Syncletica of Alexandria
c. 320 AD — c. 400 AD
Syncletica of Alexandria renounced a wealthy Macedonian inheritance, cut her own hair, and withdrew to a cell near Alexandria with her blind sister — becoming the most influential female spiritual teacher of early monasticism. She authored 28 sayings in the Apophthegmata and endured three years of mouth cancer with the same equanimity she had taught her disciples.