The Manly Eunuch. Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity

THE MANLY EUNUCH

'IHE CIDCAGO SElUES ON SEXUALITY, IDSIORY, AND SOCIETY

Edited by ]ohn C. Fout ALSO IN 'IHE SERIES:

Improper Advances: Rnpe andHeterosexual Gonflictin Ontario, 1880-1929 by Karen Dubinsky A Prescription for Murder: The Victorian Serial IGllings ofDr. Thomas Neill Cream by Angus McLacen · The Language ofSex: Five Voices fromNorthern France around 1200 by John W Baldwin Crossingwer the Line: Legislating Morality and the MannAct by David J. Langum SexualNature/Sexual Culture edited by Paul R. Abramson and Steven D. Pinketton

Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism by Bernadette J. Brooten Trials ofMasculinity: Policing Sexual Boundaries, 1870-1930 by Angus McLacen The Invention ofSodomy in Christian Theology by Mark D. Jordan Sites ofDesirejEconomies ofPlearure: Sexualities inAsia and the Paciftc edited by Lenore Manderson and Margaret Jolly Sex and the Gender &Polution, Volume 1: Heterosexuality and the Third Gender in Enlightenment Lontlon by Randolph Thunbach Take the Young Stranger by the Hand: Same-Sex Relationsand the YMCA by John Donald Gustav-Wrathall City ofSisterly andBrotherly Lwes: Lesbian and Gay Philadelphia, 1945-1972 by Mare Stein The Politics ofGay llights edited by Craig Rirnmerman, Kenneth Wald, and Clyde Wucox

Otto Weininger Sex, Science, and Selfin Imperial Vienna by Chandak Sengoopta

.··THE MANLY

EUNUCH Masculinity) Gender Ambiguity) and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity

MATHEW KUEFLER

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO AND LONDON

MATHEW KUEFLER received bis Ph.D. from Yale University in 1995. He is assistant professor ofhistory at San Diego Stare University and has also raught at Yale and Rice Universities.

The University ofChicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2001 byThe UniversityofChicago All rights reserved. Published 2001 Peinted in the UnitedSrates ofAmerica 12 3 4 5 Hl 0908 0706 05 0403 02 01 ISBN: 0-226-45739-7 (cloth) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dara Knefler, Mathew. The manly eunuch : masculinity, gender ambiguity, and Christian ideology in late antiquity f Mathew Knefler. p. cm. - (The Chicago series on sexualiry, history, and society) Includes bibliographical references {p. ) and index. ISBN 0-226-45739-7 1. Masculinity-Religious aspecrs-Christianity-History-To 1500. 2. Masculiniry-Rome-Hisrory-To 1500. I. Tide. II. Series. BT702 .K842001 155.3 '32 '0937-dc21 OO-Oll473 @ The paper used in this publication meers the minimum requiremenrs of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence ofPaper for Peinred Library Materials, ANS! Z39 .48-1992.

For]oe and Brian

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ix

INTRODUCTION

1

Part One-Changing Realities' l

"MASCULINE SPLENDOR"

19

Sexual Difference) Gender Ambiguity) and the Social Utility ofUnmanliness

2

"MEN RECEIVE A WOUND, AND SUBMIT TO A DEFEAT"

37

Masculinity) Militarism) and PoliticalAuthority

3

"A PURITY HE DOES NOT SHOW HIMSELF"

70

Masculinity) the Later &man Household) and Men)s Sexuality

Part 'IIvo-Changing Ideals

4

"I AM A SOLDIER OF CHRIST"

105

Christian Masculinity and Militarism

5

"WE PRIESTS HAVE OUR OWN NOBILITY"

125

ChristianMasculinity and PublicAuthority

6

"MY SEED IS A HUNDRED TIMES MORE FERTILE"

161

ChristianMasculinity) Sex) andMarriage

7

"THE MANLINESS OF FAITH"

206

Sexual Difference and Gender Ambiguity in Latin Christian Ideology

8

"EUNUCHS FOR THE SAKE OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN"

Castration,itnd Christian Manliness

245

viü

CONTENTS

CONCLUSION

283

A NOTE ABOUT THE NOTES

299

ABBREVIATIONS USED

"300

NOTES

'301

BIBLIO GRAPHY

393

INDEX

429

Acknowledgments

There are many individuals and institutions I wjsh to thank for their part in the creation of this book. The first belongs to my family, who has always provided me with loving support. The sec<:md belongs to Brian Giguere and Joe Elliott, who have invited me into their family. The third belongs to my teachers. Especially tobe remernbered among this number are Dr. Carola Small of the University ofAlberta, who first inspired me to study medieval history; Dr. John Boswell ofYale University, who inspired me in this particular project as a doctoral dissertation but who sadly did not live to see it completed; and Dr. Thomas Head, formerly ofYale University and now ofHunter College, who with great dedication helped me to bring the dissertation to completion. Other individuals helped me to germinate the ideas contained in this book, and I wish to thanlc each person who toolc th{ time and interest to read or listen to drafts of the manuscript in its various forms. They include Dr. Joanne Ferraro, Dr. Elizabeth Colwill, Dr. Fraucis Stites, Dr. Rebecca Moore, and others of my colleagues at San Diego State University, Dr. Robert Babcoclc and Dr. Bentley Layton ofYale University, Dr. Elizabeth A. Clarlc ofDulce University, Dr. Mark Jordan ofEmory University, Dr. Randolph Trumbach ofBaruch College, and Dr. Kathryn Ringrose of the University of California at San Diego. Thanlcs are also due to my friends among the graduate students at Yale University, who created a real scholarly community while I was there. They include Jeffrey Fisher, Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Ramsey, Bernard Schlager, Jeffrey Bowman, Marle Rabuclc, Michael Powell, N ancy Seyboldt, Kathryn Miller, and many others. I am also grateful to the many individuals who commented

X

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

on the ideas that would form this book when I presented papers at Yale University, Bennington College, Carleton University, Fordham University, Trent University, and San Diego State University. The financial support of academic institutions also helped me to accomplish the writing of this boolc. I did much of the research for the project at the libraries ofYale University and the Pontifical Instimte for Medieval Studies of the University of Toronto, with much help from the library staff at these places. The ongoing financial support of the Social Seiences and Humanities Research Council of the Government of Canada was much appreciated. A doctoral fellowship from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation allowed me to work full-time for one year on the dissertation, with additional financial support from the Research Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale University. Support for revision of the dissertation came from the Robert Lopez Prize for Medieval History from Yale University, and especially from a semester's full-time leave, funded by the Faculty Development Program and by the Dean of the College of Artsand Letters at San Diego State University. Finally, the unfailing enthusiasm of my editors helped me more than I can adequately say. Dr. John Fout, editor ofthe Chicago Series on Sexuality, History, and Society, and Mr. Doug Mitchell, editor at the U niversity of Chicago Press, provided regular encouragement through the long process of revision and never seemed to doubt my ability to produce something of worth. I hope, in the end, that this book has merited that support.

I ntroduction

The problern with men's history is that there is too much of it. How is it that one can study masculinity at all-that is, study men as a genderwhen so much of history is about men's actions, thoughts, and lives? Women's history is typically a process of the recovery of a hidden past, the reconstruction of lives from fragmentary or antipathetic records. Men's history is not at all the same: its pastisnot hidden, the lives not nearly as irrecoverable, the records are generous. How is it possible, then, to construct a history of men without simply returning to what has been most criticized about earlier generations ofhistory, their overemphasis on the lives and realities of men and exclusion of the lives and realities of warnen? My solution to this challenging problern will, I hope, provide a new and fully gendered perspective on the period oflate antiquity and situate some of the broad social changes ofthat period, especially the conversion of the Roman world to Christianity. I argue in this book that the notion of masculinity-that is, what it meant to be a man -formed an integral part of the intellectuallife of late antiquity and was crucial in the development of Christian ideology. The men of the Roman aristocracy, Christian or not, were driven by a desire to be manly or at least to appear as manly, and that desire informed their daily lives, both public and private, and the content of their religious beliefs. The complementary fear that Roman noblemen felt, that they were not manly or would not be seen as manly, also influenced their lives and beliefs; hence the anxiety palpable in their writings when dealing with the question of manliness. This double-edged sword of manliness is key to approaching the history of masculinity and figures prominently in this

2

INTRODUCTION

book. The cultural and demographic success ofChristianjdeology in late antiquity lay in the ability of the shapers ofthat ideölogy to recognize men's concern for manliness, which also accorded with their own coricerns as men, and to incorporate it into their beliefs. As men of the Ro" man aristocracy converted to Christianity, they'introduced into Christian ideology their own desire to appear manly and their own fear öfbeing unmanly. Moreover, as Christian ideology concerned itself more and more with the question of manliness and affered assurance to its followers that they might find manliness and an escape from their worries of unmanliness in accepting the demands of the Christian religion, it became more attractive to the nahlernen oflate antiquity. Indeed, Christian leaders assured the faithful that they might find manliness even in behaviors and attitudes previously considered unmanly. How that paradox worlcedhow it was developed and how it succeeded-is the subject of this boolc. GENDER AND HISTORY

Despite the differences in studying men and warnen in history, this study would not have been possible without the tremendous advances that have been made in women's history. So it is important to begin with some of the theoretical frameworlc that has been laid out for gender and history by scholars in women's studies. In women's history, especially the history of warnen in male-dominated (often called patriarchal) societies, much of the worlc done recently has focused on the dissonances between women's social roles and the personal identities of warnen. The restrictions on women's public lives and accomplishments and the limitations on their social status and personal independence were continually challenged and upset when individual warnen were unwilling to live with those restrictions and limitations. The social category of "woman:' in other words, was simply insufficient to contain individual "warnen?' Much has been learned about warnen in history from the study of this tension between social role and personal identity. The degraded social role of'women in historywas intimately connected with an idealization of the masculine. Much of the literature by scholars of gender theory emphasizes the universalized masculine in male-dominared human cultures. The masculine was central, perfect, and complete; the feminine, in contrast, was marginal, imperfect, a:nd incomplete. Monique Wittig goes sofaras to suggest that "indeed there are not two genders. There is only one: the feminine, the 'masculine' not being a gender. For the masculine is not the masculine but the general?n Within the framework of sexual difference between male and female,

INTR.ODUCTION

3

it is claimed, a whole range of the dichotornies of human thought can be placed: culture/nanrre,form/matter, mindjbody, subject/object, good/ evil, and self/other. 2 Warnen were only one of several groups of devalued persans ·in hlstory, it is true. Slaves, foreigners, and members of ethnic minorities were also. among those excluded from full participation in past societies because theywere seen as inferior. Recognition of this widespread exclusion has provided a useful balance on seeing rnisogyny as the sole type of oppression and has been an iinportant element in some recent studies of social "otherness," in writings on historical notions of racial inferiority, for example. 3 Still, the primary paradigm for understanding the dichotomy between the ideal and the less than ideal is often a gendered one. Judith Butler writes, "the feminine is 'always' the outside, and the outside is 'always' the feminine?' 4 In a cultural system in which the ideal was a masculine one, anything inferior, even when it occurred in men, was feminized. Male slaves and male foreigners were often treated as equivalent to warnen because they were stibordinated men. The feminization of such inferior men provides an essential component for the study of masculinity in male-dotriinated societies. The depiction of groups or types of men or individual men as inferior, as womanly or effeminate, or as unmanly (all of which ~ounts to the same thing) helps us to see the content of idealized masculinity; by giving us as it were a mirrar image or photographic negative of it. The behaviors denounced as unmanly in men also refiect the behaviors praised as manly in men. There is much more to it, however. Like women, men can also be studied by examining the tensions between their social roles and personal identities, but in male-dominated societies, this examination must be donein reverse. Formen, the dissonance in sex and gender is between an idealized rhetoric ofmasculinity, on the one hand, and the limitations and restrictions that prevent any given man from realizing the ideal, on the other. The personal identities of most men do not match the elevated social role accorded them. When masculinity is credited with all of the positive attributes of culture, no man can fully live up to that ideal. The category "man:' unlike that of''woman:' is quite literally !arger than life: too artificial and idealized a construct to correspond to most men's lives. But the implication of this discrepancy, that no man is actually a man, is untenable in male-dominated societies, because it means that there is no one to "run" the society, toset the rules, tobe on top. For one man to describe another as unmanly or effeminate, then, not only condemns the other man as inferior but also distances him from the one doing the describing. In the denunciation ofunmanliness, the speal,er in the same breath insists on his own manliness (not only to himself, but also to all ofhis listeners ).

4

INTRODUCTION

To a carefullistener, however, he reveals his own doubts .about h..is own manliness, about his ability to live up to the impossible ideal set for. hinl as a man, about his claim to exercise authority legitirriatdy. A~:;c6rdingiy,. he intensifies his denunciation of unmanliness in other men, com:patihg hirnself favorably to themenaraund him so as ·to preserve his own mas~ culine "self" intact. As Patrick Hopkins writes, masculinity ''exposes its own uncertainties in its incessant self-monitoring- a self-monitoring.often accomplished by monitaring others.''5 In order to understand masculinity in this period, then, it is necessary to study the rhetoric ofidealized masculinity as well as those persons, real or imagined, who were either praised for their (near) conforrnity to this ideal or denounced for their failure to conform to it. It is important to cover the distance betweenmanliness and unmanliness, two terms that serve throughout this study as shorthand for this double portrait of masculinity. Manliness and unmanliness served as the two endpoints ofa continuum of masculinity onto which each individual man could be pinpointed. For this reason, biographical details and general discussions of virtue and vice are as important here as any direct comments on masculinity. The process of placing the individual man on this continuum, whether he be a pagan emperor or a Christian holy man, required a great deal of interpretation by the person doing the pinpointing. One might admit the mixture of good and bad in an individual, but one rnight just as easily gloss over the deficiencies and paint a faultless portrait of the man as a hero, or again, one might choose to emphasize the deficiencies and create an image of the man as a rniscreant. All of these approaches may be found in abundance in the historical record. The reasons for placing a man among the manly or among the unmanly of course depended on specific and variant notions ofwhat constituted ideal masculinity, but it is precisely this process of placing men on the continuum that offers important clues in reconstructing historical definitions of masculinity. 6 But the idea of a continuum of masculinity is insufficient unless it contains some recognition of the collective worlc of men in establishing or challenging the masculine ideal and thus of the possibility of change in the ideal over time. Roben Connell distinguishes between what he calls "hegemonic masculinity" and the "subordinated masculinities" in conteniporary society, a distinction that can be usefully applied to past societies. 7 The dominance of a hegemonic masculinity is perpetually asserted by some men against others who are unable or unwilling to conform to its content. Occasionally, the hegemonic masculinity is replaced by a subordinated masculinity, which becomes a new hegemonic masculinity.

INTl{ODUCTION

5

Such a dialectic seems to be a constant in the history of male-dominated cultur:es; accordingly, the content of the masculine ideal has cha.b.ged dramatically with time and place. To posit a dialectic of masCulinity permits a new a.tid valuable perspective on the study of gender. Instead of focusing Oll gender as a transhistorical constant or artifact of human culture and masculinity. as a "thing" that can be examined in its varied incarnatioris, this new perspective gives us the opportunity to see gender as a series of relations· between individuals, groups, and institutions in constantly shifting configurations. The notion of gender as a dialectic of personal and social relations can also help to clarify the meaning of the terms used in studying sex and gender. Most of us tend to use these terms to refer indiscriminately to various realities: participation in social or cultural roles, sense of personal or psychological identity, and classification according to anatomical or genetic differences. We think we can separat<; out what belongs to "sex" and what belongs to "gender;' but I believe that attempts to distinguish neatly between the two belang to past generations of scholars of gender. These attempts have been creatively challenged in recent years by gender theorists who have recognized the complicated links between the different aspects ofhuman identity: cultural, personal, biological. 8 Because the terms "sex" and "gender" have contested meanings, therefore, I have made no attempt to tie them to any particular definitions in this study. This approach is also more historically sensitive, I feel, since the ancient Romans lcnew no such distinction. Instead, I have preferred to preface terms like "sex" and "gender" with clarifying descriptions or to replace them with more specific terms throughout, like "anatomical sex" or "personal identity" or "social roles." When the terms "masculinity" or "masculine identity'' are used below (and less often, "femininity" or "feminine identity''), they describe the network of these physiological, psychological, and social aspects of human personality and not any one feature of them. And for this reason, "male" and "men's" are synonymaus with "masculine;' and "female" and ''women's;' with "feminine?' In turn, the terms "masculinity'' and "masculine identity" include both the subcategories of"manliness" and "unmanliness" or the "hegemonic masculinity" and the "subordinated masculinities" as described above. Forthis reason, I have often preferred to talk about "manly" and "manliness" or "unmanly'' and "unmanliness" instead of "masculine" and "masculinity'' in order to be as clear as possible. Finally, I have mostly avoided terms lilce "manhood" or "maleness" as distinct from "masculinity;' although when I do use them for stylistic reasons, they mean the same thing. Through-

6

INTRODUCTION

out, I want to reiterate that it is the clialectic of indusion or exclusion . from a perceived ideal that I am interested in and that I bdieve f:üthfully · r~produces the Roman ideology on sex and gender. · ROMAN MEN IN LATE ANTIQUITY

This book describes a major shift in the dynamic of masculine ideology: the collapse of the ancient or classical ideal for men in the western Mediterranem in late antiquity and the establishment of a new Christian masculinity. The new Christian masculinity moved a previously suborclinated masculinity into position as a hegemonic masculinity by means of the rhetoric of manliness and unmanlilless. In other words, men adhering to a subordinated masculinity (the Christian ideal formen) successfully challenged the manlirtess of the men adhering to the hegemonic masculinity (the classical idealformen) in such a way.as to appeal to men to transfer their allegiance from the one to the other. Christian leaders accomplished this transfer by claiming that they were better equipped to reaffirm the manliness of men, including their sense of difference from and superiority over women. Political and social changes had threatened the traclitional patterns ofRoman life, including the patterns of male social domin:J.tion. Christian intellectuals used the clissonance between classical ideals formen and late ancient realities to undermine the traclitional masculine ideal and supplant it with their own. At the same time, they emphasized the aspects of the Christian ideal that they felt best suited this goal of making Christian beliefseem manly, reshaping Christian ideology as a masculine ideology. Through close textual analysis, the book demonstrates the decline of the old hegemonic ideal and its replacement with a new Christian ideal. Part 1 deals with the changing realities oflate ancient life. Chapter 1looks at the importance of sexual difference in the Roman social order. Chapter 2 examines the waning ancient masculine ideals in men's public lives refiected in their reluctant participation in the military and in politics. Chapter 3 cliscusses the decline of the masculine ideals in men's private lives, in changes to family life and sexuality. At the end of chapters 1-3, I have ineluded a cliscussion of eunuchs, because they are a valuable test case for issues ofmanliness and unmanliness in late antiquity and figure prominently in cliscussions of sexual difference, the military and politics, and family life and sexuality. They represent a reality !arger than themselves; indeed, they symbolize the dangerous gender ambiguity of men in the midst of achanging masculine ideal. Part 2 deals with the emergence of a Christian ideology out of these transformations of later Roman culture.

INTRODUCTION

7

Chapter 4looks at how the Roman military ideal was reconstituted into the ideal of the "soldier of Christ." Chapter 5 describes how the ancient political ideal ~as transferred from civic öffice to clerical office. Chapter 6 details the daboration of ;1 manly Christian ideal of sexual and marital renunciation. Chapter 7 places the new Christian masculine ideal within the context of relations .between men and women and of notions of sexual di:fference, artd explains how the new ideal exduded womeri from any real social power.·-Last, chapter 8 deals again with the figure of the eunuch, which became, ironically, an important Christian symbol for the new masculine ideal. • This book covers the period from roughly the start ofthe third century of the common era to the middle of the fifth century. There were important reasons for defining the period oflate antiquity in this way. The third century is pivotal, for it is when the Roman Empire began its military and political collapse, with the end of the dynastic reign of the Antonines at the end of the secend century. By the middle öf the fifth century, barbarian rulers had largely usurped central governmental authority in the West even as nominal imperial rule continued to the year 476. Moreover, momentous social changes can be dated to the early third century, especially the extension of Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire in 212, which had significant effects on society, from the realm of politics to that of law. The early third century also marks the period of infiuence of two key figures in the contest for Roman masculinity: the emperor Elagabalus (ruled 218-222) and the Christian theologian Tertullian (who converted areund 197). Elagabalus is often mentioned by historians for his refusal to accept the traditional ideal of Roman masculinity; Tertullian was the first Christian theologian to write extensively in Latin and established the pattern for many of the central themes of Christian masculinity. The middle of the fifth century also provides a practical point of termination. In the third decade of the century, the law code ofTheodosius TI was promulgated in 438; the same decade saw the deaths of two major Christian writers: Augustine ofHippo (died 430) and John Cassian (died about 435). The two termini of the study are only approximate, however, and I have felt free to range more broadly when treating specific points. For example, I have included works by Apuleius and Marcus Aurelius, both of whom wrote in the late secend century but were widely read in later centuries, and works by Sidonius Apollinaris, who lived until almest the end of the fifth century, but whose literary career began in the middle of the same century. 9 The sources for the information that follows are varied: legal, narrative, biographical, and religious. Some might object to the uses to which

8

INTRODUCTION

I put some of the material. For example; while the laws contained in Justinian's Digest originated for the most part from the second century as expert legal opinions, they gradually acqi.Iired more authority with each. century until they were codified under his reign in the sixth ce11.tuiy: In part, the growth ofthis authoritywas because tliey refl.ected common cul~ tural concems in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, or at least, the commoh concerns of legislators and judges. Accordingly, I have interpreted them as relevant to this study. 10 The same might be said of biographies: their accuracy when dealing with historical figures is less important than how these figures were remernbered or presented by their biographers. Queen Boudicca's speech on the effemi.n.ate manners of the Romans that I quote in chapter 2, for example, was as much if not more a comment on the third century when Cassius Dio wrote his history of the event than when she lived in the first century: Another important point must be kept in mind regarding the sources used in this study. Virtually all of the sources of this period originated from the upper classes, and it is impossible fully to counteract this bias. Many of the sources- the laws of the later Roman emperors or the sermons of the Christian bishops-did claim to be universally applicable. Nonetheless, it is impossible to know how deeply the concems ofwriters whose ·'works survive-virtually all men of the upper classes-were shared by members of other classes or even by members of their own dass es who did not leave us a written record. Moreover, men of the lower dass es were often considered ineligible for participation in full m
INTRODUCTION

9

divided into four prefectures, two eastern and two western, which provided the basis for a nuinber of divisions of the empire by Diocletian's successors throughout the fourth century. The two halves of the empire .were never again ruled tagether after the death ofTheodosius I in 395. The two halves öf the empire, west and east, also roughly followed the linguistic dominance ofLatin and Greek, respectiveiy, although there can be no real hard and fast distinctions between Latin and Greek writers. Some Western writers wrote in Greek, especially in the third century (for example, Cassius Dio ), some Latin writers wrote from the eastern Mediterranem (for example, Jerome), certain important Greek texts were translated into Latin in order to circulate in the West (Rufinus's translation ofEusebius's history of early Christianity, for instance), and certain works were intended to be read in both the western and eastern halves (such as the Theodosian Code). I have included writers and texts in this study as I saw fit but have mentioned contextual peculiarities whenever I feit it appropriate. More important th~ language or geography was the cultural divide that Romans feit separated themselves from the peoples around them. As we will see, that cultural divide included a shared literary, political, and military heritage that distinguished Romans in their own estimation from the peoples who merely inhabited the Roman Empire or enjoyed the benefits ofRoman citizenship. Because this study is confined to the Romans of the later Roman Empire, I draw no conclusions about masculinity among the other peoples inhabiting the empire, how it was defined by them, or what changes rnight have occurred to it over the course of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. Many of the same conclusions might be drawn. Anyone attempting to answer these questions, though, must reckon with the complex overlay of ancient cultures especially in the eastern Mediterranean, and how the Roman elite dominared but adapted itself to Hellenistic Greek cultural patterns, which had merged in turn with earlier local Egyptian or Syrian or Jewish cultures, each with its own traditions, including ones concerning masculinity. 12 That overlay is another feature that distinguishes the multicultural Bastern Empire from the more homogenous West. Granted, there were regional Variations between the ethnic Romanpopulation ofltaly and the Romanized Celtic or Punic or other populations of Gaul, Spain, and N orth Mrica. Members of the uppermost provincial classes of the West had nonetheiess been welcomed into the social and political structures of the empire by its last centuries. For example, the provincial nobility typically owned homes in the city of Rome as well as their family estates elsewhere, and some of them participated in the Senate by the fourth century. U nlike in the East, moreover,

10

INTRODUCTION

inhabitants of th.e provinces of th.e Wes~ern Roman Empire by late antiq-. uity showed every indication of having feit th.emselves to be as Roman as anyone dwelling in th.e city ofRome andconsidered th.e·Roman heritage. as th.eir own (and in any case, th.ere is little written recoi.-d th.a.t descdbes· th.ese peoples before th.eir Romanization). 13 · · I must also say a few words ab out what constitutes Christian ideology. · Throughout th.e boolc, I have attempted to distinguish between th.e opinions and ideas of different Christian writers and to examine th.e evolution of certain concepts and trends over time and not to assume eith.er a unitary Christian tradition or universal agreement even among Christian writers judged to be orthodox. Still, I believe it is possible to spealc of a gradually articulated Western Christiail ideology th.at evolved over th.e course of th.e th.ird, fourth, and early fifth centuries. This ideology was created by th.e inclusion and exclusion of th.e writings and personalities of earlier times, th.e process th.at we call canonization and th.at is traditionally linlced to questions of orthodoxy and heresy (and throughout th.e boolc, I use "orthodox" and "Cath.olic" simply and solely as th.e opposite of"heretical"). In important ways, however, Western Christian ideology superseded th.ese questions ofbelief, and one has only to th.inlc of th.e continuing inßuence of two writers later condemned as heretical, Tertullian and Origen, to appreciate this fact (see chapter 6 for more on what constituted heresy). For this reason, I believe th.at it is possible to compare auth.ors from different centuries, regions, and schools ofbelieftogeth.er on th.e same broad th.emes, as I have done in what follows, since I believe th.at later writers lcnew th.e ideas of, borrowed from, responded to, or distanced th.emselves from earlier writers. Moreover, I maintain that Western Christian writers, who were also often leaders of local Christian communities, responded not only to earlier writers but also to the Roman cultural tradition on masculinity and consciously crafted a new masculine ideal drawing from both. Christian and Roman elements. They acted as cultural innovators or "institutional entrepreneurs;' reshaping an outdated past toward new ends. 14 I try always to lceep th.e human reality of th.ese writers firmly in mind, so I do not use expressions such as "Christianity believed" or "th.e Christian Church taught;' even when th.ere seems to have been a general consensus ofopinion, since th.e process I document is always one of "Christian writers believed" or "th.e leaders of th.e Christian churches taught," and what th.e silent majority of Christians in late antiquity believed remains, weil, silent. (I prefer to spealc of th.ese men as "writers" or "leaders of th.e churches;' referring to th.em as "bishops;' when appropriate, only after documenting th.e evolution of episcopalleadership in chapter 5 and as

INTRODUCTION

11

"patristic writers" or "Church fathers" only after describing the image of the Christian community as a surrogate family in chapter 6.) I da not attempt to prove that all men of the Western Empire accepted the new masculinity crafted by Christian leaders; indeed, there is much evidence to show that they did not. I da, however, attempt to show that what had previously been a subordinated masculinity gained hegemony. From this new hegemonic masculinity, a whole new series of suhordinated masculinities were created (including the previously hegemonic masculinity, the masculine ideal I often describe as "pagan" and its continuing proponents as "pagans,'' although I admit that this is a convenient term and not one that they would have recognized themselves ). I have been encouraged and inspired by scholars who have already been researching in related fields. Foremost among them is Peter Brown, whose body of worlc has illuminated many aspects of what rnight be called the "human factor" in late antiquity. In The Body and Society, Brown alludes to the same reformulation of mascrilinity, even if not in these terms, when he writes of"that exaltation of [bodily] integritas, which enabled the Catholic clergy to provide the mostformidable of all the 'invisible frontiers' behind which the Romanpopulations of the post-Imperial West preserved their identity, lang after the rnilitary frontiers of the Empire had been washed away by barbarian invasion and settlement." 15 (He adds that "to surrender any boundary line was to court the ancient shame of the Roman male-it was to 'become soft: to be 'effeminated?"16 ) Brown's studies of the Bastern Roman Empire offer points of comparison with the ideas that follow in this book, and they functioned sometimes as the starring point for my own ideas. In Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity, for example, Brown reflects on ways in which men of the new urban Christian elite of the Bast both continued elements of traditional public authority and also subverted them, a technique also found in the West. 17 The sophisticated work of scholars of warnen in late antiquity also affered me especial opportunities to reflect on both the sirnilarities and the differences between the status and roles of warnen and men and an the relationships between warnen and men. Jo Ann McN amara has been a pioneer in this field. Her workA N ew Song offers a sirnilar trajectory for late ancient Christianity to what I have charted: a growing accommodation with traditional social forces, including established gender roles. 18 The worlc ofElizabeth A. Clark has also been of particular benefit to me in this project. Another pioneer in the study of gender and sexuality in late antiquity, she has in recent years increasingly pursued new inquiries in postmodern directions. In an essay devoted to the formation ofthe pa-

12

INTRODUCTION

tristic ideology on women, "Ideology, History,and the Construction of 'Woman' in Late Ancient Christianity;' she offers important considerations: · · A central function of ideology is to "fix" represen,tations of the self, to cori~ stitute "concrete individuals as subjects?' ... Ideology naturalizes and universalizes its subjects, ignoring the "historical sedimentation" that undergirds the present state of affairs. Ideology thus functions to obscure the notion that ideas and beliefs are particular and local, situated in specific times, places, and groups; to the contrary, it encourages the view that our society's values have no history, but are eternal and "natural?' Situations that have come about through human construction are thus rationalized · and legitimated as conforming to timeless truth. 19

"Theorists of ideology;' she adds, "challenge historians to uncover the conditions that prompted the production of such interpretations, that is, to 'denaturalize' and 're-historicize' the conditions that produced ideologies of gender.''20 In another essay, she clarifies how this project informs her own worlc. "I do not imagine that I am uncovering the "reality" of late ancient Christianity;' she writes. "My task, as I conceive it, is to push and jab at these documents to malce them yield up their ideological content, to malce manifest the ways in which their authors seek to present their highly constructed arguments as 'natural' interpretations, obvious to all 'rational' people.'m What follows in this book is my own reply to this challenge to understand Christian belief as a cultural production, and my use of the term "Christian ideology" is intended as a con.Stant reminder ofthat challenge. The use of the term "Christian ideology" is also intended to highlight the role ofintellectual argument and conviction in the conversion of men of the Roman Empire to Christianity. The motivations for religious conversion are not well understood, even in modern times, but sociologists of religion have provided important ideas for reflection. Of particular help to me has been the work ofRodney Stark, who suggested that "new religious movements are likely to succeed to the extent that they" demoostrate certain characteristics. Included among these characteristics are the following: first, the ability to retain a sense of"cultural continuity'' with the society in which they exist and where the new religious ideas "are rooted in familiar cultural material"; second, the maintenance of a "medium level of tension with their surrounding environment:' seeming neither too conventional nor too radical; and third, their appearance in a social climate in which traditional ideologies are weakened by "social dis-

INTRODUCTION

13

ruption?' Stark includes other significant features of successful religions, including "effective mobilization" of members, the attraction of new members fro~ "anormal age and sex structure;' and "adequate socializa-tion" of new :members. All in all, intellectual considerations in religious conversion are given considerable weight in Starlc's worlc. 22 Gerd Theissen has also -addressed the function of early Christian ideology in "transmitting, internalizing, and legitimating social order'' andin containing or limiting social change. Religion, he suggests, compensates forthat limitation among its members "in the creation of a counterpicture to social reality" and "in the redirection of existing impulses toward surrogate objects;' affering "a new motivational structure;' including a "reversal of incentives;' "the setring of new goals;' and "new solutions" to old problems. 23 The success of the Western Christian ideology of masculinity derived in no small patt from the ability of the men who crafted it to maintain a cultural connection with more traditional Roman formulations of masculinity while at the sametime criticizing'the inability of those traditional formulations to respond adequately to the social disruptions oflate antiquity and affering a new model to potential members. The ideology of Christian masculinity did attract male converts. Other scholars of Christianity in late antiquity have provided me with invaluable insights. Reflecting on the development of the concept of original sin in Adam) Eve) and the Serpen; Elaine Pagels aslcs some difficult questions: "Why did the majority ofLatin Christians, instead of repudiating Augustine's idiosyncratic views as marginal-or rejecting them as heretical-eventually embrace them?m4 Is "biblical interpretation ... nothing but projection? Is exegesis (what one reads out of the text) merely eisegesis (reading into the text)?"25 Encouraged by her example, I have tried to ask similar difficult questions about the content of Christian ideology. William Connolly's The Augustinian Imperative also sparked new ideas forme, especially his view that Augustine's feminine Subordination to a masculine god provided him with the authority to assume a vicarious masculine role toward other Christians, a view that I have expanded to include other patristic writers in chapter 5. 26 Andin Averil Cameron's Christianity and the Rhetoric ofEmpire) I have found welcome support for my beliefthat late ancient Christian rhetoric was grounded in paradox. 27 A few classical scholars also provided a valued stimulus, malcing me wonder about what came next or providing useful baclcground for my own research. In a book entitledMaking Men) Maud Gleason slcillfully examines the role of masculine ideology in the public personae and pro-

14

INTRODUCTION

fessional rivalries of the public rhetors of the Romai:l Empire, in particu-. lar in the second century C.E. ·She also sees the dichotomy between ma,nliness and unmanliness as crucial to discussions of rriasctilinity. ,het~ sources and finds that the figure of the eunuch provides a foeus:for particularly self-conscious reflections on masctilinity. 28 The Politics of Immorality inAncient R!Jme by Catharine Edwards is a brilliant analysis. of the antagonistic relationship between holders of opposing moral values. 29 Craig Williams's recently published R!Jman Homosexuality offers a detailed discussion not only of men's sexual behaviors but also of men's identities and of the problern of effeminacy in the classical era. 30 Cultural studies were also an important catalyst for this study. Marjorie Garber, author of a fascinating work on the role of the transvestite in modern culture entitled Vested Interests, focuses on the place of the transvestite as an intermediate gender figure. Such a figure, she argues convincingly, offers an opportunity to highlight tensions and contradietians not only in gender but also in other areas of culture: political, social, religious. In turn, cultural tensions and anxieties show up distorted as gender ambiguities. The transvestite, she writes, serves as "an index ... for the notion of the 'category crisis' ... a failure of definitional distinction, a borderline that becomes permeable, that permits ofborder crossings from one (apparently distinct) category to another;'m This is precisely the role that I argue was played by the eunuch in later Roman culture, revealing the anxieties around sexual differentiation and at the same time questioning its foundations, and bringing to the surface all of the uncertainties of masculine identity in public and private life, and in particular, the tension between manliness and unmanliness. This boolc, finally, is about the social construction of gender. Granted, there is a biological basis to sexual differentiation, but it is the social meaning given to this differentiation that is examined here. In the Western Roman Empire in late antiquity, this meaning was the result of social forces as well as the creativity of certain human individuals in interpreting those forces. I use the rather materialistic term "construction" with hesitation when describing the crafting of a new Christian masculinity, wishing to leave open the possibilities both of individual variations within the same culture and of conscious participation by those involved in the "construction." Indeed, I find myself more persuaded by the metaphors of the performativity of gender than those of construction. 32 Perhaps that process is itself ultimately the goal of studying historical masculinity: to problematize the process itself by which gender identity is created, to highlight the ambiguities and anxieties around sexual differentiation, to question gender's place in the foundations ofthe social hi-

m

INTRODUCTION

15

erarchy, to challenge the rhetoric of gender, and to refl.ect on moments of cultural change in men's and women's identities. If this book contributes something toward that goal, and if its conclusions hav~ ramifi.cations for uhderstanäing hui:nan culture more broadly, then it will have been worthwhile.. .

PART ONE

Changing Realities

CHAPTER ONE

IIMASCULINE SPLENDOR" Sexual Differencey Gender Ambiguityy and the Social Utility ofUnmanliness

Roman notions of sexual difference relied heavily on the absoluteness of the divide between male and female. Notions ofmoral character, ofvirtue and vice, were directly linked to sexual difference, and social rights were expressed as deriving from masculine superiority and feminine inferiority. Gender ambiguity of any sort was an unsettling proposition, and as much as possible was explained away. The gender ambiguity of the eunuch was not so easily erased, however, and the presence of eunuchs therefore disturbed and challenged those notions of the absolute divide between male and female.

SEXUAL DIFFERENCE AS MORAL DIFFERENCE

Vrrtue was so intimately linked to maleness in the Romanuniverse that it is impossible to separate Roman definitions of masculinity from more general notions of ideal human behavior. Consider the depiction of the Roman emperor Julian (ruled 361-363) from the detailed portrait of him painted by the historian Ammianus Marcellinus: Julian must be reckoned a man [vir] ofheroic stature, conspicuous for his glorious deeds and his innate majesty. Philosophers teil us that there are four cardinal virtues [virtutes]: self-control, wisdom, justice, and courage; and, in addition to these, certain practical gifts: military skill, dignity, prosperity, and generosity. Allthese Julian cultivated both singly and as a whole with utmost care. 1

19

20

CHAPTER ONE

This glorified description of Julian is helpful, even if it should not be taken too literally. Although Ammianris had known Julian personally and had an obvious fondness for him, he was loolcing back at Julian's reign from the distance ofseveral decades, lang after Julian's death. He wa~'alS() writing his history in large part to honor an imperial reign that had.witnessed the last flowering of a pagan heritage in what had since become a: Christian world. 2 Ammianus was deeply conservative, and to measure Ju~ lian's character he used old and accepted principles of virtue, principles that had come, as he implied, from ancient philosophical notions. The specific traits Ammianus listed accorded well with the precepts of both Stoic and Neo-Platonic philosophy, two of the most popular ethical schools among the cultural elite oflater Roman society, and his description is a useful summary of their ideals. The description by Ammianus also highlights the quality known as virtus (usually translated as ''virtue"), which was the very summit of excellence and achievement, the supreme goal of human existence. 3 · The fact that "Pirtus was equally the foundation of masculinity, "manness" in its etymological origins, is essential to an understanding of Roman sexual difference. 4 The equation or conflation of moral excellence and masculinity is typical ofRoman writers; in Ammianus's opinion, Julian's heroic characteristics quite literally made him a man. The counterpatt to this equarlon of masculinity and virtue was also held to be true. Warnen lacked "PirtusJ the excellence that de:fined men; indeed, they were the opposite ofmen. Accordingly, moral depravity was as "natural" to warnen as moral goodness was to men. Whatever ideal characteristics men were believed to enjoy inherently, warnen were generally believed to suffer from the corresponding vices. Ifmen were self-controlled, wise, just, and courageous, warnen were dissolute, foolish, capricious, and cowardly. Reason and rationality guided men; emotion and sentiment impelled warnen. Morally, warnen were but inverts, men turned inside out. Roman medical knowledge, such as it was, supported this construction of men and warnen as mirrar images of each other. Roman medical writers pinpointed the exact difference between males and females as the placement of the genitals either external or internal to the body. Both sexes had virtually identical sex organs, it was believed, but the position of these argans was reversed. According to the masculine standard of medical thought, the uterus was merely an inverted penis, the fallopian tubes were interior vas deferens leading to the ovaries, which were internal testicles. It has been suggested that this notion implied a single sex, but it is more true to say that men and warnen were perceived as "opposite sexes" in a very literal manner. 5

"MASCULINE SPLENDOR"

21

Roman writers found a vivid metaphor for these notions of sexual difference and opposition .in the language of texture. The "hardness" or "toughness" (duritia, robur) of men referred to the muscularity ofthe ideal male body; it. also synibolized the moral uprightness and self-discipline .thatmen were preslllli.ed to embody. In contrast, the "softness" or "delicateness" (molliiia) of warnen represented not only their delicate bodies, but also their loye of hixury, the languor of their minds, the ease with which they gave themselves to their emotions, and their dissolute morals. Such was the opiillon, for example, of the early fourth-century writer Lactantius, tutor to the children of the emperor Constantine I (ruled 306-337). Lactantius repeated a well-known, ifinvented, etymology: Thus man [vir] was so named because strength [vis] is greater in him than in woman; and from this, virtue [virtus] has received its name. Likewise, woman [mulier] ... is from softness [mollitia], changed andshortened by a letter, as though it were softly [mollier]. 6

The gendered language ofhardness and softness was also used to describe the expected sexual roles of Roman men and women. The hardness of men marked not only their moral austerity but also their role as sexual penetrators and sexual aggressors. In a complimentary way, the mollitia or softness of women denoted their role as sexually penetrated, and beyond that, the passive role they were expected to play not only in sexual relations but also in society generally. Romannotions ofhuman gestation lent support for this idea of sexual difference as inversion or Opposition. Masculine and feminine characteristics were attributed to early fetal development resulting from the placement ofthe male seed (semen) in the womb. The opinion ofLactantius, who while learned was not a physician, a Christian but a traditionalist, illustrates a beliefthat we can imagine was shared by his educated contemporaries. "If . . . a masciiline seed comes into the right part [of the uterus] and a feminine into the left," he wrote, "the two fetuses come forth rightly, so that for the feminine the beauty of its nature holds throughout all things, and for the masculine manly strength [roburvirile] is preserved both as to the mind and the body." 7 From this separation of the physical seed within the womb sprang all of the other separations of sexual difference: virtuous and vicious, dominant and submissive, hard and soft, sexually aggressive and sexually passive. Thus, in the Roman mind the sexual difference between male and female implied, even necessitated, the social roles of masculine and feminine.

22

CHAPTER ONE

RESOLVING 1\MBIGUITY

The problern with such a neat dichotomy of sexual and gender diffc;:rence as the Romans had devised, of course, was that it did not correspond·With reality. Even Lactantius, in the same passag~ in which he described th·~ ideal gestation, was forced to deal with the contingencies that created what he called "different natures" (dispares naturae) in some individuals: When it chances that a seed from a male parent falls into the left part of i:he uterus, the opinion isthat a male is begotten, but since it is conceived in the female part, it suffers some female characteristics [aliquid femineum] to hold sway in it more than its masculine splendor [decus virile] : either a beautiful :figure, or exceeding whiteness or lightness of the body, or delicate limbs, or short stature, or a soft voice, or a wealc mind, or several of these characteristics. Lild:wise, if seed of a feminine stock fl.ows into the right part, a female is, of course, begotten, but, since it is conceived in the masculine part, then some characteristics of maleness [aliquid virilitatis] hold sway more than the reasoning behind sexual difference [st:Xus ratio] would permit: either strong limbs, or excessive height, or a ruddy complexion, or a hairy face, or an unlovely countenance, or a heavy voice, or a daring spirit, or several of these. 8

As odd :i's this theory may seem to us, it helps us to understand some of the Roman cultural anxiety about ambiguities in sexual difference. After all, ifthe only thing separating male and female was the direction in which the male seed dri:fted after intercourse, then the all-important dividing line between male and female, and the social privileges that followed from that dividing line, were quite tenuous indeed. The challenge to Roman cultural traditionswas how to deal with the realities of these "different natures" in certain individuals and with the threat they posed to the opposition of male and female, while leaving intact the notions of sexual opposition and the social rights that followed from those notions. One method of meeting this challenge is demonstrated clearly in Roman writings concerning hermaphrodites. Hermaphrodites, individuals of a physiologically ambiguous sex, should have been an unsettling difficulty for the binaries of Roman sexual difference, yet they were not. In earlier times, the threat they posed to sexual classification had been met by exposing hermaphroditic infants to die as monsters and thus eliminating the source of the problern, butthiswas no Iongerhappening in the last centuries ofthe empire. 9 Instead, the threat ofhermaphrodites to Roman notions of sexual difference was removed in a symbolic fashion, by disregarding their sexual ambiguity and assigning to them, however ar-

"MASCULINE SPLENDOR"

23

bitrarily, sexual categories of maleness or femaleness. The farnaus Christiall writer of the late fourth and early fifth century, Augustirre ofHippo, exphüned how the problern of the sexual ambiguity of ~ermaphrodites was typically settled: . · As for Androgynes· [androgyni], also called Hermaphrodites [hermaphroditi], they are certainly very rare, and yet it is difficult to find periods when there are no examples of human beings possessing the characteristics of both sexes, in stich a way that it is a matter of doubt how they should be classified. However, the prevalent usage has called them masculine, assigning them to the better [melior] sex. 10

Augustirre confirmed this classi.fication even from grammatical usage, pointirrg to the fact that hermaphrodite and androgyne were both masculine nouns in Latirr. 11 Augustirre was correct: the later Roman cultural tradition quite straightforwardly ignored the female aspect of hermaphrodites and subsumed them within the category of males, assigning to themamale identity and masculine status based presumably on the visibility of the male genitals. The assignment of a masculine identity to the hermaphrodite can be confirmed from discussions ofhermaphroditism in Roman law. In a legal opinion that had become binding in the later empire, the early thirdcentury jurist Ulpian suggested on the subject of hermaphrodites that "each one should be ascribed to that sex which is prevalent in him [in eo ];m using the masculine pronoun to describe the individual. At another place, Ulpian contended that a hermaphrodite should only have the masculine right of establishing a posthumaus heir "if the maleness [virilia] in him [in eo] is predominant."13 A similar argument can be found in the legal opinion ofUlpian's contemporary Paulus: "Whether a hermaphrodite can witness a will depends on his sexual development?'14 Paulus actually used the phrase "the quality of heatirrg of the sex" (qualitas sexus incalescentis), but he meant maleness, since all medical writers considered men's blood to be warmer than women's blood. In all cases, the maleness of the hermaphrodite was sought, and rights were extended or withheld on the basis of the individual's proxinüty to that maleness. Pagan myths also demonstrate the assignment of a masculine identity to the hermaphrodite. Later Roman authors appropriated the earlier Greelclegend of a male youth, Hermaphroditus, whose namewas already an amalgamation of those ofhis divine parents, Hermes and Aphrodite. Hermaphroditus acquired the aspects ofboth sexes when he was merged with a female wood nymph who had fallen in love with him and who had aslced the gods to unite her to him. He retained his masculine identity

24

CHAPTER ONE

even in their union; her feminine identity, signifiedby her name Salmacis, disappeared in their fusion. 15 Another example from myth and again. an appropriation from eastern legendisthat ofAgdistis,.a hermaphro<#tic companion to the Phrygian goddess Cybele. Having been born of a:roctc onto which Zeus's seed had been dropped, Agdistis was aroused 1:6 spill his seed under a pomegranate tree, the fruit of which was then eaten by the princess N ana, who gave birth as a result to the boy Att:is. 16 Although Agdistis was a hermaphrodite, he functioned in the myth only as a male. In both myths, the sexual ambiguity of the hermaphrodites is resolved by their social and sexual actions as males. By placing value on the presence of the exterior male genitalia in the hermaphrodite, Roman law and myth assigned to «him" a masculine identity based on «his" masculine social capabilities asgenitor, that is, as one capable of fathering t:hildren. We might conclude that the visible presence of male genitalia helped to some extent in establishing a psychological separation of the male from the female, what might be called a phallic economy of sexual and gender difference. The hermaphrodite is also an excellent example of the masculine as the universal or general, since it was absence-here, of developed male sexargans-which established the individual as female. This tendency to identify individuals of indetc:;rminate sex as male, incidentally, might help to explain an odd poem by the fifth-century writer Ausonius about the surprise when a child thought to be male suddenly exhibited female sexual characteristics. "Everyone there wendered at the thing beheld [monstrumJ:' he wrote. 17 Romannotions of sexual difference might adapt themselves to human physiological variations, identifying a particular individual as an anatomical maleorfemale and thus doing away with the problern of physical ambiguity. Moral Variations on the pattern of virtuous males and vicious females were much more difficult to resolve, because these ambiguities threatened the whole equation of masculinity with moral excellence. Nonetheless, these ambiguities were generally resolved-not, as in the case ofhermaphrodites, by creating new categories of men and extending to ambiguous individuals the privileges of men- but by creating new categories ofwomen. Roman writers consistently gave to those men who failed to live up to expectations of them as men -unmanly men -a feminine identity, and denied to them the privileges of men. The unmanly man thus became a social woman. All of the negative attributes applied to warnen were equally applied to men who shared the moral nature of warnen: they were dissolute, irrational, passive, and inferior. The term mollitia, moreover, used to describe the "softness" of warnen, was equally

"MASCULINE SPLENDOR"

25

used to refer to rnen who were believed to possess the rnoral qualities of warnen. Indeed, mollitia functioned as a virtual synonym for unrnanliness and mollii (soft)· for the unrnanly man, alongside a host of other terrns, includlng: epiratus (unrnanned), effeminatus (efferninate), and ·muliebriarius (w:ornanly). Theword semivir (half-man), also used for uninanly rnen; carried the sarne serniotic equations and reveals a rnindset in which certain rnen so described were felt to have failed to achieve full rnasculinity. It was not enough, however, for some writers to clairn that vicious rnen were the social equivalent of warnen. As part of the equation between rnoral and anatornical difference, rnoral vice in rnen rnust leave its physiological traces. At least, Roman writers assured their readers that it did, and thus they confirrned the "truth" of the equation of rnasculinity and rnoral excellence. Better than sirnply to say that a man was not a true man was to be able to point it out frorn his anatorny. Such an opinion was plainly articulated in an anonymaus late fourth-century physiognornic treatise (De physiognomia liber), the very purpose of which was to deduce rnoral character from physiological traits. Upperrnost in the rnind of its author was how to distinguish between a rnanly "man of strength" (vir fortis) and his efferninate counterpart, the "timid and feeble man" (timidus et imbecillis). 18 In the treatise, unrnanliness presented itself in rnen through a hast of physical characteristics frorn fine hair to soft feet. 19 The unrnanly man could be distinguished by his throaty voice, inclined head, raised eyebrows, quiclc rnovernents, and light step. 20 Indeed, unrnanliness could show itself in any body part-the eye, hand, breast, testicle, or foot-in which the left of the pair was larger than the right, or in which the left part of the head, nose, or lips was rnore prominent than that of the right. 21 Doubdess, the leftward disposition of the body recalled the drift of the male seed to the left part of the wornb when the unrnanly man was :first conceived. The sarne separation of unrnanly rnen frorn the rest of rnen also appears in a treatise on chronic diseases by the fifth-century rnedical writer, Caelius Aurelianus. Caelius devoted a section to ''unrnanly rnen" (molles), the purpose of which was to show how cornpletely and pathologically "other" such rnen were. Unrnanly rnen did exist, Caelius began, although their existence was difficult to camprehend since their condition was "not part of human nature." Unrnanly rnen were not the result ofhurnan variation, he argued, but were diseased. Unrnanliness was not a typical disease, however, being not so rnuch in its rnanifestation a bodily in:firrnity as "rather the vices of a corrupted rnind [corruptae mentii vitia ]?' The disease was chronic, he noted, although occasionally the individual's "man-

26

CHAPTER ONE

liness" (virilitas) would manifest itself temporarily despite the condition. The disease occurred at conception, hls explanation being that it resulted . .when a man and woman's seeds foughtwith each other (pugnare) ins.tead ·· ofjoining together (unam facere ). Finally; the disease was incilrahle e~cept .· through self-controP2 Ultimately, of course,.Caelius's diagnosiswas tau~ tological: unmanliness was the result of too little virility and not enough manly self-control. Still, we can presume that the opinions expressed by Caelius Aurelianus and inDe physiognomia liber were comforting to the readers of such treatises, since both defined a diseased or deformed minority of men as unmanly, however arbitrarily, and distanced "normal" men from them. More important, both left the equation between masculinity and moral excellence more or less intact, malcing such vicious and unmanly men the exceptions to the rule. THE EXAMPLES OF THE EMPERORS

The dichotomy between manliness and unmanliness as an corollary of the distinction between virtue and vice is immediately apparent in descriptions of the Roman emperors, who provide an excellent source for cont!!mporary depictions of men. The sharp contrasts between the supreme goodness of some rulers of the empire and the deep depravity of others sprang from a variety of motives, of course, including the writer's need to praise or excoriate the individual, according to particular political agendas andin keepingwith established literary models. 23 These agendas and models resulted, admittedly, in shallow or cartoon depictions of these rulers, but it is this very sott of characterization that underlines the fact that the emperor was expected to set an example of ideal virtus) glorified ifhe did so and denounced ifhe did not. The anonymous author of the Historia Augusta (Imperial History) readily admitted this didactic purpose to his biographies. 24 The Historia Augusta is a curious work, and its importance as a source in this study malces it worth a briefpause here to describe it. It was written in the late fourth or early fifth century, but under the pretense ofhaving been written in the late third century. And while mostmodern scholars recognize the work to have been written by one person, the different biographies of the emperors that comprise it are ascribed to various pseudonyms. Both maneuvers were likely done in order to strengthen a claim to authority and legitimacy; in fact, much of the work is of doubtful historical accuracy. It may not represent the second- and third-century emperors weil, or as weil as a historian might want. Still, it does present an arresting view

"MASCULINE SPLENDOR"

27

of an individual of the later Roman Empire loolcing back at his culture's leaders and malcing moral judgments on them. Similar caveats must be made about two other collections of imperial biographies from the later Roman Empire, both of which are useful in this study and worth mentioning at this point. Cassius Dio wrote his Römaike historia (Roman History) in the early third century, from the vantage point ofa highly' placed individual within the imperial government (a senator at Rome, then governor of several provinces, and even consul twice ), and while some of his account is lost and some preserved only in Byzantine digests, his worlc still provides unique and valuable information, especiallyabouthis own age. 25 Aurelius Victorwrote hisLiber de caesaribus (Boolc of the Emperors) in the middle of the fourth century, and included briefbiographies of the Roman rulers that were also shaped and censored by his own perceptions. 26 One set of examples will suffice to demonstrate how centraliy the categories of manliness and unmanliness figured in the depictions of the Roman rulers. Let us begin with a virtuous emperor. No monarch gained as much renown for his virtue as did the emperor Marcus Aurelius (ruled 161-180). "At home or in war:' Aurelius Victor wrote ofhim, "all ofhis actions and all ofhis decisions were those of a god."2 ? Searching for a way to describe the mid-fifth-century Western emperor Anthemius, the poet Sidonius Apollinaris could thinlc of nothing more flanering to say about him than that he was a second Marcus Aurelius. 28 Quite apart from the military and domestic features of Marcus Aurelius's reign, which were mostly unremarlcable, his reputation was largely built on his writings about the virtuous ideal. 29 The writings of Marcus Aurelius, usually called meditations, were an amalgam mostly of maxims from Stoic and old Roman ethics written in Greelc and idealizing manly virtue. Throughout the meditations, Marcus Aurelius glorified the faculty of reason as the divine spark within each man, which "should preside over a beingwho is virile [arren] and mature, a statesman, a Roman, and a ruler; one who has held his ground, lilce a soldier."30 Marcus Aurelius often used manly metaphors of authority and militarypower to describe reason, also a common feature of earlier Stoic thought. The dominance of reason as a type of inward rule or interior conquest necessitated a personal detachment from the mundane pleasures of life, especially from the emotions, which ~nslaved the rational self. 31 The rule of reason, moreover, required a dedication to self-control: In moments of anger, let the thought always be present that loss of temper is no sign of manliness [andrikon], but that there is more virility [ar-

28

CHAPTER ONE

reniköteron ], as well as more natural humanity, in one who shows hirnself gentle and peaceable; he it is who gives proof"ofstrength and nerve and manliness [andreia], not his angry and disconterited fellow. Anger ·is .as : much a mark of wealmess as is grief; in both ofthem men· receiye a wo~d, .. and submit to a defeat. 32

·

· · ·· · ·

··

Hidden in this analysis of rationality as manliness was the misogynistic parallel that the feminine represented irrationality, emotionality, lack of self-control. Other writers, like Ammianus Marcellinus, brought this correlative idea to the fore: Anger is defined by philosophers as a long-standing and sometimes incurable mental ulcer, usually arising froni. wealmess [mollitia] of intellect. In support of this they argue with some plausibility that this tendency occurs more in invalids than in the healthy, more in women than in men, more in the old than in the young, more in those in trouble than in the prosperous. 33

Anger was a typical target of the Stoics, since it demonstrated the temptation to succumb to one's emotions and thus to abandon the supreme virtue, passionlessness (apatheia). 34 Ammianus's remarlc that warnen tended more to anger than did men only underscored his adherence to a genderc;d notion of virtue and was a necessary complement to the school of ideas of Marcus Aurelius. Descriptions of unmanly rulers made perhaps the more colorful entries in the imperial biographies, but served an equally didactic function. Here, none serves as a better example than Marcus Aurelius's own son and successor, Commodus (ruled 177-192). Aurelius Victorwrote ofhis reputation for cruelty. 35 The Historia Augusta went much further, detailing his depraved personality with a certain fascination: "from his earliest boyhood he was base [tutpis ], shameless [improbus ], cruel [crudelis], leeheraus [libidinosus]?'36 Examples were given ofhis shameful sexuallifestyle: Commodus began a life of orgiastic abandonment in the palace, amid banquets and baths: he had three hundredconcubines, whomhe assembled together for the beauty of their person, recruiting both manied women and whores, tagether with youths of ripe age [puberes exoleti], also three hundred in number, whom he had collected, with beauty as the criterion [forma disceptatrice], equally from the commons and the nobility, by force and by payment. 37

Commodus's lade of self-restraint in Sexualliaisons was merely a symptom of a greater unmanliness. The reference to "youths of ripe age" carried with it an implication that the emperor was the sexually receptive

"MASCULINE SPLENDOR"

29

partner to them, an implication that the author of the Historia Augusta stated outright: Conunodus was "both orally polluted and anally · defiled;''38 The imperial biog~;aphers were completely at a loss as to how such an ·ignoble son sprang from such a virtuous father; how, in the words ofCassiuS Dio, '~a 1cingdom of gold" had become·"one of iron and rust;" 39 The author of the HistoriaAugusta repeated a rumorthat Conlm.odus's unruly behavior was the consequence of the adulteraus affairs ofhis mother Faustina with "both sailors and gladiators:'40 even though this explanation somewhat compromised hisideal image ofMarcus Aurelius, implying that he had been a cudcolded husband. The imperial biographer did not dare imply that Conunodus had been illegitimate and not the true heir to the empire. Instead, he affered the possibility, atrributing it coyly to ''vulgar opinion:' that Faustina had douched herself with the blood of a recently killed gladiator before the sexual act that had conceived Commodus. 41 This explanation again attempted to link the moral and the physical, here an irregularity of conception with Conunodus's disreputable character. The misogynistic underpinnings of this explanation are obvious, since the adulteries and lustfulness of Commodus's mother, that is, her "natural" feminine moral weakness, formed the cause of his own "unnatural" effeminate and debauched behavior. We are reminded in this way that the stigma of effeminacy drew its strength from the oppression and hatred of warnen in Roman culture. If vice was somehow more excusable in warnen, more understandable, it was nonetheless condemned. Such misogyny, moreover, only supported the practical side to the moral division ofhuman nature between masculine goodness and feminine widcedness. THE SOCIAL UTILITY OF UNMANLINESS

The separation of unmanly and vicious men from the rest of men was more than a theoretical principle. The separation helped to sustain the linlc between- masculinity and moral excellence. In this way, the social privileges of the Roman male and men's domination of Roman society could be upheld even when its logical basis was challenged. If vicious men were not truly men, then other men could continue to assert that all men were virtuous. The practical effects of such a theoretical frameworlc can best be seen through the legal separation of those men whose unmanly behavior or physiology brought their masculinity into question. These men could be legally separated from the rest of men and deprived of masculine rights

30

CHAPTER ONE

by means ofthelegal concept of infamia (infamy, ignominy), a term that provided a juridical parallel to broader cultural definitl.ons ofunmanli·ness. Infamia could be used to describe the reputationof a man guil,ry of a wide range of shameful and unlawful activities from theft to iinproper · marriages, but was most often associated with unmanliness. For exampk, men who were dishonorably discharged from the army. for cowardice could be declared infamis (infamous) or famosus (notorious), that is, · guilty of infamia. 42 Infamia represented in many ways, therefore, the legal equivalent of the social category of mollitia. 43 The appellation of infamy brought with it a score of civil disadvantages. Men who were infames were forbidden to act as assessors, to present themselves as witnesses in legal trials, or even to bring accusations against others except in CfiSeS of treason. 44 The legal incapacities of infamous men only highlighted their unmanliness, because many of these same restrictions were imposed upon women. Both women and infamous men were forbidden to malce application to the magistrare and thus to register a public complaint against another person for civil redress. Both were prohibited from witnessing a will. Both were also forbidden to become attorneys or to plead in court on behalf of another person. 45 Infamous men were thus reduced in fundamental ways tothelegal equivalent of women. 46 The restrictions placed on these men, like those placed on women, served to emphasize how unlike true men theywere, since the privileges of men were talcen from them. Ultimately, men's moral depravity challenged the accepted connection between gender and the exercise of power; in the face of this challenge, the social utility of unmanliness becomes clear. As long as human beings could be separated into two moral camps, the political divide between them could continue unchallenged. Men could be separated into the privileged and the unprivileged, those with rights and authority on one side of the divide, and those without, on the other. This division of privilege was the larger social purpose behind the morbid classi.fications of medical and physiognomic writers and the oversimpli.fied portraits of the imperial biographers and historians. To distinguish between the manly and the unmanly was to delineate clearly the boundaries of power through gendered identity. The feminization of some men, it should be noted, had its cultural equivalent and parallel strategy in the masculinization of especially virtuous women. Women were frequently described as manly if they showed some virtue greater than that expected of them: courage, equanimity, or sexual modesty. 47 The stereotype of the aggressive virago (manlywoman) was part of this masculinized image of women, as were the myths of the

"MASCULINE SPLENDOR"

31

Amazons and the Roman cult ofBellona, the goddess of war. 48 Through such a strategy, . virtuous qualities could be praised in women while leaving the intellectual. equation of virtue and masculinity. intact. 49 Even : : while Roman writers allowed the possibility of women's virtue, more. ·over, they consistently discounted such virtue as ''unnatural" and emphasized its oddity and unexpectedness. Much inore could be said about the relationship between women and virtus in traditional Roman söciety, but such a detailed discussion falls outside of this present study. The double meaning of virtus as both masculinity and excellence created a vicious circle. The attribution of"natural" moral characteristics to anatomical differences established clear boundaries between men and women. In turn, the equation of sexual and moral differences provided ideological support for the male dominance that had created these categories in the first place. The theoretical differences between men and women could be supplemented with practical differences, and the practical differences could then be justified by the· theoretical differences. In turn, both supported the notion that men and women were each other's opposites, with complementary natures and complementary roles in society. Sexual differences were not superficial, the implication was, but outward representations of a natural dichotomy in ·human nature. Such delineations are typical of male-dominated and misogynistic cultures, as feminist theorists have demonstrated. Positive values are translated into a masculine framework, and negative values, into a feminine one. The notion of virtus thus formed the core of the Roman gender system. THE AMBIGUITY OF EUNUCHS

Roman cultural notions of masculine identity were also greatly upset by the presence of eunuchs in the Latin West in the later Roman Empire. The sexual ambiguity that was a possibility for any man was particularly visible in the eunuch, who existed in many ways as a constant reminder of the tentative nature of sexual difference and thus of masculine privilege. Remarks about eunuchs demonstrate the uneasiness that even Romans felt about the equation of masculinity, virtue, and social privilege. Eunuchs occasioned unease in part because their gender ambiguity was far less easy to ignore than that of other physiologically ambiguous persons. If hermaphrodites could be assigned a male identity based on the presence and presumed function of male genitals, eunuchs could not be arbitrarily assigned a traditional gender in the same way. Their sterility meant that they could neither father children nor function as males. And the eunuch had suffered the excision, at least in part, of the external

32

CHAPTER ONE

genitalia that marked maleness. (I will say more on the medical proc~­ dures of castration below.) For the time being, it is ollly important tö ·mention that as a result of their castration, eunuchs were perp.et,ualiy "other;' a status reinforced by odd rumors like the on~ repeated by:Cas· sius Dio: toxic vapors from a hole in the ground in Asia lcilled allliving things except eunuchs. 50 · · The amputation of the genitals of the eunuchalso questioned the fixed nature of sexual identity in an unsettling way. Unlike other persans of ambiguous sex, who could be determined to have always been one sex or the other, eunuchs might be considered to have changed their sexual identity at the moment of castration. Medical texts of the later empire referred to how castration led to a loss of "virility [andreia], which is to say, masculinity [arrenotes]?'51 Castration meant "laying violent hands as it were upon nature and wresting her from her ordained course:' in the words of Ammianus Marcellinus. 52 If it were possible, however, to alter one's sexual identity by means of a surgical maneuver, then the masculinefeminine dichotomy that formed so much of the backhone ofRoman culture was tenuous indeed. The eunuch was therefore a daily challenge to Roman notions of the natural categories of gender. 53 The long tradition of animosity toward the practice of Castration in Roman society is certainly linked to the uneasy questions raised by the gender of the eunuch. Castration was oudawed within the Roman Empire, and there were many civil penalties against anyone who castrated another. Roman law by the third century is very clear on this point. The jurist Paulus considered the castration of any man agairrst his will as deserving of capital punishment. 54 The jurist Marcian feit that forced castration could be prosecuted under the laws against assault. 55 The jurist Ulpian believed the law against assault to apply not only to the doctor performing the operation but also to men who castrated themselves or who were voluntarily castrated. 56 Again, as with all of the opinions of the jurists, these opinions became increasingly authoritative in the later empire, until by the fifth century they had acquired the force oflaw. 57 Many emperors were also recorded as forbidding castration within the empire. 58 That eunuchs existed throughout the later Roman Empire is beyond dispute, and not all of them were individuals imported from outside the empire; among other things, this fact demonstrates how laws often could be ignored with impunity. Roman law is much more vague on the question of what to do with eunuchs following their castration. This was a reasonable concern on some level, since so many of the rights oflaw accrued only to adult males; the sexual ambiguity of eunuchs further confused issues of masculine

"M.ASCULINE SPLENDDR"

33

privilege. The crux of the issue was whether eunuchs could assume the legal Status of"whole" adult males in such questions as the end of the age of minority, the privilege of writing wills, including testatory bequests to · posthllinous hdrs, the right to adopt children, and the capacity to act as ·legal guardians to women arid minors. Lilcewise, since all other adults before the year· 320 were r~quired by law to marry and have children or face punitive fines, the law corisidered whether eunuchs had this.same obligation. 59 So the sexual ambiguity of eunuchs had practical as weil as theoretical considerations. The phallic economy of the Roman gender system, as it was applied to hermaphrodites, might lead us to expect that eunuchs would not be treated as "whole" males. It is true that eunuchs were denied certain masculine rights; nonetheless, they retained other masculine rights, and on any given question, legal opinion might change. In short, they had a confused legal status, and this both reflected and encouraged their ambiguous nature. At least some of the confusion regarding eunuchs in Roman law sprangfrom the confusion about the exact nature ofcastration. Ulpian attempted to clarifywhat types ofcastrations existed. "The name of eunuch is a general one;' he wrote; "under it come those who are eunuchs by nature, those who are made eunuchs [thlibiae thlasiae ], and any other lcind of eunuchs [aliud genus spadonum ]."60 The Greelc-borrowed words inserted into Ulpian's Latin text help us to understand the meaning of his distinctions, because they were derived from the different methods for castration. Spado was a borrowed word in Latin, derived from the Greelc verb spen (to tear or rend), and referred to eunuchs whose penises or entire genitalia had been surgically removed. Thlibia was from the Greelc thlibein (to press hard or confine ), and derived from the practice of tying up the seroturn tightly to sever the vas deferens, a procedure much less dangeraus than amputation. Lilcewise, thlasia was from the Greelc thlan (to crush), which was another typical way to castrate, disabling the testicles more e:ffectively and more immediately than tying o:ff the scrotum. The latter two procedures would sterilize the individual but leave the appearance of his genitals mostly indistinguishable from those of other males. Ulpian di:fferentiates all of these types of eunuchs from the "eunuchs by nature" (natura spadones) who were probably males born with undeveloped sexergans or whose sex ergans did not develop at puberty. Such men were usually grouped tagether with castrated men. Other authors were not so precise in their terminology, but these three basic procedures for castration-amputating the penis (with or without the testicles ), tying up the scrotum, and crushing the testicles-were all attested in late antiquity. 61

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CHAPTER ONE

The various methods of castration _are precisely the source of the anxiety surrounding eunuchs in late antiquity. Same eunuchs- those at least . castratedas prepubescents-were apparently easllydistinguishable frorr1 · other men. Ancient writers made frequent references" to the bocj.ily .dis: . figurements of eunuchs, and modern science confirms these judgments · by noting the effects of low androgen levels of castrateq males in lang limbs and susceptibility to curvature of the spine and osteoporosis, in sal-· low skin prone to premature wrinldes, andin tendencies to increased fat deposits in the abdomen, breasts, and buttoclcs.62 The precise method of the individual eunuch's castration, however, as well as the appearance and even the existence of his genitals, remained a mystery to all but his most intimate associates. Equally mysterio'us, as a result, was the sexual category to which the eunuch should belang: adult or child, male or female. The bodies of eunuchs served as visible and tangible reminders of their gender ambiguity. The confusion was, in part, confusion about whether eunuchs' bodies were sexually mature or immature. Same eunuchs, probably those with undeveloped genitals from birth, may not have experienced sexual desires at all, and this may also have been true ofindividuals castratedas children. Nonetheless, all eunuchs who were castrated before reaching puberty retained th.e appearance of sexual immaturity, laclcing masculine secondary sex characteristics such as facial hair, plentiful body hair, and a deep voice. Men castrated after reaching adulthood, in contrast, retained their secondary sex characteristics and probably also their sexual desires. A prefect named Plautianus had not only castrated "boys or youths:' reported a shoclced Cassius Dio, but "grown men as well, some ofwhom had wives:' as a result of which "we saw the samepersans both eunuchs and men, fathers and impotent, emasculated and bearded?'63 His distress at the incongruity of virile-loolcing adult males as eunuchs comes across loud and clear. The bodies of eunuchs also took on characteristics of the bodies of warnen. Eunuchs castrated before puberty had the higher voices, hairless faces and bodies, and !arger breasts associated with warnen. Sidonius Apollinaris, for example, said of one eunuch that "his breasts ... hang down lilce a mother's paps, though for a man's breast even to protrude at all would have been disgusting enough?'64 More important, the confusion about eunuchs made it impossible to lcnow whether they should be considered as men or warnen in the arena of sexuality, as sexual penetrators or as sexually penetrated. Those eunuchs whose penises were still intact might still achieve erections and engage in masculine, penetrative sexual acts even without the possibility of procreation. The fifth-century

"MASCULINE SPLENDOR"

35

Christian writer John Cassian mentioned eunuchs having erections, but he attributed the erections to the buildup of urine during sleep. Yet he admitted that castrated men might still have sexual feelings. 65 Many felt that eunuchs-still had sexual desires. The third-century Christian writer ·Tertullian, for q:ample, doubted that there occurred "any bridling of passio.ri in castration;'66 and Ausonius declared that "men emasculate, when vain desire attaclcs them, exhaust themselves without fruition, mocked by pleasure unachieved.:''67 Iffrustrated in their masculine desire for penetration, however, eunuchs were obliged to satis±y these desires in other, sexually passive ways, either through oral or manual sex or by being penetrated anally. These possibilities will be further explored below in chapter 3. Here it is important to note only that the sexuality of eunuchs heightened their gender ambiguity. In moral terms, eunuchs also maintained their ambiguous gender status. Later Roman writers typically portrayed them as the equivalent of warnen, and the stereotypes of their character are virtually the same as those of warnen: carnal, irrational, voluptuous, fickle, manipulative, and deceitful. 68 Theseare the vices also of the unmanly; and eunuchs are often referred to as molles) effeminati) semiviri) the whole hast of terms used for unmanly men. Indeed, eunuchs were so much associated with vice that when Ammianus Marcellinus found one (Eutherius, the eunuch grand chamberlain under Julian) who exhibited a manly type ofvirtue, he felt compelled to offer a lengthy excuse for his praise ofhim: Turning over the copious records of the past, I have not found any eunuch with whom I could compare him. There were some in old times who were loyal and honest, though very few, but their characters were spotted in other ways. Mixed with the acquired or natural good qualities which any of them possessed was rapacity, or contemptibly brutal manners, or a propensity to inflict harm, or excessive obsequiousness to the great, or the haughtiness which arises from the possession of power. 69

E'unuchs were unmanly both in a moral and anatomical sense. A physiognomic text assured its readers that eunuchs were always eager for evil deeds. 70 The ambiguous status of eunuchs also reß.ected and contributed to the social role they played in later Roman society. They could associate with warnen and participate in feminine activities even in the most intimate of domestic surroundings, but they also traveled freely among men and in public and held offices and wielded authority reserved to men. Ostracized from true membership in_ both masculine and feminine genders, they were, nonetheless, someWhat tolerated in both male and female environ-

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CHAPTER ONE

ments. More of the importance of thi~ ambiguous social rolewill be analyzed in the following chapters. . . . . Writers of the later empire devised a whole new language.for tb.:e ill~ · termediate gender status of the eunuch. According tci the ~uthor of the · Historia Augusta) the Roman emperor Severus Alexander (rllled 222:.: . 235) is said to have referred to eunuchs as a "third sex" or "thircl type öf human being" (tertiumgenushominum). 71 Julian calledEusebius, the eu-· nuch advisor to his predecessor, an androgyne (androgynos). 72 The poet Claudius Mamertinus elegantly described eunuchs as "exiles from the society of the human race, belanging neither to one sex nor the other?'73 More rancorously, the poet Claudian called the eunuch Eutropius, a consul under Arcadius (ruled 395-408); "you whom the male sex has discarded and the female will not adopt?' 74 It is this ambiguous quility of the eunuchs that malces them such a useful means of studying men of the later Roman Empire. The presence of eunuchs constantly tested the division between men and women, between the manly and the unmanly, and continually revealed that division as an arbitrary and constructed one. Indeed, discussions of eunuchs by later Roman writers highlighted exactly the sites of the greatest tensions and disruptions of masculine identity in later Roman society. These are the areas we will be examining in the chapters that follow: men's public life in the military and political realm, and men's private life in the domestic and sexual realm. In each area, the eunuchwas a symbol ofEveryman: not Everyman as he might have wished he were, but Everyman as determined by the contingencies of later Roman life. Eunuchs demonstrated the extent to which the old meanings and old realities that had shaped Roman life in former times had given way to new meanings and new realities in late antiquity. By the very fact of their gender ambiguity, eunuchs symbolized the instabilities of the later Roman gender system and the means by which men accommodated themselves to these new meanings and new realities. Eunuchs reflected the tensions that affected alllate ancient men.

CHAPTER TWO

((MEN RECEIVE A WOUND, AND SUBMIT TO A DEFEAT" Masculinity~ MÜitarism~ and Politica/Authority

Roman men of the upper classes had always prided themselves above all on their military and political accomplishments. In their estimation, their martial conquests and public institutions had made the empire great. In the later Roman Empire, however, these conquests and institutions were at risk. Changing circumstances brought new peoples and new groups to the fore: barbarian mercenaries to defend the empire against barbarian marauders and servile outsiders to staff the growing bureaucracy of the imperial regime. These changes had far-reaching consequences not only for the Roman people as a whole but also for Roman men as individuals. This infusion of outsiders affected the very idea of what it meant to be a man among the elite classes of Roman society. The violent raids of the barbarians threatened both Roman men as holders of lands and wealth and the notion of the individual Roman man as an invincible soldier. The growing autocracy of the emperors and their reliance on new allies for the governance of the empire challenged both the hold on political power by the men of the upper classes of Rome and the individual Roman's sense ofthe importance ofhis participation in public life. The presence of eunuchs in both the political and military life of the later empire only highlighted the declining male identity ofRoman aristocrats. MILITARISM AND MANLINESS

Roman men consistently pictured themselves as soldiers, and military metaphors formed an essential element of traditional Roman masculinity. The courage and hardiness of the soldier were much admired, as were 37

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CHAPTER TWO

the discipline under which he lived and the camaraderie that he enjoyed. Indeed, vita militaris (the soldier's life) functioned as shorthandfor. the manly life. Butthis manly ideal became increasingly difficult tpsustain:in · the troublesome military circumstances of the later ehipire. Romaifwr'i.t~ ·· ers struggled to come to terms with these cir.cumstances and thek ~:ffeC:ts on men's military identity. There were two elements to this military metaphor. First, writers made repeated references to the successful military history of the Roman people and to their collective military identity. Vegetius, author of a military treatise dating from some point in the later empire, wrote that there existed "no other explanation of the conquest of the world by the Roman People than their ... military expertise?'1 References to past glories served not only as lessons in history but also as reminders of the need to remain strong militarily. The poet Pacatus in a speech honoring the emperor Julian compared the importance ofhis wars with that ofthe battle ofActium, which had been instrumental in the foundation of the empire. 2 Such comparisons, even ifoverblown, also acted as a guarantee ofthe future military promise of the Roman people. Claudian's advice to the emperor Honorius (ruled 395-423) was to "read of deeds you may soon rival" and to "study the lives of the heroes of old to accustom yourself for wars that are to be?'3 Seco~d, the "soldier's life" served as a marker of identity for individual Roman men and a constant means by which men were measured. The soldier's life was a life of frugal discipline and easy comradeship. Such a life was considered even more necessary in the imperial period as the wealth of the Mediterranean flowed toward Rome and as growing political power heightened the stalces of intrigue. Here, as elsewhere, the emperors served as the male exemplar. The description ofPescennius Niger (ruled 193-194), for instance, from the HistoriaAugusta, probably existed more as a mental image than as reality. Still, it is typical of the image of the soldier's life: On all his campaigns he took his meals in front of his tent andin the presence of all his men, and he ate the soldiers' own fare, too; nor did he ever seek shelter against sun or against rain if a soldier was without it. In time of war he assigned to hirnself and to his slaves or aides as heavy burdens as were borne by the soldiers themselves .... He took an oath, besides, in the presence of an assembly, that as long as he had conducted campaigns and as long as he expected to conduct them, he had not in the past and would not in the future act otherwise than as a simple soldier-having before his eyes Marius [the victor during the Jugurthan War] and other commanders as he. He never told anecdotes about anyone save Hannibal and others such as he. 4

"MEN RECEIVE A WO UND, AND SUBMIT TO A DEFEAT"

39

Such behavior was praiseworthy not only in the camps of war. Severus Alexander, the man who. defeated Pescennius in battle and who later became emperor himself, is supposed to have remarked that "it is a pity that we cannot irriitate th.e military discipline ofthisman whom we have overccime in war.'' 5 Indeed, all Iater Roman emperors wore the title of soldier · as a badge of honor and often referred ·to themselves as the "fellowsoldiers" (commilitione~) oftheir troops. 6 · Despite the dominance of this military ethic, however, there is little evidence for overwhelming numbers ofRomans, especially ethnic Romans and men of the upper classes, in the armies of the later empire. Troops were instead largely composed of non-Romans (while conscription of all able-bodied men still existed in principle, men with money could pay the government to find replacements for them). In the third century, these were men mostly from the various N orth Mrican, Asian, and Ball'an ethnic groups within the empire; by the fourth century, Germans who had settled within the borders of the empire formed the backhone of the Roman army. 7 The old Roman nobility refused to participate in their own army not because of widespread antimilitarism, although such a sentiment did exist. 8 It was due rather to what has been called "a process of demilitarization" among the elite classes of Rome eroding the enthusiasm for participation in war. 9 The poet Claudius Mamertinus offered the opinion that "military servicewas rejected by the nobility as a squalid occupation, Wlfi.tting for a free man.''10 The refusal ofRoman men to :fight in the wars they believed had made their people great could not help but have serious consequences for men's identity. For men who did belong to the army, military service offered a road to political success often traveled in the later empire. Ernperars were frequently chosen from the upper ranlG of the army to :fill the vacant throne.U Alternately; military commanders wishing to be emperors simply created their own opportunities for advancement. Legions in virtually all parts of the empire attempted to elevate their commanders to the position of emperor at some point in the third, fourth, or :fifth centuries, with varying degrees of success. The armies raised and decimated by these usurpations or attempted usurparians contributed in large patt to the military disasters of the empire and certainly to the social and political chaos of the period. Equally fatal to the well-being of the empire and its citizens was the presence of foreign populations ready to tal'e advantage of this political wealrness. Subject peoples within the empire regularly rose in revolt in the third, fourth, and early :fifth centuries. From beyond the empire came the Germans, already entering the empire to join its army as auxiliaries

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CHAPTER TWO

and to settle within its borders, and. who crossed over the Rhine and Danube in !arger and !arger numbers and penetrated ever further into the . ·heart of the empire. The best the imperial government could .do :with. such groups was to accept the fait accompli of their arrival ahd offer thern rights of settlement and political autonomywithin the empireYGroups of slaves also toolc advantage of the general chaos and escaped to join tht: foreign troops as they made their way across the provinces or formed · their own guerilla bands. 13 The Situation grew more critical over the course of the later empire. As a result of these military and popular insurrections, fueled as they were by the "process of demilitarization:' men of the later Roman landowning classes were more likely to be the victims of military aggression than its perpetrators. Paulinus of Pella, in his :fifth-century autobiographical poem, recorded the devastations caused by the Goths in Bordeaux. "When the Gothic king, Ataulf, commanded his men to leave our city they treated us as though we had been conquered by burning the entire city:' he wrote. "They toolc from me everything I owned and looted my mother's house as well but they left us grateful that we escaped without injury to ourselves;'' 14 Paulinus's reaction to the violence was notably to flee. Flight did not end Paulinus's sufferings, however, as he also recorded: When we were driven off and our ancient house burned, we fled to Vasatis, a neighboring city, which had been the home of my ancestors. There too the enemy came and again laid siege to us. Our danger there was increased when the slaves rebelled in a conspiracy encouraged by a few and abandoned all care for their obligations and armed themselves for the slaughter of their masters. 15 Paulinus escaped from this catastrophe, but again by flight. Throughout the crisis, Paulinus made no attempt to defend hirnself and his farnilywith arms. Instead, he sought an audience with the Gothic king to plead for protection, a typical response to a common problem. 16 The military disasters were thus not only a problern for the empire as a whole but for every free man in the empire. The Roman cultural emphasis on militarism in masculine identity demanded some type of collective response by men. Already in the third century, Cassius Dio interpreted the military crisis of the empire as a crisis of the manliness of Roman men. Cassius projected his worries about Roman men onto the historical figure of the British rebel-queen, Boudicca, and had her denounce the Romans ruled by N ero as

"MEN RECEIVE A WO UND, AND SUBMIT TO A DEFEAT"

41

men insolent, unjust, insatiable, impious,- if, indeed, we ought to term · those people men who batheinwarm water, eat artificial dainties, drink unmixed wine, anoint themselves with myrrh, sleep on soft couches with boys for l?edfellows>- boys past their prime at that [malthakoi . . . meta · meirakia],~and areslaves to alyre-player and a poor one tooY

Cassius's indictment was dear: the love ofluxury had provoked the crisis by diverting Roman men from the Pita militaris into effeminate enjoyment of wealth. Cassius even placed his denunciation in the mouth of a barbarian woman, whose courage and wisdom shows her to be manlier than her Roman enemies. The speech was as much a comment on contemporary politics as it was a historical depiction, since Rome was ruled in Cassius's day by the emperor Elagabalus, excoriated like N ero for his effeminacy, as we will see below. Again, the reference to "boys past their prirne" irnplies that the Roman men are so unmanly as to be the (passive) sexual partners of other adult men, as we will also see in the next chapter. Not every Roman author was so critical. Vegetius, for example, affered an explanation for the military decline of Rome that tried to circumvent the irnplicit critique ofRoman manliness. The neglect ofmilitary skill among men, he suggested, was because a "sense of security born oflong peace has diverted men partly to the enjoyment of private leisure, partly to civilian careers.''18 The empire had hardly enjoyed "lang peace" in late antiquity, and so his response must be seen as more of a denial than a serious attempt at explanation. Still, Roman writers of the later empire typically only reiterated the masculine military ethic and what was becoming more and more a charade of Roman might in war. More often than not, they sirnply denied the realities of the political status of the empire and repeated the maxim of the ancients on war: men who avoided things military were "betrayers ofliberty" (proditores libertatis) even while they themselves refused military service as demeaning. 19 The denial of the military crisis can best be seen in the panegyrics of the later Roman Empire. The whole purpose of these poetic orations was to praise the emperors as manly heroes. Men often delivered these panegyrics in gratitude for appointments to high public offices, and they can perhaps be excused for their fl.attery. Their orations followed standard literary themes, including the praise of the parentage of the subject of the poem, his upbringing, and his virtues. Chief among the panegyrists' themes was, without fail, the prowess in war exhibited by the man being praised. (Indeed, it has been suggested that the emphasis on the martial accomplishments of the panegyrists' subjects may have been the most po-

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litically expedient in an age of usurpers and military coups, when the emperor's parentage and upbringing may not have been overly distin~ guished and was best avoided by the panegyrist:20 ) · Panegyrics of the later empire demoostrate the facade of cori~'imi~.d Roman military strength. A panegyric to .Julian praised at great length for his vita militaris. 21 A panegyric to Honorius, given· when he was only a youth, dwelt also at length on the military upbringing of the emperor, his eagerness for war, and his manly appearance in armor, even managing to compare him with the god Mars, all necessarily without congratulating him for actual participation in war. 22 The last, most ineffectual emperors of the mid-fifth-century West were accorded some of the most elaborate and laudatory panegyrics. In one, the female personification ofRome bemoans her recent military disasters in the presence of Jupiter, who assuresher that he will send her the emperor Avitus (ruled 455-456) for her rescue. 23 In another, the goddess Rome receives the tribute of other personified peoples because ofher new lofty stature under Majorian (ruled 457-461), a warrior since childhood. 24 In a third, the numerous gods and goddesses of the pagan pantheon vow to send a savior in the person of the new emperor Anthemius (ruled 467-472) to the personified empire to deliver her from her military troubles. 25 Fifthcentury, panegyrics attest both to the heights of unrealistic flattery to which poets were willing to climb in their praise of imperial virtues and to their willingness to deny the realities of the military state of affairs in theempire. The emphasis among men on the honor and dignity of the vita militaris also required the utter disregard for contemporary accounts about how war was actually conducted. The same writers who demonstrated great admiration for the soldier's life repeatedly condemned armies for debauchery and lade of discipline. Ammianus Marcellinus, describing the wintering ofJulian's army at Antioch, noted critically the

rum

intemperate habits of the troops, who were gorged with meat and demoralized by a craving for drinlc, so that almost every day some of them were carried through the streets to their quarters on the shoulders of passersby after debauches in the temples which called for punishment rather than indulgence. Conspicuous in this respect were the [legions known as the] Petulantes and the Celts, whose indiscipline at this tinle passed all bounds. 26

According to theHistoriaAugusta> the future emperor Severus Alexander complained that his soldiers stationed in Gaul "go straggling on all sides; the tribunes bathe in the middle of the day; they have cook-shops for

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43

mess-halls and, instead ofbarracks, brothels; they dance, they drink, they sing,. and they regard as the proper limit to a banquet unlimited drinking,"27 Ernperars occasionally crucified soldiers to discourage theft from the local p()pülace and had hands cut off recaptured deserters, suggesting ·that both offences wer:e commonplace occurrences needing severe punishments as disincentives. 28 .Praise of the soldier's life also necessitated ignoring the high rates of desertion in the later Roman army. Same desertion must only have been expected: the continually sinlcing defense against the barbarian invaders must have disheartened even the bravest of the imperial troops. Before a decisive battle in Britain in 368, the_general Theodosius invited all soldiers who had fled because of the ferocity of the barbarians to return with impunity. Many were said to have accepted this offer, which suggests that many had previously deserted. 29 Later Roman emperors were much harsher to deserters, but the situation had by then deteriorated significantly. Almost a century later, for example, Valentinian ITI (ruled 425455) issued fines against anyone who hid an army deserter or who obstructed inquiries into desertion. 30 Military deserters could be punished in a variety of ways, including "reprimand, money fine, imposition of duties, change of branch of the service, reduction in military ranlc, dishonorable discharge:' or even death. 31 Men temporarily absent without leave were treated more leniently than were deserters if they returned voluntarily and if it could be determined that they had left for understandable reasons: this leniency may indicate that such unofficialleaves were a regular occurrence. 32 The problern of desertion may help to explain the increasing reliance of the Roman army on German mercenary troops, one of the key factors in the eventual collapse of the western Roman government. In turn, the large numbers ofGermans serving for pay in the Roman army and without realloyalty to the empire may help to explain the increasing problern of soldiers who fled before batdes or defected to the enemy during campaigns. 33 Apparent lack of sustained financial support for soldiers may also explain the frequent defections of mercenary troops. Valentinian Ill, for example, imposed a new tax to help pay for military supplies so that the troops would not have to continue to engage in trading, "which is unworthy and shameful [indfg'na a pudenda] for an armed man:' but without which "they can scarcely be vindicated from the peril of hunger or from the destruction of cold."34 (On this score, the barbarian commander Stilicho was praised for remembering to pay his soldiers intimes of peace as well as in times of war 35 ). Lade of supplies and pay similarly resulted in a mutiny of troops in Gaul in 354, a dangeraus situation that

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was ended only when the leaders of the rebellion were bribed. 36 The numbers of deserters may also have been augmented by the numerous civil wars of the period. When the usurper MaXiruin lost his throne t() · Licinius (ruled 308-324), itwas said ofhis army that'"halflay dea(i, the other half either surrendered or took to flight." 37 Lactantius, ·describillg the last scene, added that "any shame at deserting their err;tperor had beeh removed by his deserting them.:'' 38 The problern of unmanliness was never far from the minds of men, especially in describing desertion from the army and flight from battle. Julian dismissed the fleeing army of the usurper Magnentius, despite their manliness [andreia] in war, as simply "reap[ing] the fruits of his cowardice.:''39 For those men frightened enough to attempt suicide rather than fight in battle, the law proscribed death. 40 Even Vegetius was forced to admit in his military treatise that "few men are born naturally brave; hard work and good training malc.:e them so.:''41 Gi.ven the Roman preoccupation with distinguishing the manly from the unmanly, it is perhaps not surprising that Vegetius feit compelled to add thatwhile it was "a natural reaction in the minds of nearly all men to be fearful as they go to do battle with the enemy:' it was also true that "those whose minds are panicked by [the enemy's] actual appearance are without doubt the wealc.:er sort [infirmiores ].''42 In the same spirit, later Roman law decreed that "whoever was first to flee from the line ofbattle must suffer capital punishment with his fellow soldiers looking on, by way of example.''43 Legislating manliness in war was one method of dealing with cowardice and desertion, especially in a period in which many men were not willing to participate in war (and the harsh punishments accorded deserters in battle by legislators who were themseives unwilling to fight carries a certain irony). The stigma attached to desertion or cowardice in battle also made itselffeit in the legislative attitude toward prisoners ofwar. Prisoners ofwar indicated by their very survival that they had preferred capture to death in battle, and the law was harsh to such men. Jurists suggested that"in every branch of the law, a person who fails to return from enemy hands is regarded as having died at the moment when he was captured.:''44 The penalties enacted against prisoners of war reinforced their legal nonexistence: their wills were no langer valid, and their citizenship was put in jeopardy. While prisoners of war could be recovered through the negotiated exchange of property captured in war (postliminium )J the same was likeiy feit about the return of men as the return of weaponry: "they are received with disgrace.:''45

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45

MILITARISM AND ESCAPISM

Yet somehow, despite the disasters of the later Roman wars and the de.militarization of the Roman people, the idea of martial manliness and of the "soldier's life" concinued to hold sway. The power of military metaphors· to express the cultural aspiratiöns ofRoman masculinity, even in the last centuries of the Western Empire, may be seen in the rapid spread of the religion ofMithra. Mithra was a Persian god whose worship first appeared in the Mediterranean sometime in the second century c.E. The cult of Mithra especially attracted soldiers in the Roman army, and they likely brought it west with them as they were transferred from one location to another along the borders of the empire. Mithraism was not confined to soldiers, however, and there is evidence for its popularity among the upper classes ofRome, at least from the end of the second century and the reign of Commodus, the first emperor known to have patronized the religion. The emperor Julian was also a devotee and may have sponsored a revival of the cult in the fourth century. In that century, it has been estimated there were more than one hundred temples and shrines to the god in the city ofRome alone, which implies that Mithra's appeal extended weil beyond just soldiers. 46 Part of the appeal provided by the worship of Mithra lay in its militaristic symbols and vocabulary. The genesis legend of the god hirnself involved a primordial battle against the forces of evil, signified by Mithra's salvific slaying of a cosmic bull, a slaying reenacted by believers in a rite known as the taurobolium. 47 Followers considered themselves part of a ''holy army'' (sancta militia) with the god as their "commander'' (dux). The grade of"soldier" (mi/es) was one of the seven stages of initiation and may have involved military-type tests of endurance and sttength; the very idea of ranks of membership formed a parallel with the army. Finally, the complete exclusion of women from the cult of Mithra contributed to this military appearance of the religion and emphasized its masculine character. Through Mithraism, one might soggest, religious devotion could continue to provide a mask of militarism for Roman participants. The martial power of the divinity could be seen as reinforcing the sttength ofhis followers in their daily lives on Earth -lives that may not otherwise have seemed powerful at all. 48 In this way; the aura of a militaristi.c religion supplanted the cultural void left by the declining military effectiveness of the empire. Men of the later Roman Empire also satisfied their desire for military exploits vicariously through their leisure acti.vities, as spectators of martial violence in the gladiatorial contests, wrestling matches, and various

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arena games. 49 Roman writers frequendy connected the images of soldier and gladiator, linking the two in the ancient mind. 50 The Romannobility was notoriously addicted to violent sports, gathering in arenas and phitheaters built in most large Roman cities to watch them and spending . exorbitant sums on the contests. 51 · · · The gladiatorial games and other athletic and pugilistic contests were closely linked to issues of manliness and unmanliness. No one was quite sure, however, into which category gladiators should be included. On the one hand, the author of theHistoriaAugusta suggested that manliness was at the very origin of such contests: "when about to go to war the Romans felt it necessary to behold fighting and wounds and steel and nalced men contending among themselves, so that in war they might not fear armed euernies or shudder at wounds and blood?'52 The virtuous man was compared with a gladiator, and .the gladiator's courage, perseverance, discipline, and disregard for pain were admired. Gladiators and athletes were not subject to legal infamy, as were other public performers: "for their object was to display their manliness [virtus]?'53 On the other hand, most Roman intellectuals showed a certain disdain for the bloody sports. The imperial biographies, for example, praised those emperors who attempted to limit the expense and violence of the games, like the revered Marcus Aurelins, and condemned those emperors who sperrt recldessly on the games. 54 The despised Commodus, for example, loved the games and even fought in them himself. "Indeed:' the author of the HistoriaAugusta suggested, "one would have believed him born rather to a life of shameful things [probes] than to the high place to which Fortune advanced him?' 55 · Asthis last comment implied, it may be that the disdain Roman writers evinced for participation in the games had more to do with dass than gender status, since most fighters in the arenas were slaves or lowborn. Cassius Dio repeated the tradition of a previous generation ofhistorians, that during the reign ofNero,

am-:

there was another exhibition that was at once most disgraceful and most shocking, when men and warnen not only of the equestrian but even of the senatorial order appeared as performers in the orchestra, in the Circus, and in the hunting-theatre, lik:e those who are held in lowest esteem. Some of them played the flute and danced in pantomimes or acted in tragedies and comedies or sang to the lyte; they drove horses, killed wild beasts and fought as gladiators, some willingly and some agairrst their will. 56

Severus Alexander was supposed to have believed that "actors and wildbeast hunters and chariot-drivers should be treated as if they were our slaves" and not with the false honor of celebrity. 57 The inferior social sta-

"MEN RECEIVE A WO UND, ,~ND SUBMIT TO A DEFEAT"

47

tus ofthe participants in the gan1es worked to undermine their manliness. (Such evidence also suggests that the rnixture of disdain and admiration for soldiering by men of the upper classes might have been similarly motivated by .dass differences.) . Yet another. aspect of the Roman response to the military crisis is visible in the frequent literary contrasts bet:Ween the supposed manliness of the Romans, as demoristrated by their martial prowess, and the effeminate practices of the cultures and peoples of the East. This was an old theme in Latin literature, based in large patt on the successful historical conquest of those peoples by Rome. The view of the eastern Mediterranean peoples as effeminate may also be found in abundance in the writings oflater Roman authors. Included in the critique of these peoples was a host of negative charges: how their greater wealth, as demonstrated by the richness of their clothing- their use of colared silks, purple dyes, and precious metals and gems-gave them a love ofluxury that was unbecoming and quite the opposite of the Romans' own vita militaris. 58 In a period when Roman writers were themselves questioning the manliness of Roman men, however, this projection of effeminacy onto Bastern peoples took an ironic turn. In many sources, the terms for Easterner and effeminacy were virtually synonymous. Herodes, son of rebel Palmyran Queen Zenobia, was the "most delicate of men, utterly Oriental and of Grecian luxury." 59 Because of the association of effeminacy with the men of the Bastern peoples, Emperor Severus Alexander preferred to be thought of as Roman, even though he was of rnixed parentage, and was said to have been augered when reminded of bis Syrian ancestry. 60 Julian was similarly augered when his troops called him "a degenerate Greek from Asia.'' 61 The soldiers were obviously unaware of the manly character that others thought Julian possessed, but they were responding to the same stereotypes of easterners. Julian hirnself utilized these stereotypes, referring to the "effeminate dispositions" of the Antiochenes and contrasring them with his own hirsute (and manly) self. 62 Roman writers of the later empire linked the effeminacy ofEastern men to the martial defeats of their peoples. Indeed, it had been the weakness of their men's moral characters, Claudian asserted, that had brought to successive ruin the empires of Assyria, Sparta, Persia, and Macedonia. 63 In the final centuries of the Western Empire, however, it was insu:ffi.cient to remind emperors that they might just as easily crush the German barbarians as the Romans had destroyed the lcingdoms of the eastern Mediterranem, as Pacatus did in his panegyric to the emperor Theodosius I (ruled 379-395). 64 Nor was it necessarily good formorale to describe the old Roman victories over the Celts and Carthaginians, as in the

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HistoriaAugusta. 65 The Roman Empire was by that point at the mercy of foreign invaders, barbarians from the north who were proving them~ selves more rnilitaristic and, thus, manlier than th~ Romans. . . .. Again, many Roman writers simply attempted 'to ignore ihe ihie~t posed by the rnilitary successes of the Germans. The numerous treaties ' that the Romans signed with the peoples of the north, in a futile attempt to limit their ravages, were variously described as shrewd political ma:neuvers, peacefully negotiated alternatives to war, or the consequences of shortsighted imperialleadership and were only rarely admitted to be wealc capitulations or practicalities enforced due to lade of financial support for the troops. 66 A description from the HistoriaAugusta represents this see no evil approach: For all Germany, throughout its whole extent, has now been subdued, and nine princes of clifferent tribes have lain suppliant and prostrate.... All booty has been regained, other booty too has beert captured, greater, indeed, than that which was previously taken. The barbarians' oxen now plough the farms of Gaul, the Germans' yoked cattle, now captive, submit their necks to our husbandmen, the fl.ocks of divers tribes are fed for the nourishing of our troops, their herds ofhorses are now bred for the use of our cavalry, and the grain of the barbarians fills our granaries. Why say more? 67

More needed to be said. In the final century of the Western Empire's existence, writers typically described the fear-inspiring character of the barbarian peoples in frightened recognition of their fighting abilities. 68 In a particularly contrived panegyric, for example, Sidonius Apollinaris unconvincingly compared the martial prowess of the emperor Avitus with that of several northern tribes: the Herulian found in you his match in fl.eetness, the Run in javelinthrowing, the Frank in swimming, the Sauromatian in use of shield, the Salian in marching, the Gelonian in wielding the scimitar; and in bearing of wounds you did surpass any mourning barbarian to whom wailing means self-wounding and tearing the cheeks with steel and gauging the red traces of scars on his threatening face. 69

The ferocity of the northern barbarians was unquestioned. As unrealistically as Sidonius described Avitus, he did attribute his rnilitary skill to the training he had received under the commander in chief ofhis empire, the Romangeneral Aetius who had been raised as a hostage of the Huns and had learned from them the arts of war. Without apparently a trace of irony, the panegyrists lay much of the credit for the rnilitary defenses of

"MEN RECEIVE A WOUND, AND SUBMIT TO A DEFEAT"

49

the empire, such as they were, at the feet of these military commanders, often barbarians themselves, men like Stilicho who commanded the western Roman army under the emperor Honorius. 70 . Quite sin1ply, the ·Romans believed the barbarians to be manlier than . . ·they were. ·Even the pinkish skin color of the Germans was evidence of their bravery arid manliness, according to the physiognomists. 71 Sidonius Apollinaris's descriptioh ofTheodoric II, mid-fifth-centU.ry king of the Visigoths, highlighted his ideal masculine physique alongside his manly character: · In his build the will of God and Nature's plan have joined together to endow him with a supreme perfection; and his character is such that even the jealousywhich hedges a sovereign has no power to rob it ofits glories. Take first his appearance. His figure is well-proportioned ... his shoulders are well-shaped, his upper arms sturdy, his forearms hard, his hands broad. The ehest is prominent, the stomach recedes . : . strength reigns in his wellgirt loins. His thigh is hard as hom; the upper legs from joint to joint are full of manly vigor. n

The "manly vigor" of the barbarians, which became more and more apparent as they took gradual control of the Roman Empire, obliged the Romans finally to admit their inability to defend their empire. In their self-examination, the writers of the later empire affered various explanations for the collapse, one of which was, tellingly, a lass of military vigor among the Roman people. Even Ammianus Marcellinus, who had praised Julian's manliness and the brilliance ofhis reign, was forced to recognize that among the best ofJulian's troops were the barbarian mercenaries. He concluded that earlier Romans had been better able to withstand foreign incursions because they had not yet traded their vita militaris for what he called a vita mollitiae (life of effeminacy). 73 An important truth lies beyond the crude ethnic and gendered stereotypes found in the writings of the historians, panegyrists, and physiognomists. Roman writers were attempting to explain historical change according to their traditional opposition of manliness and unmanliness. Their accounts and descriptions all emphasized that historywas repeating itself and that the manly were conquering the unmanly. Men's rejection of the vita militaris and their lass of manliness had cost them the empire. POLITICAL AUTHORITY AND MANLINESS

Participation in politics was as central to Roman men's public identity as was participation in the vita militaris. The holding of political o:ffices and

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resulting placement among the hierarchy of ranlcs.of the Romanelite col-. lectively known as the "course of honors" (cursus honorum) also made . men what they were as men. Indeed, while wcimen's natural sphere:of influence was felt to be the home and domestic affairs, men wete b.~~ lieved equally to be natural rulers of the state and thus of political affairs. N onetheless, the foundations of public authority also underwent significant changes, changes that again brought into question masculine ideals. A number of dassical scholars have discussed the relationship between political authority and elite identity in Roman culture. These scholars have noted how the shifting system of family alliances and family rivalries that had marked politics in the republican era took second place at the start of the empire to a new political strategy of alliance with the imperial family, who dominared politics. In other words, courring imperial favor and appointments became the dominant goal of the efforts of Rome's elite families, turning what had been a competitive aristocracy into an aristocracy of imperial service. The changes to th~ imperial government in the later centuries of the empire, while less well studied, can be seen merely as an intensification of this process, in which more of the balance of public power was removed from the elite dasses and given to the emperor and bis associates. Indeed, the later Roman government virtually exdude(j the old nobility from political power except through imperial service. 74 But few of these scholars have recognized or analyzed the significance of the central role that masculine identity also played in this relationship. 75 Some background information might be helpful here to better appreciate the decline in status of men of the Roman aristocracy within the politicallife of the later empire. To begin, changes in the imperial succession worked largely to exdude aristocratic men from positions of power. The usurpation of the throne by ambitious generals in the third century meant that the imperial throne was controlled by a series ofmilitary rulers who owed their elevation to the army and not to any aristocratic connections. These generals-turned-emperors usually rewarded the army accordingly, preferring to name its officers to influential posts in place of the established senatorial families, who were neglected and demoted from positions of power. Even the restoration of the political order at the end of the third century preduded any significant influence by the nobility in imperial accession. The establishment of a semidynastic system in the fourth century encouraged the reestablishment of a system of promotion through favor and alliance with the imperial family. Finally, by the :fifth century, at least in the western half of the empire, the army commanders known as "masters of the soldiers" (magistri militum ), many of

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51

whom were barbarians, established a succession ofpuppetemperors under their control.76 All of these political systems worked to exclude the Romannobility from real political power. Sii.nilarly, the later Roman Empire witnessed an increasing emphasis -on the independent authority of the emperors, with a corresponding downplaying of the political suppori: that had brought them to the throne. Diocleti-an (ruled 284-305) and his successors had exaggerated the divine aura of the imperial command and added many of the trappings of eastern Mediterranem rulers to Roman custom. Later emperors robed themselves in purple silk, adorned themselves with gold and jewels, and demanded the prostration of all-even the members of the uppermost nobility-before the sacred imperial presence. Both visual and literary depictions ofimperial rulers show an idealization of rulership and a view of the emperor as the charismatic embodiment of the providential presence in the empire and a symbol of divine favor, whether that divinity was perceived as pagan or Christian. This idealized image of the emperor required ever more elaborate rituals of imperial procession, in which the later Romannobility was obliged to participate. 77 The new ceremonies made the new political realities of aristocratic exclusion increasingly visible to Roman men. The exclusion of the Romannobility from power was never absolute. There were still prestigious public offices held by men of the Roman nobility, who served as consuls, praetors, prefects, and governors. 78 Urban elites continued to exercise considerable local authority in the provinces, and the imperial government still needed to draw from these men to fill its regional representation.79 In a sense, the challenge to the public authority of the aristocracywas met by means of a gradual adaptation to the new political realities, so that the old elites operated wirhin this new system of imperial patronage. In addition, men of the upper classes continued to emphasize exactly those qualities that set them apart from women and from men of the lower classes: their education in literature, philosophy, and rhetoric, and their network of friendships and personal alliances.80 The ranks that defined the later Roman nobility, moreover, were hotly debated, and much was made of the privileges that certain titles and offices conferred. All members of the upper nobility-the senatorial class-were permitted to call themselves clarissimi (the brightest); members ofthe lower nobility-the equestrian class-might only call themselves egregii (the distinguished ). Participation in the imperial service, notably, brought further titles of distinction. Men of the senatorial and equestrian classes who had been provincial governors could call them-

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selves peifectissimi (the most perfect),- but only those who had been praetorian prefects could bear the title eminentissimi (the most eminent)• Members of the aristocracy who had held other maj_or posts coW,d call . themselves illustres (the illustrious) orgloriosi (the glorious); those who. had held minor post were known as sper:tabiles (the brilliant): Bach rank . carried with it various honors and a different social status, An individual's place in this hierarchy also determined his access to the emperor and his position in public ceremonies. 81 · Nonetheless, such elaborate schedules of ranks and titles served also to mask the decline of real authority of such offices, which became largely honorific. Indeed, these positions were becoming less of an honor and more of an obligation because of the many financial responsibilities associated with them, responsibilities that provided a convenient source of income for the state if ati often heavy burden on the individual. Small wonder that many members of the later Roman aristocracy frequently attempted to escape such honors. The unwillingness of the nobility to accept the onus of public expenditures was likely not because of any declining wealth among the later Roman landowning dass. Indeed, the opposite seems to have been the case, as a declining population left lands and monies in fewer hands. Rather, the unwillingness resulted from the fact that the expenditures represented an investment in the political economy in which the nobility no langer shared. 82 The changing nature of the political honors can be seen in a law of Constantine I that required a son to talce up the position of praetor, an appellate judge, if his father had died before performing the office. A century later, the law was extended so that a man who died without sons but with a daughter left her the responsibility. "For although it appears to be unlawful and disgraceful for warnen to advance to the Senatorial garb and insignia;' read a law issued by the emperors Valentinian I (ruled 364-375) and Valens (ruled 364-378), "nevertheless, they shall be able to assume the obligations of the ... praetorship [carnaria praetura]?'83 If women, who were excluded from advocating in court, were nonetheless assuming the obligations of praetor, the office could not have brought much real authority with it. 84 It should be noted that the law is unclearly worded and may only have obliged the warnen to pay the public expenses that came with the office and not to perform any of its judicial duties. Still, if warnen were inheriting some of the highest honors, even if only to increase public revenues, the distinctions between men's and women's roles, in particular their separation into public and private spheres, was becoming dangerously blurred. The shrinking political role of the nobility of Rome can best be

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53

demonstrated by the decline of the Senate, the preeminent body of politically infiuential Roman men. The Senate had already begun its decline from its earlier position as the cbief executive body for the republican state with th~ rise ofimperial authority in the first century. Even after the ·establishment of imperial nile, however, the Senate had guaranteed the political power of the early emperors, and no emperor had lasted long without its support. Early imperiallegislation, for example; even ifinitiated by the emperor, was typically debated in the Senate and then issued "with the advice of the Senate" (senatus consulta ). 85 Diodetian, however, introduced men of the provincial aristocracy into the Senate, enlarging it for that purpose from about six hundred to about two thousand members and consigning it by its size to uselessness. 86 Rome itself, where the Senate met, became somewhat of a political backwater in the last centuries of the Roman Empire. The imperial residence-and with it, much of the decision-making apparatus of the later empire-was removed first to Nicaea under Diocletian, then to the new capital under Constantine, and under the later Western emperors to Trier, Milan, and Ravenna. Emperors in the fourth and fifth centuries only issued independent decrees (constitutiones), and so the senatorial aristocracy was removed even from legislative power. 87 Despite the politicallimitations of the Senate ofRome, large numbers of men were willing to abandon their membership in the provincial or curial aristocracies and their participation in the governance of the provincial cities of the empire for admission to the senatorial dass. The reasons for this willingness to move from the provincial cities to Rome are not hard to fathom. Such a move at least exempted the individuals involved from the onerous public duties of their hometowns, for which they were responsible as provincial decurions (curiales). Chief among these duties was the collection of taxes. If they were unable to raise the tax revenues required for their locality, decurions were constrained to malce up the difference from their own incomes. 88 Numerous laws of the later emperors forbade decurions from abandoning the cities or their curial occupations. The laws made a concerted effort to close the loopholes through which one could escape such duties-except by permission of the emperor-again, by blurring the distinctions between men's and women's participation in such public duties. Daughters of decurions were never made responsible for the collection of taxes, even if theywere the sole heirs to their fathers, but later Roman law tied the sons and husbands of such heiresses to the curial obligations, which was not legal custom. 89 Moreover, despite the Roman legal principle that all children should assume the social status of their mother, a

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fift:h-century law required the taking of curial rank by any son of a decurion, even if his mother were a slave; so that he might assume. his father's duties at his death. 90 Thus the law obscured dass differences even ~s i.t · obscured gender differences. Sons ~d daughters of a declirion~madec .· senator were even forced back to their proyincial obligations ·after thdr. father's death; sons were eventually exempted from this reversal of status, although if a man had three sons, one had to be degraded to curial raril~. The legal changes by successive emperors on curial status only underscored the political wealmess of these classes, whose privileges existed only at the whim of the emperors. 91 At the same time that men of the traditional nobility were being squeezed from political power in the Senate and provincial councils, this power was being given to other men. In part, this reconfiguration of political power was a practical consequence of the expansion of the state service: the size of the bureaucracy had greatly increased as a result of the reforms ofDiocletian, who doubled the nurober of provinces. Still, new administrative posts in the i.nfiated bureaucracy of the later empire dwarfed the traditional offices in political importance. The new posts created a new aristocracy of men-sometimes men of the lower nobility, sometimes men of the lower classes, sometimes even freed slaves of the imperial household-who owed their political rise entirely to the emperor. The emperor Constantine, for example, established a new rarilc, counts (comites), whom he appointed to oversee provincial and urban administrations. 92 Even more significant for the shift in political power was the greater reliance of the emperor on his household staff for official responsibilities. This staff, lmown collectively as the palace (palatium ), performed various duties including those of ministers of state (praepositi), scribes (consistoriani), notaries (notarii), and domestic servants (cawrensiani). These functionaries were also mostly men of the lower classes, and many were slaves purchased by the imperial administration. 93 Their positions, nonetheless, put them in regular contact with the emperor and assured them opportunities for infiuence in a political regime dominated by those who gained the emperor's favor. The aristocratic reaction to the changing political realities was varied. Some men sought a place in the new hierarchy, and as early as the end of the fourth century, members of the old nobility were paying !arge sums for the privilege of talcing bureaucratic positions in the new imperial administration. Some might curry favor by more traditional means, using such occasions as the arrival of the emperor in a given location as an opportunity for imperial recognition and thus for political advancement.

