medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
According to her legendary Bios kai Martyrion (BHG 1673), Susannah (d. 362, supposedly; in Greek, Sosanna) was the daughter in Palestine of a pagan, Christian-hating priest and a Hebrew mother. When they had died she was baptized a Christian, gave away her inheritance to the poor, and determined to live ascetically. After cutting her hair short, changing her manner of dress, and taking the name John, she was accepted as a monk in a monastery for men at Jerusalem, where in time she (still passing for male) became hegumen.
A nun who had become enamored of the supposed John tried unsuccessfully to win her affection and then tearfully told the bishop of Eleutheropolis that John had raped her. The bishop arrived with two deaconesses to whom Susannah revealed her true sex. Susannah was acquitted. Since she could no longer rule her then house, the bishop brought her back to Eleutheropolis, where he made her a deaconess and put her in charge of a house of nuns (whence she is also known as Susannah of Eleutheropolis). There she served with spiritual distinction for many years until, in her old age, she was arrested during the Julianic persecution, refused to sacrifice to pagan gods, was tortured severely, and finally was starved to death in prison. Susanna's _dies natalis_ was 19. September. Thus far her Bios kai Martyrion, which closely resembles the Passio of St. Eugenia of Rome (or of Alexandria) and like it is thought to be quite fictional.
In the originally tenth-century Synaxary of Constantinople Susannah has the second entry under 19. September and the first under 15. December. Cardinal Baronio entered her in the early Roman Martyrology under 19. September on the basis of her presence under that day in the so-called menologion of Sirlet. She left the Roman Martyrology in its revision of 2001. Some Byzantine-Rite churches celebrate Susannah today. Others do so on 19. September.
Some period-pertinent images of Susanna the Deaconess:
a) as depicted (lying dead in prison) in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, cod. Vat. gr. 1613, p. 242):
http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1613/0074
http://tinyurl.com/zbl2rox
b) as depicted (upper register at left) in a September calendar composition in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/22) in the nave of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/hrnnr6c
Best,
John Dillon
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