The Antioch church council was having a meeting when outside their door passed a beautiful and immodest woman, bare-shouldered and barefoot, perfumed, riding a donkey and surrounded by an adoring crowd.
She was a dancer and prostitute, known as Pelagia the Harlot. The bishops all averted their eyes, save for Saint Nonnus, who admired her openly. “You should be ashamed,” he told the church fathers, who thought they were so holy. “She takes better care of her body than you do of your wretched souls.”
What happened next seems ironic, and I was torn about even including it. After Pelagia showed up the next Sunday at Nonnus’s church and tearfully confessed her sins, she decided to become a hermit. What’s more: as a hermit, she disguised herself as a man. She only lasted a few years in her hermit’s cell, practicing such extreme asceticism that when she was discovered dead, nobody even recognized her.