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Some men of the old nobility channeled their political energies in subversive directions and r~sented or even rebelled against the authority of the state as an evil imposed on a helpless population. 94 . · Such new political i:ealities meant not only changing identities for the ·Roman elite as a wh,ole but for each man in that elite. No Ionger could men depend ori their participation in the governance of the empire i:o give· them a sen$e of accomplishment and power: participation in government, depende:O.t on the favor of the emperor, rather enforced their powerlessness. Samething new would have to be done to regain that sense ofpower, and that something was provided by the wealth of the uppei classes. UNMANLINESS AND THE LOVE OF LUXDRY

Given the ungratif}'ing role that public office held in the later Roman Empire, it is not surprising that many aristocratic men ignored their minor political role. Many men chose to abandon altogerher the pursuit of public authority and the cursus honorum) retreating instead to their rural estates to leadprivate lives. In doing so, however, they laid themselves open to charges that they had abandoned their masculine identity along with their public role. Sidonius Apollinaris chided a friend about his decision to remain in the country, because by doing so, he was turning his back on the public life that defined the Roman nobleman. He wrote: Why guide the plough-handle ... and yet forgo all ambition for the consul's robe? Do not bring a slur on the nobility by staying so constantly in the country. ... I would not indeed say that a wise man should fail to concern hirnselfwith his private affairs, but he should act on the even principle of considering not only what he should have but what he should be. Ifyou reject all other forms of accomplishments that noblemen should cultivate, and if the sting to extend your property is the only emotion that stirs you, then you may lookback on a name derived from consular robes, you may recall a series of curule seats [for dignitaries] and gilded traveling-chairs and purple mantles all recorded in the annals of the State, but nevertheless you will prove to be that obscure hard-working type who has less claim to be praised by the censor than to be preyed on by the tax-assessor. 95

The decision made by Sidonius's friend was apparently a common one. The descriptions of pastoral pleasures found in the Mosella of the poet Ausonius were followed with the wish that he be permitted to leave the emperor's service with the honorary title of consul and to retire to his

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lands in southern Gaul. Others voiced similar wishes. 96 Legislation reminded even governors of the Roman provinces that they must not prefer leisure activities to their duties and that they must reside in the C\lplc tals of their provinces and not on their country estates. 97 . . . . .. ·...· .· The acceptance of a qui
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and display the garments beneath, which are embroidered.... They presumably do not know .that their ancestors, who were responsible for the expansion ofRome, did not owe their distinction to riches, but overcame all obstades by their vator in fierce wars, in which, as far as wealth or style of · livil:Ig or dress was concerhed, they were indistinguishable from common soldiel's. 100 .

Once again, the vita militaris was contrasted with the vita mollitiae. To some exteilt, there was nothing new or nnexpected in these Roman moralists' condemnation of the wealth spent on clothing. Extravagant dress had always heen a cause for concern in Roman culture. Condemnations of the love of luxury in the later Roman Empire also reveal the greater availahility ofluxury items. After all, Romans had hy this point estahlished their domination over the Mediterranem littoral and its lucrative trade links with the lands heyond. The condemnations of Roman men's love of luxury prohahly also indicates the greater opportunity for purchasing luxury items, as the shrinking nllinhers of the aristocracy in the midst of a general demographic decline translated into greater wealth controlled hy fewer persons. The wealth exhihited in clothing, however, hecame the focus for considerahle anxiety ahout manliness. Again, this was nothing new, and even the earliest Roman writers had complained ahout the effeminacy of a man overly concerned with his appearance or his dress. Nonetheless, the question of manliness in dress was feit in a new way. In fact, we can pinpoint this new anxiety quite precisely to the heginning of the third century and the person of the emperor Elagahalus. Elagahalus was much maligned hy his hiographers. Among other things, he was supposed to have engaged in shockingly unmanly sexual practices, practices we will discuss in the next chapter. Here we will focus on Elagahalus's reputed hahit of dressing in women's clothing. Cross-dressing was not unlcnown in the ancient world, and it was a familiar theme of literature, if one usually associated with disguise. In the second-century Maamorphoses of Apuleius, for example, a rohher reconnts how he escaped capture: I put on a woman's fl.owery robe with loose billowy folds, covered my head with a woven turban, and wore a pair of those thin white shoes that ladies wear. Then, disguised and under cover of the weaker sex [insequior sexus], and riding on the back of a donk:ey loaded with ears ofbarley, I passed right through the lines of hostile soldiers. Thinking I was a donk:ey-woman [mulier asinaria], they allowed me free passage, for even then my beardless cheeks glistened with the smoothness ofboyhood. I did not, however, fall

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short of my father's reputation or my own manliness [virtus], although I was half afraid, being so close to those swords ofMars. 101

Note how even this temporary transvestite defends hls manlines~. (There ·· may also be a humoraus double entendre behind the idea of a '~dönkey- . woman"). Still, there is virtually no evidence formale cross-dr.essing except as a literary motif. . .. I would suggest that Blagabalus's supposed transvestism was merely an exaggeration of the wealth he spent an his attire, and the fact that he dressed in what were at the time Bastern fashions new to Rome. At the start of the third century, Roman men were still wearing the traditional white toga, although as Ammianus Marcellinus and others attested, that soon changed. 102 As the author ofthe HistoriaAugusta wrote ofBlagabalus: "He was the first of the Romans, it is said, who wore clothing wholly of sillc, although garments partly of sillc were in use before his time." 103 This account continued the description of Blagabalus's attire: He would wear a tunic made wholly of cloth of gold, or one made of purple, or a Persian one studded with jewels, and at such times he would say that he feit oppressed by the weight ofhis pleasures. He even wore jewels on his shoes, sometimes engraved ones-a practice which aroused the derisioJJ. of all, as ifthe engraving offarnaus artists could be seen on jewels attached to his feet. He wished to wear also a jeweled diadem in orderthat his beauty rnight be increased and his face loolc more like a woman's. 104

The Historia Augusta contrasted the depraved extravagance of Blagabalus with the self-restraint of his successor, Severus Alexander, who is supposed to have declared that "the imperial authority was based an manliness [virtus ], not an ornament." 105 "He hirnself had very few sillc garments, and he never wore one that was wholly sillc?' The account continued: "He would always insist most rigorously an having purple of the brightest hue, not for his own use but forthat of matrons"; and also: "the jewels that were given to him he sold, maintaining that jewels were for warnen and that they should not be given to a soldier or be warn by a man?' The author added: "And as for inserting gold threads [into cloth], he deemed it madness, since in addition to being rough they also made the garment sti.ff."106 Bqually interesting are those remarks in the HistoriaAugusta that indicate that what was novel during Blagabalus's reign in dress and other llLUiries had become more commonplace by the time the historical account was written. Or at least, such things were not unlcnown to the readers of the HistoriaAugusta. Blagabalus "was the first ... who wore cloth-

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ing wholly of sillc," "he was the first to use silver urns and casseroles;' "he was the first to malce force-meat of fish, or of oysters of various lcinds or similar shell-fish;' "he was the first to concoct wine .seasoned with [spiCes] ... which oui-luxury retains [and which] ... arenot met with in boolcs before the time of Blagabalus."107 The implication is that these things arii all farniliar to the readers of the Historia Augusta and that Blagabalus is to. blame for their introduction. But if Blagabalus was the first, he was not the last. Already by the late third century, men's garments made wholly of sillc had to be forbidden by imperial decree, so popular had they become, according to the account of the emperor Tacitus (ruled 275-276). 108 It is not all that surprising that Blagabalus should have introduced new and Bastern customs to Rome. He came from a prominent Syrian farnily and was not very Roman at all, although his mother insisted that he was the illegitimate son ofthe emperor Caracalla (ruled 211-217), a fiction that Blagabalus's cousin, Severus Alexander, used after him. Many men of the traditional senatorial aristocracy rejected the legitimacy ofhis rule because ofhis Bastern origins and tenuous linlcs to the Severan imperial dynasty, and any accusations of his transvestism must be placed within the context of the manifold attempts to discredit him. Cassius Dio, for example, consistently replaced Blagabalus's name with Pseudantoninus (the false Antonine) and with Sardanapalus, an ancientAssyrian lcing believed from Greelc legend to have worn women's clothing. The latter pseudonym worlced to remind his readers not only of Elagabalus's transvestism but also ofhis Bastern origins, origins that also emphasized his unmanliness.109 It is entirely possible that Blagabalus's cross-dressing was nothing more than his wearing of types of clothing considered effeminate by his contemporaries, clothing later adopted by many men of the Roman upper classes. We might also cantrast the depiction ofBlagabalus by western historians with that of an Bastern historian contemporary to Blagabalus and possibly also a Syrian lilce him, the historian Herodian. There is no talk of transvestism in Herodian's history. Elagabalus was said to have been warned, however, that "ifhe was wearing a strange, completely barbaraus dress" when he ruled at Rome, he would "offend the spectators who were not used to it and considered this lcind of finery more appropriate for women than men;" 110 And, more or less, that seems to have been what happened. So the concern about wealth spent on clothing, then, while framed in the traditionallanguage of effeminacy, was intimately related to anxiety about the exercise of political power. Later Roman emperors forbade their subjects from wearing garments of gold thread or purple, but these

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decrees went largely ignored, if the descriptions of the appearance of the later Romannobility affered by Aliunianus and others are to be believed. N onetheless, the emperors wore such garments the:mselves a~ syfl:lbols öf their unique position in society and topped their' outfits with:jewel~d diadems to symbolize their imperial rule . 111 The riches displayed in the clothing of the emperors who followed Elagabalus at a centtiry o.t' two's remove, tobe sure, was no sign ofunmanliness. Claudian's panegyrkto · the emperor Honorius included a lengthy description ofhis extravagant appearance, without a hint of embarrassment or criticism: Jewels of Ind.ia stud your vestment, rows of green emeralds ernich the seams; there gleams the amethyst and the glint of Spanish gold makes the dark-blue sapphire show duller with its hidden :fires. Nor in the weaving of such a robe was unadorned beauty enough; the work of the needle increases its value, thread of gold and silver glows therefrom; many an agate enlivens the embroidered robes, and pearls ofOcean breathe in varied pattern.112 The style of dress seems remarkably lilce that ofElagabalus, however. In fact, the only imperial figures whose luxurious dress was counted a sign of effeminacy were the usurpers. The poet Claudian accused Rufinus of designs on the imperial throne: his purple robe and jeweled crown became "a woman's raiment."113 "No woman was more elegantly groomed" than the usurper Maxirnus, according to the HistoriaAugusta. 114 A man attempting to usurp the throne in Julian's reign is said to have talcen "from the women's apartments a purple dress, and showed hirnself truly a tyrant:'115 The real cross-dressing happening here is nothing more than the usurper dressed up as emperor. Most discussions of luxuries as part of the trappings of imperial authority manifest some anxieties about manliness and unmanliness, and behind these discussions lay the anxieties about the new power arrangements. Julianis supposed to have rejected the use ofhis wife's necldace as a diadem for his impromptu acclamation as emperor, for example, and "protested that to wear a female trinlcet would be an inauspicious beginning [to his reign]?'116 A panegyric to the emperor Theodosius I celebrated his patronage of areturn to the frugal "soldier's life": [When] because either through long experience of the East or through the laxity ofmany ofyour imperial predecessors some men were so given up to extravagant living that it seemed by no means an easy task to restrain their inveterate practice of self-indulgence by any remedy, you wished the moral reform to begin with yourself ... For who could take it ill that he was be-

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ing confined to the limits of a prince, or be grieved that something was being subtracted from ~s private luxury, when he saw his e~peror, ruler of · t!le world, Plaster oflands and men, living frugally and contentedly, relieving long·fasts with the simple meals of a soldier, or, in addition to this, the . whole co.~, .sterner than the Spartan gymnasia, abounding in examples of toil, endurance and frugality; orthat not one man could be found to dare to demand at ·the palace-table fish from remote shores, fowl from foreign climes, a flower that was out of season? 117

The panegyrist contrasted Theodosius with "those delicate and languid men [delicati acftuentes] such as the state has often endured."m Since this oration was delivered in the wake ofTheodosius's military victory over the usurper Maximus in 389, it seems an obvious indictment of the previous emperor as both illegitimate in authority and unmanly in character. Nonetheiess, the panegyrist's praise did veil a reference to the limitations that the imperial rule placed on men, refus.irig them the free purchasing power of their wealth. Through all of these discussions of luxury, the interwoven reiations of political power and gender identity are evident. Even those wieiding supreme political power were not unaffected by anxiety about the use of wealth and the unmanliness of luxury. How much more acuteiy would this have been feit for those men of the aristocracy, removed from political infiuence, and fem.inized-always according to Roman misogynistic definitions offemininity-by their political insignificance, by their subsequent retreat to the private sphere of hearth and home, and by their reientless pursuit of luxury and ostentation. Abandoning the political responsibilities that were part of the accepted nature of men and instead assuming control of private roles, men of the later Roman aristocracy in effect renounced an important part of their masculinity. THE RISING POWER OF EUNUCHS

Among the luxuries that Roman men sought as visible representations of their wealth and Status were eunuch slaves. There is much evidence for the presence of eunuchs in !arge numbers in the later Roman Empire, despite the laws forbidding castration and the unease feit toward eunuchs. Ammianus Marcellinus enumerated the sorts of slaves one might find in a typical noble household, including "a crowd of eunuchs, young and old?'119 "Crowds of eunuchs:' "armies of eunuchs:' and "troops of eunuchs" surrounded wealthy Roman women as personal servants, complained the Christian writer Jerome. 120 The author of the Historia

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Augusta recorded without comment that the emperor Aurelian (ruled 270-2 75) had "limited the possessionofeunuchs to those who had a sen- . ator's ranking, for the reason that they had reached inordinate pric;es?m 1 · Populations of the eastern Mediterranem had made use of eimuch~ ~s domestic slaves from ancient times. In the western Mediterranem, how- · ever, the presence of eunuchs is attested only insmall numbers before the · third century C.E. 122 Various factors encouraged the movement of eunuchs westward in the later empire, by bringing Romans into contact with peoples and farnilies that kept eunuchs. These factors included the intermarriage of ethnic Romans with other peoples in the empire after the extension ofRoman citizenship to all free inhabitants ofthe empire, the general migrationwestward away from the more populated eastern Mediterranean toward the less populated western Mediterranean and the general Bastern infl.uence resulting from the Roman administration of the Bastern provinces, the Bastern dynasties on the imperial throne, and the removal of the imperial court to Nicaea and Constantinople. Romans in the later empire preserved their belief in the Bastern origins of castration: Ammianus Marcellinus repeated a legend that the Assyrian queen Semiramis had begun the practice. 123 The idea that Semiramis, a woman believed in antiquity to have been the :first to have raised herself to the masculjne status of royal rule, was also first responsible for the lowering of meri. to the feminine status of eunuchs, probably seemed plausible to ancient storytellers. Indeed, many of the slaves in elite Roman households in the late ancient West seem to have been ofEastern and often foreign birth. A loophole in the Roman laws agairrst castration perrnitted this practice. For example, Constantine's law agairrst castration, significantly addressed to the commander of the army in Mesopotamia, forbade only the malcing of eunuchs "within the Roman Empire" (in orbe Romano ). 124 Alaw of the fifthcentury Bastern emperor Leo I referred to the horror of "men of the Roman race, who have been made eunuchs ... in a barbaraus country" but then granted perrnission "to all traders to buy or sell, wherever they please, eunuchs ofbarbarous nations who have been madesuch outside the boundaries of Our Empire.'ms As a result, most of the eunuchs of the period whose origins we can trace were from Bastern peoples. Ammianus Marcellinus, for example, described the origins of the eunuch Eutherius. "He was born in Armenia;' he wrote. "His parents were free, but at an early age he was captured by members of a neighboring hostile tribe, who castrated him and sold him to some Roman merchants, by whom he was brought to Constantine's palace.'' 126 Eunuchs frequently bare Basternsounding names of Greek or barbarian origin. 127 Of course, the Bastern

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origin of eunuchs only highlighted their unmanliness, reinforcing Roman beliefs in the general unmanliness of the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean. . Eimuchs liad also iong served in the royal administrations of the ancient and Hell~nistic kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean. In some ways, their :infl:uence with kings was rrierely an extension of their domestic duties, worlcing as mediators between women and meri and between servants and masters within the hausehold and without. However, castrated men made suitable ministers of state for other reasons. First, because they were typically slaves or freedmen raised from humble origins and from other peoples to these positions of authority, they did not have the factionalloyalties or family alliances that created obligations formen of the nobility, and they were not prone to the nepotism of the aristocracy. Second, because they could not produce children, there was no possibility that they would try to pass their offices, honors, or possessions to sons as inheritances, leaving these positions firmly in the monarch's control of appointment. Third, eunuchs posed little threat of usurpation, since even if they might desire to talce the throne, they could found no dynasty to rival the succession to the established ruler. The Roman emperors did not long ignore the convenience of eunuchs in positions of responsibility. Already in the early empire, a few eunuchs served in the imperial household in some reigns. 128 It is from the third century, however, that eunuchs became a regular and dominant presence in imperial administrations. Their arrival in large numbers is often attributed to Elagabalus, which is possible: his Syrian family would certainly have had eunuch servants. It is equally possible, however, that eunuchs had entered the imperial service a few years earlier during the reign of Caracalla, whose consort Plautilla was said to have been reared in a household of over one hundred eunuchs produced especially for her. 129 The association of the emperor Elagabalus with the arrival of eunuchs in Rome may simply be a reflection ofhis bad reputation. The author of theHistoriaAugusta-who wrote his history long after eunuchs had become a majorpower in the empire-considered it a sign ofElagabalus's unmanliness that he had relied so heavily on eunuchs in his bureaucracy and a sign of the manliness of his cousin and successor, Severus Alexander, that he had dismissed from office the whole lot of them. The latter was alleged to have said, "I will not permit slaves purchased with money to sit in judgment on the Jives of prefects and consuls and senators;''130 The point of the mention of eunuchs in the HistoriaAugusta was clearly to underline the disruption of the social order that results from the inappropriate exercise of authority. The unsuitable rule of an effeminate lilce

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Elagabalus paralleled his delegation of authority to men equally unfit to hold office because of their emascuhition and low birth. Seve:rus Alexan~ der, who was generally depicted as the moral opp()site to Etagabalus (re- . call how he refused to wear jewelry and silk), restoted all things tö th~l.r proper place: He removed all eunuchs from his service and gave orders tha:t they should · serve his wife as slaves. And whereas Elagabalus had been the slave of his eunuchs, Alexander reduced them to a lirnited number and removed them from all duties in the Palace except the care of the women's baths; and whereas Elagabalus had also placed many over the administration of the finances and in procuratorships, Alexander took away from them even their previous positions. 131

The cantrast was obvious: the true place for eunuchs was not with the men but with the women, in the private and not the public spaces. The tension between manliness and unmanliness in the guise of political and domestic spheres was played out here in the appointments of eunuchs. The greater use of eunuchs in the later Roman imperial bureaucracy is intimately connected both to the increasing autocracy of later Roman rule and to the exclusion of the old nobility from political power. Ancient writers )'Vere well aware of theselinks between the power of the emperors and the eunuchs, on the one hand, and the impotence of the traditional noble classes, on the other. The author oftheHistoriaAugusta> for example, concluded his biography of Severus Alexander with these conunents: It must be added, furthermore, that he never had eunuchs in his councils or in official positions-these creatures alone cause the downfall of emperors, for they wish them to live in the manner of foreign nations or as the kings of the Persians, and keep them weil removed from the people and from their friends, and they are go-betweens, often delivering messages other than the emperor's reply; hedging him about, and aiming, above all things, to keep knowledge from him. 132

The battle between noblemen and eunuchs over access to the emperor had already been lost by the time these words were penned. VJrtUally all fourth- and fifth-century emperors associated themselves with powerful eunuch ministers. Eunuchs held a variety of positions in the imperial palace, but it was especially in the office of grand chamberlain (praepositus sacri cubiculi), an office reserved almost exclusively to eunuchs, that they exerted the greatest dominance. 133 By the early fourth century, the grand chamberlain held the right of senatorial rank and the title of clarissimus; in 384, his rank was raised to the level of illustris> to which prefects be-

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longed. From 422, grand chamberlains toolc the title of eminentissimus; shared by only tl1e magister militum and the praetorian prefects. 134 That eunuchs should receive the same ranlcs and the associated privileges as those ·accorded the men of the ancient nobilitywas the source of ·great resentment. Claudius Mamertinus noted with disgust how "even the illustrim.is representatives of the old faniilies ... fawn upon the most degraded [sordidissimz] arid infamaus [probrosissimi] creatuies of the imperial court.''135 "Were it not that the mighty gods watch over the Roman Empire:' the author of the HistoriaAugusta remarlced bitterly, "even now we should be sold by purchased eunuchs as though we were the slaves [and not them] .''136 No response to the rising power of the eunuchs was more acrimonious than that ofthe poet Claudian in his In Eutropium (About Eutropius). The poem has been called "the cruelest invective in all ancient literature.''137 It is little more than a long harangue against the most powerful eunuch ofClaudian's day. Eutropius was grand chamberlain to the Bastern Roman emperor, Arcadius, who appointed Eutropius to the honori.fic title of consul for the year 399. It was this appointment that provolced Claudian's poetical response. Claudian had his reasons for portraying Eutropius in as unfl.attering a light as possible. Claudian owed much ofhis literary reputation to the patronage of Stilicho, commander in chief (magister militum) ofthe western Roman army and advisoi to the Western emperor Honorius, the younger brother of the Eastern emperor Arcadius. Stilicho had distinguished hirnself in battle on the N orth African frontier, an event Claudian had also commemorated inverse. Stilicho had hoped to be named consul for the year 399, even though as a barbarian he would have been an equally unconventional choice for the honor. Since the choice belonged to the elder of the emperors, however, Arcadius had chosen his own political associate and not his brothers. From the Western Empire and therefore safely out of Eutropius's political reach, Claudian launched a literary attaclc on behalf ofhis own patron, the purpose of which was to discredit Eutropius both as a man and as a politician. The poem relies on earlier Latin models, but incorporates entirely new elements-some invented and some based on historical events-in order to defame Eutropius. 138 In Eutropium is hardly a reliable account of a eunuch's life or career. It is, however, an extremely useful and detailed account of the challenge to men's roles and identity occasioned by the presence of so powerful a eunuch. We will have many reasons to turn to Claudian's poem here andin the next chapter for its fascinating insights into eunuchs and masculinity. Centtal to Claudian's poetical attack was the fact that Eutropius was a eu-

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nuch. His elevation to such a position of honor was, in Claudian's estimation, an unnatural USurpation of masccline political authority by an individual who was no man at all. The fust part of Claud.ian's poem fo~ cuses on Eutropius's lowly origins as a foreign, Bastern slave, anc!'howhe was bought and sold to several owners for domestic service before being purchased for the imperial household. (We will d.iscuss .the sexual impli~ cations of this part of Claud.ian's poem in greater detail in the next chap- . ter.) Doubtless Claud.ian was seelcing to undermine Eutropius's political reputation by emphasizing his foreign and lowly status. Claud.ian had much to say about the political authority that Eutropius wielded: "Nothing so cruel as a man raised from lowly station to prosperity"; "he vents his rage on all, that all may deem he has the power";· "being a eunuch also he is moved by no natural affection and has no care for family or children." 139 Determined to defend traditional Roman masculinity against this latest assault- or so he claimed-the poet piled insult after insult onto Eutropius, "an old woman in ~ consul's robe who gives a woman's name to the year." 14° Claud.ian made use of the whole arsenal of established anti-effeminate and misogynistic ideology for his purposes. ''No country hasever had a eunuch for a consul or judge or general;' he wrote; ''what in a man is honorable is d.isgraceful in a eunuch.'' 141 Or again: "Had a woman assumed theJasces [symbols of political authority], though this were illegal it were nevertheless less d.isgraceful.'' 142 Or yet again: "If eunuchs shall give judgment and determine laws, then let men card wool and live like the Amazons, confusion and license d.ispossessing the order of nature.''143 With these words, Claud.ian linked the rise of eunuchs to the decline of"true" men. It is not d.ifficult to understand why Claud.ian resented the political power wielded by eunuchs in the later empire. Eunuchs holding prestigious imperial offices served as visible signs of the increasing autocracy of the emperor, his isolation from aristocratic control, the extension of the bureaucracy, and the other political shifts of the third, fourth, and early fifth centuries. AB men's public and military status declined, the successes of eunuchs became emblematic of men's reversal of fortunes and a convenient scapegoat for the rancor of the elite dass es. Among the many worries to which the consulship ofEutropius gave rise, Claud.ian added the military fate of the empire. "What lcind of wars can we wage now that an effeminate [mollis] talces the auspices [symbols of military authority] ?" he asked. 144 Claud.ian was alluding to the fact that Eutropius had been rewarded with the consulship in part because ofhis successfulleadership of a military campaign against the Huns in 398. In mentioning the defenses of the empire, however, Claud.ian was also al-

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luding to a familiar source of male an.uety in the later Roman Empire. He wrote: Our enemies rejoiced at the sight [of a eunuch leading a Roman army] and feit that at last we were lacking in men. Towns [in the empire] were set ablaze; walls offered no securicy. The countryside was ravaged and . brought to ruin.... 'Yet Eutropius (can a slave, an effeminate [mollis], feel · shame? ... ), Eutropius returns in triumph. The troops are mutilated, squadrons Wc~ their amputated leader, maniples of eunuchs .... Great is his self-esteem; he struggles to swell out his pendulous cheelcs and feigns a heavy panting; his lousy head dust-sprinlded and his face filthier in the sun, he sobs out some pitiful complaint with voice more effeminate than effeminacy's seifand tells ofbattles.l45

He ended with the quip, "Leave arms to men;'' 146 There is some evidence for the use of trusted eunuchs of the imperial household in military campaigns. AB with their elevation to civil commands, eunuchs placed in charge of troops posed no threat to the imperial succession, and this was especially important in a period in which generals had so often led coups against the state. 147 To see military commands given to eunuchs, unmanly foreigners of low birth, might have been particularly galling to Roman men of the upper classes, reluctant as they were to talce partinwar themselves. One example of the role of a typical eunuch among the troops must suffice to demonstrate this point. Ammianus Marcellinus provided an excellent example in his detailed account of the career of Eusebius, grand chamberlain under Constantius II (ruled 351-361). Eusebius made his first appearance at the mutiny of the soldiers at Chälon in Gaul in 354, when Constantius sent him from the imperial treasury with money, "which he distributed secredy among the authors of the agitation;'' Ammianus added dryly, "This quieted the unrest of the troops?' 148 Eusebius next appeared as one of several eunuchs at the imperial court who falsely accused Ursicinus, master of the infantry, of preparing to usurp the throne, although the true motive, according to Ammianus, was that Ursicinus refused to donate to Eusebius an estate ofhis in Antioch that Eusebius coveted. 149 After the accusation, Constantius sent Eusebius together withArbitio, master ofthe cavalry and not a eunuch, to investigate the alleged treason. Ammianus described their actions: both these were men of careless arrogance, equally capable of injustice and cruelcy. Without any thorough investigation, without drawing any distinction between innocent and guilty, they sentenced some to exile after being

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beaten or tortured, reduced others to the ranks, and condemned the rest to capital punishment. Then, having filkd the cetneteries with corpses, they · retumed as iffrom a successful campaign, and reported their exploits to the: · . emperor. 150

Even Arbitio hirnself, Ammianus claimed, was too afraid of EusebiuS's power to come to Ursicinus's aid. 151 When Ursicinus, in his own defense, reproached the emperor for having "allowed hirnself to be dictated to by eunuchs;' the remark so angered Constantius that he immediately disrnissed U rsicinus from his office. 152 Ammianus's point is clear: the power of the eunuch Eusebius was fearsome. Eusebius's arrogance and cruelty J?ay have been accurately depicted; more likely, it reflected the lade of manly virtue that all eunuchs represented. The next time we hear ofEusebius is also the last; his career ended tagether with his life, and bothat the death ofhis patron, Constantius TI. Julian, who blamed the chamberlain for the death ofhis brother Gallus, had him condemned to death as soon as he took command of the empire.153 It was an end typical for eunuchs, tied as their fortunes were to individual emperors. (Even the eunuch Eutropius was executed within a year of his appointment as consuU 54) "This man, who had been raised from the lowest station to a position which enabled him almost to give orders lilce those of the emperor himself;' Ammianus concluded ofEusebius, "in consequence had become intolerable. Pate threw him headlong, as if from a lofty cli:tf.'' 155 Ultimately, the prosperity and prestige of the eunuchs was an indictment of all Roman men of the upper classes. If men feared eunuchs, lilce Arbitio before Eusebius, it was because they feared the power of the emperor beyond them. Claudian recognized this fear, and at the end of his poem against Eutropius, turned his venomous pen against his contemporaries. "Will this corrupt age never stiffen up?" he asked, with obvious double entendre. 156 "0 people worthy of such a senate, senate worthy of such a consul! To thinlc that all these bear arms and use them not, and that, among so many, these swords do not bring to mind their manly sex with indignation!" 157 Consequently, he put the full weight of responsibility for the barbarian invasion on the unmanly men of the empire, meaning not the eunuchs but all Roman men: It is neither on their own valor or numbers that they rely; it is our own cowardice urges them on, cowardice and the treason of generals, through whose guilt our soldiers now ßee before their own captives, whom, as Danube's stream weil knows, they once subdued; and those now fear a handful who once could drive back all. 158

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As if to sum up what it was all about, the last word of Claudian's poem against Eutropius was the word virtus. 159 the end, the power of eunuchs was a disgracefully visible reminder of the failure ofRoman masculine ideals. Eunuchs in politics and as army commanders ~erelyreflectedthe unwillingness or inability of"real" men to hold the saffie publi~ positions. Anxiety over manliness in public life, such as seen in .discussiöns of the authority exercised by eunuchs, only reflected the exclusion of the male aristocracy from the positions they had traditionally held and felt themselves entitled to hold. In a symbolic sense, it was an exclusion from their public masculine identity.

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"A PURITY HE DOES NOT SHOW HIMSELF" Masculinity_, the Later Roman H ousehold_, and Men-'s Sexuality The reorientation of the public lives of men of the Romanelite in late antiquity unfolded in taudem with an equal transformation in their private lives. In the realm of marriage and family life, men of the Roman nobility feit the consequences of social and legal changes that brought into serious qlj-estion their traditional rights as husbands and fathers over their wives arid children. In the area of sexuality, newly imposed restrictions greatly curtailed men's traditional sexual behaviors, sexual self-control replacing sexual dominance as the masculine ideal. These changes and restrictions also posed a threat to traditional Roman gender boundaries, obscuring the divisions between men's and women's social roles and challenging the basis of these divisions. The presence of eunuchs in the later Roman household only heightened the anxiety over men's changing domestic and sexual roles. THE DECLINE OF PATRIA POTESTAS

Patria potestas (paternal power), the near-absolute control in ancient Roman society that the eldest living male of a noble family exercised, was proverbial. 1 In the early Roman period, the power of this male, called the paterfamilias (father of the household), over all ofhis descendants had induded his right to control all property or money that they had garnered, to choose their marriage partners or end their marriages, and even to sell them into slavery or abandon them at birth. The paterfamilias wielded authority over his wife in the same way, who was legally the equivalent to a daughter, according to the system of marriage "with the hand" (cum 70

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manu). Patria potestas perpetuated itseJffrom generation to generation: each male achieved independence upon his father's death and became a pateifamilias in his own right, while the legal control of an unmarried woman fell afterher.father's death to her brother or other close male relative, and the ~ontrol of widowed woman to her son or other male ·relative of her husbahd, a lifelong tutelage of women (tutela perpetua mulierum). 2 · The absoluteness of these patriarchal rights may have been in part mythical, because the earliest periods of Roman history already show some restraints on the rights of a father. Even before the republican era, the law denied fathers complete autonomy in exposing unwanted children and regulated the sale of their children into slavery. 3 Scholars have typically interpreted such changes to the patriarchal system as the encroachment of the rights of the state on the rights of the individual man. 4 Even more recently, scholars have examined the restraints that human feeling placed on the unrestricted exercise of patemal power by creating sentimental ties between a father and his family. 5 Moreover, scholars have noted how women wielded informal authority within the patriarchal household, especially in home management. 6 Still, Roman writers generally looked bade on their past as a golden age of unobstructed men's rights. 7 The constraints on patria potestas, it should be noted, often happened within the context of a struggle between the rights of men as fathers and their rights as husbands. Fathers likely engineered the decline of the marriage "with the hand" by the end of the republican era, for example, so that their financial interests would not be lost by a daughters marriage. 8 In a marriage ''without the hand" (sine manu), a husband could not expect any direct financial gain from his wife's family. Instead, he received a dowry from his wife as her share ofher father's estate. While he controlled its use as well as the income from it during their marriage, he could not sell or otherwise alienate it, and it reverted to her family of birth at his death or upon their divorce. 9 The pateifamilias did retain the right to choose his children's marriage partners and to initiate their divorce. 10 Patriarchal rights continued to decline in the early imperial period. New imperiallegislation ofEmperor Augustus probably only cemented what was already social custom in the later republic. N onetheless, the legal reforms of Augustus did permit the state to intrude in new ways into the private lives of men. 11 His reforms included penalties against men and women who chosenot to marry, not to have children, or not to remarry after divorce or the death of their spouse. 12 Augustus's concerns at the declining numbers of the Romannobility and the need for even !arger num-

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bers of them to enforce the Roman governance of the Mediterranem lilcely prompted this law, since it was apparently enforced only among . the upper dass es of the Roman population. Ariother of Augustus'~ laws . confirms his demographic concerns: it gave women who bcire $eve,r:3.1. children a privilege known as the "right of children" (ius liberomm) ·of· · freedom from their lifelong tutelage. Women with this privilege ad- · ministered their own financial affairs without the bindirig supervision of a male relative. 13 Legal changes to family life in the early empire further eroded the absolute nature of patriarchal authority. By the second century of the common era, for instance, women gained the right to initiate divorce, a right previously only belonging to their husbands and fathers. At about the same time, fathers lost the right to force a divorce of a sonor daughter under their authority if the couple did not want to separate. 14 The pateifamilias was also restricted in his ability to force an unwanted marriage on those under his authority. 15 Also during the second century, edicts permitred some men to leave property in wills to their mothers, who earlier had been forbidden to own property at all. Mothers were permitted, in turn, to leave such property to their children and to bequeath their dowries to their children rather than have the property be reappropriated by theif pateifamilias. Moreover, mothers might write such a will without the supervision of their legal guardian. 16 The hitherto male domains of marital consent, ownership of property, and testation were now shared bywomen. The demise of patria potestas continued in the later Roman Empire. The public crisis of the empire certainly played a role in this demise. The deterioration ofRome's military greatness and the numbers killed in the periods of civil unrest and rebellion seem only to have worsened the demographic decline. 17 The decline in numbers in the upper classes was somewhat alleviated by the influx of a new nobility drawn from the provinces made possible by the extension of Roman citizenship to the free inhabitants of the empire in 212 C.E. The new Romans, however, brought not only new potential marriage partners into contact with the old elites, but also new customs of marriage and family life. 18 In the later empire, further changes to women's rights challenged men's fundamental authority over them. Foremost among these changes were those concern.ing marriage payments. Specifically, the later empire saw the establishment of a reverse dowry system that equaled in value the traditional dowry. Under the title ofbetrothal gift:s, the future husband's father gave substantial benefits, usually properties, to the betrothed couple for use in their marriage, just as the dowry provided the opportunity

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for the bride's father to give properties to the couple. 19 The exact nature of the establishment ofa reverse dowry system in this period has not been well studied but is clear from the sources. 20 The reasons for such a shift .are equally obscure. 21 But one law noting the increasing value of marriage payments provides a possible explanation forthisdouble system. 22 The · combination of a dowry and reverse dowry provided a double mechanisin for the transfererice of properties from one generation to the next in an environment.of low birthrates in which family inheritances fell into ever fewer hands. Laws originally enacted to protect women's dowries continued to apply to the reverse dowry. The effect of these laws was, therefore, to further restriet men's rights within the family. For example, even while the property designated as her betrothal gifts did not come from her family, the wife was legal owner of it, and her husband could not alienate it nor could she legally give it to him. The betrothal gifts also belonged to her when the marriage ended. 23 She was obliged to preserve the value of the betrothal gifts intact for her children if she had them or for her husband's parents if theywere still alive. In other cases, the property was hers to dispose of as she wished, and in any case she had free use of the property's usufruct. 24 The rights of women to possess and bequeath inheritances and dotal properties in the later empire was combined with a greater control over the disposition of the actual property during their lifetimes, a change made possible because of the disappearance of the lifelong tutelage of women. This ancient principle, which had obliged a man to manage all property owned by women, disappeared as a social institution sometime between the third and fifth century. The jurisprudents of the later second and early third century C.E. had already generally concurred that the legal incapacity of women was merely customary and had nothing to do with their intellectual abilities. 25 At the beginning ofthe fourth century, Emperor Constantine permitred women of good character over the age of eighteen to control their own property, although they still seem to have had to retain legal guardians. 26 By the end of the fourth century, legislation specifically treated women as legally equivalent to men in the administration of their affairs and ignored the tutelage of women, which must have had little consequence. 27 Indeed, a law of 414 ordered that all contracts made by women be considered as binding: a clear indication of women's independence in these matters, as is another law permitring women to act as guardians for their children. 28 Such formal changes in the legal position ofwomen carried tremendous social consequences. Consider the disparate ages of marriage be-

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tween men and women, for instance, which typically saw a woman not much past puberty marry a man perhaps decades older, and probably out- . live him and his parents. 29 Given the dramatic decline in the birthrate in · the later empire, many married couples might weil have had n6 .cliil~en . surviving them, and a widowed wife might.have no natural helrs. Dndi::t, the old Augustan laws, widows under the age of fifty were required to.te- · marry within two years or lose full ownership of their property, but in the year 320, Emperor Constantine ended the penalties against the unmarried. 30 Such circumstances conspired to produce large numbers of independent widows in the fourth and fifth centuries: women in full possession of large estates, without male guardians or natural heirs, and not obliged to remarry. The numbers ofindependent widows troubled many male writers; the emperor Majorian condemned their "lascivious freedom ofliving?'31 The Christian writer Jerome also complained that even widows who chose to remarry insisted on their independence. "Rejoicing that they have at length escaped from a husband's dominion:' he wrote, "they look about for a new mate, intending not to yield him obedience, as God ordained, but to be his lord and master. With this object they choose poor men, husbands only in name, who must patiently put up with rivals, and if they murrnur can be lcicked out on the spot?'32 That men had been enjoying such freedoms since ancient times was not the point; here is dear evidence of the real decline of men's patriarchal authority over women. Indeed, Majorian's law attempted to do away altogerher with independent widows, ordering all childless widows under the age offorty to remarry within :five years or face :financial penalties. Before the deadline had passed, however, the law was repealed by his successor.33 Legal reforrns ofthe later Roman Empire also greatly disrupted the patriarchal rights of men over their children. Later imperiallegislators expressly repealed the ancient custom that gave fathers the natural right to any inheritances of their minor children, an obvious indication of the declining authority of men. 34 Severallaws repeatedly denied fathers the permission to sell property inherited by any of their children from their mother's relatives. (The repetition ofthese laws provides evidence both for fathers' opposition to the law and for a persistent intent on the part of legislators). 35 Legislation also gave children the right to receive the inheritance due them from their mother and her relatives during her lifetime, without interference from their father. 36 N or did the law permit a father to have any rights to the property that his children had gained by their own marriages. 37 Indeed, ifhis children died with their own children living, the law considered these persons, his grandchildren, as the

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natural heirs to the property that had belonged to his children, to his complete exclusion, even if as his descendants they livedunder his patriarchal authority. 38 Other l<J.WS contributed to the growing restriction of men's rights over their families. One law grmted permission for children to talce their father to corirt. 39 Legitimate children had tlie right to expect the full inheritar.:ice from their father," and even a man of the highest social classes was prohibited fromJeaving any part ofhis estate to illegitimate children, if this excluded his legitimate heirs. 40 Allofthis legislation on children's rights has been associated with Christian influence, but the fiurry oflegislative activity on the topic of children more likely reß.ects the desire, as with the laws on the reverse dowry, to create new mechanisms for the transference of property from one generation to the next in a period of declining birthrates. 41 Regardless of their origin, the laws succeeded in restricting men's rights to control the inheritances of their wives and children. Legislators were obviously aware of the decline ofpatria potestas and concerned about the implications of this decline for men's status. A law of the year 426 specifi.cally degraded the legal status of mothers as regarded children's inheritances in order to bring it to the level of the status of fathers, arguing that "We shall not allow fathers to be legally inferior to mothers in any particular.''42 Nevertheless, the overall attempt seems to have been to equalize men's and women's positions regarding children. This is the stated intent of one law. "It is Our Will that husbands also shall be admonished by a similar example ofboth piety and law:' the law reads, so that "what is enjoined upon mothers by the necessity ofthe law, as here set forth, is more readily expected of [fathers] in consideration of justice.''43 Asthelegal positions ofmen and women in family law moved ever more closely tagether in the later empire, yet another aspect of men's social superiority was threatened. There were still significant social differences between men and women, to be sure. Even in one of the more significant changes to the legal status ofmarriage, a law ofConstantine that put an end to divorce "for trivial reasons:'44 noticeable differences remained between the effects of the law on men compared with its effects on women. A man might still divorce his wife for adultery; for being a conciliatrix) literally a "mediator" but meaning someone involved in prostitution, possibly as a "gobetween" between the prostitute andher customer; or for being a medicamentaria) a "female medical practitioner:' perhaps a women who used medicines to avoid pregnancy or to proeure an abortion, but possibly a woman who made or sold poisons. 45 In contrast, the same law denied a

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woman permission to divorce her husband for excessive drinking, gambling, or for being a muliercularius) an otherwise unattested term ofuncertain meaning that we will discuss below. She could, however, obtain !1 .. legal divorce ifhe were a murderer, a tomb robber,6r a medicamen~arius)· that is, a "male medical practitioner:' again possibly an abortionist or p'o1- ' soner. 46 Both sets of restrictions are interesting comment& on the absolute limits of unacceptable behavior formen and warnen wirhin marriage. According to the law, if the couple separated for any other reason thart those delineated, neither could remarry. The penalty exacted from a woman who remarried was still greater than that from a man, though, since she forfeited her dowry if she were guilty of any of the three offenses delineated for her or if she left her husbarid for any but the three offenses delineated for him. If he were guilty of any of the offenses, or left her for other reasons, he lost his access to her property but not to his own property. Still, if a man remarried after leaving his wife unjusdy, she had the right to claim his second wife's dowry. 47 After Constantine's law restricting divorce, men of the later empire also lost the right to repudiate a marriage partner at will, another significant curtailment of their traditional rights. In earlier periods, divorce had been an effective tool for maintaining patriarchal authority. It was especially useful for reformulating elite alliances, because men could divorce warnen who belonged to families on the wane politically and replace them with others who were more advantageous. Men could also ensure heirs by marrying warnen who had proved their fertility in previous marriages.48 Constantine's law denied these strategies to elite faniilies, again probably for other than religious reasons. 49 Not surprisingly, the law proved unpopularwith the Romannobility, and was briefiy abrogated by the emperor Julian, in a law not preserved, but presumably overturned by Jovian (ruled 363-364). 50 The divorce law was also annulled briefiy byTheodosius li (ruled 408-450) in 43951 but was revived under Valentinian III in 452. 52 By the mid-fifth century, then, the state held the rights of divorce firmly in its possession, dispensing it only infrequendy. The narrowing of men's freedom of actionwirhin marriage and family life through the decline ofpatria potestas must be talcen as further evidence ofthe declining fortunes ofRoman men. Although the political turbulence of the later Roman period had persuaded many men to escape the hazards of public o:ffi.ce and military life and concentrate their personal ambitions wirhin their private lives, neither marriage nor the family affered any guarantee of masculine success or the authority that men had traditionally wielded. Instead, the growing power of warnen and children wirhin the elite family only intensifi.ed the disruption to Roman men's ideals.

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UNMANLINESS AND MALE SEXUALITY

The relationship between the eliteRomanmale and those araund him was certainly in fhix in the last centuries of the empire. N onetheless, it was not orily his relationship to others, but his very relationship with himselfwith his body and his lise ofit in sexual activity---'- that was being drastically altei:ed. More iniportant, men believed that the changes theywere experiencing were und~rmining the manliness of male sexuality. Roman men were still bound by ancient codes of sexual behavior, but sexual morality as developed in the later empire added new restrictions to these ancient codes. Previously accepted patterns of sexual behavior with little or no social reproach fell under social sanction and legal prohibition. Philosophical and medical perspectives also limited men's sexual behavior. The changing nature of male sexuality has already come to the attention of some historians of the classical period of Roman history, and scholars have theorized about the ways in which political and social changes affected men's sexuality. In particular, they have looked for consequences of the shift from a republic controlled by the male elite as a collective body of men to an empire ruled by a single man, as seen, for example, in the restructuring of the early imperial family by the Augustan laws. Same of these scholars have concluded that in the context of men's declining authority within the state and within the family, men of the early empire sought greater authority within themselves, including a sexual self-control. 53 The possibility of a connection between sociopölitical changes and changes to sexuality deserves consideration. Indeed, one might speculate that in the later Roman Empire the connection between the two is even clearer. After all, the final centuries of the Western Empire witnessed the further decline of men's authority in the state and in the family as well as the collapse of military effectiveness. As an explanation for cultural change, however, this connection leaves much to be desired. One might speculate with equal plausibility that the loss of authority in politics would have led Roman men to strengthen their sexual hold on those persons they could still dominate within their households. lt is also clifficult to speculate that the downfall of the system of elite familial alliances led men to focus on the conjugal unit and on marital fidelity; such speculation is unable to explain the free access to divorce in the early empire and the restrictions on divorce in the later empire. lt also seriously underestimates the continued strength of familial alliances in the imperial period. If we cannot see the social and political changes as the cause of the changes to men's sexuality, it is iniportant nonetheless to see them both as

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parts of a whole. Anxiety about the male role, an anxiety created in the midst of social and political crisis, was also feit in the arena of sexuality. Sexual prowess was as central to masculine ideritity in classkal Rome ·as was participation in public life; both sexual and political dominance w~.;re understood as the proper positioning of adult males. 54 In both politics and sex, moreover, attempts were made to avert the challenges to masculinity by avoiding the uncomfortable roles available to later Roman men. But just as men's withdrawal from politics only served to malce their role closer to that of warnen, and thus to obscure the traditional division between men's and women's public identities, the changes to male sexuality in late antiquity also assimilated men's sexuality to women's and further eroded the separation between men's and wömen's roles and identities. Ammianus Marcellinus's description of the emperor Julian illustrates both the restrained ideal of men's sexuality and the attempts to linlc that ideal to a traditional sense of manliness. vVe have already seen that Ammianus regarded Julian as an ideal man generally. Ammianus praised Julian at length for his decision to renounce sex after the death of his wife as a manly autonomy: "he was so spectacularly and incorruptibly chaste after the lass ofhis wife he never tasted the pleasures ofsex, but [said] ... that he was glad to have escaped from slavery to so mad and cruel a tyrant as love?,'55 These remarlcs followed immediately after Ammianus's general assessment ofJulian's character-even before the description ofJulian's vitamilitaristhat follows it, or the description ofJulian's courage and slcill in battle, or the description of the authority that Julian exercised over his army. 56 Clearly Julian's renunciation of sex proved his manliness of character in Ammianus's eyes, at least as much as did his military prowess. Ammianus clarified his understanding of the manliness ofJulian's sexual abstinence by describing the emperor as virtually assurning the philosopher's mantle (pallium ). 57 Linlcing the renunciation ofsex to the pursuit of philosophy helped to assimilate it to the Stoic apatheia and the mind's mastery over the body and its feelings. (Not surprisingly, Stoic writers were among the first to call for men's sexual restraint, lang before the ideal was generally promoted in the later Roman Empire.) This image also helped to associate Julian with the Platonic ideal ofthe philosopherlcing: the man who pursues virtue both privately and publicly, exercising the same authority over hirnself as over his subjects. Self-domination as a legitimation for the domination of others was a sentiment common to writers of late antiquity. The same thought can be seen in the poet Claudian's advice to the emperor Honorius: "When you can be lcing overyourself, then you will rule rightfully over all.'' 58 An associate ofJulian's, the philosopher Iamblichus, made explicit the

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connection between the philosopher's life (vita philosophica) and the life of sexual renunciation in his biography of the ancient Greelc philosopher, Pythagoras. In the absence of any real information about the philosophel"s life, Iamblichll.s was obliged to invent episodes and attribute sayings to Pythagc;xas and his' followers to suit his own tastes and those of ·his contemporaries, and possibly also the tastes of his imperial patron. Ianiblichus's point was clear: "By their discipline arid self-control [söphrosyneJ:' he wrote, men "should become examples both to those in the households where they live, and to those in the whole community.''59 This so-called Pythagorean ideal was composed of variations of the cardinal virtues found in the Stoic and Platonic philosophers and on display in Ammianus's description of Julian. The Pythagorean ideal included a component of sexual restraint. ''And those men apparently believed it necessary to prevent births which arise contrary to nature and with violence;' he wrote. "They allowed, however, those in accord with nature and temperance [söphrosyne], which tal'e place for the purpose of temperate andlawful hegetring ofchildren.''60 Iamblichus credited the Pythagoreans with the belief that sexual activity should begin late in life, be enjoyed only infrequently, and be committed always only with the purpose of procreation in mind. 61 Any other sexual activity was mere selfindulgence, which was the opposite ofmanly self-control and from which had come all of the vices. 62 There was more to the renunciation of sex, though, than either Ammianus's praise of Julian or Iamblichus's invented lives of the early Pythagoreans might suggest, something that calls into question the manly image of sexual restraint these writers invented. It is the ancient scientific theory of the medical dangers of sex and its unhealthiness to the male body. An unmanly fear of sex pervaded later Roman culture, perhaps having to do with the increased popularization of these ancient medical notions among men of the Roman aristocracy, although such a popularization is difficult to gauge. Still, the desire to avoid the dangers that sex posed to the male body probably had as much to do with the curtailing of sexual expression in the period as did the manly pursuit of the philosopher's life. Even Julian hirnself may have shared these fears. Oribasius, a fourthcentury medical writer and court physician to Julian (and, therefore, also an associate oflamblichus ), collected a lengthy series of medical opinions for his imperial patron. Included among these opinions were some that explained the dangers of sex in clear and forcefullanguage. Oribasius, like most practitioners of ancient medicine, feit that semen was purified blood and, therefore, part of what animals and human beings needed to

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live. Far a man to expel semen thraugh ejaculatian was ta deplete his reserves af vital fluid. Accardingly, Oribasius believed that a man who en~ gaged in "continual sexual excess" would drain this vital fluid fromevery .. part of the body: ·· ·· This draining process does not stop ... so if it is constantly repeat:ed ... the result will be that all the parts of the animal (or the living' creature) are ..· drained not just of seminal fluid but also of their vital spirit.... It is hardly surprising, therefore, that those who lead a debauched life become wealc, since the purest part ofboth substances is removed from their body. As weil as this, pleasure itself can dissolve vital tension to such an extent that people have died from an excess of pleasure. We should therefore not be surprised if those who indulge moderately in the pleasures of love become wealc. 63

In sum, sexwas deadly. This was not exactly a new idea in late antiquity, and Oribasius derived much af this passage from the writings af the second-century physician Galen, who borrowed it, in turn, from earlier writers. Still, earlier writers had believed in some benefit ta sexual activity if not engaged in to excess. Not even Galen toalc his ideas as far as Oribasius did: sexual abstinence was the ideal state of health, the latter maintained, bathin warnen andin men. 64 The fifth-century medical writer ~aelius Aurelianus came ta the same conclusion: althaugh sex is natural, virginity is healthier. 65 Both philosophical and medical beliefs warlced tagether ta discourage all but the most "essential" sexual activities. The notion of the vita philosophica gave a manly justification to the abandonment of sex, but the fear of the physiological effects of sex revealed its unmanly side. It was vital that sex happened, if anly within a public context af demagraphic replacement or a private context of family continuity and the transmissian of property through inheritance. But accarding ta these beliefs, procreatian was the only virtuous form of sex (anather Staic idea papularized in late antiquity), that is, the anly form of sexthat satisfied these familial and demographic requirements, or perhaps, rather, the only form of sex warth the risk. The value placed on procreation even came through in the imperial biographies of the later empire. The authar of the HistoriaAugusta said admiringly if wishfully af Pescennius Niger that "as far intercourse with warnen, he abstained from it wholly save for the purpose af begetting children?'66 Same refused even pracreative sex after Constantine repealed the laws denying inheritances ta unmarried and childless persons. Ammianus camplained that in his day the childless and unmarried were easily the most popular individuals at Rome, he concluded, because everyone wanted to be remernbered in their wills. 67 Fears abaut sex

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may weil have played apart in the refusal by these individuals to marry or have children. THE CHANGIN_G DEFINITION OF PUDICITIA

Locatingmanliness in this procreative sexual ideal remained an important requirement, and writers of the later empire cleverly ·referred to the ideal with the andent term pudicitia (sexual modesty). In a general sense, pudicitia and its ·opposite, impudicitia (sexual immodesty), had always marked the limits of male sexuality. The pudicus (sexually modest man) acted in a sexually appropriate manner; the impudicus (sexually immodest man), in contrast, acted inappropriately. 68 Significantly, the terms had always been virtually synonymaus with manliness and unmanliness. When writers of the later Roman Empire used pudicitia and impudicitia to describe specific sexual activities, however, it becomes clear how much had changed from the classical uses of the term. What is also clear is how much the revised concept ofpudicitia resisted men's attempts to find manliness in sexual restraint. Perhaps it seems odd to characterize a sexual ideal designed to shore up the manliness of later Roman men as undermining it. To understand this point, it is important to realize that.classical Roman writers had also used the concept of pudicitia to describe women's sexual behavior, but used it in very different ways than for men. The pudica (sexually modest woman) was she who kept her virginity before marriage, reserved her sexual behavior exclusively to her husband once married, and abstained from sex in widowhood after marriage. This was the ancient Roman sexual ideal for women, an ideal that did not so much celebrate any innate goodness in women as it did successful control of women by their male guardians. Even in the early empire, when women under the age of fifty who refused to remarry were restricted in their rights of inheritance, the ideal of the woman devoted to one man (univira) remained intact. The strict ideal of pudicitia for men in the later empire defined appropriate sexual relations in exactly the same way as it had for women. In doing so, later Roman writers and legislators again obscured the distinction between men and women, integrating their roles in the arena of sexuality and contributing to the subversion of traditional notions of masculinity and the traditionalgender boundaries. The clearest example of the elimination of differences between men's and women's sexual ideals is in the area of adultery. In earlier Roman law, adultery (adulterium) was a crime only if it involved a married woman. Although both men and women could be prosecuted as adulterers, only

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the marital status of the woman had juridical significance. In other words, a married man who had sex outside of marriage was not liable. for pros(:cution under the law against adultery unless he did so with a marr.led. woman. Moreover, according to the system of patria pot;estas, adulte.ry · was primarily an offense committed agains~ the man under who~e au". thority the guilty woman lived. The old laws against adultery reinforced a woman's sexual purity within marriage, confining her se.iual expression solely to her husband, while leaving her husband's sexual conduct largely unregulated. 69 In the later Roman Empire, however, married men came to be subject to restrictions similar to those placed on married women. The beliefthat men should be bound by the same principles as women in cases of adultery actually came first from the writings of some of the Stoic philosophers of the early empire?0 It was only in the later empire, however, that this belief was translated into law. Ulpian suggested that in determining the guilt of an adulterous woman A judge ought to lceep before his eyes and to inquire into whether the husband by his own chaste life [pudice vivens] was also setring his wife an example of cultivating sound morals; for it appears the height of injustice that a hus band should demand ofhis wife a purity [pudicitia] which he does not show.-himself. 71

By the fifth century, Ulpian's opinion was considered as the equivalent of law. In this way, a woman's standard of marital sexual behavior now became a man's. Such changing standards for men's sexual behavior required a new vocabulary. Accordingly, the Latin language imported a term from Greek, moechia, to use for the broader category of extramarital sex, whether committed by a married woman or a married man, and the term moechus specifically for a married man who engaged in sex outside of his marriage. 72 A fourth-century law referred to "the disrespectful of marriage" (sacrilegi nuptiarum) perhaps as a term meant to include both husbands and wives who had sexoutside of marriage. 73 The otherwise unattested term muliercularius, from Constantine's law restricting divorce, has also been interpreted as a synonym for moechus, that is, a married man who has sex outside ofhis marriage, but its meaning is not that clear. (Again, more on this term below). Beyond the specifics · of these legal and terminological changes was a sexual ideal that bound men and women by the same moral code. The future emperor Julian wrote a panegyric to his predecessor, Constantius II, declaring on the matter of e.."ttramarital sex that "all that is forbidden to women by the laws that safeguard the legitimacy of

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offspring, your reason ever denies to your passions?'74 Julian called this attimde "the fairest exarnple of modesty [sophrosyne], not to men only but to women also?' 75 The Greelc termsöphrosynej used for the philosophical ideal of self-control, was also the usual translation for the Latin pudicitia. 76 Apparently manly reason did not only prevent men from engaging in extrarnarital sex in the later empire but also i:urtailed their traditional freedorri to exploit their hoiisehold slaves for sex. In earlier times, Roman men who owned.slaves had often made use of them for sexual purposes (including both male and female slaves, as we will discuss below). According to one classical source, sex with slaves was sex "close at hand and easlly obtairrable?'77 While the possibility of such relationships remairred legally open to men of the later Romannobility and continued in discreet practice throughout the period, it was considered a wealcness and a fault according to the rigid code of morality and its model of male pudicitia. 78 In his autobiographical poem, for exarnple, Paulinus ofPella offered this comment on sex with slaves: lest I should heap heavier offences on my faults, I checked my passions with this chastening rule: that I should never seek an unwilling victim, nor transgress another's rights, and, heedful to keep unstained my Cherished reputation, should beware ofyielding to free-bom loves though voluntarily offered, but be satis:fi.ed with servile amours in my own home; for I preferred to be guilty of a fault [culpa] rather than of a crime [crimen ], fearing to suffer loss of my good name. 79

Paulinus excluded three criminal possibilities of sexual outlet: rape, because his partner would be unwilling; adultery, because it would transgrc:ss a husband's rights; and sex with a freeborn partner, because it would darnage his own reputation, since he might be found guilty ofinfamia for seducing an unmarried person. So he engaged in sex with his household slaves. It would not darnage his reputation, he added, since he could not be found guilty of infamia because of it. He might equally have added that neither would it transgress another's rights since the slaves were from his household, nor was the consent of the slaves relevant since they were legally chatteland not persons. 80 Many Roman men may have felt the sarne way that Paulinus did. Paulinus's mention of rape as a possible outletformale sexuality deserves comment. Early Roman law had prosecuted cases of rape as a type ofinjury (iniuria). As with adultery or other offenses committed agairrst an individual under the authority of a pateifamilias, the injury was considered as inflicted agairrst the husband or father of the victim and compensation was due to him. 81 The unlawful sexual penetration ofunwill-

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ing women, as opposed to other types of assault, was specifically prohibited only from the early fourth centuiy, in a law issued by Constantin~. 82 As has been pointed out by other historians, the law did not distinguish between rape and seduction, that is, between an unwilling:pariner.anq.a· partner who was originally unwilling but whose consent was everitually obtained. 83 It has also been suggested that rather than prohibiting rape per se, the law might have been invalidating so-called abductive mar~ riages, in which the sexual act between the prospective couple circumvented the families' negotiations and possibly the families' opposition to the match. 84 If this is true, the unlawfulness of the sexual act remained, since it was committed without the consent of the woman's father. Alegal definition of rapein a later Roman contextmight be sex initiated without consent, whether that consent was the woman's or that of her paterfamilias. In any case, the issuance of this legislation and the severity of the punishments may point to an intensified awareness of rape as a serious sexual transgression by men. Men who abducted women for the purpose of sex were to be executed without possibility of appeal. 85 Even clarissimi> the men of the senatorial rank, were warned in law that whoever "would carry off a virgin [vi1lJinem rapuerit]" would suffer the sarne penalty as those oflesser rank. 86 If a man killed a rapist when proteering either himself or .il member of his family, he would be acquitted of any charge of homicide. 87 In the context of the increased social disorder of the later empire, these laws may weil have been necessary reminders of the lirnits of men's sexual behavior. (We might also note at this point a law of Constantine, which threatened with exile and lass of property a man who was given charge of an orphan girl ifthat girlwas found at the time ofher marriage nottobe a virgin. 88 ) Even if Paulinus considered the sexual use of slaves as a lesser offense than sex with an unwilling or unlawful person, his remarks also refiected the reluctant sexual use of slaves in the later empire. This reluctance is less likely related to a greater concern for the personhood of slaves than it is an appreciation for their overall value in a period of a declining agricultural population, slave revolts, and foreign raids. The jurist Paulus implied the latter view in his legal opinion: "He depreciates the value of a slave who persuades him to talce to fiight or to commit theft, or who corrupts his morals or his body. " 89 Corruption (corruptio) is the term most often used to describe sexual relations with a slave, and a term that implies darnage or spoilage of property. Corruption may also mean the devaluation of the slave simply as the result of the sexual experience. Paulus used the term elsewhere to refer to the defiowering of a female slave and the penetration of a male slave, perhaps implying the first encounter in both cases.90

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The concern for the darnage done to a slave through sex with a master, however, appears to result not only from the lesser resale value of the slave, but also from the effects on the moral atmosphere in the home. Pauhis described not önly "the hurt done to the essential quality [sub·Stantia]" of aslave u~ed for Sex but also an "overturning (eversio J of the whole hou:Sehold;'' 91 The context for his statement is unclear. It may be a reference to the blurring of the distinctions between the social classes if children were born from the union, although Roman law had long dealt with the offspring.ofmale mastc;:r-female slavesexual relationships with precision. 92 His statement is more lilcely a reference to the rupture of the marital bond, emphasized in later Roman discussions ofpudicitia. 93 lnterpreted as such, the statement accords with the greater restrictions on men's sexual behavior. Legal sources recognized the constraints that the prohibitions against sex with one's own slaves placed on the individual male, but defended these constraints nonetheless. Ulpian wrote with disdain of the master who "has acted cruelly to his slaves, or forces them into sexual impropriety [impudicitia] and a shameful violation;''94 He continued by quoting from an earlier imperiallaw that ordered slaves to be sold from such a master, a law that did not exactly support his argument: "The powers of masters over their slaves certainly ought not to be infringed and there must be no derogation from any man's legal rights. But it is in the interest of masters that those who malce just complaint be not denied relief against brutality or starvation or intolerable injury. " 95 Diocletian and Maximian maintained that even if he did not become liable for a charge of infamia, a man's reputation suffered when he used a female slave (ancilla) for sex; his fault, they added, was "an excessive Ionging for sexual pleasure [Iibido intemperatae cupiditatis];''96 Alaw ofConstantine referred to sexual unions between free men and slave women as ''unbecoming" [indigna ], although it did not forbid them. 97 Severallaws of the later empire imposed the restriction on the slaveholder that his slave "not be prostituted" (ne prostituatur), 98 and removed yet another sexual oudet for men. A close relationship existed between prostitut:ion and the sexual exploitation of slaves, since most prostitutes of both sexes were slaves owned by the men or women who ran the brothels in which they worked. 99 Exhortations similar to those against sex with slaves voiced disapproval of men who frequented prostitutes. Distaste for prostitution is evident in many of the writings of the later Roman Empire. Although prost:itution remained legal throughout the history of the empire, the author of the HistoriaAugusta claimed that the emperor Severus Alexander, a man much admired, had considered out-

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lawing it, "but he feared that such a prohibition would merely convert an evil recognized by the state into a vice practiced in private-formen when driven on by passion are more apt to demand a vice which is proh:ib~ . ited." 100 N onetheless, prostitution is described terms :of "eviP' apcl· "vice," and the moral underpinnings of thi.s description are .veiy ·much . in keeping with the more restrictive sexual morality of late antiqcity. Severus Alexander may well have investigated the possibility of criminal ~ izing prostitution, perhaps as a way of distancing hirnself from the reign of his cousin and predecessor, Elagabalus, who-if we can believe the HistoriaAugusta- both spent his free time with prostitutes and even occasionally dressedas one. 101 Instead, Severus Alexander continued to collect the tax on prostitution, as did all the Roman emperors until the sixth century. 102 For econornic purposes, at least, prostitution continued to be tolerated. Severus Alexander did enact a law erderingthat ifa female slave soldunder the ne prostituatur condition was made to serve as a prostitute, she could be immediately freed. 103 In the fifth ceritury, the Christian emperor Theodosius II extended this law, erdering any slave forced into prostitutiontobe freed. 104 Sirnilarly, he erdered that any father who prostituted his children forfeit his patria potestas over them. 105 The moral constraints on prostitution in the later empire provide the most rsliable context for the interpretation of the uncertain term muliercularius from Constantine's law restricting divorce. Remember that Constantine's law had forbidden a wife to divorce her husband for being one, a clause that implies it was considered a serious breach of marriage, although ultimately not one serious enough to initiate a divorce. The root of the term is muliercula (little woman), used occasionally for young girls as in the phrase "young boys and girls" (pueri et mulierculae) but standing by itself most often used for immoral women, especially prostitutes. A muliercularius) it seems likeliest, was a man who visited female prostitutes, unproblematic for most Roman men of the classical era and for which there existed no Latin term, but requiring a newly coined legal term in the later empire. (The same could not be said of a man whom we would consider an adulterer, which is how muliercularius is usually translated by scholars, since there already existed a term for such a man in later Latin, moechus.) 106 The legislative efforts against men's adultery, against their sex with hausehold slaves, and against their visits to prostitutes, provide proof for a remarkable shift in the Roman moral stance from earlier traditions of male sexual behavior. Even if they were never effectively enforced (and all indications seem to show that they were not), such laws represented a radical shift in acceptable sexual behavior formen. Men rnight ignore the

m.

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restrictions on their sexual behavior, but such actions were increasingly interpreted as transgressive. The ideal worked to hold men in the later Roman Empireto the same standard ofpudicitia as warnen. IMPUDICITIA AND P;EDERASTY

The·changing nature ofpudicitia in late antiquity obliged men to confront and ultimateiy to reject another of the most central features of ancient male sexuality: pederasty, or the sexual penetration of adolescent males by adult males. Traditional Roman views of male sexuality emphasized adult men's sexual roles as penetrators; more significant than the sex of their sexual partners was a respectable difference in the partners' ages. 107 We cannot know the extent to which individual preferences directed some men toward warnen alone, others toward young men alone, but the writings of the classical period assume a more-or-less equal sexual disposition toward warnen and young men. Most of the writings on sex between men and the slaves of their households that were detailed above, for example, mention both male and female slaves or refuse to mention either (recall the vague recollections of Paulinus of Pella, for example, who did not mention the sex of any of his "servile amours"). The ethic that encouraged the sexual availability of warnen, young men, and slaves ofboth sexes to adult males corresponded neatly with and probably originated in men's social dominance over these groups. 108 Still, Roman pederasty was never wholly unproblematic. Since sexual penetration defined male sexuality, tobe male and to be penetrated -even if only temporarily while an adolescent-threatened one's manliness, especially since the age at which the young man was supposed to switch from penetrated to penetrator was always vaguely defined. Roman custom dealt with this threat in irrteresring ways. Romans consistently described pederasty as a Greek practice imported into Roman culture. Perhaps the acceptability of the practice had been encouraged by cultural contact with the Greeks. lt may also have been easier for Romans to distance themselves from those aspects of the practice they regretted by describing it with Greek terms, using Greek literary models to document their feelings, or denouncing it as a Greek vice imported from the effeminate East. The Christian writer Tertullian, for example, in alludirlg to the sexual penetration endured by a slave boy, had only to mention that he was ''used as a Greek [utitur Graeco] ?'109 N onetheless, there were distinct differences between the conventions of Greek and Roman pederasty. Unlilce the Greelcs, Romans frowned upon the sexual penetration of free adolescent males, even while they permitred the penetration of male slaves. An

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attempt may even have been made to criminalize the sexual penetration of free males in the late republic with the lex Scantinia) although so little is known of the law that it is difficult to discuss it with certainty, and it parendy went mosdy unenforced. no By stigmatizing sex with free adoles.~. ··. centmales, Romans sought to guarantee that #le men who wouldbecome their future socialleaders would not be tainted by sexual passivity. Romans also denounced sexual passivity in adult males and vociferously con-. demned the men they called cinaedi ( a Greek-borrowed word), males who refused to switch from penetrated to penetrator, but denounced them with a frequency that belies the effectiveness of any prohibition. So central was this stigma of sexual passivity in adult males that it could be described simply as impudicitia in the dassical Latin sources-that is, as the opposite of what was appropriate to male sexuality.m No figure aroused more disgust because ofhis sexual passivity in late antiquity than the emperor Elagabalus, and so he is a useful starring point for our discussion of pederasty and impudicitia. Eiagabalus's biographer in the Historia Augusta vacillated between horror and titillation in a lengthy discussion ofElagabalus's desire for sexual passivity and penetration, a passivity heightened in effect by emphasizing Elagabalus's preference for sex with men with large penises: "he did nothing but send out agents t~ search for those who were 'well hung' [bene vasati] and bring them to.the palace in orderthat he rnight enjoy their vigor.''112 Or again:

a;p- ..

He made a public bath in the imperial palace and at the same time threw open the bath ofPlautianus to the populace, that by this means he might get a supply ofwell-hung men [bene vasati]. He also took care to have the whole city and the wharves searched for "mule-like men" [onobeli], as those were called who seemed particularly virile [viriliores ]. 113

Elagabalus is called impurus (impure) and obscenus (obscene) and infamis (infamous) and lu.xuriosus (voluptuous)Y 4 Over and over again, his biographers returned to the theme of his unmanly sexual desires. "He was more degenerate than any unehaste or wanton woman could ever be;' exdaimed Aurelius Victor with horror.ns These suggestions about Elagabalus' sexual behavior, however, require some darification. To begin, they are merely part of the general unmanly reputation in which Elagabalus was held (alongside his supposed cross-dressing and his championing of the use of eunuchs, as we saw in the last chapter, and his association with prostitutes, earlier in this chapter), and arenot necessarily tobe believed. Elagabalus's sexual reputation also seems to have been exaggerated over time. All that Cassius Dio (his contemporary) said of him was that he "appeared both as manly and as

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unmanly [kai gar endrizeto kai ethelyneto ], and in both relations conducted hirnself in the most licentious fashion." 116 Admittedly, not all of Cassius Dio's account ofElagabalus has been preserved, but the historian might simply. have been indicating that Elagabalus participated in sexual -activity _both as _the penetrating and penetrated partner. Indeed, Blagabalus was-linked publidy with older male companions-and was presumed, according to the- conventions of age difference,- to be the penetrated sexual part:IJ.er of these men- but was also married three times and was believed to enjoy sexual relations with these women. There is nothing in Cassius Dio's account that suggests the sexual scandal and debauchery of the later histories. Furthermore, Elagabalus was only fourteen years of age when he took the imperial throne, an appropriate age to engage in pederasty as the penetrated sex partner, even if as emperor he had a political responsibility to marry far earlier than most Roman males. But his boy.ish sexual behavior could not be reconciled with his manly imperial identity. "Who could endure an emperor who was the recipient oflust in every orifice ofhis body?" opined the author of the HistoriaAugusta long after the fact. 117 The manliness of the emperor could not be in question without challenging the linlc between political authority and masculinity. An emperor who behaved in a way that threatened his manliness could not be tolerated: Elagabalus was overthrown and assassinated after only four years as emperor. Later generations ofhistorians in turn justified his deposition and murder by magnifying the transgressive nature of his sexual behavior and gender identity, with tales of insatiable sexual passivity, fl.aunted transvestism, and open debauchery. Elagabalus was, nonetheless, no isolated instance of reputed impudicitia in a Roman emperor. The emperor Commodus was tainted with the same sort of sexual scandal as Elagabalus. Commodus "defiled every part ofhis body, even his mouth;' claimed the author of the HistoriaAugusta> "in dealings with persons of either sex?ms He was "orally and anally debauched?m9 He consorted in public with "mature and grown-up men" (puberes exoleti), again an implication that they were the sexual penetrators in their dealings with him. 120 Similar rumors circulated about the third-centuryusurper Opellius Macrinus (ruled217-218), who was said to have been ''unchaste in mouth [oris inverecundus] as well as spirit?' 121 When acclaimed emperor by the Senate, someone shouted: ''Anyone rather than the depraved one [incestum]! Anyone rather than the polluted one [impurus] !"122 Roman writers had always found such impudicitia in adult men a cause for concern. There is no reason to believe, despite one historian's attempt to convince us otherwise, that the proliferation of statements against sex-

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ual passivity represented some increase in the number of men who participated in it or their liberation from the restrairrts of the stigma attached to it. 123 N or should specific accusations be believed, especially when leveled agairrst the emperors, since such accusations had always be':n a powerfu1. ingredient of political invective and satire an~ an extremely effective way . ofdiscrediting a male rival or political opponent. 124 Particularly in the later empire, when the imperial succession was such a chaotic combination of the dynastic principle and the emperor's free choice of his successor, any man handpicked by his predecessor for the throne was open to the insinuation that hissexual favors had helped secure his place in the imperial succession.125 Still, the emperor acted as focus and exemplum for Roman masculinity generally, in sexual behavior as elsewhere, and so it should not be surprising to see the accusation of sexual passivity frequently made agairrst emperors in a period when the relationship between pederasty and the sexual manliness of its participants was in question. Behind the antipathy towards the penetrated adult male, the impudicus) lay once agairr the traditional Roman beliefin the absolute separation of masculine and feminine. Men and women should exhibit the appropriate sexual characteristics. Men should be sexually dominant, should talce pleasure in sex, and should penetrate. To be dominated sexually, to give pleasure, and to be penetrated was the province of women. To use the mal~ body as if it were a female one was to misuse it and to call into question the absolute distinction between masculine and feminine. Of course, it was precisely the absoluteness of this distinction that the changes to masculinity in the later Roman Empire had called into question. It is not surprising then that many later Roman writers evinced real anxiety about impudicitia and the impenetrability of the male body- and beyond that, about the sexual manliness of all Roman men. The Romantradition of pederasty was increasingly viewed as a violation of male pudicitia because it threatened-even temporarily-that great divide between masculine and feminine. The threat may be clarified through the example of a comment on the practice of pederasty among the barbarians. Ammianus Marcellinus described the sexual customs of the Taifali, an otherwise unlcnown group of northern barbarians who associated themselves with the Goths. He wrote: I have been told that this people of the Taifali are so sunk. in gross sensuality that among them boys couple with men in a union of unnaturallust, and waste the flower oftheir youth in the polluted embraces oftheir lovers. But if a young man catches a boar single-handed or kills a huge bear, he is exempt therefore from the contamination of this lewd intercourse. 126

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The language that Amrnianus used says much more about his feelings toward his contemporaries. within the empire than those outside it. The sexual practices he was describing were known throughout t4e Roman Empire, and he was likely as familiar with pederasty from local custom as ·'fr.om report.S about barbarians. The main difference that separated the Taifali from the inhabitants of the Roman Empire (arid we must read between the lines to appreciate this difference) w~s the manly action ofhunting that ended the sexual relationship. The Roman world had no similar endpoint to turn the boy unambiguously into a man. Roman men- a cantrast Ammianus also left uns'aid -continued such unseemly sexual effeminacy into adulthood because they were not able to prove their manliness once and for all. When the manliness of all men was in doubt, society could no Ionger afford the sexual customs that questioned the manliness of individual men. The lade of a precise endpoint to the period of adolescence when a young man might be excused for talcing a passive sexual role, the lade of a defining manly moment as Amrnianus Marcellinus suggested happened among the Taifali, meant that some Roman men of late antiquity continued to pursue sexual passivity into adulthood, depilating themselves and painting their faces to appear younger and more like boys. Elagabalus, for example, was said to have shaved and pludeed hirnself to disguise the growth of adult male body and facial hair, but he was not the only one. 127 The trouble with pederasty, in other words, was that a young man might not know when to stop. Commodus, who was nineteen years of age when he took the throne, no Ionger had the excuse of age for hissexual passivity (and was also eventually assassinated). The bigger problern of manliness lay behind the problern of pederasty, as the examples of Elagabalus and Commodus and of many others brought into unpleasant focus. Sexual passivity in maleswas also the subject of satire in late antiquity. The poet Ausorlius devoted a series of epigrams to the shame of the impudicus, using fellatio as a particularly strong point of ridicule. 128 In one poem, a man sucks his wife's fingers so that he rrlight not rrliss any opportunity to practice performing the action. 129 (Note the taleen-forgranted bisexuality, which has the man married and still enjoying sex with males.) In another, Ausorlius spelled out in Greek the action that he accused a man of doing-"he licks [leichei]"-adding coyly that "it is not seemly that I should say such a nasty thing in Latin;"130 (Again, note the implication that the sexual morality of the Greeks would perrrlit such a mention). Several of his poems hinge on the malodoraus breath of the man who enjoys oral sex. 131 There is nothing particularly new in Auso-

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nius's satire: Roman poets had made artistic use ofthe same cultural discomfort with sexual passivity in meri for centuries. What can be seen for the first time in the later empire, however, is: an .. attempt to translate the social sanctions against maie ·impudicitia i.ö.to.le- · gal prohibitions. In the judicial opinion of Ulpian, for examph!, mih ; "whose body has been opened like a woman's" was guilty of infamia> that legal category of unmanliness. 132 In the opinion o{Paulus, no male should enduresexual penetration for any reason, even the threat of death, because "for decent men a fear of this kind ought to be worse than the fear of death." 133 Paulus might also have suggested that any man who had submitred sexually to another should have half of his goods confiscated. 134 These legal opinions gradually became codified as law in late antiquity. The anxiety surrounding sexual passivity in men in the later empire also meant that for the first time the legal and social sanctions against impudicitia in men were extended to the active partner, who despite his manly penetration, participated in the feminizadon of his partner. The penetration of unwilling males was punishable by death from at least the beginning of the third century. 135 A fourth -century irnperiallaw similarly denounced men "who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a woman's, to the sufferance of an alien sex;' and exacte~ the death penalty. 136 This law, though, did not specify that the penetrated partner had to be unwilling. An epigram of Ausonius, although intended as satire and not as legislation, made the same point:

a

"Three men are in a bed together: two are committing sexual misconduct [stuprum] and two are having sexual misconduct committed against them?' "I think that malces four?' "You are wrong: give the ones on either side a single offense [crimen] and the one who is in the middle two, because he is doing it and having it done to him?'137

Stuprum was the ancient term for any unlawful type of sexual misconduct. Ausonius used it herein an active sense (stuprum committunt, "they are committing sexual misconduct") when it involved the action of the penetrating partners, and used it in a passive sense to refer to the penetrated partners (stuprum perpaiuntur, "they are having sexual misconduct committed against them;' or "they are undergoing sexual misconduct"). Buthe described both as offenses (crimina). Legaldefinitions ofstuprum began specifically to include the unlawful sexual penetration of males alongside the unlawful penetration of women. 138 The intended result is obvious: to shore up an eroding masculine identity with new and wider prohibitions against sexual passivity in males. In narrowing the field of activities included within the realm of pudicitia>

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however, the same writers who sought to present their ideal of sexuality as manly, seeing it as self:.restraint, contributed to a new and unmanly restriction of men's sexual freedoms by widerring the field of transgressive sexuality.In pärticular, the shili: in attitudes toward pederasty in the later empire me;int that the adult, penetrating partners in pederastic relationships also ca:me into disrepute. Such a shili: of attitudes is apparent in descriptions of the sexual encounters of emperors in the imperial biographies. Cassius Dio's idealized depiction of the emperor Trajan (ruled 97-117), for example, required this half-hearted apology: I know, of course, that he was devoted to boys and to wine, but if he had

ever committed or endured any base or wicked deed as the result of this, he would have incurred censure; as it was, however, he dranl~: all the wine he wanted, yet remained sober, and in his relations with boys he harmed no one. 139 Both actions were minimized. A century and a half later, though, historian Aurelius Victor admitted to Trajan's fondness for wine in apologetic tones but passed over in complete silence his pederastic pursuits. 140 Perhaps such behavior could no longer be dismissed as easily in the fourth century as it had been in the third. Trajan's successor Hadrian (ruled 117-138), whom Cassius Dio praised at length, was criticized in the HistoriaAugusta for his "excessive lust [nimia voluptas]:' including his relationship with the young man Antinous. 141 Perhaps because of the seeming incongruity between Hadrian's manly martial abilities and the unmanliness ofhis pederastic involvements, Aurelius Victor dismissedas "evil gossip [rumores mali]" the notion of a sexual relationship between him and Antinous. 142 Examples of the denunciation of adult pederasts by later Roman writers abound. The emperor Carinus was a "frequent corruptor of youth [frequens corruptor iuventutis ]:' which the author of the Historia Augusta defined as the "evil use of the enjoyment ofhis own sex.''143 The poet Ausonius offered the opinion that if the transmigration of souls truly existed, a pederast deserved to be reincarnated as a bug (a dung beetle, in fact, malcing a witty allusion to the enjoyment of anal sex). 144 Attempts were also made to criminalize or recriminalize pederasty beginning in the third century. As the jurist Paulus wrote: Anyone who debauches a boy under the age of seventeen, or commits any other outrage on him, whether he is abducted by him or by a corrupt companion; or who solicits a woman or a girl, or does anything for the purpose of corrupting their chastity, or offers his house for that purpose, or gives

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them any reward in order to persuade them, and the crime is consummated, shall be punished with death; if it is not consunimated, he· shall be deported to an island, and his profl.igate accomplices shall suffer the extreme penalt:y. 14~

After a long absence, moreover, references to the Iex Scanti~ia begin. ag.Jri to appear in the sources. 146 Some later Roman poets continued to describe the beauty of the aciolescent male. Yet even they shared with their contemporaries an amciety about the manliness of such attraction and its connection to a discredited form of sexual desire. The poet Claudian dedicated a panegyric to the young emperor Honorius. "The women ofRome never tire of gazing at those blooming cheeks:' he declared, "those crowned locks, those limbs clothed in the consul's jasper-studded robes, those mighty shoulders, and that neck, beauteous as Bacchus' own, with its necldaces ofRed Sea emeralds. " 147 Even while Claudian as poet recognized the beauty ofthe emperor, and even while he compared his appearance with that of the youthful (and sexually ambiguous) god Bacchus, he nonetheless attributed the ionging solely to "the women ofRome:' Roughly the samethingwas said of the young Maximinus (ruled 235-238) by the author of the Historia Augusta: "He hirnself was so beautiful that the more wanton of women loved !Vm indiscriminately, and not a few desired to be gotten with child by hini:'148 A similar discomfort with the adult male's appreciation for youthful male beauty may be found in an anonymous poem once attributed to Ausonius. The poet suggested to a nameless youth that "while nature was deciding whether to malce you a boy or a girl, beautiful one, you were made a boy who is almost a girl:' 149 The poetwas rescued from the implication of pederasty because the object ofhis affections was only ambiguously male. The poet's desire is further disguised and yet further admitted with the phrase paene puella puer (a boy who is almost a girl), since in late ancient Latin it would have been a virtual homonym for pene puella puer (a boy who is a girl with a penis ). In his poetry, Ausonius addressed a boy as ''Adonis" and "Ganymede," traditional ideals of youthful beauty and both associated in pagan myth with pederasty, and alluded tothat age when the object ofhis affection "seem[ ed] either a boy or a girl:' 150 Ausonius's poems on the beauty of N arcissus (another mythical ideal of youthful male beauty who feil in love with his own reß.ection in water) have a similar tone: one included the female figure of Echo who feil in Iove with N arcissus, but the other two imagined a male admirer who gazed at N arcissus in the same way he gazed at hirnself 151 Pederastic desire seems still to have existed in adult men, but they were no Ionger able to act on it with impunity.

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The reformulation of male pudicitia in the later empire virtually necessitated the abandonment of any sexual relationships between males as failings, regardless of the age of the participants or the type of sexual activity enjoyed. The poet Nemesianus represented the end of a tradition · when he described two shepherds who compared their loves: one for "the beautiful girl Meroe" (Meroe formosa) a:nd the other for "the beautiful boy Iollas" (formosus Iollasi as "the same passion for different· sexes." 152 No other statements .about pederasty in late antiquity share the positive perspective ofNemesianus. Even themedical beliefs oflate antiquityworked to give added weight to these fears. The physician Oribasius wrote that sex between males was morevigoraus and more tiring than sex between a man and a woman and should be more avoided to preserve the body's health. 153 Ifprocreative sex could be excused or risked because of familial or demographic obligations, sex between boys and men had no such justification. The results of the later Roman sexual code are straightforward. Both adult and adolescent participants in pederastic relationships were condemned. The ancient dichotomy in classical sexuality between penetrated males who were stigmatized and penetrating males who were not-emphasized in recent secondary Iiterature on ancient homosexuality as not really being homosexuality at all-was largely abandoned in late antiquity in favor of a condemnation ofboth roles as unmanly. A new vocabulary of sexual vice appeared, using terms like stuprum cum masculo (sexual misconduct with a[nother] male) that did not distinguish between active and passive roles in homosexual sex but subjected both to censure and legal impediments. 154 In sum, the later Romannotion ofpudicitia required men not only to keep their bodies free from penetration but also to refrain from a whole series of penetrative acts not previously sanctioned: with young men, with slaves and prostitutes of both sexes, and with warnen other than their wives. An individual man wanting to preserve his manliness, wanting to be a pudicus, was still required to act only as a sexual penetrator, but only with his wife. In turn, an impudicus was not merely a man guilty of sexual passivity with another male but a man tainted by any sort of sexual impropriety. Indeed, sexual desires of all sorts were suspect. Already at the end of the second century, Marcus Aurelius had written that "sins of desire, in which pleasure predominates, indicate a moreself-indulgent and womanish [thelyteros] disposition?' 155 Later Roman writers returned repeatedly to this theme, exhorting men to :fl.ee from sexual desire generally as from "a beast, operring its capacious jaws?n56 Physiognomie portrayals of the deformed bodies of oversexed men (called inverecundi, "the

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inunodest;' or libidinosi) "the lustful") demonstrated what could happen if men ignored these warnings. 157 · By exhorting men to rise above their physical natures and bodilyde-. •· sires, later Roman writers affered men an opportunity to exercise g:teat~r · self-control in their very bodies and thus to demonstrate their TJirtus.· Even while the stricter sexual attitudes were translated into the ancient gendered language of manliness and unmanliness, however, ·i:he distinctions between men's and women's sexual roles were becoming blurred by the integration of the pudicitia of both sexes. Warnen were still expected to serve as passive sexual recipients of men's desires, to be sure, and men were still considered to function as sexual agents. Nonetheless, men were judged by a feminine Standard of sexual restraint and sexual exclusivity, hardly a manly thing at all. THE SEXUALITY OF EUNUCHS

Eunuchs performed useful functions in the later Roman hauseholdtheir numbers and cost would seem to indicate something of the sortbut they also provoked great anxiety in the household, particularly in the realm of sexuality. Eunuchs served as reminders of two of the greatest probleiifS of men's sexuality in the later empire: their control ofwomen and their control of themselves. Once again, eunuchs embodied the great changes talcing place in Roman masculinity. In Roman households, as in eastern Mediterranean households, eunuchs performed a variety of domestic tasks. Foremost among these tasks was the guardianship of warnen and children. The eunuch's supposed inability to engage in penetrative sex made them eminently suitable for protecting the pudicitia of such persons. The poet Claudian called the eunuch's ability of safeguarding the chastity of a man's wife and children his "sole virtue" or "one manly quality" (unica TJirtus). 158 Cassius Dio related with horror an incident in which an early third-century prefect had had over one hundred men castrated, but this measure had been taken so that his virgin daughterwould be above reproach in allher dealings with these men, who wereher attendants and teachers. 159 .As a child, the future emperor Julian's tutor had been a eunuch, a Scythian slave who had also taught his mother. 160 So removed were eunuchs from the sexuality of men in some eyes that warnen apparently felt no embarrassment at including them in the most intimate of surroundings. The Christian Jerome criticized the practice by which warnen might bathe tagether with eunuchs, because the latter still have "men's feelings" (animi virorum ), but he was stricter than most, and

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also felt that Christian virgins should not even see themselves naked. 161 In order to humiliate Eutropius, the eunuch consul, the poet Claudian reminded his readers of some of the man's former domestic duties, duties · : that describe certain intimacies between eunuchs and women (even ifwe · ·canilot be c.ertain that EJJ-tropius had ever really performed such duties): and so the future consul and governor of the Bast would comb bis mistress' locks or stand niliced holding a silver vessel wherein bis charge could wash herself. And whert overcome by the heat she threw herself upon the couch, there would stand this patrician fanning her with bright peacock feathers.l62

Because of the familiarity of eunuchs with women's bodies, they might be called upon to act as investigators of the virginity of potential brides, a custom about which the Christian Lactantius also complained. 163 Even as eunuchs were intended to guard the sexual integrity ofwomen on behalf of the men of the household, however, they also gave women a new degree of independence. In the ancient Roman world, a woman of the upper classes was not permitred to travel in public except in the presence of men, but for reasons of female pudicitia the only men with whom she might associate were her relatives. A noblewoman's eunuch slaves provided public transportation, acting as her porters and carrying her in sedan chairs whenever she traveled in public, allowing her to travel without her male relatives. 164 At the time when the laws were granring greater freedoms to women to act independently in the arrangement of their affairs, eunuch slaves were providing the material basis to mal~e such independence possible. The assignment of eunuchs as personal slaves to women also assumed that castrated men could not engage in sexual activity: an unreliable assumption and the basis for much male anxiety. Some eunuchs continued to have sexual desires, as Jerome complained above_ Some might even act on those sexual desires, he added elsewhere; for that reason it was best that women not associate themselves with eunuchs, "so as to give no occasion to evil tongues?'165 Claudian slandered Eutropius in much the same way, calling him his mistress's nutritor, a word presumably of his own design meaning roughly a male wet nurse. 166 Claudian's point was to ridicule Eutropius's former physical intimacy with a woman, like that between a wet nurse and her ward, but left unsaid what sort of intimacy they had enjoyed. The third-century Christian writer Tertullian made this accusation agairrst the women of his day: "A great many of them, even those of noble birth and blessed with wealth, unite themselves promiscuously with mean and base-born men whom they have found able to

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gratify their passions or who have been mutilated for purposes oflust?' 167 And although it does notmention eunuchs by name, a law ofConstantine threatened the severest punishments for a noblewoman who w~s · found tobe having sex with one ofher male slaves (she wastobe st:dpped of allher possessions and exiled; he was to be lcilled). 168 In short, sex be- ·· tween warnen and eunuchs was always possible. Eunu~s with penises · intact might still achieve erections and engage in penetrative sex without the worry ofimpregnating the warnen in their charge. Even eunuchs unable to engage in penetrative sex could give sexual pleasure to warnen in non-penetrative ways such as in cunnilingus. Cunnilingus was an unmanly sexual activity from a traditional Roman perspective, because a man gave sexual pleasure instead of received it, but eunuchs had no manly reputation to preserve. The unmanliness of eunuchs also meant that they were presumed to have no ability to restrain themselves from all kinds of sexual vice-but then, neither did the warnen. . The intimacy between warnen and eunuchs and the ability of eunuchs to move about in public as weil as in the women's quarters in the Roman hausehold meant that eunuchs could also act as go-betweens on behalfof married warnen seelcing sexual affairs with other men. In his description ofEutropius's career, Claudian asserted that the eunuch-consul had excelled <~;t just such a thing: he entered upon the skilled profession of a pander. His whole heart was in his work; he knew his business weil and was master of every stratagern for the undoing of chastity. No amount ofvigilance could protect the marriage-bed from his attack; no bars could shut him out. . . . None could arrest the attention of a maid-servant [from guardingher mistress] with so neat a touch as he, none twitch aside a dress so lightly and whisper his shameful message in her ear. N ever was any so slcilled to choose a scene for the criminal meeting, or so clever at avoiding the wrath of the cuclcold husband should the plot be discovered. 169

Claudian probably meant to hintthatEutropius's behind-the-scenes conspiracies as a domestic slave acted as a rehearsal for his equally wiclced machinations at the imperial court. lt is impossible to lcnow how often warnen had sex with eunuchs or used them to arrange sexual encounters with other men. In any case, the real issue here is men's anxiety araund such possibilities. The wanton lade of self-control in sexual matters was not only a sign of the eunuch's unmanliness but also a humiliating reminder of a husband's failure either to satisfY his wife sexually or at least to guard her against sexual involvements with other men. In this way, the eunuch figured as a symbol of

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men's broader marital anxiety. The scenes that Jerome or Tertullian or Claudian described, even if imaginary, must be interpreted in the context of the loss of men's authority over their wives and the sexual morality restrictingmen's sexual freedoms. In such an adulteraus fantasy, the eunuch coU:ld do with impunity whatother men could no Ionger do. The eunuch ·represented the wantön man. The presence of euriuchs in the later Roman hausehold triggered other masculine an.-Tieties around sex, anxieties related to the penetration of males. Although the practice is ignored by most historians, Roman men sometimes castrated their male slaves so as to prolong their youthful beauty for pederastic relations with them. 170 Given the Roman cultural emphasis on the attractiveness of youthful males, the widespread lcnowledge of castration, and the near absolute control of masters over their slaves, it should not be too surprising to find references to the Castration of slaves for sexual purposes. The jurists Paulus and Marcian both implied that sex was as likely a motive for the castration of a slave as resale: both used the phrase "for purposes oflust or commerce [libidinis aut promercii causa]" when referring to the motives for castration. 171 Considering the later Roman restrictions both on sexual behavior between males and on the use of slaves for sexual purposes, however, it should not be surprising to find this sort ofbehavior problematized. Claudian is once again a rich (if complicated) source on the topic ofsex between men and eunuchs. In a carefully euphemistic passage, the poet alluded to a connection between Eutropius's sexual services to men and his lofty position of infiuence in the empire. Although the passage is ostensibly about his generaus patronage of the aristocracy, Claudian implied with dripping sarcasm that Eutropius's generosity with his sexual talents provided the real cause for his political success: He ever loves novelty, ever size, and is quick to taste everything in turn. He fears no assault frorn the rear; night and day he is ready with watchful care; soft, easily rnoved by entreaty, and, even in the rnidst of his passion, tenderest of rnen [mollissimus], he never says 'no: and is ever at the disposal even of those that solicit hirn not. Whatever the senses desire he cultivates and o:tfers for another's enjoyrnent. That hand will give whatever you would have. He perforrns the functions of all alilce; his dignity loves to unbend. His rneetings and his deserving labors have won hirn this reward, and he receives the consul's robe in recornpense for the worlc of his slcillful hand.l72

Claudian also claimed that Eutropius's lengthy sexual history had included a sexual relationship with the Ieeeper of a hostel [stabulum] named

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Ptolemy, before being discarded and sold by him after "Eutropius' lang service to his lusts" because he was "rio langer worth keeping.'n 73 By say: ing that Eutropius had reached an age at which he was no langer sexually desirable, however, Claudian was obliged to understore Eutropius'spre~ vious sexual attractiveness as a young eunuch. Claudian acerbly co:m:pared the relationship between the two to a marriage, with Eutropius as the pseudowife discarded from the harne. In an age in whlch the law had curbed a man's ability to dismiss an unwanted wife, such a statement itself had a cultural resonance. Claudian managed to moclc in the same breath both the relationship and Eutropius's less-than-masculine identity: How the scorned minion wept at bis departure, with what grief did he lament that divorce! "Was this your fidelity, Ptolemy? Isthis my reward for a youth lived in your arms, for the bed of marriage and those many nights spent together in the inn? Must I lose my promised liberty? Do you leave Eutropius a widow, cruel wretch, forgetful of such wonderful nights of love? How hard is the lot of my kind! When a woman grows old her children cement the marriage tie and a mother's dignity compensates for the lost charms of a wife. Me Lucina, goddess of childbirth, will not come near; I have no children on whom to rely. Love perishes with my beauty; the roses-'of my cheeks are faded.'' 174

Eutropius had failed not only as a man, by the constant reference to his feminine role as wife, but had even failed as a woman, incapable of true marriage or the children that reward a wife's faithfulness. In this period of declining birthrates, the mention of childlessness again touched a cultural nerve. Claudian's record of this sexual relationship between a man and a eunuch is obviously not a reliable one. Other evidence would suggest, however, that such sexual relationships between adult men and eunuchs were not uncommon. Even the emperor Dornitian (ruled 81-96) who fust outlawed castration had "himselfentertained a passion [erös] for a eunuch named Earinus:' according to Cassius Dio, and the emperor Titus (ruled 79-81) "also had shown a great fondness for eunuchs.'' 175 More detailed is the description of the marriage ofNero to the eunuch Sporus. Cassius Dio claimed that "he used him in every way lilce a wife [hösgynaiki]?' 176 Nero also "formally married Sporus;' according to Cassius, "and assigned the boy a regular dowry according to contract; and the Romans as weil as other peoples publicly celebrated their wedding.'' 177 "All the Greelcs held a celebration in honor of the marriage;' Cassius claimed, "uttering all the customary good wishes, even to the extent of praying that legitimate chil-

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dren might be born to them?' 178 Cassius took his information on the relationships ofNero, Titus, and Domitian largely from the older imperial biographies of Suetonius and Tacitus, although his account is much more detailed on the inclusion of the traditional aspects of marriage between Nero and Sporus. 179 Aurelius Victor repeated some ofthese features of the marriage in"his biography ofNero, but·then added that it was "of no great account" because ofNero's many other evil deeds. 180 · Aurelius Victor's dismissal of this event as being "of no great account" is curious, because he wrote his history on the heels of a law on the very subject of the marriage of two males, enacted in 342 by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans. The law imposed the death penalty "when a man marries in the manner of a woman [in feminam ], as a woman who wants to offer herself to men, where sex has lost its place, where the offence is that which is not worth knowing, where Venus is changed into another form, where love is sought but not seen." 181 The law is oddly worded, and various opinions have been affered as to its best translation and interpretation. 182 All of the secondary literature seems to interpret it as attempting to prohibit marriages between two adult males, although the language seems overly complicated forthat purpose, and it has been argued that intimate relationships between adult males used ceremonies of fraternal adoption to effect a band with legal consequences for the transmission of inheritances. 183 It seems that what the legislators had in mind were precisely those sexual relationships best known through marriages between men and eunuchs in which the castration of one of the parties provided the context for the feminization of the castrated man and his marrying "in the manner of a woman?' N owhere does the law mention eunuchs or castration outright, but this is not unexpected: later Roman legislators typically used :ß.amboyant and vague language to malce their points on sexual matters. Consider a more-or-less contemporary law also issued under the name ofConstantius II: "If any person ... should commit any wiclced or shameful act or by chance should violate the chastity of anyone with the shame of lust, vengeance of appropriate severity must be extended against him?' 184 In the same way, a law of about a century later issued under Leo I and Majorian rails at "the outragethat resulted in another man's sorrow" and "a case of the disgrace of destroyed chastity and that highest crime in which is contained all that is unworthy of a man?' 185These laws should all be seen as avoiding direct reference to an indelicate subject. In fact, nowhere in the Theodosian Code is Castration mentioned directly or eunuchs named as such. 186 The condemnation of the action by which "sex has lost its place" andin which "Venus is changed into another form:'

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parallels exactly the idea of the mutability brought about by castration from a later, fifth-century law, in which Leo II referred to eunuchs. as "transformed into entirely different beings.'' 187 In the end, the evidence that the emperors were forbidding marriages between men arid eliti.uc}is. by means of this law is not conclusive, but i~ more reliable than aiterna:: tive explanations. If the law of 342 is understood as prohibiting the marriages of men with eunuchs, then a subsequent law of the year 390 can also be given a new and clearer social context. This law extended the death penalty from men who married eunuchs to men who had any sex at all with eunuchs, in the words of the legislators, men "who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a woman's, to the sufferance of an alien sex, for they appear not to be different from women.''188 Like those laws forbidding the castration or corruption of one's slaves, the force of this later law was directed agairrst the men who performed the action rather than those who were subjected to it. 189.The language ofboth laws hints at a profound belief in the ferninization of males used for sexual pleasure. Given the uncertairrty about the sexual identities of eunuchs and their comrnon presence in elite households of the later Roman Empire, it is possible that formal marriages, believed valid, were being performed between men and those "whom the male sex has discarded;' in the words of the poet Claudian. Claudian's dismissive account of Eutropius's relationship with Ptolemy may also refer to such a marriage, twisted to suit his purposes, and his antipathy may be related to that of the fourth-century legislators. Although the custom of Castration provided Roman householders with a method for the maximized sexual enjoyment of their male slaves, it could not escape the growing problematization of the sexual use of slaves or of men's participation in sexual activity with other males, even within the private sphere of familiallife. The growing movement agairrst Castration was a remirrder of this intrusion of new social and sexual values into the Roman farnily. Moreover, the presence of men, even castrated men, in intimate association with either the men or the women of a Roman household created as many problems, real or irnagined, as it solved. Roman men of the aristocracy no Ionger enjoyed the same absolute authority over the women of their households, nor even the same freedoms over their sexual desires, as they once had. The presence of the eunuch in the later Roman household provided only another remirrder of the loss of manliness in men's private lives.

