From Father to Virgin

This article examines the earliest vitae of St Marinos (Mary/Marina) the Monk, a late antique saint who was said to have been assigned female at birth but to have lived as a monk in a male monastery. It offers brief comparative analyses of the oldest Greek (BHG 615), Syriac (BHO 697), and Latin (BHL 5528) versions of the Life, with particular attention to the Latin text. Alongside a discussion of the early transmission of the Latin vita, the article presents the first translation of this version into a modern language. Manuscript evidence indicates that the Latin vita enjoyed wide popularity from the eighth century onward, making its accessibility especially important.

This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .