number of monks at the monastery grew to three hundred.

» See introduction, p. 15. The author may well have been a monk at Bassianos’ mon- astery.

* This suggests that it would not have been abnormal for a man to wear a single earring.

24 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

trona replied curtly, “You, brother, have indulged yourself in a frivolous man- ner, unbefitting our profession. You should be paying attention to the ground, not to me. But since you are minded to learn of this, hear the reason. The woman to whom I formerly belonged was lovingly disposed toward me, main- taining me with all generosity and luxury, and she shrank not from putting gold about my ears, so that many of those who saw me said that I was a girl.’ Thus did the holy Matrona divert the suspicion of the blessed and holy Barnabas, though she was thereby brought to a state of uncommon anxiety and commotion, distracting her mind with many divers considerations and remembering the words of her teacher Eugenia: “It is a difficult thing,” said she, “and indeed impossible for a woman to enter a male monastery or, once entered, to escape notice.” But she took recourse yet more fervently in her entreaties toward God, saying, “I have hearkened unto Thy voice, O Master, and received Thy command in the matter of monasticism. And since I have not withstood Thee, but rather have followed eagerly Thy command to follow, do Thou settle the affairs of my life through Thy grace. Let me not be deprived of the things for which I hope, O Lover of mankind, nor let me abandon unfinished the course that I have begun, lest I suffer reproaches of disgrace from the other contenders. Provide Thou always for Thy suppliant: show me what is expedient for me and assist me in attempting it. For without Thine inclination it is impossible for men to accomplish any good thing, and espe- cially for women, who are easily disposed through weakness to evil’s diver- sion.” Such were probably the words with which the noble Matrona be- sought God.

6. Now, it was not only a matter of speaking of the outcome of better things, but also seeing it. For so it is with one pious in understanding that he sees future things not yet present. On this account I am again moved to marvel at her as at one of the holy women of ancient times. Leaving aside the great multitude of them, to avoid surfeit of speech, I shall mention only that Susan- nah of old,*! who was distinguished and glorified for her prudence; the same might also be said about this <holy Matrona>, for she put all her hope in God and left all her affairs to His inclination: she clove to her ascetic practice and

41 The heroine of the Book of Susannah, a short apocryphal book of the Old Testa- ment, which relates the story of the virtuous Susannah, who was falsely accused of adultery by two lustful elders.

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 25

took care for spiritual perfection. Now, the blessed and holy Bassianos, though endowed with the grace of prescience, was at first unaware of this cleverly devised, marvelous deed; but he soon found it out. For the Lord God shall make no word, according to Scripture, which He shall not reveal unto His servants the prophets.” The blessed Bassianos, then, was also a prophet, by reason of his prescience, whereby he found out <the secret> on this wise. In a dream he thought he saw a man, decorously attired and pleasant of face, in short, one bearing the marks of a certain divinity of nature, who said to him, “The eunuch you have in your monastery is not a eunuch, but a woman”; and after repeating this three times, he withdrew. Thereupon the blessed and holy Bassianos considered how the matter stood. He did not wish that the blessed <Matrona> should become the object of vulgar talk, but thought to summon her and rebuke her privily, in the presence of her supervisor alone. Now, there was a certain pious man, Akakios, also an archimandrite* of the monastery of the godly minded Abramios at the third milestone,“ who also saw <in a dream> on this same night the same man in the same attire; and he said to him, “Tell your brother Bassianos that the eunuch he has is no eunuch, but a woman.” In the morning, then, the blessed Bassianos summoned the deacon John, who held second place after him and was Babylas’ supervisor; and he related his dream to him. While he was thus occupied, the messenger of the most divinely favored Akakios presented himself with a message that was to be delivered in secret. When asked by the doorkeeper, as is customary, the purpose of his visit, he declined to tell, saying that he had been com- manded to give the message to the most holy Bassianos alone. Upon hearing this, the holy one ordered that he should come up; and learning from him the message, he dismissed him, saying, “Well done, brother. May the Lord grant you reward for your trouble. The Lord’s will be done!” Then the blessed Bas-

” Cf. Tob. 12:11.

* Archimandrite is a term with various meanings (cf. ODB 1:156); in this case it is the superior of a monastery.

“ The monastery of Abramios was probably founded in the Sth century and is at- tested in 518. Our text provides the only indication that it was situated at the Triton, 1.e., the third milestone, which would have been inside the Theodosian walls if measured from the Milion; for more details, see C. Mango, Le developpement urbain de Constanti- nople (IVe-VIle siecles) (Paris, 1985), 33 n. 58. The discussion by Janin (EglisesCP, 4-6) is rather confused on this point.

26 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

sianos went with John into the sacristy,* and after extended prayer he took up the holy Gospel and this lesson came up: The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid [p. 794] in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.** Accepting this as another vision, he commanded that the blessed one should be summoned: “Call Master Babylas,” he said.

7. Now when she had been summoned, he regarded her with a stern countenance and said, “Tell me, sister, what prompted you to dare such a thing against us, secretly bringing temptation all the while?” <The blessed one>, upon hearing the amazement in his speech and seeing the sternness of his countenance, added fear to fear and trepidation to trepidation. For she was quite faint of heart. Directly she had heard those who summoned her saying, “The lord abbot is calling for you,” she knew within herself how the matter stood and she moaned, saying, “Woe is me, wretch that I am! For I am cast out as one unworthy. Woe is me, miserable one that I am! For it has been discovered what I am, and I am no longer counted a brother among the brethren; no longer am I thought to be a eunuch, nor to be addressed as Baby- las, but am soon once again to be a woman and to be called Matrona.” Then, accepting the reproach, she covered her head with her cloak and, prostrating herself on the ground at his feet, she answered softly and with great fear: “Not to bring temptation upon your flock, Master, did I come—Heaven forbid!— but to flee the world and the things in it.’ Hearing this, <the blessed Bas- sianos> said to her, “So be it. You have all the while escaped notice as a woman, and have done no harm to us who were unaware of this. But how have you approached the divine mysteries with your head uncovered? And how have you offered the kiss of peace*’ to the brethren?” Said she, “During the divine mysteries I have pulled my cloak halfway over my head, feigning a headache. And as for the symbol of peace and seal of love, I have not shunned it, for I considered that I offered myself not unto human mouths, but unto God’s angels and men free of passion.”

8. The holy and blessed Bassianos was amazed by this wondrous answer and said to her, “Why, then, if you had such a purpose with regard to God,

“ The diakonikon, normally the sacristy south of the apse; cf. ODB 3:1594, s.v. Pasto- phoria. 4 Lk. 13:21.

47 Tn the Byzantine period it was customary to give the kiss of peace on the lips; cf. Taft, Great Entrance, 389-92. See also Chap. 35 of the Life of Mary of Egypt, below.

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 27

did you not enter a women’s monastery?” Recovering somewhat from her fear and taking courage to pronounce more words in her defense, <the blessed one,> lying upon the floor at his feet, revealed her affairs as before God. Said she, “If it please your Holiness, I had become the wife of a man and the mother of a child. But, wishing to serve God rather than marriage and sin, I would go to the all-night vigils of the holy martyrs. However, my husband would prevent me, now insulting me, now quarreling and striking me; at times he even threatened me. Seeing this and suffering from him on every occasion, I lost heart, I moaned, I cried and besought God night and day that He might soften his heart** and satisfy my desire.*” While I did this I considered entering a women’s monastery, but I knew that, if I did so, I should not escape the notice of my husband; and unless I did this [i.e., escaped notice by disguising myself as a monk], I should bring affliction upon myself and the monastery. For my husband would have neglected nothing that would have brought harm and distress upon me, as I have said, and the monastery. In this state of faint- heartedness, longing for salvation and caught up in many calculations, as I slumbered one day, I thought I saw myself fleeing my husband, as he pursued and threatened me. When I was about to be overtaken by him and suffer irrep- arable <injuries>, I was rescued by pious monks. Upon waking I knew within myself that I had to take refuge in a male monastery and thus hide from my husband. Going, then, to the blessed Eugenia, I related these things to her. There was with this Eugenia a certain Susannah, and I commended my child to their keeping, inasmuch as they were pious and God-loving women with whom I had become acquainted at the all-night vigils. Upon hearing this, <the blessed Eugenia> thanked God, Who desires the salvation of all. Thereupon, we devised the plan that my child Theodote should be given over to the lady Susannah, and that I, dressed as and transformed into a man, should enter a men’s monastery; and we fulfilled in deed that which we had planned. For as soon as the child Theodote had been given over to the aforementioned Susan- nah, I put off my female attire forthwith and cut my hair; and, in a word, becoming a man both in garb and purpose, with Eugenia’s assistance and God’s guidance I came to this holy monastery of yours, a eunuch in appear- ance and Babylas by name; and once received I became one of your flock, even if I have now been found unsuitable and unworthy of you.”

48 Cf Job 23:16. 4 Cf Ps, 126 (127):5.

28 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

9. When the most holy Bassianos had heard the details of this cleverly devised and extraordinary action, he marveled at <the blessed Matrona’s> in- telligence and accepted <the genuineness of> her purpose; and consoling her with spiritual words, he bade her stand up, and then he asked her which life she would henceforth choose, [p. 795] the monastic or the secular. She replied that she would choose the monastic life, for, she said, she had loved this life from the beginning, and on its account she had taken leave of her husband, her child, abundant wealth,*° indeed the entire world and everything in it; and she averred that to her very death she would not forsake it. Marking the full- ness and sincerity of her purpose, the blessed <Bassianos> said to her, “Take courage, my child and sister. The Lord Jesus Christ, Who has chosen you out unto salvation and enlightened your soul, that you should so love Him, He Himself shall guard you and fulfil your every desire.” With these and many other words did he console and counsel her, renewing, as one might say, and restoring her purpose; then he bade her rest in one of the monastery’s cells and, in compliance with the usage of her sex, to tie round her head <as a headcovering> a piece of cloth that happened to be at hand. After all this had occurred, in the late evening, he commanded her to leave the monastery, instructing her thus: “Depart, sister, and remain with one of your acquain- tances, in expectation of God’s assistance and our counsel, for we shall not neglect you.”

10. Thus, the blessed Matrona departed from the monastery, conducted by the deacon Markellos, and was once again received in the abode of Susan- nah. But before the blessed one departed from the monastery, God, Who ful- filleth the will of them that fear Him*' and assists in every way to the good of them that love Him, had taken her child Theodote unto Himself, lest she should add despair to despair and might, out of concern for the child, some- how slacken in her purpose. Wherefore, finding that she had died, <the blessed one> felt joy rather than grief, for she was thus set free of concern for <the child>, and the latter, also set free, had departed hence before experiencing the evils of this life. As greatly as she grieved over her separation from the monastery, even so great was the consolation she found in her rejection of the child: for this, too, was God’s doing, to assuage in one part the suffering she

°° Not merely a commonplace (topos). By all accounts Matrona was a person of wealthy background who consorted with the rich and mighty on equal footing.

1 Cf. Ps. 144 (145):19.

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felt in another. Thus did the blessed Matrona lie hidden in the abode of the worthy Susannah, or rather, thus through Susannah did God preserve her, even as a spiritual treasure, who would enrich and enlighten many souls. But though she lay hidden, talk of her spread everywhere, and report reached ev- ery ear proclaiming that a woman had lived undetected in a men’s monastery, even if her disguise was at last discovered. Whereupon her husband Dome- tianos learned the facts concerning her; and after he had run round to other monasteries, he came running like a wild beast to the monastery of the blessed Bassianos, shrieking with violence and shouting loudly and beating at the doors with stones, saying, “Give me my wife. Give me my hope. Give me my consolation. For Whom God hath joined together, put ye not asunder” Ut- tering these and other such words and wrongly accusing Eugenia of having been her guide and imputing to her countless wrongs, he was told by Eugenia: “Who this woman is of whom you speak, I know not: it was a man seeking salvation, a eunuch by the name of Babylas, whom I brought to this monas- tery.’ And the disciples of the blessed Bassianos said to him, “We, brother, did not receive any woman: ours is a monastery of men, not women. We did re- ceive a eunuch by the name of Babylas. And until a short time ago, he was satisfied, he said, with our way of life and remained with us; but then he de- vised a better plan, and thought to go to Jerusalem, to shut himself up in a cave. Such was his intention when we sent him off a few days ago. For the rest, whether he has remained in this city, or has gone to the Holy Places, as he said <he would>, God alone knows; we are blameless in this matter. Wherefore, if even you, who now stone and abuse us, wish to be saved, we shall receive you with joy and shall not censure you for your abuse. For we have been taught by the Lord to receive those who persecute us, for He received the persecutor Paul and made him a preacher of the Gospel. Wherefore, inasmuch as you are a man, albeit ever such a bad one, we shall receive you: for this is in name and in fact a monastery of men, even as we have said. If you do not know this, go hence and the entire city will assure you thereof: Hearing this Dometianos was all the more stirred with anger and fired with rage, and since he had noth- ing reasonable to reply or to do, inasmuch as he had been told that it was a eunuch that they had received and that he was no longer among them, he withdrew in dejection and vexation.

