Milco2015 - Mulieres Viriliter Vincentes - Masculine and Feminine Imagery in Augustine's Sermons on...

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VigiliaeChristianae

Mulieres viriliter vincentes: Masculine and Feminine Imagery in Augustines Sermons on Sts. Perpetua and Felicity

Katherine E. MilcoMarquette University, Foreign Languages and Literatures P.O. Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881 usa

[email protected]

Abstract

This paper argues that Augustine makes use of two principal images in his four extant sermons on Perpetua and Felicity: the masculine image of the combatant, who engages in spiritual warfare with the devil, and the feminine image of the mother, who tramples the diabolical serpent through childbirth. This paper makes the case that in styling the martyrs as combatants and mothers Augustine develops images that first appear in their third-century Passio. This thesis challenges the scholarly consensus which claims that Augustine departs from the content of their Passio in order to present these women behaving in conformity with the patriarchal norms of the late antique Church.

Keywords

Augustine Perpetua Gender Martyrdom Sermons

In his work, On the Bravery of Women, the Greek essayist, Plutarch, makes the case that men do not have the monopoly on bravery.1 By way of illustration, Plutarch invokes multiple examples of feminine excellence designed to show that women are capable of boldness, resourcefulness, and self-sacrifice. He begins his work by announcing his intention to praise brave women despite the cultural bias of the Greek intellectual tradition. He states:

1 I would like to thank Dr. Stephen M. Beall and Rev. Joseph G. Mueller S.J. for their construc-tive comments and suggestions on this article.

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Regarding the virtue of women, O Klea, I do not hold the same view as Thucydides. For he declares that the best woman is about whom there is the least talk by people abroad, either of censure or praise...The Roman custom seems the best, which renders due praises publically even to women, as it does to men, after death.2

Preaching over three hundred years later, Augustine displayed a similarly inclu-sive attitude toward Perpetua and Felicity, whose martyrdom he commended to his congregation in four extant sermons.3 Since recent decades have wit-nessed a rising interest in their third century Passio account, scholars have also scrutinized these sermons as early examples of their Nachleben.4 Specifically, scholars seek to understand what informs Augustines treatment of Perpetua and Felicity, particularly because it confounds contemporary expectations.

2 Mor. 242E-F (Mulierum Virtutes): , , . , vo , ... , ; the Greek text is from W. Nachstdt, W. Sieveking, and J.B. Titchener, Plutarchi Moralia, vol. ii (Leipzig: bsb B.G. Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft, 1971) 225-226. All translations of Greek and Latin texts are mine.

3 Serm. 280-282 are found in Cornelius I.M.I. Van Beek, Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis, vol. 1 (Nijmegen: Dekker & Van de Vegt S.A.) 149*-154*; Possidius includes these three ser-mons in his catalogue of Augustines works: A. Wilmart, Operum S. Augustini Elenchus, Miscellanea Agostiniana: Testi e Studi pubblicati a cura dellordine eremitano di. s. Agostino nel xv centenario dalla morte del santo dottore, vol. 2: Studi Agostiniani, eds. G. Morin and A. Casamassa (Roma: Tipografia poliglotta vaticana, 1931) 206; for his sermon on Perpetua and Felicity recently discovered in Germany, which is an elaboration of Serm. 282: Isabella Schiller, Dorothea Weber, and Clemens Weidmann, Sechs neue Augustinuspredigten: Teil 1 mit Edition dreier Sermones, Wiener Studien 121 (2008): 260-264; for quotations from the Passio, we will use the most recent critical edition by Thomas J. Heffernan, The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) 104-124.

4 Augustine delivered these sermons on the martyrs birthday, March 7, the day on which Perpetua and Felicity were put to death; it is recorded in the Chronology of 354: Chronica Minora, vol. 1 (=Monumenta Germaniae Historica, vol. 9), ed. Theodore Mommsen (Berlin: Weidmann, 1892) 71; the years in which Augustine delivered these sermons is unknown: Dorothee Elm von der Osten, Perpetua Felicitas: Die Predigten des Augustinus zur Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis (S. 280-282), Die Christlich-Philosophischen Diskurse der Sptantike: Texte, Personen, Institutionen, ed. Therese Fuhrer (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2008) 280; ric Rebillard, Sermones, Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999) 784; John Kitchen, Going to the Gate of Life: The Archaeology of the Carthage Amphitheatre and Augustines Sermons on Saints Perpetua and Felicity, Speculum Sermonis: Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Medieval Sermon, eds. Georgiana Donavin, Cary J. Nederman, and Richard Utz (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2004) 38 n. 26.

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For instance, the vast majority of contemporary commentators argue that Augustine takes issue with the prominence of women in the Passio in his ser-mons. They believe that he seeks to counteract its subversive potential by interpreting the martyrs actions in conformity with the hierarchical stereo-types of the late antique Church.5 According to proponents of this view-point, Augustine is particularly troubled by Perpetuas leadership within the Christian community, which may be evidence of her Montanist affiliation.6 Therefore, they claim that Augustine invokes the conventional stereotype about feminine weakness in his characterization of Perpetua and Felicity in order to domesticate the female martyrs.7 Most troubling to commenta-tors, however, is that Augustines interpretation appears to be at odds with the Passio itself, which celebrates female independence and heroism.8 They cite, for instance, his appeal to the Fall of Eve and Perpetuas chastity as evidence of his departure from the content of the Passio.9

5 Petr Kitzler, Viri mirantur facilius quam imitantur: Passio Perpetuae in the Literature of the Ancient Church (Tertullian, acta martyrum, and Augustine), The Ancient Novel and the Early Christian and Jewish Narrative: Fictional Intersections, eds. Marlia P. Futre Pinheiro, Judith Perkins, and Richard Pervo, Ancient Narrative Supplementum 16 (Groningen: Barkhuis Publishing & Groningen University Library, 2012) 193, 195.

