Finalist #6 in the Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posting about one of these a week for several months. When you've read them all, I'll ask you to vote for a favorite, so remember which ones you liked] When the prefect of Alexandria's daughter converted to Christianity, nothing in particular happened - it wasn't as though the laws outlawing the cult would be enforced against her. She was smart, she was pretty (beautiful, even) and she had connections. So long as she kept quiet, Catherine could have a comfortable life. She didn't keep quiet. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-review-joan-of-arc Ā
Full Episode
Welcome to the Astral Codex X podcast for the 1st of August 2025. Title, Your Review, Joan of Arc, finalist number 6 in the review contest. This is an audio version of Astral Codex X's Scott Alexander Substack. If you like it, you can subscribe at astralcodex10.com.
Additionally, if you like having audio versions of long posts like this one, you can support my work on Patreon at patreon.com slash sscpodcast. This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posting about one of these a week for several months.
When you've read them all, I'll ask you to vote for a favourite, so remember which ones you liked. When the prefect of Alexandria's daughter converted to Christianity, nothing in particular happened. It wasn't as though the laws outlawing the cult would be enforced against her. She was smart, she was pretty, beautiful even, and she had connections.
So long as she kept quiet, Catherine could have a comfortable life. She didn't keep quiet. When the emperor arrived in Alexandria for a festival, this festival included gladiatorial games and chariot races and feasting and drinking, and of course the best part, feeding Christians to lions.
The prefect's daughter telling the emperor he was wrong to feed Christians to lions might have been pardonable soft-heartedness if it was just that she disliked watching slaves fed to lions, but her telling him that he was wrong because the Christians were right and he was wrong was flatly unacceptable.
He had no more interest in offending her parents than anyone else, though, and in fact he was considering putting his wife aside and marrying her, a useful alliance, and she had brains and guts. So instead he called on his top 50 philosophers to out-argue her. Instead she converted half of them to Christianity, so he had to have them killed.
That was the point where he threw her in prison, hoping she'd change her mind and be sensible. Instead, she converted everyone who showed up to argue with her in prison. When he deprived her of food, she was fed by a dove. When he had her tortured, her wounds miraculously healed. When his wife tried to talk sense into her, she converted, and the emperor had to have her killed too.
So since the slot was empty, he, as a final try, proposed marriage to Catherine. She told him she had a better husband, Christ, and at that insult he condemned her to death. The first try failed when the breaking wheel shattered at her touch. The second try employed an axe, but though the blade struck, true milk flowed from the stump instead of blood.
Except that this story is almost certainly fiction. Our oldest source is 600 years after the events it chronicles and therefore should not remotely be trusted as fact. These stories grow in the telling. More and more miracles added with every retelling to the point where some people question whether St Catherine even existed.
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