11. Now, it was no ordinary anxiety and concern that the blessed and

2 Cf Mt. 19:6.

30 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

holy Bassianos had for her, fearing as he did lest he should destroy the soul he had received from God. Forthwith he summoned his deacons and the fore- most of the brethren and said to them, “What shall we do, brethren, about our sister who has departed from us? For even if she has proven to be a woman, nevertheless she was and is one of our members. Wherefore I am grieved be- yond measure on her account and [p. 796] am distressed: in a word, my entrails are rent asunder when I think of her position, lest the ever wily devil should dull her resolve, or lest her husband should hear of where she is and entrap her, and such great effort and such longing should be extinguished and perish.” Then the deacon Markellos said to him, “Despair not on this account, most honorable father, but commend her to God Who loves mankind and pray for her, and He will be able to preserve her. If your Holiness sees fit to send her to a women’s monastery, there is a monastery in my city, Emesa,* that of the blessed Hilara,** which is very beautiful and has sheltered and still shelters holy souls; it is there that I arranged for my sister to be a nun. Send her then, father, for a time to this <monastery>, and be in some wise relieved from your great care for her.” Hearing this the holy one was pleased by the good counsel and instructed him, saying, “Go, deacon, do as you know best, for the Lord’s sake, and dispatch her by ship.” Straightway the deacon found a ship departing to the East, and putting her on board sent her off. The blessed Matrona, then, inasmuch as she desired indeed to follow Christ, neither objected in any wise nor deliberated, but accepted her superior’s order as God’s command and went off eagerly, requesting nothing else from him save his worthy and holy prayers and a bit of bread as a blessing. For she knew, she knew with certainty and was convinced that, with these latter as shipmates and traveling compan- ions, all would proceed according to her desire and to her profit; by God’s grace, this came to pass. For she made the whole voyage with ease and calm, and consumed but very little of the blessed bread, a most remarkable fact and sure proof of her faith. Arrived, then, at the monastery of Hilara, the blessed Matrona was kindly received, and she said to the sisters, “Take, my ladies, from this blessed <bread> given me by my superior, for his blessing is great and worthy. For he is a holy man, who truly loves God and is loved by Him.”

°3 The modern Hims in Syria.

4 This establishment does not appear to be recorded elsewhere. St. Hilaria (called Hilara in the vita), martyred in the 3rd century, was also a woman monk; cf. A. J. Wensinck, Legends of Eastern Saints. II. The Legend of Hilaria (Leiden, 1913), 9-89.

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She gave them some of her <bread>, and received some from them; and to- gether they praised and glorified God. Now, having entered that monastery, the blessed Matrona so devoted herself to humility and asceticism and nobility of conduct, and so did she shine with virtues, that the sisters, in their admira- tion for her life and their love for her on account of her noble struggles and fitting manners, asserted that upon the decease of their mother superior they would submit themselves to her as guide and leader and spiritual mother.

12. But since it was necessary that such excellent virtue and conduct should also be proven through <miraculous> signs, neither did the Lord omit these. For at that time the precious head of the holy Forerunner and Baptist John was discovered. The discovery was made in this wise. During the course of many days one of the local farmers saw fire rising up from the place where he was,—where the Baptist’s holy head was to be found. Unable to understand this strange sign, <the farmer> went off to the bishop® and told him what he had seen. The bishop realized that the fire portended some mystery and, with- out any delay or hesitation, took all his clergy and went to the place. Pro- nouncing a prayer, he commanded that the ground be dug up. The digging done, a pot was found, which contained the holy head of the Forerunner. Thereupon rumor spread throughout the entire region, and people of all ages assembled, together with those from the monasteries, for a procession bearing <the head>, with psalmody and the appropriate honors, to the church. This blessed one, then, perfect servant of Christ that she was, came thither with the sisters from the monastery and was among those who had gathered in rever- ence to the holy head. As proof to the assembled throng and confirmation of the discovery, fragrant oil gushed forth from <the head>, and all were drawing it off for themselves as a blessing. <The blessed one> also came forward to draw off <the fragrant oil>; and having drawn it, she became a distributor thereof, involuntarily. For the throng would not cede her an exit: cut off in their midst she was forced to distribute to all of them as they all cried out to her: “Dispense to all, O servant of Christ!” As she was thus occupied, then, dispensing to all unstintingly, a man blind since his mother’s womb rushed

°° The circumstances of the discovery, as given here, do not quite tally with the de- tailed and allegedly eyewitness account by the archimandrite Markellos; cf. his text, along with an early Latin (6th century) translation by Dionysius Exiguus, in DuCange, Jean Baptiste, 215 ff. For the date, see introduction, p. 16.

5° He is called Ouranios by the archimandrite Markellos.

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past all the others, the bishop and the clerics (for all of these latter were dis- tributing <the fragrant oil>), and approaching her, besought and prayed her anoint his eyes with the oil. Stretching out her hands, then, the blessed one did as asked. Straightway the eyes of the blind man were opened and he began to glorify and praise God, Who through the blessed Matrona had granted him the gift of beholding the image of man and of perceiving man’s beauty, [p. 797] delivering him from the constant falling and stumbling that congenital dark- ness and lightless life had caused him. This miracle proved <the blessed one’s> greatness at that time, and all trod one upon the other and stood on the tips of their toes in their attempt to get a glimpse of her. Nor was she any less marveled at afterwards by all. Everyone would say, “She is the one who lived for a time as a monk, escaping notice among men: therefore has she been magnified by receiving from Christ the grace of healing.”

13. It was because of this fame that Dometianos, too, came to Emesa. Arrived there, he learned in which monastery the blessed one dwelled; but since he could not gain access to her, he sent a message to her through certain noblewomen (from whom he had information of her), and asked to be permit- ted to do obeisance to her, making a pretense of supplication and cloaking his plot in the guise of reverence. But when the blessed Matrona was told of his appearance and stature and his manner, she recognized that it was her hus- band and she said, “Go, my ladies, and await me for seven days, while I con- sider the matter, then I shall meet him with convenience in your presence.” Persuaded by her they departed and relayed to him this answer, and Dome- tianos waited for seven days, anticipating the eighth as a great feast. But the blessed Matrona, escaping the notice of the sisters, set off for Jerusalem, tak- ing nothing with her save the hair-shirt she wore, a staff in her hand, and a bit of the blessed bread given her by the most holy Bassianos. When the seven days had passed, the women came seeking her in accordance with their agreement, but they were told by the sisters that “We have not seen her since the day she met with you. Wherefore we are borne down by great grief and no common affliction on her behalf, deprived as we are of such a great good and pondering what sort of powerful demon could have shaken so valiant a soul and taken it from this house.” Withdrawing, then, they reported to Dome- tianos what they had been told.

14. When he learned of this he was sore aggrieved, and he made countless inquiries after her. Hearing that she had betaken herself to the Holy Places (for her fame made her conspicuous everywhere), he hesitated not in the least

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 33

nor despaired of finding her, but came at once to Jerusalem and learned from certain pious women that she was there. For they told him that her stature was tall and fine, her garment of hair, her skin white, and her countenance bright and joyous; and thereby he understood that she was the blessed one, and he inquired after her abode. They told him that she had no abode, but slept either on Golgotha’’ or in the Anastasis** or in St. Mary’s® or in which- ever of the other churches where she stayed late <on a particular night>. Said he to them, “If you point her out to me, I shall reward you handsomely.” Said the women to him, “Go you to the holy Anastasis, and we shall go to St. Mary’s. We have described her attire to you. If you find her yourself, well and good; if we <find her>, we shall let you know.” Having thus decided and di- vided the churches among them, the women went off to St. Mary’s and Dome- tianos to the holy Anastasis; and <straightway> the blessed Matrona caught sight of him, though she turned neither to the right nor the left, but kept her gaze downward and continued undisturbed on her way. When she approached him, she bent over toward the ground, as if to pick up a stone, and thus es- caped his notice. He passed by her, paying no attention, and went into the Anastasis in search of her; but she, escaping his notice by her clever device, fled him and went away from the Anastasis. Having escaped him, however, she encountered the women. For as she was making her way toward holy Zion,® they met her and said, “A certain illustrious man of the emperor’s

°7 The hill where Christ was crucified, marked by a rocky outcrop about 40 m east of the Anastasis church; cf. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims, 177, and ODB 3:1870, s.v. Sepulchre, Holy.

8 The Rotunda of the Anastasis (Resurrection) was a circular church that enclosed the tomb of Christ at Jerusalem and was part of the church of the Holy Sepulcher; cf. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims, 176-177.

® The text makes it clear that this church was in the direction of Mt. Zion, i.e., south when coming from the Anastasis, and so can only have been St. Mary the New (the Nea Ekklesia of the Theotokos), the largest church in Jerusalem, built by Justinian and consecrated on 20 November 543. The building had been started some thirty years earlier; cf. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims, 166 (s.v., New Saint Mary). The allusion to this church provides a terminus post quem for the date of composition of the vita; see introduction, p. 15.

® Also called Sion, a holy place in Jerusalem that included such sites as the house

of Caiaphas and the Column of the Flagellation; cf. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims, 171-72, and ODB 3:1905.

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suite®! has come, he says, on your account, wishing to do obeisance to you and to receive your blessing. He goes about himself in search of you, and has also dispatched us for this purpose.” Said the blessed Matrona to them, “I have made a vow to go to Paneas,” and I am eager to find traveling companions® in order to fulfill it. Allow me three days, I pray, and I shall meet with him in your presence.” Having said this, the blessed one got rid of the women with her reasonable answer, and finding traveling companions she set off for Mt. Sinai. Then the women sought out Dometianos and relayed the blessed one’s answer. But he knew from experience, from her answer in the monastery, that her message was merely a ruse and a trick: that she had thereby eluded the women and sent him this message with the intention of going off elsewhere; and he spared no time in making inquiries and seeking traces of her, like a Lacedaemonian dog trained in the hunt. Finding some other women who told him, “If you seek the woman of noble stature who wears garments of hair, she has set off for Mt. Sinai,” he hesitated not a moment nor [p. 798] balked at the length of the journey, but set off in pursuit of her. Now, when the blessed Matrona learned that he had come thither, women dispatched by him having so informed her, she was seized with great fear; and changing her attire she went to the region of Beirut. She found there a temple of idols and dwelled therein, choosing to be devoured by demons or beasts rather than fall into the hands of her husband. Said she, “If I serve God, demons cannot harm me. As for beasts, if I truly and piously pursue virtue, perhaps they will respect me; but if my husband gets hold of me, he will treat me more cruelly than demons and beasts.” Taking up her abode, then, in the idols’ temple, she per-

‘! The expression AguMposg Gvnp tod KouNntatov has a technical meaning. Aaunpoc, or rather Aopmpotatosc, was a title equivalent to the Latin clarissimus. Comitatus desig- nated the emperor’s household and chief ministers with their respective staffs who al- ways accompanied the emperor when the latter was on the move.

© Paneas (Caesarea Philippi) was north of Jerusalem, hence in the opposite direction from Mt. Sinai; cf. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims, 167. It was a center of pilgrimage, famous for a statue of Christ, allegedly set up by the woman with an issue of blood (cf. Mt. 9:20—22).

® One might note that Matrona thought it wiser to travel to Sinai with a group of companions; see also the end of Chap. 26.

“For a parallel to the expression “Lacedaemonian dog,” cf. Historia Alexandri Magni (Recensio A), ed. W. Kroll (Berlin, 1926), 74.1.

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formed without ceasing the order of psalmody that had been handed down to her.®

15. Now, it happened once, as she performed the nightly psalmody, that demons sang most fervently in response, for she heard the voices of many men singing. Taking fright and fortifying herself with the sign of the cross, she completed the psalmody, considering within herself and saying, “This place is deserted and the house unhallowed; there is no village in this place, nor have any passersby approached; whence, then, come these voices?” With these thoughts in her mind she went outside the temple, to find out whence the voices came. But neither finding nor seeing anyone, she went back inside the idols’ temple. These voices continued to be heard for many days thereafter, so she fasted for three days and prayed intently to the Lord that He should reveal to her the cause. Swift to hearken unto those who cry out to Him® by night and by day, the Lord God overlooked not her prayer, but hastened to make the revelation unto her. For as she completed her psalmody on another day, the demons began to sing impiously and to utter discordant, shameful sounds and to bring fire to the door of the temple. But the blessed one sealed herself continuously <with the cross> and rebuked them, and they fled with the fire into the mountains. Recognizing this to be the doing of the Enemy [i.e., the Devil], she looked this way and that, to see what had become of <the demons> or whither they had run off; and looking up she saw the mountains shrouded as it were in a sort of darkness.