6 Montanism was a Christian movement known to a number of ancient witnesses for grant-ing women positions of leadership; Rex D. Butler and Kenneth B. Steinhauser are two vigor-ous proponents of the thesis that Augustine was conscious of the Passios Montanist nature: Rex D. Butler, The New Prophecy & New Visions: Evidence of Montanism in The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006) 105-110; Kenneth B. Steinhauser, Augustines Reading of the Passio sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis, Studia Patristica 33, ed. Elizabeth A. Livingstone (Leuven: Peeters, 1997) 244-249.

7 Serm. 281.1:...virilis animus...fragilitas feminea...(Van Beek 151*-152*); L. Stephanie Cobb, Dying to be Men: Gender and Language in Early Christian Martyr Texts (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008) 109-110; see also Mary Ann Rossi, The Passion of Perpetua, Everywoman of Late Antiquity, Pagan and Christian Anxiety: A Response to E.R. Dodds, eds. Robert C. Smith and John Lounibos (Lanham: University Press of America, 1984) 67; Patricia Cox Miller, Perpetuas Diary of Dreams, Dreams in Late Antiquity: Studies in the Imagination of a Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) 171.

8 Heffernan 365; Joyce E. Salisbury, Perpetuas Passion: The Death and Memory of a Young Roman Woman (New York: Routledge, 1997) 174; Hanne Sigismund-Nielsen, Vibia PerpetuaAn Indecent Woman, Perpetuas Passions: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis, eds. Jan N. Bremmer and Marco Formisano (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) 117: Both the narrator of the Passio and Augustine had to change her (i.e. Perpetua) in order to make this extraordinary Roman woman fit into their Christian framework.

9 Butler 108-109; Kitzler 197; Salisbury 175; Brent D. Shaw, The Passion of Perpetua, Past and Present 139.1 (1993): 38-39.



In opposition to this popular viewpoint, Dorothee Elm von der Osten argues that Augustine evinces a more broadminded attitude toward women. She cites Augustines remark that the virtus of the mind hides the sex of the flesh as evidence that he sees the gender of Perpetua and Felicity as irrelevant.10 In fact, she regards his appeal to the martyrs asexual interior homo as evidence of his own brand of feminism, which recognizes the radical equality between men and women.11 She appeals to Augustines treatment of the interior homo in his exegetical work on the Book of Genesis in order to make the claim that Perpetua and Felicity appear in Augustines sermons as angelic, sexless beings.12 Nevertheless, Elm von der Osten agrees with the vast majority of commentators by suggesting that Augustine strays from the content of the Passio in these same sermons when he downplays the charismatic authority of Perpetua and attributes Felicitys birth pains to the sin of Eve.13

What all these scholars rightly argue is that Augustine styles Perpetua and Felicity as embodiments of feminine virtue and Christian orthodoxy for the sake of his congregation. What contemporary scholarship commonly over-looks, however, is that Augustine also presents Perpetua and Felicity in con-formity with their Passio. Far from rejecting its content, Augustine makes constructive use of its imagery in his explication of Christian sanctity. In par-ticular, he invokes and develops two images drawn from the Passio: the martyr as a combatant and the martyr as a mother. Augustine is neither an historical revisionist nor a proto-feminist but rather a creative exegete who utilizes the Passio in order to elaborate on the sanctity of Perpetua and Felicity for the benefit of his congregation.

Perpetua and Felicity as Combatants

Let us begin our investigation of Augustines sermons on Perpetua and Felicity with his favorite image, namely, the martyr in the role of a combatant. This image originates from the ancient agon or contest, which was an integral element of martial and athletic events. Augustine displayed a partiality for

10 Als irrelevant: Elm von der Osten 289.11 Dorothee Elm von der Osten, Perpetual Felicity: Sermons of Augustine on Female

Martyrdom (s. 280-282 auct. [Erfurt 1]), Studia Patristica 49, eds. J. Baun, A. Cameron, M. Edwards, and M. Vinzent (Leuven: Peeters, 2010) 205.

12 For her discussion of Genesis: Ibid. 206-207; Perpetua Felicitas 289-290; als engelsglei-che geschlechtslose Wesen: Perpetua Felicitas 298.

13 Charismatische Autoritt: Perpetua Felicitas 298; Perpetual Felicity 208.

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agonistic imagery, which is evident in his sermons eulogizing the Christian martyrs both male and female.14 At the beginning of his first sermon about Perpetua and Felicity, for example, Augustine begins creating an agonistic image: Today...re-presents the day on which the holy handmaids of God, Perpetua and Felicity, decorated with the crowns of martyrdom, flourished with perpetual felicity, while holding the name of Christ in battle and at the same time finding even their own name in their reward.15 Shortly after this opening statement, Augustine launches into a panegyric:

What is more glorious than these women whom men more readily admire rather than imitate? But this is chiefly the praise of him, in whom they believed and in whose name they ran with faithful zeal. Therefore, they are found neither male nor female in their interior homo, so that even in those who are female in the body, the virtus of the mind hides the sex of the flesh, and it is unpleasant to think about [a condition] in their members that was unable to appear in their deeds.16

Scholars commonly note the provocative treatment of femininity in this pas-sage.17 What they have failed to note, however, is the allusion to the seventh chapter of Pauls Letter to the Romans.

Let us take a moment to consider the relevant verses in Romans so that we may understand their significance in Augustines sermon on Perpetua and Felicity:

14 A small sampling: Serm. 274, 275, 283, 284, 285, 297, 298; see also Victor C. Pfitzner, Paul and the Agon Motif: Traditional Athletic Imagery in the Pauline Literature, NovTSup 16 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967).

15 Serm. 280.1: Hodiernus dies...repraesentat diem, quo sanctae famulae Dei Perpetua et Felicitas coronis martyrii decoratae, perpetua felicitate floruerunt, tenentes nomen Christi in praelio, et simul invenientes etiam suum nomen in praemio (Van Beek 149*-150*).

