She is the subject of The Life of Syncletica, a Greek hagiography purportedly by Athanasius of Alexandria (d. 373) but not published until 450; and the Alphabetical and Systematic Apophthegmata (probably compiled in the 6th century), which included 28 of her sayings and teachings.

[2] Syncletica, who lived during the 4th century, was born in Macedonia into a noble and wealthy family that might have been sailors, owners of a sailing business, and part of the Greco-Roman ruling class.

The family moved to Alexandria and after her parents died, she cut her hair, gave away her fortune to the poor, and lived in a cell outside the city with her sister.

[5] Hagiographer Sabine Baring-Gould states that Syncletica secretly gave away her wealth in the hopes she would receive no attention for it, but her reputation as an ascetic drew girls and young women to come to her for instruction.

[10][4][5] Scholars Tim Vivian[11] and William Veder[12] both compare Syncletica to Anthony the Great, who also left his home, distributed his wealth to the poor, practiced voluntary poverty, and lived as an anchorite in the desert.

[17] Scholar Roberto Alciatti states that Syncletica and Thecla were compared to each other not only because they were both women and rejected marriage for the sake of chastity, but also "put up a double resistance, both bodily and spiritual, to the worldly way of life".

[3] Scholar Rachel Wheeler states, however, that Syncletica's vita "expresses a sophisticated awareness of the importance of integrating physical and spiritual life in pursuit of purity of heart.

[1] According to Vivian, Syncletica's teachings about asceticism appears in her sayings and was summarized by her in this way: "This is the great ascetic practice: to remain steadfast and to offer up to God hymns of thanksgiving".

[25] Vivian states that Syncletica's metaphors also include apotropaic magic, fire, domestic activities such as cooking and washing clothes, fever and thirst, iron and rust, gold, a dilapidated house, the setting sun, athletes, going to jail, and putting on armor.

[29] Her metaphors of household work are not related to paid handiwork, but her insistence on voluntary poverty allows her to express the worthlessness of money and the importance of ascetics to rely on God for their needs, and as a consequence, her vita and sayings do not reveal how she might have materially supported herself.

[8] In her vita, her decision to cut her hair to identify herself as an ascetic and a virgin "signified the unadorned and pure nature of Syncletica's soul", which alerted her readers early in the text to its "thematic integration of bodily and spiritual matters".

[34] The absence of domesticity in the writings and teachings of male ascetics and the emphasis of it in the works of desert mothers like Syncletica is due to "a differing perspective on life that women brought to their material circumstances".

[35] Syncletica used her own lived experience of her Christian faith to teaching other women and used domesticity because they were tasks familiar to her audience, something her hagiographer does not modify, which makes her vita unique.

Her vita reports that when she was forced to eat enough for nourishment, her body was weakened, but when she fasted, she was more healthy, upending the normal responses to depriving oneself of food.

In her vita, she teaches her followers to remove everything unnecessary in their lives, including gossip and slander, and to keep their souls clean, as they did when they did house-cleaning or activities of self-care.

[32] Her lungs and vocal chords were afflicted first, then a single tooth and her gums, and finally her entire jaw, which decayed to the point that it blackened her mouth and caused "such a stench that her disciples could not bear to be near her".