First, I apologize for the cross-posting, but I wanted to cast a wide net for this. I have a friend (a non-scholar) who was reading the Life of St. Euphrosyne the Nun and raised some questions that I'm not sure I have the answers to. St. Euphrosyne disguised herself as a eunuch named Izmaragdus and joined a male monastery. In the Life, it mentions that the monks were scandalized and tempted sexually by this young eunuch's beauty.
Among the questions my friend posed were:
- At what point did monasteries put a stop to this kind of thing by requiring that a monk be able to grow a beard?
- Have you heard stories (probably not going to be in the Lives of the Saints) where a woman disguises herself to enter a monastery but then she fell into temptation with another monk and was kicked out?
I gave the answers I could from memory, but I don't have a lot of my resources handy here at work. I seem to remember the beard requirement appearing as early as the Rule of St. Pachomios, but I could be wrong.
On the other question, such issues (not just of a woman disguised as a man, but even monks engaging in homosexual behaviors) must have arisen or there wouldn't have been explicit prohibitions in monastic Rules and in the aphorisms of the Desert Fathers and that sort of thing, but I couldn't come up with any specific stories off the top of my head.
Anyone have anything?
- Kurt