Late Antiquity: Saint Monica

Yet another woman known written about for her influence in the rise of Christianity during the Late Antiquity is Saint Monica. She was Christian and her parents made her get married to a Pagan man named Patricius, who was violent and adulterous. She also was forced to live with Patricius’ mother who shared the same qualities, but eventually Monica convinced them to become Christian. Patricius died a year after his baptism, but he and Monica had three children, the oldest of whom was named Augustine. Augustine accepted the Manichean heresy and was living life immorally. She kicked him out of the house, but later had a vision where God said that Augustine could return to a life of holiness with Monica’s help. After that, Monica prayed for
She was the Christian mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, who under Helena’s influence did things like pass the Edict of Milan, legalizing Christianity in the Roman Empire. Constantine appointed his mother to the imperial court and allowed her unlimited access to the imperial treasury. With this luxury Helena traveled to the Holy Places in Palestine and headed the construction of two churches, the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, and the Church of Eleona on the Mount of Olives, which were the sites of Jesus’ birth and ascension into heaven. Helena also ordered the construction of a Church in Egypt to identify the Burning Bush of Sinai, and was responsible for the construction of many other churches as well (Sivan 114-145). The story of Helena is somewhat of a reluctant success story; women during this time were not known for having a large influence or being in positions of power. Helena was a divorced woman who lived in obscurity for a long time, and the only person she was close to was her son. She remained close with him and took advantage of his rise to the throne, taking a position of power as a result of her close relationship with her son (Sivan 85). She was able to parlay this power into a successful spread of Christianity both directly and indirectly. Indirectly, she was able to convince her son to do things such as issue the Edict of Milan, legalizing Christianity. The
Perhaps the woman with the most direct influence on the rise of Christianity during Late Antiquity was Empress Theodora of the Byzantine Empire. At the age of 20, she traveled to Alexandria where she adopted Monophysitism, the belief that Jesus was only divine and not a combination of divine and mortal, which was a belief looked down upon by orthodox Christians. Theodora completely gave up her old lifestyle as a result of adopting Monophysitism. Upon reaching Constantinople she met Justinian and married him, and when Justinian’s adoptive father died, Theodora and Justinian were crowned empress and emperor and ruled together. Under their rule and largely due to Theodora’s influence, Constantinople built over 25 new churches and passed laws including prohibiting forced prostitution, establishing homes for prostitutes, giving women more rights in divorce cases, allowing the death penalty for rape cases, and allowing women to own and inherit their own property (Clark 30, 106-117). Theodora was largely influential to the rise of Christianity in Constantinople due to her “unofficially” ruling with Justinian and having a large say in political matters. Not only did she contribute to the rise of Christianity, but also improved the lives of other women within the empire, allowing them to exercise a greater degree of freedom. The influx of new extravagant churches (Evans 34)