16. Sometime later she was oppressed by great thirst, and going a short distance from the temple she found blossomy, tender greens. Picking some of these she pressed them to her lips and tongue, in order to assuage her thirst and alleviate the extreme dryness. But the merciful and compassionate Lord, seeing such great endurance and patience, wrought an ancient miracle: not feasting an ungrateful people but nourishing a soul which loved Him, not showering down a marvelous rain of plenteous manna,® but providing her with a spontaneous meal in this desolate place. For though all the place was dry and without water, she did find one spot which was moist; and beseeching God and taking Him as assistant, she came to this spot and dug in the earth

65 Evidently by Bassianos. 6 Cf. Ps. 101 (102):2. 67 Cf. Ex. 16; Ps. 77 (78):24.

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with her hands. After much toil she came to sharp stones, and in them she dug a small hole; and the further her hands went down <into the ground>, the more moisture she felt. Having found a bit of water she withdrew, reckoning that it was the hour of psalmody. But when she returned on the morrow after completing her morning rule, she found the hole which she had dug the day before filled with water. Kneeling, she thanked the Giver of good things, and standing up she picked a few greens. For the place where the water was abounded in them, as the gifts of God are perfect® and unfailing and they require no season to come to perfection. She washed them in water, and letting the water run off because of the dirt, she took the greens and went inside. Now, wherever the water ran out of the hole, it brought forth tender, leafy greens. Coming, then, every day after her morning prayers and picking and washing the greens, she would let the water run off and then stop it again when it was clean; and eating the greens and drinking from the water, at the customary hour of repast after the evening psalmody, she glorified God for all His gifts to her. Thus did that place supply her ever after, as if by way of tribute, with the amplest daily nourishment.

17. For a long time the blessed one enjoyed such meals and made prog- ress in her intense asceticism, but then the evil demon, unable to bear seeing her rejoice in the Lord, armed himself with another device against her. Trans- forming himself into a woman fair of face and [p. 799] of solemn and noble bearing, he approached the holy one and addressed her with no little flattery: “What are you doing here, madam, you who are young and quite fair of form? This is no place for you: it is a dwelling of idols and demons. Come to Beirut, for it is a beautiful and hospitable city, which provides for all people. It is desolate here: there is no provision for the necessities of life. Furthermore, heaven forbid that any of those men who often come here should do you harm, desirous of committing sin with you.” Recognizing® that this was the Tempter, the blessed one answered saying, “I have greens. I have water. Christ my Master provides for me in abundance. I am satisfied with these things and seek nothing else.” Hearing this the demon withdrew, saying, “Out of consid- eration for you have I counseled you to do that which I know to be to your advantage, nor shall I cease to counsel you. For the rest, it is for you to test and do that which is good.” After a few days he came again in the same guise

6 Cf. James 1:16.

® Reading yvotoa for ayvootoa.

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and said to her, “I do indeed take thought for you, madam, and have compas- sion for your youth. I am troubled and concerned lest such great beauty and comeliness should wither and perish in the harshness of this place. Wherefore I pray you, heed my fitting counsel: come to my mistress, Beirut, where there is a hospice worthy of you and everything requisite for your protection and service.” But replying with great wisdom and understanding, “It is not beauty of the body I seek but of the soul, and if I make my comeliness without to wither, I renew that within,” she put the woman to shame and chased her off.

18. Nevertheless, the mischievous one would not desist from tempting her. Abiding but a short time he assumed the form of an old woman, common and ugly, with fiery eyes, and set upon her, insolently threatening and menac- ing her, uttering mindless things in keeping with his purpose. When she made no reply whatsoever, on account of the disorder of his speech, he became all the more frenzied with rage and fired with anger, and he said to her, “I have used such words toward you, in such a manner on such matters, and you an- swer me nothing?” But the blessed one fortified herself, as she was wont, with the sign of the cross. Then putting his hands to his head, he rent and tore them in pieces with his teeth and cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Shall I, who have vanquished many with force and worsted yet more, not be able to defeat you? Just give me time. For even if I cannot deceive you in your youth, I shall bring the most dreadful things upon you in your old age.” And lest you now escape my hands, I shall incite Beirut against you, especially those who delight in this place and are enslaved to the worship of the idols;” I shall drive you from this entire country.” Having said this and similar things the evil one vanished. To such an extent, then, did the malignant one annoy her; but he found it impossible to deceive her in any wise, and he durst not annoy her in an obvious manner, for God’s grace overshadowed her. Wherefore, after such great trials, she was seized with joy, and the snares of the demons gave way to a beauteous vision. For as she said the evening prayers there appeared

” Cf. below p. 61.

7 Remnants of paganism survived in the eastern empire well into the 6th century; for a particularly vivid account of paganism and magical practices,in Beirut, see Zacharias Rhetor’s 6th-century vita of Severos, ed. M.-A. Kugener in Severe, patriarche d’ Antioche [PO, 2] (Paris, 1903), 48, 51, 58-63, 65-75. For a general discussion of the last stand of paganism against Christianity, see R. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (New York, 1987), and F. R. Trombley, Hellenic Religion and Christianization, c. 370-529, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1993), esp. 2:29—49 on Beirut.

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to her three men; and whether they were men or angels, she neither knew then nor said later, though it would be impious and indeed wholly alien to Chris- tians not to think this visitation divine. For God, in condescension to our weakness and for our benefit, is wont to present visions of the Incorporeal Ones [i.e., angels] in the form of embodied men. As she sang, then, <these three> entered and remained kneeling behind her for a long time. Though the blessed one was afraid, she did not cease singing, but directed her gaze this way and that, desiring to see what they were doing; she did not, however, turn round. When she began the psalmody of the evening office, the men rose from their prayer, and telling her three times, “Pray for us, O servant of Christ,” they withdrew and vanished.

19. But thereafter there was talk of her in Beirut, and many went out unto her, both men and women, and especially noblewomen, for in a few days report of her had spread everywhere. All told of how her angelic way of life and splendid purity had routed the demons in the temple and put them to flight. Now, among the many who came together to see her and receive her blessing, there came also a certain woman with her daughter, whose name was Sophrone. When this Sophrone, then, saw the blessed [p. 800] Matrona, she was moved to compunction, and could not bear to leave the blessed one or follow her mother, saying, “From henceforth is this holy one both mother and father to me.” Though her mother did her utmost and pressed her, that she should at least take leave of her own family, she would in no wise assent to depart. On this ground did other daughters of heathen <parents> also attach themselves to the blessed Matrona: coming to her they fell down at her knees, crying, and said to her, “Deliver us, holy mother, from the vanity of the idols and deception of the demons, and lead us unto the God you serve.” Receiving them the blessed one first tempered their bodily habits and then, once she had strengthened their spiritual reasoning and prepared them, over the course of many days, for the hope that lies in store for Christians, she would have the rites of chrismation” and baptism performed upon them. Keeping these women, together with the first one, and teaching them letters and poring over Scripture with them, especially the blessed David,” she made them children of God.

”? Anointing with holy oil at the time of baptism. ® Le., the psalter.

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 39

20. Yet another maiden, also a heathen, heard of these things, and she too desired to see the blessed Matrona and to associate herself with her. Now, once when her relations were to perform the customary libations to vain idols, they left her in the house, to bring the flour and wine and whatever else they had prepared for the demons and to follow them, while they went on before- hand and began the foolish <rites>, awaiting the maiden’s arrival. But seizing the opportunity the young woman distributed the wine and flour and every- thing else to the poor, deeming it better to satisfy the hunger of the needy than to serve deaf, senseless idols; and then, finding women who were going off to the blessed one, she followed them. Not knowing what the girl had done, those who worshiped the abominable idols waited for her. When a long time had passed and she did not come, they returned and looked for her. Learning from those who happened to be about what she had done, that she had gone off to the Christian woman in the temple, they ran in pursuit of her; but she had gone in to the holy one. As they stood by the door of the temple and saw her prostrate at the feet of the blessed one, beseeching to be received by her as the others had been received, they called out to her with the most dreadful threats: “Come out here,” they said, “impious one, lest we give you, together with this temple that has been profaned and also your teacher, over to the flames. Who has prompted you to this foolish and lawless action? Why have you forsaken light for darkness? Why have you kindled such anger against us? Are you not afraid, wretched one? Do you not tremble to have done such a lawless deed? Are you not mindful that the gods have power to smite you and this teacher who has thrust herself upon you? Do you not consider how great is the offense you have committed, putting wretched, hopeless paupers before the most great and glorious gods? Flee your impiety. Renounce your folly. Regain sound and prudent reason. Forsake this wretched teacher and her mournful manner, for she has received her just deserts. Come out! Come out from thence, lest this place of salvation become for you a tomb of destruction. We shall bear you no malice, unhappy one, only come away. We shall beseech them whom you have angered, but you must not remain here.” Saying this and similar things they promised the maiden much, and flattered her yet more, while threatening and abusing the holy one; and then they withdrew, promising to burn the temple and the women within on the morrow. Whereupon the godless ones received no reply from the blessed Matrona, save, “This girl is the servant of the God of your gods. For ours is a mighty God, the Maker of heaven and

40 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

earth, but your gods are abominations, works of the hands of men who are born and die, <idols which> molder and putrefy and in the end serve as fuel for the fire.”

21. The girl lay prostrate at her feet and, after the godless ones had gone, she begged and entreated her: “Receive me,” she said, “O servant of Christ, receive me who am desperate and deceived, having served until now vain <gods>; <I have been> ignorant of my God and Savior, following my enemy and destroyer. Join me to those <women> who are with you and lead me to your Christ. Show me the path of life and guide me safely upon it. Yea, I beg you, O servant of Christ, let me not be called unworthy of you nor be taken from your flock, O holy mother.’ Saying these and similar things the maiden moved to tears the blessed Matrona and the freewomen” who had assembled about her. Then the blessed one counseled her for a considerable time and said, “Take heart, my child: our God loves mankind and He shall receive you who truly repent.” [p. 801] She raised her up and, taking her and the <other> sisters, she went straightway out of the temple, telling the freewomen, “Wait here, I pray you, until we return.” Then she collected a great multitude of dried plants and, returning, made three great piles of them; and she said to the freewomen, “Have you servants who can attend to some business for me?” The others replied that they had; and summoning three of their attendants, she told them, “Go, I pray, into the city and say unto the godless ones who not long ago threatened us that ‘The Christian woman informs you that you should not trouble yourselves to bring wood from the city. For I have already prepared dried plants for you, and you will find fire here. Tarry not, therefore: I await you. If it is necessary to prepare anything else, let me know in advance and I shall prepare it. I am eager to spare you any hardship, only be diligent!” The servants, then, went into the city and gave the heathens’ the holy wom- an’s message. Hearing this and marveling at the steadfastness and dauntless- ness of her soul, her noble-mindedness and the wisdom of her thinking, they neither sent any answer nor durst they return.

22. Now, after the servants had gone off and brought back no reply, the

™ The Greek word €Aev@epar, rendered here as “freewomen,” could also mean a “widow” or “wife” in this period; see Lampe, Lexicon, s.v. €hev8epoc, A.6.

® The Greek word is eAAnvec (Hellenes), meaning “pagan,” “adherent of the old Greek religion.”

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 41

blessed one said to the freewomen, “I pray you, tell the most God-loving bishop to send me a priest, a deacon, and a deaconess.’”* Hastily they made their way into the city and, coming to the church, they related everything to the people; and they informed the bishop likewise. It was the talk of all the city that the Christian woman who lived in the temple had converted heathens, and that she continued to convert many others, and that all who saw her were moved to compunction and came to the knowledge of God. Forthwith, then, the bishop sent clerics as she had requested, and nearly the <whole> city <in- cluding> all the freewomen, some in covered litters, others in sedan chairs, and yet others on foot, went out to her; and seeing her they derived great profit and were filled with compunction and indeed received a spark of the knowledge of God. For who, upon seeing that honorable and holy figure, her worn face and, in a word, her mortified body, was not moved to compunction and greatly benefitted, becoming a different person? Wherefore all were edi- fied, and praising God for all the miracles wrought through her they returned to the city with great joy.