PART TWO

Changing Ideals

CHAPTER FOUR

11

1 AM A SOLDIER OF CHRIST" Christian Masculinity and Militarism

Christian men oflate antiquity shared with their pagan counterparts a desire to see themselves as manly, a desire also threatened by the military crisis of the Roman Empire. They also worried about the unmanly stance of victimhood. Out ofthat desire and because of those worries, Christian men fashioned for themselves the image of the soldier ofChrist. From the martyrs, who represented the bestand bravest soldiers ofChrist, the image grew to encompass all Christian men, whose daily struggles against sin and temptation- against the !ffiiDanliness of vice within themselveswere identified as warfare against evil. These moral batdes were sufficient to men and did not require further bloodshed in actual combat. Through the image of the soldier of Christ, Christian ideology was transformed in such a way that Christian men of the later Roman Empire might find manliness even in the midst of military collapse. PATIENCE AND PACIFISM

Christian writers were well aware of the disastraus military predicament of the Roman Empire in late antiquity. Indeed, they penned some of the most dramatic descriptions of the barbarian invasions. "My voice sticks in my throat, and as I dictate, sobs cholce my utterance:' cried the priest Jerome upon learning of the sack of the city ofRome in 410 at the hands of the Goths. "The City which had talcen thc;: whole world was itself taken." 1 Several decades earlier, the Christian bishop Ambrose of Milan described the barbarian attaclcs with equal horror: "How could you bear these things, I wonder, which we are compelled to endure, and what is 105

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worse, to behold: virgins raped, little children tarn from the embrace of their families and thrown onto swords, bodies consecrated to God defiled .... How could you talerate them, I ask?"2 And a half-century later, Sidonius Apollinaris used similar pathos, concluding that "arnid those calarnities, that universal destruction, to live was death." 3 Many more Christian writers echoed these sentiments. Like pagan writers, Christian writers used the ravages of the barbarians to deliver indictments of the Romans and their moral character. Salvian of Marseilles, a priest writirrg about the middle of the fifth century in Gaul, claimed that God had permitted the attacks because of the Roman people's many sins. He wrote: Among chaste [pudici] barbarians, we are unehaste [impudici]. I say further: the very barbarians are offended by our impurities. Fornication is not lawful among the Goths. Only the Romans living among them can afford to be impure by prerogative of nation and name. I ask: What hope is there for us before God? We love impurity [impudicitia]; the Goths abomirrate it. We ßee from purity; they seek it. Fornication among them is a crime; with us a distinction and an ornament. 4

He concluded, perhaps responding to popular explanations, that "it is not the natural vigor of their bodies that enables them to conquer us, nor is it our natural wealcness that has caused our conquest." Rather, he contirrued, "the vices of our bad lives have alone conquered us?' 5 Salvian's comments were almost assuredly exaggerated for rhetorical purposes. Still, it reminds us that Christian writers linked the military catastrophe to their identity as Romans. (lt also suggests that Christian writers might have highlighted the catastrophe for their purposes, which we will see were to highlight the futility of a military response to the crisis of the empire.) Let us concentrate on the response of one Christian writer to the barbarian invasions. That writer was Augustirre ofHippo, a Christian bishop in North Mrica and one of the most prolific and mostfarnaus of early Christian writers, writirrg mostly in the first decades of the fifth century. His comments will be used as a linchpin in this chapter and as evidence of a careful Christian response to the military crisis of the later Roman Empire. From the example of Augustirre, we will be able to situate more generally the shaping of Christian ideology by individual writers in response to the military crisis and to the challenge that this crisis posed to Roman masculinity. Augustirre certainly learned of the horrors of the barbarian invasions and the sack of the city ofRome in 410, and he drafted a series of sermons

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in order to console the Romans stunned by the implications of current events. 6 He was also aware of the accusation of some pagans that the Roman abandonment of the traditional gods was the cause of the military disasters ofthe empire. This accusation promptedAugustine to compose his lengthiest worlc, De civitatis Dei (On the City of God) following the saclc. Augustine's reply to this accusation was twofold. First, he asserted that it was only because of the Christian god's providence that the destruction was somewhat mitigated. 7 Second, he demonstrated that the violence and victimization of warfare was nothing new to Roman history, but was a natural consequence of what he called "the lust for domination" (Iibido dominandi) that had dominated the Roman cultural mentality. 8 Indeed, he maintained that the effects of war were always dire and among the greatest tragedies of human life. 9 (Such Statements are an important antidote to much of the secondary Iiterature on Augustine and war, which details his concept of the just and justifiable war but neglects to document his fundamental opposition to war.) Considering the emphasis on militarism among Roman men, it is curious that Augustine and his Christian contemporaries were able to distance themselves from the failure of the empire and from its militaristic tradition without at the same time sacrificing their masculine identity. Yet this is precisely what they did. To understand how this distancing was possible, it is important first of all to appreciate the strong antimilitaristic tradition among the earliest Christians in the West. This antimilitarism appears especially in the hagiographical stories of individual Christians in the Roman army. One man named Maximilian, as he was inducted into the army at Tebessa in the Roman province of Mauretania in 295, refused to join, saying that "I cannot wage war, I cannot do evil. I am a Christian?' 10 When the soldier Martin ofTours converted to Christianity in Gaul in about 356, he resigned when faced with battle, declaring that "combat is not permitred to me?'11 Such antimilitarism also found support among the earliest Christian writers of the West. Tertullian, writing in North Mrica at the turn of the third century, toolc a rigid stance against Christian involvement in war. 12 Hippolytus of Rome toolc a similar position shortly afterward in decrees intended as binding on Christians. 13 Scholars examining the Christian prohibition on military service have offered various explanations for it. Some see it as part of a general pacifism in early Christian ideology, which precluded any shedding ofblood. Others see its origins in the Christian condemnation of idolatry, since occasional ritual worship of the emperor was required of all soldiers until the year 312, after which Constantine permitred Christians the free prac-

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tice of their religion. There is no need to rehearse the arguments of these scholars, who all see a sea change after 312. All recognize that after that date-whether through a falling away from the early pacifism, or because of the end of emperor worship, or because of the growing Christian domination of public life-individual Christians regularly served as Roman soldiers, prayers were offered to the Christian god before battle, and Christian symbols replaced pagan ones on soldiers' shields and army banners.14 It is not necessary to reconcile entirely these opinions; rather, one must respect the possibility that different Christiansheld various viewpoints on the permissibility of soldiering according to diverse traditions of interpretation and specific cultural influences, and that these viewpoints might have contradicted each other. Still, it is also possible to see a broad path in Christian attitudes- both before and after the year 312in which participation in war happened and was permitted and yet not encouraged. 15 From this perspective, it does not matter that there were numerous Christian soldiers in the Roman army from the second century onward, which seems indisputable. Nor does it matter that the army was thoroughly Christian by the end of the fourth century, which also seems likely. For it was not the Christian men of the army, but the men who refused to be made soldiers, men like Maximilian, or the soldiers who refused continued service, men like Martin, who were seen as the Christian ideal. 16 Sources from the period after 312 confirm this antimilitarist ideal even while permitting Christian soldiering. Augustine declared that no sin was involved in soldiering as a profession, in a letter addressed to a Christian military commander, but even he feit war to be a necessary evil at bestP The bishop Paulinus of Nola in southern Italy attempted to persuade a Christian soldier to abandon his military career by appealing to his religious ideals. 18 Leo the Great, bishop ofRome in the middle of the fifth century, called military service "free from fault;' although he believed that refusal to fight was a better option, and ordered that a public penance should be required for Christian soldiers after the end of their secular career. 19 Several church councils and bishops argued for a ban on former soldiers becoming Christian priests, precisely because the sinful nature of the former could not be reconciled with the special holiness expected of the latter. 20 These writers all recognized more or less that military service was a part of life for Christians of the later Roman Empire, but they also held up the refusal to participate in war as exemplary and as a higher ideal.

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The Christian ambivalence toward military service, permitring it but recommending against it, stemmed in part from the reluctant reconciliation of Christian ideology to a militaristic society. But the ambivalence can also be better understood by placing it within the context of the tension between traditional and ernerging ideals of masculinity. Military identity was seen as a sign ofRoman manliness, but the Christian ideal of nonviolence-the virtue known as patientia) usually blandly translated as "patience" but from the Latin patiri) "to endure, suffer, submit to"-was in arealsense based on an ideal of passivity and ofbeing a victim. Again, if we return to the earliest days of Christianity in the western Mediterranean, we see how central a theme this quality of patience was to Christians and how it was defended. Tertullian, who devoted a whole treatise to the encouragement ofpatientia) called it "the height ofvirtue and manliness" (summa virtus). 21 Needless to say, this ideal of patient submission contrasted sharply with the myth of the Roman as bellicose aggressor, driven by the ideal of the vita militaris. Christian men of the western Mediterranean in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries had to step gingerly to find their way between these opposing ideals. Let us look, then, at the tension between patientia and militarism in the Western Christian tradition to clarifY what was at stakeformen in the development of an ideology of being a victim. Cyprian, the mid-thirdcentury bishop of Carthage in North Mrica and one of the earliest Latin Christian writers, also devoted an entire treatise to the subject ofpatientia. He understood it as an attitude offorbearance to all oflife's ills: When any man is born and enters the abode of this world, he begins with tears. Although even then inexperienced and ignorant of all things, he can do nothing else at his birth except weep. With natural foresight he laments the anxieties and labors of this mortallife, and at its very beginning, by weeping and lamentations his young soul testifies to the trials of the world which he is entering. For he toils and labors as long as he lives here. Nothing else can relieve those who labor and toil more than the consolation derived from patience. 22

It is easy to see how a philosophy offering such consolation could have been attractive to men of the later Roman aristocracy, fraught with a sense of their helplessness in the collapsing empire. The idealization of such impotence as the virtue of patience offered at least a method for Roman men to begin to malce sense of their lives through Christian ideology. (One also hears more than a few echoes of Stoic thought in this ideal.) Cyprian, continuing in a later passage in the same work, touched

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on the very areas of upheaval in men's lives as examples where patience was most helpful: marriage and sexuality, wealth and power. He wrote: It is that same patience which tempers anger, bridles the tongue, governs the mind, guards peace, rules discipline, breaks the onslaught oflust, suppresses the violence of pride, extinguishes the fire of dissension, restrains the power of the wealthy, renews the endurance of the poor in bearing their lot, guards the blessed integrity ofvirgins, the difficult chastity of widows, and the indivisible love of husbands and wives. lt makes men humble in prosperity, brave in adversity, meek in the face of injuries and insults. 23

In many ways, patience was a resignation to the life and lot of the later Roman male. Christian writers did not describe patientia only in terms of passivity or resignation, however, but also with metaphors of triumph and success. Endurance in suffering was, as Cyprian and Tertullian reminded their readers, a virtue with many Biblical precedents. Indeed, Cyprian dealt at length with the model of patience provided by Jesus, who, he reminded his readers, had still overcome the world, and he equated patience with the Roman ideal of .firmitas (steadfastness). 24 These metaphors of triumph and success became the foundation for the idealization of patience and a key to the transformation ofRoman masculinity through Christian ideology. The ideal ofpatientia is apparent, above all, in the deaths of the Christian martyrs who, during the time especially of the third-century persecutions, served in many ways as visible signs of Christian perfection. Indeed, the perfection of the martyrs came precisely from their willingness to become victims. 25 Cyprian claimed just that, giving the example of Stephen, revered as the first of the martyrs, "who, in preceding by his mostfitring death the martyrs that were to come, was not only a preacher of the Lord's suffering but also an imitator ofHis most patient [patientissima] gentleness?'26 The more violent the attacks on Christians, Cyprian maintained, the more unresisting should be the individual's response. 27 In a letter to a friend, Cyprian addressed the persecutors directly on behalf of the Christian martyrs: "no one of us fights back when he is apprehended, nor do our people avenge themselves against your unjust violence however numerous and plentiful.''28 The victimization embraced in Christian patience and martyrdom were obviously contrary to traditional Roman standards of masculine militarism. Pagan critics of Christianity were quick to point out the unmanliness inherent in such a willing acceptance of violence and death. Or

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at least, this is the viewpoint preserved in the hagiographical and historical sources of the martyrs-all written by Christians-in which the stigma of unmanliness is often included as an aspect of the pagan antagonism toward the Christian martyrs. When the martyrs ofLyons in 177 were brought into the arena just before their deaths, the crowd taunted them as lowborn [agenneis] and unmanly [anandroi]. 29 When the soldier Martin ofTours refused to fight, his commander ridiculed his reluctance as unmanly cowardice, saying that "it was fear of the battle which was to occur the next day that was causing him to refuse participation, not any religious motive?' 30 Some Christian men were willing to accept this label of wealmess and unmanliness as part of the hurnility required by patience and to leave the retribution for such attacks to God. As Cyprian wrote, the ultimate victory of God made the individual's victory unimportant. 31 Other men tried to find ways both to remain true to what they felt to be their Christian ideals and to counter pagan imputations of unmanliness, or perhaps also to allay their own concerns about their manliness. These men made frequent reference to the paradox of the Christian reversal of symbols, in which weakness was strength and defeat was victory, to create a manifesto for a new Christian masculinity. They embraced the paradox that a man might find military success even in patientia. MILITARISM AND MARTYRDOM

The number of Christian writers who attempted to defend their manliness, despite the seeming wealmess and passivity of the Christian ideal of patientia) demonstrates how important the preservation of a masculine identity was to Christian men in late antiquity. The supreme act of Christian patience was to be martyred, and so it is in the accounts of the martyrs that the manliness of pacifist and patientChristians is most often invoked. Indeed, as we will see, the Christian martyrs were said to represent the new militaryideal of masculinity. As early as the beginning of the third century, Western Christian writers defended the manliness of pacifist Christians. "For what wars should we not be fit:' asked Tertullian, "even with unequal forces, we who so willingly yield ourselves to the sword, if in our religion it were not counted better to be slain than to slay?"32 In other words, Christians would have made the best soldiers, exactly because of their steadfastness in facing suffering, had their religious beliefs not discouraged them from participating in war. In his account of the life ofMartin ofTours, written

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two centuries later, Sulpicius Severus drew upon precisely the same motif, defending Martin's manliness despite his pacifism: Martin undismayed [by his military commander's charge of cowardice, noted above ], was made all the bolder by the attempt to intimidate him. "If my act is setdown to cowardice [i!Jnavia] rather than to faith;' he said, "I shall stand unarmed tomorrow before our lines. In the name of the Lord Jesus and proteered only by the sign of the cross, without shield or helmet, I shall penetrate the enemy's ranks and not be afraid?' 33

Martin's bravery was never tested, Sulpicius noted, because God interverred and the enemy cancelled the battle. A similar storywas also told of Victricius, a former soldier who became bishop of Rouen in Gaul in the early fifth century. Victricius was supposed to have faced torture gladly for his refusal to continue fighting in battle. Again, his couragewas never tested, since God struck his torturer with blindness. 34 The emphasis on the manliness of the martyrs can be seen, above all, in the military metaphors that Latin writers used to describe the martyrs, especially in the manly posture of the "soldier of Christ" (mi/es Christi). The origins of this image are uncertain, though the phrase had been mentioned in earliest, Biblical Christianity, and there are other Roman, Hellenistic, and Jewish uses of the metaphor oflife as a battle, some of which might have been in circulation in the westernMediterranem in the third century C.E. 35 Among the Latin writers of late antiquity, though, the phrase "soldier of Christ" was turned into the heart of a sophisticated (and complicated) defense ofChristian manliness. Tertullian was the first Christian writer to use the image of the soldier extensively, at the beginning of the third century, and he did so precisely in order to defend the manliness of Christians. Its first appearance occurs exactly in an apology for Christian victimization that Tertullian directed at pagan critics: It is quite true that it is our desire to suffer, but it is in the way that the soldier longs for war. No one indeed suffers willingly, since suffering necessarily implies fear and danger. Yet the man who objected to the conflict, both fights with all his strength, and when victorious, he rejoices in the battle, because he reaps from it glory and spoil. It is our battle to be summoned to your tribunals, that there, under fear of execution, we may battle for the truth. But the day is won when the object of the struggle is gained. This victory of ours gives us the glory of pleasing God, and the spoil oflife eternal. ... Therefore we conquer in dying; we go forth victorious at the very time we are subdued. 36

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The paradox to which Tertullian alluded, that in the martyrs' seeming defeat they conquer, is simply the first instance of what would become a general theme in Latin Christian writings about masculinity: that true manliness is found in apparent unmanliness. In refusing to be soldiers, Tertullian argued, Christians werein fact showing themselves to be more militaristic and manlier than their pagan counterparts. The idea was a radical reworking of the traditional Roman military identity. In a work addressed to the potential martyrs themselves, Tertullian returned to the same theme. He counseled those Christians imprisoned in the latest round of persecutions by the Roman government to count their hardships as a type of military discipline of their virtus for the battle ahead that was their approaching death. He wrote: No soldier comes out to the campaign laden with luxuries, nor does he go to action from his comfortable chamber, but from the light and narrow tent, where every kind of hardship and roughness and disagreeableness must be put up with. Even in peace soldiers inure themselves to war by toils and inconveniences-marching in arms, running over the plain, working at the ditch, making the shed, engaging in many arduous labors. The sweat of the brow is in everything, that bodies and minds may not shrink at having to pass from shade to sunshine, from sunshine to icy cold, from the robe of peace to the coat of mail, from silence to clamor, from quiet to tumult. In like manner, 0 blessed, count whatever is hard in this lot of yours as a discipline of your manliness [virtus] of mind and body. 37

His description is reminiscent of countless descriptions of the vita mili-

taris. Tertullian's use of the military metaphor to describe Christians derived perhaps from some connection to the combination of militarism, masculine identity, and religion found in Mithraism. 38 Tertullian had a certain familiarity with the Mithraic religion and is one of our best sources of information about the cult in the West. At one instance, he wrote: "ifl remember Mithraism on this point;'39 when referring to an aspect of the religion, which some scholars have interpreted to mean that he had been an adherent ofMithraism before his conversion to Christianity. At the least, the Statement implies a prior acquaintance with Mithraism, perhaps through his father, who might have been an army official. 40 It is also possible thatTertullian may have adopted the military image from Mithraism because of its potential for popularity among the Roman population of Carthage where he wrote, since many of the Carthaginians in the third century were descendants ofRoman soldiers retired onto estates there. 41 Tertullian did explicitly contrast the Mithraic soldier with the soldier of

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Christ, even while noting the similarities between the two images, complaining ofhow the euernies ofChristianity ape certain religious truthsY The image of the Christian soldier, however, functioned for Tertullian in exactly the same manner as it had for the Mithraists. lt gave a military flavor to religious devotion when describing the victory of individual salvation. In this context, Tertullian's use of the term solely to refer to martyrs, those individuals for whom the victory of salvationwas assured, is noteworthy. Indeed, Tertullian in one passage called martyrdom a second baptism ofblood instead of water, an image that also invites camparisans with the ceremony of initiation of Mithraism, called the taurebolium) in which initiates were drenched in the blood of a slaughtered bull. 43 The soldier was also a uniquely masculine image, another parallel between Christian soldiering and the religion of Mithras (again, a religion that was open only to men). Christian writers were well aware of the masculine connotations ofbeing a soldier ofChristwhen they described the martyrs, as we can see if we look at their descriptions of female Christian martyrs. Warnen were certainly among the early martyrs, and they were highly praised for their courage and willingness to suffer evil. 44 The fourth-century Christian historian Eusebius, for example (who wrote in Greek, but whose account was translated at the end of the same century into Latin by Rufinus and known in the West), detailed at length the strength and courage ofBlandina, a woman executed in Lyons in 177.45 Nonetheless, at no point did he or any Christian writer oflate antiquity ever call any woman a "soldier of Christ.'' (Paulinus ofNola is the only writer that even comes close to doing so, referring to Melania the Eider as "a woman, inferior in sex, fighting for Christ [militans Christo] with the virtues ofMartin;' but even he stopped short of using the expression miles Christi to describe her. 46 ) The real importance of the soldier-of-Christ symbol, one might suppose, was not in its origins but in its uses for Western Christian ideology. The qualities that the ancient Romans had so adrnired in soldiers could be emphasized as the qualities that the Christian martyrs exhibited. For instance, a parallel might be easily drawn between the eagerness of soldiers for battle and the eagerness ofChristians for martyrdom as equivalent indications of bravery, just as Tertullian did. 47 Tertullian's use of the term sacramentum (usually translated as "sacrament;' but meaning a militaryvow ofloyalty) for Christian baptism isanother example ofthe implications of the military metaphor for Christian ideology. Several scholars have analyzed the military roots of this term in detail, noting among other facts that the term was by Tertullian's day already used to describe the rite of initiation into other religions, notably the Bastern mystery re-

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ligions. 48 Such an oath of initiation had been part of the Mithraic religion, where the military aspects of the cult served to emphasize the analogy between the promise of participation in the religion and the oath of loyalty taken before war. 49 Tertullian made the same connection, writing to Christians that "we were called to the warfare of the living God in our very response to the sacramental words [spoken at baptism]?'50 The model of the Christian soldier carried important ramifications for masculine identity. As an ideal of manliness, the miles Christi could talce on hirnself all of the military vocabulary of traditional masculinity: the bravery, endurance, and self-sacrifice even to the point of death, everything associated with the vita militaris. The difference between the secular soldier and the Christian soldier lay in his attitude toward victory. While a secular soldier who did not win the battles in which he fought was no good soldier, the Christian soldier won the battle by remaining passive in the face of violence and gained the victory in the very act ofbeing defeated. In short, the figure of the soldier of Christ preserved for pacifist and suffering Christians a heroic and manly self-image in what might otherwise have been considered an unmanly action. Because of this paradox, Tertullian was able to suggest to Christians (all of whom in his day were potential martyrs): "Let outrage be wearied out by your patience. Whatever that blow may be, conjoined with pain and contumely:' he declared, "you wound that outrageaus one more by enduring?'51 The stories of the military martyrs demonstrate best how Christian writers manipulated the paradox of Christian manliness. Montanus and Ludus, imprisoned during the persecutiori in Carthage in 259, were remembered as understanding their confinement as a battle for Christ: The torments we suffered in prison go beyond anything we could describe. lt is not that we are afraid to teil how bad it really was. The more intense the temptation, the more powerful is the one who conquers it within us; indeed, it is not a struggle, but rather a victory under the shield of the Lord. To God's servants it is easy to be killed; and hence death is nothing when the Lord crushes its sting, conquers its struggle, and triumphs by the trophy [trophaeum] ofthe cross. 52

(The trophaeum was a traditional memorial to victory in battle, originally a tree hung with the spoils of war, compared here to the cross on which Jesus died.) How readily this account corresponded with the experiences ofMontanus and Ludus cannot be known; the usefulness ofthe source is as an example of instructing readers of or listeners to the legend in the lessons of paradoxical Christian manliness. A similar accounting is attributed to Julius the Veteran, a soldier lcilled

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on the Danube frontier in the persecution of 304 after being asked to offer incense to the emperor as god. "I went on seven military campaigns;' Julius is supposed to have replied, "and never hid behind anyone nor was I the inferior of any man in battle. My chief never found me at fault. And now do you suppose that I, who was always found to be faithful in the past, should now be unfaithful to higher orders?"53 Interestingly, Julius here defended his secular record as a soldier: he was brave in battle and obedient to his superiors, as a good soldier should be. Of course, it was exacdy Julius's bravery and obedience to the commands of the Christian god that required him to take a stand agairrst the pagan sacrifices. The manly and militaristic image of the martyrs remairred long after the period of persecution ended. Evidence of the continued popularity of the legends of the bravery and self-sacrifice of the martyrs comes especially from a poet of the early fifth century, Prudentius, who called his accounts of the martyrs Liber peristephanon (The Book of the Crowned). Even the tide contairrs a military reference: victorious soldiers typically wore a crown of laurelleaves at their return home. 54 The first part of the work describes the legend of two soldier-comrades, Emeterius and Chelidonius of Calahorra in northern Spairr, executed sametime in the third century. Prudentius made extensive use of the contrasts between traditional and Christian masculinity. "They deemed it oflitde worth to carry javelins in hands ready for action;' he wrote, "to batter a wall with engirres of war, to gird a camp with ditches and stairr godless hands with bloody slaughterings?' 55 "They abandoned Caesar's ensigns;' he continued, "choosing the standard of the cross?'56 Finally, Prudentius concluded, it was by means of their sufferings and deaths that "the manliness [virtus] that is in the martyrs beat down the filthy devil, constrairr, torture, burn, enchairr him?' 57 The firstlegend sets the tone for the rest of the Liber peristephanon where such masculine imagery is frequendy repeated, even though the sairrts depicted in the other stories of martyrdom were not soldiers. Prudentius depicted the Roman martyr Lawrence in the same way: "In warfare Lawrence did not gird a sword on his side, but turned back the foe's steel agairrst its wielder?' 58 Andin similar words, Prudentius wrote of the martyr Vincent: "Victorious in a cruel death, you then after death in like triumphtrample victoriously on the devil merely with your body." 59 Indeed, Prudentius addressed Vincent as "bravest of the brave" (fortissimorum fortior) and "most invincible of soldiers" (miles invictissime) also malcing a play on words with his name, Vincentius, meaning "victorious" in Latin), in an obvious cantrast between the apparent reality of the martyr's defeat and the true reality of his spiritual conquest. 60

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The manly image of the martyrs had other important uses. If the persecuted Christians could be depicted as manly, then the persecuting pagans could be equally depicted as unmanly. Accordingly, Tertullian contrasted the toughness or duritia of the deaths of true Christians in the arena with the effeminate softness or mollitia of the death in bed of even a pagan pseudomartyr such as Socrates. 61 The pagan also showed his true colors in the unmanly fury with which he persecuted Christians. So Prudentius, even while stressing the complete submissiveness of the martyr Romanus ("he goes unresisting, asks tobe bound, and ofhis own accord turns his hands round behind him"62 ), nonetheless had the martyr-to-be ridicule his torturers precisely for their lack of manliness: "What unmanly [non virile] strength! What effeminate [mol/es] hands! Tothinkthat in this lang time you have failed to demolish the fabric of one poor perishing body!"63 Leo the Great made repeated references to the weakness of the persecutors in a sermon written at Rome in the mid-fifth century for the feast of the martyrdom of Lawrence (again showing the popularity of the manly image of the martyrs lang after the end of the persecutions ). Hesaid: You gain nothing, you accomplish nothing, savage cruelty! The mortal matter is subjected to your inventions, but when Lawrence climbs to the sky, you lose. Your flames could not overcome the flame of the love of Christ, and the fire that consumed without proved weaker than the fire which burned within. Perseentor! You became the slave of the martyr when you raged against him [sennsti . . . cum saevisti]; you added to his glory when you added to his suffering. 64

Leo's manipulation of opposites only reinforced the generat paradox of Christian masculinity. Armed with their paradoxical masculinity, Christian writers could not only present their martyrs as heroic and manly, but also attack the pagan persecutors of their heroes as unmanly. Christian ideology thus absorbed much of the rhetoric of manliness and unmanliness in talcing onto itself the image of military masculinity. By reversing the associations of the military metaphor and identif)ring manliness with pacifism, Christians helped to create a new masculine ideal, one that corresponded much more closely to Roman men's reluctance to engage in warfare. THE INTERIOR BATTLE AGAINST SIN

From the martyrs, the image of the soldier of Christ was eventually extended, as the image of the vita militaris had been extended, to any man.

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Instead ofbattling physical persecutors, writers encouraged the Christian man to battle his interior wealmess. In part, this reworking of the military image of Christian manliness was the necessary consequence ·of the end of persecution in 312, although references to the interior battle against sin predated the imperial edict of Christian toleration. The interiorization of the military image also permitted individual Christian men to see themselves as soldiers without having to face the supreme sacrifice demanded of the martyrs. Cyprian of Garthage was an important participant in the extension of the notion of the soldier of Christ from martyrs alone to include all Christians. Although Cyprian wrote in a period of intensified persecution of Christians in North Africa in the middle of the third century, he relied much more on preparedness for martyrdom rather than death itself as defining the Christian soldier: For he cannot be a soldier fitted for the war who has not first been exercised in the field .... It is an ancient adversary and an old enemy with whom we wage our battle .... If he finds Christ's soldier unprepared, if unslcilled, if not careful and watehing with his whole heart; he circumvents him if ignorant, he deceives him incautious, he cheats him inexperienced. But if a man, keeping the Lord's precepts, and bravely adhering to Christ, stands against him, he must needs be conquered, because Christ, whom that man confesses, is unconquered. 65

In this sense, any Christian individual, martyr or not, could be a soldier ofChrist. Cyprian added that "if persecution should fall upon such a soldier of God, his virtue [or manliness, virtus], prompt for battle, will not be able to be overcome"; and that "in persecution the warfare, in peace the purity of conscience, is crowned.''66 Cyprian extended this metaphor at length, writing how "the white-robed cohort ofChrist's soldiers . . . by a steadfast formation have broken the turbulent ferocity of an attacking persecution, prepared to suffer imprisonment, armed to endure death.''67 Again, Cyprian's emphasis was always on the readiness for martyrdom. The use of the term sacramentum for baptism, which Cyprian adopted from Tertullian, helped to strengthen this idea that a military-type oath bound all Christians, whether martyr or not (and referring to Christians as a white-robed cohort did the same, since Christians wore white robes at baptism, a parallel with a soldier's uniform). It is significant that it was Cyprian who first extended this military metaphor, given what we know of his personal history as bishop of Carthage. Instead offacing martyrdom in the Decian persecution of249 to 250, he fl.ed the city. This actionwas viewed as cowardice and as aban-

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donment of his episcopal responsibilities by some, especially by a large group of near-martyrs called the confessors. The confessors had been imprisoned and sentenced to death, but had been freed after the period of persecution ended, before the sentences against them had been carried out. Revered as living "soldiers of Christ" for their willingness to face death, their denunciation of Cyprian carried considerable weight. Cyprian returned to his episcopal duties, but for the remainder of his writing career he downplayed the authority of these confessors who criticized him. 68 The extension of the military image from martyrs alone to all Christians may even have been a conscious strategy to deny to the confessors an important part of their authority. Cyprian's ideas were also a necessary rebuttal of those ofTertullian, who had written a treatise a half-century earlier opposing ßight in persecution, describing it as cowardly and unmanly. "I had rather be one to be pitied [as a martyr] than to be blushed for [through shame because of ßightJ:' Tertullian had argued; "more glorious [pulchrior] is the soldier lost in battle, than he who has safety as a fugitive?' 69 One might also contrast Cyprian's views with those of a contemporary at Rome, Novatian, who also took a much more critical view of the Christians who fled or sacrificed during the Decian persecution, and again used the military metaphor, comparing those who had lapsed to deserters from an army out of fear of the enemy. 70 It was after the end of the period of persecution of Christians, though, in the fourth and fifth centuries, that the use of the symbol of the soldier ofChrist for all men was especially popular and widespread. This is logical, since the risk of martyrdom no Ionger existed and Christian writers were faced with the choice of abandoning the metaphor or using it in a different way. This choice is the exact point of a fifth-century sermon of Leo the Great, who urged his Christian audience not to abandon the fortitude that they had acquired "in the times when the kings of this world and all of the secular powers raged with a cruel impiety against the people of God:' but to "be vigilant and beware of the perils which are born from the very quietness of peace?' He continued: The enemy himself, who was ineffective in open persecutions, now uses hidden arts to our destruction: so that those whom he did not make flee by striking them with afflictions, he now makes fall away by love ofluxury.... The terror of proscriptions he has changed to the fire of avarice, and those whom he did not destroy with condemnations, he corrupts with lust. 71

Leo considered the Christian who resisted lust and the love of luxury as brave and as true a soldier of Christ as the martyr who faced death. The

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Christian poet Commodian concurred: "if you conquer by your good deeds, you are in that way a martyr.'072 It is easy to see how such an idea was attractive to Christian men, since it permitred any of them to view their daily struggles as part of a larger battle between good and evil. Such an idea made them the equivalent of the martyrs by being comparable followers of the "commander of the heavenly army" (dux caelestis militiae), as Ambrose ofMilan described Jesus in the late fourth century. 73 Each man might say to hirnself what Hilary of Arles is supposed to have said to his saintly predecessor as bishop in the fifth century: "In truth, I believe that no one disputes that only the occasion of martyrdom was lacking in you, and not the spirit for it.''74 Similarly, a man's daily fight against sin and temptation might take on cosmic significance when construed in the fashion of a metaphysical war against the Devil and his armies. Already in the mid-third century, Cyprian often returned to the refrain that the true enemy of all Christians was the Devil, picturing him besieging the individual as a military commander might try to take a town. "Circling about each one of us;' he wrote, "and just as an enemy, besieging an enclosed people, he explores the walls and tries to find out if any part of our members is less stable and less faithful, by which he might, approaching, penetrate to the interior.''75 It could well be that the magnification of the role of the Devil in Western Christianity in late antiquity, while also inftuenced by Bastern dualist sects like the Manichaeans, owed something to the military analogy of sin and temptation, requiring its own commander and legions. So, for example, the renunciation of the Devil at the moment ofbaptism became a standard part of the Christian rite in the third century. 76 The popularity of the image of opposing spiritual armies may also have intensified the role of the Antichrist as the future enemy of Christians, beginning with Hippolytus ofRome in the mid~third century and also described in militaryterms. 77 Individual Christian participants in such battles, in turn, could perceive themselves as heroic fighters in an invisible but consequential war. By the middle of the fifth century, the seasons of the Christian churches and the commemorative feasts of the martyrs continually reminded Christian audiences of the military fiavor of their lives. The theme of the war of the soul against sin could be found in virtually any writer preaching sermons on these occasions. Peter Chrysologus devoted a sermon entirely to the subject: [The Devil] conquers us in abundance, takes possession ofus in pleasure, gorges hirnself at our feasts, and whenever luxury does not let go of us, lust arouses us, a pagan procession carries us off, ambition compels us, wrath

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urges us, fury fills us, hatred kindies within us, desire inflames us, cares concern us, profits seize us .... Then virtues die, vices live, pleasure runs forth, respectability perishes, mercy disappears, and greed abounds, confusion reigns, order succumbs, and discipline lies prostrate. These very thingswar against the soldier of Christ; these very things are the cohorts of Satan and the legions of the Devil. 78

What is being fought here, of course-lust, love of luxury, wrath and p~ide-are the vices that were long held to make a man effeminate. The image of warfare against sin was especially popular with poetic writers. Commodian wrote: "Lust overtakes you: it is war, fight against it. Greed tempts you: do not Iisten to it, and you have won the war?'79 Prudentius used the image to its fullest effect. In his fifth-century allegory of the fight against sin, called the Psychomachia (The Battle of the Soul), the personified forces of good battle their corresponding vices in a war depicted in bloody detail. He addressed Christ as the commander-in-chief of the virtues. "You yourself command relieving squadrons to fight the battle in the body close beset;' he wrote, ''you yourself arm the spirit with preeminent kinds of skill whereby it can be strong to attack the wantonness in the heart and fight for you, [and] conquer for you. The way of victory is before our eyes?'80 Again, the attack against the vices was nothing more than a war between virtus and mollitia. It was the battle to be a man. Tertullian's link between militarism and baptism also provided a context in which fourth- and fifth-century writers could remind their audiences that all Christians, having talcen the oath of baptism, had declared their preparedness for the war against evil. In a discussion of baptism in the fourth century, Jerome called the ritual God's "protection and shield;' adding that "the enemy wars against us and never retreats, even in defeat, but always lies in ambush, ready to shoot his arrows at the upright of heart from his secret hiding place?'81 In a homily addressed to Christian catechumens preparing for the rite, Jerome repeated this idea: You, too, who are going to receive baptism, begin your preparation for tomorrow. They, who are going into battle, prepare themselves carefully beforehand. Each one sees whether he has a shield, a two-edged sword, or a spear; whether he needs arrows; whether his horse has been put into condition; he prepares his equipment and weapons ahead of time that he may be ready to fight. Your weapons are fasts; your battle is humility. 82

Examples ofChristian funerary sculpture from late antiquity also dernonsrrate how baptism was compared to battle and perhaps testifY to the popularity of the idea outside of literary circles. 83

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Christian writers generally recognized the irony in describing nonviolence in militaristic terms, but placed this within the context of the general paradox of Christian masculinity. Sulpicius Severus, in probably the most farnaus example of this disjunction of image and reality, had Martin ofTours say at his moment of conversion: "I am a soldier of Christ; it is not permitred to me to fight?' 84 But a similar disjunction appears in the anonymaus story of the martyrdom of Marcellus, killed in North Mrica in about 300: "it is not fitting that a Christian, who fights for Christhis Lord, should fight for the armies of this world.'' 85 Peter Chrysologus also emphasized the paradox of militarism in patientia: "The meek warrior is to subdue the devil, the gentle victor is to reduce the pride of the world, the peaceful fighter is to blot out the discords of nations.'' 86 But it was Tertullian who had first embraced this paradox: "let [the Devil] find you armed and fortified with concord; for peace among you is batde with him."87 One final point remains. Spiritual militarism left litde concern for the actual state of the defenses of the empire, only of secondary importance in a symbolic universe that measured victory by internal rather than external success. As Ambrose wrote: "The church conquers hostile forces not with physical weapons but with spiritual ones."88 It is with this in mind that we should return to Augustine's comments on war and violence with which we began the chapter, andin this context that we should situate the general Christian reaction to the disintegration of the Western Empire. Augustine, who believed that military service was permissible to Christian men, referred to the different batdes waged by Christians. "Same fight for you against invisible enemies by prayer;' he wrote in a letter written in 418 and after the saclc of Rome, "while you strive for them against visible barbarians by fighting.'' Nonetheless, he left litde doubt about which he considered to be the more important war, saying that the men who had renounced the world's batdes enjoyed "the highest selfdiscipline" and "a more prominent place" before God. 89 Augustine wrote his own treatise on Christian patience at about the same time. In it, he returned to the problems of the military crisisamong them, "the bitterness and uncertainty of wars, the strokes of terrific blows and dreadful wounds;' and "highway robbers, all of whom spend sleepless nights lying in wait for travelers"90 - but placed these among the troubles that should not concern the patient man. He reminded his readers of the experiences of the martyrs: In the body, theywere fettered, theywere imprisoned, theywere besetwith hunger and thirst, they were tortured, cut to pieces, lacerated, burned,

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butchered. Yet, with a faithfulness that remained unmoved, they subjected their minds to God while they suffered in the flesh whatever cmelty came into the minds of their assailants. 91

In other words, the example of the martyrs could be used to see Christians through whatever kind of physical attacks they might face, even if the age of the martyrs had passed . . In fact, the age of the martyrs had not quite passed. The Christian associates of Augustine in North Mrica were sufi'ering tortures not only at the hands ofbrigands and barbarians, but also by bands ofChristian reuegades lcnown as the Circumcellians, a splinter group of analready divided Norih Mrican Christian population. To put it as simply as possible, the Circumcellians were a branch of the Donatist Christians, who in 311 had refused to accept the election of Caecilian as bishop of Carthage and had elected their own line of replacements beginning with Donatus. Augustine belonged to the descendants of the Christian faction who had supported Caecilian; because they had the support of the imperial government and the other bishops of the empire, we can call them the Catholic Christians. Augustine's Catholic Christians claimed that the Circumcellians engaged in guerilla-type acts of violence against them. The Donatists claimed, in turn, that the Catholics harassed them and that the imperial soldiers had orders to exterminate them. The Donatist Christians wrote stories about this persecution, stories in which they considered the individuals killed by the Catholic Christians as martyrs. 92 Augustine wrote to a Donatist bishop about the Circumcellians, and complained in the letter how the Circumcellians falsely depicted themselves as martyrs. "You say that you suffer persecution;' he wrote, "and we are beaten by your armed bands with clubs and swords; you say that you suffer persecution, and our homes are robbed and ravaged by your armed bands; you say that you suffer persecution, and our eyes are put out by your armed bands with lime and vinegar.'' 93 Augustine responded by claiming that it was the Circumcellians who "are raging against us with a persecution of a new sort and of unspealcable cruelty.''94 More interesting than the Circumcellians' use of violence (after all, Augustine also believed that violence was sometimes justifiable) were the attempts by both parties to describe the violent actions against them as persecution and thus to assume for themselves the label of martyrs. lt also reminds us that among Christians of the fifth century, the image of the soldier of Christ was not merely ametaphor. Perhaps Augustine gained his perspective on the larger military problems of the empire in part from his experiences with the Circumcellians.

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In correspondence with an Italian priest in 409-that is, a year before the sack ofRome-Augustine was voicing ideas that would be found in The City ofGod. This letter began: Indeed, the whole world is afßicted with such great disasters that there is scarcely a part of the earth where such things as you have described are not being committed and lamented.... I am sure you know what cruelties were perpetuated in parts ofltaly and Gaul, and reports are beginning to come in now from many of the Spanish provinces, which had long seemed immune to these calarnities. But why go so far afield? Right here in our neighborhood ofHippo, which the barbarians have not touched, the brigandage ofDonatist clerics and Circumcellians has so ravaged our churches that the deeds ofbarbarians might be less destructive. 95

"These are sorrows to be mourned over;' Augustine continued, but "not wondered at?' 96 Instead, Augustine took a different tack. "You say that good and faithful and holy servants of God have fallen by the sword of barbarians;' he declared. "What difference does it malce whether they are set free from the body by fever or by the sword? What God looks for in His servants is not the circumstances of their departure, but what they are like when they come to Him?' 97 Augustine demonstrated here how much the image of the soldier of Christ had come to be a moral rather than physical one. In one of the sermons devoted to consoling Christians upset by the sack of Rome, Augustine contrasred the temporary sufferings of the victims at Rome with the eternal ones of the damned in Hell, for these were the true tortures to fear and the sufferings to be avoided. 98 The manly self-image of Christian men did not depend on the successes of the armies of the Roman Empire but on the victories of an interior struggle, thanks to a redirection of the military image inward. Here was a masculine image that could no langer be threatened with a sinking into effeminacy by the collapse ofRoman borders and the invasion offoreign troops, because it did not depend on outside variables such as these, but on the integrity of interior borders. Roman men who were Christians could continue to aspire to a vita militaris of steadfastness and courage and wage victorious wars of conquest, even in the final desperate years of the Western Empire and without ever piclcing up a sword, by redefining those wars in Christian terms of sin, suffering, and salvation.

CHAPTER FIVE

IIWE PRIESTS HAVE OUR OWN

NOBILITY" Christian Masculinity and Public Authority

Christian men admitted, perhaps as reluctantly as their pagan COunterparts, that public life in the later Roman Empire required them to submit to authority. Unlike pagan men, however, Christian men made their submission to an authority higher than that of the emperor or his government, namely, to God. This submission required them to assume a femi- .r nine posture, as they understood it, and some were willing to admit and even embrace the paradox of a feminine identity by referring to themselves as "brides of Christ.'' At the same time, the notion of the "bride of Christ" allowed for a new type of authority, the authority of the bishops whose intimacy with God allowed them to talce on a masculine posture, even toward the emperor. It was as bishops, then, that men of the later Roman aristocracy rescued their political identities and their social superiority and found new means to achieve manliness. FLIGHT FROM THE WORLD

Christian writers, lilce their pagan counterparts, frequently criticized the extravagant wealth and idle leisure of the nobility of their day. They were equally concerned that the upper classes were wasring their potential in the private pursuit of luxury. U nlike the pagan writers, however, Christian writers did not blame this waste and idleness on the political impotence of the Roman elite, and did not fear that by their impotence the elitewas losing its distinctive identity. Rather, Christian writers offered the suggestion that all secular pursuits were meaningless. In place of the pursuit of wealth or ofpolitical office, they advocated a complete withdrawal from the world. 125

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Complaints about the nobility's love ofluxury were a perennial feature of Latin Christian writings. Already in the middle of the third century, Cyprian described the population of Carthage in the following terms: "Each one was intent on adding to his inheritance; ... each one with insatiable greed was absorbed in adding to his wealth." 1 At the end of the fourth century, Augustine ofHippo complained in much the same tone that some ofhis contemporaries "consider that happiness is nothing eise but the enjoyment of earthly pleasures:' dismissing them as no better than animals. 2 Andin the middle ofthe fifth century, Valerian, a bishop of Cimelium on the Mediterranean coast of Gaul, also spoke out against greed for things and extravagance in food, lamenting that such vices "drag along to the depths a great part of the human race?' 3 Let us concentrate on one Christian writer who dedicated several treatises to the vanity of riches. That writer was Ambrose ofMilan. Ambrose was a member of the uppermost Roman nobility in the late fourth century: his father had been a praetorian prefect, and he hirnself had been governor of the province whose capital was Milan before being made bishop there. Furthermore, Ambrose held office at the time when Milan was the primary imperial residence in the West, and he associated hirnself with several successive Western emperors. Ambrose provides an ideal focus for our discussion of the relationship between Christian ideology and political authority. Ambrose's treatises against excessive wealth were written from the vantage point of obvious farniliarity with it. De Tobia (On Tobias) drew its title from the pious and honest merchant father in the Biblical book of Tobit. In it, Ambrose recounted at length the story of a rich man who overextended hirnself financially and brought hirnself and his family to ruin. It is easy to imagine that he borrowed his description of the man's life and home from his contemporaries: "The table is loaded with foreign and choice foods, splendid attendants are procured, purchased at great price, and to be supported at greater expense?'4 Ambrose continued his tale by describing the man's eventual ruin: Meanwhile his money flows away; his debt overflows. Time grows short, the usury increases; his treasure is exhausted, his debt is piled up.... His golden and silken vestrnents are gradually taken away and are sold for less than half their value. His wife, now in deeper misery, with tears lays aside her ornaments, that she bought too dearly, to be sold too cheaply. At the public sale the slaves are put up as table servants, and, because they are illexperienced, turn away the buyer. 5

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Eventually, the man is sold for his debt. Ambrose's point is all too clear: the security of the nobilitywill not be found in fl.eeting wealth. Another of Ambrose's treatises against riches, De Nabutha (On Naboth), was so named after the impoverished farmer in the Bible who was murdered so that the wicked rulers Ahaband Jezebel might confiscate his land. In this work, Ambrose made the comparison to and critique of his contemporaries even more explicit: "Who oftherich does not daily covet the goods of others? ... Who is content with his own? What rich man's heart is not set on fire by a neighbor's possession?"6 Ambrose declared this lifestyle inimical to the very idea ofnobility. "Tal(e care, therefore, 0 rich man, lest in you the merits of your ancestors be put to shame;' he wrote. ''Not in golden ceilings nor in tables of porphyry is the merit of an heir.m Like traditional Roman moralists, Ambrose viewed the pleasure tal(en in goods not only as ignoble but also as effeminate. He placed much of the blame for the extravagance of the upper classes on women. Addressing his presumed male readers, he suggested that the problern was that their wives will urge you to purchase female ornaments and finery. . . . She will impose upon you the necessity ofexpenditures that she may drink from a goblet set with stones, sleep on a purple couch, recline on a silver sofa, and loadher hands with gold and her neck with strings of gems. Even in shacldes do women delight, provided they be fastened with gold.... Women even enjoy wounds, so that gold may be inserted in their ears and that pearls may hang down .... Even ifhalf their patrimony be asked, they do not spare expense while they are indulging their cupidity. 8

Even if such cupidity were natural to women, Ambrose worried that it was infectious. "Let not Jezebel;' he warned hismale readers, using the Biblical queen as his symbol of feminizing greed, "dwell with you."9 Ambrose's antidote to men's idleness and rapaciousness was not, though, to encourage them to devote themselves to civic duties and politicallife. Instead, in a treatise he entitled De fuga saeculi (On Flight from the World), he recommended that men continue to distance themselves from society and public life, but encouraged them to renounce their desire for wealth and property as weil. "Let us fl.ee from here;' he wrote, "where there is nothing, where all that is reckoned noble is empty, and where the one who thinks hirnself to be something is nothing, yes, nothing at all?' 10 He added: Butthis is the meaning offlight from here-to die to the elements ofthis world, to hide one's life in God, to turn aside from corruptions, not to

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defile oneself with objects of desire, and to be ignorant of things of this world. For the world lays sorrows of various kinds upon us, it empties when it has filled, and it fills when it has emptied. And all such proceedings are empty and vain, and there is no profit in them. n

"Such a flight;' Ambrose concluded, "does not know the chill of fear, the dread of death, the despondency of anxiety, the idle life of debauchery, the festivals oflicentiousness, the stupefaction ofinsensibility:" 12 These exhortations were obviously designed with the worries of elite men in mind. Other Christian men apparently shared Ambrose's feelings about the welcome retreat from public life. Paulinus ofNola was governor of Campania in Italy, but resigned his position in 395 out of a desire to remove hirnself from the world into private seclusion (although eventually becoming bishop ofNola in 409). Ambrose said that people feit it was a shame that a man of such a prominent farnily should have abandoned the honor and status of the governorship. 13 Sidonius Apollinaris had been a military official (comes) in central Gaul but left the post to become bishop of Clermont there in 469. 14 So Christian men were abandoning secular posts as readily as their pagan counterparts. Some Christian men even attacked the notion of service to the government as inimical to the pursuit of Christian holiness. "What is the life of the decurions but injustice?" thundered Salvian of Marseilles. "What is the life of government officials but slander? What is the life of all connected with the army but pillage?"15 Ambrose's own life as we know it was such an example of the withdrawal from secular office. Paulinus of Milan began his account of Ambrose by stressing how traditional Ambrose's early career was, with its formal education and pursuit of the cursus honorum typical of Roman men: And when after being instructed in the liberal disciplines he had departed from the city [ofRome] and had taken up his profession in the court of the Praetorian Prefect, he pleaded his cases so brilliantly that he was chosen by the Right Honorable Probus, then Praetorian Prefect, to act as his advisor. After this he received the dignity of the consulship so that he should rule . over the provinces ofLiguria and Aemilia, and he came to Milan. 16

But Ambrose left this prestigious political office suddenly in 374. After the death of the Christian bishop of Milan, the people ofthat city chose Ambrose spontaneously as his successor, according to Paulinus, despite its irregularity (Ambrose was not yet baptized) and his extreme reluctance. Ambrose resisted the popular acclairn that made him bishop ofMi-

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lan, even to the point of erdering several prisoners to be tortured and entertaining prostitutes in his home, in order to show his unsuitability for the position. He tried equally unsuccessfully to flee the town at night. 17 In his own writings, Ambrose claimed an utter lack of interest in and complete unworthiness for the powerful office to which he had risen: "0 Lord, preserve this office [munusJ a public posting] ofyours, keep this gift that you have conferred even to one who fled from it. For I knew that I am not worthy to be called bishop, since I gave myself to this world. But thanks to you I am what I am, even though I am the least of all the bishops and lowest in merit." 18 More will be said about this typical declaration of humility as weil as the topos of unwillingness to hold ecclesiastical office later in this chapter. The flight from the world and from secular office that Christian writers such as Ambrose advocated was a direct abdication of the political authority so central to traditional Roman definitions of masculine identity. Christian writers seemed unconcerned about this threat to their manliness, though; different factors were obviously at work. Ambrose again provides a useful example. However reluctantly he was enrolled as the bishop of Milan, it was his public role as bishop that afforded him the platform from which to wield a new kind of authority. It was as bishop, for example, that he denounced the worldly lifestyle of others, as described above, and criticized the lifestyle of officials in the government, as Paulinus remarked: For he lamented vehemendy whenever he saw that avarice was fiourishing, the root of all evil, which can be diminished neither by abundance nor want, and was increasing more and more among men, especially among those who had been placed in authority, so that it was a most difficult task for him to prevent it among these, because all things were being torn asunder for gain. 19

Ambrose's past as governor doubtless lent weight to his denunciations of imperial officials. Obviously, Christian men were able to find satisfaction in ecclesiastical office that they did not in governmental positions. Indeed, it is probably not too much to suppose that the rapid expansion of the Christian hierarchy in this period-one fifth-century law noted how "the number of the clergy is being superabundantly augmented"- reflected the greater satisfaction that men of the no bility found in ecclesiastical rather than secular public office. 20 Paradoxically, it was their abdication from the politicallife of the empire that afforded Christian men of late antiquity the

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greatest opportunity for status and power. Even the emperor had to take notice of these men who had fled from the world. THE EMPEROR AND THE BISHOP

Men of the later Romannobility removed themselves from public life because the autocratic rule of the later Roman emperors necessitated an unmanly submission that noblemen were unwilling to make. Christian men found a new source of public authority as bishops in the local churches, an authority that allowed them to challenge the emperor in ways not previously possible, and one that required him to submit to them. In that authority, the Christian bishops found a new manliness. Ambrose again provides a helpful starring point for this topic. His claim to authority as bishop of Milan sparked several conflicts with the western emperors; four incidents are usually mentioned. The firstwas in 382, when Ambrose successfully prevented the restoration of a pagan altar to the goddess of victory in the Senate at Rome, so mething suggested to the young emperor Valentinian li (who resided in Milan) as a concession to the pagan population. The second incident occurred in 385, when Ambrose had his supporters successfully prevent with a human blockade the return of one of the basilica-churches in Milan to the worship of Arian Christians (a substantial sect within the empire and one that included Valentinian and his mother Jusrina among its adherents ). The third incident was in 389, when Ambrose persuaded the new emperor Theodosius I to rescind an order he had given, obliging Christians in the eastern town of Callinicum to rebuild the Jewish synagogue they had previously destroyed. The fourth happened a year later in 390, after Theodosius had ordered the massacre of a large number of persons in Thessalonica, when Ambrose managed to oblige the emperor to beg forgiveness for the lcilling in a public rite of penance lasring several months. In each conflict, Ambrose successfully asserted the strength ofhis position as bishop over that of the emperor. How he did so is what we will uncover. In some ways, the kind of relationship Ambrose shared with the emperor reflected a history of suspicion between church and state. Until the early fourth century, the Roman government had tried sporadically to eradicate the Christian religion, with individual emperors and civic officials sometimes taking an active role in enforcing that eradication, sometimes not. From the reign of Constanrine, however, the imperial government no longer represented such a malevalent force and even encouraged the Christian religion through numerous laws and donations (more about these below). Even the brief reign of the pagan emperor Julian in

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the mid-fourth century, however, renewed Christian fears of government-sponsored persecution. But Julian's reign did not last. By the end of the fourth century and the reign of Theodosius I, Christianity was not merely freely practiced and favored by the emperor but was the majority and official religion of the empire. Still, the suspicion continued. 21 Admittedly, the Christian piety of the emperors from Constantine on sometimes resulted in a sort of triumphalism. Same Christian writers thought they saw the power ofGod behind the actions of the emperors and interpreted imperial authority as an instrument for the greater glory of the Christian religion. Lactantius, for example, saw Constantine's military victory over his pagan predecessor as the "triumph of God" and the "victory of the Lord?'22 It must be said that Lactantius was a close associate and ally of Constantine; he was also writing only a decade after the initial successes of Christians. Later Christian writers were not so convinced that their successes had been complete. The Christian emperors tended to want to rule with the same absolute power that pagan emperors had wielded. After the period of initial relief, most Christian writers made sure to pointout that the emperors ruled successfully only to the extent that they relied on the assistance of the Christian god. Consider how Prudentius described the defeat of the Goths by the emperor Honorius at the beginning of the :fifth century: To lead our army md our empire we had a young warrior mighty irl Christ, md his compmion md father[ -in-law] Stilicho, md Christ the one God of both. It was after worship at Christ's altar md when the mark ofthe crosswas imprinted on the brow, that the trurnpets sounded. First before the dragonstmdards went a spear-shaft raising the crest of Christ before them. 23

Ambrose shared this later perspective. He recognized God's intervention in the defeat of the forces of the usurper Eugenius at the hands ofTheodosius I in 394 but attributed it to the fact that Eugenius, while hirnself a Christian, had made numerous concessions to the pagans. 24 He also argued with equal fervor that a Christian military victory had much to do with worship and little to do with heroism. Even the adherence of the later Roman state to Christianity, Ambrose feit, served only as a collective atonement for the earlier persecutions. 25 (It is worth noting how readily fourth- and :fifth-century Christian writers celebrating the martial victories of the Christian emperors ignored the older tradition of Christian pacifism.) Ambrose constantly downplayed imperial authority in his writings. He was the first to record a legend that the nails from Jesus' crucifixionConstantine's mother, Helena, was supposed to have discovered them-

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had been melted down to add to a crown and horse-bit as symbols of state. 26 What Constantine thought he was saying in refashioning these holy relics in such a manner we do not know (ifthe legend is true), but we know the conclusion Ambrose drew from the legend and what it shows about his general regard for the imperial throne. ''A crown made from the cross, that faith may shine forth:' he declared, "reins likewise from the cross, that power may rule, and that there may be just moderation, not unjust caprice."27 The point of his story was less the honor of imperial rule that took such holy symbols to itself and more the limitations that piety should impose upon Christian rulers. The limitations on imperial authority consisted of nothing more than the extent to which the emperor was willing to be obedient to the will of God as expressed by the bishops of the Christian churches. Ambrose chastised the usurper Eugenius with these words: "Though the imperial power be great, yet consider, 0 Emperor, how great God is.''28 Christian writers concurred that even if the might or power (potestas) ofGod might be exercised through the emperors, the will or authority (auctoritas) of God was made manifest through the bishops of the Christian churches. Episcopal commands were, therefore, superior to any commands of the state or of its rulers. The submission of the later Roman emperors to the bishops of the Christian churches was never fully accomplished and was always subject to reversals. Some of the Christian emperors made counterarguments, claiming that the bishops exercised their jurisdictions under the supreme authority of the emperor as did any other civic official. 29 Still, even the attempt to assert episcopal superiority to imperial rule by means of Christian ideology must be considered in itself as a tremendous shift in the bases of public authority. And we have only to think of the conilicts between Ambrose and the emperors, conilicts invariably resolved in Ambrose's favor, to see how effectively that authority might be exercised in the right hands. Issues of masculinity were never far beneath the surface of the relationship between emperor and bishop. At the time of the controversy over the erection of the pagan altar to victory, for example, Ambrose relied heavily on the manly language of militarism in words addressed to the emperor Gratian. ''As all men who live under the Roman sway engage in military service under you, the Ernpercrs and Princes of the world:' he wrote, "so too do you yourselves owe a military service to Almighty God and our holy faith.'' 30 When the emperor Valentinian II and his mother threatened to use military might to force Ambrose to hand over the basilica to the Arians, Ambrose is said to have replied: "Do not, 0 Emperor, lay on yourself the burden of such a thought as that you have any impe-

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rialpower over those things which belong to God. Exalt not yourself, but submit yourself to God?' 31 In his account of Ambrose's conflict with Theodosius over the rebuilding of the synagogue, Paulinus claimed that Ambrose had dared to deliver a sermon in the presence of the emperor, speaking in the voice of God. "I made you emperor from the lowest, I delivered the army of your enemy to you, I gave to you the troops which he had prepared as his army against you, I brought your enemy into your power;' he declared. "I made you triumph without labor, and do yougive triumphs to my enemies over me?" 32 The presumptive ability to speak on behalf of God, even to an emperor with the military might and political power ofTheodosius I, was the cornerstone of Ambrose's episcopal authority. Ambrose hirnself, when describing the incident, compared his words with the words of the Biblical prophet N athan to King David. 33 It was a clever reference, because it alluded both to the Biblical tradition of God's prerogative in choosing whom he wills as ruler and to the notion of the bishop as a prophet, that is, as one who speaks for God, a mouthpiece of divine authority more powerful than any earthly ruler. If Christian bishops believed their position to be one of divine authority, they also made clear their opinion that the appropriate stance of the emperor, despite his imperial might, was one of submission to that authority. In 395, during an address delivered at the funeral ofTheodosius, Ambrose made proud mention of Theodosius's public repentance five years earlier: He threw on the ground all the royal attire which he was wearing; he wept publicly in the Church, for his sin which had stolen upon him by the deceit of others; he prayed for pardon with groans and with tears. That which brings a blush to private citizens, the Emperor did not blush to do, that is, to perform penance publicly; nor did a day pass afterwards on which he did not grieve forthat mistake ofhis. 34

In other words, the emperor Theodosius humbled hirnself before hirn, not blushing though he was humiliated as a man. (The word erubescere) "to blush, to feel ashamed;' is used here and elsewhere for this feeling of a man humiliating hirnself in submission.) Theodosius's humiliation, it should be noted, also paralleled an episode in the Biblical account ofKing David. Ifwe compare Ambrose's description ofTheodosius's penitence with one ofDavid's penitence (by a later Christian writer, perhaps with Ambrose's description in mind), we can see the similarities: The guilty man acknowledged his sin, was humbled, filled with remorse, confessed and wept. He repented and asked for pardon, gave up his royal

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jewels, laid aside his robes of cloth of gold, put aside the purple, resigned his crown. He was changed in body and appearance. He cast aside all his kingship with its ornarnents. 35

In the Christian political perspective and with Biblical precedent, submissionwas the true nature of kingship because true authority belonged to the Church and its leaders. These twin themes of exaltation and submission appear as a refrain in Ambrose's dealings with imperial authority andin other Christian political writings. But they only really malce sense when combined with prevailing cultural attitudes regarding gender and authority, attitudes that held that dominance was appropriate to men's nature and submission, to women's nature. Christian writers used Biblical references to malce their point. Exegesis on the myth of Adam and Eve in the Garden ofEden, and in particular, God's punishment of Eve, forcing her to accept the overlordship of her husband, became a means by which to reiterate ancient beliefs in masculine dominance and feminine submission. Through this exegesis, Latin Christian writers were able to attribute these beliefs to the origins ofhurnanity and to God's commands. Augustine, in commenting on the Genesis myth, for instance, said: And just as in man's soul there are two forces, one which is dominant because it deliberates and one which obeys because it is subject to such guidance, in the sarne way, in the physical sense, woman has been made for man. In her mind and her rational intelligence she has a nature the equal of man's, but in sex she is physically subject to him in the sarne way as our natural impulses need to be subjected to the reasoning power of the mind, in orderthat the actions to which they lead may be inspired by the principles of good conduct. 36

In another place, he compared the subordination of"the feminine to the masculine" with that "of the corporal creature to the spiritual creature, of the irrational to the rational, of the terrestrial to the celestial" and "of that which is worth less tothat which is worth more?' 37 Ambrose, also commenting on the fall of Adam and Eve, concluded that it was for this reason that the Greek word nous (mind, intelligence) was masculine in gender andaisthesis (sensual perception) was feminine. That is, since Eve was tempted by her senses, which as part of the physical world were inferior to the metaphysical realm, the human senses must be subjected to the mind. 38 (Ambrose's play-on-words works in Greek, and indeed, he borrowed the idea from Greek writers. But the play-on-words works in reverse in Latin, since mens, "mind;' is a feminine noun and sensus, "sensual

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perception;' is a masculine noun, a fact Ambrose did not bother to mention, even though he wrote his treatise in Latin. He was obviously not going to let linguistic obstacles stand in the way ofhis point). When Christian writers wrote about the submission of the emperor, we can be sure that they had such gendered notions in mind. Curiously enough, Ambrose's point and the !arger link between natural masculine dominance and feminine submission was somewhat Contradieted by the many influential women in the politicallife of the later Roman Empire. Women dominated the government through many decades as ernpresses and unofficial regents, despite their official exclusion from imperial authority. They may only have been exceptions to the rule about women, but they were famous exceptions. One example was Valentinian II's mother, Justina, who ruled with her young son from Milan at the time that Ambrose was bishop there and with whom he had many conflicts. There were many other powerful women in the government of the later Roman Empire. Helena, mother to Constantine I, was another example from the fourth century. Examples might be just as easily given from the third century, like Julia Maesa, grandmother ofElagabalus and Severus Alexander, or from the fifth, like Galla Placidia, sister to the emperor Honorius, or Pulcheria, sister to Theodosius II. 39 But these women exercised authority only in unofficial capacities and only tenuously, and most ended by being deprived of influence by their male relatives anxious to preserve autocratic rule for men. The association ofwomen with imperial rule often served as yet another opportunity for Christian writers to reiterate gender stereotypes and to promote the authority ofbishops over emperors. Paulinus ofMilan linlced much of the opposition to Ambrose during the reign ofValentinian li to the feminine wiles of the ernpress J ustina and her cunning use of the public insecurities of the men around her. At the time of the Arian basilica incident in 386, for example, Ambrose is said to have withstood countless insidious attacks of the above mentioned woman

Justina, who, by bestowing offices and honors, aroused the people against the holy man. And the weak were deceived by such promises, for she promised tribuneships and various other offices of authority to those who would drag him from the church and lead him into exile. 40

Augustine ofHippo, who was present in Milan at the time, noted the fortuitous discovery of the relics of the Christian martyrs Protasius and Gervasius, which Ambrose had translated to the altar of the basilica in order to strengthen his claim to the building. The act was done, Augustine later wrote, "to thwart a feminine fury, but also a royal one?'41 And in his re-

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counting of the same incident, Rufinus added (again relying on Biblical precedent comparing the bishop with a prophet): "She fought armed with the spirit ofJezebel:' but ''Ambrose stood firm, filled with the power and grace ofElijah.''42 Ambrose's exploitation of the martyrs was no mere aside in his war against Justina, it should be noted, but formedanintegral part ofhis gender politics. The martyrs were imbued with a manliness that made even the remains of their bodies useful resources for political strategies, especially ones based on gender stereotypes. Ambrose relied specifically on the manly image of the martyrs to bolster episcopal authority in the context ofhis struggle with the imperial government at that time, a government controlled by a woman. In a letter to his sister about the incident, Ambrose made clear the connection between the martyrs and their manliness, emphasizing the martyrs' might as soldiers of Christ. Ambrose wrote: Thanks be to Thee, Lord Jesus, that at this time Thou hast stirred up for us the spirits of the holy martyrs, when Thy church needs greater protection. Let all know what sort of champions I desire, who are able to defend, but desire not to attack. These have I gained for you, 0 holy people, such as may help all and injure none. Such defenders do I desire, such are the soldiers I have, that is, not soldiers of this world, but soldiers of Christ .... Let them come, then, and see my attendants. I do not deny that I am surrounded by such arms.H

Such masculine imagery was a useful foil to the feminine machinations of Justina. Ambrose's treatment of the relics of the martyrs has been described as "revolutionary:' because it seems that he was the first bishop to bring the relics of the martyrs into the churches and thereby to bring the cult of the martyrs direcdy under episcopal supervision. 44 Indeed, Ambrose continued throughout his career to find and take control of the remains of martyrs, removing them from public cemeteries and placing them in churches and shrines under his jurisdiction and forbidding Christians from going to cemeteries to revere there the remains of martyrs. Other bishops soon followed suit, appropriating the manly authority of the martyrs to themselves. Official celebrations in honor of the martyrs that found their way into the Christian ritual or liturgical calendar in the fifth century also helped in this appropriation, since the sermons preached at these celebrations served as an opportunity for a public platform for bishops to promote their religious ideas and agendas. (In chapter 4, I quoted several of these sermons to make points about the martyrs.)

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lt is not too much to say that the manly power of the martyrs came to form a primary support of the authority of the bishops. But the bishops had another source for their political authority. It was a source not, like that of the soldiers of Christ, only recently exploited, but one dating back to earllest Christianity. And it was a source not based on a manly image but on an unmanly one. lt was the image of the bride of Christ. BRIDES OF CHRIST

Christian bishops might complain that imperial warnen heldpower illegitimately, since they were only as powerful as the men with whom they were associated, but the Christian bishops themselves heldpower as fern- " inine consorts of an even more powerful ruler. They were brides of Christ. Bishops used the image of the bride of Christ as a central feature of their authority, despite its unmanly connotations, because it was one that permitted them to demonstrate their intimacy with God and their right to act as vicarious officials of divine authority. The metaphor of marriage to describe the relationship between God and a male devotee may seem odd. But it had existed for centuries before this time, and was not unique to Latin Christian writers, nor indeed to Christian writers at all. lt was lang used in Biblical tradition to refer to the special band between God and the Jewish people, especially when referring to the Biblical Song of Songs, an erotic poem between a bride and a bridegroom. The Song of Songs was interpreted allegorically by Jewish scholars from at least the beginning of the Common Era, even though such an interpretation placed men who belonged to the Jewish faith in the feminized position ofbeing the collective bride of God. 45 lt was presumably from the Jewish exegetical tradition that Christians derived their similar interpretation for the Song of Songs, as well as the larger marital metaphor. Already in the middle of the third century, Origen of Alexandria wrote a Greek commentary on the Song of Songs, using the same allegorical understanding of the Biblical book. There was a large Greekspealcing Jewish community at Alexandria, from whom Origen may well have learned of this exegetical tradition, although earlier Christian writings had used the bridal metaphor. 46 There was also some basis for such an understanding in the feminine gender of the Greek noun ekktesia (assembly, church), which lent a feminine nature to the collective body of Christians. Origen's usage was adopted by other Greek Christian theologians after him and adapted to Latin usage by various writers-helped along by the fact that the word for the Christian church, ecclesia- borrowed from the Greek-was also a feminine noun in Latin. (Origen's

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Greelc text has not survived but was translated in the late fourth century into Latin by Rufinus, and partsofthat translation have survived.) Many Christian writers used the irnage of the bride of Christafter Origen, but its champion among Latin writers was Ambrose, who used it in virtually all of his theological treatises. A passage from his De mysteriis (On the Mysteries) provides an example typical ofhis language on the subject (with frequent citations from the Song of Songs sprinlded throughout that I have abbreviated): But Christ, beholding His Church ... says, "Behold, thou art fair, My love, behold thou art fair, thy eyes are like a dove's ... ?' And farther on: "Thy teeth are like a flodc of sheep... ?' The Church is likened to a flock of these, having in itself the many virtues of those [Christian] souls ... The Church is beautiful in them. So that God the Word says to her: "Thou art all fair, My love, and there is no blemish in thee. . . ?' And the Church answers Hirn, "Who will give Thee to me, my Brother ... ? If I find Thee without, I will kiss Thee ... ?' You see how, delighted with the gifts of grace, she longs to attain to the innermost mysteries, and to consecrate all her affections to Christ. 47

The sexual relationship irnplied in the notion of the bride of Christ is often only narrowly avoided in the erotic Biblicallanguage. Ambrose remarlced in his De patriarchis (On the Patriarchs) that God "alone is the husband of the Church, He is the expectation of the nations, and the prophets removed their sandals while affering to Hirn a union of nuptial grace.''48 Ambrose recognized the nature of this language himself. In his De Isaac vel anima (On Isaac or On the Soul), he s~d of the bride of Christ: "She either rested in Christ or reclined upon Hirn or even- since I am speaking of a marriage- as if already given into the power of Christ, she was led to the bridal couch by the bridegroom.''49 "Open to me;' he had Christ say to his bride, "and I will fill you."50 In a letter to his sister also intended for wider publication, Ambrose dwelt on the theme oflcissing Jesus (again, with frequent references to the Song of Songs): The Synagogue has not a kiss, but the Church has, who waited for Hirn, who loved Hirn, who said: "Let Hirn kiss me with the kisses of His mouth?' For by His kisses she wished gradually to quench the burning of that long desire, which had grown with looking for the coming of the Lord, and to satisf)r her thirst by this gift.... Anyone, then, kisses Christ who confesses Hirn: "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation?' Anyone, again, kisses the feet of Christ who, when reading the Gospel, recognizes the acts

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of the Lord Jesus, and admires them with pious affection, and so piously kisses, as it were, the footprints of the Lord Jesus as He walks. We kiss Christ, then, with the kiss of communion: "Let the one that reads understand?'51

In a curious metamorphosis of personhood, the Church as "she" becomes "anyone:' which becomes "we" in a growing identi.fication betWeen Ambrose and the bride ofhis text. As Ambrose implied, the marital metaphor was intended to symbolize the intimacy between God and all believers, whether collectively or individu.ally. According to the metaphor, any believer-even a male onemight portray hirnself as the bride of Christ. The idea of an individual bride of Christ was also aided by the feminine gender of the Latin noun anima and of the Greek nounpsycheJ both meaning "soul" or "spirit:' considered the core of the self in classical philosophicallanguage. The twin symbols, Church as collective bride and soul as individual bride, are intertwined in Christian writings and sometimes difficult to separate. Both symbols provided an occasion for Christian writers to describe themselves in feminine terms and to enact a feminine persona before a masculine God. Paulinus of N ola expressed the wish that, lilce the virgin who "awaits the arrival of the bridegroom:' his "mind may be fruitful for God" and that his "spirit be virgin, despoiled by no attractions of this world and remaining unstained by any vice.''52 Augustine regretted not waiting for "the bridegroom of my soul" when he abandoned the Christian God and faith ofhis mother and lapsed into heresy. 53 "I used to lie at Jesus' feet; I bathed them with my tears, I wiped them with my hair:' Jerome wrote, comparing hirnself to the repentant prostitute of the Gospelstory already identified in late antiquity as Mary Magdalene. "I do not blush at my unhappiness:' he added (again, using the verb erubescere to describe the embarrassment ofhumiliation). 54 Ambrose and Origen both also linked this Biblical figure to the bride of Christ. 55 When Jerome pictured hirnselflying at the feet ofJesus, he implied not only an intimate posture but also a submissive one. Given the connection between gender and authority, in fact, the language of masculine dominance and femininesubmissionwas never far removed from marital imagery in the minds of Christian writers. It still seems odd that Christian men would be willing to describe themselves in such an unmanly manner. Butthis problern has been explored in a brilliant work on authority in the thought of Augustine, in an argument that can be expanded beyond his writings. 56 The argument is as follows: The Christian god, as the personification

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of moral perfection, also represented ultimate masculine authority, according tothegendered standards ofvirtus. The relationship of allhuman beings to that divine and manly perfection was already, therefore, from a subordinate position, a feminine position in the eyes of contemporaries. But it was precisely this subordinate posture that paradoxically permitted Augustine to wield moral authority over others. This paradox is a complicated one, but one that can be clarified through reference to Augustine's description ofhis mother, Monica. The passagein question is therefore worth quoting at length, despite the caveat that we cannot k.now whether Augustine's mother Monica actually believed what Augustine said she believed. Note also that here, as throughout this work, Augustine addressed his recollections to God, an indication of their intimacy. Augustine wrote ofhis mother: It was you who taught her to obey her parents rather than they who taught her to obey you, and when she was old enough, they gave her in marriage to a man whom she served as lord [dominus]. ... Though he was remarkably kind, he had a hot temper, but my mother knew better than to say or do anything to resist him when he was angry.... Many women, whose faces were disfigured by blows from husbands far sweeter-tempered than her own, used to gossip together and complain of the behavior oftheir men-folk. My mother would meet this complaint with another-about the women's tongues. . . . She told them that ever since they had heard the marriage deed read over to them, they ought to have regarded it as a contract which bound them to serve their husbands [as made slaves, ancillae faaae) note the servile metaphor], and from that time onward they should remernher their condition and not defy their masters [domini]. 57

Monica's subservient posture before her husband was the impetus for her aggressive stance in front of the other women of her town. It was precisely because she was so servile toward her husband, in other words, that she had the moral authority to actinsuch a domineering way toward the other wives. She presented herself as a moralideal in her own marital relationship, and that gave her the right to instruct the others in how they might live up to the same ideal. In his own life, Augustine repeated this relationship and played the feminine role of the submissive wife toward God (recall his mention of God as "the bridegroom ofhis soul"). But being God's bride was a role that also allowed him to talce on the masculine role of domineering authority in his dealings with everyone else, telling them how to act and reminding them what they should believe. The argument is a provocative and compelling one. This simultaneaus reversal of gender-based roles of dominance and

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submissionwas useful not only for Augustine, as I suggested above, but for all of the Latin Christian writers who identified themselves as brides of Christ. The image of the bride of Christ is central to a general understanding of the paradox of Christian political authority, because it was through the unmanliness of submission to God that Christians articulated a concept of the manly dominance of episcopal authority. I should repeat that the imagewas not unique to Latin Christian writers. Ambrose and Jerome, who were among the first Latin writers to use the image, presumably borrowed it from Greek Christian writers, probably from Origen (Augustine probably borrowed it, in turn, from Ambrose, who was his teacher). What is important is not that Latin Christian writers appropriated the notion of the bride of Christ from others butthat they found it such a useful notion. It has been suggested, for example, that Ambrose used the marital metaphor in order to make a profound point about the union of the human and the divine in Jesus. 58 Fourth-century Christians were indeed engaged in serious theological debate about how the apparent humanity and assumed divinity ofJesus might be logically reconciled (it was the main point of dispute between Arian and Catholic Christians, for example, in Ambrose's day). But there were many other means available to Ambrose to malce that same point, and many Biblical passages far closer to the debate at hand than any from the Song of Songs. It is critical always to keep in mind that Christian ideology never just happened haphazardly and that analogies were not simply made at random but were shaped consciously by individual writers for particular purposes. Gender-based analogies when used in theological writings were chosen specifically for the associated meanings they carried, meanings shared by writers and readers who lived in the same cultural milieu. (Doubtless, both the Jewish and the Greek Christian theologians had their own reasons for finding the image a helpful one for understanding their relationship to God, and gave their own cultural meanings to the image.) The usefulness for Ambrose of the bride of Christ image-and this is also true of other theological images from late antiquity, like the soldier ofChrist for Tertullian-was in the gendered paradox it embodied. The male bride of Christ was a paradox designed to meet the needs of Ambrose and his readers, men living in the midst of the demise of traditional masculinity in late antiquity. The image of the bride of Christ was an embrace of gender ambiguity derived from a specific agenda and intended for a specific goal. It provided an interior and feminine submissiveness that was no sign of unmanliness but rather formed the basis for a public and masculine Christian authority. Christian writers appreciated the need for men to submit

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to authority even while they argued for the feminine nature of submission. But Christian writers also insisted that the authority to whom they submitted was the Christian god, and so they spoke of themselves as feminine only before God. lt was this feminine identity in their private lives that permitted Christian men to assume a manly stance in the exercise of public authority. Like the paradox of Christian militarism, embodied in a renunciation of actual warfare, the Christian ideology of politicallife was an embrace of unmanliness in a traditional sense but its radical reinterpretation as an act of manliness. EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY

The language of feminine submission and masculine dominance lent authority to any man willing to consider hirnself a bride of Christ. But the same language also helped a few Christian men, the bishops, achieve positions of authority over other Christian men. Bishops presented themselves as brides of Christ in a unique way, a way that gave them spiritual and moral authority over others. Like Augustine's mother Monica before the other warnen of her town, the bishops claimed the right to tell the other "brides of Christ" how best to fulfill their marriage vows. As the leaders of local Christians, moreover, the bishops argued that they themselves symbolized the collective Church in a way that no one else did and were therefore more to be considered as the bride of Christ than anyone else. If we are to understand how the language of gender ambiguity was first used to bolster episcopal authority, we must look back from the era of Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine at the end of the fourth century to the era of Cyprian of Carthage in the middle of the third century. Cyprian's career as bishop of Carthage lasted only a decade, from 248 to 258. Much ofthat career was spent away from Carthage in hiding from persecution, as I mentioned in the last chapter. However briefand controversial, Cyprian's career was still fundamental in the development of episcopal authority. We have already seen how Cyprian downplayed the authority of the martyrs and confessors who challenged his authority as bishop by broadening the meaning of the soldier of Christ. Not surprisingly, scholars have also viewed in Cyprian's writings an attempt to downplay the charismatic authority of the martyrs and confessors in favor of the institutional authority of bishops. For these reasons, Cyprian is a good place to start to look at the development of new notions of episcopal authority and its relationship to masculine authority. Cyprian is so important to ernerging notions of Christian authority

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that it is also helpful for us to look at his life before his election as bishop (just as Ambrose's secular career as governor before his election as bishop provided an interesting perspective on his later exhortation for men to "flee from the world"). Before his conversion to Christianity and subsequent election as bishop, Cyprian was supposed to have led a life of worldly ambition as a rhetorician. 59 If true, the eloquence and skills of persuasion he learned in this profession without a doubt came in handy later as a Christian writer, struggling against the opposition to his authority. There is an alternative tradition, however, that painted Cyprian as a magician. Prudentius, for example, who induded Cyprian in his fifthcentury poetic account of the Christian martyrs, described him thus: He was pre-eminent among young men for skill in perverse arts, would violate modesty by a trick, count nothing holy, and often practice a magic spell amid the tombs to raise passion in a wife and break the law ofwedloclc. But all at once Christ checked this great rage of self-indulgence, scattered the darkness from bis heart, drove out its frenzy, and filled it with love ofHim, giving him the gift of faith and of shame for bis past behavior. And now bis face and bis elegant style changed from their former fasbion; bis countenance lost the softness of its skin and went over to an austere look, the flowing locks were clipped short, bis speech was sober, he looked for the hope of Christ, holding to bis rule, living according to bis righteousness, and seelcing to fathom our doctrine. 60

The veracity of the account is not as important as its hagiographical usefulness: the emphasis on the immorality ofhis life before his conversion, visible both in his profession and in his style of dress (note the unmanly associations of"softness of slcin" and "flowing loclcs;' and the implication that he used his magic skills to cuckold husbands ). The adoption of sobriety and self-restraint exemplified the Christian transformation. The change from effeminate extravagance and trickery to manly temperance and truth also represented the personal preconditions necessary for Cyprian to hold authority within the Church: it demonstrated his worthiness.61 Having fled the city during the Decian persecution, Cyprian faced the concerted opposition by the confessors of Carthage, those individuals whose manly bravery as near-martyrs lent them great authority. These confessors acted together as the local Christian governing body in Cyprian's absence and performed various episcopal functions as a committee. For example, they issued certificates of forgiveness on behalf of lapsed Christians, allowing those who had sacrificed to pagan gods under pain of death but then regretted their actions to rejoin the Christian com-

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munity. Cyprian's purpose, in the treatise entitled De lapsis (On the Lapsed), written while he was still in hiding, was to assert his own right to judge the lapsed Christians over that of men who had been willing to undergo martyrdom. 62 To assert his authority as bishop, Cyprian had to wrest the masculine image from the martyrs and near-martyrs and apply it to hirnself. vVhile the confessors were indeed "the bright army of the soldiers of Christ:' Cyprian conceded, not even their "spiritual triumphs" could mend the split caused by the sins of those who abandoned the faith, and they should stop issuing the certificates. 63 But Cyprian knew that he had to find some Counterbalance to the spiritual weight of martyrdom to justifY this prohibition, and he found it by turning the confessors' very challenge to his authority agairrst them. He described hirnself as the collective body of the local church, writing about the persecution and its effects on the community as if it were a wound that made itself feit in his own body. In this manner, Cyprian presented hirnself as a kind of living martyr, more than balancing the moral authority of the near-martyrs: Believe me, my brothers, I share your distress, and can find no comfort in my own escape and safety; for the shepherd feels the wounds ofhis ßock more than they do. My heart bleeds with each one of you, I shaie the weight ofyour sorrow and distress. I mourn with those that mourn, I weep with those that weep, with the fallen I feel I have fallen myself. My limbs too were struck by the arrows of the lurking foe, his raging sword pierced my body too. When persecution strikes, no soul can escape free and unscathed: when my brethren fell, my heart was struck and I fell at their side. 64

Even while safely in hiding, Cyprian argued that he was being wounded for his faith. In malcing his claim to be a symbolic martyr, not only did Cyprian share in the glory and manly reputation of the confessors, but he was also somethingthat the confessors were not: the embodiment of the Church. This stance permitted hirn to represent the whole community in hirnself, something the confessors could not claim. He did not use the words "bride of Christ" in referring to hirnself, it should be noted, but the implication is the same, and Cyprian often used the feminine expression "mother church" (mater ecclesia) to refer to the community of Christians united under episcopal authority. As the embodiment of the community, as bishop and ecclesia) Cyprian was able to claim an intimacy with God that lent authority to his position and to his commands. Consider the tone of Cyprian's words from the same treatise on the lapsed Christians:

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To disregard God's decree is to call down His anger.... Suppose the martyrs do want something done; if it is good and lawful, if it is not something against God hirnself that God's bishop is expected to do, then let hirn accede readily and with all deference to their wishes- provided of coursethat the petitioner observes a becoming modesty. 65

To refuse to obey Cyprian is to refuse to obey God. To separate divine from episcopal authority here is impossible; they are the same in intention and expression. In turn, the duty of all Christians under a bishop's command was to submit to his authority. With this in mind, he called upon the lapsed to repent and seek forgiveness from him, even those who had already received certificates of forgiveness from the confessors. "You must beg and pray assiduously;' he wrote, "spend the day sorrowing and the night in vigils and tears, fill every moment with weeping and lamentation; you must lie on the ground amidst clinging ashes, toss about chafing in sacke1oth and foulness.'' 66 In his other writings, Cyprian reiterated these same ideas. Membership in the Church was nothing more than submission to its bishop, he wrote to some of the priests in his jurisdiction who had questioned his right toreturn to his episcopal office. 67 Disobedience of the bishop equaled disobedience of God himself; indeed, "the Church is in the bishop, and if anyone is not with the bishop, that person is not in the Church.''68 The sole cause of heresy and schism is refusal to obey the bishop. 69 (It is probably not too much to say that one sees in the constant repetition of these ideas a kind of desperate attempt to undermine the authority of everyone but the bishop; the Christians of Carthage were obviously not listening to Cyprian.) Cyprian reinforced and intensified his ideas about episcopal authority in his De ecclesiae catholicae unitate (On the U nity of the Catholic Church). In the treatise, Cyprian reminded the confessors of their lack of authority and of their feminine standing in relation to himself: He is a confessor: let hirn be humble and peaceful, let his actions show modesty and self-control, so that, as he is named a confessor of Christ, he may imitate the Christ whom he confesses. For if Christ said: "He that extolleth hirnself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth hirnself shall be exalted:' and ifHe Himself, the Word and the power and the wisdom ofGod His Father, was exalted by the Father because He humbled Hirnself on earth, how can arrogance appeal to Hirn who not only enjoined on us humility by His law, but was Hirnself rewarded for His humility by His Father with the most glorious of all names? 70

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Interestingly, Cyprian counseled the confessors to imitate Christ, and to remain humble if they wished rewards and glory. This advice allowed Cyprian to malce use of the many Biblical passages in which Jesus was described as following unquestioningly the will ofhis divine father; the unspoken parallel is that the confessors should follow Cyprian with equal unswerving loyalty. In the same treatise on unity and by way of explaining its title, Cyprian also emphasized the divine origins of episcopal authority by emphasizing the singular person of the bishop as mirroring the singular nature of God's will: He established by his own authority a source for that oneness having its origin in one man alone. No doubt the other Apostles were all that Peter was, endowed with equal dignity and power, but the statt comes from him alone, in order to show that the Church of Christ is unique .... Now this oneness we must hold to firmly and insist on- especially we who are bishops and exercise authority in the Church-so as to dernarrstrate that the episcopal power is one and undivided. 71

Here was a pointed reply to the rival authority of the confessors, based as it was on governance by committee and consensus. Cyprian's invocation ofPeter-leader ofthe first disciples ofJesus according to Biblical tradition and first bishop ofRome according to early Christian tradition -deserves some comment. Modern scholars have debated whether the passage was meant to convey Cyprian's approval for what would become in subsequent centuries the Petrine basis of papal authority. Butthat is to miss the point of what Cyprian was trying to say. If we read in context we can see that for Cyprian, Peter's leadership of the early Christian community paralleled Cyprian's own leadership of the Christian community of Carthage. Cyprian admitted that Peter might have had no innate or particular superiority to the other early disciples of Jesus; this may be a reference to Cyprian's own inglorious past. But once he had been chosen as their leader, the others were obliged to respect that choice as God's will, and Cyprian obviously hoped that his own community would do lilcewise. In other words, Peter functioned symbolically as the male embodiment of outward episcopal authority, in much the same way as the bride ofChrist functioned asthefemale embodiment of the individual in inward relation to God. This symbolic function of Peter was clearly more important for Cyprian than the actual ecclesiastical jurisdiction ofRome, since Cyprian showed hirnself none too anxious to submit to the bishop there. 72 Ambrose's writings on the authority ofPeter, made over a century later, should be interpreted in much the same way. Peter functions as the symbol of the masculine or public authority of the

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episcopacy. In the context of the unity of Christian belief and of its enforcement, Ambrose declared: "Therefore, where Peter is, there is the church?'73 It would only be in the middle of the fifth century and beyond that bishops ofRome would adduce the jurisdictional primacy ofRome from Petrine language?4 What I am suggesting is that, beginning with Cyprian, bishops took advantage of thelanguage of gender ambiguity in asserting their authority, describing themselves both as feminine in relation to God and as masculine in relation to other Christians. A letter by Cyprian, recognizing the election ofCornelius as bishop ofRome, demonstrates this language better than anything eise (and for Latin Christian writers, earlier than anything eise). Cyprian held up Cornelius's feminine modesty as the greatest proof ofhis worthiness for the manly authority ofhis office. He wrote: the episcopate itself he neither aslced for nor desired, stillless did he -like others whose self-importance isswollen with arrogance and pride-thrust hirnself into it. He was quiet [quietus] and humble [modestus] as ever, and such as those are wont to be who are chosen by God for this post. With the natural modesty of his virginal chastity [pudor vit;ginalis continentiae], and with his inborn humility [humilitas] and habitual modesty [verecundia ], so far from resorting to violence, as some do, in order to be made bishop, it was only under pressure that he reluctantly accepted the episcopate.75

According to Cyprian, Cornelius was modest, humble, and virginal. The words used to describe him are identical to those used by Roman men to identify prospective brides. They arenot manly qualities. Butthose qualities were exactly what made him so weil suited to become the bishop of Rome: he was an ideal bride of Christ and chosen as such by God. Cyprian contrasted the meekness of Cornelius with the "snake-tongued deceivers;' "slcilled corruptors of the truth, spewing deadly venom from their poisonous fangs;' who "seize authority for themselves without any divine sanction" and "assume the title of Bisbop on their own authority.w6 Cyprian ignored in both of these descriptions the communal decision-malcing process that actually selected the bishop in late antiquity, the process bywhich he hirnselfbad presumably been selected and that he described elsewhere, a vague process that often resulted in disputed elections and the violence to which he alluded. 77 To listen to Cyprian's words, the choice of bishop was God's alone, an immediate and irrevocable choice. Cyprian's description of Cornelius's unassurning nature was only the first of numerous accounts describing how unwillingly the saintliest of men assumed the duties of the office of bishop. We must keep in mind

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that we can never know how closely the accounts reflected these men's actuallives; the hagiographical accounts were written sometimes with limited biographical details and always with specific agendas in mind. But it is interesting to see how frequently extreme reluctance to assume ecclesiastical office was mentioned in episcopal biographies. Sulpicius Severus maintained that it was only through a ruse that Mactin -the former soldier, whom we met in the last chapter-was elected bishop ofTours, so unwillingwas he to assume the title and position. 78 Augustine ofHippo was similarly described as having been forcibly conscripted into service as bishop at Hippo. "He was standing in the congregation quite unconcerned and with no idea of what was going to happen to him:' his biographer Possidius wrote; "as he used to tell us, he used to keep away from churches where the bishopric was vacant:' fearing such a thing might happen, and wept when chosen. 79 (The selection of an unwilling man as bishop may not have been solely a literary topos: a decree of the emperor Majorian in 460 forbade such an action. 80 ) Bishops might act like blushing brides in their modesty and in their reluctance to take upon themselves the responsibilities of ecclesiastical office. After their consecration, however, the men chosen as bishops had a public authority that was denied to all others. The extent ofthat authority proves the political usefulness of the bride-of-Christ image and of the feminine interior of the Christian man. If any bishop's claim to public authority was going to work, he had first to demonstrate a unique intimacy with God, an intimacy that gave him that authority beyond that of any other members of the Christian community. To be united with God in a marital bondwas an intimacy beyond all others. And as brides of Christ, bishops willingly issued commands on God's behalf, much like the imperial consorts did on their husband's behalf. If the inward authority that bishops received was a feminine one, moreover, the outward authority that bishops wielded was very much a masculine one. For example, accounts of the bishops often recorded how women led the opposition to their authority. Paulinus of Milan, for example, related an interesting episode in his account of Ambrose's career. When Ambrose intervened in the election of a bishop near to Milan, a consecrated female virgin of the Arian sect of Christians (and thus, Paulinus ofMilan noted, an associate of the ernpress Justina) attempted to pull him off the episcopal throne in the cathedral and "drag him to a group of women, so that he might be beaten by them and driven from the church?' Ambrose is said to have delivered this retort to the woman: ''Even ifl am unworthy of so great an episcopal office, yet it does not become you or your profession to lay hands on any bishop whatsoever; wherefore, you

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should fear the judgment of God lest something may happen to you?' 81 (Paulinus added that the wo man died the next day, and thatAmbrose graciously presided over her funeral.) A similar legend was promoted about the opposition to Caecilian as bishop of Carthage at the start of the Donatist schism. Optatus, a bishop ofMilevis in Numidia writing at the end of the fourth century, claimed that "some factious woman or other called Lucilla" had instigated the schism. According to Optatus, this Lucilla "was unable to bear the rebulce of the archdeacon Caecilian:' given because of her inordinate fondness for kissing the relics of an unidentified martyr. "That is, if he was a martyr:' Optatus added, to undermine further any spiritual value to her actions. She "went away in angry humiliation:' he continued, "she raged and grieved;'' When Caecilian was later chosen as bishop, she had "a domestic [slave]" from her household, Majorinus, "ordained bishop with her approval?' 82 Seemingly off-handed remarks lilce these helped to reinforce the connection between masculinity and true authority, and at the same time linked femininity with opposition to the bishops. The complex gender arrangements, in which bishops represented true brides of Christ while they were simultaneously opposed by actual women, were not lost on the writers of late antiquity themselves. Before beginning his account of the Donatist schism, Optatus identified the unity of the community under its rightful bishop as a respectable femininity, and contrasred that with the disreputable femininity of the bishop's opponents. He wrote: We know that the churches of individual heretics are prostitutes without any legal sacraments, who lack the status of an honest marriage. These Christ rejects as super:fiuous, he who is the bridegroom of the one church, as he hirnself declares in the Song of Songs.... He affirms in the Song of Songs . . . that there is one dove that is his, the same being his chosen bride, his enclosed garden and his sealed font, so that none of the heretics may have the keys which Peter alone received. 83

The illegitimate authority exercised by the heretics is comparable to the illegitimate embrace of a travestied "bride of Christ?' The opponents of the bishops rnight claim an equal status of intimacy with God, but it was a base intimacy and a shameful embrace that only gave them a feminine identity at its worst, as prostitutes. It also denied them the masculine status represented by Peter, who is again linked here to the bride of Christ and symbolizing the outward authority of the bishop. The mention of influential women as opponents of the bishops was not accidental, but part of a !arger strategy to deny women a role in the

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public authority of the Christian churches in late antiquity. It is now well known that women exercised some ritual functions wirhin the early Christian churches as deaconesses, as wives of priests, even as prophetesses. Women also played a central role in the early churches through their financial contributions, a role made possible by women's increased legal control over their property and income, as described in chapter 3. 84 As part of their efforts to gain control over the churches, the bishops worked hard to eliminate the public roles exercised by women. Already at the beginning of the third century, Tertullian argued that "it is not permitted to a woman to spealc in the church; but neither is it permitted her to teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer, nor to claim to herself a lot in any manly function [virile munus], not to say in any sacerdotal office?'85 By the fourth century, regional meetings of the bishops condemned women who performed ritual actions. 86 Women still exercised some spiritual authority in the Christian churches of the later fourth and fifth centuries, but this option was open only to women with considerable financial assets, and they did so only in unofficial capacities and by embracing an outward humility and an ascetic renunciation that belied that authority. 87 Even the clerical office granted to women as deaconesses, recognized as legitimate by the bishops of the Bastern churches and supported by Biblical authority, was denied to women by the Western bishops. 88 Wealthy women were still permitted to malce donations to churches and religious institutions or to patronize individual churchmen, but that was the farthest extent of their public role. 89 Ultimately, ecclesiastical roles for women in the Western Christian churches were eliminated because they threatened the perceived relationship between masculinity and public authority. The exclusion of women from ritual roles worlced to the advantage of the bishops, because their authority also had an important ritual basis. Christian writers emphasized the special powers and prerogatives of the men chosen and set apart by God. Again, Cyprian played an important role in the beginnings of this usage. "The priest truly functions in place of Christ;' he wrote, "who imitates what Christ did and then offers the true and full sacrifice in the church to God the Father?'90 It is important to keep in mind that ancient Christian writers did not use the term "priest" to mean a ritual function apart from that of the bishop, as later Christians would do, but to describe the ritual role of the bishop. A discussion of terminology is necessary here. Writers used the Latin termpresbyter (borrowed from the Greek presbyterosJ "elder") to refer to the men who served under the local jurisdiction of the bishop as his assistants; they had a much more limited role in the late ancient churches than in

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later centuries. The Latin term Cyprian used, sacerdos) was meant to reinforce the sacredness of the episcopal office in a way that the term episcopus did not. Sacer in Latin meant "consecrated, set apart for a religious purpese"; the Greek kleros) from which the Latin clerus had been derived, and from which we get "clergy" and "cleric:' meant much the same thing, "an allotment or portion" dedicated to some purpose. In contrast, the Greek episkopos and the Latin episcopus meant merely "overseer" or "supervisor." The term sacerdos also lent a pagan touch to the ritual role of the bishop, since it was the usual term for a priest in traditional or pagan Roman religion. Cyprian probably used the term, as Tertullian had clone before him and as other Latin writers would do after him, because it contained that ·connotation of being consecrated, and reinforced the singular and sacred authority of the office. The implicit comparison with paganism also reinforced the masculine flavor of episcopal office, since traditional Roman religion had always excluded women from the public role of priests. (The vestal virgins, who exercised the closest thing to a feminine religious office in traditional Roman religion, were shut away from the community and did not perform any rituals in public. 91 ) The sacerdotal authority that bishops claimed only added to the other bases of authority they used to justify their unique status. They were chosen by God and were intimate with him, and thus spoke and acted for him. Just as important, theywere men. This newversion of masculine political authority allowed for a new and manly nobility in the later Roman Empire, a nobility based on Christian piety rather than birth, but a nobility all the more powerful for it. BISHOPS AS A NEW NOBILITY

The bishops sometimes spoke as though social distinctions no longer meant anything in the new Christian dispensation. But the episcopacy offered men of the noble dass es new opportunities for status, a status cemented in the laws and realities of the later Roman Empire. This new nobility of the bishops gave them an authority over all other men, even over the man who ruled the empire. AB bishops, men of the later Roman elite found a new basis for political power and for manliness. Bishops found in the language ofhumility (humilitas) a perfect means to belie their ambition for social status and public authority. The term carried a complicated set of meanings. The root of the word was humus) "dirt:' "soil:' and in classical Latin humilis meant "of the soil:' and also "poor" or "needy:' but by extension "lowly" or "base:' and even "obscure" or "insignificant?' In the law codes of late antiquity, the word hu-

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miliores (the more humble) was the usuallegal term for the lower classes. It was the ideal word for Christian writers to assert their affected social insignificance. The language of humility allowed Augustine to claim that the Christian reality erased the old grades of nobility and distinction, so that "finally today both noble and ignoble, the learned man and the unlearned man, the poor man and the rich man alike draw near to the grace of God;' because "in the reception of that grace, pride talces no precedence over humility.''92 The rhetoric of humility even went so far as to borrow from the institution of slavery to describe the lowliness of Christian men. Salvian of Marseilles, writing in fifth-century Gaul, often returned to the theme: When a slave performs only those ofhis master's commands which he likes to perform, he is not following his master's will, but his own. Ifwe who are wealc little men do not wish to be held entirely in contempt by our slaves whom their slavery makes our inferiors but whom their ~umanity makes our equals, how unjust it is for us to despise our heavenly Master? 93

At about the same time, Peter Chrysologus offered the opinion in a sermon that one was either a slave to God or a slave to sin. 94 In a society in which slaves were all around, describing oneself as a slave provided a tangible metaphor for the Christian abdication of social privilege. 95 It was precisely by asserting their lowliness and humility, though, that the men who became bishops found a new source ofsocial superiority. To understand how this language worleed, we need to consider for a moment what the quality of humility meant for these men in positions of power. If humility served as an indicator of one's suitability for episcopal office-even a prerequisite, according to Ambrose96 -then it was nothing more than a new marle of social distinction. Lilce the old privileges of rank, it divided those deserving of political office from those undeserving of it. In an age in which a nobility oflineage meant little in the holding of public offices, which could be conferred or withheld at the whim of the emperor and doled out to slaves as weil as to free men of all classes, humility was a radical new means of separating those who should wield authority from those who should be subjected to it. Valerian even made the claim that an increase of power was always accompanied by excessive pride in lowly persons, but by humility in persons of nobility. 97 Humility was certainly as radical a means as the ostentatious display of wealth that other members of the old aristocracy were using to marle themselves as superior. U nlilce the old social marleers of political authority and the distinctions of birth and wealth, the quality of humility was far more open to manip-

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ulation and contestation. But in this flexibility was precisely its usefulness. Forthemenholding power based on humility, the consecrated bishops who were supposed to have demonstrated such utter lack ofambition and such reluctance in advancing to their positions, humility was the best means to retain their authority and to undermine their rivals' attempts to seize it. Because any man who attempted to move hirnself from the category of those subjected to authority to the category of those wielding authority might be easily accused of a lack of humility. Recall Cyprian's praise of Cornelius's humility as a proof of his suitability for the office of bishop ofRome and his denunciation of the arrogance of men who actually tried to be made bishops. I do not want to imply that challenges to episcopal authority never occurred. Quite the opposite is true, and bishops had constantly to defend their rights. But the rhetoric ofhumility was one of the bishops' chief weapons against such challenges. The humility of the Christian bishop was much preferable to the unmanly submission ofhis secular counterpart, the nobleman holding political office, because it conferred rather than eroded manly authority. Christian leaders relied on their humility to exact obedience from their spiritual subordinates. Accordingly, they promoted obedience as a great virtue for men outside the episcopal structure (called the laity, from the Greek Iaos> "people:' used in the classical period for the common people as opposed to their leaders and for the subjects of a ruler). "Let them imitate the Lord:' Cyprian recommended to the confessors of his community who questioned his right to remain in office. In obeying his authority they would be imitatirrg the example ofJesus, he added, "who at the time of his passion, did not become proud, but rather more humble?' 98 Elsewhere, he reiterated the same point. "Conscious of the divine precept:' the laity "with meekness and patience obeys the priests of God, and thereby becomes deserving before the Lord by obedient and holy deeds?' 99 And in a letter to a fellow bishop, Cyprian recalled the Biblical legends of torments inflicted by God upon those who did not obey their religious superiors. "They, devonred and swallowed up by an aperture in the earth, paid the penalty immediately for their sacrilegious insolence:' he wrote; "their companions in insolence were consumed by fire sent forth by the Lord, that it might be proved that the priests of God are avenged by Hirn who makes priests?' 100 Later bishops expanded on Cyprian's exhortations to Christian obedience, none more so than Augustirre ofHippo, who knew weil the writings of Cyprian and whose own experience with the Donatists had made him acutely aware of the problern of disobedient Christians. Augustirre admitted that some lay Christians were embarrassed-he used again the

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verb erubescere-to think ofhumbling themselves in ways the bishops demanded, but he rejected this as vain and sinful. 101 lt was Augustine who more than any other writer of late antiquity refined and elaborated upon the principle of Christian submission, grounding his comments on the Genesis legend of Adam and Eve. "God's instructions demanded obedience;' he wrote. "It is to man's advantage to be in subjection to God, and it is calamitous for him to act according to his own wilL" Accordingly, "obedience is ... the mother and guardian of all the other virtues." 102 "Pride;' in contrast, "is the start of every kind of sin;' and is nothing "except a ionging for a perverse kind of exaltation;' as happens "when a man is too pleased with himself?' 103 Augustine translated his complex theories of the corruption brought about by the original sin ofAdam and Eve and its effects on the human will into terms of ecclesiastical dominance. Iflay individuals could not regulate their own behavior, corrupted as their wills were by sin, their spiritual superiors aided by God must do it for them, and the laity must willingly accede to their superiors' demands. 104 It was as a member of the laity that the emperor owed obedience to the hierarchy of the sacerdotal church, and as a result, the power of the state was to be subjected to the authority of the bishops. When the emperors converted to Christianity in the fourth century, the bishops of the Roman Empire considered them as having submitred themselves in the same way as any other laymen. If we return to Ambrose and his relations with the emperors at the end of the fourth century, we can see this point made clear in a letter to Valentinian II: When have you heard, most gracious Emperor, that laymen gave judgment concerning a bishop in a matter of faith? Are we so prostrate through the flattery of some as to be unmindful of the rights of the priesthood, and do I think that I can entrust to others what God has given me? If a bishop is to be taught by a layman, what will follow? Let the layman argue, and the bishop Iisten, Iet the bishop learn ofthe layman. But undoubtedly, whether we go through the series of the holy Scriptures, or the times of old, who is there who can deny that, in a matter of faith,- in a matter I say of faith,bishops are wont to judge of Christian emperors, not emperors of bishops.Ios

Elsewhere, Ambrose reiterated this point in a sermon given at the time of his refusal to hand over a basilica to the Arians: "The emperor is within the church, not above the church?'106 Opinions like those of Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustine were the key to the new balance of political power in the later Roman Empire. Such an assertion of political inviolability gave an entirely new

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strength to the men of the Roman nobility. After all, almost all of the men chosen as bishops in the Western Empire came from the old aristocratic families. Indeed, a combination of ecdesiastical and secular legislation prevented the men of most other dasses from joining the dergy, indudingdecurions (thatis, the provincial "middle dass"), some merchants and artisans, and all slaves and freedmen. 107 Anecdotal evidence also supports this condusion. In one reference, a priest named (appropriately enough) Senator is described as "noble by birth, morenoble by his piety.'' 108 Ambrose ofMilan, Paulinus ofNola, and Sidonius Apollinaris ofClermont were all from the senatorial dass. Augustine of Hippo was likely of the equestrian dass. The examples could be endlessly multiplied. There are exceptions, of course, free men of the lower dasses who became bishops. Martin ofTours was from such a background: his father had only been an army official in Pannonia, although one with the rank of tribune. But Martin was gready criticized for his uncouth manners by his fellow bishops, as Sulpicius Severus indicated in his account of Martin. 109 When a freed slavewas chosen as bishop ofRome in the person ofCallixtus in the early third century and before the ecdesiastical censure of such an action, he was opposed by Hippolytus, who made mention of his opponent's low social status as part of the reason for his unsuitability for such an office (alongside his shady past, as he had served a sentence in the mines for allegedly having embezzled from his former owner; and on account of his disturbing pronouncements, permitring free Christian women to cohabit with Christianmale slaves). 110 Such snobbery was obviously common. In a letter to a third party, Augustine ofHippo remarked on the "unpolished speech" of one bishop, although he recommended the man's piety.m And Jerome offered the opinion that any man raised from a position of poverty or of low social standing to the office of bishop would only be grasping and hungry for power. 112 Recall, finally, how Optatus dismissed Lucilla's choice for bishop of Carthage as a domestic slave. So even if the bishops might celebrate their slavery to God and their humble baseness, this rhetoric must be tempered by their continuing appreciation for a distinguished birth. Whatever they might say about their humble status, men of the Roman nobilitywho became Christian bishops relied on the upbringing designed to train them for public life when holding ecdesiastical office. In this regard, the new Christian elite continued many elements of traditional Roman politics: the formal education and the rhetorical skills that it provided for men, the importance of decorum in public, and the reliance on a wide network of friends and allies and the old svstem of patronage. Admittedly, Christian leadersalso experimented with innova-

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tions in these traditions. They rejected a classical pagan education, for example, in favor of an education focused more on Christian and especially on Biblical texts, and they advocated for the poor and powerless as new political allies and spiritual patrons who might gain heavenly favor for them. 113 Other features of ecclesiastical male leadership blended much more easily with more traditional forms of political office. The old networks of the aristocratic families, which had always provided methods of patronage and advancement for men, became an integral part of the structure of the Christian churches. The fact that these alliances were put to theological or ecclesiastical purposes rather than political has perhaps disguised their many similarities, but much could be said about the role of existing marital and familial alliances in delineating the factions of theological controversies in late antiquity. 114 In all of these areas, nobility lent its advantages to the Christian bishops. Despite the rhetoric of episcopallowliness, moreover, legislation confirmed the elevated social status of the bishops of the later Roman Empire. Constantine granted to bishops an exemption from the public duties and financial obligations required of other men of the nobility. 115 Laws of the Christian emperors after Constantine extended these privileges given to bishops. All bishops received the honorary rarik of nobility of illustres) the rank also given to the men who held important political offices in the empire. 116 Bishops could not be brought into secular courts on any charge, nor might any frivolaus charges be brought against them. 117 Any assault made on the person of a bishop required capital punishment.118 A bishop had the power to expel from office any presbyter who was judged unworthy of office. 119 Some of these laws made explicit mention of the "saintly name and rank" ofbishops and the "reverence for religion and the priesthood [sacerdotium ]" that prompted these laws. 120 In addition to their legal privileges, the Christian bishops of the later empire enjoyed other marks of social distinction. They had tremendous wealth at their disposal, the wealth of continual donations to the local churches from wealthy patrons and from the rulers of the empire. This wealth existed at least from the time of Constantine, who gave large gifts of property and buildings and money to individual churches across the empire, and who also made churches the heirs to any unclaimed estates belanging to martyrs killed in the most recent persecutions. 121 Continuing donations augmented this wealth. Less than a century later, Jerome was complaining to his correspondents that some bishops enjoyed their wealth a bit too much. 122 Wealth was combined with social importance. Beginning in the early fourth century, Christian bishops met regularly in councils, both regional

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and imperial-wide (the latter called ecumenical), the first ofwhich were held in the Westat Ades in Gaul in 314 and at Elvira in Spain earlier in the century. At these meetings, they voted on issues of social regulation as weil as doctrinal controversy, and issued their decisions in decrees (called canons) considered as binding on all Christians. Unlike the meetings of the Senate or of the provincial councils on which they were presumably based, the decisions of the church councils had some punch, enforced at the locallevel by the authority of the bishops and the piety of the laity. 123 The bishops did not only talce on the trappings of the senators, however, but even borrowed some of the trappings of the emperors. Constantine and his imperial successors donated many basilicas-assembly haUs used for audiences with the emperor (hence their name, from the Greek basileusJ "ruler") - for rededication as Christian churches. Elaborate processions had talcen place at these basilicas in the presence of the emperor, who seated hirnself on a throne at one end of the hall. By the end of the fourth century, the processions involved the bishops and the bishops seated themselves on these thrones (from which these basilicas took their alternative name, cathedrals, that is, from the Greek kathedraJ "cushioned seat, throne"). 124 The laity approached bishops with their heads bowed, not as complete a submission as their required prostration before the emperor but still a sign of subordination. 125 Some presbyters even preferred to keep silent in the presence of a bishop. 126 Echoes of an imperial presence might even have been seen in the dress of the bishops in late antiquity, because at some indeterminate date bishops borrowed the rohes of imperial purple for themselves. 127 Suchsymbols of episcopal authorityfunctioned as a silent but powerful response to the might ofimperial rule. Through the ecclesiastical structure of the Christian churches, Roman men of the upper classes could rediscover a public life and political infiuence, albeit directed into new channels. The bishop came to represent the new public man. "What is to be treasured is not a place of honor or power in this life:' Augustine suggested to his contemporaries, but neither should a man reject all for "a life of leisure:' especially "so leisuredas to talce no thought in that leisure for the interest ofhis neighbor." 128 Instead, Augustine recommended, the best life should be a mixture of public responsibilities and leisure for study: in short, he concluded, the life of a bishop. In their public role and political authority, the bishops oflate antiquity also represented a new manliness. Sidonius Apollinaris described one bishop of Gaul- Lupus ofTroyes-in the distinctly manly terms of militarism:

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You are, beyond all doubt, the first of allbishops everywhere in the world; members even of your provincial college bow to your pre-eminence and tremble before your censure; and your commanding prestige mak:es the minds even of the old seem childish by comparison. . . . [You are] their mostfarnaus centurion [primipilaris]. Is it possible, then, in spite of all this greatness, that you separate yourself for a while from the company of the front-rank fighters [hastati] and soldiers who fight in front of the Standards [antesignani] and do not scorn your lowliest military servants [calones] and carnp-followers [lixae] ?129

Sidonius took advantage of a specialized military vocabulary to reinforce his larger point: that bishop Lupus was a "veteran commander" (dux veteranus) of the spiritual army of Christians. 130 It should not be surprising that the hierarchy of the army should have been superimposed on the hierarchy of the church orthat episcopal authority, once established, should have been considered as equivalent to military command. Such a link helped to affirm both the bishops' authority and their manliness. In fact, Lupus's success was based in part on a military encounter. He was supposed to have persuaded the Runs to leave Troyes undisturbed in 451 during their raids through Gaul. lt was a martial victory of sorts, at least according to the Standards of the later Roman Empire. There is also a high degree offlattery involved in Sidonius's extravagant praise ofLupus, of course, not unlike the flattery once granted to emperors alone in the panegyrics (Sidonius composed panegyrics to the emperors Avitus, Majorian, andAnthemius and so lcnewthe genre as well as anyone). The manly might of the bishops, with its spiritual and practical benefits, was obviously firmly in place in the minds of contemporaries in the middle of the fifth century, when Sidonius wrote, even as the might of the emperors was in steep decline. Sidonius Apollinaris also wrote to the people of Bourges to recommend a man named Biturigans as their bishop. He listed the qualities he felt demonstrated Biturigans's "honest manliness" (bonus viratus) and made him such an excellent candidate: He is constant in times of adversity, faith.ful in times of uncertainty, moderate in prosperity; simple in dress, genial in conversation, an equal among his comrades, pre-eminent as a counselor; well-proven friendships he strenuously pursues, staunchly maintains, and guards to the end; a quarrel declared against him he conducts honorably, ever slow to credit it and quick to lay it down. 131

There is not much here to distinguish Biturigans from the ancient ideal of a Roman public figure. Sidonius added one more quality that made it

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clear that Biturigans was also the new Christian ideal: "A man to be desired in the highest degree because he desires so little for himself, he seeks not to assurne the priesthood but to deserve it?' 132 Biturigans joined in hirnself the manliness and unmanliness of the Christian public official, and this is what made him so well suited to episcopal office. It is in the context of the Christi an reorientation of public life that Ambrose's important worlc, De officiis ministrorum (On the Duties of Servants [of God] ), should be placed. The worlc was in many ways a Christian redaction ofCicero'sDe officiis (On the Duties [ofRoman Citizens]), that is, a guide for the functioning of the individual man within society. Ambrose delineated what was expected of men in ecclesiastical service in a Straightforward manner. A sample passage reads: In giving judgment let us have no respect of persons. Favor must be put out of sight, and the case be decided on its merits. Nothingis so great a strain on another's good opinion or confidence, as the fact of our giving away the cause of the weaker to the more powerful in any case that comes before us. The same happens if we are hard on the poor, while we make excuses for the rich man when guilty. Men are ready enough to flatter those in high positions. 133

The qualities that Ambrose described would have been appropriate to any Roman public man. Ambrose's treatise also included traditional manly exhortations to justice, courage, prudence, temperance, and generosity; exhortations that Cicero also made.l3 4 Nonetheless, Ambrose also included a number of unclassical virtues in exhortations to humility (humilitas) and modesty (verecundia). 135 Cicero would certainly have considered these virtues unmanly and therefore unbecoming in a public man, but they were central to Christian manliness. It was a sign of the new conviction in the bishop as political figure that Ambrose thought it worthwhile to write such a treatise and to write it implicitly as a revision ofCiceronian ideals. In the end, Christian men of the later Romannobility who transferred their allegiances from the secular to the ecclesiastical realm did not suffer from their laclc of influence with the state, because it was ultimately less important. Augustine argued for the insignificance of the state in his City ofGod right at the point in which he detailed the victories of the Christian emperors over their pagan rivals. Even "the loftiest summit of power:' he commented, "is nothing more than a passing rnist." 136 Ambrose went even farther: all worldly honors belonged to the Devil. 137 True political authority belonged to the Church and its officials, and not to the emperor and his officials. "We priests have our own nobility:' Ambrose wrote,

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"which is preferable to that of prefects and consuls; we have, I say, the glories of the faith which cannot perish." 138 Within this context, the churches' gradual appropriation of civic management in the fifth century, while also a response to the disintegration of the Roman state, can be seen at least in part as a result of the bishop as having replaced the magistrate in symbolic power. The Christian transformation of political authority required considerable manipulation of traditionalgender roles of masculine authority and feminine submission, but out of this manipulation came a new paradox of masculine identity. Men of the upper classes, removed from any real participation in the imperial government by the autocracyof the emperor, found a new type of political authority in the hierarchy of the Christian churches. As a result, Christian leaders helped to rechannel men's energies away from the pursuit of bureaucratic offices or the vain ostentation of rural seclusion. Political power thus remained an important masculine pursuit for the Christian nobility of the later empire.