16 Serm. 280.1: Quid enim gloriosius his feminis, quas viri mirantur facilius quam imitantur? Sed hoc illius potissimum laus est, in quem credentes, in cuius nomine fideli studio concur-rentes, secundum interiorem hominem, nec masculus, nec femina inveniuntur; ut etiam in his quae sunt feminae corpore, virtus mentis sexum carnis abscondat, et in membris pigeat cogitare, quod in factis non potuit apparere (Van Beek 150*); an elaborate agonistic image appears in Schiller 261-262 c. 3.

17 Salisbury 175; Kitzler 197; see also Gail P.C. Streete, Redeemed Bodies: Women Martyrs in Early Christianity (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press) 60 whose translation of abscondat as took away is misleading.



For I delight in the law of God in my interior homo, but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner in the law of sin that is in my members. Miserable man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself with the mind serve the law of God but with the flesh the law of sin.18

In this passage from Romans, Paul explains the paradox of his spiritual con-dition. He sees two opposing forces at work within himself: the first is his inclination to act in accordance with the law of sin, which he associates with the prerogatives of the flesh, and the second is his desire to act in accor-dance with the law of the mind by doing the will of God. In his sermon on the seventh chapter of Romans, Augustine characterizes this conflict with an agonistic image: The life of the just in this body is still a war, not yet a tri-umph. In this war, however, there will be a triumph someday...When you hear fighting against and taking prisoner, (Rom. 7:23) dont you recognize the (allusion to) war?19

In the aforementioned sermon on Perpetua and Felicity, Augustine devel-ops this agonistic image from Romans in order to style their martyrdom as the triumph of the mind over the flesh.20 He adapts the Romans passage, how-ever, in a few important ways. First, he affirms that the martyrs interior homo is neither male nor female. Although this detail is absent from the original

18 7:22-25: Condelector enim legi Dei secundum interiorem hominem. Video autem aliam legem in membris meis repugnantem legi mentis meae et captivantem me in lege peccati, quae est in membris meis. Miser ego homo! Quis me liberabit de corpore mortis huius? Gratia Dei per Iesum Christum dominum nostrum. Igitur ego ipse mente servio legi Dei, carne autem legi peccati; from Augustines Spirit. et litt. 14.25; see C. Vrba et I. Zycha, Sancti Aureli Augustini, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 60 (Vindobonae: F. Tempsky, 1913) 180; emphasis mine. Since Augustine quoted scripture from memory, the scriptural quotations that we see in his corpus admit some variation; these minor variations have no bearing on my argument. Furthermore, one may ask whether we should utilize other works in Augustines corpus when we cannot securely date his sermons on the Passio. Our position is that his other works suggest tendencies in his thinking that we may utilize in order to understand his sermons on Perpetua and Felicity.

19 151.2:...vitam iusti in isto corpore adhuc bellum esse, nondum triumphum. Huius autem belli quando erit triumphus...Quando audis repugnantem, quando audis captivantem, bel-lum non agnoscis?; see Gert Partoens and Josef Lssl, Sancti Aurelii Augustini Sermones in Epistolas Apostolicas, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 41Ba (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008) 14-15.

20 In Schiller 262 c. 3, Augustine remarks:...spiritu carnem...vincentes; Tertullian similarly conceived of martyrdom: Mart. 4.

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Romans passage, it corresponds to an idea expressed in Pauls Letter to the Galatians: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.21 By claiming in his sermons that Perpetua and Felicity are able to vanquish the devil because of the strength of their interior homo, Augustine displays the same positive attitude toward the interior homo that we see in Pauls Letter to the Romans.22 Second, Augustine adapts the Pauline dichotomy between lex mentis and lex in membris that appears in the Romans passage. He introduces virtus mentis, which he makes the antithesis of feminae corpore, sexum carnis, and membris. His dichotomy between mind and flesh neatly dovetails with the dichotomy between interior and exterior phenomena that Augustine develops extensively in his corpus.23 Although the incorporation of virtus mentis enables Augustine to echo Paul in some respects, it also enables him to play on the meaning of the Latin word, virtus, which means both manliness and strength.24 Thus, he establishes a dual dichotomy between man and woman and between strength and weakness. What Augustine accomplishes with his adaptation of Romans, therefore, is the creation of a larger dichotomy between mind, masculinity,

21 Gal. 3:28: Non est Iudaeus neque Graecus, non est servus neque liber, non est masculus et femina; omnes enim vos unum estis in Christo Jesu; from Augustines Trin. 12.7.12; see W.J. Mountain and Fr. Glorie, Sancti Aurelii Augustini, De Trinitate, Libri xv, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 50 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968) 367; Augustines allusion to this verse is noted by Van Beek 150*; Shaw 38; Kitchen 45 n. 39.

22 Serm. 282.2 and Schiller 261 c. 2: these two passages are almost identical; for Augustines view on women in the order of creation, particularly his understanding of woman as homo, see Kari Elisabeth Brresen, La Fminologie dAugustin: cration, chute et rsur-rection, Christian and Islamic Gender Models in Formative Traditions, ed. Kari Elisabeth Brresen (Roma: Herder, 2004) 68-75.

23 In the sermon under consideration (Serm. 280), the mind/flesh dichotomy immediately segues into an ekphrastic meditation on the dichotomy between those who see mar-tyrdom with the eyes of the heart and those who see it with the eyes of the flesh; see Elizabeth A. Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004) 124-125; for the interior/exterior dichotomy in Augustines thought, see: Alfred Schindler, Wort und Analogie in Augustins Trinittslehre, Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie 4 (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1965); Gareth B. Matthews, The Inner Man, American Philosophical Quarterly 4.2 (1967): 166-172; Philip Cary, Augustines Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Augustines dichotomies in his sermons on Perpetua and Felicity are addressed by Kitchen 29-54.

24 See virtus in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary Founded on Andrews Edition of Freunds Latin Dictionary: Revised, Enlarged, and in Great Part Rewritten (New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1998) 1997.



and strength, on the one hand, and flesh, femininity, and weakness, on the other. At first glance, this dichotomy appears to contradict the Passio, which provides a persuasive portrait of feminine strength and heroism. How do we make sense of Augustines Pauline interpretation of the Passio?

