Sacred Bodies, Sinful Lives: Gender, Holiness, and Bodily Appetites in Late Antique Harlot Hagiographies

During Late Antiquity (~200-800 CE), a movement called asceticism arose out of the Eastern Christian Church. These holy figures mortified their bodies to achieve higher spiritual purification. Ascetics avoided food, water, sex, sleep, perfumes, and indulgent sights. Hagiographies, a type of saint biography, were written to venerate ascetics and to spiritually train their audiences. In the Eastern Roman Empire, four hagiographies emerged describing the exceptional lives of repentant promiscuous women. These four texts differ from the typical body of late antique hagiographies. Rather than showcasing idealized bodies and the glorified lives of saints, these hagiographers depict the harlots as lowly, penitential figures. The depiction of bodily appetites in the harlot hagiographies is also unique. Prior to their spiritual awakening, the women indulge in excesses of sinful, earthly delights. Following their conversions, they indulge in heavenly taste, sounds, touch, smell, and sights. This conversion in excess may be a result of the reconciliation of conflicting concepts. In the wider late antique Christian culture, femininity signified sinfulness, corporeality, and recklessness. Conversely, asceticism and holiness adopted masculine gender connotations. In attempting to depict saints who retained their femininity whilst accessing asceticism, the four hagiographers needed to unite those two contradictory associations. This resulted in a somewhat confused depiction of figures who were both harlot and saint, lowly and holy, indulgent and ascetic. Yet, asceticism itself is a combination of contradictory concepts, because ascetics functioned as both holy and human figures. The harlots, rather than being weaker versions of the movement, may in fact be the quintessential ascetics.