23. Then the blessed Matrona took the maiden who had been converted and gave her into the hands of the priest, deacon, and deaconess, saying to them, “I pray your Holinesses, take this humble maiden, that she might now turn aside from the error of the idols. When you have instructed her and bap- tized her, bring her back to me here.” Taking her the clerics conducted her to the church. Then, when they had instructed her after the fashion of the Chris- tians and baptized her, they took the disciple back to the teacher; and she remained with her, in the company of the other maidens who had come before her, and received all manner of spiritual instruction. The blessed one gave her the name Euche [Prayer]. Several other women joined as well, so that there were eight in all. Many persons at that time derived profit merely from the sight of the blessed one and, goaded by divine longing, they began to live better lives. For the figure of that blessed and true servant of God was venera- ble, her speech accessible and conversation with her full of profit, and associa- tion with her gave pleasure in but a short time; in a word, one never had

7 Deaconesses, the female counterpart of deacons, were women whose primary function was to assist at the baptism of women. The office could be held only by unmar- ried women or widows of mature age; cf. ODB 1:592-93 and Gryson, Ministry of Women, 88-90.

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enough of seeing her, and upon thinking of her one was filled with longing. Many who were with her then found it difficult to depart from her, reckoning it a loss to be deprived of her venerable company even for a short time.

24. Now, all the while that she lived thus, piously and honorably, prosper- ing before God’s angels and before men, the blessed Matrona feared her hus- band, lest, on account of her fame, he should find her there as well. Moreover, she desired to see her superior, the blessed Bassianos. Caught up between these two considerations, she thought of moving either to Alexandria or to Antioch, in order to escape the notice of her husband. Although she desired to live in Constantinople, on account of her superior and the proximity to the brethren with whom she had lived the monastic life, she restrained herself, thinking again of her husband. “For if,’ she said, “he did not shrink from pursuing me when I had gone to Emesa, Jerusalem, and Mt. Sinai, would he not all the more pursue me and perpetrate dreadful things if he heard that I was in Constantinople?” [p. 802] Occupied with these <thoughts> the blessed one earnestly besought God to reveal unto her the profitable course. For if ever she met with difficulty, either in her deeds or her thoughts, she referred the matter to God and waited for the answer from Him.

25. For many days she waited upon Him and prayed Him reveal to her that which was profitable. Then once, as she slept, she saw three men who came to her and said, “We have come here for your sake, Lady, for one of us will take you to wife.’ She thought herself to say to them in the dream, “Whence come you, and what are your names?” Then, she said, they told her that one of them was called Alexander, another Antiochos, and the other Constantine. Said she to them, “I will have none of you, for I have made a promise unto God to remain pure, and on His account I have renounced my lawful husband.” Thereupon it seemed as if they were discomfited and said to one another with contention, “I shall have her!” Each of them said this same thing, and thus saying they drew lots to settle the dispute. The lot fell to Con- stantine; but because Alexander and Antiochos were not satisfied with the first drawing, they drew again. After they had drawn a third time and the lot had three times fallen to Constantine, the blessed one thought herself to say to them, “Whether you draw lots or not, I will have none of you. I have told you once and for all: I have committed myself unto God.” Thus replying in her sleep she awoke. Now, after she awoke, when she had comprehended the meaning of the vision, she rendered thanks unto God, the Giver of good things. For she understood that the three men represented the three cities

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 43

which had been in her thoughts: Alexander, Alexandria; Antiochos, Antioch; and Constantine, Constantinople.”

26. Convinced, then, by this dream that it pleased God that she should live in Constantinople, she thought only of her departure and the journey: not that she was concerned for herself—for she knew that God Who loves man- kind, Who had shown her where it pleased Him that she should live, would provide for her—but she was anxious about how or where she would leave the sisters with whom she lived. While the blessed Matrona was occupied with such cares and concerns, the freewomen whose acquaintance she had made came to her, to visit her and derive spiritual profit. After considerable conver- sation, she told them of her desire and of the vision from God. The free- women, inasmuch as they loved her and were loath to part with her, were grieved and said, “O most God-loving Mistress, if this is to be, we know not whether we ought first to regret the desolation of our souls or your good and profitable conversation. To whom shall we come hereafter for solace, or to which other mother shall we have recourse that we might be consoled, or to which teacher shall we run that we might be taught by her to scorn this tempo- rary, vain life and in no wise prefer it to the coming, everlasting life? Who hereafter, once we are bereft of you, will assuage the afflictions that weigh upon us? Who, when you are gone, will be able to refresh with words, as with a sponge, those beset with despondency? Who will speak to us of love for a husband, of love of children and godly housekeeping? Who will instruct us in good deeds and every good work in service to God? Considering all these things we are filled with all manner of sorrow and despondency, bereft of all solace. Nor can we prevent you <going>, for God has concurred with your desire. But the mother of the ex-Prefect Elias and the mother of the scholasti- koi® are going off to their children in Constantinople, and if your Holiness so commands, we shall speak to them about you: through your holy prayers they too will be preserved, and your Godliness will make the journey with them.”

27. Having said this, the freewomen were deputed by the blessed one, and

7 Tt is unusual for cities to be personified by men instead of the female figures nor- mally encountered on coins, diptychs, and other artistic representations; see, for ex- ample, Alan Cameron, “Anthusa: Notes on the Iconography of Constantinople,” BSCAbstr 8 (1982), 41.

78 Elias or Helias, probably an honorary prefect, cannot be identified. The same ap- plies to the unnamed scholastikoi (a title favored by advocates and rhetors).

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hurriedly they made their way into the city and told the other women about her. Directly they heard, they rushed out to the blessed one, to encourage her, fearing lest she should put off going and they should thus be deprived of the salvation and benefit which gushed forth from her. The blessed one assented to sail with them, and she took counsel with them, that the sisters might go to the most God-loving bishop. But taking the matter upon themselves, the freewomen rushed into the city and informed the bishop. Without a moment’s hesitation the bishop summoned two deaconesses known for their nobility of life and most excellent conduct and sent them to the blessed Matrona, that they should receive the sisters who were with her. Said he to them, [p. 803] “See to it, sisters, that you preserve the sisters you receive from the most holy woman, lest through life’s vanity you should become slack and neglectful, or should conduct your lives unfittingly and thereby give these women whom God has delivered from the error of idols over to the deception of unlaw- fulness, and you should then render account to God on their behalf on the day of judgment.” Hearing this the God-loving deaconesses went off with the freewomen to the blessed one and received the aforementioned sisters. Giving them over, the blessed Matrona said to the deaconesses, “O spiritual mothers and sisters, I commend these souls to you and to God: be unto them mothers in body and spirit, and take care for their salvation for as long as you shall have them, that you may present them on the day of judgment perfect, pure, and without offense, unto Christ, Who has chosen them.” Having said this, she kissed them as a loving mother and admonished them as a good teacher, and she gave them leave to depart with the deaconesses.

28. Then the other freewomen took the blessed Matrona to themselves, like some great treasure and instrument of salvation, and because the blessed one so desired they also took one of the sisters who had been with her: the one who had been first to follow her and to love her way of life, Sophrone by name. With haste they set sail from the city of Beirut and, after an unexpect- edly calm passage, swiftly reached the Imperial City. For He Who had revealed to her the place of her trials, showing her in a night vision the city that would receive her, granted her an undisturbed and speedy voyage. Coming to anchor at St. Irene’s,” she sent word of herself to the deacon Markellos; and when he

”® The church of St. Irene of Perama (not to be confused with the larger and more famous St. Irene’s near Hagia Sophia) was situated on the Golden Horn shore, opposite Sykai (Galata). It was rebuilt by the oikonomos Marcian in the middle of the 5th cen- tury; cf. Janin, EglisesCP, 106-7.

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 45

heard, he came to her forthwith. Upon seeing him, the blessed one and Sophrone did obeisance to him upon the ground. But the honorable deacon said to her, “Whence are you come, my Lady sister? Why are you here? What has prompted you to leave the monastery to which you were sent and to come here?” In answer the blessed one said, “It is not by desertion that I have come, honored father, but out of my desire for my venerable and holy superior, and in order that I might receive his blessing.” Moved to compunction, the deacon received her. Then the blessed one related to him all that had befallen her: how after he had dismissed her she had made her way forthwith to the monas- tery, and how Dometianos had pursued her, and how she had been forced on his account to leave the monastery; how upon reaching Jerusalem she had barely escaped falling into his hands; how again she had gone to Mt. Sinai; how she had lived in Beirut, and how she had become well known there; how many had been through her moved to compunction and many saved; and how and by what cause she was again in the Imperial City. In brief, she hid from him none of the things she had done, not wishing to make a display of her- self—Heaven forbid! for this was an emotion alien to that holy soul—but to convince him that she was not there by desertion, but had come in accordance with a vision and her desire.

29. When he had heard this the deacon Markellos went up to the holy Bassianos and told him everything, saying that the Lord Babylas, the eunuch, had come from the East and had brought with him another brother.’° Upon hearing this the holy Bassianos was sorely grieved and said to the deacon, “Why has he come again?” Said the deacon, “He is here to receive your Holi- ness’s blessing.” The blessed <superior>, then, thanked the Lord, and pro- nouncing his habitual words, “Blessed is the Lord,” he paused briefly and then said to the deacon, “Go, my child, and arrange for lodging, in which he is to abide; God and we shall take care for the rent. Pay the passage money first, then take him up to the <lodgings>.” Whereupon the deacon went off and did everything as commanded: finding a quite suitable dwelling in <the district of> St. Thomas*! above the colonnade, he left a deposit; and taking the key he went down to the sea and brought up the blessed Matrona and the sister with

8° The implication is that Matrona and her companion are in male attire.

8! The best known church of the St. Thomas region was that built on the property of Amantios near Julian’s Harbor. The Amantios in question is usually identified with the chamberlain of the emperor Anastasios I (PLRE 2:67-68), but there is some reason to believe that the church may have existed earlier; cf. Janin, EglisesCP, 248-50.

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her. The freewomen who had made the voyage with her entreated him, and they too came up into the monastery with her, that they might also receive the holy elder’s blessing. When they entered, upon seeing the blessed Matrona and the freewomen with her, the holy [p. 804] Bassianos thanked the freewomen, uttering a prayer, and said, “May the Lord Jesus Christ give you the reward of your compassion, for you have taken her to yourselves and have not al- lowed her to suffer affliction in any wise.” To the blessed Matrona, who lay at his feet, he said, “Rise, child. What is it again that you want? Why have you come here?” In answer the blessed one said, “I have come to receive a blessing from your holy mouth, holy father.’ He enquired also about the sister with her, and learning how she had joined her, this blessed and truly holy one [the superior] became speechless and wept with them. He paused briefly and then commanded the deacon to bring three pieces of blessed bread,® three girdles, and three cloaks. When they had been brought, he prayed for a long time; and sealing them with the sign of the cross, he gave them to her, saying, “Go, my child, settle yourself and save the souls that the Lord shall send you. Pre- serve yourself and present your way of life as a model to those who are being saved, that those who are taught by you may see the things you teach through words being fulfilled in you through deeds. But do not receive any servant against the wish of her master or mistress, on account of the holy canons.’ * 30. It is my opinion that the blessed and holy Bassianos did this not from human understanding and wisdom, but through the influence of a divine force. The very fact that he was in ecstasy and, hesitating a short while, sud- denly requested the aforementioned pieces of blessed bread as well as the girdles shows beyond doubt that this was a divine thing. For the blessed <Ma- trona> had not come for this purpose, nor had she sought any such thing from him. Receiving from his holy hands the blessings of the girdles and other things he gave her, and from his blessed lips the words of confirmation, she was amazed at the strangeness and miraculous character of the thing. But

8 Eulogia bread was bread that had been blessed but not consecrated (and thus was to be distinguished from the bread of the eucharist); it later came to be known as antidoron. Cf. G. Galavaris, Bread and the Liturgy: The Symbolism of Early Christian and Byzantine Bread Stamps (Madison, Wisc., 1970), 109-66.

83 As we learn from Chap. 51, these were men’s girdles and cloaks.

84 Cf. canon 4 of the Council of Chalcedon (ed. Joannou, Discipline, 1.1:72—74, or Rhalles-Potles, Syntagma 2:226).

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when she had regained her courage she said to him, “Venerable and holy fa- ther, I beseech you, I have seven other sisters in the city of Beirut: what is your command concerning them?” Learning to whom they had been commended, he ordered the deacon Markellos to give to the captain who had brought the blessed Matrona the passage money and expenses for the sisters who were in Beirut, and to enjoin him to bring them with dispatch to Constantinople. When this had been done, and the freewomen had also written, through the captain, to the bishop and their relations in Beirut, that they should send them without delay and assist in their speedy embarkation, the most holy Bassianos said to the deacon Markellos, “Take these <women>, honorable child, and conduct them to the quarters you have arranged. For the Lord’s sake, I pray you, take care of them with diligence, in the knowledge that, if you neglect them, you shall have committed a great sin, even as if you take thought for them, so shall you receive great reward from the Lord. Whatever the brethren have for nourishment, send this also to them daily; nor take careful thought only for their nourishment, but for each and every thing.” Saying this and giving blessed bread to the freewomen also, the blessed Bassianos dismissed them.

