Thaïs (saint)

Saint Thaïs
St. Thais by Jusepe de Ribera (alternately, of St. Mary Magdalen).
Born	c. 4th century
Died	c. 4th century
Venerated in	Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox Church
Feast	October 8

St. Thaïs of fourth-century Roman Alexandria and of the Egyptian desert was a repentant courtesan.

St. Thaïs reportedly lived during the fourth century in Roman Egypt. Her story is included in hagiographic literature on the lives of the saints in the Greek church. Two such biographical sketches exist. The first, in Greek, perhaps originated during the fifth century. It was translated into Latin as the Vita Thaisis [Life of Thaïs] by Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Little) during the sixth or the seventh century. The other sketch comes to us in medieval Latin from Marbod of Rennes (d. 1123). Thaïs also appears in Greek martyrologies by Maurolychus and Greven, however, not in Latin martyrologies. The lives of the desert saints and hermits of Egypt, including St. Thaïs, were collected in the Vitae Patrum [Lives of the Desert Fathers].

There has emerged a modern theory that suggests she is a legend deriving from "probably only a moral tale invented for edification." The saint shares her name with another Thaïs of wide notoriety in the Hellenistic world, many hundreds of years before. Of Ancient Athens, she had traveled to Persia with the campaign of Alexander. Notwithstanding, St. Thaïs remains on the Calendar of the Catholic Church, with her feast day being celebrated October 8.