Saint Syncletica 4th Century Subject of a Book by Athanasius of Alexandria

She lived in the 4th century in Alexandria. She is the subject of The Life of Syncletica, a Greek hagiography by Athanasius of Alexandria, but not published until 450. Alphabetical and Systematic, it includes 28 of her sayings and teachings. Saint Syncletica’s teachings and sayings were full of Biblical quotes, allusions, and metaphors, especially about sailing, the sea, domestic chores, and various female tasks. Unlike male ascetics of the time, domesticity for Saint Syncletica was connected with spirituality and richly capable of expressing the ascetic’s spiritual growth. Saint Syncletica died when she was 80. Have you ever read her teachings?

Saint Syncletica Biography

Saint Syncletica was born into a noble and wealthy family that might have been sailors, owners of a sailing business, and part of the Greco-Roman ruling class. She had a blind sister and two brothers who died early. The family moved to Alexandria and after her parents died, she cut her hair, gave away her fortune to the poor, and lived in a cell outside the city with her sister.

She had been called “an upper-class girl who does not care about her body.” Saint Syncletica resolved to live openly as an ascetic, despite her parents’ objections, cutting her hair as a symbol of her recognition that she was a new person. She was quite pretty and had many potential suitors, all of whom she rebuffed.

She died on January 5, she was 80, after a three-year-long illness from mouth cancer. She refused treatment, even though the cancer had severely disfigured her face. There are no miracles attributed to Saint Syncletica, not even posthumous ones. Which is odd for a saint. Her feast in the Roman Catholic Church is on January 5, the day of her death.

Saint Syncletica Legacy

Saint Syncletica is sometimes compared to Anthony the Great, who also left his home, distributed his wealth to the poor, practiced voluntary poverty, and lived as an anchorite in the desert. Also like Anthony, her teachings attracted others, mostly virgins who came to visit her and perhaps lived nearby. Also, like Anthony, she was called holy, and she had a vita written about her, just like Anthony.

Saint Syncletica’s vita was published sometime after c. 450; it was probably written by Athanasius of Alexandria. The only personal and historical details about her life were in her vita, which does not include the dates of her birth and death. Therefore, we also do not know the exact dates of her birth and death.

The 28 sayings of Saint Syncletica contain excerpts from the Life of Saint Syncletica; they demonstrate her reliance on Scripture, her creative use and exegesis of it, and, in this case, her connection of Scripture to nautical metaphors. She, or her family, was, or were, fishermen.

Saint Syncletica’s teachings about asceticism appear in her sayings and were summarized by her in this way: “This is the great ascetic practice: to remain steadfast and to offer up to God hymns of thanksgiving.” Saint Syncletica taught in her 28 sayings that spiritual maturity takes time, and using the human body, she shows that spiritual growth occurs organically and at its own rate. She says the repetition of women’s work is necessarily repetitive and never-ending.

The physical dimensions of prayer found in her vita include standing, crying, speaking, singing, and listening. The absence of domesticity in the writings and teachings of male ascetics and the emphasis on it in the works of desert mothers. The mothers stressed domesticity.

Saint Syncletica uses the imagery of housecleaning, security against home invasions, building a fire, and doing laundry as a basis for her teachings about spiritual life. One of Syncletica’s most important metaphors for spiritual growth is the act of house-cleaning, which parallels male ascetics’ teachings about how house-building is similar to changing and improving the soul in one’s body.

Saint Syncletica’s vita compares her suffering during her final illness to the suffering experienced by Job. She thinks her suffering is more severe than Job’s because her struggles included both physical and spiritual distress. She graphically describes her suffering. She was sick for three years.

Conclusion

The words of Saint Syncletica, like Christ’s, it is asserted, nourished and healed her followers; the female body is the vessel that accomplishes this nourishment. The female slant is important here, with this Saint being one of the first and most important female saints.