31. With the permission of the deacon Markellos the freewomen accom- panied the blessed one to her lodgings, and the deacon uttered a prayer and installed the blessed one there; and from then on he saw to their every need. Once the blessed one had been installed in her rooms, the freewomen went off to their children. For they had not sent word of themselves to their beloved children until the blessed one had been installed in her lodgings and they had made certain of this: such was the affection they had for her, and so greatly did they revere her and hold her in all honor, that they counted her installation <in her quarters> more important than being with their own children. For they thought, “Now that we have been saved through her prayers, we shall be able to see our children afterwards. But if we do not first see that she is in- stalled and learn where her dwelling is, we shall have to search for her later, and the loss will be great, for there is no one who shall bring word of her.”

Now, while the blessed Matrona dwelled in her lodgings, performing the customary psalmody in the rule which had been passed down to her, the letters arrived in Beirut and were delivered to the bishop. Without any hesitation or delay the bishop commanded the deaconesses to hand over to the captain the sisters they had received from the blessed one, having himself enjoined <the captain> beforehand to preserve them with all care and humility. Straightway,

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then, <the captain> took on board provisions, from the freewomen who had sailed with the blessed one as well as from the bishop, and set sail from Beirut. Upon reaching the Imperial City, he sent word to the deacon that the sisters had arrived; and the deacon Markellos reported to the most blessed Bassianos concerning them. He inquired whether he wanted them to come first to him, to receive his blessing; and at the <most blessed> one’s command, he went down to the ship at the seashore and brought them up. When they had come, he blessed them, [p. 805] and admonishing them with many passages from the Holy Scriptures to obey the blessed Matrona in all things and to keep her commandments always, he gave them blessed bread and sent them off to their mother superior.

32. Now, while the blessed <Matrona> was thus occupied, thanking God for having directed her superior’s goodwill toward her and for having pre- served the sisters she had received contrary to the purposes of others, report of her spread throughout the city and she became famous in the mouths of all. It was impossible for so great a marvel to lie hidden: everyone was pos- sessed by eagerness and all were equally keen to be first to see her and learn from her what she had feigned or devised in order to enter such a strict monas- tery; and, once entered, how she had escaped notice for so long. Since every- one, then, was flocking to her and deriving benefit from her, the blessed empress Verina,*° wife of the blessed Leo, also heard of her, and being a God- loving and venerable woman, she too came to her, to receive her blessing and learn the details of her life. When the blessed <Matrona> told her how she had entered the monastery and in what guise, and how after such a long time her secret had been revealed to the most holy Bassianos, she marveled at the greatness of the undertaking, approving the manliness of her purpose, and bade her pray for her and her children,** and the emperor. Then the blessed one gave her pieces of blessed bread that had been soaked <with wine>, but she asked for nothing whatsoever in return, though the empress quite expected to be petitioned by her for something, seeing that the blessed <Matrona> dwelt

85 Although active in pious works and the building of churches, Verina was a person of rather questionable character. The text implies that her husband, Leo I (d. 18 January 474), was still alive at the time.

86 Verina had two daughters, namely, Ariadne, married since 466/467 to the future emperor Zeno (474-491), and Leontia, wife of Marcian, son of the western emperor Anthemius (on whom, see next note).

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in rented lodgings and was in no wise prosperous. The blessed empress Verina, therefore, derived extraordinary benefit by her not asking for anything nor being ashamed to give such pieces of blessed bread to an empress, and com- mending herself to her she withdrew.

33. Now, a certain Euphemia, who had been the wife of Anthimus,®” who had formerly reigned as emperor in Rome, had been since that time an ac- quaintance of the blessed one,®* and she knew by experience of the beneficial actions wrought through her. And when Antiochiane, the wife of the patrician Sphorakios® (I mean the Sphorakios who had constructed the all-holy and all-beauteous church of the great and victorious martyr Theodore),” fell ill at that time, <Euphemia> went to visit her. As is usual in conversations, espe- cially with those who are ill, Antiochiane discussed the cause of her illness, finding fault with her physicians. For though she had spent a great deal of money on them, they had not been able to help her in the least; on the con- trary, the illness had got worse through their ineptitude. Showing compassion for her Euphemia said, “My lady patrician, why do you spend money on phy- sicians, who can take the money but know not how to help? You ought rather to approach generous God, the physician who takes no fee. Betake yourself, therefore, to the wonder-working and holy woman who has now settled in our city. For she is the one, that I may tell you of her briefly, who was possessed by divine longing and, fleeing her husband and by clever contrivance trans- forming herself into a eunuch, spent three years?! in the monastery of the blessed Bassianos. When she was afterwards discovered through a revelation, being no longer able to live among the men, she was sent off to a women’s

87 Anthimus is a variant form of Anthemius, who reigned as Augustus in the West from 467 to 472; cf. PLRE, 2:96-97. His wife Euphemia, oddly qualified as “a certain” (ttc), was the daughter of the emperor Marcian.

88 Her meeting with Matrona should probably be dated after 472, when her husband was murdered.

8° Sphorakios or Sporacius was consul in 452. PLRE, 2:1026-7, distinguishes him, perhaps wrongly, from a Sporacius who appears to have been prefect of Constantinople sometime between 474 and 491. His wife Antiochiane is not mentioned elsewhere.

°° Situated on the main street (Mese), not far from Hagia Sophia, this church was rebuilt by Sphorakios following a fire, perhaps that of 465. See remarks in C. Mango, “Epigrammes honorifiques, statues et portraits a Byzance,’ Studies on Constantinople (Aldershot, 1993), pt. 1x, 25-28.

°! This information is given here for the first time.

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monastery in the East. Her husband pursued her there also, and she fled to many other places, until she returned hither in accordance with a divine vi- sion. In sum, on account of her pure and blameless conduct and her heavenly and angelic way of life, she has effected many cures and converted those gone astray and has helped and still helps a great many. Hasten, therefore, to her and tell her all, doubting naught, and you shall be delivered completely from the ailment that afflicts you.”

34. When Antiochiane, wife of Sphorakios, had heard and learned these things, she thanked Euphemia most profusely and bade her go with her to the blessed Matrona. They made an agreement and on the morrow they both came to her. Finding her singing the morning office, they waited until she finished. [p. 806] When she had finished singing, they did obeisance to her and sat down with her. After the conversation had gone on for a considerable time and the blessed one had uttered the customary <blessings> and benefited them, healing their souls before their bodies, Antiochiane gently and trust- ingly took the blessed one’s hand and placed it on the place that pained her. As the blessed one did not know the reason for this, Antiochiane said to her, “Mistress mine and servant of Christ, I am employing your touch to assuage the suffering that afflicts me, and in so doing I expect not to be disappointed, for already, with the holy God’s help, I have felt benefit’’ Making light of this, the blessed one said to her, “My lady, I am a sinner, and such as I am so is my touch. But the Lord Jesus Christ Who visited Peter’s mother-in-law and cured her of the fever will visit you also and will cure you of the pain which troubles you.” Feeling forthwith strength and benefit, Antiochiane remained by her; and bidding Euphemia go home, she said to her, “I shall remain with my physician until my complete recovery.”

35. Now, while <Antiochiane> remained with the blessed <Matrona>, her eunuchs asked the blessed one’s doorkeeper for quarters in which they might keep the animals and put away the covered litter. But she told them, “Besides the lodging in which we live, we have none other, and even for this do we pay rent. How could we have yet other quarters, we who are foreigners and have not even the necessities of life?” The eunuchs then went and reported to their mistress what they had been told. Antiochiane acknowledged the goodwill of her servants, and marveling at the blessed Matrona’s praiseworthy poverty and blessed penury she said to her, “I have heard, Mistress mine, that you dwell in

Cf. Mt. 8:14-15.

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rented lodgings, and I am sorely grieved.” The blessed one said, “I do dwell in rented lodgings, but God and my superior provide for them and for us.” Said Antiochiane again to her, “Let it not be so with you, I beg you, my lady. By God’s bounty I have many beautiful estates: accept one of them for the ran- som of my sinful soul and live in it, unto the salvation of the many souls who will be saved through you and me. Whichever estate pleases you, this shall I grant you forthwith, making it over to your full ownership.”

36. Hearing this the blessed Matrona perceived her goodwill from her words, and understanding that she desired to give her a place to be dedicated to God as a haven for human souls, she agreed to accept it and sent for the deacon Markellos; and telling him of the proposal, she left the matter in his hands. Taking the servants who had been instructed to show him the estates, the deacon came to the place called Severiana, where the monastery of the blessed <Matrona> was built, which was then a rose garden. He was pleased by the situation of the place because of its vicinity to other monasteries, espe- cially that of the blessed Bassianos (of which he was a member), and because of its being within the city walls.? He came to the blessed Matrona and the Christ-loving Antiochiane and reported that the place was quite well and good and its situation suitable, but that it required much repair. When the deacon had said this, Antiochiane forthwith drew up the property grant to the blessed Matrona, and signing it she gave the document to her; but she made the holding of the property over to the deacon Markellos, as Matrona’s representative, promising to carry out also the repairs. Then she thanked the deacon for his persistence, and departed sound in soul and body. Nor did she prove faithless in that which she had promised, but paid for the ap- propriate improvement of the place. In this wise, then, did the blessed Ma- trona get her monastery in this place and establish her spiritual flock, which through her holy prayers and God’s assistance exists to the present day, practicing asceticism unswervingly in accordance with the rule handed down to her. Taking full ownership, then, of the estate, [p. 807] she left the rented lodging upon the instruction of her superior, the most holy Bassianos (for she undertook nothing without his consent), and moved to the lawful stadium of

* Te., the Theodosian land walls, completed in 413. The name Severiana may be due to Severos, one of the patrons of Bassianos. It eventually became attached to a hostel for the elderly, which was still standing in the 10th century. See A. Berger, Untersuch- ungen zu den Patria Konstantinupoleos (Bonn, 1988), 526.

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ascetic practice, along with Eugenia, mentioned earlier in this Life,** who had assisted her in every good deed from the beginning. Now this was no idle or barren change of residence, but lighting tapers and performing quiet and solemn psalmody she moved to the place which had been granted her. Thus did the blessed one attain the end of the vision in Beirut: becoming a law- ful resident® of Constantinople as had been made manifest in the revelation, she opened the arena of asceticism [viz. the convent] and provided a glimpse of the bridal chamber of salvation, in which she wedded many a soul unto Christ.

37. She brought with her to this <new> place and house twelve sisters, for another four had been added to the eight. Installed, then, in that place by the will of God, the blessed one shone forth marvelously through her way of life, and her fame increased exceedingly. Her flock grew daily, waxing greater in number: in the love of God it was broadened, though it was straitened in the capacity of space. There was not room enough at the time of prayer, but the fear of God prompted them to treat the straitening as relaxation. Seeing her flock grow and increase in number, the blessed one rejoiced and was glad, and she besought God day and night on its behalf saying, “Thou, Lord, inas- much as Thou art merciful, hast gathered it together: do Thou also protect it, inasmuch as Thou art holy. Longing for Thee, Master, hath summoned them all, and fear of Thee shall preserve them all. Even as Thou hast provided for their souls, so neglect Thou not their bodies. Thou seest, Lord, the straitening. Thou beholdest the poverty. Thou understandest every thing. Comfort us all, inasmuch as Thou art good and lovest mankind.” So did the blessed Matrona invoke the succor of God in this matter; and God, Who fulfilleth the will of them that fear Him** nor is slow to hearken unto them, in accordance with His truthful promise, “While thou are yet speaking, I shall say: Behold, I am here,”®” heard her supplications.°*® To her who sought the kingdom of heaven,

4 Cf. pp. 20-29, passim.

°° It appears that possession of landed property entailed the right of residence at Constantinople. Provincials were discouraged from remaining in the capital longer than necessary, as shown especially by Justinian’s legislation; cf. Novellae 80 and 86 (CIC 3:390-97, 419-23).

© Cf. Ps. 144 (145):19.

7 Ts. 58:9.

8 Cf. Ps. 144 (145):19.

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in accordance with His word, did He add also all riches and abundance in this world.”