In order to understand how Augustine is able to construe Perpetua and Felicity as interiorly masculine, we need to turn to Perpetuas final vision in the Passio in which she visualizes herself transforming into a man and defeating an Egyptian opponent in combat.25 The agonistic image that appears in her vision and in Augustines sermon originates from ancient warfare and sports in which men figured as the principaland typically, soleparticipants. The exclusion of women from agonistic events reflects the conventional ancient belief in the frailty of women.26 This belief is also evident in early Christian writings, which sometimes represent Christian heroines rejecting convention-ally feminine behaviors and assuming masculine attributes en route to spiri-tual perfection.27 Our earliest example is the second-century Acts of Thecla, in which the eponymous protagonist self-administers baptism and then assumes masculine clothes.28 In the Passio we see that Perpetua regards her assumption of masculinity as an essential precondition of her ability to defeat this dia-bolical figure. By indicating that her masculinity endows her with a strength

25 10.1-13; for a useful discussion on the Patristic conception of female virilitas, which is informed by Paul, see Paola Francesca Moretti, La Bibbia e il discorso dei Padri latini sulle donne. Da Tertulliano a Girolamo, Le donne nello sguardo degli antichi autori cris-tiani: luso dei testi biblici nella costruzione dei modelli femminili e la riflessione teologica dal I al vii secolo, eds. Kari Elisabeth Brresen and Emanuela Prinzivalli (Trapani: Il Pozzo di Giacobbe, 2013) 137-173; see also Emanuela Prinzivalli, Early Christian Anthropology: Gender Models in Creation and Resurrection, trans. Gabriele Poole, Christian and Islamic Gender Models in Formative Traditions, ed. Kari Elisabeth Brresen (Roma: Herder, 2004) 52.

26 In Augustines sermons on Perpetua and Felicity see Serm. 281.1; 282.2-3; see also Elizabeth A. Clark, Ideology, History, and the Construction of Woman in Late Ancient Christianity, Journal of Early Christian Studies 2:2 (1994): 155-184; Jo Ann McNamara, Sexual Equality and the Cult of Virginity in Early Christian Thought, Feminist Studies 3.3 (1976): 145-158; it is worth mentioning that Augustine attributes infirmitas to male martyrs such as St. Vincent (Serm. 276.1) and St. Peter (Serm. 295.3).

27 Most of the evidence is later than the Passio: Antti Marjanen, Male Women Martyrs: The Function of Gender-Transformation Language in Early Christian Martyrdom Accounts, in Metamorphoses: Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity, eds. Turid Karlsen Seim and Jorunn kland (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009) 231-247; Joyce E. Salisbury, Church Fathers, Independent Virgins (London: Verso, 1991) 97-110; Margaret R. Miles, Carnal Knowing: Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian West (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989) 53-77.

28 40.

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ordinarily lacking to her feminine members, Perpetua anticipates Augustines claim that her virtus hides or makes invisible her feminine flesh. Even the philological elements of the narrative of her vision anticipate Augustines claim that her femininity is hidden but not overwhelmed by her transforma-tion. For instance, after her transformation into a man, Perpetua and the judge refer to her with grammatically feminine forms, and the judge even addresses her with the feminine vocative form, filia.29 In his De Anima Augustine affirms that Perpetuas masculine strength is a feature of her interior experience when he writes:

Why would (anyone) doubt that it was her soul that was in that likeness of a body, not her (actual) body, which retained its feminine sex continu-ously as she was lying on her bed while her senses were asleep, when her soul was wrestling in that likeness of a virile body?30

Augustine indicates that Perpetuas soul is affected by her vision; her body, however, remains feminine throughout her mystical experience.

Now that we have looked at Augustines attribution of interior virtus to the female martyrs, we turn to the second half of his dichotomy, namely, the exterior femininity of the martyrs. Here Augustine takes his cue from the mar-tyrdom narrative of the Passio, which emphasizes the femininity and bodily weakness of the women. For example, the narrator describes that the women were stripped naked in the arena, remarking that Perpetua appeared as a deli-cate girl and Felicity, who had recently undergone childbirth, appeared with dripping breasts.31 He further describes how Perpetua was easily knocked over by a cow and was quick to preserve her modesty and rearrange her hair.32 To be sure, the narrator of the account also incorporates details that cast these same martyrs in the role of combatants, such as his description of Perpetua striding into the arena and staring down the crowd.33 Here we see the narrator connecting her final vision to her martyrdom just as Perpetua did when she said: And I understood that I would not fight against beasts but against the

29 10.9-13.30 Anim. 4.18.26: Quid autem dubitet in illa similitudine corporis animam eius fuisse, non cor-

pus, quod utique in suo femineo sexu manens sopitis sensibus iacebat in stratis, quando anima eius in illa virilis corporis similitudine luctabatur? (Van Beek 155*).

31 20.2:...puellam delicatam...stillantibus mammis (Heffernan 121).32 20.3-5.33 18.1-2.



devil, but I knew that I would have the victory.34 Therefore, when Augustine creates a dichotomy between interior masculine strength and exterior femi-nine weakness, he follows a precedent established by the Passio itself. He then relates this dichotomy to the Pauline dichotomy between mind and flesh in order to explain the significance of Perpetua and Felicitys martyrdom. At the same time, however, Augustines appeal to their asexual interior homo suggests that he recognizes the inadequacy of a gendered conception of the mind and flesh.35 So we see that Augustine critiques gendered images while employing them in imitation of the Passio for the benefit of his congregation.

Let us turn to another sermon on these women where Augustine devel-ops the image of the martyr as a combatant. In Sermon 281 Augustine once again cites the vision that we mentioned above in which Perpetua combats an Egyptian athlete. This episode becomes the basis of Augustines meditation on a non-physical type of contest that Perpetua describes in the Passio, namely her verbal disputes with her non-Christian father. Augustine is particularly interested in the significance of Perpetuas femininity in the conflict between Perpetua and her male opponents.

