Holy Women and Men as Teachers in Late Antique Christianity

Abstract

Abstract This article shows how the theme of education was treated in late antique hagiographical discourse. Brief references are made to two ascetic archetypes, Antony and Macrina, who are both styled in their vitae in relation to education, either by rejecting classical education or appropriating philosophy and substituting classical literature with biblical literature. On this basis the article focuses in more detail on six hagiographical texts and their protagonists, i. e. three texts primarily on men (the Life of Hypatius of Rufiniane, the saints of Theodoret of Cyrus’ Religious History and Cyril of Scythopolis’ Lives of the Monks in Palestine) and three texts on women (the Lives of Marcella, Melania the Younger, and Syncletica). Although classical education is evaluated differently in these texts, and ascetic formation takes various shapes, it is obvious that both male and female saints played a role in the discussion about the Christian appropriation of classical education as well as in the development of particular Christian ideas of formation. A correct use of education was not a hindrance for holiness, but rather a sign of ascetic wisdom. That both men and women, on a literary level, incarnated Christian teachings in their Lives, and that they were able to live and teach Christian ideals, tells us much about the ambitious transformation of education that was visualized in the ascetic literature. The hagiographical texts themselves both reflect the discussion of education and are didactic texts with the aim of establishing new norms.