38. Now, on the annual feast of the victorious martyr Lawrence,’ when all the city gathered together in his holy house (for his feast is a great one and is celebrated gloriously, fragrant oil from his holy relics being distributed on this day to the honor and glory of his martyrdom)—on this <feast>, then, there were two sisters, pious of manner and noble of birth, who came together with the others to receive a portion of the holy oil. When they had received the blessed bread with all the others, after the completion of the holy mysteries and dismissal of the festal offices, as they went through one of the streets adjoining the monastery, they heard the sound of psalmody coming from the buildings. Struck by the strangeness of the sound (for they knew that place to be an estate, not a monastery), they enquired of those living nearby who it was performing this psalmody. When these latter had told them of the blessed one, relating the events of her life, they got down from their litters and went in to her. Upon seeing that venerable and angelic figure, wondering at the marvelous and strange nature of her attire,!°! they remained with her for a long time, profiting from her counsels. To such an extent were they edified by her holy words and the sisterhood’s marvelous appearance, that one of them, Athanasia by name, pricked with divine longing, said to her sister, “Go home, my sister, and fare well: for from this moment this holy one is mother, father, and sister to me. For what profit shall I have henceforth from this vain life? Even if I should seem to prosper in some wise or reign as empress, is not all thereafter death? Shall I not become ashes and dust? Shall I not, who am today borne about by servants and eunuchs, soon be committed to the grave and trampled underfoot by them? Does not dishonor succeed to glory, and disease obscure the most celebrated beauty? Go, then, go, I beg you. Go in peace, and allow [p. 808] me to lament my sins.”

39. Saying this the honorable and blessed Athanasia caused her sister

”° Cf. Mt. 6:33.

100 Celebrated on 10 August. The basilica of St. Lawrence was built by the empress Pulcheria and completed in 453. It stood close to the Golden Horn, near modern Aya- kapi (according to Janin, EglisesCP 303-4) or farther to the northwest, at modern Balat (according to Berger, Untersuchungen, 530). It must have been fairly close to Ma- trona’s nunnery.

101 T.e., her male monastic garb.

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fright and anxiety, and the latter was compelled to ask her, “Did I not give your husband assurances concerning you? Was it not perhaps because your husband knew beforehand what you intended to do that he <tried to> prevent you going? What has suddenly come over you? Why do you strive to beset me with temptation? How can I leave without you? If I were to leave, what excuse should I give concerning you? Keep your desire to yourself, and guard your intention in your heart. I do not command that you desist from this good purpose, even if it is very hard and burdensome and difficult of accomplish- ment; only come with me now: spare me troubles and concerns. Put your house in order: first convince your husband, and abandon not your good goal.” Saying this and more she also besought the blessed Matrona to bid her return home. The blessed one sat with both of them, hearing the words of both: she marveled at the quickness of the change in the one and counted blessed the fervor of her faith, but she accepted the good reason of the other’s exhortation. Seeing what needed to de done, she said to the blessed Athanasia, “Go, child, for the meanwhile back to your house with your sister, and make trial of yourself, but do not reveal your plan to your husband. If this thought abides with you, then may God’s will be done. For longing after God, my child, is like a seed which comes up forthwith but does not forthwith bear fruit. Just as seed thrown upon any land whatsoever will bring forth the blade, but will not in every <land> come to perfection,!” even so will the word of God introduce its own warmth in whichever soul it enters, though it will not endure permanently in every <soul>, but will disappear with time or be stifled by worldly cares or fade through indifference. Wherefore, my child, it is not in the least strange or marvelous if, coming here and receiving a spark of God’s love, you have been possessed forthwith by the desire for asceticism; nor, moreover, do you deserve great approbation. One need not, therefore, be convinced by you now, until you can provide a witness to your character, for you are still young: the flame of bodily desires burns within you, and the flower and beauty of bodily form is upon you. You are adorned with great wealth, you have now taken a husband, you are of a noble lineage, you have acquired much property, your body is delicate and weak, you are served in every wise by handmaidens and attendants. Asceticism, my child, is for one who serves, not one who is served.”

40. Saying these and similar things the blessed Matrona was unable to

102 Cf. Mk. 4:28.

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convince her, for her desire for asceticism and love of God prompted Atha- nasia to resist the teacher and induced her to pledge readiness for everything. The blessed one, then, summoned the deacon Markellos and told him of her. The deacon gave Athanasia many admonitions, and offering a prayer over her he said, “Holy God, Who has given you this thought and warmed your heart, that you might love Him with all your soul, shall Himself fulfill your desire and finish your course.” Thus he persuaded her to leave the monastery. Now, the blessed ones [viz. Matrona and Markellos] had said these things not in opposition to her good intention and zeal, but only to test her purpose, in fear lest being young she should make a false start and be unable to bring it to fulfillment; for she was <but> eighteen years of age. Thus was the blessed Athanasia persuaded to depart with her sister.

41. But not only did she not abandon her goal or diminish in any wise her good desire, rather, she took care for spiritual perfection: she practiced asceticism, accustoming herself to humility through training of the body, pray- ing constantly, and moaning yet more constantly and denouncing her sins. But while the blessed Athanasia was occupied with this most beauteous and goodly exercise and spiritual training, her first and only begotten child died. She did not lament greatly nor grieve in an unseemly manner, as is usual with women who love their children, but wept for it somewhat, so much as to dem- onstrate the appropriate natural feelings within her, neither suffering nor act- ing effeminately in any wise. After a few days had passed, she came again to the monastery, bringing with her nothing for her own service: no fragrant wine, no white bread, no [p. 809] fish, no embroidery, no carpet, nor any other of the things to which a noble and wealthy woman is accustomed; but satisfied with their austere way of life, enduring the hardship of <sleeping> upon the bare floor, she contented herself with greens <prepared> without oil and dried figs and made do with the harshness of rush mats instead of the luxury of embroidered bedding. For that holy and honorable and God-loving commu- nity of the blessed Matrona was not supplied with the latter, but rather, being rich in godly poverty and being broadened through love, they bore their strait- ened circumstances and poverty as though they were relaxation and luxury. She spent three days, then, bearing everything gladly and without the slightest pain: she was late neither to the evening nor the morning office; she marked how the sisters gathered together at the hour of the office, how they knelt down, how they rose up; how they began; how they stood singing without distraction; how from the evening until the morning office the blessed Ma-

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trona did not recline her body in relaxation, but sitting on a small wooden chair fulfilled her need for sleep, and how after the office and the great toil of standing she returned to the same position; and, moreover, how, as the <other> nuns slept, she would first stretch out her hands in tearful prayer and then wake them at the hour of the office, and would do everything in the same wise as her superior, the most holy Bassianos. Marking all of this, Athanasia returned to her home.

42. Now, using the harvesttime as a pretext—for it was the appropriate season—she had left her husband at home, and having gone out to her estate, she there worthily imitated Terce, Sext, and None and performed all the other offices on the same wise as in the monastery. But then she was informed by her chief stewardess,'°? who had charge of all the movable property, that the servant Kallopodios had broken into the back side of the money chest'™ and, having stolen a bag of gold, had run off. Hearing this and referring everything to God, the blessed Athanasia returned to her house as quickly as she could. Now, the servant had stolen this gold on the instruction of her husband. For he [the husband] was a squanderer, and not having enough for himself, he found an opportunity, while the honorable and excellent Athanasia was on her estate. He contrived that the stewardess, though unwillingly and contrary to her habit, should go outside the house; and while she, under the constraint of his command, went down to the gate, he ordered the servant to break into the money chest, take in his hands the bag he found in it, and come down <from the house>. Now, as the servant came down the stairs, carrying on his shoulders the <bag of> stolen money bulging out from behind, with his master following him, he met the stewardess; and suspecting what had happened, she stopped the servant and put her hand on the bag he was carrying. Then when the master shouted angrily from behind, she let the servant go; and the latter, descending with him to the gate, gave the money over to the master. The

10 The Greek term is n petCotepa, the feminine form of pefotepos, wevC@v, which is probably an exact equivalent of majordomo; cf. Lampe, Lexicon, s.v. weyoc, B. 4. For a parallel usage in 7th-century hagiography, see A.-J. Festugiere, Vie de Theodore de Sykeon, | (Brussels, 1970), chap. 34.6.

104 Designated as povlikiov (variant povCaKiov), a rare term also used by John Moschos (PG 87.3:2936p and 3093B [where pov Cixia should be emended to pov- Cixta]). The word was discussed by J. Duffy and G. Vikan (“A Small Box in John Moschus,” GRBS 24 [1983], 93-99), who were unaware of our text. It can now be said that a povCixtov was specifically a strongbox for keeping valuables and that it could be, as here, of some size. It was not a pyxis.

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 57

<stewardess> then went up <to the estate> and reported this crooked business. When the blessed Athanasia had returned from her estate and learned from the stewardess the details of what had happened, she calmly summoned the servant and asked him why he had done this. He told her straightway every- thing about the matter, and that he had done it at the command of his master. As he was innocent, then, she dismissed the servant; and finding the accusa- tion of theft as a reasonable pretext for separation from her husband,’® she lived alone, as having repudiated him.

43. Then she summoned the deacon Markellos and, falling at his feet, implored him to send her some of the blessed bread of which the sisters par- took. Markellos refused, saying, “You cannot bear such a way of life, for you are delicate and accustomed to eat divers dishes prepared with oil.’ But her eunuchs bore witness in her favor saying that, from the time she had gone to her estate, she had not been to the bath, nor put off her silken garment, nor had she slept upon a bed, but had only put down a carpet upon the floor and slept upon it what appeared to be sleep. Nor had she partaken of her usual food, but of that which was light and plain. Then acknowledging her endur- ance and seeing the persistence of her pious intention, <Markellos> promised to send her <the blessed bread>. He went to the blessed Matrona and told her all this about the blessed Athanasia. The blessed Matrona rejoiced to hear of her excellent accomplishments, but still she feared lest she should undergo a change through diabolical assault or worldly circumstances and should slacken and become negligent. Forthwith, then, she rose up with her company of sisters in prayer and supplication on her behalf, nor did she cease thereafter to remember her and to entreat God to strengthen her intention and preserve in her the same good and honorable purpose. From that time on, greens with- out oil and dried figs were sent to her at the ninth hour. Thus provided for and sufficing on such a diet for a considerable time, it occurred to her [p. 810] that it would be a pious work for her to requite the sisters. Sending a few nomismata to a bakery,'°° she arranged that the blessed Matrona should be

105 Justinianic legislation does not include a husband’s theft of his wife’s property as sufficient grounds for her to divorce him; cf. Novella 117.9 in CIC 3:558—60.

106 Although registered as owner of real estate, Matrona does not appear to have been entitled to a free bread ration, which at Constantinople was attached to the owner- ship of houses (panes aedium). See J. Durliat, De la ville antique a la ville byzantine (Rome, 1990), 195-211. The reason may have been that her property was a proasteion, i.e., a suburban estate situated outside the Constantinian walls. A ration was worth about three gold pieces (nomismata) a year.

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supplied with a few loaves every day, for the sustenance of the sisters. The blessed Matrona, now able to provide her sisters with loaves, thanked God all the more—for she believed Him to be the cause of all good things—and strove that she herself should be found by Him worthy of the bounties granted her. For she believed firmly that the provision of more things becomes a source of more punishments unto those who do not live a life worthy of His command- ments.

44. Now, the blessed Matrona prayed for her without ceasing, and Atha- nasia herself contrived to make her heart worthy of these prayers: she clove unto God all the more, and the longing for asceticism became more urgent within her. She did not cease to opportune her husband daily to release her. Sometimes she would say, “I cannot live with you, who are mean in your intentions and lecherous and are given to unlawful deeds,” and at other times she would promise to give him much money if he would release her with good- will. For she feared lest, if she left him and went off straightway, she should be liable to the judgment of the Lord that says that Whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery;}° for that which is meant of the woman is meant also of the man. Furthermore, if she were to leave him, she would cause no small trouble for the monastery that received her, since he would come in search of her. Therefore she was resolved not to leave him in a heedless manner. Whereupon, admonishing him for a long time with the assent and cooperation of our Lord Jesus Christ, she brought him into concurrence with her good purpose. This done, she removed herself from every matter on all sides: to some of her slaves she granted free- dom, providing them with houses and expenses, while exhorting others to a manner and zeal like her own. Then taking herself and all she had she went to the blessed Matrona in the monastery, and laying everything down at her feet after the example of the apostles in the Acts,!°° she entreated her saying, “O servant of Christ and holy mother, behold, you now have me and all that is mine. Consecrate me and all this to God, and administer us with the wisdom you possess. Neglect not my salvation out of consideration for my wealth, but take care and look after me as you would for the poorest of your sisters, for the weight of riches makes even heavier the burden of transgressions.”

