Here, I examine five cultural “texts” reworked in the legends: 1) the lives of earlier transvestite saints like St. Thecla; 2) the Life of St. Antony; 3) late antique discourse about
eunuchs; 4) the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife from Genesis; and 5) the textual deconstruction and reconstitution of the female body in early Christian literature.

In early Christian saints’ lives, women are alternatively castigated as fallen daughters of
Eve and lauded as heroic models for pious imitation. On the one hand,
?they are depicted by male writers as sources of temptation and objects of
lust; on the other hand, a select number of them are celebrated as somehow having transcended the limitations of their sex.

I will begin with a slight indiscretion—by eavesdropping on a conversation between a father and his daughter
Coming away from this conversation, one might wonder what exactly is going on here.

the early Byzantine era
he himself cuts her hair, dresses her in men’s clothing, and changes her name to Marinos.