CHAPTER SIX

IIMY SEED ISA HUNDRED TIMES

MORE FERTILE" Christian Masculinity) Sex) and Marriage

Christian writers added surprisingly little to the litany of sexual transgressions already delineated in late antiquity or to the inventory of the disadvantages of marriage already formulated by pagan writers. By pinpointing sexual desire as the origin and core of human sinfulness, however, the Latin Christian writers argued that the renunciation of sex and marriage was a sign of perfection and therefore a sign of manliness. They managed to use both traditional philosophical and Biblicallanguage to express these opinions and thus laid claim to be true heirs to the classical heritage and orthodox interpreters of the Christian message. The manliness of Christian sexual renunciation also meant discouraging marriage. Still, as much as they discounted sex and marriage as inferior to virginity and celibacy, orthodox Christian writers condemned as heretical those Christians who forbade sex and marriage altogether, since the continuation of sexuality and marital relations helped to preserve masculine authority. Even when women and men chose lives of sexual renunciation and abandoned ties of familial affection, moreover, men's authority remained over themasspiritual fathers. In sum, Christian ideology-as it pertained to sex and marriage-was crafted to perpetuate masculine privilege in private life. CHRISTIAN SEXUAL TRANSGRESSIONS

The traditional freedom of the Roman man to pursue a variety of sexual pleasures found no place in the developing Christian ideology of sex. Already at the end of the second century, an anonymaus Christian writing 161

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in Rome echoed the words of his contemporary, the jurist Ulpian, on adultery: "He who wishes to have a restrained [söphrona] wife must also restrain hirnself [söphronein ].''1 Christian writers also showed themselves as anxious about men's sexual transgressions as had been their pagan counterparts. In the middle of the third century, Cyprian of Carthage offered the opinion that a man who sinned sexually was even worse than a lapsed Christian who sacrificed to the pagan gods, since the latter acted only under compulsion while the former acted freely, "profaning his own dedicated body and God's own Temple in the abominable filth of the sewer and the slimy dives of the masses?'2 Christian writers considered sexual vices as manifesting something troublesome about human nature itself. In the early fourth century, Lactantius argued that it was the Devil who implanted sexual sins in men: he has established also houses of ill-repute and made public the shame of unfortunate women, so that he might hold in mockery those who do it as much as those who have to suffer it. He has plunged in these obscenities, as in a whirlpool of filth, souls destined for sanctity; he has extinguished shame; he has berated modesty [pudicitia]. The same one has even joined males and has contrived abominable intercourse against nature and against the institute of God. 3

Worse, Lactantius continued, was that "yet these practices among them are regarded as light and sort of honorable?'4 Few Christian moralists manifested greater concern about sexual behavior than Jerome, another of the prolific Latin writers oflate antiquity and the point of focus for this chapter. Jerome wrote frequently on the subject of marriage and sexuality during his lifetime, which stretched from the middle of the fourth to the early fifth century.· He was an educated man and was ordained a presbyter at Rome. But he abandoned Rome and the clericallife for Bethlehem in Palestine and the monastic life under a cloud of scandal in 385, when a young woman under his counsel died from excessive fasting (more will be said about Jerome's advocacy for monasticism in chapter 8). Still, he associated and corresponded with the wealthiest and most influential of Christian circles in Rome even after his departure for the Bast. Living in the Bast, he was more familiar with the currents of Greek Christian and even of Jewish thought than were most other Latin Christians, and he drew freely from both sources in his writings (he read Greek and Hebrew, and used his lcnowledge of both languages in his Vulgate translation of the Bible, for which he is best remembered). 5 Let us begin with one of the many letters Jerome wrote, dated to 399

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and addressed to Oceanus, a man of the senatorial aristocracy of Rome. The letterwas an elegy for the widow Fabiola, a relative of Oceanus and a faithful supporter ofJerome. The letter is fascinating in its details, including an emotional recollection of the arrival of the Huns in the Bastern Empire: "fiying hither and thither on their swift steeds ... these invaders were filling the whole world with bloodshed and panic. ... May Jesus save the Roman world from such wild beasts in the future!" 6 Jerome's depiction ofFabiola is equally fascinating; she seems exactly the sort of widowed noble Christian patroness described in chapter 5 who, in freeing herself of masculine familial control, became worrisome to the male episcopal authority. But Jerome argued that Fabiola had not considered her widowhood as an opportunity for freedom, the way so many others wickedly did. "Widows;' he declared, "having shalcen off the yoke of slavery, are wont to grow careless and indulge in license, frequenting the public baths, fiitting to and fro in the squares, showing their harlot faces everywhere?' 7 Fabiola, by contrast, used her wealth and freedom for the benefit of others and not herself. "Shall I mention her studied squalor;' he asked, "her plebeian dress, and the slave's garb she chose in condemnation of silken robes?" 8 "She preferred to break up and sell all that she could lay hands on of her property-it was a large one and suitable to her rank- and when she had turned it into money she disposed of everything for the benefit of the poor?'9 Fabiola also used her funds to travel across the empire on a pilgrimage to the birthplace ofJesus, where she befriended Jerome. When she returned to Italy, she purchased a hostel at the port of Rome in tandem with a Christian widower named Pammachius, which they opened to the destitute. The only quarrel between the two of them was "who should be first in ... kindness;' Jerome claimed. "What each desired they carried out together. They joined purses and combined their plans, that harmony might increase?' 10 One aspect of this letter that is of particular note is the way Jerome depicted Fabiola's first husband in his elegy and the comments he made about him. Fabiola had divorced her first husband and found another, and Jerome did his best to hide this blemish on her character by painting it as an intolerable situation (I will tallc more about the scandal of remarriage later in this chapter). Fabiola's first husband was the worst sort of man, Jerome declared, "a man of such heinaus vices that even a prostitute or a common slave could not have put up with them?>ll Jerome took the opportunity to rail against the men ofhis day, perhaps intending it in part as a lesson for Oceanus and other male readers of his letter. ''Among the Romans men's unchastity goes unchecked;' he exclaimed; "seduction and adultery are condemned, but free permission is given to lust to range the

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brothels and to have slave girls." But "the laws ofCaesar aredifferent from the laws of Christ:' Jerome continued, "Papinian commands one thing, our Paul another?' In sexual matters, "with us whatis unlawful for women is equally unlawful for men, and as both sexes serve God they are bound by the same conditions?' 12 In other words, even while some Roman moralists and legislators worried about the collapsing distinctions between men's and women's sexual roles, Jerome demonstrates-and other Christian writers voiced the same sentiment-that Christians were unconcerned about the gender ambiguity involved in assimilating men's and women's sexual virtue. Indeed, Jerome freely admitted that both sexes were held to the same standard. Likewise, Jerome worried about the disturbances of domestic life caused by promiscuous husbands and freewheeling widows, as other moralists oflate antiquity did. But he did not seem concerned that Fabiola had escaped the control of men by refusing to remarry; indeed, he praised her widowhood and characterized as harmonious a peculiar unmarried relationship between her and Pammachius. Different criteria were obviously being used in Christian writers' approvals and criticisms, criteria that I will attempt to illurninate in this chapter. In terms of actual sexual transgressions for men, Christians seem to have added little to the opinions already circulating in late antiquity. The extent to which the Christians accommodated themselves to existing Roman sexual attitudes may seem surprising to modern readers, since the Christian code of sexual morality, once formulated, often cut squarely agairrst the grairr of the cultural attitudes of later societies, but this accommodation can be easily demonstrated. Christian definitions of and opposition to adultery is a good example. All extant Latin Christian writers who wrote on the subject of adultery, from Tertullian on, condemned it. ''All things are held in common among Tertullian said about his fellow Christians, "except our wives?m Christian writers also firmly believed that married men were bound by the same restrictions as married women. Hippolytus declared that "if any man has a wife, or a woman has a man, they should be taught to be content, the man with the woman and the woman with the man." 14 Christians themselves noted the conjunction of pagan and Christian attitudes on this subject but included adultery among those offenses that met with universal disapproval. 15 Christian writers also held that divine command as well as human law condemned adultery. Salvian used Biblical justification, for example, to argue that "the Lord said that the lewd glances of the lusting man do not fall short of the crime of adultery?' 16 But although both Jesus and Paul were remernbered as having spoken agairrst adultery,

us:'

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neither of their statementswas detailed or precise, and it is unclear the extent to which the earliest Christian tradition required an interpretation of adultery in anything other than the traditional Roman sense of sex with a married woman. 17 The anonymaus late ancient Christian writer identified as Ambrosiaster expressly recognized this limitation on the meaning of the Biblical passages on adultery, although he also rejected extramarital sexual affairs for men. 18 · Despite the uncertain Biblical precedent, Christian moralists clearly wanted the prohibition against adultery to limit married men's sexual behavior to their wives and not merely to limit married women's sexual behavior to their husbands. Accordingly, they appealed to reason and emotion as well as Scripture in their argument. Lactantius said to husbands that "it is evil to exact that which you yourself are not able to exhibit" and even suggested that "when a wife falls into such a marriage, aroused by the very example, she thinks that she should either irnitate it or get revenge."19 Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine also all condemned married men's as well as women's extramaritat sexual relationships. Ambrose, for example, said that "every kind of sexual offense [stuprum] is adultery, and what is not appropriate to the woman is not appropriate to the man;''20 The constant repetition of this clarification suggests that the Church fathers themselves were aware of the limited Biblical support for their opinions and feit it necessary to rely on other methods for preventing Christian men from engaging in what they might not otherwise have considered sinful. Christian prohibitions against men's sexual use of slaves, either within their own hausehold or by consorting with prostitutes, follow the same pattern. There were not really any suitable Biblical precedents for such prohibitions, except in Paul's briefcondemnations ofpornoi. The word referred to those who engaged in porneia, which sometimes meant "sexual offenses" broadly conceived but which more often meant "prostitution" in classical sources; Paul might well have meant "persons involved in prostitution:' but more likely prostitutes or panderers rather than frequenters of prostitutes. Jerome, perhaps recognizing this ambiguity in his Latin translation of Paul's writings, translated the term as adulteri, "men who have sex with married women:' in one passage, and as fornicarii, "men who frequent brothels:' in another. 21 So Christian writers again preferred rational argument to Biblical prohibitions to make their point. Salvian of Marseilles complained that "the mother of the house is not far removed from the lowliness offemale slaves when the father of the house is the husband of slaves;''22 Again, these arguments may well have taken place in the context of men's ignorance that these were supposed to

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have been considered as sins. Recall, for example, Paulinus ofPella's adrnission that he was "satisfied with servile amours in my own home; for I preferred to be guilty of a fault rather than a crime?'23 Lilce their pagan counterparts, Christian intellectuals were trying to persuade men to adopt a new and more rigorous code of sexual restraint. Ambrose, conderrming men who had sex with prostitutes, specifically rejected the suggestion-perhaps commonly made by men opposing a more rigid sexual morality-that it was only naturalthat men would seek outlets for their sexual drives. 24 Jerome, too, declared that no man should "deny that there is a lustful sacrilege" ifhe had "violated the members of Christ and the living sacrifice that is pleasing to God through shameful impurities with the victims of public lust;' that is, ifhe had enjoyed sex with prostitutes. 25 But it may be that some Christian men were refusing to accept as sinful exactly what Jerome insisted was sinful. A final example of the confluence between Christian and pagan sexual morality in late antiquity can be found in Christian opposition to sex between males. Christians probably had clearer Biblical precedents here for their condemnations, from Paul's lists of sexual offenders that included "effeminate men" (malakoi) the Greek equivalent of the Latin molles) and "males who lie down with males" (arsenokoitai) translated into Latin as masculorum concubitores). 26 The juxtaposed terms seem to indicate a condemnation of both the male who penetrates and the male who is penetrated, but the precise meaning of both terms is uncertain. The Biblical legend of Sodom also provided a lirnited basis for the condemnation of the penetrating male (since the sin of Sodom was already interpreted by some in late antiquity to have been a sexual one, and the Sodornites were thought to have wanted to penetrate the strangers and not be penetrated by them). 27 But Christian moralists seldom made use of these Biblical precedents in their condemnations of sex between males, which may reflect their own uncertainty about the interpretation of these passages. Instead, they resorted to a typical Roman rhetoric of the violation of nature. An anonymaus late ancient Christian poet attributed any sexual desires between males to the intervention in human affairs of the Devil, who induced men "to transgress nature's covenants, and stain pure bodies, manly sex, with an embrace unnamable, and uses ferninine?' 28 Novatian described how sex between males resulted in "uncommon and fearsome monstrosities against nature itself frommen through men?' 29 The nature that men violated through sexual relations with each other was not human nature but masculine nature, by blurring the distinctions between masculine and feminine sexual behavior. Salvian of Marseilles ridiculed the ancient beliefthat it was part of manly sexual aggression to

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penetrate another male, calling it folly that men "who subdued men to the worst infamy of feminine use believed that they were possessors of great manly strength." He continued sarcastically, "Since they were brave men, they could change men into women! How criminal this was!" 30 Again, we cannot know how many of their contemporaries shared their views and how many disputed them: Salvian's comments seem pointed toward an opposing opinion. But Christian leaders made a point of using the familiar horrific rhetoric of the penetrated male and attaching the same horror to the penetrating male in their blanket condemnation of sexual behavior between males. They, like pagan moralists, condemned the actions of both men involved in sexual encounters between males. Cyprian denounced the men whom "with frenzied lusts rush against men;' intending apparently to rebuke the penetrating partner. 31 There are vestiges of an older morality on male sexual behavior. In an odd set of treatises on lying, Augustine argued that for a man to swear falsely was worse than for him to be penetrated by another man. 32 Augustine's argument o.nly made sense if the sexual penetration of a man was thought so horrific that it seemed counterintuitive to assert that lying was worse, and Augustine obviously assumed that the disgust at the thought that an adult male wanted or permitred hirnself to be penetrated sexually was sufficient to drive home his point. In general, though, Christian moralists continued the blurring of the distinction in male sexual relationships between active and passive roles and lumped both together as sin. The condemnation of male sexual immorality along familiar lines was part of a larger Christian rhetorical strategy. The preference for arguments from reason and emotion and nature instead ofBiblical citations was not o.nly because of the obliqueness of the Biblical texts but also because Christian writers sought to persuade their audience by appealing to existing perceptions of right and wrong. We should not believe that Christian moralists were coldly calculating popular response to their ideas; they doubtless held these beliefs sincerely. Rather, they used the attitudes of contemporary moralists to demonstrate the similarities between the Christian sexual code and the code of sexual self-restraint already encouraged in late antiquity and thus to associate themselves with what they considered the best of the Roman heritage. The appeal to common understandings can be seen, for example, in the Christian denunciations of the immorality of the emperors, which are entirely remi.niscent ofthe denunciations ofthe Roman histories. Nero was "inflamed by an excess of every vice;' Hadrian dishonored his companion Antinous "in the imperial embrace" and "robbed him of his manhood;' Elagabalus "defiled the innermost sanctum of the Augustan seat" (also a play on

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words that alluded to his preference for asswning the penetrated sexual role ), and Maximian directed hirnself "not only to the corruption of young men, an odious and detestable thing, but also to the violation of the daughters of the leading citizens?'33 Even if Christians adopted the later Roman sexual morality as they inherited it, though, they attributed this morality to the teachings of their religion. Again, this attribution was part of a larger strategy, because it enabled Christian writers to criticize the earlier sexual customs ofRome and even to associate these customs with unmanliness, something pagan writers were unwilling to do. Accordingly, Christian writers were able to initiate a larger critique of pagan culture through their discussions of sexual morality. Already at the beginning of the third century, for example, Tertullian attempted to undermine the wisdom of Greek philosophy by calling Socrates "a corruptor ofyouth" (corruptor adulescentium). It was true insofar as it was the reason Socrates had been condeqmed to death and shows Tertullian's knowledge of the classical heritage. But Tertullian meant to draw attention to Socrates' enjoyment of Greek pederasty in using the phrase, which is clear from his cantrast between Socrates and what he claimed was a typical Christian man -one who "confines hirnself to the female sex?'34 Pagan intellectuals oflate antiquity never made a similar Statement, even those who condemned sex between males; they were tied too closely to the ancient Greek and Roman cultural heritage to be able to formulate so hostile an assessment. In contrast, Christian writers were more easily able to dismiss the pagan and classical foundations of late ancient culture, because they had at their disposal an alternative cultural tradition in the Biblical heritage, even if they did not make much use of the actual content of the Biblical heritage in creating that sexual code. Through their condemnations, we see another aspect of the importance ofChristian ideology in late antiquity, as a means for escaping the intellectual constraints of the classical heritage. Christian ideology permitred Christians to break with the past in a way that was impossible for pagans. Above all, this cantrast is evident in the Christian denunciation of the sexual immorality of the traditional Roman gods, a double vituperation of the paganism itself as well as of earlier sexual customs. Jupiter "held the wretched Ganymede in hisfoul embrace;' in the words ofPrudentius. 35 "I make no mention of the virgins he defiled;' began Lactantius on the same subject, "but I cannot pass over ... [what] he spoiled with dishonor and infamy;' which Lactantius considered "a deed of consummate impiety and wickedness, his rape and outrage of the royal son;' and a "true spoilage which is committed against nature?' Lactantius concluded the following about the myth ofJupiter and Ganymede: "For what other

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purpose is the eagle worshipped in the temples of Jupiter, except that the memory of the wicked crime and outrage might remain forever?" 36 Jupiter was not the only god to be tainted with such sexual vice. Hercules was also "notorious for his love of an effeminate boy [nwllis puer];''37 Bacchus "was a pervert [cinaedus] and served the lustful desires ofhis lovers" with "his halfmen [semiviri] friends, his associates in debauchery, shame, and lust." 38 And Apollo, who "was in love with a beautiful boy, violated him?' 39 The need for such a Christian denunciation was muted over the course of the fourth century, as paganism declined in importance and was eventually outlawed. But even at the beginning of the fifth century, Augustine still criticized the immorality of the pagan gods in The City ofGod. Jupiter was "a seducer of the wives of others, and a shameless lover and ravisher of a beautiful boy?'40 In the same work, he complained that classicalliterature still "excited the base passions of young men by portraying the disgraces fflagitia] ofJupiter?'41 In general, and because of such depictions of sexual vice in the myths of paganism, Christian men feit a real ambivalence about reading classical Latin literature. Most of the Christian writers of late antiquity were educated in the classical texts, knew them weil, and even imitated their style (recall, for example, Ambrose's redaction of Cicero's De officiis mentioned in chapter 5 ). They also worried about the corrupting influence of classicalliterature. Jerome, for example, promised to God never again to read a pagan text after receiving a vision from a sickbed in which God accused him of being more a Ciceroman than a Christian. Nonetheless, Jerome continued to sprinkle quotations from and allusions to classical texts throughout his letters; a discrepancy that a rival eventually pointed out to himY His ambivalence is painfully clear. The problern with such literature, the fourth-century polemicist Firmicus Matemus suggested, was that men used the legends of the pagan gods to justify their own immoral actions. He described this tendency in a passage dripping with sarcasm: Another person is fond of the embraces of boys: weil, let him look for Ganymede in Jupiter's bosom, let him see Hercules questing after Hylas with the impatience of love, let him learn how Apollo was overcome with desire for Hyacinthus ... so that he may declare that his gods authorize him to do whatever is today most severely punished by the laws of Rome.... If someone acts passively like a woman or seeks solace in an effeminate body, let him see that Liber [Bacchus] is rewarded by his lover even after death with favors of promised passion in imitation of shameful intercourse.... For those wishing to commit incest the example ofJove

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should be taken up, since he slept with bis mother, married bis sister, and so that he might complete the whole repertoire of incest, that corrupter of persons even made advances toward bis daughter. 43

The cantrast between the sexual immorality exhibited in ancient myths and what was encouraged by contemporary moral Standards also served to differentiate neatly Christian from pagan culture. (Firmicus was a former pagan astrologer himself, who became a Christian and then ridiculed his former pagan beliefs ). The repeated comparison of pagan belief to prostitutionalso reinforced the connection between the traditional religionsandsexual vice. 44 The real importance of Christian ideology lay not so much in the denunciation of specific sexual activities but in changing the moral significance of sexual acts. The ancient myths and classicalliterature of the pagans continually reminded everyone that men had not al~ays been so sexually restrainedas their moralists told them they should be. But Christians, who viewed such traditions as nothing more than a heritage of sexual sin, could forge a new masculine identity removed from the sexual behavior of the ancients. "The laws of Caesar are different frpm the laws of Christ," Jerome said, merely adapting an earlier and more farnaus dictum ofTertullian: "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?"45 The heritage of pagan sexual transgression functioned for Christian writers as a symbol of the need for a total cultural transformation.

THE MANLINESS OF SEXUAL RENUNCIATION

Christian leaders encouraged the code of male sexual restraint not only as a sign ofChristian conviction but also as a sign of manliness. They did not rely on ancient medical beliefs in the dangers of sex to enforce the code but on Christian theological beliefs in sex as sin, and in this way they avoided the trap of unmanliness. They turned male sexual renunciation into a heroic act and created an intellectual environment in which men might abandon sex and its dangers without jeopardizing their masculine identity. An excellent example of the Christian reformulation of male sexual renunciation can be found in the funerary portrait of the emperor Valentinian li, delivered by Ambrose ofMilan in 392 (and serves as a nice comparison with the depiction of the emperor Julian by the pagan Ammianus Marcellinus, written about the sametime and used as an example of pagan sexual renunciation, in chapter 3 ). It may seem odd to find Ambrose lavishing praise upon this emperor, given his numerous struggles against

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him and against the authority of the state in general, but this incongruity merely highlights the stylized nature of the oration. Once Valentinian was dead, Ambrose could safely depict him as he wished he had been. Ambrose began his funeral speech in a typically panegyric way, idealizing all aspects of the emperor's life and reign. He was courageaus in war; his subjects loved him dearly. Ambrose glossed over Valentinian's Arian Christian upbringing and the fact that he died unbaptized and instead emphasized the restrictions that Valentinian placed on paganism as a sign of the sincerity of his Chrisrianity. 46 Ambrose even suggested that Valentinian was like Christ, by means of a quirky argument, in that Valentinian appeared to Ambrose as "a bright and ruddy youth;' and therefore not unlilce the Biblical description of the bridegroom of the Song of Songs.47 These descriptions all echoed the extravagant praise of pagan panegyrics, but with adefinite Christian twist. Whenever Ambrose commented upon Valentinian's sexual behavior, both this Christian component and the artificial nature of the text become clear. Ambrose conceded that a typical young man was "unwilling to offer the neck of his mind to the yoke" of sexual restraint and submit to "the burdens of discipline, the rigor of amendment, the weight of abstinence and the curbing of lust;' but maintained that Valentinian easily accepted such things happily. 48 To emphasize his point, he related a tale of a beautiful actress whom the young emperor had brought to court, only to see all ofhis young companions falllustfully enthralled to her. But Valentinian "never gazed at her or saw her;' according to Ambrose, so that "he might teach the youths to refrain from the love of a woman whom he himself, who could have kept her in his power, had spurned.'' Ambrose concluded that "he thus gave proof ofhis chastity;' adding that "who is so much a master of a servant as he was ofhis own body?"49 When he described Valentinian's marriage, Ambrose made obvious again the elegiac nature of the speech. The emperor deferred his marriage as long as he could, Ambrose avowed, enjoying only the pious and chaste love of his sisters. 50 When the necessities of state obliged him to marry, he became a model husband, "chaste in body, who had no intercourse with any woman other than his wife.'' 51 Insofar as Valentinian TI bore any resemblance to the figure portrayed in Ambrose's oration, he lived according to the sexual ideals held by both pagan and Christian moralists in late antiquity. Ambrose, who lcnew weil how to manipulate the image of manliness, said ofValentinian that "he died a veteran in the campaigns of virtue [virtus ];' evolcing with these words the martial identity that Roman man so admired and linlcing it to sexual restraint. 52 The manliness of sexual re-

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nunciation was an assertion that carried obvious appeal, and Christian writers skillfully deployed gendered rhetoric in support of their ideals of male sexuality. But Christian writers had another rhetorical device in their armory, a device they also used in military and political tropes, as we have seen in the last two chapters, and that was the paradox of apparent unmanliness. Let me give an example before I explain further. When Ambrose gave a funeral address for his brother Satyrus in 3 79, he did not link sexual restraint to a military manliness, as he did for Valentinian II. lnstead, he attributed to hisbrother (who never married) a sexual modesty more reminiscent of ideals for warnen rather than for men. He said of Satyrus: if perchance he had ... met some female relative, he was as it were bowed down and sunlc to the earth, though he was not different in company with men, he seldom lifted up his face, raised his eyes, or spoke; whenhe did one of these things, it was with a lcind ofbashful modesty of mind [p~dico mentis pudore], with which, too, the chastity of his body [castimonia corporis] agreed. 53

His brother's demeanor was not an effeminate one, despite:its similarity with women's. Rather, it represented the "foundations of manliness" (fundamenta virtutis), according to Ambrose. His was a manly modesty. Finding manliness in sexual modesty was only possible because of the differing beliefs of pagans and Christians about the origins of sexual desire. Pagan writers relied on the ancient medical perspective that tied sexual desire to the heat of the male body and sexual exertion as diminishing that heat and draining the energy of the male body. Christian writers apparently also accepted this medical perspective. Jerome, for example, wrote of one man that "the natural heat of the body fights against his fixed purpose" of sexual renunciation, and Ambrose bemoaned the fact that men, "being warm with the natural heat of the body and inflamed beyond the measure of nature by the heat of wine:' are often unable to "restrain themselves, and are excited to bestial passions."54 Nonetheless, Christian writers overwhelmingly preferred a theological to a medical terminology for discussing both the nature and origin of sexual desire (or lust, both terms being acceptable translations of the seemingly interchangeable Latin terms Iibido and concupiscentia). 55 Christians borrowed from and extrapolated upon a Biblical perspective of the place of lust in men's lives, especially through an interpretation of the fall of humanity and the origin of sin from the first chapters of the book of Genesis. Christian writers managed to construct a framework for understanding sexual desire as the result ofhuman frailty rather than

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its cause) as the medical perspective had insisted. Sexual restraint was not the fear of weakness but its undoing. The champion of the link between lust and the fall of humanity was Augustine of Hippo, and the ideas that filled several of his treatises can only be briefly encapsulated here, but have been sufficiently detailed elsewhere.56 In his earliest writings, Augustine followed earlier Latin Christian moralists -lilce Jerome and Ambrose, from whorri he borrowed some of his ideas-in questioning the place of sexuality in the will of God. "I know nothing which brings the manly mind down from the heights:' Augustine wrote in his earliest extant treatise, "more than a woman's caresses and that joining of bodies?'57 In these writings, Augustine claimed that only after the advent of sin did God permit to Adam and Eve the sexual abilities with which to procreate, so that they might replace themselves before they died (death being another consequence of the first sin). 58 In other words, sexwas not patt ofGod's original plan for humanity but began as a consequence of human sin and was linked to the punishment of human mortality. Augustine eventually changed his mind on this subject, in patt because he was uncomfortable with the idea of a God who had not anticipated human sin and had to improvise sexuality. In his later writings, Augustine argued that Adam and Eve would indeed have had sex even if they had not sinned and that sex was patt of God's plan after all, but their sexual encounters would have been orderly and completely devoid of lust. 59 Lust was the punishment for and the greatest evidence of the original sin ofAdam and Eve. 60 Indeed, lustwas the only patt of original sin that even Christian baptism could not erase, Augustine maintained, although baptism was supposed to remove all sin; lust remained lilce convalescence after illness. 61 The evidence of sin was imprinted upon us in an appropriate fashion: our inability to control our sexual thoughts or to prevent the sexual arousal of our bodies was a fitring retribution for Adam and Eve's disobedience to God. 62 Ultimately, Augustine's theological acceptance of sexuality came at the price of condemning human sexual desire as sinful. The association between sexual desire and sin was no innovation on the patt of Augustine, however, even if he laid out his understanding of the connection more carefully and more fully than most. The same linlcs can be seen in virtually every Latin Christian author. Tertullian included "the lusts of the flesh, and disbelief, and wrath" as those qualities that "are accounted to the common nature of all men, while yet the devil still has designs upon nature?' 63 Cyprian daimed that it was the Devil who "offers to the eyes seductive forms and easy pleasures so that by sight he may destroy chastit:y?'64 Lactantius also blamed the Devil for implanting sexual

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desires in men: "in our innermost parts, he sets going and incites stimuli, and he arouses and inflames that natural ardor?' 65 And Jerome declaimed: "the devil's power, all of it, is in the loins?'66 It is important to highlight here an obvious corollary to the union of sex and sin: the parallellink between sinlessness and sexlessness. That is the underlying message of the Christian writers on sexual matters. Sexual desires are the result of the wealmess of the first human beings. Human perfection, in contrast, consists in the desire for a return to the innocence of original humanity, understood both in terms of innocence from guilt and innocence of the lmowledge and practice of sex. (So innocent were Adam and Eve before they sinned, claimed Augustine, that they did not even know sexual modesty or shame and did not need to cover their genitals. 67 ) The preferred use of the Latin castitas (translated as "chastity" but which in a classical sense had meant "guiltlessness" and "innocence" and "moral purity") for Christian sexual abstinence, even more thanpudicitia) echoes with the moral superiority of sexual renunciation. Chastity subsumed all of the sexual virtues of pudicitia in late antiquity~virginity before marriage, sexual moderation and fidelity during marriage, and sexual continence in widowhood after marriage- and gave them aChristian coloring. 68 Consequently, desire for chastity was not at all the same as the fear of the physical dangers of sex, although these dangers were considered real enough. Indeed, it may not be too much to suppose that ancient medical notions of the wasring effects of sexual activity may have prompted the Christian placement of sexual desire at the heart of the debilitation caused by sin. 69 In contrast, chastity was resistance to sin, a refusal to succumb to the wealmess of temptation that had banished Adam and Eve from Paradise. The association of sexual renunciation with steadfastness and strength, in turn, helped to give it a masculine flavor and appeal. Women were already tied to physicality and wealmess through long-standing Roman cultural tradition; as objects of sexual desire they could equally stand as Christian symbols of the temptations of lust. "The enticements of sin pursue us and lust pursues us:' Ambrose wrote, "flee from it as from a frenzied mistress?' 70 Jerome recounted a disturbing but telling incident involving an unnamed martyr: When everyone had gone away, a beautiful prostitute came up to him and began to strakehisneck with gentle caresses, and (what is improper even to relate) to touchhisprivate parts with her hands: when his body was roused to lust as a result, this shameful conqueress lay down on top ofhim. The soldier of Christ did not know what to do or where to turn: he who had not

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yielded to tortures was being overcome by pleasure. At last, by divine inspiracion, he bit offhis tongue and spat it out in her face as she kissed him; and so the sense of lust was overcome by the sharp pain that replaced it. 71

The prostitute, as the sign of the temptations of sex, could not overcome the heroic resolve of the chaste "soldier of Christ." Resistance to lust, as the didactic nature of Jerome's legend indicates, was the martial sort of discipline that all men might desire for themselves. "The most selfcontrolled sort of man, when he is completely a mati [plane vir] ;' Augustine offered, is able "so manfully [viriliter] to malce use of women, that he is not subdued by the delights of the flesh, but governs them." 72 The military metaphor reinforced the links between sexual continence and manliness. Jerome used it repeatedly. "The voice of the Lord is as one exhorting and urging his soldiers to the reward of sexual modesty fpudicitia];' he wrote, and "whoever can fight, fight, conquer and triumph.w3 Augustine also relied on military imagery in a long letter to a man named Laetus, who had been considering marriage. Augustine argued that Laetus should remain celibate and thus ready for spiritual battle and not abandon his fight before the final victory by surrendering to his lust. 74 Tertullian called the desire for sex an "infirmity of the flesh" that did not compare weil to wounds received in battle or through torture (linking chastity not only with soldiering but also with martyrdom): Certainly, infirmity which succumbs in battle is more easily excused than that which succumbs in the bedchamber; that which gives way on the rack than that which gives way on the bridal bed; which yields to cruelty rather than concupiscence; which is conquered, groaning with pain, than that which is conquered, burning with lust. 75

Tertullian mocked the manliness of those who were thus conquered by sexual appetites. "A thing which calls for real virility!" he scoffed. "To rise from the easy relaxation of continence and fu1fill the functions of sexthis is to prove oneself a man indeed!"76 These descriptions were all attempts to instill the manliness of sexual renunciation in men's minds. The manly image of a charioteer in particular found its way into Christian writings on chastity. Novatian, an early-third-century presbyter at Rome, wrote a treatise entitledDe bono pudicitiae (On the Good ofSexual Modesty), in which he declared that "the spirit, after a manner of speaking, like a tried and true charioteer, curbs with the reins of the heavenly precepts the impetus of the flesh which exceeds the just limitations of the body.''77 The same image can be seen in Jerome ("you, Christ's charioteer"78) and Prudentius ("so let the desires of our bodies be reined inm9 ).

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The allusion is to Plato's Phaedrus, and it is found in a discussion of pederasty, curiously enough, although its argumentisthat men's love for boys should be spiritual and not physical. Given the Christian ambivalence about the classical philosophical tradition and the opposition to the ancient sexual values, it is odd to see it borrowed by Christian writers. But the Platonic metaphor for the soul's mastery of the body was too helpful for Christian intellectuals to ignore. It made the point that Christian moralists wanted to make andin a language familiar to the audience they wanted to reach, men educated in classicalliterature. The specific context of the metaphor in pederasty had to be ignored, but the manliness of the charioteer image outweighed the risks of reference to immoral sexual customs. Moreover, the original context of the metaphor in a discussion of classical sexual restraint probably also explains why the image of the charioteer was linked even in Christian usage to sexual renunciation. The importance of enlistirrg a manly language in support of chastity also helps to explain the numerous comparisons between Christian chastity and the athletes of the Roman arenas. (In late antiquity, charioteers were competitors in the arena rather than soldiers, so a connection could be easily made in the mind between them and other athletes ). Christian leaders overwhelming disapproved of the arena sports, in part because the arenas had been the location of the deaths of many martyrs, and when Constantirre became emperor, he outlawed gladiatorial contests. 80 But the arena sports contirrued, sports like wrestling and boxing and the killing of animals, and the manliness of the athlete was irresistible to Christian writers. It prompted Augustirre to compare the struggle for chastity to an athletic contest: Behold where the stadium is; behold where the wrestling grounds are; behold where the racecourse is; behold where the boxing ring is! ... Ifyou wish so to fight that you do not beat the air in vain but so as to strik:e your opponent manfully, then chastise your body and bring it into subjection that, abstaining from all things and contending lawfully, you may in triumph share the heavenly prize and the incorruptible crown. 81

The ambivalence of this imagery can be easily seen when this passage is compared with another: Augustirre's description of a friend named Alypius who was attracted to the arena games. With a dramatic flourish that might weil betray a certain fascination with the games himself, Augustirre depicted the scene: Alypius shut his eyes tightly, determined to have nothing to do with these atrocities. If only he had dosed his ears as weil! For an incident in the fight

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drew a great roar from the crowd, and this thrilled him so deeply that he could not contain his curiosity. ... He was confident that, if he saw it, he would find it repulsive and remain master of himself. So he opened his eyes, and his soul was stabbed with a wound more deadly than any which the gladiator, whom he was anxious to see, had received in his body.... When he saw the blood, it was as though he had drunk a deep draught of savage passion. . . . He watched and cheered and grew hot with excite. ment. 82

If the spectators ofsports rnight be seen as lacking in self-control, though, the athletes themselves were admired for their discipline and courage. "We are athletes:' Ambrose said ofhis fellowChristians in a discussion of sexual continence, "we strive, as it were, in a spiritual stadium."83 In perhaps the oddest discussion ofChristians and the arena sports, Jerome described the sainted Hilarion of Gaza: unaffected by the games as a young man but as tempted by visions of gladiatorial shows in the desert, willing to eure a charioteer but only if the man gave up his profession, and blessing the horses of a local charioteer with holy water. 84 If Christian men could be construed as athletes, then the martyrs rnight be considered as the champions among Christian athletes and rnight even function as popular celebrities in the same way that the most accomplished athletes did. (Tertullian complained that athletes were "most beloved of persans [amantissimi] to whom men surrender their souls and women even their bodies."85 ) Or at least, some Christian writers hoped to promote them as such. Cyprian compared the willingness of both gladiators and martyrs to face death. 86 Prudentius described in vivid athletic terms the martyrdom of Vincent in the arena: "now they have reached the wrestling-ground where the prize is glory, where hope contends with cruelty, and martyr and torturer face each other and join in the critical struggle?'87 Again, it may seem unusual to glorify the type of sport by which Vmcent met his death, but Christian writers were working hard to link sexual renunciation and manliness, and the obvious physicality of the men of the arenas provided the necessary connection. There may be an additional connection. It was also believed that athletes should refrain from sexual activity before their matches to preserve their vitality, and so the penises of some were even fitted with clamping devices called.fibulae that prevented erection and thus ejaculation. Such procedures were known in late antiquity and described by Oribasius, court physician to Julian, and complemented ancient medical notions of the deleterious effects of sexual expenditure. One rnight argue therefore that athletes also had connections in the mind with sexual deprivation as well as manliness. 88

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If Christian men were resisting the rigors of the sexual code preached by their spiritualleaders, asserting the manliness of sexual self-restraint was the best means of accomplishing the task of persuasion. Christian writers might understand the reasons for the sexual desire within a Biblical context, as the consequence of an original mythical sin. But they also situated the renunciation of sex solidly within a mental environrnent comprehensible and even enviable ifnot familiar to Roman men: a world of soldiers, charioteers, and athletes. This environment betrays how deeply embedded the Christian writers themselves were in the traditions of their Roman cultural heritage. As much as they might attempt to escape that heritage and to discount its influence, it remained witll. them. Christian writers oflate antiquity advocated for chastity from within this perspective. Because it was a sign of perfection, it was also an indication of manliness. The pursuit of sexual renunciation was heroic and virile; it was a mastery of the spirit and a victory of the body as weil as a repudiation of sin. Such a view of sex would also require a radical reinterpretation of the place of marriage and family life in human society. " MARRIAGE AND HERESY

Christian intellectuals argued that all sexual activity- or at least all sexual activity possible since the originalsin-was the result of the fallen nature ofhumanity. lt stands to reason that theywould discourage marriage. Mter all, it was an institution that permitred sex and even required it for the purposes of familial continuity and inheritance. Latin Christian writers made use ofboth Christian precedents and classical prejudices in elevating celibacy above marriage, again demonstrating their debt to both. But they also refused to condemn marriage altogether, regarding those as heretics who argued either for the equal moral status of marriage and celibacy or foratotal ban on marriage. The orthodox leaders of the Western Christian churches managed to claim that their ideology of marriage not only preserved the best of the classical heritage but also the most authentic of Christian beliefs. Jerome provides a convenient starring point for this discussion. His views on marriage are especially evident in his treatise entitledAdversus ]ovinianum (Against Jovinian), a vitriolic reply to a man who was preaching in Rome that celibacy had no advantage for Christians over the married state. 89 Jerome's treatise included many elements drawn from longstanding Roman ambivalence about marriage. Roman men had always halfheartedly resisted marriage, given its association for them with the transition to adult manhood and an end to the pleasures and irresponsi-

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bility of adolescence, and because their marriages were arranged by their parents and more often for political reasons than because of compatibility. Resistance to marriage had also found a place in classical philosophical writings, because it was considered as distracting a man from a vita philosophica and the pursuit of wisdom and wasring his intelligence in the mundane affairs of domestic life. 90 So it was not difficult for Jerome to enlist numerous examples from the classical heritage to aid in his discouragement of marriage. He summarized episodes of pagan history and literaturein which married couples had fallen into serious disagreements or had caused each other terrible grief (without apparent pangs of conscience here about malcing use ofpagan literature). He referred to marriage as a debt (debitum) and as chains (vinculi) because of the constraint,s it placed on a man; it was therefore not unlike slavery (a comparison we also saw in chapter 5). 91 Marriage was also ineffective, because itwas supposed to extinguish "the burning sensation oflust" (ardor libidinis) in a man but in fact only intensified it. Indeed, it turned men into irrational beasts and slaves to licentiousness (an argument that Jerome drew from classical Stoicism). 92 Jerome even attempted to demonstrate that traditional Greek, Roman, and barbarian religions already recognized the superiority of celibacy to married life (although he was forced to go far afield to find ancient examples of the praise of male sexual continence, having to use Buddha as one example of marital renunciation). 93 In all of these arguments, it is possible to see Jerome's attempt to assimilate his argument about marriage to the intellectual traditions of antiquity so that he could showhirnself to be heir to those traditions. IfJerome denounced marriage with classical arguments, his praise of celibacy drew much more from Christian sources for its inspiration. He repeated Paul's comments on the practical advantages of celibacy (Paul hirnself had likely drawn from the classical tradition of the vita philosophica in his discouragement of marriage ). 94 But much closer to the heart of Jerome's argumentwas his use of the tradition that Jesus claimed that "at the resurrection men and warnen do not marry'' but "are like the angels in heaven." 95 Celibacy was a vita angelica, an angelic lifestyle. This concept linked the renunciation of marriage with personal salvation and the life after death, but it also associated it with a return to Paradise, a recapturing of the innocence lost by Adam and Eve, and the promise of a life without sin, suffering, or death. 96 No wonder it was such a powerful concept. If that were not enough, Jerome added that for a man to remain a virgin was to follow the example of Jesus and his earliest followers, including John the Baptist and the apostle John (here the Biblical trail was not so clearly marked, but Jerome deduced that these men must have been vir-

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gins, since they were both virtuous and unmarried). 97 Christ was "a virgin from a virgin, someone uncorrupted from someone uncorrupted;' and Jerome reasoned, "therefore is virginity of divinity and blessedness."98 To be celibate was to share not only in the angelic but also in the divine. In forcefullanguage, Jerome claimed that the difference between marriage and virginity was the same as that between not sinning and actually doing good orthat between doing good and doing better. 99 When compared to marriage, celibacy was lik.e gold to silver, the fruit of the tree to its root or leaf, or the grain of the field to the stalk or stubble of the plant. 100 In sum, Jerome tried to show that marriage was inferior according to both traditional Roman and Christian standards, and that because it was inferior, it was unworthy of men aspiring to excellence. Jerome's views of Christian marriage created something of a stir at Rome in the late fourth century. Apparently not all Christians shared his opinions on marriage, and some members of the Roman aristocracy, including Jovinian's followers, resisted Jerome's conclusions. 101 It is a useful reminder to us about the limits of our knowledge about how deeply others shared the opinions of Christian leaders. Unfortunately, we do not know much about the followers ofJovinian or their numbers. They seem to have continued as an intelleemal faction until the turn of the :fifth century, when they disappeared. 102 But the bishops of the Western churches overwhelmingly supported Jerome, and Jovinian's ideas were eventually declared heretical. We can conclude from this fact that even if some Romans shared the beliefs of Jovinian that marriage was equal in honor to celibacy, their numbers were insufficient to hold the day. (Ultimately, the decision favorable to Jerome and the support for his ideas probably also helped in promoting the belief that the Latin clergy should be celibate, since greater perfection was expected of them than most men. In contrast, while Greek: theologians also wrote about the inferiority of marriage to celibacy-and from whom Jerome seems to have borrowed some ofhis arguments about sex and marriage-there was not a similar focus on the issue in the late fourth century, and the clergy continued to marry103 ). Here as elsewhere in Christian ideology, heretical meant a minority opinion. I would suggest that the association of sexlessness with sinlessness explains why the intelleemal faction promoting the equality of marriage and celibacy never reached the level of popularity and numerical support for its ideas to triumph. The heretical nature of theologians lilce Jovinian was little more than their inability to provide a suitable and acceptable meaning for Roman men's reluctance to marry. It was not Biblical precedent that Jovinian and his allies lacked. They also had an armory of Biblical and cultural citations from which they argued (insofar as we

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can reconstruct their arguments from the writings of their opponents): the holiest of the Old Testament patriarchs were married as was the apostle Peter, Jesus registered his support for the married life by performing his first miracle at the wedding of Cana, and some of the holiest of martyrs were married. Jerome's approach was more successful not because it was berter grounded in the Christian scriptures-in fact, in one letter he explained how he felt that one could ignore God's Biblical exhortation to ·"be fruitful and multiply;' and turn Paul's exhortation to remain unmarried into a virtual command- but because his ideas resonated more loudly arnong the elite of late ancient Rome. 104 Roman men who were Christians were looking to their theologians to provide them with pious reasons to avoid the marriages their parents were contracting for them. Jerome affered them an opportunity to see marital renunciation not only as reasonable but also as holy, and not only as holy but as manly, and Jovinian did not. What is more, Jerome and his supporters allowed men to see marital renunciation as one more battle in the ongoing war between manliness and unmanliness. Marriage and sexual relations, Jerome argued, "effeminate a manly spirit [animumque virilem effeminat]?nos Celibacy, in contrast, was the manly life. ''No soldier marches into battle with a wife;' Jerome said sirnply (and probably alluding to the classical prohibition against the marriage ofRoman soldiers, a prohibition ended in the third century). 106 Jerome depicted Jovinian as a voluptuary and a hypocrite, since Jovinian seems not to have been married himself. Even if these charges were untrue, theywere an efficient means ofdiscrediting him, because they called into question his manliness. 107 Siricius ofRome also referred to Jovinian as "an opponent of sexual modesty [pudicitia] and a master of indulgence [luxuria ].''108 Ambrose, in condemning followers of Jovinian, called them "delicate men" (delicati) and Epicureans, saying that they tempted others to reject the rigors of celibacy because they themselves were unable to sustain them. 109 The skill of these men at wielding the catchwords of manliness and unmanliness was surely part of the eventual success of their ideological position. At the turn of the fifth century, Augustine ofHippo entered the debate with Jovinian's remaining followers about the relative merits of marriage and celibacy. His treatise on the subject, De bono conjugali (On the Good ofMarriage) defended the permissibility of marriage but also maintained its inferiorityto sexual abstinence. Like Jerome, he used metaphors to describe the relationship ofthe two: it was lilce the respective brilliance of the sun and the moon, or the differing brightness of two stars. 110 Augustine tried to stay clear of some of Jerome's more extravagant language

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against marriage and so avoid the reaction to Jerome's work, but his work reveals the same ideological stance. As a result, Augustine argued that "marriage and continence are two good things, the second of which is better.''m Augustine also contrasted the command of God in the period before Christ, when the patriarchs married several wives without sinning, with that ofhis own days, when a man "does better who does not marry even one wife, unless he cannot control himself." 112 Moreover, "in our day, it is true, no man perfect in piety seeks to have children except spiritually.''113 In a companion treatise written at the same time, De sancta virginitate (On Holy Virginity), Augustine clarified his view that virginity was the true Christian sexual ideal. Indeed, to support his position he claimed that virgins were rewarded in Heaven in unique and preferable ways for their sexual renunciation on Earth. 114 There existed a hierarchy ofheavenly rewards, he alleged, in which virgins received a greater share than did married persons in the same way in which martyrs received a greater reward than did nonmartyrs. 115 The assimilation of virgins with martyrs was telling: it emphasized the perfection ofboth types ofChristians, the sacrifice endured by both, and the manliness of both. Through a rejection of the feminizing effects of marriage, that is, the interior wealcness and bodily indulgence that it was believed to mal;;:e manifest, a Christian man could prove his manliness. In addition, the host of problems that ancient marriages entailed- the difficult choice of finding a compatible bride and a suitable familial alliance, the exchange of economic resources in marriage payments and gifts, and the fears that once entangled in the bonds of marriage, it was increasingly difficult to disentangle oneself because of restrictions on divorce-all could be surmounted by abandoning the whole affair and remaining celibate. Again, it is helpful to remernher that marriage among the upper dass es in late antiquity was not begun out of romantic or sexual desire but arranged by families for financial or political reasons. The appeal of the renunciation of marriage was present in Christian writers long before the end of the fourth century. We can see the same ambivalence already in the writings of Tertullian from the early third century. "I assign to continence and virginity preference over marriage:' Tertullian wrote early in his writing career, "yet without prohibiting marriage.'' 116 Nonetheless, Tertullian was married himself, and in a treatise dedicated to his wife he even depicted a pleasant mutuality of a Christian husband and wife before God: How shall we ever be able adequately to describe the happiness ofthat marriage which the Church arranges, the Eucharist strengthens, upon which

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the blessing sets a seal, at which angels are present as witnesses, and to which the Father gives His consent? For not even on earth do children marry properly and legally without their fathers' permission. How beautiful, then, the marriage of two Christians, two who are one in hope, one in desire, one in the way oflife they follow, one in the religion they practice. They are as brother and sister, both servants of the same Master. 117

Toward the end of his life, however, Tertullian adopted a much barsher view of marriage and sexual relations, in part because of his association with the Montanists, a Christian group from Asia Minor later declared heretical. In his De exhortatione castitatis (On the Exhortation to Chastity), for example, Tertullian listed all of the practical justifications that a man might give for getting married. He would need someone to administer his domestic affairs; he would like someone with whom he might share his daily worries; he would hope for a son to inherit his name and estate; he would want to contribute to the collective body of citizens. Tertullian dismissed allsuch claims as "excuses bywhich we color our insatiable carnal appetite." 118 Tertullian also insisted that marriage was a sexual vice not much different from any other, because it sprang from "the carnal nature of lust, which is the cause of all stuprum. Is it not obvious therefore that stuprum is approximate to marriage, since what is found in it belongs also to stuprum?"119 Most of the Latin Christian writers after Tertullian did not go so far as he did in his disdain for marriage, yet all of the orthodox writers felt the same ambivalence about marriage and marital sexual relations. Still, as much as later writers like Jerome and Augustirre wished to assert the inferiority of marriage and sex to celibacy and virginity, they refused to condemn marriage altogether. They all tried to walle the middle ground between approval and disapproval. Their reasons for accepting the value of marriage at allarenot self-evident and deserve some explanation. Augustine's assertion that marriage was inferior to celibacy but still morally permissible, for example, obliged him to abandon his usual philosophical position that sin was nothing more than an inferior moral choice and that there were no "lesser good things." Christians of an earlier generation might have been accused of trying to accommodate the Roman civillaws in permitring marriage, since unmarried and childless persans were penalized in their right to accept and pass on property and inheritances. (Tertullian, for example, specifically contrasted the laws ofRome with the law ofChrist, saying that the latter promised an equal inheritance to celibate and childless persans as to married persans with children. 120) But Christians of Jerome and Augustine's day had no such practicallimita-

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tions, after Constantine ended the penalties against the unm~ried and childless. The explanation lies elsewhere, and will be developed more fully below andin chapter 7. For the moment it is enough to say that orthodox Christian writers were attempting to distance themselves from various Bastern Christian sects that prohibited all marital and sexual behaviors- groups lilce the Montanists, who were still not as radical as others in their rejection of sex and marriage. These Bastern groups shared much with the Western Christian writers, including a belief in the heroic nature of sexual renunciation and exhortations to follow the divine example of Christ and the angelic lifestyle of virginity, but they di.tfered in forbidding all marriages and condemning all sexual activity as sinful. 121 At least one of these Bastern Christian sects, the Manichaeans (so called because a man named Mani had founded them), had a considerable following in the western Mediterranean at the end of the fourth century. The extent and popularity of Manichaean Christianity in the West is not entirely clear to modern scholars. It certainly had impressive numbers of adherents in North Mrica. Augustine, for instance, was a participant in the religion for almost a decade and took the Manichaean threat seriously enough after his conversion to devote several treatises to the refutation of its doctrine and to engage in several public debates against leaders of the Manichaeans. 122 Julian, a bishop of Bclanum in southern Italy, seems to have argued in a lost treatise that Augustine's continued beliefin the sinfulness of sexual desire showed that he had not sufficiendy repudiated his earlier Manichaean ideas. 123 Circles of Manichaean or at least Manichaean-type Christians were also scattered through Italy, Spain, and Gaul; it was the fears of their presence there that led to the first execution of a Christian for heresy, that of Priscillian, bishop of Avila, in 385. 124 Ambrose, who objected to the execution of Priscillian, also spoke ·out against the Manichaeans and others who condemned marriage altogether.125 The appeal of Manichaean Christianity in the West must not be underestimated. The Manichaeans also borrowed elements of the classical heritage, adopting the same Platonic ideas of the superiority of the mind over the body that orthodox writers were incorporating into their religious philosophy. Nor must the possibility be excluded that Manichaean beliefs encouraged the sametype of manliness that orthodox Christians advocated. The Manichaean myth of the struggle between the powers ofLight and the powers ofDarkness, for example, probably encouraged the type of military identity to which the soldier of Christ was a parallel; the place of sexuality within this struggle as the evidence of evil also paralleled the orthodox ideal of sexual renunciation. 126 Manichaean leaders also applied to themselves the label of true brides of Christ. 127 In-

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deed, the teachings of the Manichaeans threatened orthodoxy in !arge part because of these many similarities. Christian writers, in condemning the Manichaeans and the other groups that rejected sex and marriage, once again made use of the cultural language of manliness and unmanliness. Tertullian (earlier in his career, when he was still defending marriage) set the tone by describing his opposition to the Bastern Christian sects as an athletic or gladiatorial contest: In a combat of boxers and gladiators, generally speaking, it is not because a man is strong that he gains the victory, or loses it because he is not strong, but because he who is vanquished was a man of no strength; and indeed this very conqueror, when afterwards matched against a really powerful man, actually retires crest-fallen from the contest. In precisely the same way, heresies derive such strength as they have from the infirmities of individuals-having no strength whenever they encounter a really powerful faith.l28

When Tertullian denounced Marcion, the leader of an Bastern group that required complete sexual renunciation, he also described their contest as a battle pitting the strong against the weak. 129 Orthodox Christian writers after Tertullian made use of this same manly military language, but they also often accused their intellectual opponents of sexual immorality. Indeed, they used exacdy the same sorts of descriptions of sexuallicense in their condernnation of the Manichaeans and the other groups that renounced sex and marriage as they had used in condemning individuals like Jovinian who advocated the equality of marriage and celibacy. Jerome, who believed Priscillian of Avila to be a Manichaean, accused him of presiding over secretive religious rituals involving sex with his female followers, warnen ofill repute. 130 Philaster, a fourth-century bishop ofBrescia in north Italy, depicted the Manichaeans vaguely as "slaves to nefarious turpitude?' 131 Leo the Great, bishop of Romein the mid-fifth century, accused them of"multiple perversities;' "the mixing of all kinds of sordid things;' "a multitude of crimes;' "sacred rites as obscene as they are nefarious;' and "an execrable thing which our ears can scarcely bear to hear;' the last of which he clarified as the sexual use of a ten-year-old girl. "In this sect;' Leo concluded, "no sexual modesty [pudicitia] is tobe found, no righteousness, no chastity. " 132 Leo's accusations, repeated before the Roman Senate and combined with the forced confessions of a Manichaean leader, prompted the imperial government of Valentinian 111 to issue a ban against the religion. The law used the same sott of language of unmanliness and alleged that the

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Manichaeans exercised an "unchaste perversity, [which] in the name of religion, commits crimes that are unknown and shameful even to brothels?'1331t was only the last of a long series of secular laws against the Manichaeans, the earliest ofwhich was enacted in 372. 134 Beginning in 381, Christian emperors enacted similar restrictions against other Bastern Christian groups that condemned marriage. 135 Men who belonged to heretical sects generally were deprived of the legal rights belonging to other men. 136 The charge of secret sexual immorality against these groups opposed to marriage is a curious one. Mter all, these groups were advocating the total renunciation of sex. Some of the details of the accusations may have been true, like those made by Augustine, who said that the Manichaeans permitred sexual alternatives to procreative intercourse as lesser evils, because they did not entrap morepure souls into wicked bodies. 137 1t is also possible that if these groups believed that sex was sinful, they may not have believed that any one form of sexwas less sinful than another. Other opponents of these heretical sects made ad hominem attacks, accusing their leaders of not practicing what they preached. 138 Augustirre claimed hirnself to have witnessed groups of carousing Manichaeans who were supposed to have renounced sex pursuing women for immoral purposes in the streets of Carthage. 139 But the point of all of these accusations was clear enough. The manly renunciation of sexwas impossible for heretics, because the falsehood of their doctrines meant that they did not have the integrity to achieve real chastity. Their sexual deviance was part and parcel of their doctrinal deviance. Chastity was not laudable if it was heretical because it was heretical, Tertullian said simply. 140 "Such virgins as there are said tobe among the different kinds ofheretics, or with the followers of the :filthy Mani:' Jerome declared, "must be considered not virgins but prostitutes?' 141 Such accusations, whether true or not-and it is impossible to decide whether they are true or not- had an important rhetorical function. If the Manichaeans and other groups opposing marriage could be presented as clandestinely indulgent in sexual matters rather than as representative of the sexless ideal, then orthodox Christians could continue to see themselves, despite permitring the indulgence of marriage, as the truly continent, as the closest to Christian perfection, and also as the manliest. Charges of sexual vice could serve important religious ends, separating both the manly from the unmanly and the orthodox from the heretical.

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MARRIAGE AND MALE AUTHORITY

The accusations of effeminacy against those who condemned marriage describes the orthodox Christian position but does not explain it. The appeal of the orthodox position, simply enough, lay in its ability to justify the continued Subordination of women to men. Augustine's delineation of the benefits of marriage provides an excellent example of the utility of Christian marriage, even devalued as it was, as a basis for continued masculine authority in private life. It is still necessary to explain why the orthodox position, which permitted marriage as a concession to human wealcness, should have prevailed over the heretical position, which forbade such wealcness altogether. It seems at face value as though the Manichaeans and those lilce them had the better intellectual position, at least in the context of the general Christian devaluation of marriage, but their eventuallass to the orthodox position must mean that they were unable to gain the numbers sufficient to unseat it. It has been argued that the Christian groups that triumphed were those that allowed for a distinction between strict and moderate lifestyles and that the Christian groups eventually defined as heresies were those that insisted that all adherents practice too severe an ascetic life. This argument maintains that the sects that permitted a wider range ofbehaviors could become more easily assimilated to the !arger society than those that were too demanding. 142 Doubtless the point is well made, and several orthodox writers made a contrast between the narrow and difficult path to salvation of asceticism and the broad and easy path of marriage and family life but stressed that both reached the same destination.143 But Manichaean Christianity also had such a division between moderates, called auditores (the hearers), and rigorists, called electi (the chosen). Bven the early life of Augustine attested to this division (while a Manichaean, Augustine had cohabited with a woman who had borne him a son). I would argue instead that the eventual success of Catholic Christianity in the West has more to do with the ramifications of the total renunciation of marriage and family life for Roman men's identity and authority. The Bastern sects that forbid sex and marriage also tended to advocate a greater sexual equality. The Montanists that Tertullian joined, for example, allowed both men and women to prophesy; more will be said about some Bastern Christian groups' elimination of sexual difference in chapter 7. U pholding the moral permissibility of marriage, even while relegating it to an inferior status, aided in the important task of continuing men's domination and women's subordination. Catholic Christian leaders who permitted marriage did so because the existence of mar-

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ital and familial roles helped to perpetuate masculine privileges, privileges too imbedded in the Roman cultural heritage for a religious philosophy arguing for their eradication to win out among Roman men. There were Scripruralmotives for the orthodox desire to permit marriage, it is true. Even while Jesus was remernbered as spealcing in favor of the abandonment of marital and familial expectations, for example, he also was supposed to have spoken about the indissolubility of marriage on Earth and the error of divorce. 144 Of course, the orthodox bishops also influenced which gospels were accepted as the authentic teachings ofJesus; other gospels like the Gospel ofThomas in which Jesus condemned marriage altogether, were rejected by them as inauthentic. 145 Bastern groups supporting the total condemnation of marriage understandably believed in the authenticity of these gospels. The letters of Paul and Peter in the N ew Testament encouraged Christians not to marry, but they also established the so-called "household codes" in which wives were exhorted to obey their husbands, slaves their masters, and children their parents, in a general continuation of the social hierarchy. (Modern religious scholars mostly reject the authenticity of the texts with these "household codes;' but ancient authorities accepted their authenticity).146 In an important passage in one of these doubtful texts, the relationship between husband and wife was compared tothat between Christ and the Church (an image borrowed from the Song ofSongs) as two separate persans joined into one body by means of a mystical marriage. The Pauline writer called it mysterion (a mystery) but Latin writers translated the term as sacramentum (a sacred [military] vow) rather than the more usual mysterium probably because of the connection of the term sacramentum with the pagan mystery religions that affered an intimate bond between bellever and deity not unlike the one promised by the rriarital metaphor. 147 Other Pauline writings, like the Acts of Paul and Thecla, which advocated the total renunciation of marriage and gender differences, were lilcewise proclaimed inauthentic by orthodox leaders, and authentic by hereticalleaders. 148 Ultimately, Biblical texts were mostly approved or rejected and Biblical passages cited or ignored insofar as they corresponded with already existing beliefs about the place of sex and marriage within the Christian life. Augustine, who is again the most systematic of the Latin Christian theologians, provides a helpful focal point for our discussion. Augustine's treatise, De nuptiis et concupiscentia (On Marriage and Sexual Desire ), was intended to clarify his position regarding the relationship between marriage, sexuality, and sin, in response to the accusation that he still held Manichaean beliefs. lt is a crucial work on the Christian ideal-

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ogy of marriage. According to Augustine, the positive value of marriage could be found in its three benefits (bona1 "good things;' that he also called itsfructus1 "fruits"), but which he also called its three chains (vinculi), following Jerome. First was the begetting of children, which he called proles (offspring). Second was the exclusive sexual nature of the relationship between busband and wife, which he calledfides (fidelity). Third was the idea that the relationship symbolized the love between Christ and the Christian Church, which he called sacramentum from the Biblical metaphor. 149 If we examine each of the three benefits in the writings of the other orthodox leaders, we will see that they provide important clues to the value of marriage, because each provides a plank. in a platform of continuing masculine authority within marriage. First,proles: The orthodox Christian writers agreed that the only appropriate use of sex, even within marriage, was for the purpose of procreation. Lactantius called marriage a "divine and admirable work of God, foreseen and planned by His unfathomable design for the propagation of the race;' but complained that the "obscene lustfulness" of some men meant that "they no Ionger seek anything from this most holy institution ofsex other than empty and sterile pleasure?' 150 What he seems to have meant by this "sterile pleasure" was oral sex between married couples, since he also complained about the men "who defile the most sacred part of their bodies" 151 and against "those whose most loathsome passion and execrable madness spares not even the head." 152 Cyprian complained about the same thing: If you should be able ... to direct your eyes into secret places, to unfasten the locked doors of sleeping chambers and to open these hidden recesses to the perception of sight, you would behold that being carried on by the unchaste which a chaste countenance could not behold; you would see what it is a crime even to see; you would see what those demented with the fury of vices deny that they have done and hasten to do.... The same persons are accusers in public and the defendants in secret, both their own critics and the guilty. They condemn abroad what they commit at home. 153

Still, he concluded, "whatever sin is committed with the voice is less than that by the mouth?n 54 Cyprian felt certain that the nonprocreative sexual practices he denounced were commonplace, but we cannot know how accurate he was in his estimation. The issue was important enough for Cyprian that he left hirnself open to the same charge, because ifthose who rail in public against various sexual sins can be accused of committing them in secret, Cyprian has implicated hirnself in what he has denounced. Like the classical Roman moralists before them, Cyprian and Lactantius

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worried in particular about the moral implications of oral sex. Like the medical writers of late antiquity, they also felt that procreation was the only appropriate purpose of sex. Nonetheless, the Catholic writers did not only discourage "sterile" sexual acts within marriage but also procreative ones. As Augustine explained it, allsexual desire necessarily embodied the tragedy ofthe human predicament: ever since human beings had rebelled against God, our flesh had ever after rebelled against our minds. Our inability to control our bodies and their desires, and the influence that our bodies' demands perversely exert over us, mirrar the brokenness ofthe human relationship with God. Marriage was an attempt to bring some order back to this rebellion of the body and to reestablish the domination of the will but was beneficial only as lang as it kept to this purpose and restrained sexual desire. 155 Augustine spoke out, therefore, even agairrst married couples who "make intemperate use of their [conjugal] right;' wondering "whether this situation should be called a marriage?' 156 The best marriages were the ones that involved little or no sex, Augustine concluded, because they were the most orderly in a physical sense and the most caring in a rational sense. 157 Augustine called these sexless marriages "an example of perfection [exempla peifectionis]?'158 (We can assume that these were the sorts of statements that led to accusations ofManichaeanism against Augustine.) The encouragement of sexless marriages formed part of the fallout from the fourth-century debate over the place of sex and marriage in the Christian life. In some ways, it was an intellectual concession to the Christians who argued that sex and marriage were always sinful. Married couples were exhorted to renounce sex, and Christian writers often counseled married women (who seem mostly to have initiated such marriages) on how they might best persuade a reluctant husband to forego sexual relations even within marriage. Amodern study of these socalled spiritual marriages suggests that they originated in women's attempts at autonomy within marriage. 159 The usefulness of the institution of spiritual marriage, however, was that it supported sexual renunciation while leaving men's domination over women intact. Indeed, the reaffirmation of a husband's authority over his wife was always at the forefront of the Christian writings on spiritual marriage. Pelagius, a fifth-century teacher in Rome, wrote to a married woman named Celantia who wished to end sexual relations with her husband, that "first of all, your husband should be given all authority, and the entire hausehold should learn from you how much honor is owed to him. Show by your obedience that he is lord, and by your humility that he is great?' 160 Pelagius chided her for attempting to force a spiritual marriage upon her husband by withholding

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sex, because "it is a dangeraus matter to promise what is in another's power?' He added: The practice of chastity, I am sorry to say, has simply led to adultery. For while one party abstains even from what is licit, the other party falls into what is illicit. In such a case I do not know who deserves the greater censure, who deserves the greater blame: the one who committed fornication after his wife rejected him, or the wife who by rejecting her husband presented him, in a certain way, with the opportunity for fornication. 161

It is obvious that Pelagius was not really concerned with Celantia's reasons for wanting to forgo sex or with its benefits for her spiritual wellbeing or development; Pelagius's concern was, rather, with her husband and his authority over her. Augustine, despite his opposition to Pelagius on other matters (the two quarreled over the nature and effect of original sin), agreed with him on this point. "[Your husband] should not have been defrauded of the debt you owed him of your body;' Augustine wrote to a woman named Ecdicia, "before his will joined yours in seeking the good which surpasses the sexual modesty [pudicitia] ofmarriage;' managing in the same sentence both to praise sexless marriage and to condemn Ecdicia's choice of it. 162 We also see in this concern for men's spiritual health another reason for the sensitivity of Christian writers to married men's adultery and to men's sexual use of slaves and prostitutes, as described at the start of this chapter. Men were liable to turn to these traditional sexual outletsoutside of marriage when their wives tried unilaterally to renounce sex for spiritual purposes. Second,jides: The fidelity expected of married persans became for orthodox Christian writers another occasion for reiterating masculine authority. When Christian leaders condemned adultery, they madefrequent reference to its breach of the fides of marriage. Christian opposition to divorce also implied that marital fidelity was a lifelong proposition. 163 The defense of marital fidelity is most clearly seen in orthodox discussions of remarriage. Remarriage was closely bound up with the general indissolubility of marriage, since it was often feit to be the impetus for divorce and since it was often presented as being a form of adultery, and so it was considered a grave falling away from the ideal of marital fidelity. The reinforeerneut of traditional marital roles through the ideal of fidelity was a central element in the Christian opposition to remarriage. Already at the beginning of the third century, Tertullian wrote to persuade his wife not to remarry after his death. He tried to place doubts in her mind about its desirability, saying that if she entered a future marriage, she would be forced to submit to her new husband's authority. For

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example, she would be unable to participate in the charitable activities that would ensure her salvation: Who would allow his wife to run around the streets to the houses of strangers and even to the poorest hovels in order to visit the faithful? Who would willingly let his wife be talcen from his side for nighdy meetings, if it be necessary? Who, then, would talerate without some anxiety her spending the entire night at the paschal solemnities? Who would have no suspicions about letting her attend the Lord's Supper, when it has such a bad reputation? Who would endure her creeping into prison to kiss the chains ofthe martyrs? Oreven to greet anyofthe brothers with akiss? Or to wash the feet ofthe saints? Todesire this? Even tothink about it? 164

Note that Tertullian did not question a husband's right to forbid these things ofhis wife. After joining the Montanists, Tertullian took an even stronger stance against remarriage, and argued in two treatises dedicated to the subject (De exhortatione castitatis and De monogamia) that remarriage should be forbidden to Christians, also using a combination ofBiblical and classical precedents. 165 Later orthodox writers refused to talce such a rigid stance, but while they were willing to accept the permissibility of second or subsequent marriages, they discounted them as progressively inferior to the ideal of marital fidelity. 166 For their Strategie purposes, they revived the ancient Roman cultural tradition of a woman's lifelong reverence for one husband as a "one-man woman" (univira) and contrasted the honor ofwidowhood with the dishonor of remarriage. The legal restrictions on unmarried persans in the early empire had deprived this tradition of much real meaning, but the repeal of these restrictions in late antiquity allowed for a renewal of this moral ideal, and orthodox writers showed themselves in this regard eager upholders of tradition. The univira, it must be noted, existed as a feminine ideal only in the sense that a devoted widow testified to the unique merit ofher late husband; it was a reflected virtue. "She has not lost her man:' Ambrose wrote, "who demonstrates chastity [after his death]; nor is she widowed of her companion, who does not change the name ofher husband [by remarriage].'' 167 Ambrose even claimed that widows could surmount "the usual nature of the weakness of the[ir] sex by the devotion of the mind" to their deceased husband. 168 When discussions of remarriage were directed atmen, this reflected value of marital fidelity is ignored. Tertullian thought that a man's desire to remarry after the death of a first wife showed an effeminate lack of selfdiscipline.169 The third-century writer Minucius Felix also felt that a man who married only once demonstrated the control ofhis mind over his de-

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sires. 170 The honor due a deceased wife is notably absent. But the discussions of remarriage were usually directed at warnen, who were much likelier to outlive their husbands given the differences in ages at marriage, and presented an opportunity formen to speak directly to warnen in conservative language about men's and women's marital roles. Third, sacramentum: Exegesis on the mystical union between Christ and the Christian church became, in the hands of the orthodox writers, another opportunity for conservative comments about marital roles. For instance, they used them to reinforce ancient ideals of women's pudicitia before and during marriage. Cyprian wrote that "the spouse of Christ cannot be de:filed, she is inviolate and chaste; she knows one harne alone, in all modesty she keeps faithfully to one chamber?' 171 ''No one should doubt that the Church is a virgin:' declared Ambrose, because Christ "is able to vouch for the virginity of the Church in the purity of his people.'' 172 (In general, Biblical models could be called upon to support traditional models of marriage. 173 ) The comparison of Christ to a husband also reinforced ancient ideals of the subordination of warnen to men. A wife "is under the power of her husband:' wrote Ambrose, and "is in subjection to her husband, for that he is lord over her.''174 Pelagius suggested that a Christian woman should honor her Christian husband even more than she would a pagan one precisely because he also represented Christ to her. 175 So while depictions of the Church as the bride of Christ might malce important theological points, they also made important Statements about gender roles, and representing a Christian husband as Christ multiplied his authority over his wife beyond the capacity for description. It has been argued that some orthodox writers regarded Christian marriage not as a reinforcement of traditional roles but as an experiment in equality. It could be said, for example, that a comparison between a husband and Christ was meant to temper marital authority with affection. "Let a wife show deference, not be a slave to her husband; let her show herself ready to be ruled not coerced:' Ambrose suggested; "let a husband also guide his wife like a steersman, honor her as the partner of his life, share with her as a joint heir of grace.'' 176 It has been claimed that spiritual marriages were such an arrangement of equals, and Paulinus, bishop of N ola in south Italy at the end of the fourth century who was hirnself a partner in a sexless marriage, has been used as an example of this viewpoint. 177 Paulinus said in a marriage hymn or epithalamium he had composed for the wedding ofJulian ofEclanum (the same bishop who later opposed Augustine) that "the chaste spouse who has achieved the status of sister is no Ionger subject to her husband.'' 178 But Paulinus also

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advocated strongly for the continuation of male authority in marriage, based on the mystical marriage between Christ and the Church. In the same hymn to Julian ofEclanum, he suggested that a wife "should with a humble mind regard Christ in her spouse, so that, woven in lilce a joint, she might grow into his holy body, and so that her husband might be her head, whose head is Christ?'179 Paulinus also honored with a poem one of the most famous sexless couples ofhis day, Melania the Younger and her husband Pinian. It was Pinian, though, who was given a heroic stature as "victor ofhis own body."180 Paulinus wrote other letters to other spiritually married couples. In one, he said of a wife: She is no one's head, but the embellishment ofher husband by the adornment of her virtue. We might say that she is placed at the base to support that body's chain which is link:ed to God by the head of Christ, to Christ by the head of man, and to man by the head of woman. But Christ makes woman also belong to the head at the top by making her part of the body and of the structure of the limbs. 181

In another letter, Paulinus argued that a good wife "does notleadher husband to effeminacy and greed, but brings [him] bade to self-discipline and courage?' Like other orthodox writers, he was malcing obvious use of the traditionallanguage of masculine privilege, and the husband's spiritual benefi.twas the primaryfocus ofhis comments. lndeed, such a virtuous wife "is worthy of admiration because of her great emulation of God's marriage wirhin the Church;' Paulinus maintained, and if she participated in manly duritia) becoming lilce "the bones ofher husband;' she was still symbolically subsumed into his body. 182 (Paulinus of Nola, it should be noted, had important personal reasons for defending the sanctity of spiritual marriage, because it was a way of undermining the attaclcs against married clerics, including men such as hirnself Paulinus could, nonetheless, recount the woes of marriage with the best of them. 183 ) In sum, even Christian marriages that did not include the debilitating effects of sex demonstrated the masculine authority that was so much in question in the later empire. That opinion overrode all others. The enumeration of the purposes of marriage-proles).fides) and sacramentum-each provided different opportunities for a renewed emphasis on the authority of the husband. Others might have expressed more nuanced notions of men's marital rights, but all were in general agreement with Augustine that marriage could be described as "a lcind of friendly and genuine union of the one ruling and the other obeying?' 184 Even wirhin a general framework of the devaluation of marriage, the domination of men remained.

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FAMILIES AND FRIENDS

In discounting marriage and the sexual relations that stemmed from it, orthodox Christian writers also undermined much of the basis of family life. The repercussions were felt especially in the subversion of the affectional relations within families and between parents and children. Although familial affection was assumed, Christian leaders exhorted members of the Christian community to ignore their loyaldes to their families and to find emotional support and campanionship in friendships. Friendship provided a replacement for the intimacy of marriage and the affection of family life without the dangers of sex. Friendship also provided the key to the rescue of patemal authority even within a general intellectual environment of the renunciation of sex and marriage. Christian writers assumed familial affection. Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine all wrote of the love between parents and their children. 185 Breaches of such affection were equally counted as unnatural. Ambrose wrote about a father who sold his children into slavery to pay his debts; it was an action within the limits of traditional patria potestas) Ambrose admitted, although he condemned it as heartless. 186 Still, Christian writers made it clear that the individual owed greater love to God than to any family member. Following the Statement attributed to Jesus that "if any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters ... he cannot be my disciple;' Christian writers advocated an extreme emotional detachment from family ties. 187 Ambrose insisted that "one who has God as his portion should care for nothing except God;' even if it should require a "renunciation of family, and a kind of alienation from dear ones.''188 Augustine went so far as to suggest that in the same woman a good Christian [husband] loves the being that God has created, and ... wishes her to be transformed and renewed, while he hates the corruptible and mortal relationship and marital intercourse .... He loves her insofar as she is a human being, but . . . hates her under the aspect of wifehood. 189

Jerome argued that the Biblical command "Honor thy father" applied only "if you do not separate yourself from your true father [in Heaven].''190 The important relationship was the one of obedience to God, who was given all of the absolute power of the ancient paterfamil-

ias. Christian writers often used Biblical examples as models of detachment from family life and obedience to God. Abraham was typically presented as the ideal of the man who loved God more than his family, be-

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cause he had been willing to sacrifice his son Isaac at God's command. Cyprian praised hirn for this gesture: Thus Abraham pleased God because, in order to please God, he neither feared to lose his son nor refused to commit parricide .... The fear of God and faith ought to make you ready for all things. Though it should be the lass of private property, though it should be the constant and violent afßiction of the members by wasring diseases, though it should be the mournful and sorrowful tearing away from wife, from children, from departing dear ones, letnot such things be stumbling biodes for you. 191

Other stories from the lives ofthe patriarchs functioned in much the same way. When discussing Rebecca's favoring of Jacob over Esau, Ambrose began by arguing that parents should love all children equally, but ended by adrnitting that ''with that pious mother, God's mysterious plan was more important than her offspring."192 The lives of the early Christian martyrs also presented similar models of the renunciation of family. Martyrs were always represented as dispassionately detached from their families of birth. For example, the anonymaus Latin passion oflrenaeus, bishop of Sirmium in Pannonia who was martyred in about 300, included the following scene: Irenaeus's relatives arrived and when they saw him under torture they began to entreat him. His children kissed his feet and begged, "Father, have pity on yourself and on us!" Then the married warnen [ofhis household] urged him to yield, weeping for his youth and his good looks. He was hard pressed by the weeping and mourning of all his relatives, the groans ofhis servants, the wailing ofneighbors, and the crying ofhis friends .... But, as has been said, he was gripped by a much stronger passion, keeping before his eyes the words of the Lord, who said: "Whoever shall deny me before men, I too will deny him before my Father who is in heaven?' And so, despising all of them, lrenaeus made no reply to anyone: for he was in haste to attain the hope ofhis heavenly calling. 193

The lesson was meant not only for men but also for women. In the account of the martyrdom ofPerpetua at Carthage, part of which was possibly written by Perpetua herself, her father played a key role. Nonetheless, the demands of her religion voided his authority over her: "Daughter;' he said, "have pity on my gray head-have pity on me your father, ifl deserve to be called your father, ifl have favored you above all your brothers, ifl have raised you to reach this prime of your life. Do not abandon me to the reproach of men. Think of your brothers, think of your

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mother and your aunt, think. of your child who will not be able to live after you are dead?' 194

"This was the way my father spoke out of love for me;' the autobiographical portion continued, "kissing my hands and throwing hirnself down before me and weeping?' 195 The whole point of these tender depictions was to highlight the fact that while affection existed within farnilies, true Christians must reject its demands. In this context, the contrast is sharp between Irenaeus as a Christian pateifamilias, who preferred true religion to his family and Perpetua's father as a traditional pateifamilias, whodidnot. In place of farnilial affections, Christian writers emphasized the bonds that joined all members of the Christian community. In the Latin translation of the martyrdom of Phileas ofThmuis in Egypt, also from about 300, for example, the anonymaus author described how all those around Phileas "begged him to have regard for his wife and concern for his children;' but that "it was like water wearing away a rock;' since Phileas "rejected what they said, claiming that the aposdes and the martyrs were his kin?' 196 An elaborate symbolic genealogy gradually took shape, derived from Biblical passages interwoven with contemporary experience offamily life, in which God played the father and pateifamilias, exercising his authority over Christ his son and the Christian Church as the bride of Christ, she who was, in turn, mother to an extended hausehold of angels, saints, martyrs, and living Christians. But as brides of Christ, Christian bishops might also assume the role of mother to their local communities. ''Do not reject the instruction ofyour mother;' Paulinus ofNola recommended to Licentius, referring to Augustine ofHippo; "he is anxious to give you suck and nourishment from the breasts of the spirit as well, if only you will allow his teaching to guide you as a mother's hand?' 197 ''As soon as the Son of God set foot on earth;' Jerome said plainly, "He formed for Hirnself a new household. 198 Similarly, the discouragement of affection between family members was replaced by a greater devotion to the bonds of friendship. Foremost among these friendships were the ties between two men. Male friendships had always held an esteemed place in Roman culture; misogyny and the low status of women had also encouraged men to depend upon each other for campanionship and intelleemal development instead of upon women. 199 Christian texts of late antiquity often described male pairs in intimate partnerships. The benefits provided by one friend to another contributed to the moral and spiritual edification of both, as well as to their mutual support. Augustine used male friendship to discuss why

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God had created Eve for Adam; the purpose must have been sexual, he argued, because a woman would not have been a suitable companion except for sex. "How much more closely in cohabitation and conversation are two friends [amici) male friends] together;' he said, "than a man and a woman?"200 Examples of such male friendships abound. Pontius, biographer of Cyprian of Carthage, described just such a relationship between the bishop and one Caecilius: [Cyprian] had a close association [contubernium) "sharing the same tent:' also a term used for concubinage and slave marriages] among us with a just man, and ofpraiseworthy memory, by name Caecilius, andin age as weil as in honor a presbyter, who had converted him from his worldly errors to the acknowledgment of the true divinity. This man [Cyprian] loved with entire honor and all observance, regarding him with an obedient veneration, not only as the friend and comrade ofhis soul, but as the parent ofhis new life. And at length [Caecilius], influenced by his attentions, was, as weil he might be, stimulated to such a pitch ofexcessive love, that when he was departing from this world, and his summans was at hand, he commended to [Cyprian] his wife and children; so that him whom he had made a partner in the feilowship ofhis way oflife, he afterwards made the heir ofhis affection.2or

The Iove shared by two male friends was often mentioned. Prudentius, in his poetic account ofthe martyrs Emeterius and Chelidonius, used similar language of affection to describe their friendship ("faithful comradeship had ever united them") and the strength it gave them to endure their tortures. 202 Many of the martyrs were remernbered in male pairs: Marian and James, Nabor and Felix, Gervasius and Protasius, Sergius and Bacchus. 203 It is interesting that friendships should be linked so often to martyrdom, but it added to their idealized nature. John Cassian, before his establishment of an ascetic community in southern Gaul in the early fifth century, had traveled to Egypt with a companion, Germanus. He described their friendship as being "joined not by a fleshly but by a spiritual brotherhood;' and "linked by an invisible bond?'204 Even the married Paulinus of Nola could wax poetical on his friendship with Severus. "You, I say, are the greater and better part of me. You are my rest and joy. You are a pillow for my head, and a dwelling for my mind?'205 A man might have several of these close friendships over the course of a lifetime. Jerome, for example, shared a harne with a man named Bonosus in Rome during his studies there. The two later moved to Trier together as "raw recruits" in the heavenly army, according to Jerome, who

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linlced their friendship with the manliness of militarism (Trier was a military frontier headquarters of the later Roman Empire, so Jerome was playing on the theme ofbeing "shipped to the front:' although neither he nor Bonosus were actual soldiers). 206 Jerome later shared a similar relationship with Rufinus before some unlcnown incident ruptured the friendship. 207 The two became bitter enemies, each dismissing the other's literary efforts and each accusing the other of sexual vice and of heresy. Jerome called a third man, Innocentius, "the half of my soui:' using the classical metaphor for male friendships, a phrase coined by Horace, and one used by many other men in late antiquity to describe their friendships with other men. 208 Augustine had his share of such friendships, as recorded in his Confessions: first, before his conversion, with an unnamed fellow Manichaean in North Mrica; then, after his conversion in Milan, with Alypius (the sameman who enjoyed the violence of the arenas), with whom he lived and whom he called "the brother of my heart [frater

cordis mei].m09 While such friendships between Christian men were intended to promote their spiritual development, they sometimes degenerated into sinful alliances. The possibility always existed, for example, that these friendships would become sexual relationships, given the longstanding cultural tradition of pederasty, and because of the fluid sexual interests of many men of antiquity, especially unmarried men. Valerian of Cimelium in Gaul recognized this possibility, saying that some men "to excuse away the odium ofthisdetestable error, pretend that it is fun [laetitia ]" to engage in sex with their male friends, "ifthose can be called friendships." He continued: "of two such men I do not lcnow whom to call more unfortunate: the one who lives by deforming someone eise, or the one who has prostituted his body to wantonness and handed it over to moclcery.''210 A sexual friendship seems to have existed between Augustine and his first companion, he later regretted: I cared for nothing but to love md be loved. But my love went beyond the affection of one mind for mother, beyond the arc of the bright bearn of friendship. Bodily desire, like a morass, md adolescent sex welling up within me exuded mists which clouded over md obscured my heart, so that I could not distinguish the clear light of true love from the murk of lust.... I muddied the strearn of friendship with the filth oflewdness md clouded its clear waters with hell's black river oflust. 211

Equally, men's friendships were sometimes the occasion for carousing and sexuallibertinism, as seems to have been typical for adolescent males and as happened with Jerome, for instance, whose youthful companions

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became associates in his debauchery. 212 The vehemence of the Christian denunciations of sexoutside of marriage, especially of sex between males described at the beginning of this chapter may have been related to the encouragement of these friendships as alternatives to marriage. The supplanting of marriage with these friendships may also help to explain the creation at some unknown date of specific Christian rituals to honor them. 213 In some sense, what the Christian proponents of male friendships were offering to men through these literary models and rituals was a form of spiritual pederasty not unlik:e spiritual marriage, intended for the support and edification of males but without the corrupting influence of sexual relations. Christian men who eschewed marriage might also form close friendships with women. It has been argued that the Christian view of the virtue of the sexless life allowed for the possibility of friendships between men and women in a way unseen among other religions or philosophies oflate antiquity. 214 In the eastern Mediterranean, these unions had often taken the form of sexless cohabitations between male and female "celibates; the individuals in such unions were known in Greek as syneisaktoi, "those brought together;' and in Latin, as subintroducti. Bishops of the Bastern churches repeatedly condemned even sexless cohabitation; but it continued nonetheless. 215 In the West, relationships of this sort also existed, although perhaps not to the same extent, and were equally condemned by the Western authorities. Jerome railed against the women involved in such relationships (although not in this instance against the men involved), calling them "unwedded wives;' "new types of concubines;' and even "one-man harlots.''216 He demanded that individuals involved in these relationships separate at once. 217 The orthodox encouragement of spiritual marriages was in some ways a concession to the strength of such nonsexual companionships between men and women, but spiritual marriages had the advantage in being rooted in cultural traditions of marriage rather than friendship. More acceptable to the orthodox fathers were the sort of arrangements that Jerome praised when he spoke ofFabiola's arrangement with Pammachius, which I mentioned at the start of this chapter, an arrangement of mutual support but not of cohabitation. It was also the type of relationship that Jerome hirnself enjoyed with the woman he called "my Paula.''218 Jerome instructed the widow Paula and her daughters in the Christian faith, and she in turn probably financed his studies and literary career. They traveled together to the holy sites ofPalestine and Egypt, and eventually established monastic communities near each other at Bethlehem, but they never lived together. 219 Not only did Jerome participate in

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a lifelong correspondence with Paula, but he also wrote to various members of her family to encourage and instruct them in much the way that any stepfather might. 220 The young woman who died while under Jerome's spiritual guidance, it should be added, was one ofPaula's daughters. He was their spiritualpateifamilias. Jerome's relationship with Paula and her children demonstrated that a man did not have to give up the domestic affairs of family life or the authority of a husband and father when he renounced marriage; he simply elevated thern to a different plane. Agairr, there were concerns that these friendships between rnen and warnen rnight deteriorate into clandestine sexual relationships. It was rurnored about Jerome's friendships with women. 221 Jerome in turn spread rurnors about the association of his former friend, Rufinus, with various warnen whom Jerome rnocked as "warnen of ill repute" (mulierculae) and Amazons. 222 He called Rufinus "a Cato publicly but a Nero privately."223 Jerome condemned the cohabitation of sexually continent couples in principle as flirting with disaster and thought it better that even rnarried couples wishing to initiate spiritual marriages should separate. 224 Fears of the clandestine sexual nature of such friendships between men and warnen also presumably encouraged legislators to restrict intimacy between warnen and their spiritual advisors. One law ordered that "ecclesiastics or rnen of the churches or whoever that want themselves to be known by the name of [sexual] continents should not enter into the homes of widows or minor women."225 In sum, while Christian friendships might satisfy the personallanging for emotional intimacy, their participants had to guard themselves constantly agairrst a sexual involvement that might destroy the lofty ideal of the celibate lifestyle. The dangers of sex always remairred. Even the rare examples of friendship between Christian warnen merited admonition agairrst sexual involvernent. 226 Jerorne's letters to Paula's family and friends in Rome are important artifacts for the ways in which the role of spiritual advisor affered an authority comparable to that of husband and father for Christian men. Jerome sethirnself up as an advisor on rnarital questions, even though he hirnselfbad renounced marriage, and wrote often to warnen with advice on rnatters sexual. A letter survives that he wrote to a young widow named Furia, the sister of a son-in-law ofPaula, who was considering rernarriage. Jerome urged her not to "return lilce a dog to its vomit" and reenter the realm of the sexually active. 227 Instead, because she had borne no children to her deceased husband, she should rather "grieve your lass ofvirginity in vairr;' and "make a virtue of necessity.''228 He challenged her in hostile tones:

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Why plead [concern for] your patrimony as an excuse [for remarriage], or the insolence of your slaves [managed by a woman alone]? Confess your shame. No woman takes a husband in ordernot to sleep with him. And if it is not your sexual urge inciting you, what a great insanity it is to prostimte your chastity in the manner of a whore in order to increase your wealth, and for the sake of a thing vile and perishable, to let your sexual integrity [pudicitia ], which is precious and eternal, be polluted? 229

Jerome might have been anxious about Furia's spiritual welfare, but he relied on the worst Roman stereotypes of wanton women to express his concerns. Jerome's letter to Oceanus about the deceased Fabiola with which I began this chapter details the same problems involved in the remarriage of widows. Fabiola had been a political ally ofJerome's, but one who had been criticized for having married twice, so his defense of her required him to downplay the scandal ofher actions. I have already described how Jerome had impugned the character ofher first husband. Jerome also ex-, cused Fabiola's moral accountability for her remarriage and even presented it as the mostsensible choice for a woman in her position (although again relying on the same nasty stereotype of women): She was an adolescent, and could not be loyal to her widowhood. She saw that the law ofher members was refusing the law ofher mind, and that she was pulled chained and captive toward sex. She judged it better to confess openly her frailty, and to undergo the rather wretched cloud of marriage, than under the glory ofbeing a one-man woman [univira], to act Wce a whore. 230

Finally, and most importandy, he showed that she had repented of her carnal weakness: After the death of her second husband she changed herself: she wore sackcloth, she acknowledged publicly her error, and with the whole of Rome watching, at the Easter vigil in the former Lateran Palace . . . she stood among the ranks of the penitents, and with the bishop, priests, and the whole people crying with her, and with her hair disheveled, her face pale, and her hands and neck filthy, she submitted. 231

Fabiola's life after her second husband's death, her extravagant charity and care of the poor, provided further proof of the sincerity ofher repentance. In freeing herself of the marital authority of a husband, Fabiola was required to submit herself even more fully to clerical authority. That, I be-

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lieve, is crucial to understanding Jerome's relationship to the women to whom he wrote. It also sheds light on the general implications of the renunciation of marriage for men's authority- because the power that the male derical hierarchy daimed over Fabiola was as absoluteasthat daimed by any Romanhusband. It did not matterwhether women married or not, because we see in Jerome's letters to unmarried or widowed women how one type of masculine authority might readily supplant another. Indeed, the sott of patriarchal spiritual authority that Jerome daimed might be extended far beyond what was possible to Roman men in the late ancient household to anyone willing to listen and obey. Men's declining private control of women in the household might be shored up by their control in the public sphere of religion. The liberty that widows like Fabiola might have exercised was sharply curtailed by their very piety, even if that piety induded the renunciation of future marriages. Indeed, the moral exhortations of spiritual advisors lilce Jerome helped to undo any real effects of the financial independence of widows in the later empire. The same moral authority wielded over women could also be used to control men, who were as much obliged to obey derical authorities as were women. In the end, men's familial authority was rescued by its redirection into derical authority, an authority not limited by a decliningpatria potestas. Not without reason were Christian writers so vociferous in their denunciations of sexual transgressions, as described at the statt of this chapter, because these very denunciations were a means to assure the transference of familial to derical authority. Clerks acted as any Roman pateifamilias might have wished to do, seelcing to direct and correct the behavior of those individuals in his charge, especially their sexual behavior. The same might be said of the copious correspondence of Augustirre or Paulinus or any other of the Latin Christian writers, as examples of the transference of patriarchal power from husbands to spiritual advisors. Because the men of the ecdesiastical hierarchy functioned as God's representatives, they were also authorized to act as surrogate fathers on God's behalf, as patresfamilias of the Christian household. Ambrose recognized his patriarchal status: For I love you, whom I have begotten in the Gospel, no less than if you were my own true sons. For nature does not malce us love more ardently than grace. We certainly ought to love those who we think will be with us forever more than those who will be with us in this world only. 232

The patemal authority that celibate men relinquished could be supplanted to a certain degree through spiritual authority as Christian leaders and teachers.

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Men of the ecclesiastical hierarchy seemed anxious to defend their . manliness as ersatz fathers. After all, they were men who chosenot to participate in the traditional family structure, as much as they might duplicate that structure within the family of Christians. Ambrose claimed, for example, that a man's childlessness was no evidence of a lack of virility: We recognize that it happens that both infirm men have children, and strong men have none; slaves have them, but not masters; the poor have them, but those who are powerful do not.... Men should themselves understand instead that to have children or not to have them has nothing to do with potency rpotentia] but with patemal property rpatema proprietas], and that to procreate is not according to the power of our will but is [only] according to a condition [qualitas] of the body. 233

"My seed [semen] is a hundred times more fertile:' Jerome claimed in a similar but particularly self-conscious comment on a parable of Jesus, which he related to his childlessness. 234 In the final count, however, the transference of the patriarchal structure of the Roman family to the Chris-· tian community allowed these men to become patriarchs of a family that never died. The Christian leaders and writers of late antiquity were quite literally "the fathers of the Church:' a term that was first used by Vincent of Urins in the third decade of the fifth century and has been used ever since to describe them. 235 Still, the admission of sexual vice among Christians reminds us that the sexual code that patristic writers advocated was never wholeheartedly adopted even by the men for whom it was crafted. The fathers were not universally obeyed. Some men, even those who expressed a wish to live by the Standards set by the Christian authorities, fell agairrst their will into the very sexual involvements they tried to avoid, seduced by the ancient traditions of a freer male sexuality, as Augustirre confessed ofhis own adolescence. Others denied that such a sexual self-denial was required of them as Christians, among them men like Jovinian. Still others claimed to follow the new moral code but secretly continued lives of sexual vice, men such as Cyprian decried in describing the abhorrent sexual practices of married couples. Regardless of their actions, however, sexuality illustrated a host of male concerns in late antiquity: men's ties to the classical heritage, their commitment to the Christian religion, their adherence to the right set ofbeliefs about human nature, and their obedience to ecclesiastical authority. In the end, Christian men enjoyed the best of all possible worlds in an era in which men's marital relations had been brought into question. They might renounce marriage altogether as part of a heroic self-sacrifice,

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still participating in the male control of women by means of moral exhortation and ecclesiastical sanction. Even if they did marry, however, they might find support for their authority in the Christian concerns about sex and fidelity within marriage andin the metaphor ofhusband as Christ. The traditionallanguage of manliness and unmanliness aided in the popularization and assimilation of these cultural innovations, and their configuration as part of a new masculine identity, even as it defined the points of separation between pagans and Christians and between heretics and the orthodox. Christian pronouncements about sex and marriage thus provided a cmcial component of the later Roman transformation of masculinity.