45. The blessed Matrona acknowledged her goodwill but rejected the bur-

107 Mt. 5:32. 108 Cf. Acts 4:35.

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 59

den of administration, telling her, “God, Who has called you to this house, my child, and has directed your heart to despise wealth and the world and to serve Him, will be able also to keep you in our midst until your last breath. But as for the property, I beg you, my child, administer it yourself as you know how and as God will show you; or else put it in the hands of one who will be able to serve your noble intention. For I—I confess to you—fear my many sins, lest I should not learn to administer this as might please God, and should add burden to my burden.” But the blessed Athanasia was greatly grieved by this and, beseeching her with many tears to accept the administration of this <property>, she pleaded her cause with reason and said appropriately, “If you, who have served God for so many years and have done that which pleases Him and have attained boldness <before Him> through your way of life —if you refuse the administration <of the property>, how can you commend its administration to me, the most sinful of all persons, who until the present have lived in iniquity, a slave to greed and lawless acts, wherefore my soul’s eye has been blinded?” With such pleading and appropriate speech did she convince the blessed Matrona to take upon herself the guardianship <of the property>. Forthwith she summoned the deacon Markellos and referred all this through him to the most holy Bassianos. The latter then responded to her thusly: “As you think best, my child, so should you do. The Lord God shall help you in every good deed.”

46. Then the blessed Matrona took over the stewardship with the prayer of the blessed elder [i.e., Bassianos] and, after consultation with the deacon Markellos, she put up a wall around her entire monastery. She also con- structed a three-storied building, giving over the first story to a charnel house for deceased sisters,'° after the fashion of the monastery of the blessed Bas- sianos, though the lower chamber was rather darker on account of the posi- tion of the place. The second <story> she set apart as a winter chapel, and likewise the third as a summer chapel, both these latter being also after the

10 It was customary in Byzantine monasteries for the bones of monks and nuns to be removed from the cemeteries after a certain period of time, and transferred to ossu- aries or charnel houses. The ossuaries were usually located on the lower level of a cemetery church, while the second floor (and in this case third floor as well) housed a chapel where funerary and memorial services were conducted. Cf. Ch. Bouras, Nea Moni on Chios. History and Architecture,(Athens, 1982), 191-92 (with illustration); A. Orlandos, MovaotnpiaKkn apyitextovikn (Athens, 1958), 146-48; G. Millet, Le mon- astere de Daphni (Paris, 1899), 23-24.

60 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

fashion of the chapels in the monastery of her superior.''° And by the grace [p. 811] of God these chapels stand to this day, displaying their beauty: they proclaim in perpetuity the intelligence and zeal of the blessed Matrona, and attest to coming generations the offering of the blessed Athanasia. When the monastery had been given the form which it now exhibits, she distributed the remaining money to monasteries round about, employing the honorable Mar- kellos as minister in this ministry. Of the blessed Athanasia’s property, then, did the desert with its luminous solitaries receive a share, as well as Jerusalem and Emesa and Beirut and, in a word, all the East, in order, so I think, that on the day of Resurrection the blessed Athanasia might have witnesses from the ends of the earth to her magnanimous benefaction.

47. Thus did the monastery of the blessed Matrona take on a fitting beauty and become like other monasteries. Thus did the blessed Matrona re- ceive recompense for her many tears and toils, the Lord Jesus Christ having looked favorably upon her labors and struggles. It is for this reason we have included the story of the blessed Athanasia in this account: that we might show how the blessed Matrona often besought many things of God, and God swiftly granted her everything in abundance. Thus did the blessed Athanasia flee the snares of this life: she lived fittingly as a nun, and as a nun she finished her course.''!! Having cleverly deceived her husband she practiced asceticism and brought the work of asceticism to perfection. Thus did she love God and bring love to fulfillment. Thus did she yearn for poverty and at last find the kingdom of heaven. Thus did she scatter insatiate wealth, which draws one down, and love the poverty of the Lord. To finish briefly, let me say that this woman, out of her extraordinary piety, that she might not pronounce with her own mouth the names of abominable gods,'” declined to read <accounts of> the struggles of the holy and victorious martyrs, though she honored the mar- tyrs above all. For she constantly pressed her face, ears, breast, and all her limbs upon the chests containing their glorious relics, in order to sanctify her- self, and clove to them with extraordinary love. There were also seven eunuchs

110 A winter chapel in a monastery not far from Matrona’s is mentioned in the early 7th century in the Life of Theodore of Sykeon, ed. A.-J. Festugiere, Vie de Theodore de Sykeon, I (Brussels, 1970), chap. 135.14. The multistory arrangement described here is attested in Syria, from where it was probably imported.

1 Cf, 2 Tim. 4:7.

12 Te., the pagan gods to whom the martyrs refused to sacrifice.

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 61

and three ladies of the bedchamber'!? who followed her in her purpose: the three latter remained with her as nuns in the monastery, and she sent the eu- nuchs to male monasteries. For fifteen years she lived under the supervision of the blessed Matrona and became a model of perfect obedience and humility to the sisters with whom she lived and to all mankind as well, and then she departed this life unto the Lord, to join those who have pleased Christ of old.

48. Thereafter, then, did the blessed Matrona, though increased in build- ings and expenditure, as has been related, persist in her asceticism, bringing herself closer to God through a diligent way of life and offering Him also many other souls that had been brought to perfection. For the blessed one was a spiritual husbandman and, receiving neglected and barren souls, she tended them with careful and experienced ascetical attention; and when they had become fruitful through good works she offered them to Christ. Nor did she escape the attacks of temptations while she did all this. That mischievous demon, who in Beirut had told her, “Even if I cannot deceive you in your youth, I shall assault you with pernicious temptations in your old age,” did not cease to afflict her. Through visions he frightened her at night, and he made trial of her through incidents by day: striving and contriving in every wise the wretched one gave her not the slightest respite.

49. Now, when the blessed one saw that she had performed through God’s grace the greater part of her feats of asceticism and that most of her life was past and she was now declining downward to earth, soon to pay nature’s debt (for both those who have achieved as well as those who have idled must die, to be requited for their deeds), she desired to behold the repose that awaits the just after their tribulation here <on earth>. So desiring, she entreated the Lord Christ in her usual way to reveal this unto her. After she had remained seven days in fasting and earnest prayer, when sleep had overcome her, she thought herself in a garden, with green grass and a grove, adorned with many and divers trees. And then she was just inside a splendid house, illuminated by the purest light, and there was a woman in it, and she was clothed in impe- rial garments and arrayed with all manner of beauty. Then, having ap- proached this woman’s knees, she was sent by her inside yet another house, greater in size and splendor than the first. Once inside this <house>, she con- versed with some other women, marvelous in their attire and appearance; and

13 KovBikovAaptat; it was quite common for an aristocratic woman to keep female servants to attend her when she entered a convent.

62 Nuns DISGUISED AS MONKS

then she awoke. Having seen this vision toward the end of her holy life, and having given her soul assurance of the houses, called by the Lord mansions,'"* in which those who have lived good lives are deemed worthy to dwell, the blessed Matrona strove to make herself worthy of habitation in them. [p. 812]

50. We, who have been deemed worthy to compose this her Life at a later time, relate this vision as the consummation of her achievements. For she was no longer alive when these things were written down, but after she had de- parted to a better life, it was God’s best beloved Eulogia who related these things, being pressed by those who afterwards desired to learn her story. For this blessed Eulogia had practiced asceticism and worked with her from the beginning: some of her achievements she had seen most accurately with her own eyes, and she had heard the blessed one herself tell of others and had made note of them. For the blessed Matrona, seeking to encourage her sisters through her example, often sat with them, counseling them as a loving mother, and told them of the assistance she had from God Who loves mankind: not in order to show off—Heaven forbid!—nor to publish her achievements, but in order to edify and convince them that if one serves God and does what is pleasing unto Him, even though he be persecuted, or attacked, or he be in the desert unbeknownst to anyone, still will he not be abandoned by Him. Thus, then, did the honorable and most blessed Eulogia live with her for many years, and having seen some things, as I have related, and made note of others, she committed them to writing. She related these things, and as many of them as might be revealed at the time were written down, for the tempest which then buffeted those who desired to serve Christ honestly and the upheaval of the most holy churches kept the greater part of her achievements hidden.'* This partial account, then, of her achievements has given us who come after her the chance to delight in her as if she were still alive, and hereby shall those who come after us be edified through her. Not only to us but also to those hereafter shall the blessed Matrona be shown to be a diligent teacher, no longer seen and heard talking but read about and known, unto the end of time. Thus shall she be a model of salvation unto ages to come for those who wish to be saved. Thus has she proved and shall she hereafter prove many worthy of the kingdom of heaven. Thus having conducted her life did she

14 Cf, Jn. 14:2.

15 Te., because of the pro-Monophysite policy of the emperor Anastasios I, the full story of Matrona’s career could not be published; cf. p. 15 above.

St. MATRONA OF PERGE 63

bring enlightenment to many and convert many who had gone astray. Thus in her deeds and teaching did she become an exact copy of her teacher the most holy Bassianos and was proven a flawless mirror of his way of life, having diligently preserved his legacy and passed it on to those who came after her. 51. For that most holy one [Bassianos], who dwells among angels and is a peer of the saints, after he had adorned the desert with his achievements and thwarted the devil’s many wiles, had received his monastic rule from God and had been taught his order of the daily office by an angel. He established many monasteries following his rule throughout the world," and he founded two in the Imperial City: a male one, which he himself founded and which by God’s grace stands to the present day, keeping his rule and deriving its name from his, and another one, founded by the most holy Matrona, whose name it bears, which also still exists and preserves the order of the office as he prescribed. For in the same wise that the most holy Matrona, upon renouncing the world, had been deemed worthy to assume the monastic habit from the holy elder, even so did she bestow <the habit> upon the women who came to her. Just as the most holy Bassianos laid his hand upon those whom he received <as monks> only after a long time and much trial, so did the blessed Matrona refuse to bestow the habit upon any woman who came to her unless she had spent time in proving her intention. And again, even as the holy elder had done before the holy altar: when the mysteries were set out and appropriate lessons were read and psalmody performed, those receiving the holy habit, exemplifying the crucifixion of the Lord and confessing through <their as- sumption of> the habit the rejection of their own will, were first tonsured by him and then girded and finally invested by him with the cloak, with much admonition and instruction, so did the blessed Matrona do before the holy altar when she received those who had come to her, commending them to those who were to take charge of them, and so again did she do when she completed their initiation before the holy altar, after those who had charge of them had testified to their way of life. In short, she did everything after the fashion of her supervisor. And after she had returned from Beirut, and he had ordained her overseer of souls, so to speak, and had given her authority for the laying of hands on others <to receive them>, he did not give her woolen girdles and veils, such as women are accustomed to use, but wide, dark leather

16 The Synaxarion of Constantinople (SynaxCP 127.89) records that Bassianos, a native of the East (probably Syria), had dwelled in many lands.

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men’s girdles and white men’s cloaks, which they wear constantly. Through the benevolence and love of mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ this same order has been followed unto the present day in her monastery, preserved by those who have succeeded her.

52. Thus did the blessed Matrona live a pious and devout life [p. 813] and preserved with diligence the monastic rule bequeathed to her by the most holy Bassianos. Having reached her hundredth year, more or less!!” (she had be- come a monastic at the age of twenty-five, and spent the remainder in asceti- cism), and having finished well the course of her ascetic struggles'’® and pre- served the orthodox faith’ until the end, she left this life, in healthy old age, on the seventh of November, and went to join her holy fathers and brethren of all ages. As successor and guardian of her flock she left the honorable and most God-loving deaconess Mosilia, who was adorned by her way of life and her wisdom and abounded in humility and love. As spiritual fathers and broth- ers the most blessed and holy Matrona had—and still has—the most holy Bassianos, her superior, and all those after him who shall keep his <rule>. By their intercessions may we all be deemed worthy to obtain mercy on the day of judgment, through the grace and love of mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory and power, to the ages of ages. Amen.

"7 Probably an exaggeration, although she appears to have lived at least eighty years. "8 Cf, 2 Tim. 4:7.

119 Once again, an allusion to her struggle against Monophysitism.

3. LIFE OF ST. MARY OF EGYPT

translated by Maria Kouli

Introduction

Mary of Egypt, the prostitute from Alexandria who achieved sanctity through repentance and ascetic solitary life, was a holy woman who offered reassur- ance to every Christian: if such a licentious woman could find forgiveness, surely ordinary sinners could hope for salvation. Her vita provides some infor- mation on daily life in Alexandria and Jerusalem, on pilgrimage, on the cult of the True Cross and the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and on Palestinian monasticism. Its primary importance lies, however, in its graphic portrayal of the theme of the “repentant harlot,” a type of female saint that found particu- lar favor in the milieu of Syro-Palestine and Egypt in the fourth to seventh cen- turies.!

The earliest version of Mary’s story is a brief account in the vita of Kyri- akos by the sixth-century hagiographer Cyril of Skythopolis.? Cyril records the tale told him by a certain monk named John who had encountered Mary living as a solitary in a cave in the Judean desert. She, in turn, explained that she had been a singer at the church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem who withdrew to the desert to avoid leading men into sexual temptation. She had subsisted for eighteen years on the jar of water and basket of legumes she had brought with her. When John returned to visit Mary a second time, he found her dead, and buried her in the cave that had served as her hermitage.