It is delightful for a devout mind to behold the sort of spectacle that blessed Perpetua recounted had been revealed to her about herselfthat having been transformed into a man she struggled with the devil. Indeed in that contest she was also running toward the perfect man, in the measure of the full life of Christ. Truly, that old and aged enemy, who had deceived man through a woman, lest he leave any tricks untried, tried to overcome her through a man since he sensed that the woman was dealing manfully with him. The devil did not place before her a husband...rather he [that is, the devil] instructed her father with words of deception so that her religious mind, which might not be softened through the instinct of plea-sure, might be broken by the force of piety...Holy Perpetua responded to her father with such moderation that she did not violate the precept according to which honor is owed to parents.36

34 10.14: Et intellexi me non ad bestias, sed contra diabolum esse pugnaturam; sed sciebam mihi esse victoria[m] (Heffernan 113).

35 Discussed briefly by Peter Burnell, The Augustinian Person (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005) 45-46; Matthews 167 n. 9 mentions Augustines identi-fication of the interior homo with the soul and the mind; see also Gen. litt. 3.22 and Trin. 12.7.12 where Augustine affirms that women are created in the image of God.

36 281.2: Delectat autem piam mentem tale spectaculum contueri, quale sibi beata Perpetua de se ipsa revelatum esse narravit, virum se factam certasse cum diabolo. Illo quippe certamine

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Augustine explains Perpetuas transformation into a man by appealing to a passage from Ephesians in which Paul explains that God distributes his gifts to his people until we all come to the unity of faith, to the perfect man, in the measure of the full life of Christ.37 In his City of God, Augustine addresses this same passage from Ephesians in order to refute the popular belief that women will assume male bodies at the resurrection, claiming that the sex of the female is not a vice but nature.38 Yet, how can Augustineor Paul, for that matterhold up the perfect man as an ideal for women like Perpetua? As we noted above, Perpetuas transformation into a man is an element of her interior experience. Therefore, women, including Perpetua, are called to run toward the perfect man; this movement, however, is not a bodily transformation but a symbolic or interior change that assimilates them closely to the perfect man, Christ.39 According to Augustine, because of her interior virility, Perpetua tri-umphs where her female progenitor, Eve, failed. Augustine says that Perpetua fights the devil viriliter or manfully, suggesting that Perpetua fights as an alter Christus. Moreover, Augustine believes that her assumption of virility explains why her Egyptian opponent is a man: the need for sexual correspondence between the two combatants. This curious detail, however, reflects the Passio itself, which depicts sexual correspondence between the female martyr and her opponent in the arena. For instance, the narrator describes Perpetua and Felicity in the arena with a peculiar detail about the beast selected for them: For the young women, however, the devil prepared a very vicious cowwhich

in virum perfectum etiam ipsa currebat, in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi. Merito ille vetus ac veterator inimicus, ne ullas praeteriret insidias qui per feminam deceperat virum, quia viriliter secum agentem feminam sensit, per virum eam superare tentavit. Nec maritum supposuit...sed patrem verbis deceptionis instruxit, ut religiosus animus, qui non mollire-tur voluptatis instinctu, pietatis impetu frangeretur...sancta Perpetua tanta patri mode-ratione respondit, ut nec praeceptum violaret, quo debetur honor parentibus...(Van Beek 152*).

37 4:13: Donec occurramus omnes in virum perfectum, in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi; from Augustines Civ. 22.17; see B. Dombart and A. Kalb, Sancti Aurelii Augustini, De Civitate Dei, Libri xi-xxii, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 48 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955) 835.

38 Civ. 22.17: Non est autem vitium sexus femineus, sed natura (cc 48: 835); see also Kari Elisabeth Brresen, Modelli di genere in Agostino, Le donne nello sguardo degli antichi autori cristiani: luso dei testi biblici nella costruzione dei modelli femminili e la riflessione teologica dal I al vii secolo, eds. Kari Elisabeth Brresen and Emanuela Prinzivalli (Trapani: Il Pozzo di Giacobbe, 2013) 202-203.

39 For a useful discussion of Augustines view on the significance of women in the Christian economy of salvation, see Brresen, La Fminologie, 67-83; for the image of running in the New Testament see also 1 Cor. 9:24 and Heb. 12.1.



was unusualso that he could rival their sex even with that of the beast.40 As we have already noted, Perpetua believes that her vision of the Egyptian fore-shadows her martyrdom in the arena. Once again Augustine follows her lead by connecting these two episodes in his sermon.

After speculating about the absence of Perpetuas husband, Augustine uses her vision of combat as a model for understanding Perpetuas difficult relation-ship with her father. Does Augustine, however, misrepresent Perpetua by also characterizing her as a dutiful daughter whose behavior corresponds to the norms of feminine comportment? According to Stephanie Cobb, his charac-terization outright contradicts the Passio:

Although the martyrology depicts Perpetua rejecting and defying her father at every encounter, Augustine, radically rewriting the narra-tive, praises her...The defiant, self-willed, and arguably disrespectful Perpetua of the martyrology is transformed into a Christian mother, daughter, and wife of whom any man should be proud.41

The difficulty with Cobbs charge against Augustine is its failure to distinguish between pagan and Christian perspectives. From the perspective of Perpetuas pagan father, Perpetua likely appears defiant, self-willed, and arguably disre-spectful. Indeed, the Roman principle of pietas encompassed a series of recip-rocal obligations between parent and child that included the obedience of the latter to the former.42 Yet from the perspective of Perpetua, Augustine and other early Christians, Perpetua behaves within the bounds of proper behav-ior for a Christian. Indeed, the early Christians did not believe that the honor of parents entailed obedience to them in every sphere of life. Augustine him-self makes this clear in a sermon on the Gospel of Matthew: One ought to honor his father but obey God. One ought to love his begetter but prefer the Creator.43 Augustine here merely echoes sentiments expressed by his prede-cessor, Tertullian, a contemporary of Perpetua and Felicity who is sometimes

40 20.1: Puellis autem ferocissimam vaccam, ideoque praeter consuetudinem conparatam, diabolus praeparavit, sexui earum etiam de bestia [a]emulatus (Heffernan 121).