CHAPTER SEVEN

IITHE MANLINESS OF FAITH" Sexual Difference and Gender Ambiguity in Latin Christian Ideology

The preceding chapters have shown how the new Christian ideology of masculinity depended on the paradox that Christian men were manliest when they abandoned the pursuits that ancient Roman tradition had lang considered manly-participation in war and politics, in sex, marriage, and family life-and pursued divergent paths to manliness. But manliness remained the end to which men strove, even if it might be delineated in different ways- as interior warfare, as ecclesiastical politics, as sexual and marital renunciation-and even if it might beredefinedas Christian virtue. The reverse also held true, as we have seen, and Christian writers denounced effeminacy in men, an age-old association between vice and unmanliness newly cast as Christian sin. The implications of these ideas will be addressed in this chapter. Orthodox Christian writers :firmly supported the age-old Roman belief in the inferiority of warnen and the superiority of men, a beliefthat helped to reassert the privileges of the group lang holding power, men of the Roman aristocracy. In order to maintain this belief, however, orthodox Christian writers were obliged to repudiate the ambiguous gender traditions and genderless ideal of groups within earllest Christianity, a stance that also required them to limit the value and infl.uence ofEastern Christian culture for Western Christians. The reaffirmation of the belief in men's superiority and women's inferiority also forced Western Christian writers to deal with virtuous Christian warnen among them, that is, warnen who challenged the longstanding connection between femininity and vice. They transformed such warnen into pseudomen, even if they denied such warnen the masculine privileges so closely guarded by "real" 206

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men. In doing so, however, they demonstrated that gender-ambiguous ideals in earliest Christianity might have some validity and purpose in orthodox belief and might be subsumed into the general paradox of Christian masculinity. MANLINESS AND HOLINESS, UNMANLINESS AND SIN

Latin Christian writers recognized that their concept ofvirtus did not correspond to the Roman tradition. I have documented numerous examples of these disjunctions in previous chapters. But Christian writers of late antiquity also taclcled this problern directly. Ambrose ofMilan drew heavily upon these contrasts in a treatise dedicated to the subject of virtus. (Ambrose also showed his debt to both of the traditions inherited by Latin Christians in the title of the treatise, De ]acob et vita beata) "On Jacob and the Happy Life;' adding the name of a Biblical hero to the title of a treatise by the classical Roman writer Sallust.) In the work, Ambrose described the virtuous man as the man who found success in less-thanideal circumstances. He wrote: What indeed is laclcing to the man who possesses the good and has virtue always as his companion and ally? In what state oflife is he not most powerful? In what poverty is he not rich? In what lowly status is he not noble? In what leisure is he not industrious? In what weakness not vigorous? In what infirmity not strong? ... In what solitude is he not in a crowd? The happy life surrounds him, grace clothes him, the garment of glory makes him radiant .... When can he appear to be downcast? His citizenship is in heaven. When can he appear not to be distinguished? He conforms himself to the likeness of the beautiful and only good; although weak in his members, he is strong in his spirit. 1

It was a description surely crafted with the problems oflater Roman men in mind. Ambrose reassured his readers that virtuous men would receive all of the things that Roman men had always hoped for: power and wealth, honors and social distinctions. But they would only obtain these things by rejecting traditional notions of masculine accomplishment. Christian writers like Ambrose relied heavily on the contrasts between what was.considered ideal according to Christian Standards and what was considered ideal according to the Standards of the "world" or the "present age" (both suitable translations of the Latin saeculum) and meaning both contemporary practice and the pagan and classical tradition). Christian writers used Biblical precedent to prove their point. The Beatitudes ofJesus were an important Biblical support often cited, offer-

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ing real triumph to those in apparent failure and future happiness to those in present misery. Chromatius of Aquileia contrasted secular and Christian virtus in a sermon on the Beatitudes given near the end of the fourth century. "It is the perfect virtue [virtus ], brothers:' he declared, and "after the service of all justice, to receive reproaches frommenon account of the truth, stricken with torments, taking as our example that of the prophets, who, beaten by various methods for the salce ofjustice, conformed themselves to the Passion of Christ and were made worthy of rewards?'2 The Biblical story of the twin brothers, Jacob and Esau, from the book of Genesis, was another opportunity for inversions of masculine expectation, as in Ambrose's treatise. God preferred Jacob (the younger of the twins and the smooth-skinned one, the one who stayed among the tents with his mother and learned to cook) to Esau (his slightly older and hairier brother, who was his father's favorite and enjoyed manly pastimes like hunting). 3 Ambrose encouraged Christian men to see themselves as Jacob figures, declaring that "Jacob was the superior in virtus."4 Further Biblical endorsement for the paradox of Christian virtue could be found in the life and teachings of the apostle Paul, who declared himself"happy to malce my wealmesses my special boast" and "content with my weaknesses, and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and the agonies I go through for Christ's sake:' because "[it is] when I am weak that I am strong?'5 Jerome, quoting this passage, added: "Who of us can claim for hirnself even the smallest part of this catalogue of virtues [virtutes] ?"6 Such Biblical examples could be endlessly multiplied. The whole of the life ofJesus as remernbered in the Gospels, culminating in his ignominious death, also demonstrated how the measure of this world was not God's measure. Through all of these contrasts between expectation and reality, the importance of paradox in the Christian message is clear. Paul frequently used paradoxes to describe the Christian reality: wealmess is strength, foolishness is wisdom, and death is victory. Christian writers of late antiquity also embraced paradox. The fifth-century poet Prudentius placed words similar to those of Paul in the mouth of the martyr Romanus, called before the tribunal of a third-century pagan emperor, and thus for the benefit of all those who read his poetry. "I know that you, godless man, cannot grasp the mystery:' he wrote. "You think this foolishness, you wise men of the world, but the supreme Father chose the foolish things of the world so that he who is foolish in respect of the world might be wise in the knowledge of God?' 7 It was through the use of paradox that Christian writers shaped their response to the multiple changes in Roman men's understanding of

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masculinity in late antiquity. The threat to masculinity in late antiquity posed by the growing distance between expectation and reality-between the military ideal of manliness and the actual collapse of the empire, between the centrality of political office to aristocratic identity and the political impotence of the aristocracy, between the ideal of patriarchal marital and familial authority and decliningpatria potestas-all could be reconciled through the creation of a kind of counterculture that interpreted disjunction as paradox and was invigorated by its dissociation from traditional standardsrather than frustrated by it. The use of paradox allowed Christian men to claim real manliness in apparent unmanliness. The unquestioned ideal, nonetheless, remained manliness. For Christian writers to appropriate the concept of virtus was to identif)r themselves with the best elements of the classical heritage. Indeed, it was to take the parts ofthat heritage that were suspect or dangeraus and tarne them. Ambrose contrasted the qualities "associated with the female sex, such as malice ofthought, petulance, sensuality, self-indulgence, immodesty, and other vices ofthat nature which tend to enervate the traits associated with what is distinctly masculine:' which he defined as "chastity, patience, wisdom, temperance, fortitude, and justice?'8 Augustine of Hippo recommended to Christians that they look for virtus in the old philosophical moral values of prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice; in sum, he exhorted them to "have a virile spirit?'9 But virtus was not simply the reiteration of ancient virtue. It also represented the best of what was new to the Christian message. It was holiness, conformity of the self to divine commands; accordingly, Jesus was the virtus of God. 10 In the same fashion, Christian writers continued to dismiss what they did not like as unmanliness. In a discussion of the unsuitability of certain men for offices as Christian clerics, for example, Ambrose declared that a man's voice "should not be languid, nor feeble, nor womanish [ftmineus] in its tone?' He continued: "It should preserve a certain quality and rhythm, and a manly vigor:' and added, "I cannot approve of an effeminate [molliculum] or wealc tone of voice or gesture of the body." 11 There were certainly practical reasons for insisting that a cleric should have a strong and clear spealcing voice, and Roman writers had lang insisted on the importance of oratorical skills in men's public presence, but the association of weakness with unmanliness deserves comment. In explaining why a manly voice should be so important in a cleric, Ambrose said: "Let us follow nature; the imitation ofher provides us with a principle of training, and gives us a pattern of truth?' 12 If clerics were men, they should sound like men. Indeed, Ambrose drew frequently upon the arsenal of terms deriding unmanliness for a variety of purposes. When discussing

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the proper conduct of clerics, he suggested that a man could be happy only "when the patronage of pleasure or the fear of pain is despised" since "the first of these one abhors as poor and effeminate [infractum et molliculum ], and the other as unmanly and weak [eviratum et infirmum].''13 Ambrose reiterated this principle in a letter, a principle that any ancient Roman might have voiced: "Nothing effeminate [molliculum], nothing feeble attains to praise.'' 14 There was more to the condemnation of unmanliness, however, than the mere manipulation of a familiar and conservative vocabulary. Denunciations of unmanliness allowed the leaders of the Christian communities -as it had for classical Roman moraliststo dtaw upon gender stereotypes to encourage what they considered acceptable behavior formen by calling it manly and to discourage what they considered unacceptable behavior by calling it unmanly. Let me explain by using as my example the Christian disapproval of the public spectacles. The term "spectacle" (spectaculum) covered a wide range of public performances, including the formal and classical Greelc and Latin tragic and comedic theatrical plays; public religious rituals, both reenactments of pagan legends as weil as dances and ceremonies in honor of a god or goddess; gladiatorial and athletic contests; performances by mimes and jugglers and acrobats, solo and in groups, impromptu and rehearsed; and street dancers, including erotic dancers. There was considerable overlap between these categories of public performers, since plays based on a pagan legend might involve a sexual performance, or festivals in honor of the gods might incorporate acrobatics or a striptease, or criminals might be executed by being cast in a performance where they were actually lcilled. If our sources can be believed, there was also much overlap between the categories of performers. Actors were often treated as pimps and actresses as prostitutes, as indicated in one law of394, according to which Christian women and boys were forbidden to associate with actors, presumably because they were the most susceptible either to sexual advances from them or perhaps to abduction by them for immoral purposes. 15 The disreputability of public performers did not only exist in the minds of Christians. Public performers suffered legal infamy (infamia) according to traditional Roman law. The HistoriaAugusta and the Romanhistory ofCassius Dio both smeared the reputations of several emperors simply by mentioning their frequent association with actors, mimes, and other performers, and then adding pimps and prostitutes tothelist as if they were much the same thing. 16 Indeed, given the disdain for the spectacles among Roman writers, pagan and Christian, it is questionable to what extent the extant sources are reliable evidence for what went on at the spectacles. 17

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Christian writers worked hard to undermine the popularity of the public performances by emphasizing the gender transgressions of the spectacles. But to understand their critique, we must understand how plays were performed in late ancient Rome. First, male actors in formal plays played women's as weil as men's roles and dressed in women's clothing for these roles, although there were also female actresses in the later Roman Empire for less formal performances. Second, all actors in formal roles wore masks that hid their faces. This device permitted the same actor to play different roles in the same play simply by switching masks offstage, but it also required the graceful movements ofhands and bodies necessary either for the male actor to telegraph the femaleness of a character or to express emotion intended to be visible from a distance. Third, the content of some plays and performances, especially comedies and the skits of mimes and dancers, was often graphically sexual. All of these activities, Christian writers argued, were violations of men's proper gender roles and disgraceful displays of unmanliness. Even while they condemned the gender violations of the public performers, Christian writers also tried to show how the average man's enjoyment of the spectacles was equally unmanly. Tertullian dedicated an entire treatise to the problern ofpublic shows (De spectaculis). He denounced the unmanliness of the performers. "What must be the judgment of the pantomime;' he wondered, ''who is even brought up to play the wo man;' when in the Bible "it is declared that the man is cursed who attires hirnself in female garments?" 18 But the performers were not the sole transgressors involved in the spectacles. ''Are we not enjoined to put away from us all immorality [impudicitia] ?" he asked of his readers. "On this ground, we are excluded from the theatre, which is immodesty's own peculiar abode, where nothing is in repute but what elsewhere is disreputable." 19 A century later, Lactantius repeated virtually the same sorts of denunciations, pointed both at the performers and the viewers of performances. "The shameless [impudicissimi] motions ofthe actors;' he argued, "what eise do they teach and arouse but the passions? Their enervated bodies, softened to womanish step and effeminate apparel, belie shameless [impudicae] warnen with their dishonorable gestures.''20 And again: What of the stage? Is it less vile? There comedy discourses of debaucheries and illicit loves, tragedy of incest and parricide. The lewd gestures of actors, whereby they imitate loose women [infames feminae ], actually teach the lusts expressed in their dances. The farce too is a school ofiniquity, in which shameful things are done by representation, so that things that are true are accomplished without any sense of shame. 21

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It is not difficult to find other Christian writers voicing similar complairrts. Novatian, who wrote a treatise entitled De spectaculis in the middle of the third century, also criticized the actor as "dissolute beyend womanly softness:' calling such a man an "1-don't-know-what, neither man nor woman."22 About the same time, Cyprian of Carthage bemoaned the fact that on the stage "men emasculate themselves; all the honor and vigor of their sex are enfeebled by the disgrace of an enervated body, and he gives more pleasure there who best breaks down the man into woman.''23 As these descriptions make clear, Christian writers targeted the spectacles by claiming that they violared the traditional Roman distinction of the sexes, and that they were therefore as repugnant to watch as to enact. Any intelligent man should share their opinions, they implied. But the popular support for the spectacles belies any real support for the opinions of these writers. The continual denunciations show that these exhortations were not having the intended effect. It is irrteresring that most of the denunciations were directed at Christian men; we can only presume that such Statements were necessary because Christian men continued to artend these performances. (It is unclear whether women regularly witnessed spectacles, given the limitations on their presence in public areas.) As the Roman government became officially Christian, however, the Christian disapproval began to turn the tide agairrst the public performances. The Christian emperors enacted laws agairrst them. A law of 367 forbade actors from being admitted to communion in Christian churches, except at the end of their lives, after which, if they chanced to survive, they could under no circumstances return to the stage. A law of 399 banned aspring festival called the maiuma because of its indecency; another law of the same year rejected the presentation of "any spectacles ... devised to effeminate the spirit [ad molliendas animos]" on Sundays or on the emperor's birthday. 24 These laws, it must be noted, apparently did not succeed in reforming or eliminating either the performances or their players. At the end of the fourth century Ambrose of Milan still contrasred "the movements of the dissolute hoclies of actors" with the vigoraus mannerisms of true men. 25 The limited scope of these laws also implies that the legislators knew they were acting agairrst popular opinion and so banned only the most outrageaus of offenses. Salvian ofMarseilles criticized the continued popularity of the public games in the middle of the fifth century. "Indeed:' he lamented, "it would take long to speak about all these snares now, namely, the amphitheaters, music halls,

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public processions, jesters, athletes, tumblers, pantomimes and other monstrosities, which disgust me to talk about?'26 But Christian writers had another weapon in their arsenal to attaclc the public spectacles, which was to link the gender ambiguity of the performers to the pagan nature of the plays and festivals. "One and the same actor:' Jerome declared, "now figures as a brawny Hercules, and now relaxes into the softness of a Venus or the quivering tone of a Cybele?'27 Tertullian wondered how pagans could consider any such reenactments as pious. "When the lilceness of a god is put on the head of an ignominious and infamaus wretch, when one impure [impurum] and trained up for the art in all effeminacy, represents a Minerva or a Hercules:' he aslced facetiously, "is not the majesty of your gods insulted, and their deity defiled?"28 (The word Tertullian used for this defilement, constuprare, from the same root as stuprum, was a term often used for the sexual penetration of males.) For Tertullian and other Christian writers, the spectacles were unmanly and obscene because they were pagan. Salvian of Marseilles maintained that Minerva is worshipped and honored in the gyrnnasia, Venus in the theaters, Neptune in the circuses, Mars in the arena, Mercury in the wrestling schools .... Whatever is of an impure nature is donein the theaters. Whatever is luxurious, in the wrestling schools. Whatever is immoderate, in the circuses. Whatever is mad, in the arena pits. Herethereis wantonness [impudicitia], there lasciviousness [lascivia]. Here there is intemperance, there insanity. 29

Behind it all is the ancient rhetoric linlcing unmanliness and vice. But a new and revealing element has been added in the Christian rhetoric against paganism. Armed with their distaste for the spectacles, Christian writers toolc advantage of the opportunity to reinforce the pagan themes of the performances and to lump paganism tagether with unmanliness and sin. (The late ancient hagiographical theme of the conversion ofan actor in the middle of a pagan theatrical performance- as in the legend of Genesius, who is said to have become a Christian on stagein the midst of an anti-Christian play-reinforced the linlc between paganism, sin, and the spectacles. 30 ) Christians transformed the concept of virtus by using it to describe the paradox of Christian masculinity where true manliness might be found in apparent unmanliness. But they also still used it to distinguish manliness from unmanliness in very traditional ways and readily applied it to the persons and activities, such as public performers and the spectacles, that they

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wanted to criticize or condemn. Indeed, because they identified manliness with Christian holiness, they were also able to identifY unmanliness with sin and thus also with paganism. That identification proved to them the value of the continued equation of gender and morality. MASCULINE PRIVILEGE AND CHRISTIAN PRIVILEGE

I suggested in chapter l that manliness and unmanliness were useful categories for Roman men because they helped further the larger task ofbuttressing male social privilege. By labeling as "effeminate" the men who did not live up to the ideals of masculine behavior and demoring them into the category of women, the men who were in control were able to perpetuate the myth that they dominared their society and its men and women because of their moral superiority. I want to suggest now that the same motivation made manliness and unmanliness equally useful categories for Christian men. We have already seen numerous instances in preceding chapters in which Christians asserted their moral superiority by claiming greater manliness. By extending the cantrast between manliness and unmanliness to a parallel cantrast between Christianity and paganism, Christian men could assert their holiness and manliness as Christian men over a sinful and pagan and effeminate society. Masculine privilege rewrote itself as Christian privilege. It is clear that Latin Christian writers accepted with little apparent question the division of men into the two camps of the manly and the unmanly. Consider an episode from the Liber peristephanon by the poet Prudentius of the martyrdom of Agnes. Agnes was condemned to death in the arena for her refusal to marry, having dedicated her life to holy virginity. Agnes's willingness to face martyrdom and sexual renunciation lent her an implicit manliness. But Prudentius described her death as a symbolic marriage to the gladiator who was about to kill her: When Agnes saw the grim figure standing there with his naked sword her gladness increased and she said: "I rejoice that there comes a man like this, a savage, cruel, wild man-at~arms, rather than a listless, soft, womanish [mollis] youth bathed in perfume, coming to destroy me with the death of my honor. This lover, this one at last, I confess it, pleases me. I shall meet his eager steps halfway and not put offhis hot desires. I shall welcome the whole length ofhis blade into my bosom, drawing the sword-blow to the depths of my breast." 31

The episode relied both on the old-fashioned appeal of the manly gladiator and on the conventional disdain for the effeminate man. The juxta-

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position of these two masculine types, it should be noted, served no real purpese to the story ofAgnes's martyrdom. It even detracted from the sacredness of her virginity, malcing it seem as though she had refused to marry only because she had not found a suitor who was man enough. But Prudentius wrote his poetic account of the martyrs precisely in order to popularize these legends among Roman readers, and it was important that he have his readers see familiar and appealing patterns in his poems. From even this one example, we see that Prudentius counted on his audience's immediate recognition of the significance of the centrast between the gladiator and the perfumed youth. Christian writers knew that the success of their religion to a !arger population depended on malcing it seem both conventional and attractive. Moreover, the imagewas probably as appealing to Prudentius as to his readers. (Doubdess, the allusion to forced sexuality in the penetration of the sword also sprang from the same motivation, appealing to a violence and sexual titillation similar to that which the public spectacles offered.) The ability to divide human persons into two camps, one of moral excellence and the other of moral reprobation -or, in Christian terms, one of saindiness and the other of sin-and then to link these camps with masculine and feminine natures, proved too compelling to resist. It permitted the Church fathers and their allies to see themselves as manly in their quest for holiness and as deserving of all of the rights available in a society dominated by men. It also allowed them to disparage the persons and actions they despised, including men who were pagan or otherwise opposed to the Church fathers, as sinful and unmanly and as undeserving of the rights and authority that belonged to true men. Conventional denunciations of love of luxury were a frequent occasion among Christian writers both for the assertion of the moral superiority of men over women and for the conscious demotion of sinful men into the category of women. Prudentius again provides a helpful illustration, from another ofhis poetic works (calledAmartißenia) The Origin of Sin, it is a lengthy disapprobation of vice intended for a Christian audience). In a section devoted to the follies of fashion, Prudentius began by associating women stereotypically with the worst of their evils: For woman, not content with her natural grace, puts on a false and adventitious beauty, and as if the hand of the Lord who made her had given her a face that was unfinished, so that she must needs further embellish it with sapphires mounted on a circlet round her brow to crown it, or surround her chaste neck with strings of glowing gems, or hang a weight of green jewels from her ears, she even fastens the little white stones from sea-shells

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in her hair to brighten it, and her braided tresses are held in place by bands of gold. It would be wearisome to detail all the profane trouble matrons take, who color the forms which God has dowered with his gifts, so that the painted skinloses its character and cannot be recognized under the false hue. Suchare the doings of the feebler sex, in whose narrow mind a frail intelligence tosses lightly on a tide of sin. 32

The purpose of this denunciation is made clear in this last verse, with Pmdentius's assurance that women were the "feebler sex" with a "frail intelligence:' and implying that their correction by men lilce hirnself was necessary in order to preserve them from sin. (Pmdentius's point about women being made in the image of God, as we will see below in the theological debate on the subject, was also not innocent of deeper meaning.) In what he attributed to women, Pmdentius is not unlilce other Christian or classical writers (lilce Ambrose, for example, whose views on women and luxury were mentioned at the start of chapter 5 ). But Pmdentius also added to his harangue a claim that some men were like women in their love of extravagance. He continued: But even he who is the head and ruler of the woman's person, who governs the weak portion cut from his own flesh and bears lordship over the delicate vessel, lets hirnself go in indulgence. One sees strong men, no Ionger young, turn effeminate [mollescere] in their self-refinement, though the creator made their bodies rude and their limbs hard with bones to stiffen them; but they are ashamed tobe men. They seek after the greatest vanities to beautif)r them, so that in their lightrnindedness they dissipate their native strength. They love to wear flowing robes not made from sheep's ßeeces but of the [sillc] spoils talcen from branches of trees and fetched from the eastern world, and to overlay their hardy frames with lozenge broidery. Artifice is called in to make yarns soalced in decoctions of plants work diverse fancy patterns with threads of different colors. Beasts' coats are chosen for carding for their sofrness to the touch. One man is seen chasing hotfoot after luxuriant tunics, and weaving downy garments with strange threads from many-colored birds, another sharning hirnself by spreading womanish scents with perfumed paints and foreign powder. 33

There is nothing surprising in what Pmdentius said: the Ostentation in dress of the upper classes of the later Roman Empire was often criticized, as we have seen. More interesting is the connection between Roman cultural tradition and Christian faith in Pmdentius's claims. Men, who should exhibit a moral superiority over women as God had intended, had instead sunk to their level. There is an oblique reference to the myth

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ofAdam and Eve in the "lordship" of man over woman andin the ''weak portion cut from his own flesh;' but also a hint of regret that effeminate wealmess was not wholly removed from men in the operation. Prudentius accordingly distanced true Christian manliness from such pleasures. "What grief to think that nature's native laws should go down;' he continued, "and her gifts be carried away captive by a tyrant passion! Every power is perverted in its action, because men turn to opposite purposes all that the Omnipotent gave them to possess.''34 Nature and the Christian god worked harmoniously tagether to establish men's dominion over warnen, Prudentius argued, andin so arguing claimed that dominion for himself. One might argue that Prudentius's detailed delineation of men's and women's clothing styles betrays an unbecoming fascination hirnself with luxury, but the accusation of effeminacy had always been used to censure in another what had to be disregarded or minimized in oneself. Prudentius composed his poetry in the early fifth century, by which time Christian ideology dominated much ofRoman culture and had also absorbed much of it. But the same condemnation of effeminacy, especially as expressed in excessive luxury in clothing, can be seen from the very beginnings of Latin Christian culture. This should not be unexpected. Christian men of the third century were even more acutely aware ofhow much their future success depended on convincing Roman nahlernen that they were just like them, unthreatening because they shared their underlying values. Tertullian adopted this rhetorical strategy in applying the military metaphor to the Christian martyrs, as we saw in chapter 4, taking a familiar metaphor and adapting it for his own purposes. He did the same in an odd treatise on clothing, a treatise addressed to the men of Carthage. He called it De pallio (On the Mantle) because he felt that this simple garment (pallium) associated with philosophers and with Christian ascetics was the manliest type of clothing. Tertullian began by admitting that change was the destiny of all things of nature, clothing styles included. But not allchangewas improvement, he added. The increasingly elaborate complexity of the traditional men's toga, he explained, required far too much effort to accomplish the desired pleated look and, therefore, too much effeminate concern for appearance. Better the unstudied and manly simplicity of a plain tunic and mantle. (In an aside, Tertullian also complained about the abandonment of the manly sandal in favor ofthe effeminate shoe and boot.) The lessons that Tertullian drew from these changes in style are notable and illustrate the Christian rhetoric of unmanliness. He argued that the increased concern with appearance had contributed to the disastraus

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military and political situation of the Roman Empire in his day, because it had turned men into warnen. The loss of manliness threatened the moral fiber of the empire. Tertullian's concern for the fate of the Roman Empire may have been sincere at this point in his career, although generally he showed little appreciation for it, but the Statement was certain to strike a cord with his readers. Tertullian also used the opportunity to link unmanliness and paganism. He noted the shameful transvestism described in the pagan legends of the Greek heroes Achilles and Hercules and the Greek histories about the Assyrian ruler Sardanapalus. Their unmanly example, he added, was even imitated by the Roman emperors to the further detriment of the empire. Again, Tertullian obviously knew how to appeal to his audience's concerns. He probably wrote this treatise during or shortly after the reign ofElagabalus, when the disastraus effects ofimperial transvestism were on many men's minds. 35 "Such garments as alienate from nature and modesty:' he concluded, should simply be moclced by other men, and so "let it be allowed to be just to eye fixedly and point at with the finger and expose to ridicule by a nod" anyone who wore them. 36 The treatise adds further evidence to the anxiety provoked by men's changing clothing styles in the later empire. There was nothing new or specifically Christian in what Tertullian argued, but he tried to show throughout his writings that divine command and Roman custom happily coincided on the matter of clothing. "I find no dress cursed by God:' he wrote in a treatise on idolatry, "except a woman's dress on a man?' 37 There was indeed a Biblical prohibition against men wearing women's clothing, but it equally condemned warnen wearing men's clothing, a fact Tertullian must have known but ignored. 38 He was much more concerned about the effects of clothing on men, because he connected it to ancient Roman fears of effeminacy. Even in a treatise devoted to women's clothing styles (and Tertullian also found much to complain about in them, mostly along much the same lines as Pmdentius's later complaints ), he was also sidetracked to speak out against the various beautification procedures used by some men: to cut the beard too sharply; to pluck it out here and there; to shave round about [the mouth]; to arrange the hair, and disguise its hoariness by dyes; to remove all the incipient down all over the body; to fix [each hair] in its place with [some] womanly pigment; to smooth all the rest of the body by the aid of some rough powder or other. 39

Some men would also "take every opportunity for consulting the mirrar [and] to gaze anxiously into it" over the course of the day, he continued in his aside, just like women. 40 Such effeminate behavior not only gave

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men the appearance and mannerisms of women, which was distressing enough to him, but it also softerred their moral complexions along with their physical complexions. In this assertion we can see another attempt to combine Christian belief and Roman traditions agairrst gender ambiguity. If Christian men were to remain strong in an age of persecution, Tertullian argued, then "such delicacies as tend by their softness and effeminacy to unman the manliness of faith are to be discarded;''41 For Tertullian, the Christian man who had lost his manliness could not but fail when his virtue was tested by the threat of martyrdom. We see the conjunction of the manly image of the soldier of Christ and the unmanly image of the richly dressed, and Tertullian's !arger rhetorical strategy: both placed true Christians among the manly. To claim the support of Christian ideology for their statements about manliness and unmanliness and about gender and morality, Christian writers of late antiquity added a new and powerful component to the rhetoric of gender. They took the privileges that men's moral superiority were supposed to justify and applied these privileges to themselves as Christians. After all, if Christians were the virtuous and manly ones, then the domination that belonged to men should adhere to them. To denounce as efieminate men's appearance or clothing worked because the chargewas so old-fashioned (and we might add to this Iist ofold-fashioned appeals the Christian denunciations of sexual immorality discussed in chapter 6 ). Other men might ignore the pleas of the moralists, pagan or Christian-and they often did, in clothing styles as in sexual behaviorbut the moralists had by definition the higher moral ground. And that higher ground gave them access to the whole range oflongstanding mental associations with the concept of virtus. The link between paganism and agendered hierarchy of masculine superiority and feminine inferiority could be carried one step farther. The stigma of unmanliness drew its strength from the inferior position of women, after all, and it was in order that women as well as other men might be subordinated to men that vicious men were considered womanly. Christian writers reinforced the inferiority of women by linking femininity to paganism. Lactantius, in mocking the unreasonableness of pagan philosophy, used as his example the sexual equality that Plato had imagined in his ideal government. "Plato threw open the senate to women, allowing them to serve in the wars, to become magistrates, and to hold military commands;' Lactantius wrote. "How great will be the unhappiness ofthat city where women fill the places of men!"42 Lactantius also offered a critique of the old pagan beliefs by linking them to ferninine inferiority. He wrote:

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But among the gods we see that there are warnen, too: therefore, they are not gods. Let him who can shatter this argument. For condition so follows condition that it is necessary to admit the conclusion. And no one can shatter this argument: of the two sexes one is stronger, one weaker, for the males are more robust, the females more weak. Weakness [imbecillitas], however, does not apply to divinity; therefore, there is no female sex [in divinity] .... The final conclusion ... [must be] that they arenot gods, since there arewarnen among them. 43 Hereis to be found the misogynistic e:xtension of the link between religion and gendered inequality: paganism is of the stuff of women, Christianity, of men. Christian writers, attempting to show the irrationality of paganism, emphasized the underpinnings of a feminine ignorance beneath traditional religion and opposed it to the masculine truth of Christian ideology. Augustine, for instance, poked fun at the proliferation ofgods in Roman belief in The City ofGod: But how can I give a list, in one passage of this book, of all the names of their gods and goddesses? The Romans had difficulty in getting them into the massive volumes .... They could not even find the goddess called Segetia adequate on her own, to the responsibility for the crops from start to finish. Instead, they decided that the corn when sown should have the goddess Seia to watch over it as long as the seeds were under ground; as soon as the shoots came above the ground and began to form the grain, they were under the charge of the goddess Segetia; but when the corn had been reaped and stored the goddess Tutilina was set over them to keep them safe. Would not anyone think that Segetia should have been competent to supervise the whole process from the first green shoots to the dry ears of corn? 44 Not without significance did Augustine concentrate his attack on the pagan goddesses here, since they best represented the conjunction of femininity and spiritual ignorance. The Ieaders ofWestern Christianity quicldy embraced an accommodation with traditional Roman notions of the sexual hierarchy of men over women. Men of the Roman aristocracy who became Christians encouraged the link between virtus and the Christian religion in order to promote both it and themselves. Having accepted the links between perfection and masculinity, however, they were obliged both to defend the parallel ideas of subordination ofwomen and the denunciation ofless than perfect men as no Ionger men. We have already seen some of the results of these ideas

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in the insistence on marital inequality and in the elaboration of a masculine clerical authority. The overall result was a blankering of all of the innovations that Christian ideology affered in a profound reactionism that tied sexual difference to moral superiority and inferiority. THE GENDERLESS IDEAL IN EARLlEST CHRISTIANITY

Latin Christian writers perhaps assured the popularity and success of their ideas by linking them to longstanding Romannotions of masculine superiority and feminine inferiority. But they were obliged as a result to walle gingerly through multiple traditions of gender ambiguity in earliest and Bastern Christianity that ignored the differences between men and women. These traditions threatened to undermine the sexual and social divisions of male and female when Christianity reached the West, even if they had already been muffled in the course of the first few centuries after the death ofJesus. Reconstructing earliest Christianity, that is, Christianity as it existed before the third century, is fraught with difficulties and uncertainties. Nonetheless, it seems as though at least some of the earliest Christians seriously challenged the customary social roles of men and women. One of the earliest Christian Statements preserved is just such a challenge, attributed to Paul and according to some scholars only quoted by him from an earlier tradition: ''All baptized in Christ, you have all clothed yourselves in Christ, and there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all ofyou are one in Christ Jesus?'45 The statement fits weil enough with what we know of earliest Christianity: an abandonment of the ritual regulations of the Jewish law, including the dietary restrictions and the circumcision of infant males (thus eroding the differences between Jew and Greek), a repudiation of wealth and the value attached to status (thus eroding the differences between slave and free ), and a renunciation of marriage and the obligations offamily life (thus eroding the differences between male and female). The Statement hinted at a promise that in Christ, humanity would be returned to its mythical original unity and functioned as a comment on the Genesis legend of Adam and Eve (and although we tend to think of Eve as having been created from the rib of Adam, and therefore only a fragment of the original human being who began as and remained male, the myth more likely began as one of an androgynaus being cut in half 46 ). It was a statement both about the past and about the future, expressing the hope that all would be restored to innocence and immortality as had existed in the days before sin and death.

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But the beliefthat in Christ the diiferences between male and female were erased could also be seen as a statement about the present, that there was no Ionger a need for gender roles in the community of Christians, a genderless ideal. Whether Paul intended such an interpretation of his Statement is uncertain. He was remernbered for hispersistent attempts to end observance of the Jewish laws and circumcision, attempts that were precisely to eradicate the difference between Jew and Greek in his own day. But he also counseled married persans to remain married and unmarried persans to remain unmarried, and that implied at least a partial accommodation to existing gender roles. 47 Still, the devaluation ofmarriage and family life in some early Christian communities encouraged the elimination of gender differences, because there was little practical value to them when both women and men participated in communallife and sexual renunciation, such as occurred among the groups known as Encratites.48 In the spirit ofthe genderless ideal, some early Christian communities accepted the full participation of warnen in ritual activities alongside men, as apparently among the Marcionites and Montanists. 49 It seems that already by the second century C.E. some communities were elaborating the theme of the genderless life in Christ and the rehabilitation of a fallen humanity through complex cosmologies of divine androgyny and gender ambiguity. Some of these groups are known to scholars as Gnostic Christians, a label that encompasses a wide range of Christian sects with differing beliefs derived from the religious mythology and philosophy ofthe eastern Mediterranean, including Jewish apocryphal writings and Greek philosophy, although the usefulness of this labei has been seriously challenged. 50 Some Christians, at any rate, were imagining a cosmos filled with semidivine beings displaying a wide array of sexual characteristics. Barbelo, for example, was an androgynaus semidivine being who was separated from God through sin and lost its androgyny, becoming the feminine figure of Sophia or Achamoth and giving birth to the material world. The loss of primordial androgyny represented the kind of loss of integrity that was also part of the Genesis legend of the creation of Eve from Adam. The myth of Barbelo also implied that sexual difference was the result of sin, and the division of male from female mirrored the fragmentation of the perfect unity of the universe into multiplicity and incompleteness. It should also be noted that the sinful androgyne Barbelo became the female being Sophia, implying a link between fernininity and sin, and, because Sophia was responsible for the creation of the material world, between fernininity and carnality. 51 The link between fernininity and the material world reminds us that

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we should not think that the Christian communities that sponsored these myths promoted a sexual equality along modern lines. The genderless ideal was often interpreted as meaning that warnen might become Iike men in their pursuit of Christian holiness and desire to return to perfection. 52 The equation of holiness and masculinity was part and parcel of the ancient environment of male domination in which these groups originated and from which they drew their members. Accordingly, feminine nature was also assumed tobe what was sinful and irremediable in human nature (and patristic commentary on the wickedness ofEve preserved the same idea). Still, given the context of the prevalent gender ideology of antiquity, which understood women's nature as weakness and vice, women's abdication from a feminine identity might be construed in a positive light. It has also been suggested that there might have been a real attraction for warnen in worshipping a divinity that contained feminine as weil as masculine natures. 53 The ascetic life might also have been especially appealing to warnen, since sexual renunciation allowed for the renunciation of unwanted marriages and a hast of troubles that existed for married warnen from spousal abuse to the physical dangers of childbirth. 54 It has also been suggested that by allowing warnen to aspire to what was perceived as masculine perfection, these Christian groups ultimately undermined the ancient foundation dividing hmnanity between virtuous men and vicious woman and redefined virtue in genderless terms. 55 One indication of how common it was to link holiness and maleness as part of the genderless ideal in earllest Christianity is the existence of numerous stories of holy warnen who dressed and lived as men, the socalled transvestite saints. The earllest such legend is that ofThecla, probably dating from the second century but which made Thecla a companion ofPaul. According to the account, Thecla heard the preaching ofPaul and was converted to Christianity, vowing herself to virginity and refusing to accept an arranged marriage. Her pagan parents opposed her vow, and she was obliged to fiee from them dressed as a man. Still disguised as a man, she was baptized by Paul and traveled with him, preaching and converting others to Christianity, even narrowly escaping martyrdom when arrested by the local governor. There were many similar legends that appeared in the eastern Mediterranean in the following centuries, and they have been extensively studied by modern scholars. 56 In each of them, the link is made clear between the pursuit ofholiness and the renunciation of a feminine identity, both subsumed under the rubric ofbeing "clothed in Christ." The cross-dressing of these warnen is typically linked with the

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moment ofbaptism, and they invariably renounce sex or marriage at the same moment, reinforcing the connections between femininity, carnality, and sin. A few of the transvestite saints are even depicted as prostitutes before their conversion, in an obvious symbolic parallelism between their feminine nature and sexual immorality, on the one hand, and their masculine nature and holy chastity, on the other. Most scholars feel that there is little historical evidence for the lives of these warnen who disguised themselves as men, and some scholars have dismissed the legends as retellings ofliterary romances or as doctored pagan myths or even as male fantasies. 57 But it must not be assumed that such warnen did not exist, even if the legends of the transvestite saints are not accurate refiections of the details of their lives. The phenomenon of warnen disguising themselves as men is common enough in later historical periods, and the freedom of action and movement that is a central theme to these stories would have been a powerful motivation (although the account ofEgeria offers the example ofa woman with sufficient financial resources who did not have to dress as a man to travel extensively, and there are other such examples). 58 In any event, the legends themselves were real enough and affered to warnen at least an imagined escape from the restrictions of their gender role through a renunciation of their gender identity. And the proliferation of these legends also points to the acceptability of a certain amount of gender ambiguity as part of the Christian message. The strength of the genderless ideal in earliest Christianity can also be seen in the concerted efforts made against it. By the end of the second century, for example, additions had been made to the collected writings of Paul that "corrected" some of the unfortunate tendencies of his authentic letters. lncluded among these emendations were the so-called hausehold texts, mentioned in chapter 6, that enforced the conventional lines of the social hierarchy, including masters' authority over slaves and husbands' authority over wives. A few lines may also have been inserted into one ofPaul's letters to the Christian community at Corinth that addressed the issue of gender ambiguity, apparently in light of the fact that women who were virgins were uneavering their heads in the churches, and even cutting their hair short, as men did, probably as a visible sign of their gender ambiguity. Schalars have debated the authenticity of the passage, in part because it seems to contradict Paul's comments about "no moremale orfemale in Christ." In this passage, Paul (or someone writing as Paul) affirmed the superiority of men over warnen by means of the issue of veiling:

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A man should certainly not cover his head, since he is the image of God and reflects God's glory; but woman is the reflection of man's glory. For man did not come from woman; no, woman came from man; and man was not created for the sake of woman, but woman was created for the sake of man. That is the argument for women's covering their heads with a symbol of the authority over them .... Ask yourselves if it is fitring for a woman to pray to God without a veil; and whether nature itself does not tell you that long hair on a man is nothing to be admired, while a woman, who was given herhairas a covering, thinks long hair her glory? 59

The ideas expressed in this passage would have great influence on the development of a Christian ideology that emphasized the continuation of a separate and subordinate role for women. The leaders of the more conservative Christian churches attempted to undermine the strength and appeal of Christian sects that emphasized the genderless ideal with reference to such passages. Developing notions of masculine clerical authority in the second century aided them in their attempts to declare such groups heretical. 60 Still, the genderless ideal that existed among some early Christians continued into the third century and was talcen up by other Christians. Notahle among these later groups was the catechetical school at Alexandria in Egypt, led in the early third century by Origen, where both women and men were educated. Origen troubled over the same issue of the reflection of God's imageinhuman beings and the connection of sexual difference to that reflection. It is difficult to do justice to Origen's ideas in brief. It must suffice to say that Origen, influenced by NeoPlatonism, believed that the material world was only a dim shadow of what was spiritual and real, and he suggested that human beings would shed sexual difference along with other aspects of their material existence when they returned to God. Human nature was in its origins and destiny a genderless one. 61 The bridal imagery that Origen crafted and the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs as representing the intimacy of the divine and the soul that inspired the later patristic writers was part of this genderless ideal. It is possible that Origen was influenced in this line of thought by Christian writings usually described as Gnostic, which outlined in great detail the bridal embrace of the feminine and masculine divine principles, or by related rituals, even if that influence was Origen's critical response to those ideas or practices. 62 The discrediting of Origen at the end of the fourth century (a century and a half after his death) can be understood at least on some level as the continuation of a long process

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of ridding Christian ideology of its genderless ideal (more about the condemnation ofOrigen below). It must be admitted that for early Christians, "no more male or female" often meant "no more female." But even if the genderless ideal in earliest Christianity was understood mostly as a call for warnen to become men, the idea that warnen might chose to abandon their gender identity and all its limitations and restrictions was still a challenge to the sexual hierarchy. It was enough of a challenge, moreover, that it was contesred and undermined as Christians accommodated themselves to and drew followers from the male-dominared societies araund them. But it was achallenge that survived, even piecemeal. As the aristocratic Romans of the western Mediterranean "clothed themselves in Christ;' their leaders were obliged to tailor the gender ambiguity of the earliest traditions of their new religion to fit themselves. WOMEN BECOMING MEN IN THE CHRISTIAN WEST

The male writers of the Western churches generally followed the bishops of the Bastern churches and denounced the gender-ambiguous traditions of some of the earliest Christians as heretical. Bven so, they were obliged to take these traditions into account in formulating their own ideology of sexual difference, even if only to criticize them. Accordingly, the male Christian writers admired virtuous Christian warnen and were even willing to compare them to men. But they also insisted that such "honorary men" should be denied any of the privileges of actual men. In doing so, they minimized the threat that the genderless ideal posed to the sexual hierarchy and to their own masculine privilege. Already by the end of the second century, some of the Bastern Christian sects that encouraged the elimination of social differences between men and warnen or who held beliefs in androgynaus or feminine spiritual beings had a disturbing presence in the western Mediterranean. Marcion, for example, taught for a while at Rome. The "Gnostic" Christian teacher Valentinus moved from Alexandria in Bgypt to Rome in the middle of the second century and attracted a large following in the capital, and he was only one of several such teachers. Hippolytus of Rome condemned his teachings at the end of the century. Irenaeus ofLyons in Gaul also wrote against the "Gnostics" and other Christian sects that he considered heretical in the same century, noting that local incursions of their preachers were attracting converts. 63 Both critics ridiculed the gender-ambiguous elements in such Christian beliefs. 64 Irenaeus also suggested that warnen were particularly susceptible to such errors. He added

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an ad hominem attaclc, repeating a rumor that one of the early female leaders of"Gnostic" Ghristianity had been a prostitute at Tyre. 65 The association ofheresy with feminine frailty, especially a gender-ambiguous heresy, had an obvious attraction for Western Ghristian writers, and the charge of sexual immorality against heretics would have a long history after Irenaeus. The Montanists were also preaching at Garthage by the beginning of the third century, and Tertullian was eventually converted to their beliefs, as were other North Mrican Ghristians. 66 We do not have sufficient sources, however, to lcnow the numbers of adherents belonging to any of these sects in the Latin West. Still, we lcnow that their ideas had penetrated somewhat in the West. An anonymaus secondcentury Western writer considered orthodox wrote the following, a neat summary of the genderless ideal: "In response to someone who aslced him when his lcingdom would come, the Lord hirnself declared: 'When the two become one, when the exterior becomes lilce the interior, and when between male and female there will be neither male nor female.' " 67 There are no examples of holy transvestites in the Latin West, that might expand our lcnowledge about the genderless ideal there, but an episode in the life ofPerpetua, a woman who was martyred at Garthage at the statt of the third century, does offer something of a parallel experience. The account is written in the form of an autobiography, with an introduction and conclusion, including the description ofPerpetua's death, added by another hand. The author recorded a dream she had while in prison awaiting death, a dream that involved her triumph over the Devil as a wrestler in the arena. She described her vision: My clothes were stripped off, and suddenly I was a man [et facta sum masculus]. My seconds began to rub me down with oil (as they are wont to do before a contest). Then I saw the Egyptian on the other side .... We drew close to one another and began to let our :fists fly. My opponent tried to get hold of my feet, but I kept strilcing hirn in the face with the heels of my feet. Then I was raised up into the air and I began to purnmel hirn without as it were tonehing the ground. Then when I noticed there was a lull, I put my two hands together linking the :fingers of one hand with those of the other and thus I got hold of his head. He fell flat on his face and I stepped on his head. The crowd began to shout. 68

The image is strilcing in its manliness as much as in its violence, but it was only a momentary gender inversion. None of Perpetua's other visions (she climbs a dangeraus ladder into Heaven, she helps her long deceased younger brother get a drinlc ofwater) challenge the gender hierarchy in

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the same way, except in the sense that they also highlight her agency. Women's writings from late antiquity are too few to draw any firm conclusions, but we have no other examples of such gender-ambiguous visions to know whether they represented a common experience. Tertullian also gave evidence for the unsettling effects of the genderless ideal among Christians in the first years of the third century. He devoted a treatise to the criticism of Christian virgins who unveiled themselves in churches, warnen who perhaps wished to make visible their gender ambiguity in ignorance or defiance of the Pauline views on veiling. Tertullian suggested that "females, subjected as they are throughout to men;' should not be unveiled for two reasons: because their visibility was a sexual temptation to men, and because men had no comparable sign of their virginity. "How, then;' he wondered, "would God have failed to malce any such concession to men;' since men were closer to God, he said, following Pauline logic, "being His own image?"69 Tertullian also condemned virginal warnen who cut their hair, joking that "close-cut hair is graceful to a virgin in like manner as that flowing hair is to a boy." 70 (We know from his comments on clothing, mentioned above, what he.thought about male gender ambiguity.) He refused to admit any truth in the Counterargument that virgins were no langer warnen, perhaps responding to articulated Statements to that effect. 71 Tertullian also linlced his opposition to women's appearance to their exclusion from ecclesiastical authority. "It is not permitred to a woman to speak in the church, but neither is it permitred her to teach:' he quoted, also from Paul, then added his own prohibitions, "nor to baptize, nor to offer [the Eucharist], nor to claim to herself a lot in any manly function, not to say in any sacerdotal office?m lt is possible that some Christian warnen in his area were doing precisely what he denounced. lt is also clear that Tertullian objected to warnen appearing in public as men because it led to their acting in public as men, specifically, their exercising of ecclesiastical authority. lt is not surprising, then, that in another treatise on women's clothing, Tertullian began by remindingwomen that the first human sin had been commitred by Eve, that they were "the Devil's gateway:' "the first foresalcer of the divine law;' and that their social inferiority was a perpetual expiation for that sin. 73 In general, Tertullian refused to accept the genderless ideal insofar as it promoted women's social equivalence to men. He refused to accept the veracity of the legend ofThecla's campanionship with Paul and her transvestism, for example. 74 He also wrote against the Marcionists, complaining that their warnen performed some ritual functions Tertullian feit should have been reserved for men.75 N onetheless, Tertullian did not entirely reject the genderless ideal. He

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ridiculed, for example, the idea of some Christian groups that there were both feminine and masculine spiritual beings.76 The spiritual world was beyond sexual difference, he maintained, because it was beyond sexuality. Hewrote: I have to return after death to the place where there is no more giving in marriage, where I have to be clothed upon rather than to be despoiled,where, even if I am despoiled of my sex, I am classed with angels-not a male angel, nor a female one. There will be no one to do aught against me, nor will they then find any male energy in me. 77

The discrepancy between his statements is clear. Even while he refused to accept gender ambiguity in women, presumably because it led to women's usurpation of masculine privileges, Tertullian was willing to accept his own gender ambiguity, the idea that he might have no sexual characteristics in the life-to-come. In another treatise, on the subject of the soul (De anima ), Tertullian repeated his argument that the soulwas genderless, maintaining that it received sexual difference only when it received a body and that sexual difference was therefore an accident ofbirth. 78 He also mocked anyone who held that sexual difference remained after death, even if that meant a masculine perfection, imagining a ludicrous life for a gendered male soul along the lines of the life of a Roman man: Must it employ itself in school studies in its passage from infancy to boyhood; play the soldier in the excitement and vigor of youth and earlier manhood; and encounter serious and judicial responsibilities in the graver years between ripe manhood and old age? Must it ply trade for profit, turn up the soil with hoe and plough, go to sea, bring actions at law, get married, toil and labor, undergo illnesses, and whatever casualties of weal and woe await it in the lapse of years? 79

There is a profound contradiction here. Even as Tertullian had argued that women should not talce up roles of public ecclesiastical authority because sexual difference did matter, he argued that Christians who believed in gendered spiritual beings were wrang because sexual difference did not matter. Perhaps Tertullian hirnself was aware of this contradiction, because it was at the time of these last writings that he abandoned in part his opposition to women's ritual roles, even celebrating the divine gift of prophecy in a Montanist woman and the public voice it afforded her. 80 It was also perhaps because of this contradiction that he became increasingly uncomfortable with marital and sexual relations as being incompatible with the genderless life that awaited all Christians.

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Tertullian's legacy to the Latin writers a:fter him was, therefore, a legacy of contradiction about the importance of sexual difference to Christian ideology. On the one hand, Tertullian developed some of the most Iasting images of gendered religious thought, the masculine soldier of Christ and the feminine daughter ofEve, images that supported the Iangstarrding views in men's superiority and women's inferiority. On the other hand, he refused to admit any real spiritual importance to sexual differentiation, imagining a genderless life of the soul. I can only speculate that allowing the elimination of.future sexual difference was much less dangerous than allowing the elimination ofpresent sexual difference, because the latter required social as well as ideological change. We can reckon that it was unpalatable for him to have argued otherwise, not only to hirnself and to other male formulators and teachers ofChristian ideology but also to male listeners. All of the Christian sects in Tertullian's day were threatened with extinction through persecution and all had to compete with each other as well as with other religions to gain converts, and Christian ideology had tobe popular if it was to survive. Notions of male superiority and female inferiority were too deeply embedded in Roman cultural values for a religious philosophy arguing for their eradication to have succeeded in the West, even if that eradication had roots in earliest Christianity. Admitting the possibility of gender ambiguity in the soul while condemning it in the body was a means of rendering the genderless ideal of earliest Christianity quaint but harmless. We can better evaluate the contradictory legacy of Tertullian if we jump ahead to the debates that were carried on at the end of the fourth century over the place of sex and marriage in contemporary Christian life. Orthodox fathers like Ambrose and Jerome were advocating precisely that Christians should do away with the trappings of gender roles in renouncing marriage and family life, and that meant also doing away with some of the substance of gender roles in women's inferiority to men. The orthodox fathers of the late fourth century argued that customary social roles revealed the fundamental natures of men and warnen. Jerome said that it was a woman's "duty" or "obligation" (officium) to become a mother. 81 Ambrose also suggested that "men have their duties [munera], and warnen have their separate offices [officia]; the generation of human succession belongs to a woman: it is impossible to a man?' 82 At the same time, Ambrose and Jerome encouraged warnen and men to abandon these obligations and enjoined on them the excellence of virginity and celibacy. For a man, the renunciation of sex and marriage was simply to find the perfection that was inside him as a man and to realize his virtus. Fora woman, in contrast, marital and sexual renunciation was to aban-

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don both her social role, her customary functioning as a daughter, wife, and mother that defined her life, as well as her ideological role, the inferior position she held in relation to men and her carnal feminine nature. ''A virgin is no Ionger called a woman;' Jerome stated simply. 83 To some extent, the orthodox fathers were willing to admit that virgin women were men. The word vi1;go (virgin) was derived from vir (man), Jerome maintained. 84 Ambrose, likewise, described virtuous Christian widows with the masculine image of veteran soldiers, laying aside their arms after their long battle against the flesh. 85 He used Judith as a role model for women of his day, describing how she triumphed militarily over a man in masculine terms (although he never referred to her excellence as virtus but instead used the term honestas, meaning "honor, repute, respectability"). 86 And Ambrose wrote of the virgin martyr Agnes that she was "in virtue above nature;' (this time using the word virtus, so that it could also be translated "a manliness beyond her nature"), apparently meaning her feminine nature. 87 And if the virginal ideal was angelic, it was also masculine: angels, who were supposed tobe beyond sexual difference, were mostly imagined as men, as can be seen in the numerous descriptions ofMary's fright at seeing astrangeman in her bedroom when the angel Gabriel appeared to her. 88 A Latin translation of the legend ofEugenia, one of the holy transvestites of the eastern Mediterranem, possibly translated at the end of the fourth century by Rufinus (an associate ofboth Ambrose and Jerome), reiterated this connection between women's virginity and manliness. In the legend, Eugenia explained why she dressedas a man: So great is the virtue of His name, that even women standing in fear of Hirn might obtain a masculine dignity. Nor might either sex be found superior in faith, since the aposde Paul, who is the teacher of all Christians, says that with the Lord there is no difference between male and female, but all of us are one in Christ. His precept I have adopted with a fervent spirit, and from the confidence which I have in Christ, I did not want to be a woman, but preserving an immaculate virginity with the whole intention of my soul, I have acted in Christ constandy as men do. For I have not wealdy assumed an appearance of honor, so that as a man I might seem to be a woman, but as a woman, I have acted manfully as men do, embracing boldly the virginity that is in Christ. 89

The repetition of these Bastern legends in the western Mediterranem popularized the notion that women were capable of"ascending" to masculine virtue by renouncing sex. (There are other indications that the legends of the holy transvestites circulated in the West. The Greek name

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Pelagia and elements ofher legend were translated, for example, into the Latin name and legend of Marina, both names meaning "of the sea." And the Greek legend ofEuphrosyne, a name meaning "joy:' was recast as the Latin legend of Castissima, a name meaning "most chaste?' 90) Nonetheless, the orthodox fathers also clarified that women became men only in a metaphorical sense and that Roman women who were Christian should not try to imitate the holy transvestites and attempt to pass as actual men. Jerome wrote to condemn transvestite women in a letter to one ofhis female correspondents from 384. "Other women change their garb and put on men's dress; they cut their hair short and lift up their chins in shameless fashion:' he complained, adding that "they are ashamed to be what they were born to be-women.''91 About the same time, Ambrose said much the same, reminding women of Paul's words against cutting their hair and unveiling themselves. 92 In 390, the Western emperor Valentinian II issued a law against virgin Christian women who cut their hair, calling it "against divine and human laws" and threatening with expulsion any bishops who letsuch women into their churches. 93 The reasons for such condemnations are clear. If women appeared and acted in public as men, then the basis for a gender hierarchy of men over women would be destroyed, and along with it, masculine clerical privilege. So Jerome and Ambrose were also obliged to say that sexual difference both did and did not matter. This conclusion was similar to their consensus on marriage, as I argued in chapter 6, where theywere also obliged to maintain that marriage both did and did not matter, and was neither to be praised insofar as it did not matter nor condemned insofar as it did matter. Within a few years, the orthodox fathers were obliged to correct themselves and say that sexual difference mattered even in a spiritual sense and was part even of the life-to-come. The turnabout happened because of a dispute involving Origen's ideas. Both Jerome and Ambrose had borrowed heavily from the ideas of Origen, including his belief in the ultimate disappearance of gender difference. At the end of the fourth century, however, Origen's ideas came under attack and were condemned as heretical, at first only in Egypt and then throughout the Mediterranean. His unique adaptation of Platonic body-soul dualism was feit to undermine the ascetic rehabilitation of the body, both in the sense of the ultimate goodness of the body and in the spiritual usefulness of asceticism, and to ignore the beliefthat human beings were made in the image of God. 94 Ambrose died about the time that the controversy erupted, but Jerome found hirnself at the epicenter of it. Among its other results, the controversy turned Jerome and Rufinus from friends to bitter enemies.

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We can see the effects of the Origenist controversy on Jerome's ideas about sexual difference in the life after death. Before the controversy, Jerome's opinion on the subject had been that the glorified soulwas masculine, an opinion that did not follow Tertullian's but that fit with the general patristic consensus that holiness was male. After death, human beings would become like the angels (something Origen had also believed), and that meant bodies without sexual difference, glorified and masculine bodies. 95 After the controversy, Jerome was forced to reverse his opinion. "Just as among angels there is neither male nor female:' he had once said, "so let us also, who shall be as angels, begin to be right now on earth what has been promised shall be in heaven?' Bur such remarks later required clarification. "When I say: 'Let us begin to be here on earth: I am not doing awaywith the nature of the sexes; but I am doing away with lust and copulation between busband and wife?'96 Within a few years, Jerome was even putting his old ideas in the mouth ofhis opponent in order to discredit him. "Will there be sexual difference between male and female or not?" he claimed to have asked Rufinus about the afterlife. "If there will be, then it follows that there will be marriage and sex and reproduction. If there will not be, if sexual difference is suppressed, then it is not the same bodies which will rise up?' 97 The reasons for Jerome's about-face are clear. Rufinus had claimed that Jerome could not have believed that the human body was made in the image ofGod, ifhuman beings created both male and female were indistinguishable by sex in the afterlife. Accordingly, Jerome was forced to argue that women remairred women in the next life. Jerome complained that women who disagreed with his revised position "talce pleasure in seizing their breasts, patting their bellies, pointing to their loins, thighs, and smooth chins and saying: 'What does it benefit us if this frail body rises again?"'98 But the implications ofJerome's revised position were revolutionary. The presence of women in the afterlife meant either that wealcness and imperfection existed there, something impossible to admit, or that women were capable of perfection as women. The latter opinion was equally unthinkable, because it undermined the association between perfection and masculinity and the theoretical basis for male superiority. It was a critical moment for the Christian ideology of gender and sexual difference. It meant that the words "in Christ, there is no male or female" could not be safely removed to a future existence, but had relevance for present existence and might be used as an argument for women's assumption of social equality. Augustirre ofHippo, who entered the debate about sexual difference at the beginning of the fifth century and thus after the debate had begun,

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showed the same inconsistencies that the Origenist controversy had brought to light. He condemned Origen's teaching that sexual difference was the result of sin and that it would disappear in the life-to-come. 99 His The City ofGod, written years after the Origenist controversy, contained a lengthy discussion of sexual difference in the afterlife. "Some people suppose that women will not keep their sex at the resurrection; but, they say, they will all rise again as men:' he wrote. "For my patt, I feel that theirs is the more sensible opinion who have no doubt that there will be both sexes in the resurrection?'100 N onetheless, Augustine had written about a decade earlier (but still after the condemnation of Origen) that women were made in the image of God only to the extent that they were human and not female. He exhibited obvious discomfort in reconciling the two views, both ofwhich were based on Biblical precedent: [Genesis] says that human nature itself, which is complete in both sexes, has been made after the image of God, and it does not exclude women from being understood as the image of God .... How then did the aposde Paul] declare that man is the image of God, and consequendy is forbidden to cover his head, whereas a woman is not, and on this account is commanded to cover hers? The solution, I think, lies in that which I already said when discussing the nature of the human mind: the woman together with the man is the image ofGod, so that the whole substance is one image. But when one distributes functions and she is assigned as a helpmate, a function which pertains to her alone, she is not the image of God. However, in what pertains to man alone, he is the image ofGod just as fully and completely as he is joined with the woman into one. 101

In other words, to the extent that what defines a woman per se (that is, whatever is female, including the female patts of her body) and is not shared by a man as patt of their common humanity, it is not in the image of God. In contrast, whatever defines a man (both what is human about him and what is male) is in God's image. This solution to the exegetical problern even allowed Augustine to reinforce the command about veiling. "Because the woman differs from the man by her bodily sex:' he said, "she can in conformity with religious custom symbolize by her corporeal veil ... that the image of God does not remain except in that patt of the human mind in which it clings to the contemplation and inspiration of the eternal values?' 102 Having defended the spiritual inferiority of women, however, Augustine was also required to defend how he could believe that women would continue to exist in the life-to-come (and here we have to jump bade to

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his remarks in the The City of God to see how he extricated hirnself from that dilemma). Women in Heaven, he suggested, would be unlilce women on Earth. ''All defects will be removed from those bodies;' he suggested, although "their essential nature will be preserved;' because "a woman's sex is not a defect; it is natural?' 103 They would still be women, but unrecognizable as such, because even their genitals would be transformed, removed as markers of imperfection. Augustine refused to take the'logic of eternal sexual difference to its logical conclusion, that it implied women's and men's spiritual equality, and continued to argue for the inferiority of women to men. Even in comments on the original sin of Adam and Eve, Augustine suggested that the Devil "no doubt start[ed] with the inferior of the human pair;' thereby implying that the inferiority and weakness of women even existed before sin and was not, as Tertullian suggested, the consequence of sin. 104 For Augustine, the "neither male nor female in Christ" meant only that "women too have some virile quality whereby they can subdue feminine pleasures, and serve Christ?' 105 Sexual difference might be patt of God's design for humanity, Augustine concluded, but it did not require sexual equality. It is interesting to see how Jerome and Augustine reconciled these seemingly opposite beliefs about perfection and sexual difference. Their response, indeed, seems to have been an even greater insistence that women ought to pursue manliness in their pursuit of holiness. On the surface, this attitude seems a blatant disregard for the implications of their own arguments, but perhaps it was not. Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine all corresponded with aristocratic women and encouraged them to begin or continue lives of consecrated, that is, permanent asceticism. The dedicated ascetic life for women of the upper classes was still a novelty in the western Mediterranean at the end of the fourth century. Ambrose's sister Marcellina and Jerome's friend Paula were among the first aristocratic women in Rome to adopt the ascetic life in the late fourth century. In contrast, it had been known in the eastern Mediterranean at least since the beginning of the century and probably earlier. 106 In the East, female asceticism was an organic institution, growing out of the same environment that produced the genderless life of sexual and marital renunciation and often linked with the heretical sects of Christianity that forbade sex and marriage. In the West, in contrast, female asceticism was as much a product of patristic encouragement as it was an expression of women's spirituality, although it was obviously both. I would suggest that the orthodox fathers supported female asceticism at least in patt as a practical resolution to the contradiction between perfection and sexual difference brought to the surface by the Origenist controversy (although

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their initial support for it predated the controversy and began in a general encouragement of virginity; so their supportwas not solely a response to this intellectual dilemma). Even if Jerome and Augustirre were forced to admit that "no more male or female" meant real spiritual equality between men and warnen, female asceticism helped to take the stirrg out ofthat admission. The ascetic ideal for warnen meant that warnen were encouraged to remain secluded within the hausehold environment in disciplined and restricted lives. (The ascetic ideal for men meant something eise altogether, as we will see in chapter 8.) Ascetic warnen were repeatedly exhorted tobecome men and praised for having become men, and it was implied that this transformationwas happening in the here-and-now. But these ascetic warnen were men who were removed from public life and subjected to the patemal clerical authority I described in chapter 6. They were men without social privilege. The exhortation to asceticism was addressed especially to aristocratic warnen, whose political connections and access to wealth meant that they were likeliest to influence ecclesiastical affairs. The Church fathers were even willing to extend to virgins the title they themselves proudly wore, brides of Christ. It might seeman odd thing to do, given the political powerthat the image had provided for the Christian bishops, but in so doing, the Church fathers were able to tap _into a conservative rhetoric about the behavior appropriate to married warnen and, thus, to virginal brides ofChrist. Same were able to recommend that Christian virgins wear bridal veils, finding yet another reason to dissuade virgins from unveiling themselves in the churches. 107 And some were even able to appeal to the jealousy of their collective husband, Jesus, who did not like to see them going about in public, as a means of enforcing women's seclusion. 108 In a treatise on virgins, Ambrose exhorted his sister and her companions to follow the example ofMary, the mother ofJesus, who was the first and best model of consecrated virginity: there was "nothing forward in her words, nothing unseemly in her acts:' and "she was unaccustomed to go from harne, except to church?' 109 Drawing from the Biblical episode in which the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, he noted that "when saluted she kept silence, and when addressed she answered, and she whose feelings were first troubled afterwards promised obedience?' 110 Ambrose also drew heavily on the Song of Songs to impress upon his female readers the intimacy they would have with Christ as his brides. Jerome repeated much the same sort of exhortations with the same references to the bridal metaphor in his letters to Christian virgins (such as the one to Eustochium: "do not seek the Bridegroom in the streets"m), as did Augustirre in his writirrgs on virginity. If men shared

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the honorific title of bride of Christ with warnen, in other words, it was in order to avoid sharing a public voice with them. Excellent examples of the transformation of the ascetic life of warnen are provided by the two Melanias, Melania the Eider (born about 340) and her granddaughter, Melania the Younger (born about 380). Both warnen were of the senatorial dass at Rome, but both abandoned their wealth and status for ascetic lives as Christian widows, and both eventually established themselves at Jerusalem. The elder Melania was among the first circle of ascetic noblewarnen in Rome, which included MarcelIina and Paula. She was a close companion to Rufinus and sided with him in the Origenist controversy, to Jerome's great displeasure, who had earlier described her as a second Thecla. 112 Paulinus ofNola praised the elder Melania after she stayed with him and his wife in her travels: "What a woman she is, if one can call so virile a Christian a woman!" 113 The younger Melania followed closely in her grandmother's footsteps, but one can see how the opportunities for ascetic warnen had been restricted in the generation that separated them. She had desired to remain a virgin from her childhood, we are told in the account ofher life, but was married by her parents' wishes. She eventually persuaded her husband to renounce sex and transform their marriage into a spiritual one (it is important, of course, that she was presented as negotiating such an arrangement with her husband, rather than initiating it through a unilateral vow). The account of Melania the Younger's life, written about the middle ofthe fifth century by Gerontius and circulating in both Latin and Greek versions, also insisted on her spiritual manliness. "In truth, she had been detached from the female nature;' he exclaimed, "and had acquired a masculine disposition, or rather, a heavenly one." 114 The more detailed record of the younger Melania allows us to see what exactly that supposed manliness entailed. Gerontius noted her piety and her humility and assured his readers that Melania never uneavered her head, "even for a short while?' 115 Gerontius was unable to avoid mention of how many times Melania had left her monastery, although he did add that she "struggled mightily'' with her decision to do so, but she even traveled as far as Constantinople and preached in public against the teaching of Nestorius: "she did not cease tallcing theology from dawn to dusk.'' 116 (The mention of a woman preaching, even orthodox ideas, was presumably necessary to clear Melania of possible charges of sympathy to Nestorian ideas, given her friendship with the Bastern ernpress Eudocia. 117) Vrrtuallyall mentions ofholywomenfrom the earlyfifth century-all written by men-include an avowal oftheir spiritual masculinity. Ausonius wrote of his aunt: "The feminine sexwas always hateful to you, and

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out of it sprang a love of consecrated virginity.'' 118 Prudentius in his Peristephanon referred to the martyr Eulalia's "holy courage" and "bold spirit" when "female as she was she challenged the weapons of men;" 119 But it was always a masculinity without practical result. It did not even have visible consequence, since patristic writers in the early fifth century continued to insist that virgins remain veiled in the churches. Paulinus ofNola daimed both that a virgin woman "leaves behind the boundaries of her womanly wealcness, and aspires to human perfection;' but she should still cover her head, because "she becomes pregnant with the spirit;' (presumably, this spiritual pregnancyundercut her claim to virginal status ). 120 The implications of this rhetoric are clear. It did not matter that sexual difference might continue to exist in the afterlife, because any woman who merited the eternal reward had already become a man. According to this logic, there were still no women in Heaven. The exact nature of masculinity and femininity and its relation to other aspects ofhuman existence and even to human destiny and salvationwas obviously a matter of no small debate among Christians oflate antiquity. But Latin Christian writers showed little enthusiasm for conceptualizing a genderless humanity as some of the earliest Christians had done. Rather, their writings continually reaffirmed the separate identities of men and women and perpetuated the conflation of sexual and moral differences. Even when they admitted that the gender-ambiguous traditions of earliest Christianity meant that women might achieve a manliness of sorts, they undermined that tradition by withholding from manly women any of the benefits associated with masculine identity. Still, the patristic praise of the manliness of consecrated virgins gave evidence that gender ambiguity continued to find a place in late ancient Christianity. SANCTITY AND GENDER AMBIGUITY

The ability of Christians to defend the manliness of their faith and to perpetuate the gender hierarchy was critical to their eventual success among the aristocracy of the later Roman Empire. Even within this intellectual environment, however, alternative understandings of the effects ofChristian ideology on gender roles and sexual difference existed, and existed even in the West. The repeated condemnations of virginal women who refused to wear veils in the churches or who cut their hair short because they no longer saw themselves as women, into the fifth century, for example, hints at an ineradicable opposition by some Christian women to the patristic views on feminine identity. An equal challenge was the willingness of some Christian men to acknowledge that the tradition of "no

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moremale or female" meant that in order to pursue holiness as Christians they would have to abandon their masculine identity. The patristic model of Christianity proved successful, I have argued, because it was conservative in the truest sense of the word, preserving the classical tradition of a hierarchy ofmen over warnen and the clear-cut distinction between the two, a tradition otherwise brought into question by the many social changes of late antiquity. Men were attracted to Christianity because they found in it a means to reaffirm their manliness and to reclaim their separateness from and domination of warnen. But not all men were attracted for this reason. The men who became Montanist Christians, for example, did so knowing that it allowed for a prophetic equality of men and warnen, and it is possible that they were attracted to it forthat reason, or at least not prevented from joining the movement by the idea. The same attraction might have existed formen who converted to Christian groups that espoused a gender-ambiguous cosmology or that advocated the elimination ofgender differences by the eradication of sex and marriage. We should not think that all Christian men were as ardent as the Church fathers in explaining away the implications of a genderless Christianity. But numbers were what counted, and the numbers of men and warnen able and willing to dissociate themselves from the Roman cultural traditions of the hierarchy of men over women were fewer than those unable or unwilling to do so, and ultimately insufficient to prevail in the West. I have also argued that behind the manliness that Christian ideology affered was a paradox. It was a manliness that embraced much of what had lang been considered unmanly: refusal to participate in war or to marry and avoidance of secular political office and sexual pleasure. Christian leaders fabricated a variety of metaphors to depict the paradox, some manly, lilce the soldier ofChrist, others unmanly, like the bride ofChrist. In some regard, then, all Christian men identified themselves in a genderambiguous fashion. We can only begin to imagine, for example, what a writer lilce Ambrose thought or feit about his masculine identity as he more than hinted at the erotic pleasure ofbeing a bride ofChrist and then used the image to describe himself. Or when Cyprian praised the soldierlilce bravery and manliness of the martyr while in hiding. It might even be said that the assertion of Christian manliness was a deflective strategy on the part of the Church fathers. It might be argued that they were particularly anxious to defend their own manliness in the face of real uncertainty about it because of the choices they had made about their own lives, refusing to engage in violence or secular politics or to marry. Equally, it might be suggested that they were quick to pointout the un-

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manliness of other men's decisions about their lives for the same reasons. Bven if true, the anxiety of the Church fathers about their manliness only identifies them as men of their time, troubledas so many men were by the changing social realities of their day. (We mi.ght compare, for example, the same uneasiness about living up to Roman manliness that pervaded the depiction of Blagabalus in the Historia Augusta and even the depiction ofJulian by Ammianus Marcellinus.) There are legends that survive, however, that do not avoid but embrace the apprehension about Christian masculinity in late antiquity: the legends of holy transvestites who were men. They are in many ways literary parallels to the many stories of women who become men and mi.ght even have been a literary response to them. Both groups of legends share numerous features, including a practical rather than theological initial justification for the cross-dressing, which is, nevertheless, given a spiritual explanation after the fact, and the frequent association of the change of clothing with the religious transformation of baptism or approaching martyrdom. The stories also share certain elements with classical pagan legends of transvestite male heroes. 121 The legends of holy men-whobecome-women are more than examples of an interesting literary genre or curious transpositions of pagan myth, however; they recall in a pious and didactic fashion the reversal in masculinity that Christianity generally encouraged. They also highlight the simi.larities and differences between Bastern and Western Christianity (and it is noteworthy, in this regard, that while both stories come from Westernsources and attempt to understand the changes to masculinity in an identifiably Roman context, both arealso derived from Bastern sources, apparently, and set in the Bast, the region that Latin writers believed to be the home of the gender-ambiguous traditions ofChristianity and of effeminate practices in general). The first example ofholy male transvestism is that found in the legend of the martyrdom of Sergius and Bacchus. Sergius and Bacchus were said to have been soldiers who served in the Roman army under the Western emperor Maximi.an and were martyred by him in 309. 122 Like the several other military saints, they show themselves to be true soldiers of Christ when they refused to engage in actual warfare. According to their legend, the two men refused to sacrifice to Zeus before a battle. The anonymaus hagiographer recorded the result of their refusal: The emperor's countenance was transformed with anger; immediately he ordered their belts cut off, their tunics and all other military garb removed, the gold torcs taken from araund their necks, and women's clothing placed

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on them; thus they were to be paraded through the middle of the city to the palace .... But when they were led into the middle of the marketplace the saints sang and chanted together ... this apostolic saying: "denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, and putting off the form of the old man, naked in faith we rejoice in you, Lord, because you have clothed us with the garment of salvation, and have covered us with the robe of righteousness; as brides you have decked us with women's gowns.''123

There is a key difference, of course between this legend and those of the holy female transvestites: here the cross-dressing is coerced rather than voluntary. Nonetheless, the men's easy acceptance of their new gender identity and their immediate identification of it with God's designlinks it again to the legends of transvestite warnen. (The name Bacchus for one of the soldiers also links the story to pagan legends of cross-dressing, because more than any other ancient god, Bacchus was associated with transvestism.) The story of Sergius and Bacchus can be linked in several ways to the Christian model of a paradoxical masculinity. U sing the general prejudice against effeminacy, the pagan persecutors attempted to humiliate the men -or at least, this is how the hagiographer described it- by embodying their religious perversity as gendered perversity, emphasizing the irrationality and unnaturalness of both. Through their Christian faith, however, they managed to invert these symbols and interpret the gendered abasement as religious exaltation. Their cross-dressing did not embarrass them but proclaimed their status as brides of Christ. The pastiche ofBiblical phrases they quoted, especially from the book oflsaiah (which in fact ends with the words "like a bride adorned in her jewels"), 124 all focused on the radical nature of Christian transformation. Moreover, they all highlighted the disruption in Christianity of traditional expectations of manliness and unmanliness. In this way, the legend reinforced many of the more general themes of Christian masculinity. The second example of saintly male transvestism comes from Ambrose's hand. Unlike the previous example, for which we do not know either the source of the tale or its author, we have here an account transmitted by one of the central patristic writers who apparently considered it edifying enough to repeat. Ambrose admitted that he was relating the legend from another source but named neither the source nor the story's protagonists. 125 Just as interesting, Ambrose included the story in the tteatise he addressed to his sister and other consecrated virgin warnen (De virginibus); he obviously thought it appropriate enough for them to

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read. It follows his endorsement of the example of Thecla, the best known and earliest of the female transvestite saints, whom Ambrose managed to enlist as a model ofholy virginity without bothering to mention her cross-dressing; perhaps thinking of the one story reminded him of the other. According to Ambrose's version ofthe legend, a virgin ofAntiach during the time of persecutions had refused to marry and was suspected of secret Christian beliefs. Faced with the choice of sacrificing to the pagan gods or being placed in a brothel, she chose the latter, relying on God's protection. ''A great rush of wanton men is made to the place;' Ambrose continued, and the first chosen to enter her room was "a man with the aspect of a terrible warrior?' 126 Ambrose drew upon the violent reality of the soldier here (and the image also anticipates the brutal sexuality also seen in Prudentius's depiction of the gladiator in the martyrdom of Agnes ). But the soldier turned out to be a fellow Christian and suggested to the frightened woman: Let us change our attire, mine will fit you, and yours will fit me, and each for Christ. Your robewill make me a true soldier, minewill make you a virgin. You will be clothed weil. I shall be unclothed even better that the persecutor may recognize me. Take the garment which will conceal the woman, give methat which shall consecrate me a martyr. Put on the cloak which will hide the limbs of a virgin, but preserve her modesty. Take the cap which will cover your hair and conceal your countenance. 127

At this point, Ambrose interrupted his tale. "Let the characters be also considered;' he recommended, "a soldier and a virgin, that is, persans unlike in natural disposition, but alike by the mercy of God.'' 128 The virgin madeher escape, and thinking it was the soldier who had departed, a second man described as "more shameless" entered the room to take his turn. (Perhaps he was "more shameless" because he was seeking to have sex with an actual man, even ifhe thought that the man was a woman; latent in this story is the familiar horror at the sexual penetration of an adult male, as weil as the familiar fascination with the sexual violation of an unwilling virgin, both only narrowly averted.) Ambrose continued: But when he toolc in the state of the matter with his eyes, he said, "What is this? A maiden entered, now a man is tobe seen here.... I had heard but believed not that Christ changed water into wine; now He has begun also to change the sexes. Let us also depart hence while we still are what we were .... I came to a house ofill fame, and see a pledge ofhonor. And yet I go forth changed, for I shall go out chaste who came in unchaste." 129

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There is almost a burlesque quality to the legend. Eventually both the soldier and the virgin were executed and both achieved the elevated status of martyrs. Nothing could pointout more clearly the eventual triumph that Christianity promised for those who accepted its paradoxes, including its paradox of gender identity (and there is even perhaps an intended irony of genres, bawdy tale as hagiography, to reinforce the strength of the paradox). It seeins clear that the focus ofAmbrose's storywas the woman and the embodied manliness ofher spiritual virtue. But the willingness of the soldier to be feminized for virtue's salce is surely as interesting, as is Ambrose's willingness to repeat the tale: elsewhere he denounced crossdressing, saying that nature abhorred it. 130 There is an obvious parallel with the themes of the legend of Sergius and Bacchus, although here the man's cross-dressing was voluntary and not coerced. The juxtaposition of usual notions of manliness and unmanliness can be demonstrated by the man's celebration ofhis transvestism, that his wearing of women's clothing will malce him a true soldier, that it will clothe him in Christ, and that it will prepare him for martyrdom. Again, the story is set against other radical transformations: water into wine and disrepute into honor. That Ambrose could celebrate a legend about a man who dressed himself in women's clothing and elsewhere could compare hirnself to a bride, at the sametime as he denounced the cross-dressing of actors and refused to admit clerics with effeminate mannerisms, says much about the Christian ideology on masculinity. Even within a context of reactionary ideals and a desire toreturn to the hierarchical gender roles ofRoman antiquity, Christian ideology provided an opportunity for improvisation and innovation. The stories of the saintly men who wore women's clothing were not intended to blur the boundaries between the sexes but to reinforce the lines ofsexual difference by the ironic juxtaposition of appearance and reality. The men's profession in both stories underscored that irony: soldiers were manly enough that they could afford to be made to wear women's clothing and still be men. In turn, the men's martyrdoms reiterated their manliness even as it returned them both to the spiritual status of soldiers. (The cross-dressing of the virgin in the story uses this juxtaposition a bit differently: her sentencing to a brothelwas intended to dissolve her masculine virtus into feminine wantonness, but her escape in men's clothing rescued that manliness, and her martyrdom confirmed it.) The stories of the Christian male transvestites should remind us that the manliness of Christian faith was not a simple thing. Even while they condemned unmanliness in men, Christian leaders exhorted men to do much that was unmanly. And while they refused to extend to warnen any

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of the social rights that belonged to !lien, they praised holy women as spiritual men. Finally, even while they forbade holywoinen to ::tppeai in public dressedas men, they sanctioned stories ofholymen who dr~sed. 'as warnen. It only remained to find an apt symbol fÖr encapsulating the'. complexities ofChristian masculinity. · .

CB:APTER EIGHT

IIEUNUCHS FOR THE SAKE OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN" Castration and Christian Manliness

In patt 1 of this book, I argued that the presence of eunuchs in the West-

ern Roman Empire in late antiquity functioned as a powerful remirrder of the many changes facing men of the Roman aristocracy, in both public and private life. But the eunuch also served as a potent symbol of the conversion of the empire to Christianity, andin this chapter I will discuss the importance ofthat symbol. Christian writers denounced the castration of men as typical of all that was immoral and effeminate in pagan culture. At the same time, the authority ofJesus' saying that Christians should "malce themselves eunuchs for the salce of the kingdom of Heaven" required a radical rehabilitation of the symbol of the eunuch. Latin writers condemned early Christian experiments with physical self-castration, because of its disturbing gender ambiguity, but encouraged a tamed notion of spiritual castration. By the end of the fourth century, Latin Christian writers even represented the new ideal of masculinity, the monk, as a type of manly eunuch. As a result, the eunuch served as a symbolnot only of the dangers of traditional Roman masculinity but also of its Christian transformation. THE CHRISTIAN RESPONSE TO PAGAN CASTRATION

Christian writers resolutely opposed the popular use of eunuchs in late antiquity. Jerome ridiculed the overly refined Christian women ofhis day who were carried in litters by eunuchs because they "could not bear the unevenness of the streets.'' 1 One noblewoman even brought her eunuchs with her into St. Peter's Basilica, he noted with disgust. 2 Christian writ245

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ers also seem to have shared the same n~gative stereotypes about the char~ acters of eunuchs that other Romans did. When .a eunui:h official of the emperor Valentinian li threatened the life ofAmbrose during the .fa:mous dispute over the control of a basilica at Milan, Ambrose repüed acerbly:·. «then I will suffer as bishops do, you will act as eunuchs do?' 3 If a Christ-' ian noblewoman rejected an association with eunuchs, th.e Church fa~ thers counted it as a sign of her holiness. Jerome praised his dear friend Paulafor rejecting her former habit ofbeing carried on a litter by eunuchs and traveling instead astride a donlcey, and mentioned it in letters to other female acquaintances, doubdess as an example to them. 4 «Their separationfrommen was so complete;' he wrote ofPaula and her ascetic female associates, «that it separated them even from eunuchs, so as to give no occasion to evil tongues, who are accustomed to tearing down the saints in order to reassure the delinquent.'' 5 Similarly, Jerome praised Christian virgins who refused to bathe with eunuchs. 6 Behind these comments was the widespread fear that eunuchs were no guarantors of women's sexual purity. Accordingly, Jerome counseled a female correspondent to choose her eunuch servants on the basis of their good morals, not their good looks. 7 Itwas not the presence ofeunuchs in family life or even in public office that most, horrified Christian writers, however. Even more disturbing was their presence in Roman religion, as the eunuch priests of the Mother of the Gods (Mater Deum ). The mythology of the worship of the Mother of the Gods is complicated, as complicated as most ancient myths, and several scholars have attempted to untangle the threads of the origins and regional variations ofthe cults associated with the Mother ofthe Gods. 8 Suffice it here to say that at the heart of the religion was a goddess, usually lcnown as Cybele from the Phrygian version of the cult, but in the syncretic environment oflate antiquity also identified with Egyptian Isis, Syrian Astarte and Babylonian Ishtar, Carthaginian Tannit (also lcnown in Roman times as Caelestis ), and a host of Greelc goddesses induding Rhea, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hera, and thus also with Roman Ceres, Venus, and Juno. The Mother of the Gods was believed to control both agricultural and human fertility; she was also responsible for the erotic passions that madehuman fertility possible, and her abundant fecundity had even aided in the multiplication of the gods (thus her tide as «Mother of the Gods"). Also associated with the Mother of the Gods, at least by the dassical era, was her male consort. Again, he was usually lcnown as Atcis from the Phrygian myth, but also identified in late antiquity as Egyptian Osiris, Syrian Tammuz and Babylonian Dumuzi, or Greelc Adonis, and also as Greelc Dionysus and Roman Bacchus. We should not thinlc of

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all of these pairs of gods and goddesses as the same cult, to ·be sure, but Romanwriters oflate antiquity did tend to consider them as ethnic and . local Variations on a general mythological theme. 9 · Variants ~f these cults existed in the western Mediterranean from ear-· liestantiquity. Already in the sixth century B.C.E., Phoenician settlers at . Garthage had imported ~lements of the cult of a great goddess from the eastern coast of the Mediterranem to N orth Mrica, and when Romans _settled in the regi~n, they added Roman elements to it. The cult of the Great Mother (MagnaMater) was brought from Asia Minor to Rome in 204 B.C.E., although it does not seem to have thrived. But the cult seems to have grown in popularity especially in late antiquity. Worship of the Great Mother, by then more often referred to as the Mother of the Gods, was reintroduced in the second century C.E. and spread throughout the western provinces of the empire with Roman imperial patronage. The emperor Elagabalus was also said to have encouraged the cult in the third century, as did Julian in the fourth century. It only disappeared at the beginning of the fifth century C.E. with the general decline of public paganism. 10 The mythological motifs associated with the Mother of the Gods and her consort are equally complicated, but numerous ancient writers attest to an overall pattern. A fundamental component was the theme of castration. According to some versions of the myth, the consort eventually rejected the love of the Mother of the Gods and loved another, andin anger she castrated him (according to other versions, he castrated hirnself out of regret). It is usually said that he died of his wound, but because of her love for him she restored him to life, although he remained a eunuch. Again, complex layers of different, ancient legends were overlaid one upon the other. (According to the Egyptian myth, for example, Osiris was killed by an evil third party, Seth, who dismembered his body as weil as castrated him and then hid the parts of his corpse; when Isis determined to restore him to life by reassembling his body parts, she was unable to locate his genitals.) The myth of the Mother of the Gods and her consort was reenacted each springwith rites of death andlamentation followed by rites of restoration to life and rejoicing. The timing of the rites also coincided with the springtime fertility of the Earth. The mythological theme of castration was also used to explain the presence of eunuch priests who figured prominently in the ritual worship of this network of cults. During the annual spring rites, a few inspired acolytes (or perhaps only a few selected ones) castrated themselves in public, after which they became special priests of the goddess. These eunuch priests were calledgalli in Latin, although no one seemed to know

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why. Some said that it was because of the presence of Celts, also called Galli in Latin, in Asia Minor, where tlie Attis ciii.t originated; Others said itwas after the river Gallos, also inAsiaMinor; the name did allow for:a. . .fmn with "roosters;' also galli in Latin, especially a comparison berween • the crowing of roosters and the high-pitched voices of eunuchs: 11 The · presence of eunuch priests was until recently often disrega.I'cled or at leasf underemphasized by modern scholars of the ciii.ts, some of whom claimed that the practice had died out by the later empire-arguing, for the most part, that the Roman laws against castration were responsible for this decline. The self-castration of devotees of the Mother of the Gods might have been only a minority experience, but it continued to exist throughout the later history of her cult and demonstrates how Roman law could sometimes be ignored with impunity. It is true that the Castration honored in the myth and reenacted by followers was spiritualized in meaning by some pagan intellectuals, among them the emperor Julian, who saw the myth of castration as a symbol of the need to cut oneself off from material and carnal realities in order to approach higher things. 12 But the notion of spiritual self-castration could easily have coexisted with actual physical self-castration. Various explanations have been given for the relationship of castration to the worship of the Mother of the Gods. The priests' self-castration was seen even'in antiquity as a symbolic sacrifice of individual fertility in arder to enhance the fertility of the community and even of the cosmos, and as a sacred reenactment of the spring harvest. The gallus-to-be took a sickle or sharpened stone, perhaps an agriciii.tural symbol, and in an ecstatic frenzy severed his genitals on the Day of Blood (Dies sanguinis) March 24). 13 The agricultural connection perhaps also explains the felling of a pine ttee that occurred during the annual rituals. Lilcewise, both ancient and modern scholars have seen the priests' self-castration as a pledge of their sexual purity. 14 The priests' self-castration may also have been part of a renunciation of masculine identity, however, and associated with their personal dedication to a feminine deity. After their castration the new eunuchs adopted women's clothing, or at least clothing identified as women's, even if it had originated in ritual costume, including wearing a veil and jewelry and growing their hair long. According to one source, the newly self-made eunuch ran through the streets with his severed genitals in his hand, and threw them at a doorstep; the warnenofthat hausehold were obliged to give him some of their clothing, which he adopted as his own. 15 We must allow for inaccurate descriptions as well as regional variations in the rituals of the religion, but this briefoverview is necessary in order to understand the Christian reaction to the worship of the

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Mother of the Gods, since Christian writers tended to lump all of these . rituals and cults tagether ·as one. To begin, it must be. said that Christian writers were ob:viously famil. :i_ar with the dei:ails of.the myth. They rnight have witnessed the public • self-castration ofthe priests or public reenactments of the Attis legend in t±i.eatrical pertormances,sometimes includi.b.g the actual castration of a prisoner sentenced to parcicipate in the show (and an example of the rea. sons for their denunciation of the spectacles ). 16 "The Mother of the Gods loved a beautiful young man:' Lactantius explained, "and having caught himwith a rnistress she turned him into a half-man [semivir] by cutring off his genitals [virilia]; and therefore his sacred rites are now celebrated by eunuch priests fgalli sacerdotes]?'17 A century earlier, Tertullian had asked: "Why is a male mutilated in honor of the Idaean goddess, unless it be that the youth who was too disdainful ofher advances was castrated., owing to her vexation at his daring to crossher love?" 18 In the fifth century, Prudentius ask:ed the same question: "Why does the Berecynthian priest mutilate and destroy his loins?" 19 In these descriptions, the Christian writers gave no indication that these priests had ce-:u;ed to castrate themselves. Without exception, Christian writers used the castrationritual to confirm the depravity of pagan religion. Lactantius, who wrote at length against the sacrilege of paganism generally, described the public rituals in honor oftheMother of the Gods as "insanity" and made it clear that what revolted him was the violation of men's bodies through castration. "Men themselves mak:e propitiation with their own sex organs," he suggested, and ''with such mutilation they malce themselves neither men nor women?'20 Tertullian also moclced the gender ambiguity of the eunuch priests in his polernical writings against the pagans; they were "a third sex, and made up as it is of male and female in one?'21 Augustine ridiculed the "amputation of virility" in the cult of the Mother of the Gods, in his attaclc on the pagan gods in The City ofGod) in which "the sufferer was neither changed into a woman nor allowed to remain a man.'m The familiar rhetoric against the blurring of sexual boundaries was called into action to denounce the self-castration of the eunuch priests. Perhaps the most interesting denunciation of self-castration by a Christian writer was that of Prudentius in his Liber peristephanon on the Christian martyrs. Prudentius saw the Castration of the eunuch priests as proof of the violence of paganism. He imagined a conversation between the soon-to-be martyr Romanus and the pagan emperor Galerius, and had Romanus ask: "Shall I go to Cybele's pine-grove? No, for there stands in my way the lad who emasculated himselfbecause ofher lust, and

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by a grievous wound cutring the parts of shame saved hirnself from the unehaste goddess' embrace, a eunuch for whom the Mother has to lament in many a rite?'23 Hidden in this passage is an ambivalent praise of the action, since by castrating himself, Attis has preserved himself.from the goddess' '
Behind this literary attack on pagan Castration placed in the mouth of a Christian martyr was a defense of martyrdom. Martyrdom was also a bloody act of self-sacrifice believed to earn salvation, but Prudentius contrasted the II).artyrs' unwilling sufferings with the eager sufferings of the eunuch priests: "But this blood of ours fl.ows from your barbarity [and not from our own]?'25 The passage also implied a sharp contrast between the manly self-sacrifice of the Christian martyrs as soldiers of Christ and the unmanly sacrifice of the eunuch priests. The dangerous gender ambiguity of the eunuch priests was also exhibited in their sexual behavior, at least as reported. The sexual aspect of the cult of the Mother of the Gods has also been neglected by historians, but, in their defense, it is also unclear in the sources. Worship of the Mother of the Gods seems to have involved in some places and at some times what is often called sacred or cultic or temple prostitution, ritual sexual activity performed by female priestesses acting as sacred prostitutes. The practice should not be too surprising in a cult that had fertility at its heart, but even ancient writers contradict each other about the ritual, so the extent or nature of sacred prostitution cannot be lcnown. 26 It is sometimes also maintained that after their castration, the eunuch priests also offered their sexual services to male worshippers at the shrines, as sacred male prostitutes alongside the sacred female prostitutes. Again, the practice is not inherently illogical. Eunuchs preserved the youthful attributes ofmale adolescent beauty Ionger than other males (although we cannot lcnow at what age the eunuch priests castrated them-

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selves), and sexual activity with young males as weil as females seems to _have been part ofthe sexual repertoire of many adult males in the_ancient Meditetranean. _ : _ · Evidence for. sexual activity on the part of the eunuch priests, however, •i:einains vague. In the middle of the second century, the pagan writer Apuleius had· mocked the sexual indulgence and gender ambiguity of the eunuch priests in hisMaamorphoses) although he seemed genuinely sym-pathetic to the worship of the Mother of the Gods. He called the eunuch priests cinaedi (men who enjoyed being penetrated sexually), and included an episode in which they seduced a local farmer's son more for fun than for religious reasons. He also alluded to their renunciation of masculine identity, having them call each other "girls" (puellae) in private. 27 N onetheless, Apuleius is one of the few sources to describe in other than hostile tones the supposed sexual activity of the eunuch priests, and even he was writing satire. It is possible that the eunuch priests did not act as sacred prostitutes, and that writers inirnical to the cult libeled them in what they knew would be a damaging manner, borrowing their details from the general sexual repertoire of vices attributed to eunuchs (described in chapter 3). It is also possible that the eunuch priests did act as sacred prostitutes, and the reluctance to mention the fact in sources favorable to the cult betrays the general discomfort ofRoman writers to admit the sexual penetration of adult males, even castrated males and even in the service of religion. In the end, while we cannot be certain about what practices existed, we can know what representatives of interested groups chose to believe or to assert existed. For Christians who denounced the cult, the sacred prostitution of the eunuch priests was evident enough and constituted proof of the perversity of paganism. Paulinus ofNola claimed that "the brothel ofVenus together with the madness ofBacchus were divinities for the wretched, and lust allied with insanity celebrated wicked ceremonies in foul rituals;''28 Firmicus Matemus condernned the priests of the Carthaginian goddess, to whom he referred by her Latin epithet Caelestis ("the Heavenly One"). His denunciation is worth quoting and discussing at length. He began by addressing the gender ambiguity of the eunuch priests, relating their interrnediate position between male and female to the general "middleness" of the pagan cult: Animated by some sort of reverential feeling, they actually have made this element [air] into a woman [Caelestis]. For, because air is an intermediary between sea and sky, they honor it through priests who have womanish voices. Teil me, is air a divinity if it looks for a woman in a man, if its band

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of priests can minister to it only when they have fernin.ized their faces, rubbed smooth their ski.n, and disgrac~d thei.r rnanly sex .by do.rining . women's regalia? 29 He continued by alluding to sacred prostituti
by the moaning of the throng: men letring themselves be handled as women, and ßaunting with boastful ostentatiousness this ignominy of their impure and unehaste bodies. They parade their rnisdeeds in the public eye, acknowledging with superlative relish in filthiness the dishonor of their polluted bodies. 30 He returned again to the eunuchs' dressing as women, linking the feminine appearance and their feminine sexual activity tagether with the deficiency oftheir pagan beliefs: They nurse their tresses and pretty them up woman-fashion; they dress in soft garments; they can hardly hold their heads erect on their languid necks. Next, bei.ng thus divorced from masculinity, they get intoxicated with the music of ßutes and invoke their goddess to fill them with an unholy spirit so that they can ostensibly predict the future to fools. What sort ofmonstrous and unnaturalthing is all this? They say they arenot men, and indeed they aren't; theywant to pass as women, but whatever the nature of their bodies is, it tells a different story. 31 The expression "monstrous and unnatural thing" [monstrum prodigium] refers to a portent of evil. In other words, the eunuchs attempted to teil fortunes to gullible pagans, but their own bodies were a bad omen. Firrnicus Matemus had been a pagan and an astrologer before his conversion and knew the language of paganism weil, but his hostility to his former beliefs might have clouded his accuracy about the activities thatwent on at the shrines of the goddess. The passage formed part of a polernical attack on paganism itself. "Ponder too what sort of divinity it is which finds it such a delight to sojourn in an impure body:' he asked, '<w"hich clings to unehaste [impudici] members, which is appeased by the contamination of a polluted body?"32 Firmicus Matemus was not the only Christian to offer lurid (if questionable) details about sacred prostitution and the eunuch priests in de-

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votion to the Mother of the Gods. Augustirre ofHippo also devoted several sections ofThe City ofGod to "the obscene practices of this depraved cult:'33 in wbich "effem,inates [molles] consecrated to the Great Mother, - :who violate every canon of decency in men and women" could be seen -''iri the streets and squares of Carthage with their pomaded hair and pow~ dered faces; gliding along with womanish lailguor?'34 He denounced the sexual violations of the cuit as gender violations: "formen to be treated -as women is not in accordance with nature; it is contrary to nature."35 But bis attack was also part of a larger critique of traditional Roman religion and against those who believed they were worsbipping a god "by the commerce of prostitution, by the amputation and mutilation of sexual organs, by the consecration of effeminates, by the celebration of festivals with spectacles of degraded obscenity.''36 The eunuch priests provided further proof of the irrationality of pagan belief and the insanity of those who "should try to convince anyone that they perform any holy action through the ministry of such persons [homines] ?'37 lt should be noted that Christians were not the only ones who objected to this cult and its supposed sexual depravities. Augustirre quoted from Seneca to demoostrate how respectable Romans had always condemned such unnatural practices. 38 It is true that there had always been a certain scandalous quality to the cult of the Mother of the Gods from the time of its first arrival at Rome. Equally scandalous in late antiquity was the association of the emperor Elagabalus with the cult. Wehave already seen how Elagabalus's reputation suffered at the hands ofbistorians; here is another important reason for that disgrace. Before bis assumption of the imperial honors, Elagabalus had been High Priest of the Sun God at Emesa in Syria (he was named Elagabalus after the god and, because it was a sun god, also as Heliogabalus; bis actual imperial title was Varius Avitus Bassianus Marcus Aurelius Antoninus). Shortly afterbis arrival at Rome, Elagabalus attempted to unite all of the pagan religions into one cult, one of the first attempts at unifying religious practice across the Roman Empire. (Constantirre's official support for Christianity proved more successful, but he also did it by assimilating the Christian god to a sun god, Sol Invictus> "the U nconquered Sun?') As partofthat attempt at unification, Elagabalus had married the cbief vestal virgin (a sacrilege, according to traditional Roman standards) and had a symbolic rite performed in wbich bis Sun God was married to the Mother of the Gods. The gods' marriage lasted no Ionger than Elagabalus's brief reign. Still, the association ofElagabalus with the worsbip of the Mother of the Gods and its cultic prostitution may shed some light on the emperor's reported actions. Historians described the emperor Elagabalus as want-

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ing to become a eunuchpriest himself. I~ is possible that he did. According to theHistoriaAugusta, he tied up his genitals in a symbolic o.ractual · attempt at castration, and if he thought of hirnself ~s a sort ofgal!us~ jt · might help to explain his supposed transvestism and his .Willi.ngness. tobe sexually penetrated or at least help to explain the historians' impugning hirn with such actions. The claim that he associated with prostitutes and · performed as one hirnself may also be an intimation, accurate or not, of his encouragement of sacred prostitution as part ofhis syncretic religions reforms. In any case, the association of Elagabalus with the cult of the Mother of the Gods lent both a further unsavory reputation. 39 Again, we must be careful not to mistalce the distaste of writers, either pagan or Christian, for an accurate refl.ection of the details of or popular support for the cults. The poet Claudian, for example, in order to discredit the status of eunuchs everywhere in his polemic against Eutropius, asked a question that he must surely have known to .be disingenuous: "Have we ever seen a temple built or altars raised to a eunuch god?"40 N or must we assume that the Roman writers shared the feelings of all Roman men toward the cults or toward the eunuch priests. lt is possible that while men of the upper classes denounced the obscenity of the eunuch priests and their religion, men of the lower classes found in their visits to the shrine a -qseful sexual or spiritual outlet. Tertullian, for example, complained of"the vulgar superstition of popular idolatry" that took the cult seriously. 41 Indeed, the vehemence with which the literate members of Roman society denounced the worship of the Mother of the Gods may refl.ect their exasperation at the popular support for the cult. After all, someone was attending the shrines and participating in the processions that so dismayed the authors of our sources. Augustine complained that even decent Christians could not avoid seeing the revolting displays of the eunuchs as they passed by in the streets and being thereby corrupted, but this complaint was perhaps in part to excuse his own admission that as a young man he had "thoroughly enjoyed the most degrading spectacles" of the Mother of the Gods. 42 For Christian writers, the condemnation of the pagan eunuchs could become the focus for a panoply of other critiques: the blurring of the sexes following from an abandonment of what was natural, the irrationality of pagan belief and practice, the violence of the Roman spirit, or the obscenity of sexuallicense. The polemic against pagan eunuchs thus formedanintegral part of a more general Christian critique of traditional Roman culture that we have seen endlessly repeated. Pagan writers perhaps worried that the eunuch represented the worst features of the later Roman man; Christian writers assured them that he did.