A very similar tale is found a half-century or so later in The Spiritual Meadow of John Moschos (b. ca. 540/550, d. 619 or 634). Moschos describes the unnamed woman as a nun from Jerusalem who fled to the desert to avoid

' See B. Ward, Harlots of the Desert (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1987), for translations of the vitae of other harlots, Pelagia, Thais, and Mary, the niece of Abraham.

2 E. Schwartz, Kyrillos von Skythopolis (Leipzig, 1939), 233-34. Eng. trans., R. M. Price, Lives of the Monks of Palestine (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1991), 256-58.

66 FEMALE SOLITARIES

causing temptation to young men, surviving for seventeen years on a basket of soaked legumes.’

The much longer and more detailed version presented here has trans- formed Mary into a prostitute with an insatiable sexual appetite, thus render- ing even more remarkable her subsequent repentance and conversion into an ascetic holy woman. This vita is generally attributed in the manuscripts to a contemporary of Moschos, the theologian and writer Sophronios (ca. 560— 638), who served as patriarch of Jerusalem from 634 to 638. Sophronios’ au- thorship of the work has been debated in the scholarly literature. Both Zo- naras, a twelfth-century eulogist of Sophronios,* and H. Delehaye* viewed the vita as a genuine work of Sophronios, while F. Delmas cautiously accepted his authorship;° other modern scholars, however, among them F. Halkin and H.-G. Beck, have doubted the attribution.’ In any case, the work was probably composed in the seventh century, since in the eighth century it was cited by John of Damascus and translated into Latin.®

The vita is written in a simple but vivid style, making abundant use of dialogue to advance the story. A substantial section, perhaps one-third of the whole, is Mary’s first-person account to Zosimas of her sinful youth, conver- sion, and flight to the desert. It was no doubt this combination of compelling subject matter, exotic desert locale (complete with wadis and lions), and acces- sible language that led to the great popularity of the vita.

Despite the attempts of certain scholars,’ it is impossible to provide a chronology for the life of Mary, or even to establish her historicity. The vita is almost totally lacking in fixed chronological reference points, indicating only Mary’s age at various stages in her life. One must treat with skepticism the

3 PG 87:3049; Eng. trans. J. Wortley, The Spiritual Meadow of John Moschos (Kala- mazoo, Mich., 1992), 148-49.

4 A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, ‘AvoAexta IepoooAvuitiks Ztaxvoroytac, V (St. Pe- tersburg, 1898), 149.

° H. Delehaye, L’Ancienne hagiographie byzantine: les sources, les premiers modeles, la formation des genres | = SubsHag, 73] (Brussels, 1991), 53.

°F. Delmas, “Remarques sur la Vie de Sainte Marie l’Egyptienne,” EO 4 (1900- 1901), 37.

7 BHG 1042; Beck, Kirche, 435. 8 For John of Damascus, see PG 94: 1416— 17; for Latin translation, see below, p. 68. ° E.g., K. Doukakes, Meyac Tovakaprome, IV [April] (Athens, 1892), 5-6.

St. Mary OF EGYPT 67

author’s claim that the events he relates occurred in his own time,'® since Cyril of Skythopolis describes a similar female hermit around the middle of the sixth century. But there were indeed female solitaries in both the Syro- Palestinian and Egyptian deserts, and one of them may well have inspired the edifying tale of Mary of Egypt.

According to the vita attributed to Sophronios, Mary left her parents’ home at the age of twelve and went to the cultural and commercial center of Alexandria, where she lived as a prostitute for more than seventeen years. When she was twenty-nine, she decided on the spur of the moment to attach herself to a group of Libyan and Egyptian men who were voyaging to Jerusa- lem for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (14 September), which attracted pilgrims from all over the empire. Mary joined the pilgrims, offering sexual favors to the sailors in return for her passage.

It was at Golgotha in Jerusalem that she underwent a mystical experience that led to her conversion, repentance, and eventual expiation of her sins. After buying three loaves of bread for sustenance, she crossed the river Jordan and settled in the desert. There she lived for forty-seven years without encoun- tering any other human being, until she met Zosimas, a devout monk of a monastery in the vicinity of the river Jordan. A year later, on Maundy Thurs- day, Zosimas brought her the holy eucharist as he had promised. He then went to meet her a third time in the following year as they had agreed. By then, however, Mary was dead. Zosimas discovered her body in the desert, and bur- ied her with the help of a lion that appeared out of nowhere. The vignette of the lion’s assistance in the burial of the holy woman is only one of many pas- sages suggesting that the composition was strongly influenced by Jerome’s vita of Paul the Hermit."

The story of Mary of Egypt was popular in medieval Europe and eastern Mediterranean lands. Confirmation is found in the abundance of manuscripts of the Greek text (the earliest of which dates to the ninth century),!? and the influence of the vita on Eastern Orthodox literature (see, for example, the Life

10 PG 87:3697B.

| Cf. the remarks of Delmas, “Marie l’Egyptienne,” 36, 38-39.

In the National Library of Athens alone, according to Halkin’s catalogue of the library, twenty-seven Greek manuscripts are preserved. There are thirty-seven manu- scripts of the vita in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris and numerous others in the libraries of Athos, Mt. Sinai, the Vatican, Oxford, and Cambridge.

68 FEMALE SOLITARIES

of Theoktiste of Lesbos, no. 4 in this volume) and hymnography. There is also a strong tradition of Latin translations in the West, particularly in Spain, France, and Italy (e.g., by Paul the Deacon in the eighth century). In addition, versions exist in Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic, and Slavonic. The Orthodox church commemorates Mary of Egypt on | April and on the fifth Sunday of Lent,’ while in the West her feast is usually celebrated on 2 April or some- times on the third, ninth or tenth of that month.

In Byzantine art the saint is depicted as an androgynous figure, extremely thin with a dark complexion. Her emaciated body is partly covered by a piece of cloth, representing the cloak offered her by Zosimas during their first en- counter. Usually her figure is accompanied by that of Zosimas, toward whom she stretches her arms to receive his blessing or the eucharist.!*

The Greek vita of Mary of Egypt still awaits a proper critical edition.’ The translation below was prepared from the inadequate edition of the Pa- trologia Graeca, which is based on two sketchily identified manuscripts, one from Munich (perhaps Monac. gr. 24 of the eleventh century) and another from Paris. The Migne text is occasionally supplemented by better readings from the Athens and Munich manuscripts, as indicated in the notes.

3 For an English translation of the services for the fifth Sunday in Lent, see Mother Mary and K. Ware, The Lenten Triodion (London, 1977), 447-63. The story of Mary is also read on the Thursday of that week.

4 The most detailed discussion of her iconography in Byzantine art is found in N. K. Moutsopoulos and G. Demetrokalles, Pepa I: Ov Exxanotes tov Ouctopov (Thessa- lonike, 1981), 61-71 and pl. 102 (with full bibliography). See also LCI 7:507-11.

'S Tam currently preparing a new edition based on the twenty-seven Athenian manu- scripts as a D. Phil. dissertation at the University of London under the direction of Dr. Julian Chrysostomides.

St. Mary OF EGYPT 69

Bibliography

Edition Used For Translation (BHG 1042) PG 87:3697-726.

Other Editions . : : : : Apxletioxonov IepocoAvp@v Lwdpoviov, Biog th¢g Ootacg Mapiac thg Avyun- trac, ed. the monks of the Stauroniketas Monastery (Mt. Athos, 1988).

Translations into Modern Languages

(French translations) A. Fontrier, appendix to J. Spetsieris, Sainte Photine l’Ermite (Paris, 1992), 89-106; A. d’Andilly, Vie de Sainte Marie Egyptienne penitente par Sophrone (Montbonnot-St. Martin, 1985), 29-96 [= modernized version by J. Lacarriere of d’Andilly’s original translation of 1644].

(English translation of medieval Latin version) B. Ward, Harlots of the Desert (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1987), 35-56.

(English translation of Slavonic version) Sisters Katherine and Thecla, Sz. Mary of Egypt (The Life) (The Greek Orthodox Monastery of the As- sumption, Filgrave, Newport Pagnell, Bucks, 1974).

Secondary Literature .

A. Kazhdan and N. P. Sevcenko, “Mary of Egypt,” in ODB 2:1310.

F. Delmas, “Remarques sur la Vie de Sainte Marie l’Egyptienne,” EO 4 (1900— 1901), 35-42.

Idem, “Encore Sainte Marie lEgyptienne,’ FO 5 (1901-02), 15-17. E. M. Walsh, “The Ascetic Mother Mary of Egypt,’ GOrThR 34 (1989), 59-69.

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[col. 3697] THE LIFE OF MARY OF EGYPT, THE FORMER HARLOT, WHO IN BLESSED MANNER BECAME AN ASCETIC IN THE DESERT OF THE <RIVER> JORDAN

1. “It is good to keep close the secret of a king, but it is honorable to reveal the works of God.”'* Such were the words of the angel to Tobit!” after the incredible recovery of his sight from blindness, and after he experienced those dangers from which he was saved because of his piety. And just as failing to keep the king’s secret is dangerous and destructive to oneself, similarly keeping silent about the marvelous works of God endangers the soul. Hence, fearful of re- maining silent about divine things, and discerning the danger encountered by the servant who after receiving the talent from his master buried it in the earth and hid it, thus making no use of it,'* I shall in no way keep silent with regard to the holy tale which has reached me. No one should disbelieve me when I write’? what I have heard, either thinking that I am talking altogether about marvels, or being amazed by the extraordinary occurrence. For <God> forbid that I should give false account of or tamper with a story that mentions God.

To have mean thoughts unworthy” of the majesty of the incarnate word of God, as well as to disbelieve what has thus been said, does not seem to me sensible. If there are some people who happen to read this account and, alleg- edly because of their amazement at the extraordinary <aspects> of the story, refuse to believe it readily, may the Lord be merciful to them, because they, too, thinking in terms of the weakness of human nature, find it hard to believe extraordinary tales told about human beings.

I now proceed to narrate an event that took place in our own times, and which was told by a holy man, trained since childhood to speak and act in accordance with the divine <truths>. Nor should this lead into disbelief read-

16 Tob. 12:7.

7 A Jewish captive in Nineveh known for his piety and good works; his sight was restored after eight years of blindness. His story is told in the apocryphal book of the Old Testament that bears his name.

18 Cf Mt. 25:25. '° The participle is masculine, thus indicating male authorship.

20 Reading dvaé.a for dvagé.a.

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ers who assume that such a miracle could not possibly happen in our times. For the grace of the Spirit! in all ages enters into holy souls and maketh them friends of God and prophets, as Solomon taught with divine inspiration.” It is now time to begin the holy narration.

2. There was a man <who lived> in the monasteries of Palestine, who was adorned both by his way of life and by his speech and from infancy was brought up in accordance with monastic principles and [col. 3700] customs. Zosimas was the name of this monk. One must not assume that I am talking of the Zosimas who was once accused of being a heretic,”? simply because of the name. These two men are totally distinct, and the difference between them is great, even though they both had the same name. This Zosimas then fol- lowed the right faith, and from the very beginning lived as a monk in one of the monasteries in Palestine,™* pursuing every kind of ascetic practice and en- tirely mastering self-discipline. For he obeyed every rule handed down <to him> by those who had trained him in such a wrestling arena. He also devised on his own many ways by which he sought to subdue the flesh to the spirit. In this goal he did not fail. For the monk became so famous for his spiritual qualities that many <monks> from the neighboring monasteries, and some- times even distant ones, often resorted to him to be molded and trained in self-discipline by his teaching. And even though the monk was famous for his ascetic practice, yet he never neglected the study of the Holy Scriptures, whether going to sleep or waking up or holding his handiwork, or partaking of food (if one can give the name of food to what he ate).?*> He had one cease- less task, which never ended, namely to sing psalms continuously and always study the Holy Scriptures. Some also say that the monk was often deemed worthy to receive a divine vision through illumination from God. For as the

71 Reading tod nmvevuatos for tod Matpos. 2 Sap. 7:27.

3 Possibly an allusion to the pagan historian Zosimos, count (komes) and advocate of the imperial treasury (ODB 3:2231), although the hagiographer could surely distin- guish between Christian heretics and pagans. Also in Greek there is a difference in both orthography and accentuation between Zoids and Zwouoc.

4 Reading kata ToAootvnv for mado, as in Athens 252, fol. 61v.

5 Following the variant reading of the Munich manuscript cited in n. 15 of the PG text (cols. 3699-3700), which is also found in two Athens manuscripts (e.g., Athens