ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the character of Mattidia. It examines the fictional portrayals of other women in this literature who inhabit different contrived social spaces. The Clementina, its postulated sources, and the history of its promulgation will prove itself to be, even after skeptical examination of the rhetorical strategies encountered in the texts, an important though less-than-direct source of information. The chapter compares and contrast the descriptions of women in the Petrine community described in this literature with their counterparts in other rival Christian and non-Christian groups. It considers what attracted wealthy, educated Christian women like Sylvia of Aquitaine to this sorrowful story about Mattidia. The Pseudo-Clementine Mattidia, however, was never as powerful or autonomous in her behavior as Mattidia the Elder or Mattidia the Younger. Mattidia's life is pushed to the side throughout most of the Homilies and Recognitions, except in the construction of the underlying plot of the family narrative.