41 Cobb 109.42 Passio 5.5; see pietas in Lewis and Short 1374-75; Sigismund-Nielsen 110-113; for a nuanced

discussion of pietas in Roman sources, see Richard P. Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) 105-114.

43 Serm. 100.2: Honorandus est pater, sed oboediendum est Deo. Amandus est generator, sed praeponendus est creator; see Roland Demeulenaere, Le Sermon 100 de Saint Augustin sur le Renoncement, Revue Bndictine 104 (1994): 81.

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credited with penning the preface and epilogue of the Passio.44 Tertullian asks rhetorically in his De Corona:

Do we believe that it is permissible for a human oath to be added to the divine one, and to respond to another master after Christ, and to disown father and mother and every close relative, whom even the law has pre-scribed to be honored and loved after God, whom even the Gospel also so honored, esteeming them less than only Christ?45

The answer to this rhetorical question is, of course, no. Tertullian, like Augustine, recognizes the importance of familial obligations, which must be subordinated only to God. The Passio itself testifies to the delicacy and deft-ness with which Perpetua balances her Christian commitment and her obliga-tion to honor her father. Rather than ignoring or responding angrily to him, she assumes the Socratic role of teacher during their first encounter in an attempt to explain rationally why she cannot renounce her Christian identity.46 Her father is the one who responds with anger and violence.47 Perpetua even characterizes his arguments as diabolical, suggesting that Augustines iden-tification of her father as a diabolical figure stems from the Passio.48 During their second encounter, Perpetua responds to his impassioned speech with an attempt to comfort him, saying, It will happen on that prisoners dock as God wills. Know that we will not be in our own power but in Gods.49 Furthermore, Perpetua grieves for her father on multiple occasions, and she so closely identi-fies with him that when he is beaten, she says that the misfortune of my father grieved me just as if I myself had been beaten.50 Her restrained conduct in the Passio stands in sharp contrast to her behavior in the later Acts of Perpetua and Felicity in which she physically repels her family, saying: Depart from me you

44 Butler 49-57 provides a good summary of the scholarly debate about the possible author-ship of Tertullian.

45 Cor. 11.1: Credimusne humanum sacramentum divino superduci licere, et in alium dominum respondere post Christum, et eierare patrem ac matrem et omnem proximum, quos et lex honorari et post Deum diligi praecepit, quos et evangelium, solo Christo pluris non faciens, sic quoque honoravit?; from Fabio Ruggiero, Tertulliano: De Corona (Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1992) 38.

46 3.1-2.47 3.3; Augustines mention of pietatis impetu in Serm. 281.2 acknowledges violence, as well.48 Streete 61.49 5.6: Hoc fiet in illa catasta quod Deus voluerit; scito enim nos non in nostra esse potestate

futuros, sed in Dei (Heffernan 108).50 5.6; 6.5: Doluit mihi casus patris mei, quasi ego fuissem percussa (Heffernan 109).



evildoers, since I do not know you.51 Therefore, Augustine is correct when he notes that Perpetuas relationship to her father in the Passio is marked by both filial honor and martial competition. As a competitor, Perpetua overcomes the attacks of her father just as she overcomes the attacks of the Egyptian. Yet, as a daughter, Perpetua also fulfills the commandment to honor her parents.

In the foregoing analysis we have observed that Augustine, informed by both Perpetuas final vision and her martyrdom narrative, characterizes Perpetua and Felicity as interiorly virile combatants in a spiritual agon. At the same time, however, Augustines remark that their interior homo is neither male nor female serves to offset the stark gender dichotomy between masculine strength and feminine weakness. Should we therefore conclude that Augustine really views Perpetua and Felicity as angelic, sexless beings?52 It is to that question that we now turn.

Perpetua and Felicity as Mothers

Let us consider a different image that Augustine invokes in his reflection on Perpetua and Felicity, namely, the motherly roles of Eve and Mary. While the image of the martyr as a combatant is a masculine archetype that relativizes femininity, the image of a mother serves as a thoroughly feminine counter-part. Curiously, however, scholars overlook the allusions to motherhood while arguing that Augustine invokes Eve or Mary for either practical or sinister pur-poses. For example, Dorothee von Elm der Osten suggests that his motivation for referring to Eve is driven by the threat of Pelagianism, a heretical move-ment that denied some of the damaging consequences of the Fall.53 Joyce Salisbury takes a different view when she remarks, One way that Augustine tamed the independence of the martyr was by repeatedly framing her accom-plishments within a context of Eves fall.54 Again, Brent Shaw views the ref-erence to Eve as an attempt to suggest to his listeners an essential fault in Perpetuas gender.55 Finally, Hanne Sigismund-Nielsen, noting the allusion to Mary, says: Augustine sees Perpetua as a Mary, but where Mary through Christ

51 6.6: Recedite a me operarii iniquitatis, quia non novi vos; Jacqueline Amat, Passion de Perptue et de Flicit suivi des Actes (Paris: Les ditions du Cerf, 1996) 286.

52 Sigismund-Nielsen 117: She (i.e. Perpetua) has ceased being a woman.53 Elm Von Der Osten, Perpetual Felicity 208.54 Salisbury, Perpetuas Passions 175; see also Butler 108-109.55 Shaw 38.

