Syncletica of Alexandria

Syncletica was born at Alexandria, probably late in the third century, to Macedonian parents who had settled in Egypt and grown rich. She died about 350, in her eighties.

Her life is told in a Greek work, the Life and Regimen of the Blessed and Holy Teacher Syncletica, which travelled under the name of Athanasius of Alexandria. Modern scholars do not think Athanasius wrote it; the author is unknown, and the book was probably composed in the fifth century. What it preserves is a portrait and a body of teaching that the Egyptian tradition attached firmly to her name.

The outline is simple. She was beautiful and wealthy, and there was no shortage of suitors. She refused all of them. When her parents died she was left with the estate and with a blind sister. She sold everything, gave the proceeds to the poor, cut off her hair in the presence of a priest, and took her sister with her to live in a disused tomb belonging to a relative outside the city.

She was not trying to found anything. Women came to her anyway, and she became the head of a community and, more importantly, a teacher, an amma, the feminine of abba, the title the desert gave its elders. What she said was written down.

Her sayings are hard-edged and practical. On beginnings: 'In the beginning there is struggle and a lot of work for those who come near to God. But after that there is indescribable joy. It is just like building a fire: at first it is smoky and your eyes water, but later you get the desired result.' On the danger of the ascetic life itself: 'There are many who live in the mountains and behave as if they were in the town, and they are wasting their time.

It is possible to be a solitary in one's mind while living in a crowd.' On riches: they burn the soul that keeps them and the soul that wants them equally. On the tongue, on anger, on the way pride hides inside austerity, she returns to that last one constantly.

Her last years were brutal. The Life describes a cancer of the mouth and jaw that consumed her over three and a half years, with the bone exposed and the smell so bad that those caring for her could hardly stay in the room. She refused medical treatment at first as a concession to comfort, was persuaded to accept some, and went on teaching to the end.

Several of her sayings were collected into the Apophthegmata Patrum, the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, where she stands with Amma Theodora and Amma Sarah as one of the three women whose words the desert tradition kept. Both the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches honour her; her feast is 5 January in the East.

Sources: The Life and Regimen of the Blessed and Holy Syncletica, attributed to Athanasius (English translation by Elizabeth Bryson Bongie); The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, trans. Benedicta Ward; Laura Swan, The Forgotten Desert Mothers.