The Desert Mothers were known as ammas ("spiritual mothers"), comparable to the Desert Fathers (abbas), due to the respect they earned as spiritual teachers and directors [REF].
According to written accounts, Amma Syncletica might have been born around 270 AD, since she is said to have lived to her eighties in about 350 AD, to wealthy parents in Alexandria and was well educated, including an early study of the writings of Desert Father Evagrius Ponticus.