Early Christian Dress: Gender, Virtue, and Authority (Routledge Studies in Ancient History) by Kristi Upson-Saia

Author:Kristi Upson-Saia [Upson-Saia, Kristi]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781136655401
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2012-02-16T05:00:00+00:00

Not only did the cross-dressers’ lack the body parts that would firmly root them in the male category, but they displayed bodily signs that traditionally identified them as women. For example, one of Matrona’s/Babylas’s brothers noticed that both of the monk’s ears had been pierced. Matrona/ Babylas escapes discovery by shaming the brother for being preoccupied with frivolous matters: “You should be paying attention to the ground, not to me.”37 She escapes detection by playing a man who pursues manly, ascetic knowledge in contradistinction to her fellow monk who exhibits womanly curiosity.38 Although Matrona/Babylas is able to evade suspicion, the idea is reinforced in readers minds that such near detection is to be expected because a woman could never completely imitate a man’s appearance. There will always be traces of her femininity. In fact, in this very moment in the story, Matrona/Babylas is made to remember the warning of her mentor, Eugenia, who earlier cautioned her: “It is a difficult thing . . . and indeed impossible for a woman to enter a male monastery or, once entered, to escape notice.”39

Scenes that demonstrate the saints’ inability to fully pass are paired with scenes that depict the saints’ evading detection. The latter scenes highlight the deception of her guise and underscore that she is someone other than she seems. Once Hilaria successfully poses as a eunuch and is accepted into the monastery, for instance, the narrative notes the deception: “For [the abbot] did not know that she was a woman.”40 Other narratives merely make passing mention of the saint’s ability to fool those around her, such as the Acts of Eugenia, which writes: “Eugenia disguised as a man remained in the monastery.”41 On numerous occasions, the saints are undetectable to even friends and family members who come to the monastery for help or healing. By noting the cross-dresser’s ability to fool those who should recognize them, the narrator can juxtapose the saints’ false appearance with her true, gendered identity. In the Life of Euphrosyne,42 when Euphrosyne’s father Paphnutius arrives at the monastery in which she is hiding, the narrative notes that, despite Euphrosyne’s/ Esmeraldus’s fear of being discovered, “he did not recognize her in the very least.”43 Likewise, in the Life of Hilaria, when Hilaria’s/Hilarion’s sister arrived at the monastery in search of healing, the narrative notes that she no longer recognized her kin:

The blessed Hilaria, when she saw her lay sister, knew her; but the lay sister knew not her sister, the monk. How should she know her since her flesh had withered through mortification and the beauty of her body had altered, and her appearance, she being naught but skin and bone? Besides all this she was wearing a man’s garb.44

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