Pelagia the Penitent

The actress of Antioch

The Life — told in the first person by "James (Jacob) the Deacon," who presents himself as an eyewitness — opens at Antioch, where the archbishop had summoned a synod of eight bishops. Among them was Nonnus, a monk of great sanctity raised to the episcopate (the received tradition identifies him with Nonnus, bishop of Edessa, in the middle of the fifth century). As the bishops sat at the doors of the church of the martyr Julian, there passed before them the first actress of Antioch, the leader of its dancing troupe, riding in splendour: bareheaded, hung with gold, pearls and precious stones, perfumed, laughing, with a train of servants. The city called her Margarita, "the Pearl," for her adornment; her baptismal name, the sequel reveals, was Pelagia. The bishops groaned and turned their faces away; but Nonnus gazed after her long and intently, and then asked his fellow bishops: "Did not her great beauty delight you?" They were silent. "It delighted me exceedingly," he said, "for God shall set her before us at the Judgment: she has spent hours adorning her perishable body for the eyes of men, while we take no such pains to adorn our wretched souls for the eyes of God." And returning to his lodging he prostrated himself and wept, asking that the harlot's diligence be not found greater than his own.

Conversion and baptism

The next day — a Sunday — Nonnus preached in the great church on the dread Last Judgment and the good things prepared for the righteous. Pelagia, who had never before troubled herself about her soul, was moved by some providence to enter; the sermon struck her with such fear of God that she wept without ceasing, and sent the bishop a letter begging to be received: if he was truly Christ's disciple, let him not spurn a sinner. Nonnus answered that God knew her heart, but that she must appear before the assembled bishops, for he would not see her alone. She came, cast herself at his feet before them all, washed them with her tears, and would not rise until she was promised baptism. The hesitation of the clergy — a public sinner was normally kept long in the catechumenate — was overcome by her vehemence; the archbishop was consulted, and the deaconess Romana was sent to stand as her sponsor. Pelagia was baptised, Romana receiving her from the font as her mother in God.

By night the devil appeared to her, reproaching her — as he had appeared, the Life says, wailing at what he had lost in her — and urging her back to her former life; she signed herself with the Cross, breathed on him, and he vanished. On the third day after her baptism she gathered everything she possessed — the immense wealth of her profession — and brought it to Nonnus, who ordered it distributed to the poor of the city, "so that riches ill gotten might become a treasury of righteousness." Her slaves she freed with her own hand, giving them gold.

The monk Pelagius

On the eighth day, when the newly baptised laid aside their white garments, Pelagia rose in the night, put off the baptismal robe, and dressed herself in a hair shirt and in the tunic and mantle of bishop Nonnus — a detail the Life insists on: she fled in the clothing of the man whose tears had won her — and disappeared from Antioch. No one knew where she had gone; Nonnus, who knew, kept silence. She travelled to Jerusalem and built (or occupied) a walled cell on the Mount of Olives, and there lived as a recluse under the name Pelagius, passing as a beardless monk — a eunuch, her neighbours assumed. Her window admitted only the exchange of a few words; her fame as "Pelagius, the monk of the Mount of Olives" spread through the monasteries of the Holy City for the extremity of the fasting and vigil practised in that cell.

Recognition at death

Some three or four years later James the Deacon, the narrator, came from Antioch on pilgrimage, sent by Nonnus with the charge to seek out "a certain monk Pelagius" and profit by the encounter. He found the recluse at the window of the cell — wasted beyond recognition, the eyes sunk deep; she knew him, he says, though he did not know her, and asked his prayers. Returning some days later to seek a second word, he found the window unanswered; the recluse was dead. The monks of the surrounding communities and the clergy of Jerusalem gathered to bury the famous ascetic with honour, and as the body was prepared for burial it was discovered that the monk Pelagius was a woman. "Glory to Thee, O Lord," those present cried, "for Thou hast hidden many treasures upon the earth, and not men only, but women also." The holy myrrh was brought, and the crowds of monks and nuns — and, the Life says, of the people of Jericho and the Jordan valley — bore her to her grave with lamps and hymns. Her tomb on the Mount of Olives was venerated for centuries; medieval pilgrims of several communions were shown the cell and grave of "Saint Pelagia" on the mount.

Veneration and later cultus

The commemoration of "our venerable mother Pelagia" on October 8 stands in the Synaxarion of Constantinople and the Menologion of Basil II, and she has a full proper service in the Menaion, including a canon in Tone 4 whose acrostic reads "With longing I honour the wise Pelagia." The Vespers doxastikon of her service, "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound…," attributed to John the Monk, is among the best-loved pieces of the Menaion's penitential hymnography, and her name became, with Mary of Egypt's, a byword for the repentance that outstrips the righteous. The Roman Martyrology likewise keeps "Saint Pelagia, called the Penitent" on October 8.