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has redeemed humankind, Perpetua has only redeemed and purified herself from her womanly sins.56

We begin our analysis of the motherly roles of Perpetua and Felicity by considering an oblique reference to motherhood that appears on the heels of Augustines meditation on the virtus of the mind that we analyzed above. Augustine says:

Therefore, the dragon was trodden on with a chaste foot and victorious footstep, when the upright ladder through which blessed Perpetua might go to God was revealed. Thus the head of the ancient serpent, which was a precipice to the woman when she fell, became a step to the woman when she ascended.57

Here Augustine refers to Perpetuas first vision, which she recorded during her incarceration while awaiting trial.58 Her treading on the dragon directly refer-ences the third chapter of the Book of Genesis, which describes the serpents deception of Eve, the mother of the human race.59 In the relevant verse from Genesis, God responds to the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed; she will be on watch for your head, and you for her heel.60 Many early Christian writers believed that Mary ful-filled this prophecy in her function as the New Eve, the one who crushes the head of the serpent as the mother of Jesus.61 Without invoking Mary by name, Perpetua envisions her martyrdom participating in the downfall of the serpent, which neatly connects her own martyrdom to Marys motherhood. Augustine continues to assimilate Perpetua to Mary with pede casto, which means with chaste foot. The early Christians, including Augustine, revered Mary for her

56 Sigismund-Nielsen 116.57 280.1: Calcatus est ergo draco pede casto et victore vestigio, cum erectae demonstrarentur

scalae, per quas beata Perpetua iret ad Deum. Ita caput serpentis antiqui, quod fuit praecipi-tium feminae cadenti, gradus factum est ascendenti (Van Beek 150*); see also Serm. 281.1-2.

58 4.3-9.59 The connection between Eve and Perpetua receives treatment in Kitchen 45-46.60 Gen. 3:15: Et inimicitiam ponam inter te et mulierem, et inter semen tuum, et inter semen

illius. Ipsa tuum observabit caput, et tu ejus calcaneum; from Augustines Gen. Man. 2.1.2; see Sancti Aurelii Augustini, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina 34, ed. J.P. Migne (Paris: Garnier Fratres, 1887) 195.

61 Just. Dial. 100; Iren. Haer. 3.22.4; Tert. Carn. Chr. 17; Aug. Agon. 22.24; for the Patristic con-nection between Eve and Mary, see Brresen, Modelli 200-202.



chastity manifested through her virginal motherhood.62 Although Perpetua was not a virgin, she nevertheless was a chaste matrona and mother.63 We see that Augustine connects Perpetuas martyrdom to Eves and Marys mother-hood, just as the Passio does.

Although both Perpetua and Felicity are mothers, Augustine reserves most of his commentary on motherhood for Felicity, who gives birth in prison shortly before her death in the arena.64 In elaborating on the life-giving dimen-sion of the Christian vocation, which includes martyrdom, Augustine follows in the footsteps of Paul, Ignatius, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Origen.65 Augustine reflects on Felicitys childbirth in connection with Eve and Mary in his second sermon where he says:

But Felicity was also pregnant in prison. In giving birth she testified with a female voice to the female condition. The penalty of Eve was not absent, but the grace of Mary was present. What the woman owed was exacted, [but] he whom the Virgin had born was helping [her].66

In conjunction with this passage, we consider an excerpt from his recently dis-covered sermon where Augustine contrasts Felicitys human pregnancy with her divine one.

For she [that is, Felicity] was pregnant in both body and heart. She had conceived the latter when the divine consort impregnated her, the for-mer in human marriage; the law of nature was deferring that [human pregnancy], the force of persecution urged that [divine pregnancy]; proper timing was absent for that [human pregnancy], the favorable time for interrogation was present for the [divine pregnancy]; he [the human child] would be miscarried if he were hastened, the [divine child] would be killed if he were denied. For the most pious woman remembered that

62 For primary evidence about early Christian views on Mary, see Luigi Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Patristic Thought, trans. Thomas Buffer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999).

63 Passio 2.1; 20.4; see also Adolar Zumkeller, Castitas, castus, Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 1, ed. Cornelius Mayer (Basel: Schwabe & Co. ag, 1986) 781-788.

64 15.5.65 Gal. 4:19; Ign. Rom 6.1; Tert. Apol. 50.13; Cyp. Ep. 39.3; Or. Mart. 14.66 Serm. 281.3: Felicitas vero etiam in carcere praegnans fuit. In parturiendo femineam conditio-

nem feminea voce testata est. Non aberat Evae poena, sed aderat Mariae gratia. Exigebatur quod mulier debebat: opitulabatur quem Virgo pepererat (Van Beek 153*).

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she would both bear the penalty of woman and confess the offspring of the Virgin.67

In these passages Augustine compares Felicity to both Eve and Mary. Augustines penchant for the dichotomy between exterior and interior phenomena is evi-dent once again, as he contrasts her physical and spiritual pregnancies, the former both symbolizing and providing the occasion for the latter. Insofar as Felicity is a mother, experiencing the ordinary pains of human childbirth, she is like Eve, whose sin introduced the pain of childbirth into the world.68 As Eves daughter, Felicity is also subject to the physical complications and vicis-situdes associated with natural childbirth. Yet, insofar as Felicity is a martyr, experiencing the supernatural pain of spiritual childbirth, she is like Mary, who physically bore Christ within herself as his mother. Felicitys physical identification with Mary enables her to experience the comforting presence of Christ during his Nativity while she simultaneously undergoes the ordeal of giving birth to Christ by confessing him at her interrogation.

Through her identification with the mother of Jesus, Felicity becomes the mother of the Church, the community of Christian believers.69 In his sermons on their martyrdom, Augustine implies that the martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity made the faith of his congregation possible.70 The Passio itself attrib-uted the conversion of non-believers to the powerful witness of Perpetua, Felicity, and their co-martyrs.71 In addition to her role as mother of the Church, Felicity also becomes an image of the Church to whom Augustine compares both Perpetua and Felicity in another passage of his sermons.72

What is significant, however, about Augustines meditation on Felicitys two pregnancies is its noticeable indebtedness to the Passio. Let us turn to the

67 Schiller 263 c. 5: Gravida enim erat et corpore et corde. Istud divino consortio fecundante conceperat, illud humano conubio; illum partum lex naturae differebat, istum vis perse-cutionis urgebat; illi deerat maturitas temporis, huic aderat opportunitas quaestionis; ille abortiretur si properaretur, iste necaretur si negaretur. Meminerat ergo piissima femina et poenam se mulieris parturituram et partum virginis confessuram.

