Ways of Being Woman: Agency and Archetype in Early Christian Literary Representations of Helena the Empress, Pelagia the Penitent, and Pelagia the Virgin

Abstract

This thesis investigates how dynamics of female power, authority, and agency shift between lived experience and literary representation. I argue that an appropriation of agency, power, and authority occurs in the transition from life to text; women’s lives become constructed in archetypal terms in service of defining a moral and behavioral ideal for early Christian women. I focus on Empress Helena, Pelagia the Penitent, and Pelagia the Virgin as case studies, each of which is represented in a different archetypal lens. These are respectively the Imperial Mother, Repentant Whore, and Bride of Christ. This study jointly 1) deconstructs the archetypal agency, power, and authority the four women are represented as having; 2) analyzes the male authors’ appropriation of their subjects’ agency, power, and authority; 3) reflects on the extent to which a reconstruction of lived experience is plausible. Whilst archetypal literary constructions of women obstruct a clear view of the genuine influence and agency they possessed, the inconsistencies therein give view to the tension between life and text. From here, we can experiment with a historiography of imagination to infer modalities of lived agency.