ABSTRACT
Saints’ cults play a much less significant part in twenty-first century life than they did in the Middle Ages and St Katherine is unknown to many people today. In Alexandria, in the opening years of the fourth century, there lived a beautiful and learned young woman named Katherine. She was the daughter of an Alexandrine nobleman and as a woman of high social status and wealth might have made a good marriage. The translation of the body to Sinai can be read as a miracle story confirming the sanctity of the martyr. Miracles surrounding a martyrdom are a commonplace in hagiographical literature and would be expected in any martyr tale. Harris has also pointed out that references to Mount Sinai can be read as references to Moses. Although the earliest Greek texts give the name of the Emperor as Maxentius, in later texts he is sometimes named as Maximinus or Maximianus.
