The Pen and the Veil: Who Wrote the Life of St. Olympias?

Abstract The anonymously transmitted Life of St. Olympias (BHG 1374-75 /CPG 6040) constitutes the only surviving hagiographical bios of the late antique aristocrat and deaconess Olympias (ca. 370-408). According to scholarly consensus, the text was composed not long after the protagonist’s death, around the mid-5th century. The present article contests that view, suggesting that it should instead be attributed to the 7th-century abbess of the convent founded by Olympias, Sergia, who also authored an account of the translation of the saint’s relics to her monastery (BHG 1376 /CPG 7981). This thesis is supported by conspicuous links between the Life and Sergia’s Narration in both language (characteristic phrases, stylistic features) and authorial agenda. Together, the article argues, the Life and Narration comprise a Dossier of St. Olympias, through which Sergia constructed an unbroken tradition for her monastic community reaching back to apostolic times and reaffirmed by secular and ecclesiastical authorities over the centuries. The backbone of this tradition was St. Olympias herself, whose continuous presence in her community the Dossier emphatically asserts, and the foundress-saint’s rule of conduct (kanōn), whose transmission and observation the Dossier aimed to secure.