68 Gen. 3:16.69 Denis, Serm. 25.8; Miscellanea Agostiniana: Testi e Studi pubblicati a cura dellordine eremi-

tano di. s. Agostino nel xv centenario dalla morte del santo dottore, vol. 1: Sancti Augustini Sermones Post Maurinos Reperti, eds. G. Morin and A. Casamassa (Roma: Tipografia poli-glotta vaticana, 1930) 163.

70 Serm. 280.2, 6.71 16.4; 17.3; 21.11.72 Serm. 281.1.



relevant passage which presents Felicity in the grip of a painful labor. A prison guard attempts to break her resolve with a spiteful question:

You are suffering so much nowwhat will you do when you are thrown to the beasts for whom you showed no regard when you refused to sac-rifice? And she responded: I now endure what I am enduring; at that time, however, another (i.e. man) will be in me who will endure for me since I also will be enduring for him.73

At the time of her utterance, Felicity carries within herself the life of her daughter. She believes that her present childbirth foreshadows and anticipates her impending martyrdom in the arena where mother and son will suffer for each other. In fact, shortly after his meditation on Felicitys two pregnan-cies (quoted above), Augustine quotes verbatim Felicitys response to the guard, suggesting that Augustine receives his inspiration from the martyrdom account itself.

In his sermons on Perpetua and Felicity, Augustine elevates the eponymous martyrs to the role of mother in imitation of the New Eve, the woman proph-esied in the third chapter of Genesis and the mother of Jesus. In view of the great esteem that our Patristic sources evince for Mary, Augustines treatment of Perpetua and Felicity in this regard is not a critique of them as women, as some contemporary scholars have suggested. At the same time, Augustine does not style Perpetua and Felicity in his sermons as angelic, sexless beings, as Elm von der Osten claims, since Mary is a woman and motherhood is a pecu-liarly human, feminine function.74 Therefore, we see the image of the martyr as mother serving as the feminine counterpart to the masculine image of the combatant. Most importantly, however, Augustine, in styling the martyrs as mothers, develops a leitmotiv that appears in the Passio itself.

73 15.5-6: Quae sic modo doles, quid facies obiecta bestiis, quas contempsisti cum sacrificare noluisti? Et illa respondit: Modo ego patior quod patior; illic autem alius erit in me qui patie-tur pro me, quia et ego pro illo passura sum (Heffernan 117).

74 Augustine draws particular attention to their human femininity in Serm. 282.2.; contra Emanuela Prinzivalli, Perpetua the Martyr, Roman Women, ed. Augusto Fraschetti, trans. Linda Lappin (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001) 139: In these sermons, the martyrs have completely lost their human side.

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Conclusion

Like Plutarch, Augustine seeks to demonstrate that bravery is not only the province of men but also of women. To achieve this end, Augustine incorpo-rates into his sermons on Perpetua and Felicity two conventional images illus-trating Christian sanctity: the masculine image of the combatant who fights with competence against the devil and the feminine image of the mother who tramples the diabolical serpent through her life-giving capacity. What we have observed in each case is that Augustines characterization of the two women elaborates on images drawn from the Passio itself, displaying both fidelity to their martyrdom account and his own exegetical creativity.

As we noted in our introduction, however, contemporary scholarship cri-tiques Augustine for distorting the Passio. Brent Shaw, for example, ends his well-known article on the Passio with an indictment of Augustine and other male exegetes:

This [that is, the Passio] is one of the very rare pieces written by a female hand that is known from antiquity. It was, even in its own day, a small and fragile thing. Yet even this exiguous voice could not be left alone. From the very start it was buried under an avalanche of male interpretations, rereadings, and distortions. What chance, one must wonder, was there for any Perpetua to tell her story?75

The words buried and avalanche are revealing. They suggest that male interpretations of the Passio are dangerous, because they prevent the real Perpetua from telling her story. In point of fact, Perpetua does tell her story; male exegetes, like Augustine, were the very ones who chose to preserve and disseminate her writing.76 While Augustines interpretation evidently con-founds Shaws expectations, it would not have confounded the expectations of fifth century Christian men and women, who viewed gender along the lines suggested by Augustine.77 This brings us to the real difficulty with viewing Augustines exegesis with suspicion: its anachronism. It involves projecting onto antiquity the present-day belief that men seek to keep women in a place of subjection, which is the chief element of patriarchy as Natalie K. Watson

75 Shaw 45.76 The identity of the narrator is unknown, which leaves open the question about whether

the narrator is a man (although it probably is).77 I am grateful to Allan Fitzgerald for this point, which he brought to my attention at the

annual meeting of the North American Patristics Society in Chicago, il on 22 May 2014.



explains in her Feminist Theology: Patriarchy constructs a social-symbolic order in which men dominate women and women are viewed as the Other: as those who do not fit the criteria of normative existence...78 Of course, we can point to examples from antiquity of men dominating women, but to bring this assumption to bear on Augustines sermons of the Passio is unwarranted. Far from dominating or domesticating Perpetua and Felicity, Augustine holds up Perpetua and Felicity as explicitly embodied and feminine exemplars for both the men and the women of his congregation.79 Although the early Christians recognized that the Fall of Adam and Eve negatively impacted the relation-ship between men and women, they did not regard the battle of the sexes as the lens through which to interpret reality.80 Rather, they viewed this life as a locus for conflict between the law of the mind and the law of sin that Paul described in his Letter to the Romans. It is this conflict that we see exemplified in the lives of Perpetua and Felicity. This is the conflict about which Augustine says: In this war is the whole life of holy people.81

78 Natalie K. Watson, Feminist Theology (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003) 27.

79 Serm. 280.6; 282.1; contra Streete 59-60 and Kitzler 198 who believe that Augustine dis-couraged the imitation of Perpetua and Felicity.

80 According to Gen. 3:16, part of Eves punishment is her subjection to Adam.81 Serm. 151.7: In isto bello est tota vita sanctorum (cc 41Ba:26).

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