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BIBLICAL TRADITIONS ON CASTRATION

Christians who condemned the eunuch priests had yet another basis for . :theirdenuncia:tlon ofthe cult in Biblical tradition. Christians oflate an~ nquity could see the hostility toward the Mother of the Gods and her as~ sociat;es in i:heir sacred texts, or so they thought. Yet Christians were also obliged to come· to ternis with ambiguities in these sacred texts that · affered a positive image of eunuchs in religion. Patristic discussions of these Biblical traditions on castration reveal the anueties surrounding the relationship between the new religion and the new masculinity. Like most other areas of the Mediterranean world, ancient Israel had its own traditions of the worship of a divine mother and her beloved consort. By the time the Hebrew Bible was talcing written shape, the Hebrew goddess was probablyworshipped under the name.Asherah, andher consort under the name Tammuz. According to the interpretation of many modern scholars, the worship ofthefemale deitywas not a Canaanite corruption of an original monotheism, as it is presented in the Biblical sources, but an ancient form of the Hebrew religion abandoned by reformers of the Deuteronomic period, who forbid the worship of all gods but Yahweh. 43 The hostility of the Biblical texts to the worship of the Hebrew goddess extended to a group ofher priests, known in Hebrew as "holy ones" (q~deshtm, singular qädesh) or as "dogs" (kelebhim, singular kelebh), depending perhaps on one's perspective. Their name is the masculine equivalent of the feminine "holy ones" (q~deshöth, singularq~deshah). lt seems clear that the women who were q~deshöth were sacred prostitutes; they were compared with secular prostitutes (zönöth; singular zönäh ). lt is less clear whether the men who were q~deshtm were also sacred prostitutes, although it must be said that this interpretation is resisted only because oflack of evidence and not because of any contrary evidence. 44 Leaders of the Deuteronomic reforms perpetually attempted to rid the Hebrew religion of aspects of religious worship that fit the patterns of worship of the fertility goddess elsewhere, including annual rituals of mourning for the death ofTammuz, but also much more. In fact, the same sorts of activities are condemned as we have seen condemned elsewhere: castration of priests, sexual penetration of adult males, and transvestism. 45 Some scholars reject a link between these activities and the priests of the Hebrew goddess, but the prohibition against Castration is linlced speci:fi.cally to the performance of public ritual and the priesthood, and both the sexual penetration of males and cross-dressing are called "abominations" (tM!ibhöth, singular tö'abhah), an uncertain term probably implying a

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ritual violation also used to describe what the qJdeshim did and the mourning ritual for Tammuz. 46 . · . . .It is not necessary here to discuss in further detail these ancient condemnations or their precise meanings. Instead, we need only point tö the fact that Latin Christians, in translating and reading these texts, extrapolated from them about the worship of the Mother of the Gods in their own day. Key to this understanding was Jerome's translation of the passages in question above. To begin, he translated the Hebrew proper name Tammuz as Adonis, in an obvious beliefthat both were merely localized names for the same god. 47 More important, he consistently translated the Hebrew term qJdeshim with the Latin effeminati, hardly a literal translation but one again that tied the Biblical descriptions to the eunuch priests ofhis day. 48 Indeed, in one ofhis Biblical commentaries, he justified his translation: "These men are the ones who are nowadays at Rome the servants of the Mother-not of the gods, but of the demons, the ones they callgalli."49 The term tö'abhah he translated as abominatio (abomination; literally, something "ill-omened"), which implied a ritual or religious violation. 50 Perhaps he did not understand the historical setring of these terms (or perhaps he understood them better than some modern scholars ), but in either case, his use of these terms provided an authoritative precedent fo.r the Christian denunciation of the eunuch priests and their religion. Christians, however, had an even more authoritative precedent for the condemnation of the eunuch priests in certain passages from the Biblical writings ofPaul. Foremost among these passages was one in Paul's Letter to the Romans. It has generally been seen as a condemnation of homosexuality, but if situated in its proper historical context, it seems likelier that the passagewas tied to the specifi.cs of the eunuch cult. Paul wrote of the pagans: they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for a worthless imitation, for the image of mortal man, ofbirds, of quadrupeds and reptiles. That is why God left them to their filthy enjoyments and the practices with which they dishonor their own bodies .... That is why God has abandoned them to degrading passions: why their women have turned from natural intercourse to unnatural practices and why their menfolk have given up natural intercourse to be consumed with passion for each other, men doing shameless things with men and getting an appropriate reward for their perversion .... And so they are steeped in all sorts of depravity, rottenness, greed and malice, and addicted to envy, murder, wrangling, treachery and spite. 51

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Here were all the elements of the Standard Christian invective against the eunuchs and their cult: a repudiation of paganism in general, followed by · a condemnation ofthegender violations ofthe cult ofthe.fertility god.. :dess .(the "practices with which they dishonor their own bodies"), fol.lowed in tUrri by an attack against sacred prostitution (the "unnatural practil=es" of the women.and the men "consi.uned with passion for each other") and against castranon (the "appropriate reward for their perver. sion"), and ending with all the usual vices attributed to eunuchs. In other words, since the priests of the goddess acted like women they deserved the castration that tumed them into women. This context for Paul's Statements is virtuallyunrecognized by modern Biblical and historical scholars, but it fits the details of his denunciation better than the explanations usually given. 52 The gender violations of the cult -especially the men acting as women -were the primary focus of the critique. Seen in its proper context, it also functions as a Pauline reiteration of the Biblical book ofWisdom, with which it shares many similarities. 53 Jerome noted the connection between this passage and cultic prostitution and with the q~desh"im, however, and asked: "What is more shameful than for men to be coupled with a cult of prostitutes, and to immolate the sacrifices of their lust with effeminates?"54 (It should also be noted that Paul did not condemn sexual activity between women in this passage, as is usually understood, but rather cultic prostitution by women. 55 ) The gender ambiguity of the eunuch priests provided a powerful symbol for the perversion of religious beliefs, and Paul artd other writers included in the Christian Bible exploited this symbol for other purposes. Because of the animosity toward eunuchs and the unmanliness that eunuchs represented, Paullinked castration to circumcision-another genital mutilation that he rejected-in various passages. In a debate over the necessity of circumcision for Christian men, a practice that he opposed, Paul wrote to his supporters: "Tell those who are disturbing you I would like to see the knife slip [when they circumcise each other):'56 Elsewhere, he warned his readers to "Beware of dogs !" and to "Watch out for the cutters !" adding that "We are the real people of the circumcision:' "without having to rely on a physical operation.''57 It is even possible that Paul meant "eunuchs priests" and "the men who frequent them" when he added malakoi and arsenokoitai to his lists of sinners. The author of the Biblical book ofRevelation included "dogs" among those who would be denied entrance to Heaven, alongside the impure and the worshippers of idols. 58 Jerome dutifully translated the term "dogs" with the Latin canes1

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which is how he also translated the Hebrew kelebh'im) and he must have appreciated the connection of"dogs" and "sacred male prostitutes" or it · would have been a meaningless punishment. _ . . _ . · . There was an equally strong alternative Biblical traditiön, however, that viewed the eunuchnot as a despised symbol of apostasy but as a laudatory symbol of self-sacrifice and familial and sexual renunciation . .This coun- · · terimage was attributed to the earliest Christian message and to Jesus himself. The Gospel ofMatthew, for example, had Jesus respond to a question on the advisability of marriage by saying: "There are eunuchs born that way from their mother's womb, there are eunuchs made so by men and there are eunuchs who have made themselves that way for the salce of the lcingdom ofHeaven. Let anyone accept this who can?'59 This triparrite categorization of eunuchs was not unique to Jesus. We might recall the Roman jurist Ulpian's division of eunuchs into three categories. 60 The Mishnah, which shared with Jesus a Hellenized Jewish perspective, also divided eunuchs into three categories: congenital eunuchs, eunuchs made so by men, and persons of indeterminate anatomical sex, possibly hermaphrodites. 61 Jesus' mention of"eunuchs born that way'' is lilceliest to have been a reference to men with congenitally undeveloped sex organs. The nature of such men and especially their rights in marriage were the subject of some discussjon in the Mishnah. 62 The "eunuchs made so by men" lilcely identi.fied those men castrated for administrative positions in royal or imperial courts, who were certainly commonplace in the eastern half of the Roman Empire in Jesus' day. The presence ofsuch eunuchs in Hebrew history is a fact for which there are many Biblical attestations. 63 The mention ofeither ofthese groups ofmen in a discussion ofmarriage is relativelyunproblematic from the standpoint of interpretation. The final category, the "eunuchs who have made themselves that way for the kingdom of heaven;' is much more difficult to interpret. At the very least, it represented a radical call for a departure from marital obligations, which would have been in keeping with other sayings ofJesus on the family, including ones found in the Gospel ofMatthew. 64 It may also form part of a general Matthean rhetoric ofJesus as the Messiah, because it echoes a passage from the Biblical book oflsaiah in which the requirements of marriage would no Iongerbe paramount in the future lcingdom oflsrael. According to Isaiah: Let no eunuch say, ''And I, I am a dried-up tree?' For Yahweh says this: To the eunuchs who observe my Sabbaths, and resolve to do what pleases me and cling to my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a

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momunent and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an ·everlasting name that shall never be etfaced. 65

· :We know that -other early Christians considered this fimire that Isaiah · · imagined to.have arrived withJesus. The baptism ofthe Ethiopian eu. nuch by apostle Philip recorded in the Biblical Acts of the Apostles was said to have begun With the eunuch's reading from the- book of Isaiah. Rather than the record of a historical incident, the baptism was prob. ably meant to symbolize the new inclusiveness of the Christian community, a sign ofthe arrival of the Messianic era as anticipated by interpreters oflsaiah, when eunuchs and foreigners would be welcomed (the Ethiopian eunuch was of course both). 66 But Jesus' Statement encouraging his followers to "malce themselves eunuchs for the salce of the lcingdom ofHeaven" rnight well have meant more than the renunciation offamily or fulfillment of a Messianic prophecy. It has already been suggested that Jesus' statementwas his ironic response to critics who insultedhis followers by accusing them ofbeing lilce thegatli because of their celibacy (or perhaps because of their fondness for itinerant begging). 67 But ifJesus was familiar with thegalli and their selfcastration as a religious practice, then it is at least possible that his words were intended literally and that he was recommending to his male followers that they physically castrate themselves. Even if these are not the authentic words ofJesus, the same interpretive possibility remains in that the author of the Gospel ofMatthew was recommending that male Christians castrate themselves by attributing the sentiment to Jesus. In fact, it is yet another extravagant gesture of renunciation found in the Gospel of Matthew, much like Jesus' call to abandon all wealth and to rid oneself of concern for food and clothing, and just as unclear as to whether it was meant literally or :figuratively. 68 Finally, it :fits well if just as ambiguously with another admonition ofJesus, also found in the Gospel ofMatthew and also in a discussion oflust:

the

If your right eye should cause you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; for it will do you less harm to lose one part of you than to have your whole body thrown into hell. And if your right hand should cause you to sin, cut it otf and throw it away; for it will do you less harm to lose one part ofyou than to have your whole body go to hell. 69

In the end, we cannot know how these Statements were intended. But even if they were intended as hyperhole and even if they were wrongfully attributed to Jesus by his followers, they circulated in an authoritative

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manneras the words ofJesus andin a social environment in which actual self-castration took place in public in the gwse ofreligious devotion. Readers ofBiblical texts in late antiquity who believed in the author~. ity ·of those Biblical texts could turn to any number of passages .tha(copdemned eunuchs and castration as religious unorthodoxy and sin. But the same readers could turn to other passages that depicted eunuc:hs and cas- · tration as symbols of orthodoxy and devotion. It remained to individual Christians, with the help of their spiritual advisors who claimed to be able to interpret Biblical texts correctly, to decide how to interpret these confiicting passages. PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL CASTRATION

Some early Christians, perhaps not too surprisingly, took Jesus at his word and made themselves eunuchs for the lcingdom ofHeaven. The presence of eunuchs in the households oflate antiquity and among religious devotees of pagan cults perhaps made castration seem both familiar and reasonable. Christian eunuchs shared much with the galli. The orthodox leaders of the Christian churches, however, condemned physical selfcastration and worlced hard topromote a figurative meaning for Jesus' exhortation as a call to chastity. At stalce was the Christians' claim to manliness, which ~ould have been lost in the gender ambiguity of the eunuch. We cannot know how many Christian men decided to castrate themselves or have themselves castrated, believing that they were obeying the instruction ofJesus. The earliest reference comes from the mid-second_. century writings ofJustin Martyr. Writing at Rome, Justin mentioned an anonymaus Alexandrian Christian who sought government permission to have hirnself castrated (his request was denied; castration was, after all, forbidden within the Roman Empire). Interestingly, Justin did not express either surprise or disapproval of the man's proposal. 70 The Traditio apostolica attributed to Hippolytus of Rome and dating from the early third century also mentioned Christian men who castrated themselves but ordered them to be removed from the community of Christians, a statement that assumed them to be already present in the community. 71 At the first general meeting of Christian bishops after Constantine's edict of toleration, at Nicaea in 325, the fi.rst official declaration ordered the removal from clerical office of men who castrated themselves. Curiously, the edict did not forbid self-castration altogether to Christian men, only the self-castration of clerics, and even made exceptions for Castrations done by barbarians or as part of health measures. Again, the edict assumed that there were already eunuch clerics. 72

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Probably the most farnaus example of a voluntary Christian eunuch was Origen of Alexandria. Eusebius described what happened in his historicalaccount (again, an account translated into Latin by Rufinus for the· .benefit ofWestern _Christians). He wrote: He comrilltted:an act characteristic of an inunature and youthful mind, yet, notwithstanding, including abundant proof offaith and self-control. For he took the words, "There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom ofHeaven,'' in too literal and extreme a sense, thinking both to fulfill the words of the Savior and also, since although youthful in years he discoursed on divine subjects with warnen as well as with men, to avoid all suspicion of shameful slander in the minds of unbelievers. 73

Same have questioned the reliability and accuracy of the account; others have lent support for it. 74 On the one hand, it is often suggested that Origen's general appeal to a figurative and allegorical understanding ofScripture would preclude his own literal interpretation of]esus' words. On the other hand, it is also possible to see behind Origen's self-castration the same Neo-Platonic impulse to cut oneself off from the carnal and material world that pagans such as Julian used in interpreting the myth of Attis andin justifying the actions of thegalli. Certainly, men who lived after Origen believed that he had castrated himself, men lilce Jerome, who praised him for it. "So much did he flee from pleasure;' Jerome wrote, "that, with zeal for God but not with proper understanding, he cut off his genitals with a knife?'75 The words recall those ofEusebius, who also praised Origen's faith and self-mastery at the sametime as he criticized his youthfulness and immaturity. Both are evidence for a grudging support for the ideals that motivated self-castration, if they are also recognition of its wrong-headedness. Both point to the ambiguous relationship between the Christian tradition and castration. (Origen's self-castration may have played a role in his eventual disrepute. Epiphanius of Salamis, who led the opposition to the religious philosophy ofürigen and was instrumental in the condemnation ofürigen's ideas, also denounced a group of Christian men, whom he called Valesians, for practicing self-castration. 76) We cannot lcnow how many men, lilce Origen, thought castration a good solution to a practical or spiritual problem. The legends that circulated among early Christians also provide some evidence for the existence ofChristian eunuchs. Many of the warnen who dressed themselves as men (mentioned in chapter 7) introduced themselves as eunuchs, a handy explanation for the higher pitch of their voices, their beardless faces, and the shape of their bodies. The guise does not seem to arouse any curiosity or suspicion. Jerome, who condemned such

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disguises, called such warnen eunuchinae~ "eunuchettes:m Same of these holy transvestites were also said to travel with eunuch compani6ns. At · least in legends, then, eunuchs filled the Christian countryside. Budl}e pr~sence of eunuchs in these tales goes beyond pretend~d ones. rn the apocryphal Acts of John, a young Christian man is so troubled by lust that he cuts offhis genitals with a sidde and throws them at the doorstep · · of the woman with whom he is obsessed (in the legend, the apostle John condemned the man for his deed). 78 The use of a sidde recalls the pubi.ic self-castrations of thegalli~ as does the ilinging of the amputated genitals before a woman's house. The similarity between these Christian legends and the myths of the galli may not be coincidental. One of the first scholars to write about the female transvestite saints, in fact, believed them all to be mere retellings oflegends associated with the Mother ofthe Gods recast as pious Christian stories. Such reformulations explained the frequent association of these warnen with prostitution, transvestism, and eunuch companions. (Pelagia, for example, abandonsher life as a prostimte for a life as a "holy eunuch"; Damna is converted by her eunuch slave Indes, and after she adopts male dress, they begin lives of asceticism together). Even the names of the transvestite saints were epithets given to the goddess: Pelagia and Mari,na (of the sea), Anthusa (the fiowery one), Porphyria (the purple one ), even Matrona (motherly). 79 Most scholars have rejected this interpretation, but the parallels are worth noting and might have provided mental connections between the religion of the Mother of the Gods and Christian gender ambiguity, if nothing else. (I might add, at. this point, the late ancient association of the god Bacchus with the goddess Cybele-for example, their shrines were placed tagether in the same temple at Romein the second century C.E.- as a possible reason why the name Bacchus was given to the transvestite soldier-martyr in the legend discussed at the end of chapter 7: it linked Christian legend, at least in the mind, with the transvestism ofthegalli. 80 ) We can do nothing more than speculate about a connection between Christian ideology and the cult of the Mother of the Gods, of course, but there are certain striking parallels. Both Attis and Jesus died and were restored to life, events commemorated in springtime rites of mourning and rejoicing. Contemporaries may themselves have recognized similarities between the two divine figures. Hippolytus daimed that a heretical sect of Christians called the N aasseni worshipped Attis alongside Christ and even used Paul's condemnation of the practices of the eunuch cult in his Letter to the Romans as a veiled command. 81 Augustine said that a priest of Attis had referred to hirnself as a "Christian in a Phrygian cap:' refer-

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ring to the unusual headpiece worn by Attis in pagan images but also . malcing the connection between the two gods. 82 (There were also grow-_ ing tesemblan~es in late antiquity between Mary, declared to be the _.:. mod1er of God [mater dei], _and the pagan Mother of the Gods [mater dtum] in more than rtame alone; perhaps not coincidentally, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore_ in Rome was built over the site of a temple to Cybele.) 83 Even if there is no truth to the claim of pagan in:fluence on Christian ideology, the resemblances between the two religions reveal shared concerns about the purpese and goal of human existence. It reminds us that in both religions, castration carried a deeper meaning than simply the avoidance of sin. We cannot know the minds of men who "made themselves eunuchs for the salce of the kingdem of Heaven,'' except what we can reconstruct from the Counterarguments of their opponents. In some Christian circles, self-castration may have expressed a belief in the ultimate human restoration to original existence as angels, a return from multiplicity in male and female to unity in androgyny. In other Christian circles, self-castration may have been seen as the return to sexual innocence such as existed before the fall of Adam and Eve and thus to deeper intimacy with God. It is also possible that Christian self-made eunuchs saw in their actions a means to realize the gender and social ambiguity of earliest Christianity (as we will see, their opponents accused them of renouncing their masculinity). As eunuchs, they were able to embody not only the "no moremale or female" in Christ, but also- because most ancient eunuchs were slaves, and since circumcision was precluded for a man without genitals-they also embodied "no more slave or free" and "no more Jew or Greek?' Genitalmutilation as a religious rite was not unfan1iliar to men of the eastern Mediterranean: Jews, Egyptians, and Syrians all practiced male circumcision. Castration merely took the practice one step farther. (Roman judicial punishments also regularly used bodily mutilation, so it was not that unusual a concept. 84 ) The strength of the religious meanings behind castration may have given to Christian eunuchs a spiritual authority that we can only begin to imagine. In an age that idealized the willingness to shed one's own blood for the salce of religion in the glorification of the martyrs, self-castration may not have seemed either too Strange or too demanding (and recall the link theorized by Prudentius between self-castration and martyrdom). Moreover, in the same way that martyrdom was admired by Christians because it showed a courage greater than most were capable of and lent to those willing to suffer it a charismatic authority unequalled by others, men willing to castrate themselves might have been respected and obeyed

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precisely because their behavior was atypical. They may weil have been among those men granted a spiritual status as holy "outsiders" who played a key role as patrons of local communities (a position not. that much different from that played by thegalli). 85 The many liagiographical. stories of holy eunuchs from late antiquity, some said to have been castrated by angels sent from God (and many of them remernbered as martyrs ), are one indication of just how attractive and powerful the image of the holy eunuch was. 86 · There are echoes of some of these ideas in the words of the orthodox Church fathers of the West. They also admired the dedication to selfsacrifice that inspired the eunuchs and advocated the same goal of sexual renunciation. The ideal of the Christian erinuch did appeal to them. Physical castration encouraged the genderless ideal, however, and challenged the Christian men who desired to preserve their authority and privilege as men, and so they could not support it. Moreover, they belonged to the Roman cultural tradition that despised eunuchs as unmanly men, and even if they might admire the courage of conviction behind Christian self-castration, we cannot imagine (and we must presume that neither could they) that their followers would have accepted the eunuch ideal. 87 Neither, we must also presume, were the orthodox Church fathers as individuals prepared to accept the idea that they were required physically to "castrate themselves for the sake of the kingdom ofHeaven." Christian self-castration was a dangerous practice, because it threatened the eventual success of Christianity among the Roman aristocracy, and it had to be eliminated, even if it had the authority ofJesus behind it. The advocates of self-castration were proselytizing in the West, it seems clear from the frequency and directness of rebuttals to the idea. The challenge the orthodox Church fathers faced was to spiritualize the exhortation ofJesus that his followers make themselves eunuchs, and to eliminate the practice of castration, and still claim to be true to the Christian message. They already had an excellent precedent for such a metaphorization in the elimination of the practice of circumcision. Paul and his Christian followers had rejected the notion that circumcision was binding on Christian men, or at least on gentile converts to Christianity, despite its divine commandment in the Hebrew Bible. Instead, Paul had argued that circumcision was an interior metaphor for the "cutting away" of sin. Using the same exegetical tool (and perhaps also borrowing from the comparison between circumcision and castration in Roman law), the orthodox Church fathers of late antiquity advocated that men undergo an interior and spiritual castration- but only an interior and spiritual castration. 88

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Tertullian was the earliest of the Latin Church fathers and, as in other ways, provided the framework for later discussions about Christian eunuchs, Tertullian was probably led to explain the nature and purpose of · :Christ:ian self-cistration because of the numbers and openness of the paga:ngalli at Carthage. (as fellow North Mricans Firmicus Matemus and Auglistine ofHippo later attested). His earliest remarks linked castratiori to marital renunciation, as the themes were linked in ·the Gospel of Matthew, but he did not specify whether this Castration should be understood metaphorically or literally. 89 More interesting and more detailed were the remarks Tertullian made on castration in his treatise on women's clothing (De cultu feminarum). Wehave already seen in chapter 7 how he was distracted there into an aside on men's unmanly concern for their appearance and how it made virtual women of them. From there, he turned to the subject of Christian castration. Following a paraphrase of Paul's comments discouraging marriage, he added: ''Are there not many, withal, who so do, and seal themselves up to eunuchhood for the salce of the lcingdom of God, spontaneously relinquishing a pleasure so honorable and as we know permitted?"9° Curious that one type of unmanliness, concern for appearance, should malce him thinlc of another type, castration. Curious also the word "spontaneously" (sponte), oddly used in this passage, implying a sudden thought to renounce sex rather than a wellplanned decision, unless that castration was meant literally, in which case the spontaneaus nature of the act was similar to the actual self-castration of thegalli on the Day ofBlood, when they acted out of the religious enthusiasm of the moment. Tertullian continued this line of thought. "We are trained by God for the purpose of chastising, and so to say emasculating the world. We are the circumcision-spiritual and carnal-of all things; for bothin the spirit andin the :flesh we circumcise worldly principles?'91 His point seems to have been (and he has strayed a long way from a discussion of women's clothing) that eunuchs symbolized ridding oneself of the :flesh in the same way that Christians were to repudiate worldly things, as a preparation for their heavenly reward. Tertullian's remarks demonstrate how precarious an exegetical symbol the eunuch could be. His language seems to imply that Christian men must rid themselves of masculine status and identity in their "emasculation of the world:' a thought in lceeping with his idea that sexual difference would be erased in the world-to-come. The image of the eunuch also fit with his larger rhetorical strategy, since in apologetic works directed at pagans he generally argued the manliness of Christians, such as the soldier of Christ image, but in works directed at fellow Christians he admitted the gender ambiguity in Christian ideology. Again, finally, he

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implied that this castration happened both "in the spiritandin the fl.esh;' leaving open the possibility of physical self-castration. In his later, Montanist writings, Tertullian repeated some of the uses . of the themes already present in his earlier writings. Christians must "ca~­ trate" themselves from the traditional Roman liberties of repeated marriage. 92 In his work on the resurrection of the dead, he wondered ''What · · purpose can be served by loins, conscious of seminal secretions, and all the other organs of generation in the two sexes;' after the glorification bf the body in the life-to-come. 93 Tertullian seemed at this point willing to take his ideas about eunuchs even farther. Jesus hirnself, he insisted, was "more perfect on this account as weil as on others, that He was more entirely pure- and He stands before you, ifyou are willing to copy Hirn, as a voluntary eunuch in the fl.esh.'' 94 Christ in fact "opens the kingdoms of the heavens to eunuchs, as being Himself, withal, a eunuch.''95 What did it mean for Tertullian to refer to Jesus as a eunuch, and a eunuch "in the fl.esh;' and a model because ofit? Tertullian was obviously arguing that Jesus spoke about hirnself when he spoke about "those who castrate themselves for the salce of the kingdom ofHeaven;' in all of the ambiguity that his words implied. There may be more behind his language. It has been suggested (albeit on slim evidence) that Montanus of Phrygia, the faunder of the Montanist Christfan movement, was a convert from worship of the goddess Cybele also based in Phrygia, and hirnself a eunuch and formergatlus. 96 If this is true, and if (as has also been suggested) he incorporated elements of his former belief system into his Christian movement, the image of Jesus as a eunuch may have been part of the Montanist theology. The prophecies of the Montanists, it has been noted, might also be echoes of the prophetic utterances of the priests of Cybele ( or at least, both might have appealed to the same expectations of followers ). Still, Tertullian's attitude toward Christian Castration was decidedly mixed. He mocked his theological rival, Marcion, as no better than a eunuch in his total ban on sex. "Is any beaver more self-castrating;' he asked (alluding to an ancient myth that a beaver will chew off its own testicles and spit them at a pursuing enemy), "than this man who has abolished marriage?" 97 He ridiculed Marcion's admiration for physical eunuchs, asking "can anyone indeed be called abstinent when deprived of that which he is called to abstain from?" 98 Such a question casts real doubt on whether his earlier ambiguous Statements did support physical castration, but he might also have changed his mind on this subject as on others. Even in his later writings, Tertullian maintained a certain ambiguity on the subject of castration. According to Mosaic law, he argued, the sex-

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ual continence of"eunuchs and barren persons used to be regarded as ig. nominious:' while in the Christian era he rejoiced that they "not only have lost ignominy, but have even deserved grace, being invited into the : : kingdem of heavens;''99 He both questioned the effectiveness of cas. ·tration forreinoving·sexual desire but also praised those persons, "both of men arid. women, whom nature has made sterile, with a structure which cannot procreate:' .seeing the latter as a foretaste of the absence of sexual desire in Heaven. 100 (The laststatementwas made in the same treatise in which he ridiculed Mareion as a eunuch.) Although Tertullian's opinions about castration were his own, and his association with the Montanists undermined the authority of his opinions for later Latin Church fathers (who never, for example, referred to Jesus as a eunuch), the ambiguous attitude toward castrationwas present in all of their writings. To explain their double-mindedness, we must recall the double heritage ofRoman men who became Christians. As Christians, they were obliged to hold eunuchs in high regard, according to the saying ofJesus. They might see the self-made eunuch as an appropriate symbol for the individual's sacri.fice of sexual desires. The social hostility toward eunuchs might also provide an analogy for understanding the opprobrium of the pagans toward Christians, since both were tainted with a certain unmanliness. They might even borrow from contemporary social roles ofeunuchs in the imperial households and transpese themselves into a divine hausehold as cherished servants and powerful associates of God. But as men of the Roman aristocracy, they despised eunuchs. They viewed eunuchs as an intermediate sex inhabiting a no man's land between the sexes. They also refused to admit the abdication of masculine and elite status that eunuchs experienced and resented the illegitimate nature of the status and authority that powerful eunuchs of their own day exercised. The challenge was to formulate a type of eunuch who would remain true to Jesus' exhortation but who would avoid the trap ofRoman unmanliness. The Latin Church fathers wrote often about eunuchs for the salce of the kingdem ofHeaven. They might have felt compelled to do so by the visible presence of eunuchs all around them in the households of the wealthy and perhaps also by the insistence of their ideological need to affirm Christian manliness. As a body, they interpreted the Biblical passages that might support self-castration in a metaphorical manner, divorcing them from the reality of castration. They both affirmed the truth of those passages and denied the consequences of those passages. Accordingly, they distinguished between unmanly eunuchs who castrated their bodies and manly eunuchs who castrated their spirits but left their

the

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hoclies intact. Depending on the rhetorical needs of the moment, they affered a host of alternative meanings for the "eimuchs who havt made . themselves that way for the salce of the kingdom ofHeaven." Spiri~al e11- · ·· nuchs might be virgins, continent persons, men or womeri in seXless marc riages, or widows. 101 The variety of interpretations, all related to sexual renunciation, and the willingness of the Church fathers to refer to · women as weil as to men as spiritual eunuchs, merely highlights the real exegetical imperative behind the Statements: eunuch must mean ariything but a castrated man. (We must assume that the extension of the image of castration to women, according them an identity as eunuchs, was a much less dangeraus gender ambiguity than the gender ambiguity of physically castrated men.) According to such fluid definitions, being a eunuch could function as shorthand for anything related to a good Christian life. "When you ... made yourself a eunuch for the kingdom ofHeaven's sake:' Jerome wrote to one man, "what eise did you seek to achieve than the perfett life?" 102 Indeed, Jerome implied that one would not receive the reward ofHeaven unless one made oneself a eunuch for its salce. 103 The assimilation of the symbol of the eunuch to Christian perfection, of course, linked it paradoxically to Christian manliness. The image of a spiritualeunuchwas weil suited for expressing the complexity of Christian masculinity, the belief that a man might find true manliness in apparent unmanliness. Men should also find the true perfection of spiritual Castration in avoiding physical castration, the orthodox Church fathers concluded. The importance of asserting Christian manliness in this whole debate about castration can be seen in patristic comments against castration. Ambrose ofMilan wrote at length on the subject, oddly enough in a treatise on Christian widowhood, but drawn perhaps by the link with marriage and his discussion in the preceding section on the difference between things divinely commanded and things only recommended. He said: And there are eunuchs who have castrated thernselves ... [but] bywill and not by necessity, and therefore great is the grace of continence in them, because it is the will, not incapacity, which makes a man continent. For it is seemly to preserve the gift of divine working whole.... The case is not the same of those who use a knife on themselves, and I tauch upon this point advisedly, for there are some who look upon it as a state ofvirtue [locus virtutir] to restrain guilt with a knife ... but then consider whether this tends not rather to a declaration of weakness than to a reputation for strength .... No one, then, ought, as many suppose [utplerique arbitran-

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tur], to murilate himself, but rather gain the victory: for the Church gath.ersin those who conquer, not those who are defeated.... For why should the means of gaining a crown and of the practice of virtue [usus virtutis] be . lost to a man who is born to honor, equipped for victory? How can he · through colirage of soul.castrate himself? 104

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.

Note Ambrose's conunent, "as many suppose;' a recognition that physical self-castration . was still practiced and admired in the Christian churches at the end of the fourth century. Ambrose responded by claiming formen who did not castrate themselves all of the traditional symbols of masculine success: strength, victory, honor, and courage. Ambrose's pointwas not simply that real eunuchs were unmanly and weak butthat metaphorical eunuchs were manly and brave fighters. Jerome implied the same, referring to metaphorical eunuchs for the salce of the kingdom of Heaven as real men and as soldiers ofChrist. 105 The idea of the eunuch who does not castrate hirnself also required the patristic writers to undermine other Biblical passages that supported Christian self-castration. (In their conunents, we can perhaps hear the echoes of exegetical arguments in favor of self-castration.) John Cassian, the leader of an ascetical group of men whom we will meet again in the next section of this chapter, argued against a literal interpretation to Jesus' conunand to cut off those parts of the body that cause us to sin. "The blessed Apostle is not forcing us by a cruel conunand to cut off our hands or our feet or our genitals;' he wrote; "He desires, rather, that the body of sin, which indeed consists in members, be destroyed as quickly as poss~ble by a zeal for perfect holiness?'106 Salvian of Marseilles also interpreted the same saying to mean "not that any man should deprive hirnself ofhis limbs," butthat we should be ready to cut off"certain intimacies of domestic relationships" for the sake of our salvation. 107 Valerian argued that "to pluck out one's eye is this: to correct one's vices, to extinguish the desires of the ß.esh, and to check lasciviousness of life by pursuing disciplinary control?' 108 Elsewhere, Valerian suggested that to castrate oneself was to violate God, because it was "to maim a human body, which He made to His own image and raised to a dignity which appears like His own?' 109 (For Valerian, the image of God apparently included male genitalia.) Valerian made these points in homilies intended to be given in front of congregations so that they would not be misled in their understanding of these words. This allegorical understanding of Christian Scripture, ironically of the same sort that Origen had championed, permitted the distancing of Christian leaders from the physical mutilations that such passages at first glance encouraged.

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Orthodox writers were also obliged toundermine the apparent use of certain Biblical men as role models for Christian self-castration. These in-.· · dividuals included John the Baptist and the prophet Elijah who .wer.e .· both said to have "girded their loins" in the Biblical accounts oLtheir Jives. Advocates of Christian self-casttation apparently used them as examples of holy eunuchs, possibly by understanding the "girding of the · loins" as a reference to one method of castration, the tying up of the seroturn. The comments of the orthodox writers on these individuals seei:n unusual, certainly, unless we interpret them as their response to an alternative viewpoint now lost. Jerome, for example, feit obliged to defend the manliness of the men who had girded their loins in the Bible. He wrote: "With your loins girt," Scripture says, and to the apostles Christ gives the conunand: "Let your loins be girt about and your lamps burning.'' John [the Baptist], too, wears a leather girdle about bis loinS; and there was nothing soft or effeminate [mollis atque muliebris] in Elijah either, but every bit ofhim was hard and virile (he certainly was a hairy man); he, too, is described as having worn a girdle ofleather ab out bis loins.U 0

Elijah's hairiness, it must be presumed, was proof enough that he was no eunuch. Wh<:n Ambrose recounted Elijah's ßight from the wiclced queen Jezebel, he was also quiclc to defend the prophet's courage and manliness: "To be sure, it was not a woman that such a great prophet was fleeing;' Ambrose wrote, "and it was not death that he feared." Rather, Ambrose concluded, "he was fleeing worldly enticement and the contagion of filthy conduct and the impious acts of an unholy and sinful generation?'lll (Ambrose had identi:fied hirnself as Elijah to the ernpress Justina's Jezebel, so it was particularly urgent that he defend Elijah's manliness.) Even in this distancing from physical self-castration, there was real ambivalence in the writings of the orthodox Church fathers. Jerome, while discounting the interpretation of "girding one's loins;' nonetheless felt that "in his assaults on men ... all the Devil's strength is in the loins;''ll2 (That Jerome should have used virtus for "strength" in this Statement merely compounds this ambivalence, since it could also be understood as "the Devil's manliness?') Positiveimages ofBiblical eunuchs also undermined their absolute condemnation. Christian writers appropriated the image of the Ethiopian eunuch as an Everyman :figure, for example, and often used the story as the springboard for discussions of baptism. 113 Jerome suggested that he and his friends travel to the fountain where Philip was supposed to have baptized the eunuch, which might mean that

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it was something of a tourist stop in late antiquity. 114 Jerome, in writing .of the Biblical incident, referred to "the holy eunuch;' then corrected himself; "or rather the man, since that is what scripture calls.him."115 Else:where, he wrote that the Ethiopian eunuch deserved the name of man be: cailse of the ''vigor of his faitb?' 116 The same ambivalence can be seen in Augustine's exegesis on :6iblical passages relating to castration. Referring to Pa~l's cursing of the advocates of circumcision, Augustine affered the opinion that Paul was in fact "wishing them well in a mostelegant andindirect way;' because he was exhorting them to become "eunuchs for the salce. of the kingdom of Heaven;'' 117 Peter Chrysologus mentioned the conversion of Paul in a sermon and claimed oddly that "a eunuch, one might say, was born on that road, in that he castrated human foolishness for the service of humanity." Chrysologus continued, again differentiating actual from metaphorical castration. "As unwilling chastity is called to the court of the king" in the figure of physical eunuchs in imperial service, he noted, so too is called "voluntary and vowed chastity to the glory of the heavenly court" in spiritual eunuchs, "and is advanced to the presence of the eternal king and transfers obedience to him;''118 The ambivalence that all of these writers exhibited, I believe, stems from the fact that they wholeheartedly supported the goal of castration-complete and permanent sexual renunciation-while they denounced the means to that end, because it belied the manliness of Christian men. So they repeated the image again and again and lent authority to it by doing so, but always clarified that it was a metaphorical one. The leaders of the Western churches also discounted the stories that were circulating in the Bastern churches ofholy eunuchs castrated by angels. There is only one sirnilar story of a holy eunuch that can be found in the writings of a Western author, that of the Egyptian monlc Serenus as told by John Cassian (and, significantly, told about a man ofthe East). Cassian wrote: There came to him an angel in a vision of the night. He seemed to open his belly, pull out a k.ind of fiery tumor from his bowels, cast it away, and restore all his entrails to their original place. "Behold:' he said, "the impulses ofyour fl.esh have been cut out, and you should know that today you have obtained that perpetual purity of body which you have faithfully sought?'119 Cassian, who had spent time with monlcs in Egypt, had obviously heard the legend in the East. But he seemed distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of circulating it among his Western readers: "Let it suffice to say briefiy;' he wrote, "that this came from the grace of God, which was be-

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stowed on the man in question in a remarkable way:''12°Cassian also made it clear that what was praiseworthy about Serenris's behavior was that he had waited for God to act. He had not attempted to perform the deed hllnself, "believing that God could far more easily uproot the urges öf t:he flesh that human slcill is unable to draw out eithe.r by potions or medicines or surgical instruments." 121 In the hands ofCassian, then, a castration leg-· end became a manifesto against self-castration, and Serenus's saintly perfection was revealed not in his physical attributes but in his interior disposition. (The priority of the interior over the exterior was typical of Cassian's thought. 122) Part of the orthodox response to Christian castration was also to emphasize the grotesque and ridiculous nature of self-castration among the galli in order to malce it seem less of a holy action. It is no coincidence that Christian writers are our most detailed late ancient sources for the cult of the Mother ofthe Gods and her eunuch priests. The pointed comments made by Augustine of Hippo that no one should think they were worshipping a deity through self-mutilation or "that they perform any holy action through the ministry of such persons" may have been as much directed at fellow Christians as at pagans. 123 The language recalls Augustine's criticism of the Valesian Christians who advocated self-castration, as "thinking that they ought to serve God in this way." 124 When Firmicus Matemus as'Iced his contemporaries to "ponder too what sort of divinity it is which finds it such a delight to sojourn in an impure body;' he may weil have intended advocates ofChristian castration to pander it as much as pagan priests. 125 "When the troop of you draws near the judgment seat of God;' he continued, "you will bring with you nothing that the God who created you can recognize. Reject this great and calamitous error, and abandon at last the inclinations of a profane heart. Do not talce your body which God created and condemn it by the wicked law of the Devil?' 126 Minucius Felix also exclaimed: "He whose shameful parts are cut off, how greatly does he wrang God in seeking to propitiate Hirn in this manner! Since if God wished for eunuchs, He could bring them as such into existence, and would not malce them so afterwards?' He continued, again alluding to the extent of the practice: "The very multitude of those who err affords to each of them mutual patronage;' and "the defense of the general madness is the multitude of the mad people." 127 In sum, the Ieaders ofthe Western Christian churches rejected physical Castration because ofits many connotations of unmanliness. The challenge for writers of the patristic period was both to remain true to what they believed tobe the teaching ofJesus, that Christian men must malce themselves eunuchs, and their own desire to retain a masculine identity.

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The challenge was to construct a manly eunuch. The separation of the ideal of castration from its reality provided the key for the reconciliation of these seeming opposites. The creation of a distinct group of manly eunuchs; separ;tted from the rest of men by a lifestyle of manly perfection, ·took this symbolism one step further. .MONKS AS MANLY EUNUCHS

Christian writers willingly identifi.ed the hollest ofChristian men as spiritual eunuchs, as can best be seen in discussions of the evolving institutions of male monasticism in the Western Roman Empire in late antiquity. This new ascetic lifestyle appeared in the West in the second half of the fourth century, another import from the Bast, just at the time when the rhetoric of the new Christian masculinity was becoming established. Its supporters argued that it was a representation of the ideal Christian life and a model of perfection. But the monk also embodied many of the central issues of late ancient masculinity also central to the lives of eunuchs. Monasticism arrived relatively late to the western Mediterranean, but the combination ofwithdrawal from the responsibilities of the world and the discipline of the body that the monastic movement affered to men found its admirers. Latin-spealcing Christians began to visit the desert communities of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria in the last decades of the fourth century. Same stayed and founded their own communities, like Jerome did at Bethlehem, after he left Romein 385; By the end of the fourth century and into the early fifth century, however, Latin-spealcing monastic communities were established throughout the western Mediterranean (islands and forests being the closest isolation comparable to the deserts in the Bast, although many groups simply lived on country estates belanging to their founders). Augustine participated in an early ascetic community near Milan in northern Italy, then another in North Mrica atThagaste, before becoming bishop ofHippo in 391. John Cassian, who had spent time in several Egyptian communities, set up a community based on the same pattern in the early fifth century at Urins, an island near Marseilles. 128 Jerome, Augustine, and John Cassian all wrote to encourage the monastic ideal among Roman men. They did so by appealing to the very issues that most attracted the male aristocracy in late antiquity: renunciation ofwar, public office, sexual relations, and family life. There was a certain gender ambiguity in the abandonment of all of the things that made the Roman male a man, in living a life that embodied

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the paradox of Christian rnasculinity. Advocates of the rnonastic life adrnitted obliquely that rnon1cs had relinquished part of their rnasculine . identity in abdicating their rnasculine social role. "Go then and so live in yoi.u- rnonastery, free frorn all stain of de:filernent;' Jerorne mged we rnonlc Rusticus, "that you rnay come forth to Chr.ist's altar as a virgin steps from her bower."129 The mon1c was the bride ofChrist, in otherwords, se- · cluded and virginal. Amon1c was the contemplative Mary to her active sister Martha, John Cassian argued, attributing the sentiment, as he did all of his assertions, to a holy Egyptian monk (and since this Mary was also identified as Mary Magdalene, implicitly linking the idea again to the bride ofChrist). 130 The mon1c's willingness tobe secluded from public life and to renounce marital authority even demonstrated his humility, because it also implied his acceptance of a feminine status. The male ascetic could be compared to a woman, just as the female ascetic could be compared to a man. Both were a sign that in Christ there was "no moremale or female;' and a representation of the genderless ideal of earliest Christianity. But the advocates ofmonasticism insisted that the gender ambiguity of mön1cs should not be pushed too far. Augustine's words to a group of mon1cs made their gender identity a point of discussion, because they seem to have insisted on visible markers of their genderless status. He mocked the immanliness of mon1cs who refused to cut their hair, in defiance of the Pauline precept that for a man to have lang hair was a disgrace. He wrote: How 1amentab1y ridiculous isthat other argument, ifit can be called such, which they have brought forward in defense of their 1ong hair. They say that the Apostle forbade men to wear their hair 1ong, but, they argue, those who have castrated themsdves for the salce of the kingdom ofHeaven are no Ionger men [iam non suntviri]. 0 astanishing madness! ... They have heard, or at least have read, what was written: "For all you who have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor freeman, there is neither male nor female?' Yet they do not know that this was said according to the concupiscence of carnal sex, because in the interior man, where we are renewed in the newness of our minds, there is no sex of this sort. Therefore, let them not deny that holy people are men because they do nothing of a sexual nature. 131

We should not miss the fact that Augustine was opposing what was apparently a developed exegetical tradition. He complained that these langhaired rnonlcs also compared themselves to the men called Nazirites among the ancient Hebrews, men like Samson, who did not cut their hair

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in accordance with vows talcen to God. They even countered the Pauli.ne . argument that lang hair was a disgrace to men. '"We assume this disgrace;. they say, 'because of our sins?" 132 Augustine implied that these . :rponks wore .their hair long in order to symbolize their renunciation of . imi.sculine identity, living out· the genderless ideal as eunuchs for the salce of the kingdom ofHeav~n. (There is also likdy an dement of dass prejudice Augustine1s criticism, since men of the Roman aristocracy prided . themselves on their. appearance; Augustine was trying to get these monks to act more lilce respectable persans ). 133 The gender ambiguity of monlcs is key to understanding their symbolic role in late ancient society, because the identities of monks are intertwined with the identities of eunuchs. It is entirely possible that some of the earliest monlcs in the Bast were self-made eunuchs; they were known for their feats of asceticism and their disregard for the body. The lifestyle ofthe earliest monlcs shared real similarities with that ofthegalli in their renunciation ofsex and status, in their itinerancy, andin their spiritual power. Even while Christian leaders vociferously condemned castration, then, they encouraged men to become monlcs and to become part of a social group with an identity very much like that of eunuchs. In part l, I argued that physical eunuchs acted as men in both public and private life but were resented for doing so because they were not really men, at least according to the Standards of the male aristocracy. Monlcs, in contrast, refused to act as men. But they did so not because theywere beneath these roles and responsibilities, they insisted, but because they were above them. They symbolized a radical assumption of a new masculine identity by an abdication from that identity. They were manly eunuchs. The manliness of monlcs is apparent first of all in their relationship to the military identity ofRoman men. "When you forsook military service and made yourself a eunuch for the kingdem ofHeaven's salce;' Jerome wrote to a reluctant monlc named Heliodorus, who had abandoned a career as a soldier for the ascetic life but then hesitated to take the final step, ''what eise did you seek to achieve than the perfect life?"134 Jerome continued by alluding to the rigors of the monastic life, rigors that had always typified the vita militaris:

m

Are you frightened by the thought of toil? No athlete gains his crown without sweat. Are you thinking about food? Faith feels not hunger. Do you dread bruising your limbs worn away with fasting on the bare ground? The Lord lies by your side. Is your rough head bristling with uncombed hair? Your head is Christ. Does the infinite vastness of the desert seem terrible? In spirit you may always stroll in paradise.... Is your skin

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rough and scurfy without baths? He who has once washed in Christ needs not to wash again. 135

Jerome accused Heliodorus of unrnanly cowardice in his rductance, something quite unbecoming in a soldier. "What business have you, pampered soldier, in your father's house?" he thundered. "Where now are the rampart, the trench, and the winter under canvas? Lo, the trumpet sounds from heaven! Lo, our general fully armed comes forth anüd the clouds to subdue the world!" 136 Ironically, Jerome was using this military language to inspire Heliodorus to end his career as a soldier and to begin a better career. Writers oflate antiquity had considered it problematic for eunuchs to engage in warfare because they were no Ionger men; Christian writers condemned military activity on the part of monlG but for a very different reason: because they were more than men. Leo the Great denounced the monk "who abandons his state and throws hirnself into military service" because he was giving up "better things?'137 Desertion from the monastic life, like desertion from the military life, would not be permitted. But monlcs were obliged to refrain from warfarenot because they were unsuited to it but because it was unsuitable for them. At the same time, monks fought in the front lines of the spiritual war against the J;>evil and against sin. John Cassian returned again and again to this theme. Bachprofession has its hardships, he said, and monlG must endure bodily deprivation the way that soldiers must endure war. 138 Temptations are like skirmishes that prepare the monk for major battles against evil. 139 Monks, like soldiers, must both fight with the right hand and shield themselves with the left hand. 140 MonlG were ideal spiritual soldiers exactly because of their refusal to participate in war, and by the fifth century the title of "soldier of Christ" was most often reserved to monlG. 141 An excellent example of the monastic soldier of Christ was Martin ofTours, as presented by Sulpicius Severus. Only by abandoning a military career did Martin find the real strength to conquer all kinds of demons and natural forces; as a soldier of Christ he was even unable to be wounded. 142 (Martin was made bishop of Tours and was no ordinary monlc, but Sulpicius took great pains to document how he continued to live the monastic ideal even after his consecration as bishop. Indeed, Sulpicius noted, Martin was superior to mostbishops because his monastic discipline helped him toresist imperial honors. 143 ) The vita militaris that Sulpicius claimed for monlcs, nonetheless, also returns us to the ambiguous manliness of monlG. The military metaphor was used to justifY the prohibition against monks' association with women. "No women should enter into the camp of men:' Martin is sup-

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posed to have said, relying on his experience as a soldier; "an army be.comes contemptible if its cohorts of men are mingled with a horde of women?' 144 Even an innocent visit to one's mother col,l.ld be a trap, Jerome w:arned: one monk, because he might catch sight of her slave ..·girls, and "the ba,ser their sodal condition, the easier they are brought down?n45 The exhortations were intended to provide a manly image of sdf-discipline for monks. But the reluctance of the saintliest of monks to . come into the presence of women also points to a underlying contradiction in the monastic life. Having castrated themselves for the sake of the lcingdom ofHeaven, what danger should women have been to them? But just as Romans wondered whether eunuchs could associate closely with women without sexual entanglements, they wondered whether monks could. The company of women should have been unproblematic to men who had renounced sex, but in refusing to admit women into the presence of monks and in avoiding the temptations that would follow, Martin and Jerome were not only being practical. They were also identif}ring monks as manly eunuchs, men who might be permitred to socialize freely with women because they were eunuchs but chose to avoid them because of their manly sense of restraint. In public life, monlcs also represented the new ideal man. Advocates of monasticism often recorded how men of the highest nobility abandoned their wealth and honors to lead ascetic lives. Sulpicius Severus said of the monks who attached themselves to Martin: No one there possessed anything of his own, everything was shared.... No one drank any wine unless illness forced him to do so. Most ofthem were dressed in camel-skin garments: they considered the wearing of any softer material to be reprehensible. This is all the more remarkable since many ofthem were said tobe noblemen who had been brought up in a very different way but had voluntarily adopted this life of humility and endurance.146

By abandoning the Ostentation and ambition of their peers, Sulpicius implied, these men found true riches and unending fame. Jerome used the occasion ofhis hagiographical account of the life ofPaul ofThebes to ask pointed questions of his contemporaries, Christian men who refused to accept the ascetic ideal: I would like to ask those who own so much land that they do not lmow it all, those who cover their homes in marble, those who thread the wealth of whole estates on one string, "What did this old man ever lack, naked as he was? You drink from jeweled cups but he was satisfied with the cupped

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hands that nature had given him. You weave gold into your tunics but he did not even have the shabbiest garment belanging to your slave. But then, paradise lies open to him, poor as he was, while hell will welcome you in . · your golden clothes. He was clothed with Christ despite his nalce~ess:: you who are dressed in sillcs have lost the garmen:t of Christ. 147 Jerome's comments are a ren:tinder to us that not all men accepted the Standards set by advocates of monasticism. Indeed, the advocates had to work hard to appeal to men. When compared with "the fruitless and crin:tinal sadness of this world," John Cassian argued that what the monk gained what would be the envy of any Roman nobleman. He suggested: Whoever has rejected one house for the sake ofChrist's lovewill possess innumerable dwellings as his own in monasteries everywhere in the world, and they will be his own houses as ifby right. Thus he will also be endowed with manifold property in houses and fields. For how will a personnot receive a hundredfold and, if it is permitred to add something to our Lord's words, more than a hundredfold, if he relinquishes the unfaithful and forced service of ten or twenty servants to be supported by the voluntary attention of as many persans who are free and noble? 148 The Roman aristocrat who became a monlc gained more than he lost, advocates of monasticism assured men, on a material as weil as spiritual plane. Monks also gained a new freedom. U nlilce the men of the world" who were required to submit themselves in an unmanly fashion to the authority of superiors, the obedience that men as monlcs owed to the abbot as Ieader of the monastic community was liberating. At least, advocates of the monastic life made the claim that it was. Jerome told a monk that he should fear his ab bot "as ifhe were a master:' and declared obedience "the highest and only virtue" for monks. 149 N onetheless, monastic life was not generally described in unmanly servile metaphors. Cassian suggested that "he who submits his own will to his brother's will acts the stronger part than he who is more obstinate in defending and holding on to his own opinions."150 When Augustine described his decision to talce up the ascetic life and thus to abandon his incipient political career, he made it clear that he considered his former secular life and ambitions as servitude. "I was held fast:' he wrote, "not in fetters clamped upon me by another, but by my own will, which had the strength of iron chains?'151 When he left for the country estate at Cassiciacum where he established an ascetic community, he wrote of "my release from the profession of rhetoric.:''152 The submission to authority that Roman men resentedas unmanly could

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be cut short by tb.e freedom of entrance into a monastery. Even the cleri.callife did not offer the same degree of witb.drawal from the world as did tb.e monastic life. ·As eunuchs for tb.e sal<.e of tb.e kingdom ofHeaven, who had cut them. selves off fron1 wealth and Status, the monlc avoided the fatc of physical eunuchs, who were felt to crave power and possessions inordinately, and whose elevation to honors and political office was criticized. The differ. ence was the monlcs free relinquishment of masculine authority. "Necessity mal<.es anotb.er man a eunuch;' Jerome declared, "my will [voluntas] mal<.es me one?' 153 Unlilce the emperor's eunuchs, the monlc was no servile outsider resented as unwortb.y of infl.uence and power but a man of nobility who, in freely relinquishing his social ranlc and assuming a servile ranlc, deserved tb.en to be reinstated with honors and privileges. By the beginning of the fifth century, monks became more and more desirable for positions of leadership in the Western churches, invited out of their monasteries to be consecrated as bishops, even if they usually demonstrated an appropriate humility in only reluctantly receiving such offices.154 The monastic eunuch enjoyed a public authority and masculine status that that the imperial eunuch could not. The ßight from marriage and the family also affered monlcs an opportunity tobe manly eunuchs. Iflate ancient writers had condernned physical castration in part because eunuchs were unable to participate as men in family life, the saine abdication from familial responsibilities was accounted an advantage to monlcs. Jerome, for example, criticized the reluctant monk Heliodorus for too great an attachment to his family of birth. "Though your little nephew hang on your neck;' he insisted, "though your mother with disheveled hair and tarn raiment show you the breasts that gave you suclc, though your father ßing hirnself upon the threshold, trample your father underfoot and go your way, fiy with tearless eyes to the standard of the Cross?' Jerome continued at length on this theme. "Your widowed sister clings to you today with loving arms, the house-slaves, in whose company you grew to manhood, cry 'To what master are you leaving us?"' Jerome hoped to move his readers with the poignancy of these images. "Perhaps your foster mother with sagging breasts and wrinlcled face may remind you of your old lullaby and sing it once again?' But the depth of familial affection only lent weight to Jerome's conclusion: "The love ofChrist and the fear ofhell easily brealc such bonds as these?'155 John Cassian related tb.e story of an Egyptian monlc, Theonas, who had abandoned his wife of five years to enter a monastery. When he returned harne to urge her to embrace the monastic life with him, she refused, saying that he would be responsible for her sin-

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ning by deserting her again, but he maintained that his renunciation of the world was necessary and left. Cassian admitted that the storywas not. perhaps the best e..xample formen to follow, saying that "Imyselfhave not offered my own viewpoint in this matter but have presented afactu31 Wstory in simple narrative form:' adding that no <;>ne could argue witl:i the holiness ofTheonas. 156 The renunciation offamily reinforced the separation of mÖnastic communities from the !arger society around them. The monasteries were felt to constitute a new family and an ideal household of brothers under the leadership of a benevolent father. "The superior of the monastery you will ... love as a father:' Jerome counseled the monk Rusticus, and "what precepts he gives you will believe tobe wholesome for you?>l 57 John Cassian related an appalling tale to this effect, of a father who entered a community ofEgyptian monlcs with his eight-year-old son. In order to teach the man a lesson about renunciation of family, the abbot had the other monl<S persistendy mistreat the boy in his father's presence. His unfortunate son was "exposed to the blows and slaps of many:' Cassian wrote, "so that his father never saw him without his cheeks marlced with the dirty tracl<S of tears?' The father endured in silence the suffering that the maltreatment of his son caused him, and even willingly attempted to drown the boy when commanded by the ab bot, before being prevented from so doing according to plan. When the abbot died, the father succeeded him. 158 The point was dear, if disturbingly made: by ignoring the responsibilities of his physical paternity, the man made hirnself worthy to be the father of the whole community. If physical eunuchs were belleved to feel no love or familial affection, according to hostile rumor, monl{s openly admitted that they aspired to equal indifference. Finally, the elimination of sexual desire also both obscured and highlighted the differences between monlG and eunuchs. Monks like Jerome were most anxious to distinguish themselves from the castrated pagans, because the latter were chaste only because of a "perpetual disability" and not because of deliberate choice. 159 Nonetheless, the effects ofthe monastic lifestyle on men's sexual desires can be seen in John Cassian's instructions to monks on nocturnal emissions. He wondered whether complete removal of sexual desires could ever be achieved, when even the saintliest of monlG had either sexual thoughts while awake or nocturnal seminal emissions and sexual dreams while asleep. Cassian acknowledged that "there are occasionally some who, even without any effort of mind, because of either the equilibrium of their bodies or their mature age, are rarely soiled or indeed polluted by the emission of this fluid?' 160 The limited diet that Cassian recommended for monl<S (mosdy bread and water,

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a diet also shared by thegalli) would have helped to avoid this problem, . because according to modern smdies such a diet caused chronic and sametimes even permanent impotence. 161 With careful and constant fast. :irig, Cassian suggested, the individual would become "formed by the pu. ·rity of chasdty itself, so that when even the natural movements of the flesh ~ad become dead, he never again suffered that obscene flux?' 162 But Cassian also felt that a man's body could never be an accurate judge ofhis . inward character, because it betrayed even his most pious intentions. He pointed to the buildup of urine in the bladder during sleep that caused erections even in eunuchs and in boys far too young to have sexual thoughts, and to nocturnal seminal emissions among even the most piaus of adult monks. 163 The presence of sexual desire in a man, even if only in involuntary seminal emissions, did not betray his weakness but his manliness, Cassian maintained, since he was being forced to continue the struggle against his own body. He was a soldier of Christ with his loins girded for daily (and nightly) battle. 164 Sexual desire was an internal war in which lust fought against patience for the human soul; in this warfare, the patience of the monk was his only defense. 165 It was precisely in the waging of this war, though, that the monlc proved his manliness. Cassian even questioned the manliness of the few men untroubled by sexual thoughts, affering the opinion that "it is one thing to attain to peace by passive good formne and another to be worthy of a triumph thanlcs to one's glorious virtues [virtutes];' and that in the case of men untroubled by sexual desires, "there is more that is worthy of pity than of praise?' 166 The manliness of the monlc was proved in his endless struggle to renew his spiritual castration. Being eunuchs did not require monks to abandon their manliness; it enhanced it, rather, because the constant camparisans between monks and eunuchs also revealed their great differences. Framers of the monastic ideal took up all of the scattered threads of castration and the Christian religion in late antiquity and wove them into a seamless whole. I am not suggesting that all Christian men aspired tobe monlcs; indeed, many Christian men seemed content to remain in the world, despite the exhortation of their leaders to flee from it, and some men even protested the presence of monks in their midst. 167 By the beginning of the fifth cenmry, though, monasticism was the undisputed champion of the new masculine ideal, and even men who did not live up to that ideal had to recognize its symbolic force. Indeed, in bringing tagether so neatly all of the changesthat had affected Roman aristocratic men in late antiquity-their withdrawal from war and politicallife, and their refusal to marry and engage in sex- men involved in the monastic movement may have helped

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to cement these changes into place. Monasticism created a visible group that claimed its enthusiasm for and wiil.ingness to live U:p to the ideals newly established for men. Their easy appropriacion of the identities · crafted for Christian men in late antiquity-soldiers ofChrist, bridesof Christ, eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven- affirmed their assumption of the new ideal. In larger terms, the physical eunuch had symbolically demonstrated the disintegration of the traditional model of mascu:linity. The monk, in contrast, proved the success of the Christian ideology of mascu:linity, embracing its paradox of manliness in urunanliness, even if it was a eunuch's embrace.

Conclusion

"Small minds cannot deal adequately with great subjects; if they venture beyond their strength they fail in the attempt; and the greater the theme, the more completely is he overwhelmed who cannot find words to express its magnitude.'01 Jerome began his consolatory letter to Heliodorus on the death ofhis nephew Nepotian with these words. They are a timely reminder to me and to my readers that a subject as deep and as complex as gender identity can never be fully understood or wholly examined in one book or by one author. I have tried to convince my readers that a new ideology of masculinity was forged in the period berween the beginning of the third century and the middle of the fifth century of the common era. That new masculinity required a reinterpretation of Roman traditions of gender and sexual difference through an incorporation ofold and new elements. Such a reinterpretation was both imperative as a result of the social changes oflate antiquity and possible with the help of a Christian ideology that was itself transformed in the process. AB Roman men became Christians, in other words, Christianity became a religion for Romanmen. I chose Jerome's letter on the death ofNepotian to conclude my book foranother reason. Nepotian, as Jerome remernbered him to his uncle, represented the new ideal man. The praise of the dead is often exaggerated, andin Jerome's painful recollections ofhis friend we have reason to doubt the accuracy of the reflection. "Where is he, the inspirer of my labors, whose voice was sweeter than a swan's song? My heart is numbed, my hand trembles, my eyes are misty, my tongue starnmers. All that I say seems voiceless, for he no Ionger hears.''2 Jerome's grief might have been 283

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real enough, but it also depended for its expression on classical models of lost male friendship. As in so many o(his wricings, Jerome integrated Christian teaching and classical modes of thought. Here, in orcier. to : d~monstrate the extent of his grief, he presented it asdefying both hls · faith and Stoic reason. "Though I struggle and try to fight against them, the tears stillrundown my cheeks, andin spite ofvirtue's teaching [prae~ cepta virtutum] and our hope of the resurrection a passion of regret is brealcing my fond heart.:'' 3 Indeed, throughout the letter of consolation, Jerome blended classical and Christian images and cultural references, giving a new voice to ancient sentiments, as was so typical of the Christian writers oflate antiquity. Also typical, according to Jerome, was the life that N epotian led. Lilce so many men ofhis day, Nepotian was inspired by the military ideal. He had been a soldier in the imperial palace, and struggled to reconcile his Christian belief with his military service. "While he was a soldierat court, beneath his military cloalc and white linen tunic his slcin was chafed by sackcloth:' Jerome wrote, implying that he lived an ascetic life with a discipline not shared by many soldiers. "He only wore a sword-bdt that he might succor the widow and the fatherless, the wretched and the oppressed.:''4 But like so many men ofhis day, Nepotian renounced his soldier's career,, thereby rejecting a literal understanding ofthat militaryideal of masculinity. "When N epotian laid aside his soldier's belt and changed his dress," Jerome noted, "he gave all his army savings to the poor. For he had read the words: 'If thou wilt be perfect, sell that thou hast, and give to the poor and follow me."' 5 Also like so many men of his day, N epotian became a cleric. He was made a presbyternot from ambition butin utter humility, Jerome assured Heliodorus, echoing a familiar trope of ecclesiastical office. "How he sobbed and groaned:' Jerome wrote, "complaining that he could not bear his burden and alleging that his youth unfitted him for the priesthood.... His refusal showed him worthy of the rank he did not wish to talce; all the more worthy indeed because he proclaimed his unworthiness."6 Despite hisnoble lineage, N epotian did not aspire to secular office but dedicated himselfto public service in the churches, andin this decision N epotian was also like so many other men in late antiquity, exercising in ecclesiastical service the public patronage that in a previous generation of men would have been exercised in politics. Still, Jerome alluded to Nepotian's distinguished ancestry even while pretending to discount it. "I for my part in praising N epotian's soul shall not trouble about the fleshly advantages which he hirnself always despised, nor shall I boast of his family, that is, of the merits of others.:''7 N epotian's attitude of humil-

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ity made him a pious spiritual son to the uncle who was his bishop (and . to whom Jerome was writing), and thus N epotian participated in the . spiritual hausehold being formed in late antiquity. "In public he recog. :J;Jized you as a l)ishop, at harnehe treated you as a father;' Jerome wrote; · ·"widows and Christian virgms ·he honored as mothers, and exhorted as sisters, with an chastity.''8 Even in his daily life, Jerome portrayed Nepotian as the ideal man. . "His fasts he regulated;' Jerome insisted, "as a charioteer does his pace, by the weariness or the vigor of the body;' using the ancient and manly metaphor of the body as a chariot and the mind as a charioteer. But Nepotian did not distract hirnself from his faith by attending dangeraus public performances or frivolaus sporting games. "His chief topic of conversation and his favorite form of entertainment was to bring forward some passage from the scriptures for discussion." In short, "by constant reading and lang meditation he had made his mind a library of Christ?'9 ("Myself too he sametimes quoted;' Jerome could not resist adding; "he would always hold my book in his hands, devour it with his eyes, fondie it at his breast, and repeat it with his lips. In bed he would frequently undo the roll and fall asleep with the dear page upon his heart.'' 10 The erotic appeal of learning was something that Jerome understood well.) Jerome depicted hirnself and Nepotian as joined in intimate friendship, again so typical for Christian men in late antiquity, intimate enough that Jerome claimed that Nepotian had left him his only tunic as a keepsalce. "We cannot have him in the body, but let us hold him fast in remembrance;' Jerome concluded in the finallines ofhis letter. "We cannot spealc with him, but let us never cease to spealc ofhim.''11 Aspart of the consolation in his Ietter, Jerome assured Heliodorus that Nepotian in death had been spared the many anxieties of men. "He who has escaped from this world's light is not so much to be lamented as he is to be congratulated on having been saved from such great evils;' he wrote. 12 He listed all of the disasters that had befallen even the emperors in Nepotian's lifetime: premature deaths in battle, deaths brought about as God's punishment for sin, political assassinations, and the attaclcs of pretenders to the throne. Private citizens also suffered. "The head ofRufinus;' Jerome noted, using one of the most powerful ministets of state under Theodosius I as his example, "was carried on a pike from Constantinople, and to shame his insatiable greed his severed hand begged for coins from door to door.''13 Rufinus had fallen to the machinations of the eunuch grand chamberlain Gainas, in another scenario typical for late antiquity. Nepotian's death also spared him the predations of the barbarians.

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"For twenty years and more the blood of Romans has every day been shed;' Jerome lamented in his letter, "by Goths and Sarmatians, Quadi- · · ans andAlans, Huns and Vandals and Marcomanni." When Jerome wrote : these words, the saclc of Rome was still more than a decade in the future, •· so the worst was yet to come. "How many matrons, how many of God's virgins, ladies of gentle birth and high position, have been made the spart of these beasts!" Jerome exclaimed, again demonstrating a certain fascination with sexual violence. ''Bishops have been talcen prisoners, presbyters and other clergymen of different orders murdered. Churches have been overthrown, horses stabled at Christ's altar, the relics of martyrs dug up?' Jerome could not help but insert a line from Virgil into his lament: "Sorrow and grief on every side we see, and death in many a shape?' The barbarian invasions were an indictment of the manliness ofRoman men. "The soldiers ofRome, who once subdued and ruled the world, now are conquered by these men, tremble and shrink in fear?' 14 But, Jerome added, "the Roman world is falling, and yet we hold our heads erect instead of bowing our neclcs?'15 The collapse of the political order did not affect the men whose primary allegiance lay in the world-to-come, another familiar refrain oflate antiquity. Jerome's letterwas poignant; he intended it to be so. The decomposition of the }\oman body politic was mirrored and repeated in Nepotian's death; both were events that challenged the perception of the way things should have been. "Behold, with us the order of things is changed, and nature has lost her rights in bringing this disaster upon us?' 16 Jerome's words remind us why Roman men were so aJ:L'
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the established fabric ofbelief." Such a crisis is resolved by the adoption of a "new and conceptually -enriched scheme;' which can simultaneously deal with the sterility or incoherence produced by its predecessor,. account for · the previol.).s ·difficulty in doing so, and carry out these tasks "in a new way · which exhibits some fundarD.ental continuity of the new conceptual and theoretical stru~tures with the shared beliefs in: terms ofwhich the tradition of~nquiry had been defiried up tothat point.'' 17

Although Marlrus was speaking in general terms about the conversion of the Romans to Christianity, a better encapsulation of the dilemma oflate ancient masculinity could not have been written. Roman men became Christians because they saw in Christian ideology a means of surmounting the gap between ancient ideals and contemporary realities. The men of late antiquity believed that their ancient counterparts had been martial conquerors, great statesmen, and commanding husbands and fathers. When compared with these ancient heroes, they could only be dismal failures. Christian ideology affered them an opportunity to recover their sense of greatness. As Christians, they could see themselves as indefatigable conquerors against evil, honered statesmen of the Church, and exacting spiritual fathers. The new masculine ideal presented itself to them both as a repudiation of the classical heritage and as its ultimate fulfillment. "That irnmortality of the soul;' Jerome wrote in his letter on the death ofNepotian, "and its existence after the dissolution of the body, which Pythagoras dreamed, Democritus would not believe, and Secrates discussed in prison to console hirnself for his conviction, that is now the common philosophy;' and "the whole world with one voice cries out, 'Christ."' 18 The appeal that Christian ideology held for Roman men happened as no coincidence, but because its message had been carefully molded by successive generations ofWestern Christian intellectuals, from Tertullian to Augustine, who were themselves men living in the midst of the changes and challenges to the masculine ideal. The new masculine ideal, it must be appreciated, did not change the social order to any meaningful extent. It was not intended to do so. Themen of the Roman upper dass es labered to return themselves to the power they felt had slipped from them. I began by arguing that the Roman social order depended an the strict separation of the sexes, which permitted an equally strict gender hierarchy of men over warnen. As men of the Roman elite became Christians, they worked hard to maintain in place the separation of the sexes and the gender hierarchy that stemmed from it. If early Christians believed in a genderless and sexless ideal, an

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image of "no more male or female" and even perhaps of being "eunuchs for the salce of the lcingdom ofHeaven;,. these bdiefs did not survive the Christian encounter with Roman culture except in the most limited of meanings. In the final tally, the men of the Roman aristocracy we.i:'e no.t interested in offering their adherence to a religious system that challenged their authority; they already felt displaced from real power 1n late antiquity. Instead, they converted to Christianity only on their own terms. I do not mean to say that there were no sincere Christians among the men of the late ancient Roman aristocracy. Rather, it is to say that the more the Christian message adapted itself to the social order to which these men belonged, the more wholeheartedly they embraced it. Some men chose radical means and made real personal sacrifices to express the depths of their commitment to their religion, abandoning wealth or sexual pleasures for its salce. But lilce most of us, they found it easier to offer their allegiance to a value system that sustained their qwn sense of themselves, and that meant their sense of their superiority, even if it was a superiority in the self-sacrifice ofmartyrdom or asceticism. The exclusion of women and the men of the lower classes from any positions of public authority within the churches is only the most obvious example of the truth that as the men of the Roman aristocracy toolc the reins of power in the Christian religion, they used it mostly to their own advantage. The Chri~tian ideology that belonged to the men of the Roman upper classes was not the only ideology that existed in late antiquity and not the only value system that competed for supremacy. The first oppositiot;1 was from the pagan religions, which had previously enjoyed the support of the Roman aristocracy and which had the weight of custom behind them. Christian ideology borrowed elements of the more successful of these opposing belief systems, but some segments of the Roman aristocracy remained committed pagans throughout the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. For them, the advantages of Christian ideology were not apparent or, perhaps, did not outweigh the advantages that either the familiar ideas of the traditional Romanreligions or other Eastern religions offered. For them, Attis or Mithra might have seemed preferable to Christ. 19 Variations of Christian ideology also competed with the ideology of the Roman aristocrats for adherents. The men of the Roman upper classes found a means of discrediting these variations, meeting together in councils and denouncing them as heresies or schisms, but heresies and schisms seldom disappeared when they were condemned. Instead, the variations of Christian belief were driven undergwund or beyond the borders of the Roman Empire but found ways of continuing themselves. Hidden connections linlced the Montanist Christians whom Tertullian

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joined in the beginning of the third century with the Christian confessors who denounced the reinstatement of Cyprian of Carthage in the middle of the third century, with the Donatist Christians who refi;tsed to accept :Caecilian as l;>ishop of Garthage in the early fourth century, and with the · Circumcellians who harassed the Catholic churches and priests ofNorth Mrica in the early fifth century. These bidden threads of connection were somei:imes used against iridividuals to charge them with heretical beliefs . (as Priscillian ofAvila and Augustirre ofHippo were accused ofbeing secret Manichaeans ), but the accusations reluctantly admit to a continuing dissc;:nt from orthodoxy among Christian intellectuals. Neither the pagan nor the heretical opposition had sufficient means or numbers to unseat the orthodox, however, and this fact suggests that the orthodox held something that made them better able to deal with the "epistemological crisis" of men in late antiquity. As I have tried to show in this book, that something was their accommodation to the gendered bierarchy. · The opposition to the orthodoxy of Christian ideology also reminds us that the masculine ideal as generated by Jerome and other Christian intellectuals was more proscriptive than descriptive. In bis letter of consolation on the death ofNepotian, for example, Jerome hinted that Nepotian was praiseworthy because he was unlike other Christian holy men. "Let others add coin to coin, fastening their claws on married ladies' purses and hunting wealth by Hattering attentions:' Jerome scolded; "let them possess wealth in the service of a poor Christ such as they never had in the service of a rieb devil .... Our dear Nepotian tramples gold underfoot, books are the only things he desires." 20 The admission that there were clerics who sought out the wealth of pious women for their own gain belied the image of honesty and humility that writers tried so diligently to claim for clerics. Obviously, not all clerics were respectable men, and here the possibility is admitted that some men exploited the new Christian ideology for their direct personal gain. Nor couldJerome help but to include comments designed to impress in the mind ofhis reader, Heliodorus, the didactic importance of the image he had created of the deceased Nepotian. Heliodorus was, after all, the same individual whom Jerome had urged to become a monk and to abandonbis family, in a letter written more than twenty years earlier and one I mentioned in chapter 8. 21 Heliodorus had become a bishop instead, and Jerome reminded him obliquely ofbis lapse from the monastic life. "For bis salvation you lefr the east and the desert;' Jerome wrote, "desiring ... to preserve your dear little nephew. He is the child of whom I once used the prophetic words, 'though your little nephew cling to your neclc.'" 22 There was perhaps more than a hint of chiding in Jerome's com-

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ments that followed that suggested that N epotian hadfelt more of a commitment to the ascetic life of monasticism than had hls unde, Heliodorus. After all, Jerome believed that the ascetic ideal was the hlghest aspiration of Christian men. "Every day he buined either to go to tli,e monasteries ofEgypt, or to visit the saintly companies ofMesopötainia, or at least to take up his dwelling in the lonely spaces of the Dalmatian is- · · lands .... But he could not bring hirnself to desert his episcopal uncle.''23 Buried in Jerome's praise is an implied criticism: N epotian had not made the final step toward masculine perfection, in Jerome's eyes, because he had not become a monlc. Also peculiar in Jerome's letter is the complete absence of any reference to N epotian's sexual habits. Jerome was far too concerned with sexual renunciation as an indicator and guarantor ofhuman perfection for this absence to have been an oversight. We must at least speculate that Jerome had a good reason for suppressing such information: probably, because Nepotian was married and perhaps also the father of children (we might suspect that Jerome would have praised the spiritual nature ofNepotian's marriage had he been married without children). Lilce all men who fell short ofmasculine perfection, Nepotian could not fully live up to the new ideal for men. Jerome feit it better to avoid mention of the unpleasant truth that evfn men who aspired to the new ideal did not always succeed in achieving it. Married men, who probably remained the vast majority of Christians among the men of the later Roman aristocracy, provided one indication that the new masculine ideal was not suited to everyone. (Jerome's acquiescence to the lesser ideal of Christian marriage in ömitting references to Nepotian's sexual behavior was very much linlced to the fact that he, like other shapers of Christian ideology, needed the support of this silent majority of married men.) As Jerome demonstrated in his letter of consolation, the inability of any man to live up to the masculine ideal could always be wielded as a formidable ideological weapon or even merely hinred at. While going on at length about his unending grief at the lass ofNepotian, Jerome was able to warn Heliodorus about the consequences ofhis extravagant grief. He affered this advice: Take care not to comrnit any act which those who wish to blame you may seem right in censuring, or which would force those who wish to imitate you to do wrong. Use all your strength, and even more, to overcome the softness [moltitia] of your heart, and check the copious flood of your tears lest your great love for your nephew be taken by unbelievers as showing despairofGod. 24

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Jerome's suggestion that Heliodorus had reduced hirnself to mollitia in his grief was perhaps an implied criticism not far removed from the one · he had made twenty years earlier, that Heliodorus loved p.is family too · : much and that·his attachment to them refl.ected badly on him as a man. · · ·'The new masculine ideal could separate the real men from the pretenders, the inanly from the unmanly, those deserving of privileges and honors from'those undeserving, as much as the old ideal could. Ortce again, the usefulness of Christian ideology in perpetuating the familiar lines of Roman privilege was much of its appeal. Christian belief worlced to the benefit of the male aristocracy who crafted it; they made sure that it did. There were even warnen of the later Roman aristocracy who supported the new masculine ideal. Indeed, the conversion of the Roman elite to Christianity could never have been accomplished if warnen had not also supported the ideal. Perhaps Roman warnen were not all as enthusiastic about their support as men might have wanted them to be. Maybe they did not consider their Christian husbands as acting in the place ofChrist for them (as Paulinus ofNola urged his readers) or didnot regard their husbands as their masters ( as Augustirre claimed his mother Monica feit). But they did support it, even if their supportwas nothing more than their own reluctant accommodation to a male-dominated society. Warnen listened to the advice of the men who advised them and followed it (Paula and her daughters heeded Jerome's e:xhortations to them about the ascetic life, even resulting in the death of one of them). In the end, the warnen who resisted masculine authority proved as ephemeral as the men who supported sexual equality. They continued to be there, including the warnen who refused to wear veils from Tertullian's to Augustine's day, but not sufficiently strong in numbers to effect their agenda or to redirect the course of Christian ideology. Wehave so few examples ofwarnen writers from late antiquity that we can do no more than speculate about the response of warnen of the Ro. man aristocracy to Christian ideology; virtually all oftheir responses were mediated through male writers. Proba, a woman of the senatorial aristocracy who lived probably in the middle of the fourth century, did leave a single lengthy poem. The poem is a cento> the name given to a poem comprised entirely of lines and portians of lines from a favored poet rearranged for a new theme. Proba's worlc was a compendium ofBiblical stories, especially the Creation of the world and episodes from the life of Jesus, composed of phrases and lines from Virgil. But if Perpetua's account of the dreams before her martyrdom (quoted in chapter 7) had involved some rebellion against the strictures of men's superiority over warnen, Proba's writing shows nothing similar. In her retelling of the sin

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ofEve, for example, Proba used the following verses: ''And you,O most remorseless wife, not unaware of wrong, ·of all these evils the origin and cause, you shall atone for your egregious sins?'25 Proba might have been l.imlted by the availability of suitable verses to use in her corhpositiori, brit there is nothing here to indicate that she thought other than along the most conservative of gendered lines. Among the episodes Proba inchided from the life ofJesus was the episode in which a rich, young man asked Jesus what he must do to be saved. She put this response into the mouth ofJesus: "Learn, boy, to despise wealth and malce yourself worthy even of God, and you will be able to understand what manliness [virtus] is?'26 It is a neat recapitulation of the new masculine ideal, but it is nothing more. The only really irrteresring comment in Proba's poem comes at its beginning. Proba recorded how she turned away from remembering the typical accomplishments of men afterher conversion. She wrote: I have catalogued the different slayings, monarchs' cruel wars, and battle lines made up of hostile relatives. I sang of famous shields, their honor eheaperred by a parent's blood, and trophies captured from no enemy; bloodstained parades of triumph "fame" had won, and cities orphaned of so many citizens, so many times. I do confess. It is enough to bring these errors backto mind.27

We have seen this motif before. Here Proba was insisting that Christian belief required a certain distance from usual notions of masculine perfection, the heroism of the ancients, as many Christian writers insisted: But she seemed not to see any requirement other than to establish a new notion of masculine perfection. If she had renounced the accomplishments of men, she gave little sign of it in the single poem of hers that survives. (In her defense, it should be noted that if she had written a more controversial poem, it might not have been preserved.) What I am arguing here and have been throughout the book appears to run counter to the dominant historiography on gender and Christianity in late antiquity. The last few decades have seen a number of scholars who have argued that women enthusiastically converted to Christianity because of the advantages it offered them. In pioneering articles, Jo Ann McNamara and Rosemary Radford Ruether described asceticism as a liberating lifestyle for Roman women in the fourth and fifth centuries, freeing them from the constraints of family life, valuing them as individuals, and even promoting a sexual equality between men and women, and therefore a lifestyle willingly embraced. 28 Scholars after them expanded their thesis and argued that Christian ideology itselfwas particularly at-

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tractive to women. Flore Dupriez, for example, suggested that "Christianity honored the so-called 'feminine' virtues: gentleness, patience, love of others, forgiveness freely given, submission to divine will. We know : : höw manywomen responded with enthusiasm to this ideal, less novel for . ·them than for men."~9 In another early article, Arme Yarbrough argued that women· of the Roman aristocracy were, on the whole, earlier converts.to Christianity because ofthe attractiveness ofits teaching, and that aristocratic men tended tobe converted only by already converted female relatives, mothers or wives or sisters. 30 Arme Ewing Hiclcey argued in a monograph that the conversion of aristocratic Roman women to Christian belief and their adoption of the ascetic life permitted them to better reconcile the realities of their own lives with ancient cultural ideals of women, ideals lilce that ofpudicitia reshaped as Christian virginity or that of the univira expressed as Christian widowhood. 31 On the whole, this early schalarship offered the period of conversion as a positive experience for women, and some scholars continue to hold this position. Joyce Salisbury, for example, lists the purported benefits for women in Christian conversion as chapters in a recent monograph that compares the teachings of the Church fathers and the legends of women saints: freedom from social expectations, freedom of thought, freedom of movement, freedom from gender identification. 32 Other scholars have significantly revised the picture painted by the earliest scholars on women in late antiquity. Perhaps the first scholar to move in this direction was Jo Arm McNamara, who in a monograph described a gradual movement away from a religious ideology that was liberating for women to a repressive and male-dominated one. 33 And Averil Cameron has criticized the whole search "for a kind of early Christian feminism" amid "texts that are in the main highly misogynistic." She has suggested that women's advancement in late ancient Christianity happened only at the cost of their feminine identities: For Christian women themselves an acute contradiction presented itself between the opportunities that were genuinely present for them now and which they had not enjoyed before and the paradox that in order to realise them they must deny their sex-a situation reflected in the literature, especially in written saints' Jives, by the recurring theme of the female ascetic who is said to be "like a man:' or who is even represented as dressing in men's clothes. 34

Indeed, the scholarly literatme on the female transvestite saints ( to give one example) has gradually moved from praise of a radical form of women's liberation from social restraints to a much more careful descrip-

294

CONCLUSION

tion of its symbolic effects, effects that are ambiguous at best. Elizabeth Castelli says on the subject that"the possibility thatwomeil can 'become male' ... reveals the tenuousness and malleability of the naturalized tategories of male and female;' although she notes that "the ·transcende.n~e of gendered differences" happens "only by reinscribing the traditional gender hierarchies of male over female, masculine over feminjne.'' 35 · Other reappraisals have talcen place. Kate Cooper has reexamined the texts that indicate women's influence in conversion to Christianity in light of the familiar literary trope of imputing women's influence on men's actions rather than as historical fact. 36 Using epigraphical evidence, moreover, Micheie Salzman has found no reason to continue to believe that women of the Roman aristocracy converted to Christianity sooner than their male counterparts. 37 And in a superb monograph, Kate Cooper demonstrates that the legends of women saints are more about the relationship of the individual to the social order than about personal fulfillment. Cooper also argues that the ascetic life provided a means for women's social advancement unrelated to their identities as women: ascetic practice became a wayfor non-aristocratic women to claim a kind of religious authority that was enhanced by its senatorial associations. Further, since not all aristocratic women could claim the dignity of ascetic virtue, deftly publicized ascetic achievements may have allowed some individuals to trump their social betters .... The performance of ascetic rigors served as an economical and reasonably decorous way to announce one's high moral standing.... Here dass, not gender, was the obstacle. 38

These recent studies are useful reminders that women's conversion to Christianity happened always as a complicated negotiation between the desire for individual accomplishments and the social realities that aided or hindered those accomplishments. For women, conversion to Christianity was always a glass both half-full and half-empty. But the issue at stalce for these scholars has always remairred the advantages or disadvantages that conversion to Christianity offered to women. In this book, I was interested in seeing what conversion to Christianity made available or denied to men. The researchdorre by these historians of women in late antiquity has helped me to ground my research firmly in the dynamic of gender relations. If male leaders of the Christian churches denied women the right to fill ecclesiastical offices, for example, then they must have understood something in the role of the cleric as being inalterably masculine. Lilcewise, ifmale writers considered women who renounced sex as becoming like men and transcending the boundaries of sexual difference, then crossing sexual boundaries must

CONCLUSION

295

have been considered possible, and if sexual renunciation was the means to accomplish it, it must also have been seen as masculine in nature. There is, in effect, no contradiction between what scholars have been : :saying about women ~d Christianity in late antiquity and what I have • argu.ed here about men. All of the things that Christian ideology is sup~ posed to have affered to women -the desire for personal fulfillrnent, for rejectdon of the social order, for freedom from familial coristraints and . valuation as individuals-aU of thesethingsalso appealed to men. All of the things that Christian ideology is supposed to have denied to women- by affirming their traditional gender roles and disallowing them to exhibit any gender ambiguity other than in a symbolic manner, by obliging them to obey unquestioningly the ecclesiastical authorities and the Biblical tradition interpreted by those authorities, by rewriting dass distinctions as distinctions of piety-all of these things were also deniedtomen. The conversion of the Roman aristocracy to Christianity provided new benefits to both men and women and created new restrictions for both men and women. Christian ideology both preserved significant features of the traditional social roles attributed to men and warnen while it borrowed new aspects of the social role traditionally considered to belang to the other sex. Some Christian women rnight have been encouraged to consider themselves as manly if they lived up to the ideal of their faith and even to represent their manliness tangibly in their wearing of men's clothes or in remaining unveiled. In a similar way, some Christian men rnight have been encouraged to consider themselves as unmanly, to see themselves as "eunuchs for the salce of the lcingdom ofHeaven" or as "brides of Christ:' and perhaps also wished to represent that unmanliness in their own bodies, by castrating themselves or wearing their hair long. The discourses created about men, lilce the discourses created about women, "do not simply rearticulate the hegemonic gendered order, nor do they simply deconstruct it; rather, they stretch its boundaries and, if only for a moment, call it into question;'' 39 One significant difference remains. While the male leaders of the Christian churches interacted with women from a psychological distance because they were men, the same leaders interacted with men from a proximity as men. They encouraged the types of formulations that supported the traditional superiority of men in Roman society at least in part because it left them in positions of privilege. They perpetuated the distinction between manly and unmanly men, between those deserving of the rights of men and those undeserving of them, as a means of affirming their own superiority over other men. They gave status to some men

296

CONCLUSION

while denying it to others. There was n~ real equivalent for women. The male leaders of the churches exduded all women from inale privilege,. even the women considered to share manly virtues. Women may have felt ·· empowered by their conversions and may have competed amöng .them- . selves for positions of honor or authority, but the male leaders of the churches resisted the power of all women at every step because they were · women, and because by denying privileges to women, the male leaders of the churches were affirming their own privileges as men. One might consider what I have been saying as a gloomy picture of Christianity in late antiquity. The new masculine ideal as crafted by the leaders of the Christian churches eradicated what was most radical about a religious movement in their reshaping of Christian ideology. In addition, the ideology that they crafted encouraged what was most to the detriment of their own society: men's fl.ight from the military and from public office, from marriage and the perpetuation offamilies and family life. They expressly distanced themselves from the classical heritage of Roman antiquity, even while they borrowed frequently from it, and thus helped to create a real divide between the classical age and their own time. One might argue that Christian ideology hastened the collapse of the whole Roman social order. It is certainly possible. But one must also consider that t4ese men crafted an ideology ofmasculinity successful enough to survive the myriad social and political changes of late antiquity. Indeed, because it was tied to Christian ideology, the masculine ideal created in late antiquity continued to find a place among the descepdant populations of the Roman Empire as long as they remained Christians when the empire itself had become only a memory. Medieval Christian writers continued to depict themselves in the images invented formen in late antiquity, living lives of spiritual warfare, ofbridal devotion to Christ, of sexual and familial renunciation, and of spiritual castration. Thein:fluence of the masculine ideal was a two-way street. In equal measure, the themes in men's lives that the social changes oflate antiquity had first dictated continued to shape and direct the development of Christian doctrine long after the collapse of the Roman social order. Christian leaders continued for centuries to stress a militaristic image of themselves, the absoluteness and masculinity of their authority, and the centrality of the ascetic regime to religious piety. Christian masculinity proved a winning idea in late antiquity. Basedon the paradox of a reversal of expectations, Christian intellectuals managed to preserve the manliness of men's identity. They rescued the Roman sense of virtus by providing a space in which Roman men might view thernselves no longer as urunanly failures, even in the context of the de-

CONCLUSION

297

clining militarism of the empire, their collapsing political and familial authority, and the restrictions on their sexuallives. Christianity's innovations in the arena of masculinity can therefore be best und~rstood when ·set along~ide die public and private areas of social change for men of the • later Roman Empire. Throtigh such concepts as a spiritual militarism, whkh interiörized the martial identity of the Roman male, a collegial ec~ clesia8tical authority whlch created a counterbalance to the power of the . autocratic state, and the renunciation of family life and sexuality through an extension of the familiar Roman ideal of self-control, Roman males could regain their sense of status and reject an effeminate image of themselves. Ultimately, this series of paradoxes, contradictions, and condernnations-in the context of the crisis of masculinity in the later Roman Empire-enabled Christianity to attract adherents, not only in late antiquity but well beyond that period. The very historical success of Christianity may be in no small part the result of such an effective reformulation of the arenas of masculinity. Finally, something should be said about the perpetuation of the Christian masculine ideal in modern times. lt seems clear to me that much of the same ideological work is being done today in official Christian circles, among the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church and other episcopal churches, and among the leaders of the fundamentalist Christian churches. Christian ideology is still used to support a social hierarchy of men over warnen and the exclusion of warnen from full participation in ritual and equality in public life. The ideal for Christian men still seems to revolve on many of the same issues as it did for their forefathers in late antiquity. When today's Christian leaders preach about cultural w;ars, they are drawing from a rhetoric that was fi.rst developed in the period of persecution. The fact that homosexuality is such a source of hatred for the leaders of the Christian churches, especially the ordination of gay clergy, isanother aspect of a longstanding psychologicalneed to defend the manliness ofChristian men, and their fanaticallanguage shares much with the denunciations of the qJdeshim andgalli, including reference to the same Biblical texts. In discussions of Christian marriage, moreover, the issues at stake remain much the same. The determination of the Roman Catholic hierarchy to preserve clerical celibacy draws its strength from a continued belief, articulated in the late fourth century, that sexual renunciation is more perfect than sexual activity. And while the fundamentalist and Protestant churches have repudiated the early Christian emphasis on sexual renunciation, the claim that Biblical authority clearly supports the traditional nuclear family ( against the grain oflate ancient readings of the Bible) requires the same sort of blatant manipulation of Christian texts

298

CONCLUSION

that the Church fathers proved so adept at doing. 40 The individuals willing toresist the masculine ideology promoted by the leaders of the Christi~ churches seem as few in nurober as their COunterparts in late antiq.- ·. : . ·. :. uity, and will perhaps meet the same ultimate fate. Just as the men and warnen oflate antiquitywere obliged to respond to social factors beyond their control, however, there are sot:ial changes · happening in the modern world, including greater sexual equality and greater sexual freedoms, that all must talce into account. The effect of these new social forces on Christian ideology in the future remains to be seen. Christian intellectuals might meet the challenge and transform the Christian message to respond to the concerns of an audience of contemporary believers as their spiritual ancestors did in late antiquity. Or enough of us rnight decide that Christi an ideology is incapable of dealing with our "epistemological crisis;' and just as men and warnen of late antiquity rejected the "sterility and incoherence" oftraditional Roman paganism, we will reject the traditions of Christian ideology on gender and sexuality for a more satis:tying system of values and beliefs.

A Note about the Notes

I have used editions readily available to scholars and thus have not feit it necessary to include the original texts in the endnotes except when editions are di:fficult to obtain or when the original text is critical to my argument. I have also used a combination of my own and existing translations throughout the boolc. References to editions and translations are given in the endnotes where a text is quoted for the first time, but not in subsequent references. Interested readers may look to the Primary Sources section of the Bibliography for information about editions and translations, for example, to see whether I have used an existing translation. Where no translation is listed in the bibliography, the translations are my own. Even where a translation exists and where I normally rely on it, however, I have sometirnes altered the translation or substituted my own. I identifY such alterations and substitutions in the appropriate endnotes, except in the case of minor changes in punctuation and spelling.

299

Abbreviations Used

AASS

ACW ANCL CCSL CSEL FC

HA LCL NPNF PL PG PS SC

Acta Sanetarum Ancient Christian Writers Ante-Nicene Christian Library Corpus Christianorum~ Series Latina fJorpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Fathers ofthe Church: A New Translation HistoriaAugusta Loeb Classical Library Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Patrologia Latina Patrologia Graeca Patristic Studies Sources chraiennes

Abbreviations of ancient authors are from the Oxford Latin Dictionary.

300

Notes

INTRODUCTION

l. Monique Wittig, "The Point ofView: Universal or Particular?" Feministissues 3 (1983), 64. 2. On this point, see Sherry Ortner, "Is Fernale to Male as Nature Is to Culture?" Feminist Studies 1 (1972): 5-31; Luce Irigaray, ''AnyTheory ofthe 'Subject' Has Always Been Appropriated by the 'Masculine:" in Speculum ofthe Other Woman, trans. G. Gill (Ithaca: Comell UniversityPress, 1985); NancyJay, "Gender and Dichotomy;' Feminist Studies 7 (1981): 38-56; Elizabeth Spelman, "Woman as Body: Ancient and Contemporary Views;' Feminist Studies 8 (1982): 109-31; Sheila Ruth, "Bodies and Souls/Sex, Sin and the Senses in Patriarchy: A Study in Applied Dualism;' Hypatia 2 (1987): 149-63; Eva Feder Kittay, "Women as Metaphor;' Hypatia 3 ( 1988): 63-86; Teresa de Lauretis, "Eccentric Subjects: Feminist Theory and Historical Consciousness," Feminist Studies 16 (1990): 115-50; Monique Wittig, "Homo Sum;' Feminist Issues 10 (1990): 3-ll; Phyllis Rooney, "Gendered Reason: Sex Metaphor and Conceptions of Reason;' Hypatia 6 (1991): 77-103. 3. Sandra Harding, "The Instability of the Analytical Categories ofFeminist Theory;' Signs ll (1986): 645-64; JudithButler, "Bodies ThatMatter," inBodies ThatMatter: On the Discum"ve Limits ofSex (New York: Routledge, 1993 ). On the Mrican American experience, for example, see Leonard Harris, "Honor: Emasculation and Empowerment;' in Rahinking Masculinity: Philosophical Explorations in Light of Feminism, ed. L. May and R. Strikwerda (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1992); and Paula Rothenberg, "The Construction, Deconstruction, andReconstruction ofDifference;' Hypatia 5 (1990): 42-57. 4. JudithButler,BodiesThatMatt&1) 48. 5. Patrick Hopkins, "Gender 'freachery: Homophobia, Masculinity, and Threatened Identities;' in Rahinking Masculinity: Philosophical Explorations in Light ofFeminism, ed. L. May and R. Strikwerda (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and 301

302

NOTES TO PAGES 4-II

Littlefield, 1992), 123. See also Joseph Pleck, The Myth ofMnsculinity, rev. ed. · (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984). 6. JeffHearn and David Collinson ("Theorizing Uniries andr:iifferences berween Men and berween Masculinities:' in Theorizing Masculinities, .ed. H. Brod and M. Kaufman [Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1994]) list a number ofways in which modern men might be seen as differing from the masculine ideal. 7. R. W Connell, Gender and P(JWer: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics (Ox~ ford: Basil BlaCkwell, 1987); see also Arthur Brittan,Masculinity and P(JWer (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989). The historical antagonisms berween different groups of men holding differing ideals of masculinity can be seen, for example, (for ancient Greece) in John Wmlder, The Constraints ofDesire: TheAnthropology ofSex and Gender inAncient Greece (New York: Routledge, 1990), esp. chap. 2; or (for rwentieth-century United States) in Michael Kimmel, "The Cult of Masculinity: American Social Character and the Legacy of the Cowboy;' inBeyondPatriarchy: Essays by Men on Pleasure, P(JWer, and Change, ed. M. Kimmel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); or Kristin Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: H(JW Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American r:tndPhilippine-American lifars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). 8. See Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion ofidentity (New Yorlc: Routledge, 1990); or Judith Lorber, Paradoxes of Gender (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). Both summarize and critique a broad literature on the subject of gender and sex. 9. I have not attempted to question or veri:L)r independently the dating ofpersons or worJ.cs, but have generally accepted those given in biographies or editions, since only in a few places is a precise date important to this study. 10. See the excellent study by Jill Harries, Law and Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 11. On the later Roman nobility, see T. D. Barnes, "Who Were the Nobility ofthe Roman Empire?" Phoenix 28 (1974): 444-49; J. A. Schlumberger, "Potentes and Potentia in the Social Thought ofLate Antiquit:f,' in Tradition andInnovation in LateAntiquity, ed. Frank Clover and R. Stephen Humphreys (Madison: University ofWisconsin, 1989). 12. Cf. Michael Satlow, '"Try toBe a Man': The Rabbinie Consttuction of Masculinity," HarvardTheologicalReview 89 (1996): 19-40. 13. This is the conclusion of A. N. Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), chaps. 19 and 20. 14. See S. N. Eisenstadt, "Modes of Sttuctural Differentiation, Elite Sttucture, and Cultural Visions:' in Differentiation Theory and Social Change: Comparative and Historical Perspectives, ed. J. Alexander and P. Colomy (New Yorlc: Columbia University Press, 1990). His ideas about what he calls "institutional entrepreneurs" are summarized by Paul Colomy (477-78): "small groups of individuals who crystallize broad symbolic orientations, articulate specific andinnovative goals, establish new normative and organizational frameworks for the pursuit of those goals, and mobilize the resources necessary to achieve them?' 15. Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and SexualRenunciation in Early Christianity (New Yorlc: Columbia University Press, 1988), 362.

NOTES TO PAGES II-I4

303

160 Brown,Body and Societ)~ 347; seealso his mention that Christian virginity led to gender ambiguityo ( 146) as weil as his discussion of the irnage of the brideofChrist (274)0 0 17 0 ·Peter Br9WI1, Pmver and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian .Empire (Madison: University ofWisconsin Press, ~992), especially chapo 20 Cf. ·also his The1VJaking ofLate Antiquity (Cambric\ge: Harvard University Press; 1978); and "Eastern and Western Christendom in Late Antiquity; A Partingof the Ways;' in Society and the Holy in LateAntiquity (Berkeley: University of Cali. fornia Press, 1982 )o · 180 Jo Ann. McN amara,A New Song: Celibate Women in the First Three Christian Centuries (New York: Rarrington Park Press, 1985). 19 0 Elizabeth A. Clark, "Ideology, History, and the Construction of'Woman' in Late Ancient Christianity;' Journal ofEarly Christian Studies 2 (1994), 157, 160. 200 Clark, "Ideology, History;' 1780 21. Elizabeth A. Clark, ''Antifamilial Tendencies in Ancient Christianity;' Journal of the History of Sexuality 5 (1995), 380; see also "Sex, Shame, and R.hetoric: En-gendering Early Christian Ethics,"Journal oftheAmericanAcademy ofReligion 59 (1991): 221-45. 22. Rodney Stark, "How New Religions Succeed: A Theoretical Model;' in TbcFuture ofNew ReligiousMovements, ed. DavidBromley and Phillip Harnmond (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University, 1987), 13, 15. See also his application ofhis ideas to early Christianity in The Bise ofChristianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1996)0 230 Gerd Theissen., SocialReality and the Early Christians: Theology, Ethics, and the World of the New Testament, transo Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 239, 244, 250-51. 24o Elaine Pagels,Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York: Vmtage, 1988), 99. 25 0 Pagels,Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, xxviio See also now Elizabeth A. Clark, Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). 26. William Connolly, TheAugustinianimperative: A Rcjlection on the Politics ofMorality (London: Sage, 1993)o 27. Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric ofEmpire: The Development ofChristian Discourse (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991 )o 280 Maud Gleason, Making Men: Svphists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). 290 Catharine Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Garnbridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1993). 30o Craig Williams, Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies ofM.asculinity in ClassicalAntiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)0 31. Marjorie Garber, Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (NewYork; Roudedge, 1992), 16. 320 See Jo Davis, "Social Creativity;' in When History Accelerates: Essays in Rapid Social Change, Complexity, and Creativity, ed. C. M. Hann (London: Athlone, 1994)o In Bodies ThatMatter, Buder writes that "performativity must be °

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NOTES TO PAGES I9-22

understood not as a singular or deliberate act, but, rather, as the reiterative and cirational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names;' (2) and that "If gender is constructed, then who is doing the constructing?" (6 ). Cf. also LOis McNay's critique (in Foucault and Feminism: Power; Gender aml the Self [Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992]) ofthe "docile body'' impliedin early writings of Michel Foucault and her praise of i:he "autonomy of the self" described in his later writings. See also the critique of social construction by Nancy Partner, ''No Sex, No Gender;' Speculum 68 (1993): 419-43. CHAPTER ONE

l. Amrn. Mare. (ed. W Seyfarth [Leipzig: Teubner, 1978]; trans. W Rarnilton [London: Penguin, 1986]) 25.4.1. 2. See the exhaustive study by John Matthews, The &man Empire ofAmmianus (London: Duckworth, 1989), esp. chap. 2; seealso T. D. Barnes,Ammianus Marcellinus and the Rcpresentation oJHistorical Rcality (Ithaca: Cornell U niversity Press, 1998), who has a less generous opinion of Amrnianus. 3. On the philosophical school of Stoicism, see Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition JromAntiquity to the Early Middle Ages, vol. 1: Stoicism in Classical Latin Literature (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990). On Neo-Platonism, see Stephen Gersh, Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism: The Latin Tradition (Notre Dame, Ind.: University ofNotre Dame Press, 1986) for a study offour influential Roman writers: Cicero, Seneca, Gellius, andApuleius. 4. See Werner Eisenhut, Virtus RDmana: Ihre Stellung im römischen Wertsystem (Munich: W:llhelm Fink, 1973); somewhat revised by Juhani Sarsila, SomeAspects of the Concept of Virtus in &man Literature until Livy (Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 1982). The ancient Greeknotion ofandreia carries similar denotations. 5. The single sex model was proposed by Thomas Laqueur, "Destiny is Anatomy;' inMaking Sex: Body and GenderJrom the Greeks to Freud (Caml:iridge: Harvard University Press, 1990). See the more sophisticated analysis by Prudence Allen, The Concept oJWoman: The Aristotelian Rcrolution, 750 B.C.-A.D. 1250 (Montreal: Eden, 1985); or Aline Rousselle, Porneia: On Desire and the Body inAntiquity (Oxford: Blaclcwell, 1988), esp. chaps. 1 and 2. 6. Lactant. De opificio Dei (ed. M. Perrin, SC 213; trans. M. McDonald, FC 54) 12.16-7: "Vtr itaquenuncupatus est, quodmaior in eo uis est quamin femina, et hinc uirtus nomen accepit; item mulier ... a mollitie, inmutata et detracta littera, uelut mollier?' 7. Lactant.DeopificioDei 12.14. 8. Lactant. De opificio Dei 12.12-3. I have changed "the usual sexual classification" to "the reasoning behind sexual difference?' See also Jan Blayney, "Theories ofConception in the Ancient Roman World;' in The Family inAncient R.ome: New Perspectives, ed. B. Rawson (London: Croom Helm, 1986 ). 9. See Carlin Barton, The Sorruws oftheAncient RDmans: The Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 131-32, who concludes (n. 127): "it appears that the slaughter ofthe hermaphrodite ceases abruptly in thefirstcenturyB.C.E." SeealsoPliny .HN3l.12 and27.37; Diod. Sie. 32.12. For a comparison with Greelc notions of hermaphroditism, see Hannelore Gauster,

NOTES TO PAGES 23-27

305

"Zu Hermaphroditen-Darstellungen in der Antike;' in Frauen Weiblichkeit Schrift, ed. R. Berger et al.,.Literatur im historischen Prozeß, 14 (Berlin: Argu. ment-Sonderband, 1985). · · . 10.'· August.De civ, D. (ed. CCSL 47-48; trans. H. Bettensou [London: Pen.·.gW.n, 1972]) 16.8. I have changed the translator's "superior" to "better.'' U. Augus.t. De civ.JJ. 16.8. 12.. Dig. (ed. T. Mommsen and P. I
306

NOTES TO PAGES 27-30

27. Aur. Vic. Caes. (ed. F. Pichlmayr [Leipzig: Teubner, 1993]) 16.2. 28. Sid. Apoll. (ed. and trans .. W. Anderson, LCL) PanfiJyricus dictusAthemio. Augusto 202-4. · 29. Fora modern biography, see Anthony Birley, Marius Aurelhts: A Biography (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987). On the militaryfearui:es ofhis reign, see Graham Webster, The Roman ImperialArmy ofthe First and Second CenturiesA.D. (London: A. and C. Black, 1985), 98-101. For literary and the~ matic antecedents and historical context of his writings, see R. B. Rutherford, TbcMeditations ofMarcusAurelius: A Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); or James Francis, Subversive Virtue: Asceticism andAuthority in the Second-Century Pagan World (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), esp. chaps. 1 and 2. 30. Marcus AureliusAd se ipsum (ed. J,l)alphen [Leipzig: Teubner, 1979]; trans. M. Staniforth [London: Penguin, 1964]) 3.5. 31. Marcus AureliusAd se ipsum 6.13. 32. Marcus AureliusAdse ipsum 11.18. 33. Amm. Mare. 27.7.4. 34. Onapatheia, see Colish, Stoic Tradition, 42-50. 35. Aur. Vic. Caes. 17.1. For biographical details: Michael Grant, TheAntonines: TheRomanEmpirein Transition (NewYork: Routledge, 1990). 36. H. A. Comm. (ed. and trans. D. Magie, LCL; trans. here A. Birley [London: Penguin, 1976]) 1.7. 37. H. A. Comm. 5.4 (trans. Birley). 38. H. A. Comm: 1.7 (mytrans.): "orequoque pollutus etconstupratusfuit?' 39. Cass. Dio (ed. and trans. E. Cary,LCL) 72.36.4. 40. H. A.M.Ant. 19.7; cf.Aur. Vic. Caes.16.2. 41. H. A. M. Ant. 19:2-5. It cannot be known whether the insinuations about Faustina's character should be believed. Marcus Aurelius hirnself (Ad se ipsum 1.17) called her "so submissive, so loving, and so artless?' Cf. F. J. Dölger ("Gladiatorenblut und Martyrerblut:' Vorträge der Bibliothek li!li:trbu12f, 1923-24 [1926]: 196-214), who argues unconvincingly (210) that the Latin sublavaret (she douched) is a manuscript error for sublevaret (she lifted up [to drink]) and that Faustina possibly suffered from epilepsy, for which one of the recommended eures was to drink the blood of freshly killed gladiators. 42. For studies on the legal use of infamia: A. H. J. Greenidge, Infamia: Its Place in Roman Public and Private Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894); and Uon Pornmeray, Etudes sur l'infamie en droit romain (Paris: Du Recueil Sirey, 1937). For infamia attributable for theft: Paulus Sent. (ed. L. Arndts, Iulii Paulli Rcceptarum Sententiarum ad ftlium libri quinque, in E. Böcking, ed., Corpus Iuris RomaniAnteiustiniani, vols. 1-2 [Bonn: Adolph Marle, 1841]) 2.31.15. Cf. Df!f. 3.2.6. See also Df!T. 3.2.11 (for illicit marriage); Df!f. 3.2.1-2 (for military discharge). 43. This is the focus of the discussion of infamia by Amy Richlin (''Not before Homosexuality: The Materiality of the Cinaedus and the Roman Law against Love between Men:' Journal of the History of Sexuality 3 [1993]: 523-73), although she is only concerned with the republican and early imperial periods. See

NOTES TO PAGES 30-32

307

also Gardner, "Behaviour: Disgrace and Disrepute:' inBeing a&man Citizen. Although I admire Gardner's attempt to ask why certain illicit acts and professions · entailed. infamia while others did not, I reject her conclusion ( 154) that infamia .was a legal concept of rights restriction unrelated to social and literary disap·. proval. 44. On irifamoils menforbidden to act as assessors, see Dig. 1.22.2; on infa· mous men forbidden to act as witnesses in trials, Dig. 22.5.3; cf. Mosaicarum et &manarum legum ·collatio (ed. and trans. M. Hyamson [London: Oxford Uni. versity Press, 1913]) 9.3.1; on infamous men forbidden tobring accusations againstothers,Dig. 48.4.7. 45. Both women and infamous men forbidden to malce application to the magistrate: Dig. 3.1.1. On women and infamous men being forbidden to witness a will: Inst. Iust. (ed. P. Birks and G. McLeod [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987]) 2 .l 0 .6. On infamous men forbidden to plead in court: Paulus Sent. 1.2.1; women forbidden to plead in court except in matters related to themselves: Paulus Sent. 1.2.2. This last privilege is also specifically denied to the authors of defamatorywritings: Dig. 22.5.21. 46. Fora comparison of the rights ofwomen and infames) see Gardner, Being a&man CitizenJ 87. Although she does not draw any conclusions from this comparison ofsocial status, she does describe in detail ( lll-26) the consequences for men of such restrictions in daily life, which are remarkably like those of women. 47. Examples from late antiquity include: Apul. Met. (ed. R. Helm [Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1970]) 7.6; the description ofZenobia in H. A. Tyrannis triginta 15.8. 48. Late ancient examples include: H. A. Firmus Saturninus Proculus et Bonosus 12.3; Claud. Fescennina (ed. as CarminaJ J. Hall [Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1985]) ll. 31-39. 49. Important works on Roman women in the classical era include: Judith Hallett, Fathers and Daughters in &man Society: Women and the Elite Family (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984); Jane Gardner, Women in&man Law and Society (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986); Gunbild Viden, Women in &man Literature: Attitudes ofAuthors under the Early Empire (Goteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1993). For an overview of Roman women in late antiquity: Gillian Clarlc, Women in Late Antiquity: Pagan and Christian Life-Styles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). 50. Cass. Dio 68.27.3. 51. Oribasius Collectio medica (ed. U. Bussemalcer and C. Daremberg, 6 vols. [Paris: IJimprimerie Nationale, 1851-76]) 22.2.14: "E1tt oE -trov EK'tJl.TJ9ev-crov ,;ouc; ÖpXEt<; ävE'\J -to'Ü waücrm tijc; emoto'llJ.Lilioc; oiloEv Jl.EV 7tUQ'XE\ -co 0'1tEpJ.LanKov ayyE'iov, a1tOAA'IJ'ta\ öE 'tOOV ~c{lrov oiJ "CO 0'1tEpJ.LaivE\V J.l.OVOV' epJ.l,a\OV yap ftV 'tO'Ü'tO 'YE 'tOt<; a<jlpootcri.rov Ct1tEXEcr9a\ ßo'\JAOJ.l.EVOt<;' a/..A.a Kat fl avopEia "CE Kat, roc; äv Et1tot nc;, appEVO'tTJ<;." 52. Amm. Mare. 14.6.17. 53. See Walter Stevenson, "The Rise of Eunuchs in Greco-Roman Antiquity:' Journal ofthe History of Sexuality 5 (1995): 495-511; see also Kathryn Ringrose, "Living in the Shadows: Eunuchsand Gender in Byzantium," in Third

308

NOTES TO PAGES 32-35

Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History, ed. G. Herdt

(New York: Zone, 1994) on this subject for the eastern Mediterraneari andin" ·. later period. · 54. PaulusSent. 5.23.13. 55. Dig. 48.8.3. 56. Dig. 48.8.4. 57. See, e.g., Nw. Iust. (ed. with Cod. Iust.) 9.25.1-2 [142]; or Nw. Leonis .· (ed. with Cod. Iust.) 60. 58. Cod. Iust. 4.42.1; cf. 4.42.2. 59. See Judith Evans Grubbs, Law and Family in Late Antiquity: The Emperor Constantine's Marriage Lrgislation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995 ), 111-12, on the enforcement of the Augustan laws on marriage in the early fourth century. On the age of majority: Gai. Inst. 1.196. On .the right of testation: Paulus Sent. 3.4A.2. Note that this ruling confl.ieted with that ofGaius regarding the age of majority for eunuchs. On the right of testatory bequests to posthumaus heirs: Dig. 28 .2.6. On the right to adopt children: Gai. Inst. 1.103; cf. thelater N w. Leonis 26-7; Inst. Iust. 1.11.9-10. On the right to act as legal guardians to warnen andminors: Dig. 27.1.15. On the requirementto marry: Dig. 28.2.6; cf. thelater Nw. Leonis98. For more on the legal position of eunuchs, see Gaetano Sciascia, "Eunucos, castratos e 'spadones' no direito romano;' in Varieta giuridiche. Scritti brasiliani di diritto romano e moderno (Milan: Dott. A. Giuffre, 1956). 60. Dig. 50.16.128. 61. Fora later source, see Paulus Aegineta, Compendium medici (ed. I. Reiberg [Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1921]) 6.65. See also Rousselle, Porneia, 122. 62. These disfigurements are addressed by Jacqueline Long, Claudian's In Eutropium; or, How, 'When, and 'Why to Stander aEunuch (Chapel Hili: University ofNorth Carolina Press), 108-9, with references to Ralph I. Dorfman and ReginaldA. Shipley,Andrqgens: Biochemistry, Physiology, and Clinical Signi.ficance (New York: Wliey, 1956) and Johan Bremer, Asexualization: A Follow-Up Study of244 Cases (New York: Macmillan, 1959). Twentieth-century medical examples of men castrated (although only by having their testicles removed) show that only a minority continue to feel sexual desire; studies of men who have had vaseetamies (not unlike the tying up of the seroturn to sever the vas deferens) da not show any associated decline in sexual desire. The men in all of these modern studies were castrated or had vaseetamies after reaching puberty, however, so we cannot draw any firm conclusions from their experiences on the effeets on sexual desire of prepubescent castration (as was most often done to ancient eunuchs ). 63. Cass. Dia 76.14.4-5. 64. Sid. Apoll. Epist. 3.13. He was probably describing the literary figure of the eunuch Gnatho from Terence's classical play, Eunuchus, but also probably based on a caricature of the eunuchs of his own day. 65. On erections: John Cassian Conlationes 12.9; on sexual feelings, 12.10. 66. Tert.Adv.Marcionem (ed. and ttans. E. Evans [Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1972]) 1.29. ' 67. Auson. Epigr. 10611. 13-7. 68. Examples abound. H. A. Gordiani tres 23.7, 24.2, 25.1; Amm. Mare.

NOTES TO PAGES 35-39

309

18.5.4, 14.11.3, 15.2.10, 21.16.16; Claud. In Eutropium 1 11. 420-1a, 2 11. 191-2; Sid. Apoll. Epist. 3.13.10-ll. 69. Amm. Mare. 16.7.4,8. Matthews (Roman Empire ofAmmianus, 25) believes that Euthedus was one of the sources for Arnmianus's history; see also his ::further remarks on eunuchs in tQ.e later empire (274-77). ·70. De physiognomia liber 40. · 71. H. A.Alex. SCP. 23.7. The ambiguous trarislatiön stems from the fact that there is no Latin terin that corresponds to our modern definition of gender, but genus (type) is the term from which our English wardgender is derived. · 72. Julian (ed. afid trans. W. Wright, LCL) Ep. ad senatum populumque Athenarum 272D. 73. Claudius Mamertinus Gratiarum actio suo ]uliano imperatori (ed. D. Lassandro [Turin: Pavaria, 1992]; trans. S. Lieu [Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1986]) 19.4: "sed spadones quoque, quos quasi a consortio humani generis extorres ab utroque sexu aut naturae origo aut dades corporis separavit." 7 4. Claud. In Eutropium 11. 46 7: "alter quos pepulit sexus nec suscipit alter?' CHAPTERTWO

l. Vegetius Epit. rei militaris (ed. C. Lang [Leipzig: Teubner, 1885]; trans. N. Milner [Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1993]) l.l. Dating Vegetius's work is difficult, but Milner (xxv) argues that it can be placed sametime between 383 and450. 2. Pacatus Panegyricus dictus Theodosio imperatori 33.3. . 3. Claud. Gons. Hon. (ed. as parr ofCarmina) 411. 396-400. He followed this advice with several examples. 4. H. A. PescenniusNiger 11.1-4 (trans. Birley). 5. H. A.PescenniusNiger 3.9 (trans. Birley). 6. Hadrian was especially remernbered in this way. See H. A. Hadr. 10.2 and 5; Cass. Dio 69.9.2-4. Cf. also the description of Julian by Amm. Mare. 16.5.1-5. See also J. B. Campbell (TheEmperorandtheRomanArmy, 31 B.C.-A.D. 235 [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984], 32-59), who examines other intersections between emperor and army, among them the sacramentum or oath ofloyalty demanded of each soldier to the emperor ( 19-32 ), the adlocutio or imperial address to the troops (69-88), the granting of the emperor's cognomen to a specific legion (88-93), and the army's acclamatio or shouted recognition of the emperor's rule (120-28). 7. On the Germans and other non-Romans in the later Roman army: Michael Speidel, "The Rise ofEthnic Units in the Imperial Army;' Aufstieg und Niedergangderrömischen Welt2.3 (1975): 202-31;J. H. W. G.Liebeschuetz, "The End of the RomanArmy in the Western Empire;' in War and Society in the Roman World, ed. J. Rieb and G. Shipley (New York: Routledge, 1993); Arthur Ferrill, "The Barbarians in the Army;' in Romanimperial Grand Strategy (Lanham, Md.: University Press ofAmerica, 1991); Pat Southern and Karen Ramsey Dixon, The Late RomanArmy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996), 46-52; J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops: Army, Church, and State in the Age of Arcadius and Chrysostom (Oxford: Glarendon Press, 1990), 48-85. Cf.

310

NOTES TO PAGES 39-+0

Yann Le Bohec (I!armle romaine sous le haut-Empire [Paris: Picard, 1990], 82-107) who charts the ethnic composition ofvarious branches ofthe Roman army from the early first to the late third cenrury C.E. ·. 8. See Duncan Cloud, "Roman Poetry and Anti-Militarism;' in War. and:society in the Roman World, ed. J, Rich and G. Shipley (New York: Rourledge, 1993); and Harry Sidebottom, "Philosophers' Attitudes to Warfare under the Principate;' in War and Society in the Roman World, ed. J. Rich md G. Shipley (NewYorlc: Routledge, 1993). 9. Liebeschuetz writes that ''A process ofdemilitarization aifecting all classes can certainly be observed over the whole imperial period of Roman historf' ("End ofthe RomanArmy;' 274). Cf. idem, Barbarians andBishops, ll-25; and Southern and Dixon (Late RomanArmy, 68), who write that "There is abundant evidence to show that military service had become unpopular amongst the citizens?' . 10. Claudius Mamertinus Gratiarum actio suo Iuliano imperatori 20. 11. For later Roman history, the most complete analysis is still A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284-602: A Social, Economic, andAdministrative Survey, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964). See also Andre Chastagnol, IltfvolutiOn politique, sociale et lconomique du monde romain de Diocltftien n]ulien. La mise en place du rlgime du Bas-Empire (284-363) (Paris: Societe D'Edition D'Enseignement Superieur, 1982); and Matthews, Roman Empire ofAmmianus, for several useful chapters. 12. On both the theme of invasion and the settlement of the foreigners, see Walter Go~art, Barbarians and Romans, A.D. 418-584: The Techniques ofAccommodation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980). 13. On the escaped slaves of Aquitania called bacaudae, see Raymond Van Dam, Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul (Berlceley: University of California Press, 1985), 25-56; or J, F. Drinlcwater, "The Bacaudae of FifthCenrury Gaul;' in Fifth-century Gaul: A Crisis ofidentity? ed. J. F. Drinlcwater and H. Elton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 14. Paulinus of Pe11a Eucharisticus (ed. C. Moussy, SC 209; trans. H. Isbe11 [London: Penguin, 1971]) 11. 311-20. 15. Paulinus ofPellaEucharisticus 11. 328-36. 16. John Matthews (Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court_, A.D. 364-425 [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975], 324) writes: "The autobiographical poem of Paulinus is cast in the form of an extended prayer of thanksgiving; yet it is pervaded by, and does not always try to disguise, a profound pessimism?' See also N eil B. McLynn, "Paulinus the Impenitent: A Study of the Eucharisticus, "Journal oj'Early Christian Studies 3 (1995): 461-86. The view ofRamsay MacMullen (Soldierand CiPilian in the Later RomanEmpire [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963]), that civilians in the later Romanempire were forced to militarize themselves to deal with the threat posed by the political dangers, must be rejected, although he is correct in asserting that soldiers, deprived of sufficient support to wage war, were forced to fend for their own livelihood by settlement, trade, or rapine. See the condusion of Le Bohec, Armee romaine, 211, for the third cenrury; for the later periods, see Ralph Mathisen, RomanAristocrats in Bar-

NOTES TO PAGES +I-43

311

barian Gaul: Stratrgies for Survival in anAge ofTransition (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993). 17. Cass. Dio 62.6.4. The ineident was supposed to have talcen plaee in 61 C.E.; cf. Tae.Ann, 14.35. · ... :. 18. Vegetius Epit. rei militari! 1.28. I have ehanged the rranslator's "manlcind" . for homines to "inen." 19. Dig. 49.16.4.10. 20~ MaeCormack,Art and Ceremony, 34. See her worlc generally on the plaee of the panegyrie in later Roman eulture and polities, but cf. the assessment of the · politieal role of the panegyrieal praise of military virtues by Fran<;ois Heim, Virtus. Ideologie politique et croyances religieuses au IVe siecle (Berne: Peter Lang, 1991 ), 277--'83. Later Roman writers themselves reeognized the exaggerated nature of the genre: Julian. Or. 1.4B-C; H. A. Pescennius Niger 11.5-6. 21. Claudius Mamertinus Gratiarum actio de consulatu suo Iuliano imperatori ll-12. See also Polymnia Athanassiadi,]ulian: An Intellectual Biography (New Yorlc: Routledge, 1992). Athanassiadi ereatively attempts (192-225) to reereate Julian's own pereeption of his military role and argues that he was obsessed with the idea that his life would parallel that of Alexander the Great, an example perhaps of the utmost in a masculine military identity. 22. Claud. Cons.Hon. 3ll.14b-87a,4ll. 518-29. 23. Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus dictus Avito Augusto (456 C.E. ). For a study of this writer and the politieal and cultural environment in which he lived, see Jill Rarries, Sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall ofRome, A.D. 407-485 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). 24. Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus dictusMaiorianoAugusto (458 c.E. ). 25. Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus dictusAnthemioAugusto (468 c.E.). 26. Amm. Mare. 22.12.6. 27. H. A. PescenniusNf!fer3.10 (trans. Birley). 28. For the erueifixion of soldiers, see H. A.Avidius Cassius 4.2; for the amputation ofthe hands ofthieving soldiers, H. A.Avidius Cassius 4.5. This may be more of a suggestion for punishment on the patt of the author of the HistoriaAugusta, rather than a reeord of faet, but this possibility does not affect the implieation. Southern and Dixon deseribe (Late Roman Army, 168-78) the laclc of morale and diseipline in the Roman army, especially after the Roman defeat at the battle of Adrianople in 378. 29. Amm. Mare. 27.8.9-10. 30. Nw. Valentiniani (ed. T. Mommsen and P. Meyer as patt of Cod. Theod. [Berlin: Weidmann, 1905]; trans. C. Pharr [Prineeton: Prineeton University Press, 1952]) 6.1, 6.2. 31. Dig. 49.16.3.1,4,10-ll. 32. Df!l. 49.16.4.13-15. 33. SeeDig. 49.15.19.4,8 for the laws on desertion. 34. Nw. Valentiniani 15.1. SouthernandDixon (LateRomanArmy, 81) suggest that "by the early fifth eentury it was apparently standard legal practiee for offieers to appropriate some of the rations eonsigned to their men?' See Southern andDixon also (62-63) on rations andsupplies and salaries.

312

NOTES TO PAGES 43-46

35. Claud. Gons. Stil. 2, il. 1476-8. 36. Amm. Mare. 14.10.4-5. 37. Lactant. De mortibus persecutorum (ed. and trans. J, Creed [Oxford:. Glarendon Press, 1984]) 47. The battle was thatofErgenus in.313 .. 3 8. Lactant. De mortibus persecutorum 4 7. · · 39. Julian. Or. (trans. Wright) l.37A. The battle was that ofMyrsa in 353. 40. D~. 49.16.6.7. . 41. Vegeti.us Epit. rei militaris 3 .26. 42. Vegeti.usEpit. rei militaris 3.12. 43. Dig. 49.16.6.3. I have removed the translator's parentheses from around "his feilow." 44. D~. 49.15.18. 45. Dig. 49.15.2 (my trans.) "turpiter amittantur?' On the invalidity ofthe wills ofprisoners ofwar, seeD~. 28.3.6; on thepostliminium, seeD~. 49.15.4. 46. On Mithraism, see Manfred Clauss, Mithras. Kult und Mysterien (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1990); Robert Turcan,Mithra et le mithriacisme (Paris: Beiles Lettres, 1993); idem,Les cultes orientau.x dans le monde romain (Paris: Beiles Lettees, 1989). On the spread of the cult in the Roman emprre and the role of the army: M. ]. Vermaseren, "Mithras in der Römerzeit," in Die orientalischen Religionen im Rihnerreich (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981); C. M. Daniels, "The Role of the Roman Army in the Spread and Practice of Mithraism:' inMithraic Studies: Proceedings ofthe First International Congress ofMithraic Studies) vol. 2, ed. J. R. Hinneils (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1975). For epigraphical evidence of the,Mithraic cult in the West, see Manfred Clauss, Cuttores Mithrae. Die Anhängerschaft des Mithras-I(ultes (Stuttgart: Pranz Steiner, 1992). On Commodus's devoti.on to the cult, see H. A. Comm. 9.6. On Julian's devoti.on to the cult, see Athanassiadi,Julian, 52-88; disputed by Turcan,Mithra) 42, and Rowland Smith,]ulian's Gods: Rel~ion and Philosophy in the Thought andAction of]ulian theApostate (New York: Routledge, 1995), 124-71 passim. 47. See John Hinneils, "Refl.ections on the Bull-Slaying Scene:' inMithraic Studies) vol. 2. The taurobolium was also used in the cult ofMagna Mater (see chap. 8). 48. This interpretation is suggested by R. L. Gordon, "Mithraism and Roman Society: Social Factors in the Explanation of Religious Change in the Roman Empire:' Rel~ion 2 (1972): 92-121. 49. On the gladiatorial games, see Keith Hopkins, Death and Renewal (Garnbridge: Garnbridge University Press, 1983), l-30; Michael Poliakoff, Combat Sports in the Ancient World: Competition) Vwlence) and Culture (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987). 50. This point is argued by Patrick. Le Roux, "I:amphitheatre et le soldat sous !'Empire romain:' in C. Domergue et al., eds., Spectacula: Actes du colloque tenu a Toulouse et aLattes les 26) 27" 28 et 29 mai 1987 (Paris: Imago, 1990). 51. Monique Clavel-Uveque, I!Empt're en jeu.x: Espace symbolique etpratique sociale dans le monde romain (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1984). As Clavel-Uveque indicates (162-73), the spatial dominance ofthe amphitheatres in most Roman cities is a symbolic marker oftheir cultural dominance.

NOTES TO PAGES 4-6-4-9

313

For the archeological record, see Augusta Hönle, Römische Amphitheater und Stadien: Gladiatorenkämpfe undCircusspiele (Zurich: Atlantis/Antilce Welt, 1981). 52. H. A.Maximus et Balbinus 8.5-7 (trans. Magie) . . 53. Dig. 3.2.4. 54. H. A. M. Ant. 1 1.4; 27.6. According to one source, the emperor Marcus . Aurelius did.noi: ev~n petmit the contests to use real weapons: Cass. Dio 72.29.3. See also Hörue, ''Amphithe;1ter und Gesellschaft;' inRiimischeAmphitheater. 55: H. A. Gomm. 2.9 (wins. Birley), cf. 11.10; Cass. Dio 73.15-21. 56. Cass. Dio 62.17.3; cf. Suet.Ner. 4. 57. H. A.Alex. Sev. 37.1 (trans. Magie). 58. On the attitude toward Greek culture by classical Latin authors, see A. N. SherWin-White, Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 71-86; J. P. V. D. Balsdon, Romansand Aliens (London: Duckworth, 1979), 30-54. 59. H. A. Tyr. trig. 16.1 (my trans.): "horno ornniurn delicatissirnus et prorsus orientalis et Graecae luxuriae?' 60. H. A. Alex. Sev. 28.7. Severus Alexander was supposed to have tried to distance hirnself from bis predecessor, Elagabalus, who had brought many Bastern customs to Rorne (see the discussion below). 61. Amm. Mare. 17.9.3: "Asianurn appellans, Graeculurn et fallaeem?' 62. Julian.Mis. 339A-B. 63. Claud. Gons. Stil. 3 passim esp. at 11. 160b-l. 64. Pacatus Panegyricus dictus Theodosiani imperatori 33. Cf. Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus ... Maioriano 11. 419-30. 65. H. A. Valeriani duo 1.3-4. 66. On shrewd political maneuvers, see Amm. Mare. 29.4.1; alternative to war, Amm. Mare. 14.6.4; on short-sighted irnperialleadership, Amm. Mare. 14.10.14 (frorn a speech attributed to Constantius TI to his troops, who agree to a treaty between the Romans and the Alamans); on capitulation, Sid. Apoll. Epist. 7.7 to Graecus,passim but esp. at 7.7.4; on lade offinancial support, Sid. Apoll. Panrgyricus ... Avito 11. 306b-31l. 67. H. A. Probus 15.2,5-6 (trans. Magie). 68. See, for example, the Runs as described in Claud. In Rufinum 1 11. 323-31, in Amm. Mare. 31.2.1-12, or in Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus ... Anthemio 11. 241, the last of whom calls them "barbarous even to barbarians." The savagery of the northemers was also a theme of classieal Latin literature: Sherwin-White, RacialPrejudiceJ 1-61. For the same theme in writers ofthe later empire, seealso Thomas Wiedemann, "Between Men and Beasts: Barbadans in Ammianus Marcellinus;' in Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing) ed. I. Moxon et al. (Canibridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 69. Sid. Apoll. Panrgyricus ... Avito 11. 235b-240. I have changed the translator's "thee'' to "you" and "thou didst'' to "you did." 70. Claud. Gons. Stil. passim but esp. at 111. 188-92; 2, 11. 240b-45. Cf. idem, Gons. Hon. 6 11. 242-64. On the barbarian commanders, see John Michael O'Flynn, Generalissimos ofthe Western Roman Empire (Edrnonton: University of Alberta Press, 1983).

314

NOTES TO PAGES 49-51

71. De physiognomia liber 9, 79. For ethnic differences as perceived by Romans of earlier periods, see Balsdon, Romans andAliens, esp. chap. 14. 72. Sid. Apoll. Epist. 1.2.1-3. · 73. Amm. Mare. 31.5.14. 74. What follows in this section owes much to Jones, Later Roman Empire. For more speci.fic studies, see Stephen Williams, Diocletian and the Roman &covery (London: Batsford, 1985), esp. chap. 8; Chastagnol, INvolution politique, sdciale et iconomiq~te; P. S. Barnwell, Emperot; Prefects and Kings: The Roman West, 395-565 (London: Duckworth, 1992), esp. chaps. 2-5; andEugen Cizek,Mentalitisetinstitutionspolitiquesromaines (Paris: Fayard, 1990), esp. chap. 9. 75. For example, see the brief remark by Paul Veyne: "in identifying a person it was customary to indicate his [sie] place in civic life, his political or municipal titles and dignities, if any. These became a part of a man's identity.'' In "The Roman Empire:' in From Pagan Rome to Byzantium, ed. P. Veyne, trans. A. Goldhammer, vol. 1 ofA History ofPri"Pate Lift, gen. ed. P. Aries and G. Duby (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 105. On the need for gender in an analysis of political power, see Wendy Brown, "Finding the Man in the State:' FeministStudies 18 (1992): 7-34. 76. Many of these puppet rulers were descended from the Roman nobility, providing some evidence of continuing authority, but many were also the result of intermarriage with powerful German families and owed their positions to these latter connections. See Alexander Demandt, "The Osmosis ofLate Roman and Germanie Aristocracies," in Das &ich und die Barbaren, ed. E.Chrysos and A. Schwarc~ (Vienna and Cologne: Böhlau, 1989). 77. On i:he exaltation oflater emperors, see Andreas Alfcildi, Die monarchische Repräsentation im römischen Kaiserreiche (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1970); MacCormack,Art and Ceremony; Heim, Virtus, passim but esp. 187-218, 307-47. 78. For a list of later Roman officeholders, see Trmothy Barnes, The N ew Empire ofDiocletian and Constantine (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982). M. T. W. Arnheim (The SenatorialAristocrac.y in the Later Roman Empire [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972]) argues that the Christian emperors, in order to buy support for their religious reforms among the mostly pagan western aristocracy, were required to reverse the tide of ever greater exclusion of noblemen from the highestoffi.ces in the empire (49-102), buthe concedes (98) that "an emperor could appoint whomsoever he wished to any particular post?' Matthews (WesternAristocracies) also gives evidence for the continuation of the western aristocracy in positions of authority in the fourth century; especially, he writes (1-31), governorships, consulships, and the offi.ce ofpraefectus urbi (prefect of the city [ofRome] ). He also documents the fluctuating influence of the old nobility, however, which during the reigns ofseveral emperors was eclipsed by the military elites, especially duringthe reigns ofValentiniani (32-55) and Theodosius I (88-100). 79. See Brown, Power and Persuasion, 3-34. Brown confines his analysis to the Bastern Empire, but his conclusions also hold true for the Western Empire, as a study of nobles in the government offifth-century Gaul suggests: see Ralph Mathisen, "Gallic Traditionalists and the Continued Pursuit of the Roman Ideal;'

NOTBS TO PAGBS 51-53

315

in Roman Aristocrats. Cf. Brown's earlier cornments (Making of Late Antiquity> . 27--,53) on the overemphasis ofthe idea of"decline" in the later Roman provin. cial aristocracy and the overreliance on the epigraphical record. 80. See Brown, Power and Persttasion> 3 5-70 . .·.. 81. On the ranlcing of the la1;er Roman nobility, see Jones, Later Roman Empire> 523-62~ Henrilc Löhlcen, Ordines Dignitatum. Untersuchungen zurformalen KJJnstituierwlig ·der spätanti~en Führungsschicht (Vienna and Cologne: Böhlau, 1982): . . . 82. Matthews (WesternAristocracies> 9) writes that "Office was regarded as an encumbrance, accepted with reluctance and laid down with relief.'' For the relation of public expenditures and polirical power in earlier Roman history, see Paul Veyne, Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism> trans. B. Pierce (London: Penguin, 1990). On the declining population, see below. 83. Cod. Theod. 6.4.17. Constanrine's law on the subject is not extant but is mentioned here. 84. The early imperiallaw known as the senatus consultum Velleianum denying women permission to plead in courtwas reaffi.rmed by Constantine (Cod. Theod. 9.1.3). It was confirmed again by Theodosius I (Cod. Theod. 2.12.5). We even have examples in which Valentinian III refused women's rights of advocacy in two specific cases (Nov. Valentiniani 8.1 and 8.2). For an analysis ofthesenatus consultum Velleianum> see J. A. Crook, "Feminine Inadequacy and the Senatusconsultum Velleianum>" in The Famiry in Ancient R.ome: NClV Perspectives> ed. B. Rawson (London: Croom Helm, 1986). On the duties ofthe praetor, Charles Coster (The Iudicium Quinquevirale [Cambridge: Medieval Academy ofAmerica, 1970; orig. publ. 1935], 5) writes: "The sole duties attached to these offices at the time ... were the giving of games and theatrical performances and the undertaldng of public worlcs, all at the expense of the officeholders. But these expenses were very great indeed, so great that after A.D. 361 it was made obligatory to give ten years' notice to nominees for the praetorship?' This is not entirely true. For example, the praetor had the right to emancipate individuals from their paterfamilias (a right confirmed in Cod. Theod. 6.4.16). Antti Arjava (Women and Law inLateAntiquity [Oxford: Glarendon Press, 1996], 252) talces it as understood that women would only have inherited the financial obligarions to the position and not the judicial ones. 85. See Fergus Miliar, The Emperor in the Roman World (31 B.C.-A.D. 337) (London: Duclcworth, 1977), 341-55. Miliar writes (341): "at least up to the third century matters of imperial policy could still be debated in the senate" and (350): "It is thus apparent that, sofaras our evidence shows, senatus consulta embodying legislation, embassies to the senate and decisions by the senate on the affairs of provincial cornmunities all came to an end in the second half of the second or the firsthalf of the third century.'' Cf. Arnheim (Senatoria!Aristocracy> 32) who writes that "By the third century the Senate as an institution had no power worth mentioning." For details on the functioning and activities of the senate, see Richard Talbert, The Senate of Imperial R.ome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). 86. On the provincial nobility in the Senate and its enlargement, seeAndre

316

NOTES TO PAGES J3-54

Chastagnol, "l.?evolution de I'ordre senatorial aux Ille et IVe siedes de notre ere;' Revue historique 496 ( 1970) : 305:-14. For examples of new senatorial families, see Hagith Sivan, Ausonius of Bordeaux: Genesis of a GallicAristocracy (New .Yori< Routledge, 1993); M. K. Hopkins, "Social Mobility in the Later Roman Empire: The Evidence of Ausonius;' Classical Quarterly 55 (1961): 23949; B. Twyman, "Aetius and the Aristocracy;' Historia 19 (1970): 480-503. The extension of senatorial privilege to the provincial nobility was only made possible · by the grant ofRoman citizenship to all free persons living within the empire in 2l2C.E.

87. On the political decline of the city ofRome, see Jones, Later Roman Empire, 329; Matthews,RomanEmpire ofAmmianus, 235. On the decline of the legislative powers of the senate, see Jones, Later Roman Empire, 471-73; Matthews, WesternAristocracies, 305. Matthews does argue for some ad hoc powers of diplomacy exercised in the political crises of the fifth century, but these must be seen as individual roles rather than institutional, since he concedes (WesternAristocracies, 388) that much of their power resred on "their possession of the mostdurable of all Sources of infl.uence, landowning and patronage?' . 88. On the de=ionate, see Jones, Later Roman Empire, 543-52, 712-66; Chastagnol, INvolution politique, sociale et economique, 278-302; Peter Garnsey, "Aspects of the Decline of the Urban Aristocracy in the Empire;' Aufstieg und Niedergangderrihnischen Welt2.1 (1974): 229-52. 89. On women not being responsible as sole heirs, see Cod. Theod. 12.1.13 7; women's sons responsible as heirs, Cod. Theod. 12.1.178. This is specifically a repudiation of the previous law. On women's husbands responsible as heirs, see Cod. Theod. 12.1.124. There were only two other areas in which men were obliged to talce up their wife's profession: the firstwas breadmalcing (Cod. Theod. 14.3.2, 14.3.14, 14.3.21), the second was the collection offish for purple dyes (Cod. Theod. 10.20.5). For more on the hereditary professions, see A: H. M. Jones, "The Caste System in the Later Roman Empire;' Eirene 8 (1970): 79-96. 90. Nov. Maforiani 7.1-2. Jones (Later Roman Empire, 747) believes this law was designed to thwart the designs of those de=ions who cohabited rather than married so that they might bequeath their estates to their childten but would not have to pass to them their curial obligations. For Roman traclitions on marriages between persons of differing social status, see P. R. C. Weaver, "The Status of Children in Mixed Marriages;' in The Famüy inAncient Rome: New Perspectives, ed. B. Rawson (London: Croom Helm, 1986). 91. Accordingto alawof371 C.E. (Cod. Theod. 12.1.74), sons butnotdaughters could retain thesenatonal rank. In 382 c.E., this law was revoked (Cod. Theod. 12.1.93). In 393 C.E., the privilege was restored (Cod. Theod. 12.1.132). 92. On the expansion of the provincial administration, see Jones, Later Roman Empire, 42-43; Williams, Diocletian, 104-6. On the comites, see Jones, Later Roman Empire, 104-7. Constantine established a new Senate in Constantinople and elevated to its ranlcs a whole group of new men from among his political allies, again about two thousand in number. The Senate of Constantinople was an even more honorific assembly than that of Rome, but its members still enjoyed one of the highest political ranlcs in the empire. On the Senate of Constantinople,

NOTES TO PAGES 54--59

317

see Jenes, Later &man Empire) 132-33; Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops) 132-45. 93 .. On the later Roman civil service, see Jenes, Later R.iJman Empire) 563-606; Chastagnol, INvolution politique) sociale et economique)'186-205. For · .·JTiore detailed.smdies of specifi.c.aspects of the civil service, see H. C. Teitler, No. tarii and Exeepiores: An Inquiry into R.iJle and Signijicance of Shorthand Writers in the Imperial and EcclesiasticalBureaucracy ofthe &man Empire (from the Early Principate to c. 450 A.D.) (1\rnsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1985). Teitler documents inter . alia the rise of the position of notarii in thefourth cenmry (21 ), their political im-

portance (34-37), the resentment ofthem by the old aristocracy (28), and their elevation to high rank (64-68). He gives as an example one Flavius Marcellinus, to whom Augustine ofHippo dedicated the first three books ofhis De civitate Dei) a notarius raised to the rank of clarissimus (1). Cf. Manfred Clauss, Dermagister officiorum in der Spätantike (4.-6. Jahrhundert). Das Amt und sein Einfluß aufdie kaiserliche Politik (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1980). 94. On senators in the imperial administration, see Jenes, Later R.iJman Empire) 557. On the currying offavor with the visiting emperor, see MacCormack, Art and Ceremony) 17. On subversion of the state, see Van Dam, Leadership and Community) 25-56. An exce11ent example of this last position is Salvian of Marseilles Degubernatione Dei 5.4-9. 95. Sid. Apo11. Epist. 8.8.2-3. 96. Auson.Mos. (ed. withEpigr.) 11. 448-53; Prudent. Cathemerinon 1, 11. 89-91; Nemesianus Cynegetica 11. 100-102. 97. Cod. Theod. 1.16.9, 1.16.12. 98. Paulinus of Pe11a Eucharisticus 11. 202-12. Discussing this passage, Matthews (WesternAristocracies) 79) writes: "In all this, of course, Paulinus was

smdiously typical ofhis dass, as we can see it in Gauland elsewhere?' 99. On Ostentation as a reflection of the political atmosphere in the dassical era, see Edwards, Politics ofimmorality) passim. 100. Arnm. Mare. 14.6.9-10. 101. Apul. Met. (ed. R. Helm [Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1970]; trans. J. Hanson, LCL) 7. 8. I have changed the translator's "braverf' for virtus to "manliness?' 102. See Shelley Stone, "The Toga: From National to Ceremonial Cosmme;' in The World ofRoman Costume) ed. J. Sebesta and L. Bonfante (Madison: University ofWisconsin Press, 1994). 103. H. A. Heliogab. 26.1 (trans. Birley). 104. H. A. Heliogab. 23.3-5 (trans. Birley): "quo pulchrior fieret et magis ad feminarum vulmm aptus?' I have omitted a "forsooth" in the translation. 105. H. A.AJex. Sev. 33.3 (my trans.): "dicens imperium in virmte esse, non in decore?' 106. H. A.AJex. Sev. 40.1,6,11,51.1 (trans. Magie). 107. H. A.Heliogab. 19.3-6 (trans. Birley). Thewholeofthe biographyfrom 18.4 to 33.7 details Elagabalus's love ofluxury. 108. H. A. Tacitus 10.4. 109. Unfortunately, not all ofCassius Dio's account ofthe reign ofElaga-

318

NOTES TO PAGES 59-62

balus survives. On Sardanapalus and other legends of ancient Mediterranean transvestites, see Vern Bullough and Bonnie Bullough, "Mythology and History'. in the Ancient World;' in Cross Dressing) Sex) and Gender (Philadelphia: Univ:er-; sity ofPennsylvania Press, 1993). · . · llO. Herodian (ed. and trans. C. R. Whitraker,LCL) 5.5.5. 111. Another exarnple of the luxurious appearance of the later Roma.q nobil- . ity is provided by Auson. Epigr. 26; against clothing of gold or gold thread, Cod. · • Theod. 10.21.1, 10.21.2; againstclothingofpurple, Cod. Theod. 10.21.3. On the use of the jeweled diadem for imperial coronations, see MacCormack, Arfand Ceremony, chap. 3; see also Ann Stout, "Jewelry as a Symbol of Status in the Roman Empire;' in The World of Roman CostumeJ ed. J. Sebesta and L. Bonfante (Madison: University ofWisconsin Press, 1994). 112. Claud. Com. Hon. 411. 585b-92. I have changed the translator's "thy" to "your;' and his "adorns" to "enlivens;' according to the more recent edition of the text.

ll3. Claud. InRu.finum 211. 343-7. ll4. H. A.Mnximiniduo 28.5 (trans. Magie). ll5. Julian Or. 2.98D. ll6. Amm. Mare. 20.4.17-8. ll7. Pacatus Panegyricus dictus Theodosio Imperatori (ed. D. Lassandro [Thrin: Pavaria, 1992]; trans. C. Nixon [Liverpool: Liverpool University, 1987]) 13.1-4. ll8. Pacatus Panegyricus dictus Theodosio Imperatori 14.1 (my trans.). ll9. Amm. Mare. 14.6.17: "mulitudo spadonum?' 120. Hi!!l"on. Epist. (ed. J. Labourt, 8 vols. [Paris: Beiles Lettres, 1949-63]; selected letters ed. and trans. F. Wright, LCL) 22.16: "eunuchorum greges;' 54.13: "spadonum exercitu;' 130.4: "eunuchorum ... cateruas?' 121. H. A.Aurel. 49.8 (trans. Magie). 122. There has been much written on the political role of the eunuch in late antiquity. See especially Dirk Schlinlcert, "Der Hofeunuch in der Spätantilce: Ein gefährlicher Aussenseiter?" Hermes. Zeitschriftfür klassische Philologie 122 ( 1994): 342-59; see also Keith Hoplcins, "Eunuchs in Politics in the Later Roman Empire;' Proceedings ofthe CambridgePhilological Society 189 (1963): 62-80; revised as "The Political Power ofEunuchs;' chap. 4 in idem, Conquerors and Slaves (Garnbridge: Garnbridge University Press, 1978); Peter Guyot, Eunuchen als Sklaven und Freigelassene in dergriechisch-rö"mischenAntike (Stuttgatt: Klett-Cotta, 1980), especially chap. 7, "Die Hofeunuchen im Römischen Reich im 4. Jahrhundert?' 123. Amm. Mare. 14.6.17. 124. Cod. Iust. 4.42.1: "in orbe Romano eunuchos fecerit." 125. Cod.Iust. (ed. T. Mommsen [Berlin: Weidmann, 1954]; trans. S. Scott, The CiPilLaw, vols. 12-15 [Cincinnati: Centtal Trust, 1932]) 4.42.2. 126. Amm. Mare. 16.7.5. 127. See Guyot, Eunuchen als Sklaven) esp. "Prosopographie der Hofeunuchen;' 181-233; seealso Shaun Tougher, "ByzantineEunuchs: An Overview; with Special Reference to Their Creation and Origin;' in WomenJ Men and Eunuchs: Gender in ByzantiumJ ed. Liz Jarnes (New York: Routledge, 1997), who includes some late ancient sources.

NOTES TO PAGES 63-65

319

128. See Guyot, Eunuchen als Sklaven, chap. 6. 129. Cass. Dio 76.14.4-,-5. 130. H. A.Ale:Jc. Sev. 66.4 (trans. Magie). 13L H. A.Alex. Sev. 23.4-6 (trans. Magie). 132. H. A.Alex. Sev. 66.3 (trans. Magie), cf. 45.5. SeeHopkins ("Eunuchsin Politics:' 76}who Writes: ."the tension between .an absolutist monarch and the other powers of the state; the seclusion of a divine emperor behinc;l a highly formalized court ritual; the need ofboth parties for intermediaries; the exploitation by eunuchs of this channel for the appropriation to themselves of some of the power of controlling the distribution offavors; the non-assimilability of eunuchs into the aristocracy; the cohesive but non-corporate nature of their corps; and the expei-tise which resulted from the permanence of their positions as compared with the amateurish, rivalrous and individualistic strivings of aristocrats: all these factors in combination and in interaction can account for the increasing power with which eunuchs were invested, and the continuity with which they, as a body, heldit?' 133. See the detailed study of this office by Helga Schalten, Der Eunuch in Kaisernähe. Zur politischen und sozialen Bedeutung des praepositus sacri cubiculi im 4. Und S.]ahrhundertn. Chr. (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995), including a prosopographical appendix listing all holders of the office in the fourth and fifth centuries (205-42 ), replacing earlier studies and lists of names by Guyot (Eunuchen als Sklapen, 130-76), Rodolphe Guilland (Recherches sur les institutions byzantines, 2 vols. [Berlin: Akademie, 1967] 1.176-8), and J, E. Dunlap, The Office ofthe Grand Chamberlain in the Later Roman and Byzantine Empires (Ann Arbor: U niversity of Michigan Press, 1924). 134. Raised from clarissimus to illustris, see Cod. Theod. 7.8.3; raised from illustris to eminentissimus, Cod. Theod. 6.8.1. 13 5. Claudius Mamertinus Gratiarum actio ]uliano Augusto 19 .4. 136. H. A. Gordiani tres (trans. Magie) 25.1: "nisi di omnipotentes Romanum tuerentur imperium, etiam nunc per emptos spadones velut in hasta positi venderemur?' Since hasta was the pole set up to indicate a slave auction, I have changed the translator's "as though under the hammer" for in hasta positi to "as though we were the slaves?' 137. Alan Cameron, Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court ofHonorius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 126. 138. On Claudian and his career, both political and literary, see Cameron, Claudian, esp. chap. 6, for the political situation, and chaps. 10 and 11, for Claudian's literary models. On politics, see also Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops, 87-153. On literature, seealso Annette Eaton, The Inftuence of07Jid on Claudian (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1943); and Severin Koster, Die Invekti77e in der griechischen und römischen Literatur (Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain, 1980), esp. "Gegen Eutrop;' 314-51. A detailed commentary on the poem may also be found by Helge Schweckendick, Claudians Invektive grgen Eutrop (In Eutropium): Ein Kommentar (Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1992), and by Long, Claudian's In Eutropium. The edict exiling Eutropius also survives: Cod. Theod. 9.40.17.

320

NOTES TO PAGES 66-69

139. Claud. InEutropium 111. 181-8. 140. Claud. In Eutropium 1 1. 10: "ostentatur anus titulumque effeminat

anru..."

141. Claud. In Eutropium 111. 296b-8a: "quodcumqtie uirorum est decus; eunuehi seelus est." I have rep1aeed the translator's "emaseulate" wii:h ~'euntrth." 142. Claud. In Eutropium 111. 320-1a. · 143. Claud.InEutropium 111.497-9. 144. Claud. In Eutropium 1ll. 493b-4a: "nam quae iam belli geramus I molIibus auspiciis?" I have rep1aeed the trans1ator's "eunuch" for mollis with "effeminate?' 145. Claud. In Eutropium 1 ll. 242b-4,252-62. I have rep1aeed Magie's "There follows eompanies of foot, squadrons lik:e their general" and his "faee b1eached whiter by the sun" with my own "The troops are mutilated, squadrons lik:e their amputated leader" and "faee filthier in the sun;' aeeording to Hall's emendation of P1atnauer's text. On the emendations, see also Sehweckendiek, Claudians Invektive) 83-4. 146. Ciaud. In Eutropium 11. 281a: "arma relinque uiris?' 147. Guilland (B.&cherchesJ 1.170) generalizes from the Byzantine evidenee, but his eomments are likely applieab1e to the earlier period: "les basileis estimaient prudent de eonfi.er Ie eommandement en ehef de Ieurs armees a des eunuques .... Un eunuque victorieux n'etait pas aeraindre, alors qu'un general vietorieux pouvait toujours devenir un pretendant redoutable. Les soldats, eependant, ne semblent pas avoir eu grande confi.anee dans ees strateges eunuques qu'on Ieur imposait et qui, Ie plus souvent, d'ailleurs, les eonduisirent aIa defaite?' 148. Amm. Mare. 14.10.5. 149. Amm. Mare. 14.11.2-3, 18.3. 150. Amm. Mare. 15.3.2. 151. Amm. Mare. 20.2.3. 152. Amm. Mare. 20.2.4. 153. Julian Ep. ad senatum populumque Athenarnm 272D; Amm. Mare. 22.3.12; Cod. Theod. 9.40.17. Arbitio, tried for attempted Usurpation, was aequitted (Cod. Theod. 16.6.1). 154. See Cod. Theod. 9.40.17; Long, ClaudianJs InEutropiumJ 160-62. 155. Amm. Mare. 22.3.12; seealso 18.4.2-6 for more ofthe intrigues ofEusebius. 156. Claud. In Eutropium 2 ll. ll3b-4a (my trans.): "numquam eorrupta rigeseent I saecula?" Piatnauer's translation reads: "Will this eorrupt age never Iearn true manliness?" 157. Claud.InEutropium2l1.137-9: "quodetarmatieessantetnulla uirilem inter tot gladios sexum reminiseitur ira?" I have reworded this last phrase, which Platnauer translates awlcwardly as "that manly indignation reminds us not oftheir sex whose many thighs bear a sword!" 158. Claud. In Eutropium 2ll. 580-3. I have changed the opening "'Tis" to "It is?' 159. This point is made by Long, Claudian's In EutropiumJ 254.

321

NOTES TO PAGES ,70-,71

CHAPTER THREE

1. For more detailed information on Roman marriage, see Susan Treggiari, &manMarriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time ofCicero to the Time. ofUlpian (Ox:ford: Clarendon Press, 1991); Jean Gaudemet, Le mariage en occident: Les moeurs . · it le droit (Paris: Du Cerf, 1987); M. Humbert, Le remariage &me (Milan: · Dott; A. GuJ.ffre, 1972); arid Percy Corbett, The &man Law ofMarriage (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930). On Roman warnen and the law, see Arjava, Women andLaw; Jean Gaudemet, "Le statut de la femme dans l'Empire romain;' Receuils .de Ia Socitte ]ean Bodin pour t>histoire comparative des institutions 2 (1959): 193-222; and Yan Thomas, "The Division ofthe Sexes in Roman Law;' inA History ofWomen in the West, vol. 1: FromAncient Goddesses to Christian Saints, ed. P. Schmitt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). On the family, see Grubbs, Law and Family, and '"Pagan' and 'Christian' Marriage: The State of the Question;' Journal of Early Christian Studies 2 (1994): 361-412; Brent Shaw, "The Family in Late Antiquity: The Experience of Augustine;' Past and Present 115 (1987): 3-51, and idem, "Latin Funerary Epigraphy and Family Life in the Later Roman Empire;' Historia 33 (1984): 457-97. 2. See J. A. Crook, "Patria Potestas;' Classical Quarterly 17 (1967): 113-22. Men under the age of majority were also provided with a temporary tutor (guardian); the tutor performed for a woman and aminormale ali of the administrative tasks of which they were legaliy incapable. Persans under the legal authority of another were calied alieni iuris (under the law of another); independent men were known as sui iuris (under one's own law). In what follows, "patriarchal" is used as the adjectival form ofpatria potestas. 3. See Richard Salier, "Corpora! Punishment, Authority, and Obedience in the Roman Household;' inMarriage, Divorce, and Children inAncient &me, ed. B. Rawson (O:xford: ClarendonPress, 1991). 4. Following generaliy on the early feminist analysis of Sirnone de Beauvoir, Le deuxiemesexe (Paris: Gallimard, 1949) vol. 1, 147: "C'estle conflit de lafamille et de l'Etat qui definit l'histoire de la femme romaine?' 5. See Suzanne Dixon ("The Sentimental Ideal of the Roman Family;' in Marriage, Divorce, and Children inAncient Rome, ed. B. Rawson [O:xford: Glarendon Press, 1991]) on the "sentimental ideal'' of the Roman family. See Treggiari (&manMarriage, 229-61) on love between husbands and wives. See also Emiel Eyben (''Fathers and Sons;' inMarriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome, ed. B. Rawson [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991]), who argues for an ideal of fatherly strictness, neither too harsh nor too indulgent. Salier ("Corpora! Punishment") argues that the feeling of fathers for their wives and children, calied pietas (piety), distinguishes these ties from the absolute control of the father over slaves in the household. 6. Treggiari (RomanMarriage, 253-61) looks at letters between husbands and wives from the classical period for evidence both of romantic ties and of women's responsibilities. She writes (258): "lt is impossible in any of these letters from husbands to wives to find the domineering tone that Rome's original patriarchal institutions might lead us to expect?' Cf. Jane Phillips, "Roman Mothers and the Lives oftheir AdultDaughters;' Helios 6 (1978): 69-80.

a

322

NOTES TO PAGES ?I-72

7. Suzanne Dümn, The Roman Family (Baltimore: Jolms Hopkins Univer. sity Press, 1992), 19-24. 8. The role of a woman's blood relatives, viz. herpaterfamilias, in the declin~ of the marriage cum manu was first proposed by way of explanatioq by de Beau~ voir (Deuxieme sexe, vol. 1, 1). Fora detailed discussion, see S. B. Pcim~roy, ''The·, Relationship of the Macried Women to her Blood Relatives in Rome:' Ancient Society 7 (1976): 215-2 7. Pomeroy argues that the rights of the father won out over the rights of the husband, because the high rates of female infanticide meant far more men of marriageable age than women, and this gave fathers greater powers of negotiation in marriage contracts than prospective husbands. 9. In a marriage cum manu, the husband or his paterfamilias gained full possession of a woman's dowry. In a marriage sine manu, he only had the right of usufructus (i.e., the use of the income from .her property). The dowry served as a woman's inheritance from her family ofbirth; this may be surmised from the lex Voconia of the late republic, confirmed in the early empire as the ratio Voconiana, which denied to men the right to leave large inheritances to their daughters. See J. A. Crook, "Women in Roman Succession:' in The Family inAncient Rome: New Perspectives, ed. B. Rawson (London: Croom Helm, 1986); and Arjava, Women andLaw_, 62-73. Arjava (123) argues that the absence ofreferences to marriage cum manu in the Theodosian Code means that only the marriage sine manu continued to exist after the start of the fourth century. 10. On choice ofmarriage partners and divorce, see Susan Treggiari, "Consent to Roman Marriage: Some Aspects ofLaw and Reality:' Classical Views 26 (1982): 34;-44. 11. Fo~ detailed analyses of the Augustan legislation, see P. Csillag, The Augustan Laws on Family Relations (Budapest: Akademiai Kiad6, 1976); Leo Raditsa, ''Augustus' Legislation Concerning Marriage, Procreation, Love Affairs and Adultery:' Aufttirg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt 2:13 ·(1980): 278-339; and Angelika Mette-Dittmann, Die Ehrgesetze des Augustus. Eine Untersuchung im Rahmen der Gesellrchaftspolitik des Princeps (Stuttgart: Pranz Steiner, 1991). 12. This law, the Iex de maritanda ordinibus, applied to women between the ages of twenty-five and fifty and to men between the ages of twenty-five and sixty. The maximum delay between marriages was two years; a minimum delay of ten months was also required for women to cert:ifY paternity in case of pregnancy, called the tempus lugendi. Men may have been required to become betrothed almost immediately upon reaching the age of twenty-five or after the end of a first marriage, and a betrothal could last no more than two years. Cf. A. WallaceHadrill, "Family and Inheritance in the Augustan Marriage-Laws," Proceedings of theCambridgePhilologicalSociety 207 (1981): 58-80, who argues thatunmarried and childless persons were still permitted to leave their estates to natural heirs but were denied rights of testation. 13. This was sometimes called the ius trium liberorum (the right ofthree children) because a woman living in the city ofRome who bore three children was freed from the tutela. Other Italian women and freedwomen, too, could be granted this privilege, but were required to bear four children, and women of the

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provinces were required to bear five children to receive the benefit. John K. Evans (Wa1) Women, and Children.inAncientRome [London: Routledge, 1991], 13) argues for a connection between population andwomen's legal emancipation: the . numerous wars in wbich the greatly enlarged empire was involved resulted in a ·. much bigher mortality rate for men, which made such legal enactments a practicai. solution to the·shoriage of male guardians. Tim Parkin (Demography and Roman Sociay [Baltimore: Johns Hoplcins University Press, 1992], 116-19) notes that it is unclear whether thls law referred to children ever born or children who survived to adulthood, but Arjava (Women and Law, 77-84) believes that it referred to children ever born, because "the generallevel of fertility in the Roman empire had to be relatively high" given infant mortality rates, and that at a result "meist ordinary women would have attained the ius liberorum ... without di.fficulty.'' 14. See Susan Treggiari, "Divorce Roman Style: How Easy and How Frequent Was It?" inMarriage, Divorce, and Children inAncient Rome, ed. B. Rawson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). 15. Dig. 23.1.13 (forbids the betrothal of a man by his pateifamilias without his consent-a woman's consent seems not to have been necessary), 23.2.2 (requires the consent of both parties to be married as weil as their patresfamilias), 23.2.3 (allows a pateifamilias to oblige two of his grandchildren to marry even without their consent, since they are both under bis authority), 23.2.21 (forbids the marriage of a man by bis pateifamilias without his consent), and 23.2.22 (considers a marriage that has tak:en place as having involved the consent of the busband, even if forced upon him by his pateifamilias, and therefore valid). 16. Begnests to mothers were made possible by the law known as the senatus consultum Tertullianum; the law stipulated that the mother must have ius liberorum. Bequests by mothers were made possible by the law lmown as the senatus consultum Orjitianum. For examples of these laws in action, see Liselot Huchthausen, "Kaiserliche Reslcripte an Frauen aus den Jahren 117 bis 217 u.Z.;' in Eirene. Actes de Ia XIIe Conforence internationale d'etudes classiques (Amsterdam: AdolfM. Haldcert, 1972); andEdoardo Volterra, "Les femmes dans les 'inscriptiones' des rescrits imperiaux;' in E. von Caemmerer et al., eds., Xenion. Festschriftfür P. J Zepos (Athens: C. Katsilcales, 1973 ). See also detailed discussion for late antiquity by Arjava, Women and Law, chap. 3. 17. See A. Boalc,.Manpower Shortage and the Fall ofthe Roman Empire in the West (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1955); updated by Pierre Salmon, Population et dipopulation dans l'Empire romain (Brussels: Latomus, 1974 ). See also Parkin (Demography, 6 7-68 ), who questions the methods ofBoak: and Salmon but arrives at similar conclusions hirnself ( 120). 18. In classical Roman law, validmarriages (justae nuptiae) could only happen between two Roman citizens according to the laws of conubium. While cohabitation between individuals ineligible to marry was permitted, as in the case ofRoman citizens and non-Roman inhabitants of the empire (peregrini), it was an inferior arrangement, called "non-valid matrimony'' (matrimonium non justum) if the busband lacked the rights of conubium, and "cohabitation" (contubernium) if the wife lacked conubium. No marriage payments were permitred except in valid

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marriages. After 212, all of t.hese regulations were abandoned, although conubium was still denied to members oft.he lower classes, andso cohabitation bec tween men of t.he upper classes and women of t.he lower classes ccintinued to be referred to as contubernium. . . . ·. · ·. · · · · · 19. On the traditional dowry (dos) in earlier periods, see Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 323-64; Suzanne Dixon, "Polybius on Roman Women and Propeny;' American]ournal ofPhilology 106 (1985): 147-70; and Richard Salier, "Roman Dowry and the Devolution ofProperty in t.he Principate;' Classical Quarterly 34 (1984): 195-205. The betrot.hal gi.fts were variously called donatio ante nuptias (gift before marriage), sponsalicia largitas (betrothal donation), dona nuptialia (nuptial gi.fts ), or donasponsalicia (betrot.hal gi.fts ). Justinian consistenrly replaced t.he various terms wit.h donatio propter nuptias (gi.ft on account of marriage), by which it is best known in t.he Roman legal. histories. Such a system is called a "bride price" in traditional anthropologicalliterature, alt.hough many recent discussions prefer the more neutral term "reverse dowrf.' 20. It is implied t.hat the traditional dowry is still weil in place in 363 in a law of Julian (Cod. Theod. 3.13.2). Nonetheless, a law issued in 439 mandated t.hat while a woman still had to bring into t.he marriage what was called a dowry, it might in fact even be "given back" from t.he property given to her father as her betrothal gift (Nuv. Theodosiani 14.3 ). A law of 458 specifically refused to permit t.he dowry to belarger in value t.han t.he betrot.hal gi.fts (Nuv. Majoriani 6.9). A law of 452 specifies the equal amount of t.he two payments (Nuv. Valentiniani 35.9). Moreover, the wife's family rarely gave betrot.hal gifts to t.he couple (cf. Cod. Theod. 3.5 .6 ). All of this had t.he result that while marriages still involved payments called dowries, t.he flow of money is reversed from t.he ancient dotal custom. 21. Until recenrly, few historians even documented the shi.ft; see now Grubbs, Law and Family, 156-71; and Arjava, Women and Law, 52-62. Bot.h Grubbs (158) and Arjava (57) see it as t.he result of t.he influences of'eastern Mediterranean customs on late ancient law. David Herlihy (Medieval Households [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985], 14-22), one of t.he earliest to note t.he shifr, attributes it to high rates of female infanticide, widely divergent ages of marriage between men and women, and the prevalence of perpetual virginity by Christian women. 22. The law permitted an aristocratic family to give even a fundus Italicus (Italian foundation-estate ), usually t.he ancient home property, as a betrot.hal gift (Cod. Theod. 3.5.8). 23. Cod. Theod. 3.13.3. 24. Cod. Theod. 3.8.2, cf. Nuv. Valentiniani 35. The only condition under which she lost her rights to t.he property was if she remarried within a year ofher husband's death (Cod. Theod. 3.8.1). For an example of the law in action, see Elaine Fant.ham, "Aemilia Pudentilla: Or t.he Wealt.hy Widow"s Choice," in Women inAntiquity, ed. R. Hawley and B. Levick (New York: Rourledge, 1995). 25. Gai. Inst. 1.190, cf. Dig. 16.1.2; 2.13.12. See also the discussion by Arjava, Women andLaw, 231-43. 26. Cod. Theod. 2.17.1. The tutela mulierum is mentioned two years after the enactment of t.helaw above in a second law, Cod. Theod. 3 .17.2.

NOTES TO PAGES 73-74

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27. Cod. Theod. 3.17.3. The adults referred to in the law may be theforiosi (im beeiles) and prodigi (spendthrifts) traditionally provided with guardians and not neq:ssarily women. Corbett (&man Law ofMarriage, 4 7) sees this law as the · terminus ante quem of the tutela perpetua mulierum. Arjava, after some debate .(Women and ·Law, 112.:...18), agrees (261) that "the disappearance of tutela mulierum .. ; ~an probaHy be dated to the fourth century:" 28. On contracts, see Cod. Theod. 2.16.3. The lawwas issued byTheodosius II; in.the same year; he elevated his sister Pulcheria to the title of augusta, an honorary name given only to a handful of women in the later empire; see Kenneth Holum, TheodosianEmpresses: WomenandimperialDominion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). Although there is no specific evidence to this effect, it is possible to speculate about a relationship between the political success of Pulcherria and the legal improvement of women's status. On guardians, see Cod. Theod. 3.17 .4. The mother had to promisenot to remarry, and ifshe declined the responsibility or wished to remarry, only a male relative could be chosen: N ov. Theodosiani 11.2. This law was enacted in the West by Valentinian II when he was only nineteen years of age and gready under the influence ofhis mother, Justina. Again, one might speculate about Justina's personal role in extending women's jurisdiction over their sons, since at this time, a female regentwas as yet virtually unprecedented in Roman history and without real legal approval. These laws generally contradict the thesis of Suzanne Dixon ("Infirmitas sexus: Womanly Weakness in Roman Law:' Tijdschriftvoor Rechtsgeschiedenis 52 [1984]: 343-71) that as the tutela perpetua mulierum disappeared, it was replaced by philosophical concepts of the wealmess of women to the same social effects. 29. While no one dispures the wide age range between Roman husbands and wives, there has been considerable debate on exact ages of marriage. See M. Durry, "Le mariage des filles impuberes a Rome:' Revue des Etudes latines 47 ( 195 5): 17-25; opposed by J. Reinach, "Puberte feminine. et mariage romain:' Revue historique de droitfranfais et etranger 10 ( 1956): 268-73; but supported by M. K. Hopkins, "The Age ofRoman Girls at Marriage:' Population Studies 18 (1965): 309-27; opposed again by Brent Shaw, "The Age ofRoman Girls at Marriage: Some Reconsiderations:'Journal of&man Studies 77 (1987): 30-46; but supported again by Richard Salier, "Men's Age at Marriage and Its Consequences in the Roman Family:' ClassicalPhilology 82 (1987): 21-34; and Treggiari,&manMarriage, 398-403. For examples, cf. R. Etienne, "La demographie des familles imperiales et senatoriales au IVe siede apres J.-C.," in Transformations et conftits au IVe siecle ap. J-C. (Bonn: RudolfHabelt, 1978). 30. Cod. Theod. 8.16.1. See also the discussion by Grubbs, Law and Family, chap. 3. 31. Nuv. Majoriani 6.5: "viduitatisque captantes lascivam vivendi eligunt libertatem." 32. Hieron.Epist. 127.3 (ed. andtrans. Wright),cf. 22.16, 38.4, 54.7, 54.18. 33. Nuv. Severi l. 34. Cod. Theod. 8.18.4. The text as extant is corrupt. See also the discussion by Arjava, Women and Law, chap. 2, although he concludes (262-63) that "whether we want to say that patria potestas was 'eroded' in late antiquity remains

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a matter of taste?' See also idem, "Patemal Power in Late Antiquity:'Journal ofRbman Sutdies 88 (1998): 147-65. · 35. Cod. Theod. 8.18.3, 3.13.3, 8.18.6, 8.18.7, 8.19.1, cf. Nov. Valentinian/ 35.1. The father still retained usufruct as long as his childreil were niinors,·al-. though if he emancipated them from his patria potestas) relinquishing alllegaljuc · risdiction over them and appointing a third party as guardian to them, he was permitred by law to retain one-third ofhis wife's estate as compensation, Cod. Theod. · 8.18.1; 8.18.2. 36. Cod. Theod. 2 .24.2. This is in many ways a corollary of the laws specifying ownership of a woman's dowry as being her children's, so that as long as she had children, she could not alienate her dotal property. 3 7. Cod. Theod. 8.19 .1. Such property was still referred to anachronistically in some laws as peculium) the ancient legal term for property in the use of one person but the actual possession of the pateifamilias ( cf. Cod. Theod. 1.34.2). 38. Nov. Theodosiani 14.8. He did have usufruct of such properties if his grandchildren were rninors: Cod. Theod. 8.18.9, 8.18.10. 39. Here the occasion is specified as an unfair gift of property to one of the children and to the exdusion ofthe others, Cod. Theod. 2.21.1. 40. Cod. Theod. 4.6.3. This law was adjusted by a nurnber of successive ernperors: Cod. Theod. 4.6.4 (perrnitting one-twelfth to illegitirnate children, onefourth if there were no legitirnate children); Cod. Theod. 4.6.5 (rescission of 4.6.4; restoration of4.6.3); Cod. Theod. 4.6.6 (rescission of4.6.5; restoration of 4.6.4); Cod. Theod. 4.6.7 (rescission of 4.6.6, pennission to illegitirnate children to take up to one-eighth of estate by testarnent); Nov. .Marciani 4.1 (rescission of Cod. Theod. 4.6.7; restorationof4.6.3 banningallinheritance byillegitirnatechildren). If there were no legitirnate children, the estate was to be absorbed by the imperial fisc: Cod. Theod. 4.6.2. Before these laws were enacted, a man was free to divide his estate between his legitirnate and illegitirnate children as he wished. 41. On Christian influence, see Jean Gaudemet, "Les transformations de la vie farniliale au Bas-Empire et l'influence du Christianisme:' Rbmanitas 4 ( 1962): 58-85, and idem, "Tendances nouvelles de la legislation farniliale au IVe siede:' in Transfonnations et conftits au IVe siede ap.]-C. (Bonn: RudolfHabelt Verlag, 1978). 42. Cod. Theod. 4.1.1; cf. Dig. 27.10.4 of two centuries earlier, where equal love (pietas) for both parents is expected of children, although their authority (potestas) is not equal. 43. Cod. Theod. 3.8.2. 44. Cod. Theod. 3.16.1. The phrase levi obiectione (for trivial reasons) actually comes from the interpretatio of the law, probably added at the time of the publication of the Cod. Theod. in 438 C.E. 45. Pharr (Theodosian Code) 77) translates medicamentaria as "sorceress," and there is a possibility that the medical practice rnight be rnixing magic potions, which were known to be made in late antiquity. Jarnes Brundage (Law., Sex) and Christi-an Sociay in Medieval Europe [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987], 94) talces it in a sirnilar sense as "having adrninistered poisons?' Grubbs (Law and Family) 229) also mentions that the term could refer to the performance

NOTES TO PAGE 76

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of magic as weil as "homicide by poison.'' But the interpretation of Clarlc (Women in.LateAntiquity, 22) seem.s best to me; she writes that "A medicamentaria (the Latin equivalent of the Greelc pharmaluutria) _used suspect drugs and perhaps . spells,'but her purpose might be anything from murder to abortion to the treat-.·. ment of infertility or unrequited love.'' On the use of contraceptives in antiquity, Keith Hopkins, "Conttaception in the Roman Empire;' Comparative Studies in Society andHistory 8 (196S): 124-51; John Noonan, "Contraception in the Roman Empire;' in Contraception: A History ofIts Treatment by the Catholic Theolo. gians and Canonists,.2d ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986). See also the comments by contemporaries about such potions and the women who used them: Hieran. Epist. 22.13, Min. Fel. Oct. 30.2. 46. Pharr (Theodosian Code, 77) translates medicamentarius as "sorcerer," Brundage (Law, Sex, and Christian Society, 94) as "poisoner;' and Grubbs (Law and Family, 229), as "preparer of poisons.'' See also Tert. De exhortatione castitatis 12. 47. As in the classical period, we can suspect that attempts by men to seize control of their wife's dowry led to some false prosecutions. See 'freggiari, Bmnan Marriage, 297. 48. See Mireitle Corbier, ''Divorce and Adoption as Roman Familial Strategies (Le Divorce et l'adoption 'en plus');' in B. Rawson, ed.,Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient &me (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991); and Keith Bradley, "Remarriage and the Structure of the Upper-Class Roman Family;' in Marriage, Divorce, and Children inAncient &me, ed. B. Rawson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). 49. Historians have also typically assigned this law to Christian influence: see V. Basanoff, "Les sources chretiennes de la Loi de Constantin sur le repudium (Cod. Theod. III, 16, 1 a. 331) etle champ d'application de cette loi;' inStudiin onore di Salvatore Riccobono nelXL anno sel suo insegnamento (Palermo, 1936); Jean Gaudemet,Mariage en occident, 70-83; or M. Humbert, ":Uhostilite du legislateur chretien a l'egard du remariage: La rupture avec les traditions classiques;' in Rcmariage a&me. This has been reevaluated recently; Christians differed on the acceptability of divorce at all, and no one viewpoint on divorce was universally accepted at this time. See especially Judith Evans Grubbs, "'Pagan' and 'Christian' Marriage"; seealso Roger Bagnall, "Church, State and Divorce in Late Roman Egypt;' in Florilegium Columbianum: Essays in Honor ofPaul Oskar Kristeller_, ed. K.-L. Selig and R. Somerville (New Yorlc: Italica, 1987); and M. Verdon, "Virgins and Widows: European Kinship and Early Christianity;' Man 23 (1988): 488-505. See also Grubbs's careful consideration of this question in Law and Family, chap. 7; she concludes (339) that "rather than a real transformation of family srructures, what we are seeing in late antiquity is the perspective of the non-elite and less cosmopolitan parts ofthe Empire;' and that "the mores irnplicit in Constantinian law had persisted all along;' but appeared in law only in late antiquity because of the increased influence of the provincial aristocracy at Rome. 50. Bagnall ("Church, State and Divorce;' 43) argues that there is no evidence that Julian's law was ever repealed, and so "as far as we know" it remained in force until421, when another divorcelawwas issued (Cod. Theod. 3 .16.2 ). The

328

NOTES TO PAGES 76-79

law of 421, however, should be understood as a clarification of divorce laws, since it deals with couples who separate and rematry for other than the acceptable reasons. In the version ofthe law as published by Justinian, the death penalty is.also specified as the punishment for adultery by either party, but this is alinQst certainly a later interpolation (Cod. Iust. 9.9.29). Contrast Bagnall's opinion·with that of Gaudemet (Mariage en occident, 79) who does not believe that Julian's law overturning Constantine's restrictions existed at all, since it is not included in any legal compilation of the period, but only mentioned by a Christian polemicist. Cf. also Grubbs's detailed discussion of these laws in Law and Family, chap. 5. 51. NllP. Theo&Wsiani 12.1. Theodosius ll might have changed his mind about this in 450, since he seemed to revert to the Constantinian rules in a law not preserved in the Theo&Wsian Code but extant in Cod. Iust. 5.17.8. See also Clark, Women inLateAntiquity, 24; Grubbs,Law a~Family, 236. 52. NllP. Valentiniani 35.11. 53. Paul Veyne, "La famille et l'amour sous le Haut-Empire romain;' Annales: Economies, Societes, Civilisations. 33 (1978): 35-63; reprintedinLasocieteromaine (Paris: Du Seuil, 1991); Evans, War, Women and Children; and Foucault, The History ofSexuality, vol. 3, The Gare ofthe Selj; trans. R. Hurley (New York: Vmtage, 1986), esp. patt 3. Foucault writes (95): "The re:flection ofthe use ofpleasure that was so directly linked to the close correlation between the three types of authority [over oneself, over the household, and over others] was modified in the very course of this elaboration [of an ethics of self-mastery]. A growth of public constraints and prohibitions? An individualistic withdrawal accompanying the valorization pf private life? We need instead tothink in terms of a crisis ofthe subject, or rather a crisis of subjectivation -that is, in terms of a diffi.culty in the manner in which the individual could form hirnself [sie] as the ethical subject ofhis actions, and efforts to find in devotiontoself that which could enable him to submit to rules and give a purpose to his existence?' See also the critique ofVeyhe and Foucault by Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1996), chap.l. 54. See especially on this question Jean-Joseph Goux, "The Phallus: Masculine Identity and the Exchange of Women;' differences 4 (1992): 40-75; in general, see Foucault, Gare of the Self; Williams, Roman Homosexuality; Eva Cantarella, Bisexuality in theAncient World, trans. C. 6 Cuilleanam (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992); seealso the fascinating analysis by Amy Richlin, The Garden ofPriapus: Sexuality and.Aggression in Roman Humor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 ). 55. Amm. Mare. 25.4.2-3. 56. On Julian's character, see Amm. Mare. 25.4.1; on Julian's Pita militaris, Amm. Mare. 25.4.4; on Julian's skill and authority in war, Amm. Mare. 25.4.10-12. 57. Amm. Mare. 25.4.4; on Julian as philosopher, see Athanassiadi,Julian. 58. Claud. Gons. Hon. 411. 261b-262a. 59. Iambl. De Pita Pythagorica (ed. and trans. J, Dillon and J. Hershbell, Society of Biblical Literature, Texts and Translations, no. 29 [Atlanta: Scholars, 1991]) 9 [48].

NOTES TO PAGES 79-82

329

60. Iambl.DevitaPythagorica31 [210]. 61. Iambl. De vitaPythagorica 31 [209]. 62. Iambl. De vita Pythagorica 17 [78]. 63 .. Oribasius Collectio medica (ed. U. Bussemalcer and C. Dar'emberg, 6 vols. ·.'[Paris: IJimprunerie Nationale, 1851-76]; trans. with discussion in Rousselle, . Porneia, 14) 22.2;20-22: "ßta 1tav1:o~ 1:oivuv 1:ou1:ou ywo!Jivou Kai. miv1:rov ro<me.p EV xopc/> j.1E'taotli6v't(OV aA.A.1)A.ot~. äxpt 'tOOOU'tO'U Ke.voucr9at 'tU Ka'ta öA.ov 1:0 ~4'>Öv ayye.'ia 'tE Ka~ j.J.Opta avayKa'i6v EO"'ttV äxpt 7tEp äv Ej.11tAT\cr!1fl 1:0 icrxup6'ta1:0V. Ou j.l.OVOV OE ·.'rii~ eomooou~ uypO'tf\1:0<; a<jlatpe'icr9at ltäcrt 'tOU ~ft..oov 1:0 i:.tA.tKptvecr'te.pov. Tipocre.pxOj.lEVf\~ OE 'tii~ ftliovil~. fj 'tt~ au'tl'j Ka'ta au'tl'jv oihroc;; EO"'tlV 'tKClVft otaA.ue.tv 'tOV ~CO'ttKOV 'tOVOV, rocr'te. 1\0T\ 'ttVE~ UltEpf\crSev'te.~ Olte9avov, ouoe.v E'tt 9a'Uj.1Cl0"1:0V acree.ve.cr'tepouc;; OltO'te.A.e.'icrSat 'tOU~ a<jlpootcrta~OV'ta~ Oj.l.E1:p61:e.pov." 64. Oribasius Collectio medica 6. 37. Cf. idem, Synupsis (ed. U. Bussemaker and C. Daremberg, 6 vols. [Paris: IJimprimerie Nationale, 1851-76]) 5.1: "Hie denique salutaris virginitas conprobatur, ut etiam in feminis, sie denique [et] viris.'' This passage is found only in the Latin translation of Oribasius and not in the Greek original, and is possibly an interpolation by the aneient translator, a possibility that does not affeet the importanee of the sentiment. Cf. Soranus Gynaecia l. 32, for a discussion of the healthfulness of virginity among aneient Greek physicians. 65. Caelius Aurelianus Gynaecia 42. 66. H. A. Pescennius Niger 6.6 (trans. Birley). 67. Amm. Mare. 14.6.22. 68. See, for example, the deseription ofValentinian I by Amm. Mar. 30.9.2. See also now Williams, &man Homosexuality, chap. 3, on classieal notions ofpudicitia. I am grateful to Craig Williams for providing me with a eopy of his dissertation, "Homosexuality and the Roman Man: A Study in the Cultural Construction of Sexualitf' (Yale University, 1992) and with it, much food for thought when I formulated my argument for this section of my ehapter. 69. A detailed discussion of this ean be found in Treggiari, &man Marriage, 262-319. She does suggest (263) that while "grammarians identify the adulterer with the married man, the word is more generally used of any illieit lover and espeeially of the lover of a married woman" and (163-64) that "the juristie usage is closer to the norm in making adulterium an extra-marital sexual relationship of a married woman." 70. See discussions in Foueault, Care of the Selfi part 5; and in Rouselle, Porneia, chap. 5. 71. Dig. 48.5.14 (13). This lawwas known to Augustine, who referred to it in a discussion of adultery (De adulterinis coniugiis 2.8). 72. A. Souter, Glossary ofLater Latin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 254. Latin had imported the verb moechari several eenturies earlier for the aetion of

330

NOTES TO PAGES 82-84-

adultery (in its classical sense), but the noun moeehia was apparently fust used by Tertullian, and used in the new sense. See chapter 6 for contrasring examples in usage between adttlterittm and moeehia. . _ . ·: · 73. Cod. Theod. 11.36.4. Grubbs (Law and Family, 217) calls it "bi.Zru;-re language" and "colorfully worded:' and notes that it is "the only time in the Theo-. dosian Code the wordsacrilegus is used in regard to a sexual offence.'' 74. Julian Or. l.47A. 75. Julian Or. l.46D. 76. SeeTreggiari,RomanMarriage, 233 n.19. 77. Hor. Sat. (ed. and trans. D. Fairclough,LCL) 1.2.116-9: "namque parabilem amo Venerem facilemque.'' Historians ofRoman slavery are particularly reticent about this aspect of human exploitarion. See the discrete menrions in Alan Watson, Roman Slave Law (Baltimore: Johns Hoplcins University Press, 1987), 119; and Keith Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 28, 49, 138. Longer discussions can be found by Jerzy Kolendo (''Esclavage et la vie sexuelle des homrnes libres a Rome:' in Index: Quaderni eamerti distudi romanisticijinternational Survey ofRomanLaw 10 [1981]: 288-97); and Marcel Morabito (Les rialitis de Pesetavage d'apres le Digeste [Paris: Beiles Lettres, 1981 ], 191-201 ), both of whom nonetheless only concentrate on sexual relarionships between male masters and female slaves. For relationships between male masters and male slaves, see Beert Verstraete, "Slavery and the Social Dynamics ofMale Homosexual Relations in Ancient Rome:'Journal ofHomosexuality 5 (1980): 227-36; and Williams, RomanHomosexuality, 30-38. 78. This ,discouragement of the sexual use of slaves is noted by Verstraete ("Slavery:' 235), who rnistakenly attributes it to "the triumph of the erotophobic ideology of the Chrisrian church.'' The same conclusion is agairr wrongly reached by Arjava, Women andLaw, 258. 79. Paulinus ofPellaEueharistieus 11. 159-68. 80. On the issue ofthe slave's consent, see the odd wording inDig. 11.3.2. 81. See Gardner, Women inRomanLaw, 117-20. 82. Cod. Theod. 9.24.1. 83. Denise Grodzynslci, "Ravies et coupables: Un essai d'interpretation de la loi IX,24,1 du Code Theodosien;' Milanges de Pieale franfaise de Rome: Antiquitt 96(1984):697-726. 84. Judith Evans Grubbs, "Abduction Marriage in Antiquity: A Law ofConstantine (CTh IX. 24. 1) and its Social Contexr:' ]ottrnal ofRoman Studies 79 (1989): 59-83, and idem, Law and Family, 183-93. 85. Cod. Theod. 9.24.1. 86. Cod. Theod. 9.1.1. 87. Dig. 48.8.1. 88. Cod. Theod. 9.8.1. The law is unclear whether the guardian ofthe girl is supposed to have deflowered her or whether he simply did not guard her virginity from other men, or perhaps the law was meant to punish him in either instance. See Grubbs (Law and Family, 193-202), who also suggests the possibility that the law was meant to prevent a guardian from forcing a marriage with his ward and thus laying claim to her property.

NOTES TO PAGES 84--86

331

89. Paulus Sent. 1.13.5; cf. Dig. 11.3. On the recognition of the humanity of slaves, see Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome) chap. 7. 90. Dig. 1.18.21. 91. Dig. l.-18.21. r· have replaced the translators "perversion" for eversio · .·. with "overturning." . . 92. See Mora:bito,Rialitis de Pesclavage) 191-:-201. Romanlegaltradition gave all ch.jldren the social status of their mother, and this was confirmed in later Roman law (Cod. Theod. 14. 7.1 ). See Grubbs, Law and Family, chap. 6. 93. See below, !=hap. 6, for Salvian ofMarseilles's charged description ofthe houseliold in which the female slaves usurp the place ofthe mateifamilias. Cf. also the extant fragment of a law of Constantine that forbids a man from keeping a concubine inhis household while he is married (Cod. Iust. 5.26.1; on this law see also Grubbs, Law and Famio/) 298-99). 94. Dig. 1.6.2 (my trans.). 95. Dig. 1.6.2. I have changed the translators "wrongdoing" for iniuria to "injury." Cf. Mosaicarum et Romanarum legum collatio 3.3 .l. 96. Cod. Iust. 9.9.25(24) (my trans.): ''Etsi libidine intemperatae cupiditatis ... cum ancillam comprehendisse?' 97. Cod. Theod. 12.1.6. See Grubbs,LawandFamio/) 277-83. 98. Dig. 18.1.56; 18.7.6; 21.2.34; 37.14.7; 40.8.6. SeeMorabito,Rialitis de l)esclavage) 191-93. 99. On the Romanprostitution offemales, see Catherine Salles,Les bas-fonds de Pantiquiti (Paris: R. Laffont, 1982), 125-228; Evans, War, Women) and Children) 137-42. On the Romanprostitution of males, see Cantarella, Bisexuality) 101-221; Williams,RomanHomosexuality) 38-47. 100. H. A.Alex. Sev. 24.4 (trans. Magie). Itisimpossibleto confirm whether prostitutionwas prohibited by Philip the Arab, as implied here, since that life is rnissing from the extantHistoriaAugusta) but there is no confirrning evidence for such a prohibition. 101. H. A. Heliogab. 26.3-5. 102. H. A.Alex. Sev. 24.3. See Thomas McGinn, "The Taxation ofRoman Prostitutes;' Helios 16 (1989): 79-110. 103. Cod. Iust. 4.56.1. 104. Nov. Theodosii 18.1. 105. Cod. Theod. 15.8.2. 106. Souter (Glossary) 258) lists it as a synonym for mulierarius (of a woman) that does not clarify its meaning. Corbetr (Roman Law ofMßrriage) 244) believes the word meant a .ffirtatious husband, which seems implausible except perhaps to a historian writing in 1930. Pharr (Theodosian Code) 77) believes it means a sexually unfaithful husband, and Brundage (La~ Sex) and Christian Society) 94) concurs, translating it as adulterer. Treggiari, who translates the term as "the husband's womanizing" (RomanMßrriage) 319), uses the term as the basis for her argument on the "double standard'' oflate Roman law on adultery. Grubbs (Law andFamio/) 228) also translates the term as ''womanizer;' and adds (257-79) that its unusual terminology suggests that it was drafred by someone unfarniliar with legallanguage.

332

NOTES TO PAGES 87-88

107. On Roman pederasty, see Cantarella, Bisexuality; and Williams, &man Homosexuality; both refer in detail to the earlier bibliography. 108. Most of the secondary literature on premodern sexuality emphasizes the iniportance of notions of social do.m.inance i.r:i se:X:U:ality over questio9s ofsexual orientation; see, e.g., Roben Padgug, "Sexual Matters: Rethinking Sex;ua!lcy in History," Radical History RcPiew 20 (1979): 3-23.· Cf. also the reply by John Boswell, "Revolutions, Universals, and Sexual Categories;' Salmagundi 58-59 (1983): 89-113; both essays reprinted in Hidden from History: R.eclaiming the Gay and Lesbian P/l/Sty ed. M. Duberman, et al. (New York: New AmericanLibrary, 1989). See also Richlin (''Not before Homosexuality'') for a lengthy discussion ofthis question. 109. Tert. (Opera, ed. CCSL 1-2; trans. A. Roberts andJ. Donaldson,ANCL 11-3) Ad nat. 1.16.15: "utitur Graeco?' Üt+ Greek pederasty, see esp. Kenneth Dover, Greek Homosexuality (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978); see also Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 2, The Use ofPlea.sure, trans. R. Hurley (New Yorlc: Vintage, 1985); Cantarella, Bisexuality. On the Roman depiction of pederasty as a Greek custom, see Will.iams, &ma~ Homosexuality, chap. 2. There existed an elaborate vocabulary in Latin to describe sexual practices. See Holt Parker, "The Teratogenic Grid;' in Roman Sexualities, ed. J. Hallett and M. Sieinner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). 110. Modern historians differ as to how to interpret the law. Michael GrayFow ("Pederasty, the Scantinian Law, and the Roman Army;'Journal ofPsychohistory 13 [1986]: 449-60) sees it as prohibiting the sexual penetration offree-born youths. Will.iams (&man Homosexuality, 120-24) argues that it prohibited stuprum in general terms. Richlin ("Not before Homosexuality;' 569-71) believes that it forbade sexual passivity in adult males. 111. Examples ofdassical uses ofthese terms indude Cic. Cat. 2.25 (onpudicitia as virtue); Cic. Phil. 2. 3, 44-5 (on impudicitia as effeminacy); Suet, Iul. 52 and Sen. Dia/. 7.13 .3 (on pudicitia and impudicitia as sexual dominance and passivity). See the discussions by Will.iarns, &man Homosexuality, esp. chap. 3; Cantarella,Bisexuality; Jonathan Walters, "Invading the RomanBody: Manliness and Impenetrability in Roman Thought;' in Roman Sexualities, ed. J. Hallett and M. Skinner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997); and Rabun Taylor, "Two Pathic Subcultures in Ancient Rome;' Journal ofthe History ofSexuality 7 (1997): 319-71. 112. H. A. Heliogab. 5.3 (trans. Birley): "Romae denique nihil egit aliud nisi ut ernissarios haberet, qui ei bene vasatos perquirerent eosque ad aulam perducerent, ut eorum conditionibus frui posset?' I have replaced the translator's "th06e who had particularly large organs" for bene va.sati with "those who were 'well hung;" both here and in the passage following. 113. H. A. Heliogab. 8.6-7 (trans. Birley): "Lavacrum publicum in aedibus aulicis fecit, simul et Plautini populo exhibuit, ut ex eo condiciones bene vasatorum hominum colligeret. idque diligenter curatum est, ut ex tota penitus urbe atque ex nauticis onobeli quaererentur. sie eos appellabant qui viriliores videbantur?' 114. H. A.Alex. Sev. 6.3-5 (trans. Magie). 115. Aur. Vic. Caes. 23.2: "Hoc impurius ne improbae quidem aut petulantes

NOTES TO PAGES 89-90

333

mulieres fuere." Most modern biographies ofElagabalus are equally prurient; see Robert Turcan, Htfliogabale et le sacre du soleil (Paris: A. Michel), 1985. 116. Cass. Dio 80.5.5: "atl't1.1Ca AEAE~E'tm Kai yap itvöpi.~e'tO Kai eEh]A.uve'tO . Kai E1tpa't'tEV Kai E1trt0/(.EV EKa'tepa acreA.yecr'ta'ta?' I have replaced. the translator's ·. '.!'appeared'both as man ahd as woman" with "appeared both as manly and as un· . . . manly." · . 11,7. H.·A. Heliogab. 5.2 (trans. Birley): "per cuncta cava corp.oris libidinem recipientem?" 118. H. A. Com,n. 5.11 (trans. Birley): "omni parte corporis atque ore in sexum utrumque pollutus?' The phrase "even his mouth" is absent from Birley's translation. 119. H. A. Comm. 1.7 (trans. Birley): "ore quoque polintus et constupratus fuit?' On this double defilement, cf. the description of a lewd woman by Auson. Epigr. 75: "molitur per utrarnque cavernam." 120. H. A. Comm. 5.4: "puberibus exoletis?' See below on the conventions of pederasty. 121. H. A. Opellius .Macrinus 2.1 (my trans.). 122. H. A. Opellius .Macrinus 2.3-4 (my trans.). 123. Cantarella, Bisexuality, 155-62. Her complicated hypothesis is that "during the Empire male passivity spread to the point where it caused considerable worries for legislators, inducing them to issue repressive measures which grew more and more severe as time went on" (155). It is ultimately unconvincing, as is her idea (155-56) that the reason forthiswas that "Some ofthe most prominent people in the politicallife of the city-military generals and popular Ieaders, men whose virility was certainly not open to question on other countswere behaving sexually lik.e women." She offers Julius Caesar as an example of this "new man" (158): "Caesar, then, offered the Romans an unusual sexual image: a man who remained virile even ifhe happened to asswne the subordinate position now and again -a man who was such a he-man that he could afford to turn passive once in a while?' According to her, his example "served merely as an excuse which allowed all those who were breaking the ancient precepts secretly ... to come out of the closet, as it were" (162). 124. See Richlin, Garden ofPriapus, and idem, "Not before Homosexuality''; Edwards, ''Mollitia: Reading the Body;' chap. 2 in Politics ofimmorality. 125. See Joseph Wtlson, "The Entitlement of the Usurpers of the Roman Empire from Augustus to Domitian," (Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1982), 17-20, whose remarks also hold true for later emperors. 126. Amm Mare. 31.9.5: "hanc Taifalorwn gentem ... ac turpem obscenae uitae ßagitiis ita accepimus mersam, ut apud eos nefandi concubitus foedere copulentur maribus puberes aetatis uiriditatem in eorwn pollutis usibus conswnpturi. porro si qui iam adultus aprwn exceperit solus uel interemerit urswn immanem, colluuione liberatur incesti?' This is incautiously taken as evidence of pederasty among Germans by Bernard Sergent, IJhomosexualite initiatique dans l'Europe ancienne (Paris: Payot, 1986 ), chap. 9. See also the similar remarks ofEusebius (P1·aeparatio evangelica 6.10 .2 7, quoted and discussed by Brent Shaw, "Ritual Brotherhood in Roman and Post-Roman Societies;' Traditio 52 [ 1997], 33 5).

334

NOTES TO PAGES 91-94

127. H. A. Heliogab. 31.7; cf. CyprianDe lapsis 6. 128. Classical sources are discussed in detail by Williams, Roman Homosexuc. ality, passim. Cantarella (Bisexuality, 124) also offers an explanation for the shame of fellatio: "Fellare meant doing something which was exactly the oppqsite· of what a Roman male ought to do. Instead of taking his own pleasure; a ~an performing fellatio placed hirnself at the service of anodier man's enjoyment?' That a man might place hirnself at the service of a woman seems an equally powerful cul~ tural disincentive to cunnilingus. On the endless sexual satire involving these activities, see Richlin, Garden ofPriapus. 129. Auson. Epigr. 74. I talce the wife's membra (members) tobe her fingers, rather than any other body part, as the likeliest explanation for humorous sense of the epigram (I should note that this poem is left untranslated in the LCL ). 130. Auson. Epigr. 85. In Latin slang, lingere (to lick) could refer to the action either of fellatio or cunnilinctus. See J. N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 134-35. 131. Auson.Epigr. 82, 83, 84. 132. Dig. 3.1.1: "eum, qui corpore suo muliebria passus est?' Included in the section on infamia (see above, chap. 1), Watson unjustiiiably translates the phrase as "catamite?' 133. Dig. 4.2.8: "Quod si dederit ne stuprum patiatur uir sed mulier, hoc edictum locum habet, cum uiris bonis iste metus maior quam mortis esse debet?' Watson unjustiiiably translates uiris bonis as "decent people?' 134. Paulus Sent. 2.26.13: "Qui voluntate sua Stuprum flagitiumque impurum patitur,, dimidia parte bonorum suorum multatur, nec testamenturn ei ex maiore parte facere licet?' This opinion is only reconstructed from the si'tthcentury Lex romana Visigothorum, but was attributed to the jurist Paulus. 135. Paulus Sent. 2.26.12: "Qui masculum liberum invitum stupraverit, capite punitur?' See also the discussion ofthis opinion by Richlin, "Not before Homosexuality,'' 561-66. 136. Cod. Theod. 9 .7.6; for a possible alternative interpretation of this law, see below. 137. Auson.Epigr. 43 (mytrans.). 138. Dig. 48.5.9 (8): "cum aliena matre familias uel cummasculo"; 48.5.35 (34): "uidua uel uirgine uel puero?' I take these definitions as later than the following: 48.5.6: "in uirginem uiduamue"; 50.16.101: "in uiduam?' Cantarella (Bisexuality, 143-44) believes the cum masculo in the first definitiontobe a sixthcentury alteration of the phrase cum puero. Women could also be found guilty of stuprum: seeArjava, WomenandLaw, 217-27. 139. Cass. Dio 68.7.4. 140. Aur. Vic. Caes. 13.10. 141. H. A. Hadr. 14.7 (mytrans.): "etnimi.a voluptas Hadriani?' 142. Aur. Vic. Caes. 14.7-9. 143. H. A. Carus et Carinus et Numerianus 16.1 (trans. Magie). I have changed the translator's "constant" to "frequent?' 144. Auson.Epigr. 73. 145. Paulus Sent. 5.4.14; cf. Dig. 47.11.1.

NOTES TO PAGES 94-97

335

146. Tert. De monogamia 12; Auson. Epigr. 99; Pmdent. Perist. 10 1. 214. Note that they are all Christian writers. John Boswell (Christianity, Social Tolerance, · and Homosexuality: Gay Pevple in Western Ettrope from the Beginnfng ofthe Chris. tianEratotheFourteenthCimtury [Chieago: UniversityofChieagoPress, 1980], 63... ·.71) even suggests that the law m.ight have been a legal fietion of the third century . C .. E. baclcdated to the republiean era, but this is not probable (see above). 147. Claud. Cons. Hon. 611. 560-4a. Cf. another poem, in whieh Claudius eompares Honorius with Adonis, the example par exee11enee of the handsome . adoleseent: Claud. ;fescennina dicta Honorio augusto et Mariae (ed. J. Hall, Carmina [Leipzig: Teubner, 1985]) 11. 148. H. A.Maximini duo 27.1 (trans. Magie). 149. Ps.-Auson. In puerum formosum (ed. as part of The Works ofAusonius, LCL; my trans.) 13: "factus es, o puleher, paene pue11a, puer?' I am grateful to Dr. Robert Babeoclc for the suggestion about the interpretation of the last phrase. 150. Auson. Epigr. 53. 151. Auson. Epigr. 108: "Si cuperes alium [n.b.], posses, Narcisse, potiri; nune tibi amoris adest copia, fruetus abest?' Cf. 109: "Quid non ex huius forma pateretur amator [n.b.], ipse suam qui sie deperit effigiem?" Cf. also llO. 152. Nemesianus Bucolica (ed. H. Williams [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986]) 411. 38 ("Meroe formosa"), 72 ("formosus Io11as"), 4-5 ("parilisque furor de dispare sexu"). 153. Oribasius Collectio medica 6.38. See also Rousse11e, Porneia, 14. 154. Dig. 48.5.9 (8), see above. Cantare11a (Bisexuality, 143-44) believes the phrase stuprum cum masculo to be an alteration from the era of Justinian of the phrase stuprum cum puero, whieh is signifieant. Cantare11a (Bisexuality, 188-89) writes that "the ancient reeognition of male bisexuality was disappearing in any ease [even before the eonversion of the Mediterranean to Christianity]: the new rule was heterosexuality based on reproduction. Christian preaching then toolc its place in this frameworlc, and found that the ground had been made still more fertile by Stoic teaehing, whieh exhorted individuals to control their passions, dominate their impulses, and ehannel their sexualitytowards proereation. Within a vision oflife where the spirit, in order to be free, had to dominate the :flesh, sexuality eould only be understood in this manner, and homosexuality was therefore eondernned?' 155. Marcus AureliusAd se ipsum 2.10. 156. Claud. Gons. Hon. 4. 11. 250-1; on lust as an animalistic emotion, cf. Mare. Aur.Adse ipsum 4.28; Iambl. De vitaPythagorica 31(213]. 157. De physiognomia liber 106, ll2. 158. Claud. InEutrvpium 111. 98b--9. 159. Cass. Dio 76.14.4-5. 160. JulianMisvpogon 352B. 161. Hieron. Epist. 107.ll (my trans.): "ne uirgo Christi cum eunuchis lauet ... quia a1ii non deponant animos uiromm?' 162. Claud.InEutrvpium 111.105-9. 163. Lactant. De mortibus persecutorum 3 8.2; see also Gmbbs, Law and Family, 199-201.

336

NOTES TO PAGES 97-100

164. Hieron.Epist. 22.16; 54.13; 66.13; 108.7. On womenin public, cf. one law of Constantine, where matrons [matresfamiliae] a:re notrequired to ·appear in · public, even if charged with a crime (Cod. Theod. 1.22.1). 165. Hieron. Epist. 108.20 (my trans.). · 166. Claud. In Eutropium 11. 104: "nutritoremque puellae?' 167. Tert.Aduxorem (trans. Le Saint) 2.8.4: "Pleraque etgenerenobiles etre . beatae passim ignobilibus et mediocribus simul coniunguntur aut ad luxuriam iri- · uentis aut ad licentiam sectis?' The CCSL has changed thesectis (mutilated) of ms. A unnecessarily to selectis (chosen). Cf. Hieron. Epist. 128.4. 168. Cod. Theod. 9. 9 .l. On sex between noblewarnen and their slaves, see Arjava, Women andLa~ 225-27; on sex between noblewarnen and eunuchs, see Stevenson, "Rise ofEunuchs?' 169. Claud. In Eutropium 111. 79b--89 .. 170. E.g., Peter Browe, Zur Geschichte der Entmannung: Eine Religions- und Rechtsgeschichtliche Studie (Breslau: Müller and Seiffer, 1936), who calls the idea ekelerregender ("nauseating") and passes over it in his survey of the history of castration (45). Cf. Boswe11, Christianity> Social Tolerance> 82, and idem, Same-Sex UnionsinPre-ModemEurope (New York: Villard, 1994), 80-81, who uses the marriage ofNero and Sporusasan example ofthe social acceptance ofhomosexual relationships, but does not mention that Sporus was a eunuch. Boswe11 (Christianity> Social Tolerance> 6 7 n. 25) briefl.y mentions castration in the Roman world, but does not tie it to sex between men. Two exceptions are Guyot, Eunuchen als Sklaven> 59-66, on what he calls Lustknaben (pleasure-boys); and David Greenberg, The C.onstruction ofHomosexuality (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1988), 120-23. The latter weites (123): "When performed early in life, Castration prolonged the boyish beauty the ancients considered desirable; consequently eunuchs were in great demand as homosexual partners?' See also early discussion in Richard Millant, Les eunuques travers les ages (Paris: Vigot, 1908), 133-36. 171. Paulus Sent. 5.23.13; Dig. 48.8.3. 172. Claud. In Eutropium 111. 360b--70. I have changed Platnauer's purposefully archaic "thou wouldst'' to ''you would?' Lang (Claudian>s In Eutropium> 142) weites: "Practically every word in the speech Claudian concocts bears a double meaning?' See also Schweckendielc, Claudians InvektiPe> 94-96), for more on the erotic euphemisrns in this passage. 173. Claud.InEutropium 111. 62-3. Platnauer (1.142 n. 1) believes thatstabulum (post-house) may be a veiled reference to prostibulum (brothel); but Schweclcendiek (Claudians Inpektive> 70) believes it to be a military establishment. 174. Claud. In Eutropium 111. 64b--76a. I have changed "thou;' "thee;' and "thine" in Platnauer's translation to modern English. Lang (Claudian>s In Eutropium> 123) calls this passage "a hilarious burlesque of the deserted woman of elegy and epyllion?' 175. Cass. Dio 67.2.3, cf. Stat. Silv. 3.4, Mart.Epig. 9.11,13,16,36. 176. Cass. Dio 62.28.3: "'ta 'tE äA.A.a 00<; yuvan:l. au'tcp expil'to?' 177. Cass. Dio 62.28.3: "e1;eA.e-u9epq> yeya!J.TlJ..lEVOS, Kal.7tpo1Ka au'tcp Ka'ta

a

NOTES TO PAGE IOI

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<JtJYypacjn'Jv EVEtj..lE, Kat 'tOU<; YOflOll<; O"$CÖV 011flOO"t<;l ol 'tE ät..A.ot Kat aU'tOt oi. Proj..laiot erop-.acrav ." I have removed the translator's quotation marks from the word

"married" as there is nothing in the original Greelc to suggest the undermining of theterm. · . _178. Cass; Dio 62.13.1. Cassius also noted and commented upon Nero's marriage as "wife"to the freedman Pythagoras (Cass. Dio 62.13.1). See also discussions in Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, 82, and idem, Same-Sex Unions, 80-8i. . 179. On Nero, see Suet. Ner. 28, cf Tac.Ann. 15.38. Keith Bradley (Suetonius'LifeofNero:AnHistorical Commentary [Brussels: Latomus, 1978], 161-62) suggests that it may have been a Mithraic ceremony that only appeared tobe similar to a wedding, but this is not how it is described. On Titus, see Suet. Tit. 7. 180. Aur. Vic. Caes. 5.5-6. OnAureliusVictor'sviewofNero,seeWaltraud Jakob-Sonnabend, Untersuchungen zum Nero-Bild der Spätantike (Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1990), 5-40. 181. Cod. Theod. 9.7.3: "Cum virnubitinfeminam, femina viros proiectura quid cupiat, ubi sexus perdidit locum, ubi scelus est id, quod non proficit scire, ubi Venus mutatur in alteram formam, ubi amor quaeritur nec videtur, iubemus insurgere leges, armari iura gladio ultore, ut exquisitis poenis subdantur infames, qui sunt vel qui futuri sint rei?' See also Boswell, Same-Sex Unions, 86 n. 163, and idem, Christianity, Social Tolerance, 123 n. 9. 182. Pharr (Theodosian Code, 231) implies that it condernns homosexual imitations of marriage and offers the undear reading for the phrase: "When a man 'marries' in the manner of a woman, a woman about to renounce man?' Boswell (Christianity, Social Tolerance, 123) says that by means of it "gay marriages, which had hitherto been legal (at least de facto) and weil known, were outlawed in a curiously phrased statute which some authors have regarded as entirely facetious?' He does not indicate which authors believe this, but it is the opinion ofD. S. Bailey (Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition [London: Longmans, 1955], 71), who also ascribes it to W. G. Holmes (The .Age of]ustinian and Theodora: A History of the Si.xth Century A.D. [London: George Ball, 1912]). Holmes writes (vol. 1, 121) that the phrasing ofthe law "almost suggests that it was enacted in a spirit of moclcing complacency:'' Holmes probably means the reference to marriage as mocking, however, which Boswell (Same-Sex Unions, passim) talces seriously. In his earlier worlc, Boswell translates the law equally vaguely as "When a man marries a woman who offers herself to men?' In his later work, Boswell situates the law within changing social customs (Same-Sex Unions, 85-87) and writes (85): "the tendency toward more and more ascetic public morality, and insistence on traditional sex roles, produced ... an extravagantly worded and highly propagandistic law forbidding same-sex weddings-at least those involving traditionalgender roles?' He revises his translation: "When a man marries (a man) as if he were a woman?' 183. Williams, Roman Homosexuality, 245-52; Boswell, Same-Sex Unions, 53-107. 184. Cod. Theod. 2.1.3. This lawwas issuedin 357. 185. NU1J.Majoriani 9.1. This lawwas issuedin459.

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NOTES TO PAGES IOI-7

186. AlawofConstantine I preserved inthe Cod. btst. (4.42.1) does use the expression etmuchi facere (to make eunuchs ); but the wording ofrnany of the laws in this code was revised at the time of its compilation; the sarne expression is also: u.Sed in the law ofLeo I (Cod. Iust. 4.42.2) arid is perhaps also an interpolation there. · · 187. Nov. Leonis (trans. Scott) 60: "mutilent, et creaturarn aliarn, quam qualis conditoris sapientiae placuit, in mundum introduceret intendant?~ . 188. Cod. Theod. 9.7.6: "Omnes, quibus flagitii usus est virile corpus muliebriter constitutum alieni sexus damnare patientia, nihil enim discretum videntur habere curn feminis, huiusmodi scelus spectante populo flanunae vindicibus expiabunt.'' I have removed the parentheses from the last phrase in Pharr's translation. 189. Bailey's interpretation (Homosexuality) 72) is closest to the marle. CHAPTER FOUR

l. Hieron.Epist. 127.12 (trans. P. SchaffandH. Wace,.NPNF 6). Ihavereworked the translator's punctuation. Cf. idem, Commentarii in Ezechielem) praefatio (ed. PL 25) andEpist. 123.15-6, 165.2. 2. AmbroseDe excessufratris Satyri (ed. CSEL 73; trans. H. de Romestin, .NPNF 10) 1.32. 3. Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus . . . Avito ll. 532-8. The address was delivered in 456. See also R. P. C. Hanson, "The Church and the Collapse of the Western Roman Empire:' in Studies in Christian Antiquity (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1985). 4. SalvianDegubernationeDei (ed. CSEL 8; trans. J. O'Sullivan,FC3) 7.6; cf. 4.12-4. I have replaced "fornication of Goths" for fornicatio apud illos with "fornication arnong them.'' 5. SalvianDegubernatione Dei 7 .23. Salvian also claimed (6.12-5) that the attacks of the barbarians were no worse than the morals of the Roman population. 6. August. De excidio urbis Romae sermo; idem, Sermo 296 (ed. PL 38). See also the analysis by Theodore de Bruyn, ''Ambivalence within a 'Totalizing Discourse': Augustine's Sermons on the Saclc ofRome:' Journal ofEarly Christian Studies 1 (1993): 405-21. 7. August. De civ. D. 1.1,7. Cf. SalvianDegubernatione Dei 7.1. 8. August.Deciv.D. 3.14. Cf. Tert ..Apol. 25; Min. Fel. Oct. 25.1-2;Ambrose Hexameron 5.12.52. Elsewhere (ContraFaustumM.anichaeum 22.74-8) Augustine described the Iust for domination as more generally human, and war as something that God permitred to show that even earthly good things were given only at His disposal. 9. August. De civ. D. 19.7. Those authors who emphasize Augustine's role in the development of the Christian concept of just war include Roland Bainton, Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace: A Historical SurPey and Critical Reevaluation (New York: Abingdon, 1960), chap. 6; FredericlcRussell, The ]ust %r in the MiddleAges) Garnbridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, ser. 3, vol. 8 (Carnbridge: Garnbridge University Press, 1975), chap. 1; Joseph Joblin,L'(glise et laguerre. Conscience) violence) pouvoir (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1988), chap. 3.

NOTES TO PAGES I07-9

339

10. ActaMa.ximiliani (ed. H. Musurillo, TheActsofthe ChristianMartyrs [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972]) 1.3: ''Non possum militare ... Christianus sum?' · Cf. 1.2: "mihi non licet militare, quia Christianus sum?' 11. Sulpicius.Severus Vita sancti Martini (ed. J. Fontaine, SC 133; trans. -_:G.. Walsh et al:, FC 7) 4. 3: "pugnare mihi non licet?' For dating of the incident, see- Walsh; 108 n. 1 . . 12. Tert.-De idololatria19.1-3; idem, De coro"na 11. See also S~ephen Gero, ".N!iles. Gloriosus: The Christ:lan and Military Service according to Tertullian;' ChurchHistory 39 (1970): 285-98. - 13. Hippolytus Traditio apostolica 16. This is an extremely problematic text; issues of its dating, authorship, and a comparative analysis with other early church regulations can be found in C. John Cadoux, The Early ChristianAttitude to War (1919; reprint, New York: Seabury, 1982), 119-28. 14. The dassie work arguing for a tradition of early Christian pacifism is Cadoux, Early ChristianAttitude to War. Modern representatives ofthis school indude Bainton, ChristianAttitudes, esp. chap. 5; and G. S. Wmdass, "The Early Christian Attitude to War;' Irish Theological Quarterly 29 (1962): 235-47. The dassie argument for Christian antimilitarism as opposition more to idolatry than to bloodshed is Adolf Harnack, Militia Christi. Die christlichen Religion und der Soldatenstand in der ersten drei Jahrhunderten (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1905); for more recent schalarship arguing the sarne, see John Helgeland, "Christians and the RomanArmy,A.D. 173-337;' ChurchHistory43 (1974): 149-63. Emphasizing the shift from pacifism to militarism in Christianity afrer Constantine is John Friesen, "War and Peace in the PatristicAge;' in W. Swartley, ed., Essays on War and Peace: Bible and Early Church (Elkhard, Ind.: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 1986). 15. Edward Ryan, "The Rejection of Military Service by the Early Christians;' Theological Studies 13 (1952): 1-32, sensibly argues for differing opinions arnong Christians. 16. On the presence ofChristians in the Roman armyofthe second and third centuries, see Helgeland, "Christians and the Roman Army"; Jean-Michel Hornus, It Is Not LawfulforMe to Fight: Early ChristianAttitudes Toward War, Violence, and the State, trans. A. I
340

NOTES TO PAGES 109-13

Tertullien et Ia conversion de Ia culture antique (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1972), chap. 7. 22. CyprianDe bonopatientiae (ed. CCSL 3a; trans. R. Deferrari,FC 36) 12. I have changed the translator's "anyone" for unusquisque to "any man?' 23. CyprianDe bono patientiae 20. 24. Cyprian De bono patientiae 12,16. 25. On the perfection ofthe martyrs, see Marcel Viller, "Martyre et petfection,'' Revue d'ascttique et de mystique 6 ( 1925): 3-25. On the willingness ofChristians to face death, see Arthur Droge and James Tabor,ANoble Death: Suicide and Martyrtkm among Christians and]ews inAntiquity (San Francisco: Harper, 1992), esp. chap. 6. 26. CyprianDe bono patientiae 16. 27. CyprianDe bono patientiae 12. 28. CyprianAdDemetrianum (ed. CCSL 3a; trans. R. Deferrari, FC 36) 17. The translator has "though" for quamvis where I have used "however?' 29. EusebiusHistoriaecclesiastica (ed. G. Bardy, SC 31 and41; trans. R. Deferrari, FC 29) 5.1.35. 30. Sulpicius Severus VitasanctiMartini 4.4. 31. CyprianAdDemetrianum 17. 32. Tert.Apol. 37.5. 33. Sulpicius Severus VitasanctiMartini 4.5. 34. Paulinus ofNolaEpist. 18.7. 35. The second-century author of the first Ietter to Timothy, writing under the name of the apostle Paul, used the phrase (1 Tim. 2.3: "KaA.Oc; cr'ta'ttc&trjc; Xptcr'tou 'lrtcrou;' translated in the Latin Vulgate as "bonus rniles Christi Iesu"). On the military metaphor, seealso Rom. 6.13; 2 Cor. 10.3-4; 1 Thess. 5:8. See A. Jaubert, "Les sources de la conception militaire de l'Eglise en 1 Clement 37;' Vigiliae Christianae 18 (1964): 74-84; E. Nielson, "La guerre consideree comme une religion et la religion comme une guerre;' Studia Theo/ogica 15 (1961): 93-112; and Raymond Hobbs, "The Langnage ofWarfare in the New Testament;' inModelling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies ofthe N ew Testament inlts Context, ed. Philip Esler (New York: Routledge, 1995). 36. Tert.Apol. 50, cf. idem, De oratione 19. 37. Tert.Ad martyras 3.1-3. I have changed the translator's testutk, left untranslated, to "shed" (the testutk was a tortoiseshell, and by analogy, a temporary arch-shaped structure), and "powers" for virtus to "manliness?' 38. The suggestionwas first made by Harnack,Militia Christi, 58-59. See the more recent worlcs by Emilienne Demougeot, '"Paganus; Mithra et Tertullien;' in Studia Patristica, vol. 3, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, vol. 78 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1961); and W. Rordorf, "Tertullians Beurteilung des Soldatenstandes;' Vigiliae Christianae 23 (1969): 105-41. 39. Tert. De praescr. haeret. 40.4: "si adhuc memini Mithrae?' 40. Harnack (Militia Christi, 52) links Tertullian's usage to his father's occupation. T. D. Barnes (Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971], chap. 3) also reviews the evidence but dispures its reliability.

NOTES TO PAGES IIJ-I6

341

41. Suggested by Demougeot, "'Paganus; Mithra et Tertullien;' 357. 42. Tert.Decorona 15. 43. Tert. Scorpiace 6.9. In another place, Tertullian stressed the theme ofindividual salvation in defending the military images of the Old Testament to Marcion, the leader of a group of Christians who rejected the sacred quality of the writings of the Jewish Bible. Tert. Adv. Marcionem 4.20. See above, chap. 2, for more on the Mithraic religion. 44. See Stuart Hall, "Women among the Early Martyrs;' inMartyrs andMartyrowgies, Studies in Church History, vol. 30, ed. D. Wood (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993); Chris Jones, "Women, Death, and the Law during the Christian Persecutions;' in Martyrs and Martyrowgies, Studies in Church History, vol. 30, ed. D. Wood (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993); and W. H. C. Frend, "Blandina and Perpetua: Two Early Christian Heroines;' in Town and Country in the Early Christian Centuries (London: Variorum, 1980). 45. Eusebius Historia ecclesiastica 5.1.17-9. 46. Paulinus ofNolaEpist. (ed. CSEL 29) 29.6: "feminam inferiorem sexu uirtutibus Martini Christo militantem?' 47. Tert.Adscapulam 5.1-2. 48. Adolf Kolping (Sacramentum Tertullianeum [Regensberg: Regensbergsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1948]) provides a detailed list of classical uses of the term, as weil as uses in early Latin translations of the Bible; see also Dimitri Michaelides (Sacramentum chez Tertullien [Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1970]), who points to the links between the uses of the term as military oath, as dedication or consecration to a purpose, and as a ritual sign of such a dedication in the mystery religions. 49. See discussion in Maarten Jozef Vermaseren, Mithras, The Secret God, trans. T. Megew and V. Megew (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1963 ), 129-36. An exemplary text of such a Mithraic initiation is discussed by F. Cumont, ''Un fragment de rituel d'initiation aux mysteres;' Harvard TheowgicalB.eview 26 (1933): 151-60. 50. Tert.Ad martyras 3.1, cf. idem, Scorpiace 4. 51. Tert. De patientia 8.2. I have replaced the translator's "outrageousness" for inprobitas with "outrage." 52. Passio sanctorumMontani et Lucii (ed. and trans. H. Musurillo, TheActs of the ChristianMartyrs [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972]) 4.3-5. 53. Passio Juli Veterani (ed. and trans. H. Musurillo, TheActs ofthe Christian Martyrs [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972]) 2.2. Cf. Lactant. Div. inst. 5.19.25. 54. The heroic stance of the martyrs in the Liber Peristephanon has been noted and compared in style and content with various classical poets by liona Opelt, "Der Christenverfolger bei Prudentius;' Phiwwgus 111 (1967): 242-57; and Arme-Marie Palmer, Prudentius on theMartyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), chap. 5. A historical context is given by Jacques Fontaine, "Le culte des martyrs militaires et son expression poetique au IVe siede: l1ideal evangelique de la nonviolence dans le christianisme theodosien;' Augustinianum 20 (1980): 141-71. Forageneral treatrnent ofPrudentius's works, their influences, and contexts, see Palmer, Prudentius on theMartyrs; Michael Roberts, Poetry and the Cult oftheMar-

342

NOTES TO PAGES II6-I9

tyrs: The Liber Peristephanon of Prudentius (Arm Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993); and Martha Malamud,A Poetics ofTransformation: Prudentius and ClassicaiMythology (Ithaca: Corne11 University Press, 1989). 55. Prudent. Perist. (ed. and trans. H. Thomson,LCL) 111. 37-9. 56. Prudent. Perist. 11. 34. 57. Prudent. Perist. 111. 106-7. I have replaced "virtue" for virtus with "manliness?' 58. Prudent.Perist. 211.501-4. 59. Prudent. Perist. 5 11. 541-4. I have changed "thou dost" to "you" and "thy" to "your?' 60. Prudent. Perist. 511. 293-4. 61. Tert. De anim. 55: "non in mollibus febribus et in lectulis, sed in martyriis?' 62. Prudent. Perist. 1011. 69-70. 63. Prudent. Perist. 10 11. 801-3. I have replaced the translator's "want of manly" for non virile with ''unmanly" and "delicate" formolles with "effeminate." 64. Leo the Great Sermo in natali sanai Laurentii martyris (ed. R. Dolle, SC 200) 85.4. 65. CyprianAdFortunatum (ed. CCSL 3; trans. R. Wallis,ANCL 13.2)praefatio 2. The differences between an actual martyr and a potential martyr are not always clear in early Christian usage; several scholars have examined the terminology of martyrdom. See H. A. M. Hoppenbrouwers (Recherches sur Ia terminologie du martyre de Tertullien aLaaance) Latinitas Christianorum Primaeva, vol. 15 [Nijmegen: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1961]) who discusses inter alia the use of the term miles Christi in Tertullian (71-73), Cyprian (149-51), and anonymous, mid- and late-third-century acts of the martyrs ( 161, 175-76 ). 66. CyprianAd Fortunatum 13. 67. CyprianDe lapsis (ed. and trans. M. Bevenot [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971]) 2, cf. idem,Epist. 10, 39, 58, 76. 68. For details and consequences of Cyprian's ßight, see Peter Hinchliff, Cyprian of Garthage and the Unity of the Christian Church (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1974); andMichaelM. Sage, Cyprian) Patristic Monograph Series, 1 (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1975). See also the discussion below. For more on the image of the soldier of Christ in the writings of Cyprian, see Jose Capmany Casarnitjana, <.Miles Christi) en Ia espiritualidad de san Cipriano (Barcelona: Casulleras, 1956); andEdelhardHummel, The ConceptofMartyrdom according toSt. Cyprian ofCarthage (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1946). Hummel notes (24), apparently without irony, the view of Cyprian that a Christian could be prepared for martyrdom even when he fl.ees from persecution. On this theme, see also Oliver Nicholson, "Flight from Persecution as Imitation of Christ: Lactantius' Divine Institutes Iv.18, 1-2:' Journal of Theological Studies 40 ( 1989): 48-65. It should be noted that Cyprian refused to fl.ee in the next round of persecutions and was killed. 69. Tert. De fuga in persecutione 10.2. I have replaced "pierced with a javelin" for amissus with "lost" and "has a safe slcin" for salvus with "has safety?' 70. NovatianEpist. 30.6.

NOTES TO PAGES II9-22

343

71. Leo the GreatSermo 36.3, cf 40.2, 18.1-2, and 39. 72. Commodian Instructiones (ed. J. Durel [Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1912]) 2.21: ''Nunc si benefactis uinceris, martyr in illo?' See also Edward Malone, The Monk and theMartyr: TheMonk as the SuccessoroftheMartyr (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1950), chap. 2. We arenot certain when Commodian lived and wrote, but his use of the image of martyrdom in this way may help to confi.rm a date for him in the period after the persecutions. 73. Ambrose Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam 1.14, cf idem, De Helia et ieiunio 1.1. Tertullian was the first to refer to Christ as a military commander with the term imperator (Tert. De exhortatione castitatis 12, De fuga in persecutione 10); used also by Cyprian (Epist. 15.1 and 31.4-5) and Lactantius (Div. inst. 6.8). 74. HilaryofArlesSermodevitasanctiHonorati (ed. M.-D. Valentin,SC235) 38.4.. 75. CyprianDezeloetlivore (ed. CCSL 3a; trans. R. Deferrari,FC 36) 2. See also Hummel, Concept of Martyrdom) 56-90; Capmany Casamitjana, Miles Christi) 255-85. 76. See Henry Ansgar Kelly, The Devil at Baptism: llitual) Theology) and Drama (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), chap. 6. 77. Hippolytus Demonstratio de Christo etAntichristo (ed. PG 10); seealso (under opera dubia) Oratio de consummatione mundi) ac deAntichristo) et secundo aduentu Domini nostri ]esu Christi. See Gregory Jenks, The Origins and Early Development of the Antichrist Myth (Berlin: W de Gruyter, 1991), esp. 81-83; Bernard McGinn, Antichrist: Two Thousand Years ofthe Human Fascination with Evil (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994); and Horst Dieter Rauh, Das Bild des Antichrist im Mittelalter (Münster: Aschendorff, 1973 ), 102-52. 78. Peter Chrysologus Sermo (ed. CCSL 24a; trans. G. Ganss, FC 17) 12.3; cf. 38 (on the endurance of wrongs ), 101 (on resisting fear of physical death), 116 (on warfare against vice), and 133 (on the apostle Andrewas a warrior in the heavenly army). Cf. ValerianHomeliae 15 and 16 (on the heroic example ofmartyrs), Leo the Great Sermones 18 and 39 (on the daily battle against vice), and idem, Sermo in natali ... Machaebaeorum (on the example of the seven Maccabean brothers). 79. Commodianinstructiones 2.22, cf. 2.12. 80. Prudent. Psychomachia 11. 14-8. I have changed "thou thyself dost" to "you yourself" and "Thee" to "you?' See also the discussion in Malamud, Poetics ofTransformation) chap. 3. 81. Hieran. Dialogus adversus Pelagianos (ed. CCSL 80; trans. J. Hritzu, FC 53) 3.1. 82. Hieran. Tractatus in Marci evangelium (ed. CCSL 78; trans. M. Ewald, FC 57) 9, cf idem, Homilia 90, August. Sermo 210.2. 83. M. C. Pietri, "Le serment du soldat chretien. Les episodes de la militia Christi sur les sarcophages;' Melanges d)archiologie et d)histoire 74 (1962): 649-64. 84. Sulpicius Severus Vita sancti Martini 4.3: "Christi ego miles sum: pugnare mihi non licet?' In a letter to Sulpicius Severus, his adrnirer Paulinus of Nola (Epist. 1.9) repeated this imageback to him: "Tu uero miles Christi?'

344

NOTES TO PAGES 122-27

85. ActaMarcelli (ed. and trans. H. Musurillo, TheActsofthe ChristianMartyrs [O:xford: Clarendon Press, 1972]) 4.3. 86. Peter Chrysologus Sermo 170. 87. Tert.Ad martyras l. See also August. De civ. D. 22.9 and Leo the Great Sermo 54.4 de passione for other examples highlighting this paradox. 88. AmbroseDeviduis (ed. F. Gori [Milan: BibliothecaAmbrosiana, 1989]) 8.49. For more on Ambrose's attitude toward actual war, which he justified by separating the physical and spiritual realms, see Louis Swift, "St. Ambrose on Violence and War;' Transactions and Proceedings ofthe American Philological Association 101 (1970): 533-43; and Fran<;:ois Heim, "Le theme de la 'victoire sans combat' chez Ambroise;' inAmbroise de Milan: XVIe centenaire de son election episcopale, ed. Y.-M. Duval (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1974), 267-81. 89. August. Epist. (ed.PL 33; trans. W Parsons,FC 18 and 30) 189.5. 90. August. De patientia (ed. CSEL 41; trans. L. Meagher, FC 16) 3.3, 5.4. 91. August. De patientia 8.10. See also the analysis by Peter I ver Kaufman, ''Augustine, Martyrs, and Misery;' Church History 63 (1994): 1-14. 92. SeeDonatist Martyr Stories: The Church in Confiict in Roman North Africa, ed. Maureen Tilly (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996). On the Circumcellions and Donatists, see W H. C. Frend, "Circumcellions and Monks;' Journal ofTheological Studies 20 (1969): 542-49, reprinted in Tuwn and Country in the Early Christian Centuries (London: Variorum Reprints, 1980); Henry Chadwick, ''Augustine on Pagans and Christians: Reflections on Religionsand Social Change;' inHistory, Society, and the Churches: Essays inHonorofOwen Chadwick, ed. D. Beales and G. Best (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), reprinted inHere.ry and Orthodoxy in theEarly Church (London: Variorum, 1991 ). 93. August. Epist. 88.8. 94. August. Epist. 88.1. 95. August. Epist. lll.l. 96. August. Epist. 111.2. 97. August. Epist. 111.6: "sed quales ad se exeant Dominus attendit in servis suis." 98. August. De excidio urbis Romae sermo 4. See also idem, Epist. 127 and 228 for Augustine's reactions to the barbarian invasions. CHAPTER FIVE

l. CyprianDe lapsis 6. 2. August. De utilitate ieiunii (ed. CCSL 46; trans. M. Muldowney, FC 16) 2. 3. ValerianHomilia (ed. PL 52; trans. G. Ganss, FC 17) 6, cf. Paulinus of NolaEpist. 13.17. 4. AmbroseDe Tobia (ed. and trans. L. Zucker, PS 35) 5.19. 5. AmbroseDe Tobia 5.19. 6. AmbroseDeNabuthae (ed. and trans. M. McGuire,PS 15) l.l. Fora study of the issues of social inequality in Ambrose's DeNabuthae, see Vmcent Vasey, The Social Ideas in the Works ofSt. Ambrose: A Study on DeNabuthe (Rome: Instituturn Patristicum Augustinianum, 1982 ). The Biblical story ofNaboth is in l Kings 21. 7. AmbroseDeNabuthae 13.54.

8. AmbroseDeNabuthae 5.25. 9. AmbroseDeNabuthae 11.49: "non tibi cobabitetiezabel?' 10. Arnbrose De fuga saeculi (ed. CSEL 32.2; trans. M. McHugb, FC 65) 5.25. 11. AmbroseDefugasaeculi 7.38. 12. ArnbroseDe fugasaeculi 6.32. 13. AmbroseEpist. 28. See also W. H. C. Frend, "Paulinus ofNola and the Last Century of the Western Empire;'Journal ofRoman Studies 59 (1969): 1-ll, reprinted in Town and Country in the Early Christian Centuries (London: Variorum, 1980). 14. See Harries, Sidonius Apollinaris; Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats, cbap. 9. 15. Salvian Degubernatione Dei 3.10. I bave translated curiales as "decurions;' left by the translator in the Latin. 16. Paulinus ofMilan VitasanctiAmbrosii (ed. and trans. M. Kaniecka,PS 16) 2.5. See Emilien Lamirande, Paulin deMilan et la «VitaAmbrosii.''Aspects de la religion sous le Bas-Empire (Paris: Desclee, 1983). 17. Paulinus ofMilan VitasanctiAmbrosii 3.6-9. Cf. AmbroseEpist. 63.65, Rufmus Historia ecclesiastica 11.11. For biographical details, seeNeil B. McLynn, Ambrose ofMilan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1994), wbo offers a different scenario for Arnbrose's elevation to the office of bisbop. Even Paulinus noted that Arnbrose bad declared in bis boybood that be would become a bisbop (Vita sanctiAmbrosii 4 ). 18. AmbroseDepaenitentia (ed. R. Gryson, SC 179) 2.8.73. 19. Paulinus ofMilan VitasanctiAmbrosii 41. 20. Nov. Valentiniani 3.1. 21. A good overview of this history of suspicion is presented by Klaus Wengst, Pa.xRomana.Anspruch und Wirklichkeit (Munich: C. Kaiser, 1986). See also more specific studies for Tertullian's view on the Roman government and its authority: Cbarles Guignebert, Tertullien. Etude sur ses Sentiments aPigard de PEmpire et de la sociiti civile (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1901); or Ricbard Klein, Tertullian und dasrömischeReich (Heidelberg: C. Wmter, 1968). 22. Lactant. De mortibus persecutorum (ed. J. Creed [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984]) 52, cf. idem, Div. inst. 1.1, Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 10. See also Heim, Virtus, 307-47. Jaroslav Pelikan (The Excellent Empire: The Fall of Rome and the Triumph ofthe Church [San Francisco: Rarper & Row, 1987]) believes this to be the perspective mostly ofEastern Christian writers. 23. Prudent. c. Symm. 211. 709-14. I bave cbanged the translator's "power" for imperium to "empire?' On the use of dragon-standards, see Southern and Dixon, Late Roman Army, 126. Tbe Christian military Standard called the Iabarum bad been first made and used by Constantine, according to Eusebius (De vita Constantini 1.31). 24. Arnbrose Explanatio Psalmi 35.25, cf. August. De civ. D. 5 .26, idem, ContraFaustumManichaeum 22.76, RufmusHistoria ecclesiastica 11.33. 25. AmbroseDejide 2.16.139-42. 26. Arnbrose De obitu Theodosii 47-8, cf. Rufmus Historia ecclesiastica 10.8, Paulinus ofNolaEpist. 31.4-5, and Sulpicius Severus Chron. 2.31-5. Jan Drijvers

346

NOTES TO PAGES T32-35

(HelenaAugurta: The Mother ofConrtantine the Great and the Legend ofHer Find~ ing ofthe True Cross [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992]) believes that all of these Western sources for the legend, as weil as later Bastern sources, were derived from a local legend not ultimately based in fact, but in the attempt of a bishop ofJerusalem to insinuate hirnself with Constantine's imperial descendants. 27. Ambrose De obitu Theodosii (ed. and trans. M. Mannix, PS 9) 48. 28. AmbroseEpirt. (ed. CSEL 82; trans. H. deRomestin,NPNF 10) 57.7; cf. Leo the Great Epirt. 156.3. See G. W. Bowersock, "From Emperor to Bishop: The Self-Conscious Transformation of Political Power in the Fourth Century A.n.;' Classical Philology 81 ( 1986): 298-307. Despite serious problems of religious partiality, see also Claudio Morino, Church and State in the Teaching of St. Ambrose, trans. M. J. Costelloe (WashingtonD.C.: CatholicUniversityofAmerica, 1969). 29. According to Eusebius (De vita Conrtantini 4.24), Constantine thought of hirnself as a bishop of sorts with jurisdiction over what was external to the Christian churches, as the other bishops held authority over matters within the Christian churches. 30. Ambrose Epirt. 17.1. I have added "a military'' to "owe service" for mil-

itare. 31. Ambrose Epirt. 20.19. Whether Ambrose actually dared to speak these words to Valentinian II is unknown; the words come from a letter about the incident that Ambrose wrote to his sister, Marcellina, a consecrated virgin living in Rome. 32. Paulinus ofMilan VitasanctiAmbrosii 23. 33. AmbroseEpirt. 40.22. The Biblical story is from2 Sam. 7.1-17. 34. Ambrose De obitu Theodosii 34, cf. Rufinus Hirtoria ecclesiastica 11.18. 35. Salvian Degubernatione Dei 2.4. The Biblical episode is related in 2 Sam. 12.1-15. 36. August. Confessiones (ed. CCSL 27; trans. R. Pine-Coffin [London: Penguin, 1961]) 13.32.47. The Biblical story of Adam and Eve is found in Gen. 3. 37. August. De Genesi ad litteram (ed. CSEL 28) 8.23.44. 38. AmbroseDe paradiso (ed. PL 14) 2.11: "in figura mulieris sensum animi mentisque constituens, quam alcrencrtv vocant Graeci: decepto autem sensu praevaricatricem secundum historiam mentem asseruit, quam Graeci vouv vocant. Recte igitur in Graeco vouc; viri figuram accepit, alcrenmc; mulieris;' Cf. also Paulinus ofNolaEpirt. 23 .11. The idea was derived from Philo Legum allegoricum 3.161. See Richard Baer, Jr., Philo's Use ofthe Categories ofMale and Female (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970), 38-39, for more on Philo; seealso Pagels,Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, 64-65, for a general discussion; and David Hunter, "The Paradise of Patriarchy: Ambrosiaster on Woman as (Not) God's Image;']ournal ofTheological Studies n.s. 43 (1992): 447-69, for gendered notions of domination in the writings of Ambrosiaster. 39. See Drijvers, Helena; Godfrey Turton, The Syrian Princesses: The Women Who Ruled Rnme, A.D. 193-235 (London: Cassell, 1974); S. I. Oost, Galla PlacidiaAugurta: A Biographical Essay (Chicago: U niversity ofChicago Press, 1968); Holum, ''Aelia Pulcheria Augusta;' chap. 3 in Theodosian Empresses.

40. Paulinus ofMilan VitasanctiAmbrosii 12. 41. August. Confessiones 9.7.16 (my trans.): "ad cohercendam rabiem femineam, sed regiam?' 42. Rufmus Historia ecclesiastica (ed. PL 21; trans. P. Amidon [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997]) 2.15. 43. Ambrose Epist. 22.1 0. Also on Ambrose's role in the development of the cult of saints, see Antoon Bastiaensen, "Paulin de Milan et le culte des martyrs chez saint Ambroise:' inAmbrosius EpiscopusJ ed. G. Lazzati (Milan: Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 1976), vol. 2, 143-50; or Lamirande, Paulin deMilanJ chap. 9. 44. Robert Markus, The End ofAncient Christianity (Cambridge: Garnbridge University Press, 1989), 97-106, 139-55. Ambrose's discovery ofProtasius and Gervasius took place in 386. In 393, Ambrose discovered at Bologna the remains of the martyrs Vitalis and Agricola, which he had transferred to the church there, andin 395 he discovered and transferred to another church in Milan the remains of the martyrs N azarius and Celsus (see Paulinus of Milan Vita sancti Ambrosii 32-3). At the sametime and perhaps for not unrelated reasons, Ambrose condemned the visits of Christians to cemeteries to honor the dead there (see August. Confessiones 6.2.2). Cf. Sulpicius Severus De vita Martini ll, where Martin as bishop correctly identified relics revered by the local population as those of a martyr as belanging to a former criminal. 45. See Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, GodJs Phallus: And Other ProblemsforMen andMonotheism (Boston: Beacon, 1994), esp. chap. 7. The marital metaphor itselfwas used earlier in the Biblical writings of the Hebrew prophets Hosea (2.19) andlsaiah (62.5). 46. Origen Homeliae in Canticum Canticorum. For differing views on Origen's relationship to contemporary Jewish exegetical traditions, see Roger Brooks, "Straw Dogs and Scholarly Ecumenism: TheAppropriate Jewish Background for the Study of Origen:' and Paul Blowers, "Origen, the Rabbis, and the Bible: Toward a Picture ofJudaism and Christianity in Third-Century Caesarea:' in Origen ofAlexandria: His World and His LegacyJ ed. C. Kannengiesser and W. Petersen (Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame University, 1988). The modern editor ofthe work (Olivier Rousseau, SC 37.2) suggests that Origen may have heard of the allegorical interpretation of Song of Songs from Hippolytus, whom he heard preach at Rome, but it is impossible to say how much Origen borrowed from Hippolytus, since the latter's commentary on the Song of Songs survives only as a fragment. There are some early Christian uses of the marital metaphor recorded in the Bible (e.g., Eph. 5.22-33 and Rev. 21.2.9; note that they are both from the last generation ofBiblical writings), andin the second-century Shepherd ofHermasJ but none are tied direcdy to the Song of Songs. See also E. Ann Matter, The Voice ofMy Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia: University ofPennyslvania Press, 1990), 20-34. 47. Ambrose De mysteriis (ed. CSEL 73; trans. H. de Romestin, NPNF 10) 7.37-40, cf. 9.55-7. 48. Ambrose De patriarchis (ed. CSEL 32.2; trans. M. McHugh, FC 65) 4.22: "deferentes copulam gratiae nuptialis?'

348

NOTES TO PAGES 138-43

49. AmbroseDeisaacvelanima (edCSEL 32.1; trans. M. McHugh,FC65) 8. 72: "ita ergo haec uel incumbebat in Christo uel supra ipsum sese reclinabat aut certe, quoniam de nuptiis loquirnur, iam quasi tradita in Christo dexteram in thalamum ducebatur sponso;'' 50. AmbroseDeisaacvelanima 6.51: "aperi ipsam te mihi ... et adimplebo te;'' 51. Arnbrose Epist. 41.14-5: "Non habet synagoga osculum, habet ecclesia quae expectavit, quae dilexit, quae dixit: Osculetur me ab osculis oris sui. Diuturnae enim cupiditatis ardorem quem adventus dominici expectatione adoleverat osculo eius volebat stillanter extinguere, hoc explere sitim suam munere .... Osculatur ergo Christi qui confetto; cored enim creditur ad iustitiam, ore autem confessiofit ad salutem. Osculatur autem pedes Christi qui evangelium legens domini Iesu gesta cognoscit et pio miratur affectu ideoque religioso osculo velut quaedam deambulantis domini lambit vestigia. Osculemur Christum communionis osculo, qui legit intellegat?' I have tried to remove the use of the masculine or feminine pronouns from the translation where the Latin does not indicate sex, except in direct references to the Church as "she;' and replaced "readeth" with "reads;'' 52. Paulinus ofNolaEpist. 41.1-2: "uirgo sapiens, quae ... sponsi expectat aduentum. . . . Ergo mens nostra fertilis deo et uitae fructus operibus bonis pariat. sit spiritus uirgo, ut nulla saeculi corrumpatur inlecebra et ab omni labe uitiorum integer maneat?' Cf. 23.37. 53. August. Confessiones 1.13.21, 4.4.9, 4.15.26. 54. Hieron. Epist. 22.7 (trans. Mierow). I have replaced the translator's "helpless state" for infelicitas with "unhappiness." Cf. also Peter Chrysologus Sermones 93 and 95. The Biblical episode is in Matt. 26.6-13. 55. AmbroseEpist. 41.14, idem, De Isaacvel anima 3.9, OrigenHomeliae in Canticum Canticorum 2.2. 56. Connolly, Augustinian Imperative, 58. See also W Elledge, "Embracing Augustine: Reach, Restraint, and Romantic Resolution in the Confessions;' Journal for the Scientijic Study ofRcligion 27 ( 1988): 72-89. 57. August. Confessiones 9. 9.19. I have replaced the translator's "served as her lord" with "served as lord;' since the Latin is ambiguous as to whether "her lord" or "the Lord" is meant, and both meanings are possible. 58. Anne-Lene Fenger,Aspekte der Soteriologie und Ekklesiologie beiAmbrosius vonMailand (Berne: Peter Lang, 1981), 105-11. See rather Elizabeth A. Clark, "The Uses of the Song of Songs: Origen and the Later Latin Fathers;' inAscetic Piety and Women's Faith: Essays on Late Ancient Christianity (Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Meilen Press, 1986), 387-427, who examines the changing contexts ofOrigen's, Arnbrose's, and Jerome's uses of the bridal metaphor. 59. Hieron. De viris illustribus 67, idem, Commentarius in Ionam prophetam 3.6/9, August. SCrmo 312.2-4. See also G. W Clarke, "The Secular Profession of St. Cyprian ofCarthage;' Latomus 24 (1965): 633-38. 60. Prudent. Perist. 1311. 21-32. Clarke ("Secular Profession;' 637 n. 4) argues that this is the result of a confusion between Cyprian of Garthage and Cyprian of Antioch.

NOTES TO PAGES I4-3-4-7

349

61. Palmer (Prudentius1 236) adds that the account "has the advantage both of supplying the bishop with some interesting details for his early life ( about which little was otherwise known), and ofhighlighting by cantrast the Christian achievements of his later years." Malamud (Poetics of Transformation) chap. 5) notes the gender ambiguity in the description of Cyprian. 62. See Hinchli:ff (Cyprian ofCarthage) and Sage (Cyprian) for details of Cyprian's career; seeSage (Cyprian1 3 77-83) for the dating of Cyprian's treatises. 63. Cyprian De lapsis (trans. M. Benevot) 2,4, cf. idem, Epist. 10, full of military metaphors for the martyrs, but also with several references to mater ecclesia1 "mother church?' 64. Cyprian De lapsis 4. 65. CyprianDe lapsis 18. 66. CyprianDelapsis 35. 67. Cyprian Epist. (ed. CSEL 3.2; trans. M. Benevot [Oxford: Glarendon Press, 1971]) 49.1. The presbyters had appealed to Rome for a ruling on Cyprian's authority after his return from hiding. 68. CyprianEpist. 66.8, cf. 66.1. 69. CyprianEpist. 59.5. 70. CyprianDe ecclesiae catholicae unitate (ed. and trans. M. Bevenot [Oxford: Glarendon Press, 1971]) 21. 71. Cyprian De ecclesiae catholicae unitate 4-5. 72. The passage in question is admittedly problematic because there are two versions ofit, the other ofwhich speal~ ofthe "primacy" (primatus) ofPeter. It has been argued that the passage quoted here represented a later clarification of the text by Cyprian himself, who removed the language of primacy because of the abdication of authority to Rome it implied. On this point, see Hinchliff, Cyprian ofCarthage1 107-12. See J. E. Merdinger, Rome and theAfrican Church in the Time of Augustine (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997), who also includes discussions based on the writings of Tertullian (chap. 2 ), Cyprian (chap. 3), and Optatus (chap. 4). See also Robert Eno, The Rise ofthe Papacy1 Theology and Life Series, vol. 32 (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1990), who discusses ( 57-65) Cyprian's ambiguous role in the primacy of the papacy, and idem, Teaching Authority in the Early Church1 Message of the Fathers of the Church, vol. 14 (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1984 ), chap. 9, for examples of early references to Roman ecclesiastical authority. See also Henry Chadwick, "Pope Damasus and the Peculiar Claim ofRome toSt. Peter and St. Paul;' inNeotesta-

mentica et Patristica: Eine Freundesgabe1 Herrn Prof Dr. Oscar Cullmann überreicht (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1962), reprinted in History and Thought ofthe Early Church (London: Variorum, 1980); and Jean Gaudemet, IJEglise dans l'Empire romain (IVe-Ve siecles)1 vol. 3 ofHistoire du droit et des institutions de l'Eglise en occident1 ed. Gabriel LeBras (Paris: Sirey, 1958), 408-51. Cf. Optatus Deschismate Donatistarum 2.2,4-5 for similar comments; but also TertullianDe pudicitia 21, who rejected an episcopal interpretation of the authority ofPeter. 73. AmbroseExplanatio psalmorum 40.30. Ambrose clearly did not intend by this comment a papal type of authority, which would also have undermined his authority as bishop ofMilan. Cf. idem, De incarnationis dominicae sacramento 32.

350

NOTES TO PAGES 147-50

74. Leo the Great, bishop ofRome from 440 to 467, greatly elaborated papal authority. He was, for example, the first bishop ofRome to take the title ofpontifex maximus, a title used by earlier Roman emperors to assert their status as protector of all Roman cults and rites. During the same period, the bishops assembled at the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 also recognized Rome as the head of the Western churches. Even then, Peter remained the masculine symbol of outward authority for the bishops of Rome. 75. Cyprian Epist. 55.8. I have changed "self-effacement" for verecundia to "modesty.'' 76. CyprianDe ecclesiae catholicae unitate 10. 77. CyprianEpist. 67.5. On theselection process ofbishops, see Henry Chadwicl~ "The Role of the Christian Bishop in Ancient Society;' in Heresy and Orthodoxy in the Early Church (London: Variorum, 1991); and Luce Pietri et al., "Peuple chretien Oll p/ebs: Le role des liics dans les elections ecelesiastiques en occident;' in Institutions, sociite et vie politique dans Pempire romain au IVe siecle ap. J -C., ed. Michel Christo! et al. (Rome: Ecole Frans:aise de Rome, 1992). On the selection process ofbishops at the end of our period, see Richard Hanson, "The Church in Fifth-Century Ga~:' in Studies in Christian Antiquity (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clarlc, 1985). 78. Sulpicius Severus Vita sanctiMartini 4. 9 .l. 79. Possidius of Calama SanctiAugustini vita (ed. PL 32; trans. F. Hoare, The WesternFathers [NewYorlc: Harper &Row, 1965]) 4. 80. Nov.Majoriani 11.1. 81. Paulinus ofMilan VitasanctiAmbrosii 3.11. 82. Optatus De schismate Donatistarum (ed. CSEL 26; trans. M. Edwards [Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1997]) 1.16,19. 83. Optatus Deschismate Donatistarum 1.10. Cf. August. Contra Faustum Manichaeum 15.1, where the "bride of Christ" is the collective Church and heretics are adulterers. On women and heresy, see Virginia Burrus, "The Heretical Woman as Symbol in Alexander, Athanasius, Epiphanius and Jerome;' Har-

vard TheologicalR.eview 84 (1991): 229-48. 84. See also Elizabeth A. Clarlc, "Patrons, Not Priests: Gender and Power in Late Ancient Christianity;' Gender and History 2 (1990): 253-73; and Jill Rarries, '"Treasure in Heaven': Property and Influence among Senators of Late Rome;' inMarriage and Property, ed. Elizabeth M. Crailc (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1991), 54-70. 85. Tert. De virginibus velandis 9 .1, cf. idem, De baptismo 17; Didascalia et constitutiones apostolorum 3.6,9. Tertullian did believe that women might prophesy with authority, at least in this last period ofhis career (see Tert. De anim. 9; idem, De exhortatione castitatis 10 ), but this belief was declared heretical by later writers (see below, chap. 7, on the Montanists ). 86. McNamara (A New Song, 122) writes: ."The Council of Nimes condemned women for presurning to claim admission to the diaconate. The Council of Carthage forbade them to be ordained as presbyters. The first Council of Nicaea condemned deaconesses who wore habits suggesting that they were clergy?' On this subject, see McNamara, A New Song, passim; Karen Torjesen,

NOTES TO PAGES 150-52

351

When Women Were Priests: Women's Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal oftheir Subordination in the Bise ofChristianity (San Francisco: Harper, 1993). 87. See Elizabeth A. Clark, "Ascetic Renunciation and Feminine Advancement: A Paradox of Late Ancient Christianity," Anglican Theological Review 63 (1981): 240-57; reprinted inAsceticPiety and Women's Faith: Essays onLateAncient Christianity, Studies in Women and Religion, vol. 1 (Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Meilen Press, 1986); and idem, ''Authority and Humility: A Conflict ofValues in Fourth-Century Fernale Monasticism:' Byzantinische Forschungen 9 (1985): 1?--33; reprinted inAscetic Piety and Women's Faith. 88. See J. Ysebaert, "The Deaconesses in the Western Church ofLate Antiquity and their Origin;' inEvlogia: Melanges offerts aAntoonA. R. Bastiaensen a Poccasion de son soixante-cinqui&me anniversaire, ed. G. J. M. Bartelink, A. Hilhorst, and C. H. Kneepkens (Bruges: Abbatia Sancti Petri, 1991 ), 421-36. 89. Confirmed byNov.Marcionis 5, cf. Cod. Iust. 1.2.13. 90. Cyprian Epist. 63.14. See John Laurance, Prie~ as Type ofChrist: The Leader ofthe Eucharist in Salvation History according to Cyprian ofCarthage, Theology and Religion, ser. 7, vol. 5 (Berne: Peter Lang, 1984), which includes a lengthy section on sacerdotal authority (195-221). See also R. P. C. Hanson, "Office and the Concept of Office in the Early Church," in Studies in ChristianAntiquity (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1985), who writes (127-28) that the "increasing emphasis upon the importance of [sacerdotal] ordination finds its climax in the thought of Cyprian of Carthage;" For a general history of the development of roles of clergy and laity, see W H. C. Frend, "The Church of the Roman Empire (313-600):' in The Layman in Christian History: A Project ofthe Department on the Laity ofthe World Council ofChurches, ed. S. Neill and H.-R. Weber (London: SCM Press, 1963 ), reprinted in Town and Country in the Early Christian Genturies (London: Variorum, 1980). 91. See Ariadne Staples, From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in RomanReligion (NewYork: Routledge, 1998). RamsayMacMullen, "Women in Public in the Roman Empire;' Historia 29 (1980): 208-18, confirms this view from the evidence of inscriptions, noting that virtually all references to women as holders of cultic religious titles denoting offices, even honorific ones, are from the Bastern Empire. 92. August. Sermo (ed. PL 38; trans. M. Muldowney, FC 38) 250.1. I have replaced the translator's "learned and unlearned, poor and rich" with "the learned man and the unlearned man, the poor man and the rich man:' since the masculine singular is used in the Latin. 93. SalvianDegubernationeDei 3.7, cf. 3.2,9, 4.3. 94. Peter Chrysologus Sermo 114. 95. For Ambrose on slavery, see Vincent Vasey, The Social Ideas in the Works of St. Ambrose; Ulrich Faust, Christo servire libertas est. Zum Freiheitsbegriff des Ambrosius vonMailand (Salzburg: A. Pustet, 1983). For Augustine on slavery, see Gervase Corcoran, Saint Augustine on Slavery (Rome: Institutum Patristicum ''Augustinianum;' 1985). See also Richard Klein (Die Sklaverei in der Sicht der BischöfeAmbrosius undAugustinus [Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1988]), who links slavery as a theological motif in the writings of Augustine and Ambrose to their gen-

352

NOTES TO PAGES Ij2-55

eral views of the human condition, and in particular, to Augustine's development of the doctrine of original sin. 96. AmbroseEpist. 63.65. 97. ValerianHomelia 14.3. 98. CyprianEpist. 14.2. 99. CyprianEpist. 19.1. 100. CyprianEpist. 3.1. 101. August. Sermo 211.4. 102. August. De civ. D. 14.12. This passage is also quoted and discussed by Pagels (Adam) Eve) and the Serpent, 108) in her larger discussion of Augustine on individual moral authority (chap. 5); seealso Connolly,Augustinianimperative) chap. 4. 103. August.Deciv.D.14.13. 104. See Pagels,AdamJ Eve) and the Serpent, 144-45. I do not agree with Pagels's overall argument that Augustine's view ofhuman subjection is an innovation, however, because I see these ideas presented in Cyprian and Ambrose, as I argue above. This difference may be more of one between Bastern Christians, on whom she largely relies for evidence, and Western ones. 105. Ambrose Epist. 21.4. Cf. the similar tenor in the description ofMartin of Tours's exchange with the emperor Maximian (Sulpicius Severus Vita sancti Martini 20). 106. Ambrose Sermo contra Auxentium 37. See also Morino, Church and State) chap. 2; and for Augustine, Gerald Bonner, ''Quid imperatori cum ecclesia? St. Augustine on History and Society:' Augustinian Studies 2 (1971): 231-51; reprinted in God)s Decree andMan)s Destiny: Studies on the Thought ofAugustine of Hippo (London: Variorum, 1987). Bonner argues that Augustine's experience with the Donatists had made him particularly cognizant of the discrepancies between the rival authorities of church and state, but he was certainly not the only Christian writer to be thus aware. 107. See Gaudement, IlEglise dans fJEmpire romain) 136-40 (on restrictions for slaves and freedmen, by ecclesiastical decrees, the former because directly under another's control and the latter because their former masters still had some rights over them), 144-48 (on decurions, mostly by imperiallegislation), and 168-72 (on merchants, a combination of ecclesiastical decrees restricting commerce by clerics and imperiallegislation making some professions hereditary). For the example of Gaul, see Aline Rousselle, ''Aspects sociaux du recrutement ecclesiastique au IVe siede:' Melanges de l)Ecole franfR-ise de &me: Antiquitt 89 (1977): 333-70. See also the opposing viewpoint ofFrank Gillard ("Senatorial Bishops in the Fourth Centurf,' Harvard Theological Review 77 [1984]: 152-75) who argues that laws against curial participation in ecclesiastical office attest to its frequency and notes that the alleged senatorial nobility of some bishops is difficult to ascertain. 108. Constantius ofLyon Vitasancti Germani episcopi (ed. SC 112) 4.22. 109. Sulpicius Severus VitasanctiMartini 9.3. See also Clare Stancliffe, St. Martin and His Hagiographer: History andMiracle in Sulpicius Severus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983). Stancliffe notes (112) that Martin's father rose to the

NOTES TO PAGES 155-57

353

rank of tribune and argues (292) that much of the opposition of the other bishops to Martin stemmed from his ascetic lifestyle, still an unusual thing in fourthcentury Gaul and associated with the executed heretic Priscillian of Avila. Stancliffe admits (357) that "Martin may have encountered snobbery ... because of his social and military background" and "uncouth appearance?' 110. HippoL Haer. 9. 7. Callixtus held office from 217 to 222, and Hippolytus was the first so-called antipope. The allegations are nicely summarized by Turton, SyrianPrincesses, 174-78. 111. August. Epist. (ed. J. H. Baxter, LCL; my trans.) 34.6: "sermone inpoliturn."

112. Hieron. Epist. 52.5; cf. Valerian Homelia 14.5. 113. See Brown, Power and Persuasion, esp. chap. 2; and Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians in the Mediterranean World from the Second Century A.D. to the ConversionofConstantine (London: Penguin, 1986), chap. 10. 114. For examples of these theological and familial networks, see Stancliffe, St. Martin, esp. chap. 5; or Elizabeth A Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Guttural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), esp. chap. 1. 115. Cod. Theod. 16.2.2, 16.2.10, EusebiusHistoriaecclesiastica 10.7. On the judicial privileges of the bishops, see also Gaudemet, IJEglise dans l'Empire romain, 230-87. 116. Cod. Iust. 1.3.21; see also Gaudemet, IJEglise dans l'Empire romain, 316-17. 117. Constitutiones Sirmondianae 3, 15. 118. Cod. Theod. 16.2.31, cf. ConstitutionesSirmondianae 14. Thelaw alsorequired the same penalty for assaults of presbyters and church buildings. Capital punishment meant loss of life for the lower dasses, loss of property and exile for the upper dasses. 119. Implied in Cod. Theod. 16.2. 39 and Constitutiones Sirmondianae 9 (probably the same originallaw, requiring any priests dismissed from their offices by bishops to become decurions). Cf. Cod. Theod. 16.2.41 (requiring bishops to use formal procedures for such dismissals). 120. Nov. Valentiniani 23.1, 35.1. See also Micheie Salzman, "The Evidence for the Conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity in Book 16 of the Theodosian Code," Historia 42 (1993): 362-78, who looks at the legal promotion of Christian derics. 121. Eusebius De vita Constantini 1.42-3, 2.21,35-41,45-6, see also Gaudemet, IJEglise dans PEmpire romain, 288-311. Cyprian irnplied (De lapsis 6) that some Christian bishops had acquired considerable wealth even before the era of Constantine. 122. Hieron. Epist. 7.5, 52.6,11, cf. SalvianDegubernationeDei 5.10. 123. See Gaudemet, IJEglise dans PEmpire romain, 451-63. The exact date of the Council ofElvira is unknown. Tertullian mentioned (De ieiunio 13) earlier meetings ofEastern bishops. 124. See Stancliffe (St. Martin, 266) for a discussion of this theme. 125. August. Epist. 33.5.

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NOTES TO PAGES I57-62

126. Hieron. Epist. 52.7. 127. I was unable to determine the dating ofpurple as the color ofbishops. Mary Houston (Ancient Greek) Roman) and Byzantine Costume and Decoration [London: Adam and Charles Black, 1947], 120-34) notes onlythat clerical dress preserved late ancient clothing styles after laypersons adopted other styles of dress. Jerome suggested (Epist. 52.9) that clerics should dress plainly, perhaps implying that many did not; he also noted (Epist. 66.6) that senators wore purple in his day, although the wearillg of purple was eventually prohibited to all except the emperors (in 424, by Cod. Theod. 10.21.3, although how effectively this prohibition was enforced is unknown). See also Lynda Coon, Sacred Fictions: Holy Women and Hagiography in LateAntiquity (Philadelphia: University ofPennsylvania Press, 1997), chap. 3. 128. August. De civ. D. 19.19, cf. idem, Epist. 22.8, 23.3, 98.8, 110.5. 129. Sid. Apoll. Epist. 6.1.3. I have changed the translator's "captain" to "centurion:' "standard-bearers" to "soldiers who fight in front of the Standards:' "batmen" to "military servants:' and "sutlers" to "camp-followers?' 130. Sid. Apoll. Epist. 6.1.4. 131. Sid. Apoll. Epist. 7.9. I have changed the translator's "converse" to "conversation?' 132. Sid. Apoll. Epist. 7.9. For more on Sidonius Apollinaris's views ofthe episcopacy, see Hanson, "Church in Fifth-Century Gaul?' 133. Ambrose De officiis ministrorum (ed. M. Testard [Paris: Beiles Lettres, 1984 and 1992] 2vols.; trans. H. deRomestin,NPNF 10) 2.24.125. 134. See Peter Cirsis, Ennoblement ofPagan Virtues: A Comparative Treatise on

Virtues in Cicero)s book De officiis and in St. Ambrose)s book De officiis ministrorum (Rome: Gregorian University, 1955), who notes the many similarities but oddly ignores their differences. 135. On humility, see Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.5.19; on modesty, 1.18.67. 136. August. De civ. D. 5.26. See also Robert Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge: Garnbridge U niversity Press, 1970); Richard Dougherty, "Christian and Citizen: The Tension in St. Augustine's De ciuitate dei)" in CollectaneaAugustiniana. Augustine: Second Founder of the Faith) ed. J. Schnaubelt and F. Van Fleteren (Berne: Peter Lang, 1990); and B. Paradisi, "La paix auiVe et Ve siecles:' RccueilsBodin 14 (1961): 321-95. 137. Ambrose Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam 4.28. 138. Ambrose De exhortatio virginitatis (ed. PL 16) 12.82, cf. Paulinus of NolaEpist. 1.7. CHAPTER SIX

Ps.-ClementHomilia (ed. PG 2) 13.18, cf.Dig. 48.5.14. CyprianEpist. 55.26. Lactant.Div. inst. (ed. CSEL 19; trans. M. McDonald,FC49) 6.23. Lactant. Div. inst. 6.23: "haec tarnen apud illos leuia et quasi honesta sunt?' For bibliographical details, see J. N. D. Kelly,]erome: His Lift) Writings) and Controversies (London: Duckworth, 1975). l. 2. 3. 4. 5.

NOTES TO PAGES 163-65

355

Hieran. Epirt. 77.8 (trans. Wright). Hieran. Epirt. 77.4 (trans. Wright). Hieron.Epirt. 77.2 (trans. Wright). Hieron. Epirt. 77.6 (trans. Wright). Hieran. Epirt. 77.10 (trans. Wright; I have changed the translator's present tense of"join" and "combine" to past tense for the sake of readability). 11. Hieron. Epirt. 77.3 (trans. Wright). 12. Hieron. Epirt. 77.3 (trans. Wright; I have somewhat rearranged the phrases of the translation for the sake of readability). Cf. Ambrase Expositio evan-

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

geliisecundumLucam 8.5. 13. Tert. Apol. 39.11, cf. idem, De patientia 12.5, Ad u.xorem 2.3, De monogamia 9 .4,8, De exhortatione cartitatis 9, De pudicitia 1.6-9 and 1.20-l. Cf. AmbraseDefogasaeculi 6.35, idem,DeAbraham 1.2. 7. See also Philip Reynolds, Marriage in the Wertern Church: The Chrirtianization ofMarriage during the PatristicandEarlyMedievalPeriods (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 122-26. 14. Hippolytus Traditio aportolica 15. 15. August.De Iibero arbitrio 1.3, AmbraseDefogasaeculi 3.15. 16. SalvianDegubernatione Dei 3. 8, cf. Ambrose De Iacob etvita beata l. 3 .1 0. The Biblical reference is to Matt. 5.27-28. 17. Jesus is supposed to have said that even desiring another man's wife was equal to it, and that a wife could be dismissed for it (Matt. 5.27-8,31-2; the Greek used was porneia [nopvcia, "sexual offense;' often meaning "prastitution"], a braader concept than adultery, even the wife's alone, and may have had another meaning, possibly meaning if she acted as a prostitute ). Paul included adulterers in his list of individuals who could not enter Heaven, but without defining the term (1 Cor. 6.9; the Greelc used is moichoi [Jlotxot], but here pornoi [n6pvot, "sexual offenders"] is included in the list presumably as aseparate category). 18. AmbrosiasterAd Corinthios prima (ed. CSEL 81.2) 7.11 ("the man is not constrained by the law in this way as the woman"), a reference that comes from Reynolds (Marriage in the Wertern Church, 183) who does not also refer to Ambrasiaster Ad Corinthios prima 7. 4, where he stated that "neither the husband nor the wife is permitred to give their body to others?' 19. Lactant. Div. inrt. 6.23. This is part of a much larger discussion on adultery and married men. 20. AmbroseDeAbraham (ed. PL 14) 1.4.25, cf. 1.7.59, 2.11.78. For further discussion, see William Dooley,Marriage according toSt. Ambrose, Studies in Christian Antiquity, vol. ll(Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1948), esp. chap. 9. Cf. Hieron. Epirt. 77.3: "adultera uxor ... et uir moechus"; August. De bono conjugali 4.4, idem, De adulterinis coniugiis 1.8.8, idem, De ser-

mone domini in monte 1.16.43. 21. Pornoi are listed as sinners excluded from Heaven in 1 Cor. 6. 9 and 1 Tim. 1.10. Fornicarius is probably the better translation, being derived fromfornix, meaning an arched or vaulted chamber but used to refer to a brathel, so meaning one who frequents brothels. 22. Salvian De gubernatione Dei 7.4. I have changed the translator's "maids" for ancillae to "slaves?'

356

NOTES TO PAGES 166-68

23. Paulinus ofPellaEucharisticus ll. 66-7. 24. AmbroseDeAbraham 2.11.78, 1.4.25, idem,De bono mortis 9.40. 25. Hieron. Epist. 14.5 (my trans.): "neget sacrilegium in libidine, sed is qui membra Christi et hostiam uiuam placentem Deo cum publicarum libidinem uictimis nefaria conluuione uiolauit." 26. 1 Cor. 6.9 and 1 Tim. l.10.Malakoi (f!aA,mco\.) is a farniliar term, butarsenokoitai (apcrevoKOt 'tat) is found nowhere else before Paul and is possibly his own invention. It is a composite of apcrevo- (male) and Kol:tat (those who lie down with) from Koi'tl], "lying down;' used euphemistically for sex. It is linguistically possible that the word condernns persans of either sex "who lie down with males;' but the context does not support the indusion of women who have sex with males among those prohibited, because there would be no purpose to many of the other condernnations. It is more likely an attempt by Paul to refer to Lev. 18.22 and 20.13 (translated in the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, as "f!E'ta äpcrevo<; Koi'tl]v"), also presumed to condernn both partners involved in sex between males. Paul's condernnation differs in focusing on the one doing the action rather than on the action itself, but his term may have been coined as a parallel with malakoi. See Dale Martin, ''Arsenokoites and Malakos: Meanings and Consequences;' inBiblicalEthics andHomosexuality: Listening to Scriptures) ed. R. Brawley (Louisville, I
NOTES TO PAGES 168-72

357

(trans. Thomson) lll. 271-3; onElagabalus,Auson. Caesares (ed. withEpiqr.) 1. 138 (my trans.): "Tune etiam Augustae sedis penetralia foedas"; on Maximian, Lactant. De mortibus persecutorum 8. 5. 34. Tert.Apol. 46.10, cf. Arn.Adv. nat. 1.64, Lactant. Div. inst. 1.20. Contrast this statementwith Tertullian's earlier sympathetic opinion (idem,Ad nat. 1.4.6) and the comments ofJohn Cassian (Conlationes 13.5), who obviously thought that Socrates had renounced sex. Cf. also Tertullian's opinion of the Platonists (De anim. 54-55). 35. ·Pmdent. c. Symm. lll. 69-70. 36. Lactant. Div. inst. 1.10-l, cf. Arn. Adv. nat. 4.26, Commodian Instructiones 1.6, Ps.-Tert. De execrandisgentium diis, AmbroseDe virginibus 3.7. 37. Pmdent. c. Symm. 11.116, cf. Tert.Adnat. 2.14.7, idem,Depallio 4, Lactant. Epit. Div. inst. 7. 38. Firmicus Matemus De errore profanarum reliqionum (ed. CSEL 2; trans. C. Forbes,ACW 37) 6.7: "cinaedum enin eum fuisse et amatomm seruisse libidinibus ... cum semiuiro comitatu fugiens-soli enim eum secuti sunt stuprarum et flagitiomm ac libidinum socü?' I have changed the translator's "homosexuals" for amatores to "his lovers" and "lackeys" for comitatus to "friends?' Cf. Pmdent. c. Symm. lll. 122-6, Lactant. Div. inst. 1.10, Commodianinstructiones 1.12. 39. Lactant. Div. inst. 1.10, cf. Arn.Adv. nat. 4.26. 40. August. De civ. D. 4.25. 41. August. De civ. D. 2.12. I have replaced the translator's "misdemeanors" forjlagitia with "disgraces?' Cf. 18.13. 42. Hieron. Epist. 22.30, RufinusApologia contraHieronymum 2.6-8, cf. also Hieron. Epist. 21.13, where Jerome condemned clerics who enjoyed reading the Latin classics. Cf. also Sulpicius Severus VitasanctiMartini praefatio l, John Cassian Gontationes 14.12. 43. Firmicus Matemus De errore profanarum reliqionum 12.2,4, cf. Ps.-Tert. De execrandisgentium diis, Lactant. Div. inst. 1.20. 44. August. De civ. D. 4. 8, Pmdent. Perist. 3 ll. 81-4, N ov. Theodosii 3 .1. 45. Hieron.Epist. 77.3 (trans. Wright), Tert.Depraescr. haeret. 7. 46. Ambrose Liber de consolatione Valentiniani (ed. and trans. T. Kelly, PS 58; hereafter De consol. Val.) 2 (on war, which he irnplied was the cause ofValentinian's death), 21 (on his subjects' loyalty, where he compared Valentinian with Julian), 51 (onhisdesireto be baptized), and 52 (onhis antagonism toward the pagans). 47. AmbroseDe consol. Val. 58. Ambrose was quoting Cant. 5.10, and quoted from the Song of Songs at numerous places in the oration. 48. AmbroseDe consol. Val. 11, cf. 12-3. 49. AmbroseDe consol. Val. 17. 50. AmbroseDe consol. Val. 38. 51. AmbroseDe consol. Val. 74. 52. AmbroseDe consol. Val. 46. 53. AmbroseDe excessu fratris Satyri 1.52. I have changed the translator's pu-

358

NOTES TO PAGES I72-74

dico mentis pudore from "bashful modesty ofheart" to "bashful modesty of mind?' Cf. August. Epist. 151.9. 54. Hieron.Epist. 125.7 (trans. Wright),AmbroseDeHeliaetieiunio (ed. and trans. M. Bude, PS 19) 16(59). Cf. Hieron. Epist. 54.9 (where Jerome attributed this belief to the ancient physician Galen), idem, Epist. 22.8, and idem, Tractatus de psalmo CVI 106. 55. Gerald Bonner ("Libido and Concupiscentia in St. Augustine;' Studia patristica 6 [1962]: 303-14; reprinted in God)s Decree and.Man)s Destiny: Studies on the ThoughtofAugustine ofHippo [London: Variorum, 1987]) attempts without real success to distinguish the use of these terms in a late ancient author whom one might most expect to have noted the di:fference. 56. A list of only the most recent of the best includes Erin Sawyer, "Celibate Pleasures: Masculinity, Desire, and Asceticism in Augustine;' Journal ofthe History ofSexuality 6 (1995): 1-29, David Hunter, "Augustinian Pessimism? A New Look at Augustine's Teaching on Sex, Marriage, and Celibacy;'Augustinian Studies25 (1994): 153-77; Peter Brown, "Augustine: SexualityandSociety;'chap.19 in Body and Society) Philip Reynolds, "Augustine's Theology of Marriage;' patt 3 ofMarriage in the Western Church. Generallyon Christian views of sexuality, see Brown, Body and Society. Joyce Salisbury (Church Fathers) Independent Virgins [New York: Routledge, 1992], esp. chaps. 1 and 2) also provides an interesting point of comparison by examining the patristic theories of sexuality and their effects on women's identity. 57. August. Soliloquia (ed. PL 32; trans. T. Gilligan, FC 1) 1.10.17. 58. See August. De bono conjugali 2.2, cf. Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.16,29, idem, Epist. 22.19, and Ambrose De institutione vi'lJinis et sanctae .Mariae virginitate perpetua 5 .36. 59. August. De Genesi ad litteram 9. 3, cf. idem, De nuptiis et concupiscentia l. 5. See also the discussion in Reynolds,Marriage in the Western Church) 241-51, and in Salisbury, Church Fathers) chap. 3, who calls it Augustine's "sexual revolution?' Elizabeth A. Clark ("Heresy, Asceticism, Adam and Eve: Interpretations of Genesis 1-3 in the Later Latin Fathers;' inAscetic Piety and Women)s Faith: Essays on LateAncient Christianity [Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Meilen Press, 1986], 353-85) argues that Augustine changed his opinion in response to the debate with Jovinian (see below on this debate ). 60. August. De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.24.27. 61. August. De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.25 .28. 62. August.Denuptiis etconcupiscentia 1.6.7, cf. idem,De civ. D. 14.15. 63. Tert.Adv.Marcionem 5.17. 64. CyprianDe zelo et livore 2. 65. Lactant. Div. inst. 6.23. 66. Hieron. Tractatus de psalmo X (ed. CCSL 78; trans. M. Ewald, FC 57), cf. also N ovatian De cibis iudaicis 4. 3, Ambrose De foga saeculi 4.17. 67. August. De civ. D. 14.17. Cf. Ambrose (De excessu fratris Satyri 1.52) that his brother had in his virginity kept the sinlessness of his baptism, Jerome (Epist. 49 .20) thatvirginitywas a second birth like baptism, and the anonymaus account of the martyr Felix martyred in N orth Mrica around 300 (Passio sancti Felicis epis-

NOTES TO PAGES 174-79

359

copi, ed. H. Musurillo, TheActs ofthe ChristianMartyrs [Oxford: Glarendon Press, 1972] 30) who at the moment ofhis martyrdom, thanked God for his virginity. 68. E.g.,AmbroseDeviduis4.23. 69. E.g., Tert. De anim. 27. 70. AmbroseDe fogasaeculi4.17, cf. idem,Deisaacvel anima 1.2. 71. Hieron. Vita sancti Pauli primi eremitae (ed. PL 23; trans. C. White, Early ChristianLives [London: Penguin, 1998]) 3. 72. August. ContraFaustumManichaeum 22.50 .. 73. Hieron. Commentarium in evangelium Matthaei (ed. CCSL 77) 3, cf. idem,Adv. Iovinian. 1.20. 74. August. Epist. 243, cf. idem,De continentia 5.13 and 14.31. 75. Tert. De monogamia 15 (trans. Le Saint; I have replaced the translator's "boudoir" for cubiculum with "bedchamber"). 76. Tert. De monogamia 16 (trans. Le Saint): "est res uirium?' Tertullian was mocking remarriage specifically; for more on his views on remarriage, see below in this chapter. 77. NovatianDebonopudicitiae (trans. R. DeSimone,FC67) 14. 78. Hieron. Epist. 52.13 (trans. Wright). 79. Prudent. Liber cathemerinon 1. 21. 80. Cod. I ust. 11.43 .1/11.44.1. For descriptions of the arena sports, see Apul. Met. 4.13 and 10.29-34; Cass. Dio 66.25; H. A. Gallieni duo 8. On the Christian critique of the arena games, see Werner Weismann, Kirche und Schauspiele. Die Schauspiele im Urteil der lateinischen Kirchenväter unter besonderer Berücksichtigung vonAugustin (Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1972); Michel Matter, "Jeux d'amphitheatre et reactions chretiennes de Tertullien ala fin du Ve siede:' and PaulAlbert Fevrier, "Les chretiens dans l'arene:' in Spectacula: Actes du colloque tenu a Toulouse et aLattes les 26, 27, 28, et 29 mai 1987, ed. C. Domergue et al. (Paris: Imago, 1990). 81. August. Sermo 216.6, cf. idem, De vera religione 45.83. 82. August. Confessiones 6.8. 83. AmbroseDe Helia etieiunio 21.79, cf. Paulinus ofNolaEpist. 24.15. 84. Hieron. Vita Hilarionis 2 (on Hilarion's disinterest in the games as a young man), 7 (on his temptations), 16 (on the episode ofhis curing of a charioteer), and 20 (on his blessing a charioteer's horses). 85. Tert. De spectaculis 22. 86. CyprianAdDonatum 7. 87. Prudent. Perist. 511. 213-6. 88. Oribasius Collectio medica 50.11, John CassianDe institutis coenobiorum 6. 7.2. See also Brie Dingwall, Male Infibulation (London: John Bale, Sons and Danielsson, 1925). 89. On the debate between Jerome and Jovinian, see Keliy,]erome, esp. chap. 17, Philip Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority, and the Church in the Age of]erome and Cassian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), and David Hunter, "Resistance to the Virginal Ideal in Late-Fourth-Century Rome: The Case ofJovinian:' TheologicalStudies48 (1987): 45-64. 90. On the classical tradition, see Katharina Wlison and Elizabeth Makowski,

360

NOTES TO PAGES I79-8I

Wykked Wyves and the Woes ofMarriage: Misogamous Literature from ]uvenal to Chaucer (Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 1990). Augustine noted the Latin literary tradition ofmarriage as misery (De civ. D. 19.5). 91. Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.7,12,13, idem1 Commentarii in Matheum 3.19.10. Cf. alsoAmbroseDevi?;ginitate 33,August.EnnarationesinPsalmos (ed. CCSL40) 149.15. 92. Hieron.Adv. Iovinian. (ed. PL 23) 1.9, cf. 1.7. 93. Hieron.Adv. Iovinian. 1.41. 94. 1 Cor. 7.25-8. 95. Matt. 22.30; Mark 12.25; Luke 20.35-6. See Hieron. Epist. 22.20. 96. Hieron.Adv. Iovinian. 1.36, cf. idem, Commentarii in epistolam adEphesios 3.5, Novatian, De bono pudicitiae 7.2. 97. Hieron.Adv.Iovinian.1.26, cf. alsoidem1 Epist. 49.21 andidem,Adv.Helvidium 19; the last argues that Joseph was also a virgin, since Jerome believed that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life and so her marriage to Joseph was without sex (cf. on the same issue August. De nuptiis et concupiscentia l.ll ). Jerome also argued (Epirt. 22.21) that most ofthe Hebrew prophets were also virgins. 98. Hieron.Adv. Iovinian. 1.8, cf.l.16,39. 99. Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.13, cf. Ambrose De vi?;ginibus 1.6.24. 100. Hieron.Adv. Iovinian. 1.3, cf. idem, Epirt. 22.20. 101. Hieron. Epist. 49.2. The scene at Romeis depicted by Harry Maier, "The Topography ofHeresy and Dissentin Late-Fourth-Century Rome;' Historia44 (1995): 232-49. 102. Ambrose condemned two itinerant preachers, possibly followers of Jovinian, in a letter to the Christians at Vercellae (Epirt. 63.7), written in about 396. At the turn of the century, Augustine wrote two treatises against the ideas of Jovinian (see below), and Jovinian was ordered beaten and exiled (Cod. Theod. 16.5.53, in a law probably dating from before 400). 103. See Rousseau, Ascetics1 Authority. See also John Lynch, "Marriage and Celibacy of the Clergy: The Discipline of the Western Church: An HistoricalCanonical Synopsis;' The ]urirt 32 ( 1972): 14-38, C. A. Frazee, "The Origins of Clerical Celibacy in the Western Church;' Church History 41 (1972): 149-67, and David Callam, "Clerical Continence in the Fourth Century: Three Papal Decretals;' Theological Studies 41 (1980): 3-50. There is some precedent in earlier Latin Christian writers: Tertullian noted the sexual purity demanded of the pagan Roman priests or sacerdotes (Ad uxorem 1.7, De exhortatione castitatis 7, 13). 104. Hieron. Epist. 22.19-20. On the "textual violence" done to Biblical texts by Christian writers of late antiquity, see Clark, Reading Renunciation1 104 and

passim. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109.

Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.28, cf. Ambrose De Isaac et anima 1.2. Hieron. Epirt. 22.21, cf. idem, Epist. 151.8. Hieron.Adv. Iovinian. 2.36. SiriciusEpirt. (ed.PL 13) 7.1. Ambrose Epist. 63:8,9. It can be presumed that he was writing against the ideas ofJovinian, since Jovinian had raised the issues thatAmbrose dealt with in the letter.

NOTES TO PAGES IBI-8+

361

llO. August. De bono viduitatis 6.9. Augustine alluded to 1 Cor. 15.41-2. Clark, "Heresy, Asceticism:' is mosdy on Augustine's role in the debate with Jovinian. lll. August.Debonoconjugali (ed. CSEL41; trans. C. Wilcox,FC27) 8.8. I have replaced "goods" for bona with "good things?' Cf. 23.28. ll2. August. De bono coniugali 15.17: "nunc melius faciat qui nec unam duxerit, nisi se continere non possit?' See Schmitt, Mariage chretien, 32-34. Cf. Hieron.Adv. Iovinian. 2.4. ll3. August. De bono coniugali 17.19. I have changed the translator's "no one" for nullus to "no man?' Cf. Hieran. Adv. Iovinian. 1.16, 1.48. ll4. August. De sancta virginitate 23.23. ll5. August. De sancta virginitate 27.27. ll6. Tert.Adv. Marcionem 5.15, cf. idem, De exhortatione castitatis 3. ll7. Tert. Ad uxorem 2.8 (trans. Le Saint); I have changed the translator's "sacrifice" foroblatio to "eucharist"; as Le Saintpoints out (132 n. 144), the allusion is to a small calce shared by the bride and groom in the ancient Roman marriage ritual of confarreatio. Cf. Paulinus ofNolaEpist. 18.5. ll8. Tert. De exhortatione castitatis 12. ll9. Tert. De exhortatione castitatis 9.1. 120. Tert. De monogamia 16. 121. Brown (Body and Society) best describes these groups, including Encratites (92-102), some Gnostics (103-21), and Manichaeans (197-202). 122. On the extent of Manichaeanism in the West, see Peter Brown, "The Diffusion of Manichaeism in the Roman Empire:' in Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine (London: Faber, 1977), Fran~ois Decret, IlAfrique manichtenne, IVe-Ve siec/es (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1978), idem,Aspects du manicheisme dans tJA.frique romaine. Les controverses de Fortunatus, Faustus et Felix avec Saint Augustin (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1970), idem, "Saint Augustin, temoin du manicheisme dans l'Mrique romaine:' in Internationales Symposion über den Stand der Augustinus-Forschung, ed. C. Mayer and K. Chelius (Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1989); and W. H. C. Frend, "The GnosticManichaean Tradition in Roman North Africa:' Journal ofEcc/esiastical History 4 (1953): 13-26. The presence of Manichaeanism in North Mrica is attestedas early as 287 C.E., when Diocletian and his fellow-emperors ordered the proconsul of Mrica to eradicate the religion there (Codex Gregorianus 14.4.1 ). 123. On Julian ofEclanum, see M. Lamberigts, "Julian of Aeclanum: A Plea for a Good Creator:' Augustiniana 38 (1988): 5-24, Elizabeth A. Clark, "Vitiated Seeds and Holy Vessels: Augustine's Manichaean Past:' inAscetic Piety and Women's Faith: Essays on Late Ancient Christianity (Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Meilen Press, 1986 ), and Brown, Body and Society, 408-19. 124. On Priscillian, see Henry Chadwick, Priscillian ofAvila (Oxford: Glarendon Press, 1976). Philaster ofBrescia (Diversarum hereseon liber 61.5) attests to the Manichaean presence in Spain. A law of 425 C.E. also attests to their presence at Rome (Cod. Theod. 16.5.62); and on the fears about their presence there, see Harry Maier, '"Manichee!': Leo the Great and the Orthodox Panopticon:' Journal ofEarly Christian Studies 4 (1996): 441-60.

362

NOTES TO PAGES I84--87

125. Ambrose Expositio evangelii Lucae 4.1 0, idem, De virginibus l. 7. 34. 126. On the Manichaean religion and its beliefs, see Alexander Böhlig, "Der Manichäismus:' chap. 17 in Die orientalischen Religionen im Römerreich, ed. Maarten Vermaseren (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981), also S. N. C. Lieu,Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985), and idem,Manichaeism inMes()jJotamia and the Roman Bast (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994). Augustine (Contra Faustum Manichaeum 6.3) described the beliefs of the Manichaeans about sex and the body; and Philaster of Brescia (Diversarum hereseon liber 61) describes the militaristic opposition of good and evil. It should also be noted that mostmodern scholars do not consider Manichaeanism a branch of Christianity because it incorporated elements of other religions into its beliefs, but Christians oflate antiquity did. 127. See August. ContraFaustumManichaeum 15.1. 128. Tert.Depraescr. haeret. 2.7-8. 129. Tert. Adv. Marcionem 3.5; cf Ps.-Tert. Carmen adv. Marcionem 411. 3-9. 130. Hieran. Epist. 133.3. 131. Philaster ofBrescia Diversarum hereseon liber (ed. CCSL 9) 61. 3. 132. Leo the Great Sermo 16.4. These phrases arepatt of a much longer denunciation. Cf 24.4. 133. Nov. Valentiniani 18.1. 134. Cod. Theod. 16.5.3 (punishing Manichaean teachers), 16.5.7 (confiscating Manichaean estates, prohibiting bequests and invalidating wills), 16.5.9,11 (confiscating the property ofManichaean leaders and forbidding assemblies), 16.5.18 (repeating above penalties), 16.5.35 (punishing all Manichaeans as criminals ), 16.5.38 (prohibiting any discussion ofManichaean ideas ), 16.5.41 (absolving from any of these penalties those Manichaeans who converted to orthodox Christianity), 16.5.43,59 (repeating all above penalties), 16.5.64 (expelling all Manichaeans from cities), and 16.5.65 (reconfirming above penalties, and prohibiting them from all branches of the imperial service except the army). 135. Cod. Theod. 16.5.6,8,11,12,13,31,34,36,58,59,60,61,65, and 16.6.7 (all against the Eunomianae [meaning "Well-Ordered (in Sexual Behavior)"]), 16.5.7,9,11 (against the Encratitae [meaning "(Sexually) Continent"] and Apotactitae [meaning "Renouncers (of Marriage )"] ), all with similar penalties to those against the Manichaeans. See also Salzman, "Evidence for the Conversion;' for more on these penalties against heretics. 136. Cod. Theod. 16.1.2 (where heretics are judged as the insane) and 11.39.11 (where they are disqualified from testifying in court). 137. August. De moribusManichaeorum 18.65. 138. E.g., Tert.Adv. omnes haereses 6. 139. August. De moribusManichaeorum 19.68. 140. Tert.De monogamia 1, cf John Cassian Gontationes 14.11. 141. Hieron. Epist. 22.38 (trans. Wright; I have changed the translator's "Manes" to "Mani"). 142. Brown, Body and Society, 143. See also Henry Chadwick, "The Attraction ofMani;' inHeresy and Orthodoxy in the Early Church (London: Variorum, 1991 ).

NOTES TO PAGES I87-9I

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143. E.g., Paulinus ofNolaEpist. 5.5, AmbroseEpist. 14.40. 144. Mark 10.5-9, Luke 16.18, Matt. 19.9. 145. GospelofThomas 12. 146. Col. 3.18-25, Eph. 5.21-6.9, 1 Pet. 2.18-3.7. See below, chap. 7, for more on the influence of these later additions to the Biblical corpus. 147. Eph. 5:22-32: "IJ.vcr't'f'tpwv?' The pluralwas also used in Greek for the rites of the pagan mystery religions. See above (chap. 4) on the use of sacramentum for Christian baptism and (chap. 5) on the image of the bride of Christ. Reynolds (Marriage in the Western ChurchJ 280-311) suggests that Latin writers used the term sacramentum for marriage through a comparison with baptism as a divine and indelible bond. 148. Acts ofPaul and Thecla 5-6. 149. August. De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.10 .ll; 1.11.13. There is an extensive secondary literature on this topic: J. Doignon, "La relationjides-sacramentum dans le De Bono Coniugali de Saint Augustin: Un schema de gradatio herite de Tertullien:' Ephemerides theologicae Lovanienses 59 (1983): 91-98, F. Gil Hellin, "Los Bona Matrimonii de san Agustin:' Rcrista agustiniana de espiritualidad 23 (1982): 129-85, Emile Schmitt, Le mariage chrtftien dans t>oeuwe de saint Augustin. Une theologie baptismale de la vie conjugale (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1983). 150. Lactant. De opi.ficio Dei 13.2. 151. Lactant. Div. inst. 5 .9. 152. Lactant. Div. inst. 6.23. 153. CyprianAd Donatum 9. 154. CyprianAd Donatum 9, cf. Ambrose Enarratio Psalmi 37.33, August. De bono conjugali 11.12, idem,De civ. D. 22.22. 155. August. De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.5 (on how Adam and Eve experienced no sexual desire before their rebellion against God), 1.6 (on how the rebellion of the flesh is evidence of this rebellion against God), l. 7 (on how the goods of marriage cannot redeem this ), and 1.15 (on the requirement of procreation as justification for marriage ). Cf. idem, De bono conjugali 3. 3. 156. August. De bono conjugali 5.5, cf. 6.5-6. 15 7. August. De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.11.12. 158. August. Epist. 31.6. This letterwas addressed to Paulinus ofNola andhis wife Therasia, participants in such a sexless marriage. Cf. Augustine's letter to Pinianus and Melania the Younger (Epist. 124.1). See also Elizabeth A. Clark, "Adam's Only Companion: Augustine and the Early Christian Debate on Marriage:' RecherchesAugustiniennes 21 (1986): 139-62. 159. Dyan Elliott, SpiritualMarriage: SexualAbstinence inMedieval Wedlock (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 50, 55-56; seealso Rousselle, PorneiaJ chap. 2, on the frequent mention of married women's attempts to avoid sex with their husbands in the medicalliterature oflate antiquity. 160. PelagiusAd matronem Celantiam (ed. PL 22; trans. David Hunter,Marriage in the Early Church [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992]) 26. I have made some changes to the translation for the salce of readability. 161. PelagiusAd matronem Celantiam 28.

364

NOTES TO PAGES I9I-93

162. August. Epist. 262.2. I have changed the translator's "conjugal chastity" for pudicitia coniugalis to the "the sexual modesty of marriage?' Cf. idem, De bono conjugali 6.6, and De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.11. 163. See above on adultery; seealso the ample discussion by Reynolds on divorce (Marriage in the Western Church) 126-31), who cites Ambrose (Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam 8.5) and Augustine (De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.10.11 ). Christian theologians argued for the equality of men's and women's positions in divorce, but there remained significant differences between men's and women's rights of divorce, belying a Christian origin. 164. Tert.Aduxorem 2.4 (trans. Roberts andDonaldson). 165. Tert. De exhortatione castitatis 4 (Paul's comments against remarriage, cf. De monogamia 3), 5 (the example ofAdam and Eve, cf. De monogamia 4), 13 (the examples ofDido and Lucretia and the pagan priests known as the pontifex maximus and fiamen dialis) cf. De monogamia 17), and 6 (the example of Abraham is rejected: since Christians do not follow his example of circumcision, they should not follow his example of digamy). 166. Ambrose De viduis 1.1, Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.4, August. De bono viduitatis 4.6, idem, De bono conjugali 24.32. 167. Ambrose De excessu fratris Satyri 2.13. The PL has amasit for amisit ("lost"). See also Marjorie Lightman and William Zeisel ("Univira: An Example ofContinuity and Change in Roman Society:' Church History 46 [1977]: 19-32), who see a conscious attempt by Christian writers on the subject of the univira to appeal to archaic Roman tradition. 168. AmbroseDeviduis 7.37, cf. 8.44,51. 169. Tert. De pudicitia 2: "effeminantia magis quam uigorantia disciplinam?' 170. Min. Fel. Oct. 31.5. 171. Cyprian De ecclesiae catholicae unitate 6. 172. AmbroseEpist. 63.37. 173. E.g., men should choose their wives, as Isaac chose Rebecca (Ambrose DeAbraham 1.9.91 and 93, August. ContraFaustumManichaeum 22.46); men should choose their wives according to their morals and not their appearance, as Abrahamchose Sarah (AmbroseDeAbraham 1.2.6); and men should guard their wives' sexual behavior closely, as Potiphar should have done with his wife so that she would not have had the opportunity to attempt to seduce Joseph (Ambrose De ]oseph patriarcha 5.22). 174. Ambrose De viduis 13.81, cf. Ambrosiaster Ad Corinthios prima 7.11. 175. Pelagius Ad matronem Celantiam 26. He quoted Eph. 5.23 and 1 Pet. 31. 176. Ambrose Epist. 63.107, cf. August. De moribus ecclesiae catholicae 1.30.63. 177. Elliott, SpiritualMarriage) 58. Elliott contrasts the attitude of Augustine, whom she claims wanted to maintain men's authority over their wives even within spiritual marriage, with the attitude of Paulinus, whom she claims promoted an equality ofhusband and wife within spiritual marriage. Elliott also uses Jerome as an example of an advocate of equality within spiritual marriage (see Epist. 71.4), but Jerome's viewpoint is more complicated than that; in the same

NOTES TO PAGES 193-97

365

letter, for example, Jerome compares his correspondent (a man, Lucinus ofBaetica) with the patriarch Joseph, in having successfully slipped from the embrace of a woman (71.3). 178. Paulinus ofNola Carmen (ed. CSEL 30; trans. Elliott, SpiritualMarriage, 53) 2511. 167-69. 179. Paulinus ofNola Carmen (trans. Elliott, SpiritualMarriage, 53) 25 11. 145-8. 180. Paulinus ofNola Carmen 2111. 247-50: "corporis victor sui." 181. Paulinus ofNo!aEpist. 23.24. 182. Paulinus ofNo!aEpist. 44.3. 183. Paulinus ofNolaEpist. 25.7, 23.11. He could also eloquently describe the love between husband and wife (Epist. 13.3 to Pammachius on the death of his wife Paulina). See also Augustine's comments on Paulinus's marriage (Epist. 27.2). 184. August. De bono conjugali 1.1, cf. idem, De civ. D. 19 .14. 185. Examples include Ambrose Expositio euangelii secundum Lucam 1.30, idem,Delacob etvitabeata 2.2.7, Hieron.Epist. 117.4, August. Deciv. D. 20.21, idem, In Johannisevangelium tractatus 51.13, Arn. Adv. nat. 1.2, Petrus Chrysologus Sermones 1-10 (on the theme of the prodigal son, filled with images of a father's love ), and Salvian Epist. 4 (addressed to his parents with great affection). 186. AmbroseDe Tobia 8.30. 187. Luke 14.26, cf. Matt. 10.37, Mark 10.29-30. See Elizabeth A. Clark, "Antifamilial Tendencies in Ancient Christianity:' Journal ofthe History ofSexuality 5 (1995): 356-80. 188. Ambrose De fuga saeculi 2. 7. 189. August. De sermone Domini in monte (ed. CCSL 35; trans. M. Kavanagh, FC 11) 1.15.41. 190. Hieron.Epist. 54.3 (mytrans.), cf. idem,Homilia 85. 191. Cyprian De mortalitate (ed. CCSL 3a; trans. R. Deferrari, FC 36) 12. This episode is found in Gen. 22.1-12. Cf. Paulinus ofNola Epist. 24.2, Valerian Homelia 18.2, August. ContraFaustumManichaeum 22.30-40. 192. AmbroseDeiacobetvitabeata (ed. CSEL 32.2; trans. M. McHugh,FC 65) 2.2.6, cf. the theme of parental favoritism in idem, De Ioscph 2.5. 193. Passio sancti Irenaei episcopi Sirmiensis (ed. and trans. H. Musurillo, TheActs ofthe ChristianMartyrs [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972]) 3.1-3, cf. 4.5-7. 194. Passio sanetarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis (ed. and trans. H. Musurillo, The AetsoftheChristianMartyrs [Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1972]) 5. 195. Passio sanetarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis 5. 196. Passio beati Phileae episcopi de civitate Thmui (ed. and trans. H. Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972]) 6.4. 197. Paulinus ofNolaEpist. 8.1: "noli repe11ere consiliamatris tuae ... nunc etiam spiritalibus lactare et enutrire domino gestit uberibus ... si tarnen Augustini doctrina tamquam manus matris ... regat paruulum?'

366

NOTES TO PAGES 197-99

198. Hieron. Epist. 22.21 (trans. Wright). On God as father, see August. Senno 13.8.9, Arnbrose De Noe et arca 94, Tert. Adv. Marcionem 2.13. On the church as mother, see Karl Delahaye, EcclesiaMater chez les peres des trois premiers siecles (Paris: Cerf, 1964). 199. For discussions of classical models of friendship and their use by Christian patristic writers, see Pierre Fabre, Saint Paulin de Note et Pamitie chritienne, Bibliotheque des Ecoles Fran~aises d1\.thenes et de Rome, vol. 167 (Paris: Boccard, 1949), Carolinne White, Christian Friendship in the Fourth Century (Garnbridge: Garnbridge University Press, 1992), Joseph Lienhard, "Friendship in Paulinus ofNola and Augustine;' in CollectaneaAugustiniana: Melanges T. J van Bavel, ed. B. Bruning et al. (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1990), 279-96, Philip Culbertson, "Men and Christian Friendship;' inMen)s Bodies, Men)s Gods: Male Identities in a (Post-) Christian Culture, ed. B. Krondorfer (New York: N ew York University Press, 1996), 149-80, and David Konstan, "Problems in the History of Christian Friendship;' Journal of Early Christian Studies 4 (1996): 87-113. 200. August. De Genesi ad litteram 9.5. 201. Pontius Vita et passio sancti Caecilii Cypriani (ed. PL 3; trans. R. Wallis, ANCL8)4. 202. Pmdent. Perist. 11. 53: "fide quos per omne tempus iWlXerat sodalitas?' 203. Passio sanctorumMariani et Iacobi, Paulinus ofMilan VitasanctiAmbrosii 14,Acta sanetarum Sergio et Baccho martyrorum (see the discussion of the last pair below, chap. 7). 204. John Cassian Gontationes (ed. E. Pichery, SC 54; trans. B. Rarnsey, ACW 57) 16.1, cf. Cassian's comments aboutfriendship generally (16.3). 205. Paulinus ofNolaEpist. 32.1 (trans. Walsh): "tu es iste quem loquimur, tu inquarn pars nostri maior et melior, tu requies nostra, tu gaudium; in te reclinatio capitis nostri et mentis habitatio est?' Cf. also idem, Epist. 23.1 (also addressed to Severus) and 40.3 (addressed to Sanctus and Arnandus and describing theirgennanitas spiritalis, "spiritual brotherhood"). Cf. also Sid. Apoll. Propempticon ad libellum 11. 26-30 (about Iustinus and Sacerdos), Min. Fel. Oct. 1.1 (remembering the companion after whom he narned his treatise ). 206. Hieron.Epist. 3.5 (trans. Mierow). 207. Hieron. Epist. 3, 4, and 5, cf. August. Epist. 73.6. 208. Hieron. Epist. 3.3: "partem animae meae?' Cf. August. Confessiones 4.6.11: "Bene quidarn dixit de amico suo dimidium animae suae?' Cf. Hor. Cann. 1.3.8: "animae dimidium meae?' 209. August. Confessiones 4.4.7, 9.4.7. 210. ValerianHomelia 10.1. I have changed the translator's "this is sport" to "it is fun?' 211. August. Confessiones 2.2.2 and 3.1.1. The sexual nature ofthis relationship has been noted by historians ofhomosexuality: see Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, 135, or Greenberg, Construction ofHomosexuality, 224; it has also been assumed by some psychoanalytic historians: see, e.g., James Ditres, "Continuities between the Life and Thought ofAugustine;']ournalforthe Scientific Study ofReligion 5 (1965): 130-40.

NOTES TO PAGES 200-I

367

212. Hieron. Epist. 49:20, 7.3 and 7.4, idem, Homilia 86. 213. Boswell, Same-Sex Unions. As he relates (24-25), it is ultimately impossible to know whether there was a sexual element to these ritual unions, but it is certainly clear that they were part of important emotional bonds. It is uncertain whether these rituals existed in late antiquity or were later developments, but they are certainly related to the encouragement of male friendship by Christian leadersthat began in late antiquity. Boswell includes several texts of such rituals in appendixes. Boswell's interpretation has been criticized by Shaw, "Ritual Brotherhood;' who sees the rituals more as political than social or emotional bonds. 214. Rosemary Rader, Breaking Boundaries: Male/Female Friendship in Early Christian Communities (New York: Paulist, 1983), Elizabeth A. Clarlc, "Friendship between the Sexes: Classical Theory and Christian Practice;' in ]erome, Chrysostom, and Friends: Essaysand Translations, Studies in Women and Religion 2 (New York: Edwin Mellon, 1979), 35-106, idem, "Theory and Practice in Late Ancient Asceticism: Jerome, Chrysostom, and Augustine;' Journal ofFeminist StudiesinRcligion 5 (1989): 25-46. 215. On these relationships among Christians of the East: Elizabeth A. Clark, "John Chrysostom and the Subintroduaae," Church History 46 (1977): 171-85, reprinted inAscetic Piety and Women's Faith: Essays on Late Ancient Christianity (Lewiston, N. Y.: E. Mellen Press, 1986); Susanna Elm, Virgins ofGod: The Making ofAsceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press). 216. Hieron. Epist. 22.14 (trans. Wright): "meretrices univirae?' 217. Hieron. Epist. 117 and 128. Curiously, Jerome's Vita Malchi is the story of a saindy pair of cohabiting Christians, although forced to do so as slaves, but still together in old age (2) and pretending to be married (6 ). 218. Hieron. Epist. 39.2: "mi Paula?' This reference comes from a letter consoling Paula about the death of her daughter Blesilla. Kelly (]erome, 91-103) discusses his relationships with Paula, Blesilla, and other women. 219. Hieron. Epist. 108 is a funeral oration for Paula, describing their friendship. 220. Examples include Hieron. Epist. 22 (to Paula's daughter Eustochium to congratulate her on her decision to remain a virgin), 66 (to Parnmachius to console him at the death ofhis wife Paulina, another daughter ofPaula), and 107 (to Laeta, a daughter-in-law ofPaula, with advice on how toraiseher infant daughter, also named Paula). 221. Hieron. Epist. 45 is dedicated entirely to refuting such accusations. 222. Hieron. Epist. 133.4, cf. idem, Dialogus adversus Pelagianos 1.26. Rufinus replied that the accusations were groundless (Apologia contra Hieronymum2.5). 223. Hieron. Epist. 125.18 (trans. Wright). Again, note the easy familiarity with the classical Roman heritage. Jerome also worried (Apol. contra Rufinum 1.13) that Rufinus would refer to him as a Sardanapalus. 224. Hieron. Epist. 125.6. 225. Cod. Theod. 16.2.20, cf. 16.2.44, Constitutiones Sirmondianae 10. 226. One example was the friendship between Melania the Younger (seealso

368

NOTES TO PAGES 201-9

below, chap. 7) and the ernpress Eudocia (Gerontius VitaMelaniae ]unioris 59). Augustine of Hippo warned a community of ascetic women that "the love between you should not be carnal but spiritual" (Epist. 211.14 ). See also Mary Rose D'Angelo, "Women Partners in the NewTestament;']ournal ofFeminist Studies in Religion 6 (1990): 65-86, who provides a religious and social context for women's friendships and some examples from late antiquity. 227. Hieron. Epist. 54.4 (my trans.). 228. Hieron. Epist. 54.6 (my trans.), cf. the similar sentiments Jerome expressed to the widows Marcella (Epist. 38.3) and Eustochium (Epist. 22.15). 229. Hieron.Epist. 54.15 (mytrans.). 230. Hieron. Epist. 77.3 (trans. Wright): "sub gloria uniuirae exercere meretricium." 231. Hieron. Epist. 77.4 (trans. Wright). 232. ArnbroseDe officiis ministrorum l. 7.24. Arnbrose quoted in part from 1 Cor. 4.15. 233. AmbroseDefide (ed. CSEL 78) 4.8.82-3. 234. Hieron. Epist. 22.19 (trans. Wright; I have changed the translator's "sowing" to "seed"). 235. Vincent ofUrins Commonitoria (ed. CCSL 64) 1.1, 23.12, 24.4. CHAPTER SEVEN

l. Arnbrose De ]acob et vita beata 1.8.39. I have changed the translator's "role of life" for status to "state of life" and "handsome" for decorus to "distinguished?' Cf. idem, De officiis ministrorum 2.5.16. 2. Chromatius ofAquileia Sermo de octo beatitudinibus (ed. CCSL 9) 9 .1, cf. Paulinus ofNolaEpist. 38. 3. The story is from Gen. 25:20-34 and 2 7: 1-45. These contrasts would have meant something different to the ancient Hebrew Storytellers who crafted the tale, of course: they probably meant to contrast the civilized life of agriculture with the primitive life of hunting. This legend also served as the basis for patristic writers to argue that adherents of the Jewish religion were replaced in God's affections by those of the Christian religion. 4. AmbroseEpist. 63.100. 5. 2 Cor. 12.9-10. 6. Hieron.Epist. 22.40 (trans. Wright). 7. Pmdent. Perist. 10 11. 588-90,608-10. 8. ArnbroseDe Cain etAbei (ed. PL 14; trans. J. Savage,FC 42) 1.10.47: "quaedam femineae sunt, malitia, petulantia, luxuries, intemperantia, impudicitia, aliaque hujusmodi vitia, quibus animi nostri quaedam enervatur virilitas. Masculinae sunt, castitas, patientia, pmdentia, temperantia, fortitudo, justitia?' 9. August. De Iibero arbitrio (ed. F. Tourscher [Philadelphia: Peter Reilly, 1937]; my trans.) 1.13; 1.2: "Virili animo esto." Cf. idem, De moribus ecclesiae catholicae 1.15.25. 10. See Hieron. Homilia de nativitate Domini, idem, Tractatus de psalmo LXXXIII 8, Tractatus de psalmo XV. Modern scholars have examined the Christian concept of virtus at length without linking it to manliness. See Volkmar

NOTES TO PAGES 209-13

369

Hand, Augustin und das klassisch römische Selbstverständnis. Eine Untersuchung über die begriffe Gloria, Virtus, Justitia und &s Publica in De Civitate Dei (Harnburg: Helmut Buske, 1970); Eisenhut, "Virtus in der frühchristlichen Literatur;' in Virtus Romana; Peter Brown, "The Saint as Exemplar in Late Antiquity;' in Saints and Virtues, ed. J. Hawley (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). 11. AmbroseDeofficiisministrorum 1.19.84: "Sed utmolliculum etinfractum aut uocis sonum aut gestum corporis non probo?' I have removed the translator's "effeminate" before the word "gesture" in this final clause, and used it to replace the translator's word "soft?' 12. Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.19.84. I have changed the translators "virtue" for honestas to "truth?' 13. Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 2.3.9: "alterum quasi infractum et molliculum, alterum quasi euiratum et infirmum despuit?' 14. Ambrose Epist. 63.97: ''Nihil molliculum, nihil infractum ad laudem pervenit?' 15. Cod. Theod. 15.7.12. 16. H. A. Gallieni duo 21.5-6, idem, Tyranni triginta 9, Cass. Dio 64.2.1. 17. A neutral description is given by Claudian Panegyricus . .. Manlio ll. 311-32. See also Richard Beacham, The Roman Theatre and itsAudience (New York: Roudedge, 1991), 136-38. 18. Tert. De spectaculis 23. I have changed the translation from "His" to "the" before "judgment;' since the phrase quid de pantomino iudicabit is vague. Tertullian also suggested (25) that the shows distracted men from more important tasks. 19. Tert. De spectaculis 17. 20. Lactant. Div. inst. 6.20.29: "histrionum quoque inpudicissimi motus quid aliut nisi libidines et docent et instigant? quorum enetuata corpora et in muliebrem incessum habitumque mollita inpudicas feminas inhonestis gestibus mentiuntur?' 21. Lactant. Epit. div. inst. 58.5-6. 22. NovatianDe spectaculis (ed. CCSL 4; trans. R. DeSimone, FC 67) 6: ''uir ultra muliebrem mollitiem dissolums ... unum nescio quem nec uirum nec feminam?' 23. Cyprian Ad Donatum 8: "euirantur mares, honor omnis etuigor sexus eneruati corporis dedecore mollitur plusque ilic placet, quisque uirum in feminam magis fregerit?' Cf. idem, Epist. 2.2; 3.1. 24. On communion denied to actors, Cod. Theod. 15.7.1; on the maiuma, 15.6.2, replacing a law issued by the same emperors three years earlier that had permitred it ifdecency was respected, 15. 6.1; on spectacles on Sundays or the emperors birthday, 2.8.23: "nec quicquam, quod ad molliendos animos repertum est, spectaculorum?' 25. AmbroseExpositioevangeliisecundumLucam (ed. CCSL 14) 6.8: "histrionicos fluxi corporis motus?' Cf. idem, De Helia et ieiunio 18(66). 26. SalvianDegubernationeDei 6.3, cf. ValerianHomelia 1.7. 27. Hieran. Epist. 43.2 (trans. Wright). 28. Tert.Apol. 15.3, cf. idem, De spectaculis 10, Arn.Adv. nat. 4.32-6. Gener-

370

NOTES TO PAGES 213-20

ally on the Christian poletnie against pagan myths, see R. P. C. Hanson, "The Christian Attitude to Pagan Religions up to the Time of Constantine the Great;' inStudiesin ChristianAntiquity (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1985). 29. SalvianDegubernationeDei 6.11, cf. Peter Chrysologus Sermo 155. 30. See Bertha von der Lage, Studien zur Genesiuslegende (Berlin: R. Gaertners, 1898). 31. Prudent. Perist. 1411. 67-78. See also the analysis ofthislegend by Malamud, Poetics ofTransformation, chap. 6; and by Virginia Burrus, "Word and Flesh: The Bodies of Ascetic Women in Christian Antiquity;'Journal ofFeminist Studies inReligion 10 (1994): 27-52, andidem, "ReadingAgnes: TheRhetoricofGender in Ambrose and Prudentius:' Journal of Early Christian Studies 3 (1995): 25-46. Cf. also Ambrose, De Helia et ieiunio 12.45 and Hieron. Epist. 22.38 on "perfumed men?' 32. Prudent.Amartigenia 11. 264-78. I have changed the translator's "it were wearisome" to "it would be wearisome?' Maria Wylce ("Woman in the Mirror: The Rhetoric of Adornment in the Roman World;' in Women inAncient Societies: An Illusion of the Night) ed. L. Areher et al. [New Yorlc: Routledge, 1994], 134-51) demonstrates how women's love of adornment is an ancient Roman theme. See also Marcia Colish ("Cosmetic Theology: The Transformation of a Stoic Theme;' inAssays: CriticalApproaches to Medicval and Renaissance Texts) vol. 1, ed. P. Knapp and M. Stingrin [Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981 ], 3-14) who does not mention Prudentius'sAmartigenia) but who notes that the condemnation of luxury by Tertullian, Ambrose, and Jerome reworked a Stoic theme of the "natural" as a Christian theme of"God's design?' 33. Prudent.Amartigenia 11. 279-97. 34. Prudent.Amartigenia 11. 304-7. 35. Tert. De pallio 1 (connecting the clothing styles to the decline ofthe empire); 2 and 3 (describing the process of change in nature); 4 (condemning the transvestism of the pagan gods and heroes and attributing it to the emperors); 5 and 6 (contrasring manly and unmanly styles ). Fredouille, Tertullien) chap. 9, exarnines De pallio in detail and suggests that it may have been intended as satire. See above, chap. 5, for Tertullian's opinions on the Roman Empire. 36. Tert. De pallio 4.8. 37. Tert. De idololatria 16. 38. Deut. 22.5. 39. Tert. De cultu feminarum 2.8.2, cf. CyprianDe lapsis 6, 30, idem,AdQuirinum 3.84. 40. Tert. De cultu feminarum 2.8.2. 41. Tert. De cultu feminarum 2.13: "Discutiendae sunt enim deliciae, quarum mollitia et ßuxu fidei uirtus effeminari potest?' Cf. idem, De paenitentia 11. 42. Lactant.Epit. div. inst. 38, cf. Arn.Adv. nat. 3.8-10. 43. Lactant. Div. inst. 1.16.14-7. Lactantius also suggested ( l. 8) that female gods were only necessary if divine offspring were needed, but if the gods were truly immortal, they would not need offspring to succeed them. 44. August. De civ. D. 4.8. Augustine gives other examples ad nauseam; see also Mary Daniel Madden, The Pagan Divinities and Their Worship as Depicted in

NOTES TO PAGES 221-23

371

the Works ofSaintAugustine Exclusive ofthe City ofGod, Patristic Studies, vol. 24 (Washington, D.C.: Gatholic University of Arnerica Press, 1930). 45. Gal. 3.27-8. There is an extensive Iiterature of modern commentary on this passage. See Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory ofHer: A Feminist Theological&construaion ofChristian Origins (New York: Grossroad, 1989), chap. 6. 46. See Wayne A. Meeks, "The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Barliest Ghristianity;' History of&ligions 13 ( 1974): 165-208. 47. See Elaine Pagels, "Paul and Women: AResponse to Recent Discussion;' ]ournal-oftheAmericanAcademy of&ligion 42 (1974), 538-49, esp. 539-40. 48. See Brown, Body and Society, esp. chap. 4, for an excellent discussion of the erasure of sexual difference through sexual renunciation in early Ghristianity. 49. On the Marcionists, see R. Joseph Hoffmann,Marcion: On the &stitution

ofChristianity. An Essay on the Development ofRadical Paulinist Theology in the Second Century, Arnerican Academy of Religion Academy Series, 46 (Ghico, Galif: Scholars, 1984) esp. 17, 255-56. On the Montanists, see Ghristine Trevett,Montanism: Gender,Authority and the New Prctphecy (Gambridge: Garnbridge University Press, 1996); esp. chap. 4; F. G. K.lawiter, "The Role ofMartyrdom and Persecution in Developing the Priestly Authority ofWomen in Early Ghristianity: A Gase Study of Montanism;' Church History 49 (1980): 251-61; and Balfour Goree, "The Gultural Bases of Montanism;' (Ph.D. diss., Baylor University, 1980). See also McNamara,A New Song; and Torjesen, When Women Were Priests. 50. Michael Williams, &thinking
372

NOTES TO PAGE 223

Nag Hammadi Codices:' in Images ofthe Feminine; Sebastian Brack, '"Come, Compassionate Mother ... Come, Holy Spirit': A Forgotten Aspect of Early Bastern Christian Imagery:' Aram 3 ( 1991): 249-5 7; but see also the rebuttal by R. Joseph Hoffmann, '"De statu feminarum': The Correlation of Gnostic Religious Theory and Social Practice:' Eglise et Thtowgie ( 1983): 293-304. 54. See Virginia Burrus, Chastity asAutonomy: Women in the Stmies oftheApocryphalActs, Studies in Women and Religion, 23 (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Meilen, 1987); and Antoinette Clark Wire, "The Social Functions ofWomen's Asceticism in the Roman Bast:' in Images ofthe Feminine. 55. See Stuart Schneiderman (An Angel Passes: How the Sexes Became Undivided [New York: N ew York U niversity Press, 1988]) who writes ( 17): "Whereas sexual identity and the ethical systems of pagans tended to see the primary division on a horizontal axis [between male and female ], as in the division between right and left, Christianity substituted a vertical division in which the moral became dissociated from the division of the sexes. And one might even say that within the Christianized West this division passes for a division of the sexes .... Where all humans are unsexed in the sense that their identity is not based on being on either side of a horizontal division, equality reigns. In place of a sexual division there arises a division between the moral and the immoral, the liberated and the unliberated?' 56. Hermann Usener, "Legenden der Pelagia:' in Vorträge und Auflätze (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1907); Marie Delcourt, "Le complexe de Diane dans l'hagiographie chretienne:' Revue de l'histoire desreligions 153 (1958): 1-33; John Anson, "The Fernale Transvestite in Early Monasticism: The Origin and Development of a Motif:' Viator 5 (1974): 1-32; Meeks, "Image ofthe Androgyne"; Vern Bullough, "Transvestites in the Middle Ages:' American Journal ofSociology 79 (1974): 1381-94; Evelyn Patlagean, "!Jhistoire de la femme deguisee en moine et l'evolution de la saintete feminine Byzance:' StudiMedievali, 3d ser. 17 (1976): 597-623; Zoja Pavlovskis, "The Life of St. Pelagia the Harlot: Hagiographie Adaptation of Pagan Romance:' Classical Folia 30 (1976): 138-49; Elena Giannareli, La tipowgia femminile nella biograjia e ne!Pautobiograjia cristiana del IVo secolo (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1980); Sebastian Brack, "Clothing Metaphors as a Means ofTheological Expression in Syriac Tradition:' in Typus, Symbol, Allegorie bei den östlichen Vätern und ihren Parallelen im Mittelalter, ed. M. Schmidt and C. Geyer (Regensburg: Pustet, 1981); Susan Ashbrook Harvey, "Warnen in Early Syrian Christianity:' in Images ofWomen in Antiquity) ed. A. Cameron and A. Kuhrt (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1983); Ruth Albrecht, Das Leben der heiligen Makrina auf dem Hintergrund der Thekla-Traditionen. Studien zu den Ursprüngen des weiblichen Mönchtums im 4. Jahrhundert in Kleinasien (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986); Sebastian Brock and Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Holy Women ofthe Syrian Orient (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1987); Renedicta Ward, Barlots ofthe Desert: A Study ofRepentance in Early Monastic Sources (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1987); Peter Brown, Body and Society, 323-38; Elizabeth Castelli, "'I Will Make Mary Male': Pieries of the Body and Gender Transformation of Christian Warnen in Late Antiquity:' in Body Guards: The Guttural Politics ofGender Ambi-

a

NOTES TO PAGES 224-25

373

guity, ed. J. Epstein and K. Straub (New York: Routledge, 1991); Salisbury, "Freedom from Gender Identification:' chap. 7 in Church Fathers; Kate Cooper, "The Bride That Is No Bride:' chap. 3 in Virgin and the Bride; Lynda Coon, "God's Holy Harlots:' chap. 4 in Sacred Fictions. 57. Deicourt ("Complexe de Diane") coined a Freudian-type term for this activity, the Diana complex, but was criticized for talcing the idea at face value as an expression of female behavior. See Usener ("Legenden der Pelagia") for the legends as pagan myths; Anson ("Female Transvestite") for the legends as male fantasies; Pavlovskis ("Life of St. Pelagia") for the legends as reworkings of literary romances. 58. See E. Hunt, "St. Silvia of Aquitaine: The Role of a Theodosian Pilgrim in the Society ofEast and West:'Journal ofTheological Studies 23 (1972): 351-73; but see also Hagith Sivan, "Who Was Egeria? Piety and Pilgrimage in the Age of Gratian:' Harvard TheologicalRcview 81 (1988): 59-72. There arealso the examples of Melania the Eider and Melania the Younger (see below, nn. 112 and 114 for biographical details). For examples ofwomen passing as men in early modern Europe, see R. Deld~:er and L. van de Pol, The Tradition afFemale Transvestism in Early Modern Europe (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989); or for U.S. history see Jonathan Ned Katz, "Passing Warnen: 1782-1920:' in Gay American History: Lesbians and GayMen in the USA. (New York: Rarper & Row, 1976); for a historical overview, see Bullough and Bullough, Cross Dressing. Salisbury (Church Fathers) sees independence of action and movement as an important motivating factor for warnen in late ancient Christianity. 59. 1 Cor. 11.3-16. On the campering interpretations ofPaul between the Thecla traditions and the Pastoral Letters, see Dennis MacDonald, The Lf;ffend and theApostle: The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon (Philadelphia: Westrninster, 1983 ). A previous generation of schalarship tended to see the passage as a later redaction, and not part of the authentic writings ofPaul. In part, this opinion was derived from an apparent contradiction in the surviving text. Paul condemned warnen who prophesy in the churches with their heads uneavered (11.5), implying that the uneavered heads were the problern but not the prophesy, but in a later passage ( 14.34-5) Paul forbade warnen to speak at all in assemblies, a difficulty which suggests that there has been some interpolation of the text. See the comment of Pagels, "Paul and Warnen:' 544; argued at length by W 0. Walker, "1 Corinthians 11:2-16 and Paul's Views regarding Warnen:'Journal ofBiblicalLiterature 94 (1975): 94-110; and by G. W Trompf, "On Attitudes Toward Warnen in Paul and Paulinist Literature: 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 and Its Context," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 42 (1980): 196-215. See also Robin Scroggs, "Paul and the Eschatological Woman:' Journal ofthe American Academy ofReligion 40 (1972): 283-303. Scroggs notes (298 n. 40) that the passagealso contains an internal contradiction, because if a woman's lang hair acts as a "natural" covering for her head, she should not need to wear a veil but rather a man should, whose short hair does not cover his head. Schalars have more recently attempted to show how the passages might be reconciled, and mostly rejected the notion of a later interpolation: see Dale Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), chap. 9; Mary Rose d'Angelo, "Veils, Virgins, and the

374

NOTES TO PAGES 225-27

Tongues ofMen and Angels: Women's Heads in Early Christianity;' in OffWith Her Head! The Denial of Women1s Identity in Myth1 &ligion1 and Culture1 ed. H. Eilberg-Schwartz and W Doniger (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 131-64; Daniel Boyarin, "Paul and the Genealogy ofGender;' &presentations41 (1993): 1-33; Antoinette Clark Wire, The Corinthian WomenProphets: A &construction through PauPs Rhetoric (Minneapolis: Forttess, 1990); Dennis MacDonald, "Corinthian Veils and Gnostic Androgynes;' in Images ofthe Feminine1 ed. King. On the veiling of women, see Roland de Vaux, "Sur le voile des femmes dans l'orient ancien;' Revue Biblique 44 (1936): 397-412. 60. See Brown, Body and Society, chap. 7; Steve Young, "Being a Man: The Pursuit ofManliness in The Shepherd ofHermas;'Journal ofEarly Christian Studies 2 (1994): 237-55. 61. For a summary of Origen's ideas on sexual difference, see Brown, Body and Society1 chap. 8, with references to the large secondary bibliography on Origen. Nonna Verna Harrison has also discussed the transcendence of gender in Origen, on the Platonic theme of spiritual childbearing in men ("The Feminine Man in Late Antique Ascetic Piety;' published on the World Wide Web at http://www.uts.columbia.edu/~usqrjharrison.htm [accessed 22 July 1998]). 62. On bridal imagery in texts usually defined as Gnostic, see R. M. Grant, "The Mystery of Marriage in the Gospel of Philip;' Vigiliae Christianae 15 (1961): 129-40; Jean-Marie Sevrin, "Les noces spirituelles dans l'Evangile selon Philippe;' Le Musion 87 (1974): 143-93: Jorunn Jacobsen Buclcley, '"The Holy SpiritisaDouble Name': Holy Spirit, Mary, and Sophia in the Gospel ofPhilip,'' in Images ofthe Feminine. Cf. also Madeleine Scopello, "Jewish and Greek Heroines in the Nag Hammadi Library;' in Images ofthe Feminine (72-76) for other texts. Thesetexts were all part of the N ag Hammadi archeological discovery, and date from the late fourth century. The bridal metaphor was taught in some Christian circles, and condemned by Irenaeus ofLyon in the late second century (Adv. haereses 1.13.3). On a "Gnostic'' bridal ritual, see Buckley, Female Fault1 136-42. See also Deirdre Good, "Gender and Generation: Observations on Coptic Terminology, with Particular Attention to Valentinian Texts;' in Images ofthe Feminine (36-38) for a comparison of"Gnostic" ideas and Origen (as weil as Tertullian). 63. Irenaeus Adv. haereses (ed. PG 7.1) 1.13 .6. 64. HippoL Haer. 6.29-37 and 5.19; Irenaeus Adv. haereses 1.13.3 and 1.23.2. See McGuire, "Women, Gender;' 262-66; seealso Luise Abramowski, "Female Figures in the Gnostic Sondergut in Hippolytus' Rifutatio1" in Images of the Feminine. 65. IrenaeusAdv. haereses 1.13.5 (on women's attraction to the teaching of Marcus at Rome); 1.23.2 (on Helena, an associate ofSimon Magus and former prostitute). This latter rumorwas repeated by Jerome (Epist. 133.4). 66. Trevett, Montanism1 69-76; she also says that "by the 170s it [Montanism] was known in Rome" (55); and that it disappeared in the western Mediterranean in the 4th century andin the eastern Mediterranean in the 8th century (223-32). Goree ("Cultural Bases;' 250-53) suggests that women had a lesser public role in Western Montanism.

NOTES TO PAGES 227-32

375

67. Ps.-Clem. Epist. quae dicitur II (ed. K. Biblmeyer,DieApostolischen Väter [Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1924] 1) 12.2, cf. the Gnostic Gospel ofThomas 22. 68. Passio sanetarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis 10. See Joyce Salisbury, Perpetua)s Passion: The Death andMemory ofa Young &man Woman (New York: Roudedge, 1997). On this incident, seealso Castelli, "I Will Make Mary Male"; and F. J. Dö1ger, "Der Kampf mit dem Ägypter in der Perpetua-Vision. Das Martyrium als Kampfmitdem Teufel:' Antike und Christentum 3 (1932): 177-88. Cf. also Augustine's comments on the virtus ofPerpetua (Sermo 282.2-3). 69 .. Tert. De virginibus velandis 10. I have changed the transJator's "brethren" for fratres to "brothers?' On Tertullian and women's authority, see McNamara, ANewSong, 108-25; andd'AngeJo, "Veils, Virgins?' 70. Tert. De virginibus velandis 8. 71. Tert. De virginibus velandis 8. 72. Tert. De virginibus velandis 9: "nec ullius uirilis muneris?' 73. Tert. De cultu feminarum 1.1: "diaboli ianua ... diuinae Jegis prima desertrix?' 74. Tert.Debapt. 17. 75. Tert. De praescr. haeret. 41. 76. Tert.Adv. Valent. 11.1-2, 18.3, 21.1, 35.1-2. 77. Tert.Adv. Valent. 32.5: "non angeJus, non angeJa?' Tertullian was rebutting the Valentinian belief in a type of"spiritual procreation" after death. 78. Tert. De anim. 36.2,4. For the medical and philosophical antecedents to Tertullian's beliefs, see P. de Labriolle, "La physio1ogie dans J'oeuvre de Tertu1lien:' Archives Generales de Midecine 83 (1906): 1317-28. 79. Tert.Deanim. 56. 80. Tert. De anim. 9. 81. Hieron. Homilia 77, idemJ Tractatus inMarci euangelium 5.30-43. 82. Ambrose De Cain et Abel 1.10.46, cf. idem, De officiis miniserorum 1.28.134. 83. Hieron. De perpetua virginitate beataeMariae adv. Helvidium (ed. PL 23) 20. 84. Hieron. Epist. 49.2. 85. AmbroseDeviduis 14.84-5. 86. Ambrose, De officiis ministrorum 3.13.82-5. 87. Ambrose De virginibus (ed. F. Gori [Milan: Bibliotheca Ambrosiana, 1989]; trans. H. deRomestin,.NPNF 10) 1.2.5: "uirtus supranaturam?' 88. Hieron.Epist.107.7,22.38,AmbroseDeofficiisministrorum l.18.69,Peter ChrysoJogus Sermo 80. 89. Vita sanctae Eugeniae (ed. PL 73) 15. The PL has infrunitam where I read infirmiter. See Anson ("Female Transvestite:' 12) on Rufinus's authorship. 90. On Castissima, see Salisbury, Church Fathers) 104-10. 91. Hieron. Epist. 22.27 (trans. Wright; I have changed the trans1ator's "bJush" for erubescent to "are ashamed"). Cf. Hieron. Epist. 1.14. 92. Ambrose De officiis miniserorum 1.46.223. 93. Cod. Theod. 16.2.27. 94. See ElizabethA. CJark, "New Perspectives on the Origenist Controversy:

376

NOTES TO PAGES 233-36

Hwnan Ernbodiment and Ascetic Strategies:' Church Hirtory 59 (1990): 145-62; idern, Origenist Controversy, esp. chap. 3. For rnore details on the specific debate over sexual difference, see the discussion of this question in Clark, Women inLateAntiquity, 120-26; Brown, Body and Society, 379-84; and Hunter, "Paradise ofPatriarchy:'' 95. Hieron.Adv.]ov. 1.36, idern, Comm. inEpist. adEphesios 3.5. 96. Hieron.ApologiacontraRufinum (ed. CCSL 79; trans. J. Hrit:zu,FC53) 1.29. His cornrnents were a response to RufmusApologia contra Hieronymum 2. 5. 97. Hieron. Epirt. 108.23 (rny trans.). He continued by saying that Jesus' words about the angelic life in Heaven will not rnean that hwnan beings will have the substan~e (subrtantia) of angels, being neither male nor fernale, but that they will associate with thern and share their blessedness (conversatio et beatitudo). 98. Hieron. Epist. 84.6 (rny trans.). 99. August. De continentia (ed. CSEL 41; trans. M. McDonald, FC 16) 10.24. OnAugustine and wornen as the irnage ofGod, see Kirn Power, "Wornen, Man and theimago Dei," part 4 ofVeiledDesire: Augurtine on Women (New York: Continuwn, 1995); T. J. van Bavel, "Augustine's View on Women:' Augustiniana 39 (1989): 5-53; Kari B0rresen, "In Defense ofAugustine: How Femina Is Homo," Augurtiniana 40 ( 1990): 411-28; and Allen, Conccpt ofWoman, 218-36. 100. August. De civ. D. 22.17. 101. August.Detrinitate (ed. CCSL 50) 12.7.10. 102. August. De trinitate 12.7.12, cf. idern, De opere monachorum 32.40. 103. August. De civ. D. 22.17. 104. August. De civ. D. 14.11: "feminae, aparte scilicet inferiore illius hurnanae copulae incipiens?' Cf. 20.21, idern, Diuersae quaestiones (ed. CCSL 44A) 11. 105. August. De vera religione (ed. CCSL 32; trans. J. Burleigh [South Bend, Ind.: Gateway, 1953]) 41.78. 106. On fernale asceticisrn in the West, see Anne Ewing Hickey, Women ofthe Roman Arirtocracy as Chrirtian Monastics, Studies in Religion, 1 (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987); on fernale asceticisrn in the Bast, see Elrn, Virgins of God. 107. AmbroseDevirginibus 1.12.65. McNarnara (ANewSong, 121) listsTertullian as the first Christian writer to connect the veiling of virgins and the bride of Christ irnagery (De oratione 22.9, rnisidentified as 25, where he used the expression nupsisti enim Christo); Cyprian alluded to the sarne irnage (De habitu virginum 20); but it does not seern to have been rnuch used before Arnbrose and Jerorne (see Hieron. Epirt. 22.17: "esse cwn Christo ... sponswn tuwn"; 22.25: "sponsa intrante cwn sponso"; and 22.26: "tu intrinsecus esto cwn sponso.)" See also Clark, "Uses of the Song of Songs:' who notes the later Latin fathers' use of the irnage for prornoting sexual renunciation; and David Hunter, "Helvidius, Jovinian, and the Virginity of Mary in Late Fourth-Century Rorne:' Journal of EarlyChrirtianStudies 1 (1993): 47-71, whonotesJovinian'sobjection totheuse of the "bride of Christ" irnage for virginal wornen alone (part ofJovinian's larger defense of the spiritual equality of all Christians, rnarried or virginal). 108. Hieron. Epist. 22.25.

NOTES TO PAGES 236-40

377

109. Ambrose De virginibus 2. 7,9. I have replaced the translator's "for d.ivine service" for ad ecclesiam with "to church?' llO. AmbroseDevirginibus 2.ll. 1ll. Hieron. Epist. 22.25 (trans. Wright), cf. 22.17,24. 112. See Clark, Origenist Controversy, 20-25; seealso Francis Murphy, "Melania the Elder: A Biographical Note:' Traditio 5 (1947): 59-77; Hickey, Women of the RJJmanAristocracy, 43-48. ll3. Paulinus ofNolaEpist. 29.6: "si feminam d.ici licet, tarn uiriliter Christianam·!" Cf. 45.2. ll4. Gerontius VitaMelaniae Iunioris (ed. D. Gorce, SC 90; trans. E. Clark [New York: E. Me11en, 1984]) 39: "cllpOVTU.La avlipEtOV ~tiA.A.ov liE oupavtov ?' For biographical details, see Elizabeth A. Clark, "Piety, Propaganda, and Politics in the Life ofMelania the Younger:' inAscetic Piety and Women's Faith: Essays on Late Ancient Christianity (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Me11en, 1985); or Salisbury, Church Fathers, 89-96; or Gillian Cloke, This FemaleMan: Women and Spiritual Puwer in the Patristic.Age, A.D. 350-450, 167-85; and esp. Coon, Sacred Fictions, 109-19 (who notes [ll9] how Melania the Younger "underscores the danger of female usurpation of male power"). ll5. Gerontius VitaMelaniaeiunioris ll. ll6. Gerontius VitaMelaniaeiunioris 50, 54. 117. On Eudocia's role in the N estorian d.ispute, see Holum, Theodosian Ernpresses, ll8-228 (on Eudocia's association with Melania the Younger, see 183-86); on the concern for presenting Melania as "orthodox," see Clark, "Piety, Propaganda?' ll8. Auson. Parentalia (ed. as Epigr.) 611. 7-10 (my trans.): "feminei sexus od.ium tibi semper?' ll9. Prudent. Perist. 3 11. 31-5. 120. Paulinus ofNolaEpist. 23.24-5. Cloke (This FemaleMan, 220) writes: "Anyone holy enough to be an exemplar of the faith could not be a woman: every one of the many who achieved fame through piety was held to 'surpass her sex'never, be it noted, to elevate the expectations that might be held of her sex. The argument is self-fulfilling: however many of this kind ofwomen there were, in being superior they were always excepted from their sex, never taken as representative; always regarded as a superior anomaly from their sex and in spite of it, and never as an example of their sex's capacity?' 121. Pavlovskis ("Life of St. Pelagia") compares the Christian legends of transvestite females and pagan legends of cross-dressing; the connection between pagan and Christian legends of transvestite males has not yet been stud.ied, but the dozens of pagan stories of transvestism and androgyny have been co11ected by Marie Delcourt, Hermaphrodite. Mythes etrites de Ia bisexualitedans l'Antiquite classique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958). 122. I am grateful to Professor John Boswe11 for calling this legend to my attention and for having provided me with a translation of the biography from the manuscript of his book, Same-Sex Unions, before its publication. He obviously thought it tobe a legend ofEastern origin, using the Greek text for his translation. Maximian, however, was only one ofseveral competing claimants to the im-

378

NOTES TO PAGES 24-1-46

perial throne in 309, and his area of jurisdiction at that time was in Gaul. Furthermore, as Boswell points out ( 147 n. 172 ), one of the earllest references to the cult of Sergius is by Gregory ofTours in si.'l:th-century Gaul, who believ~d the relics ofthe saint to have been in Bordeaux (HistoriaFrancqrum 7.31). Th~.texi: of their martyrdom itself places their execution in Syria, and as Boswell-records;· the popularity of the men's cult in the Greelc Basnventually far surpassed that' ofthe Latin West (155). The place of execution as recorded in theGreeklegend or the popularity of the Greek cult may have influenced Boswell's opinion as to its ongins. He also doubted that Maximian was the emperor responsible for the martyrdom; he suggested (375 n. 2) that the emperor could have been Maximin Daia, the Bastern emperor ruling over Bgypt and Syria from 305 to 313. See now also the suggestion by David Woods ("The Bmperor Julian and the Passion of Sergius and Bacchus," Journal ofEarly Christian Studies 5 (1997]: 335-67) that the account is a composite of an Bastern martyr's shrine and the memory ofJulian's unique method ofhumiliating his soldiers. 123. Acta sanctorum Se~io et Baccho martyrum (ed. AASS 7 October; trans. Boswell, Same-Sex Unions, 379): "Sicut sponsam adornasti nos muliebribus stofu~ . 124. Titus 2.12, Col. 3.9-10, Isa. 61.10. 125. Thetalebears a strilcing resemblance tothat ofDidymus and Theodora of Alexandria (AASS 28 April) and that of Alexander and Antonia of Constantinople (AASS 3 May). 126. Ambrose De vi~inibus 2.4.27 and 28. 127. AmbroseDevi~inibus 2.4.29. 128. AmbroseDe vi~inibus 2.4.30. 129. Ambrose De vi~inibus 2.4.31. I have changed the translator's "whilst" to "while" and "surety'' for Padimonium to "pledge ofhonor?' 130. AmbroseEpist. 78, cf. idem,De Cain etAbell.10.46-7 (whereAmbrose has the "masculine" aspect of the soul give birth to the qualities necessary for salvation). See also VIrginia Burrus ("'Equipped for Vlctory': Ambrose and the Gendering ofOrthodoxy:' Journal ofEarly Christian Studies 4 [1996]: 461-75), who describes Ambrose's complex and conscious use of gender in his theology, including in his De vi~inibus, although she does not mention the transvestite soldier episode. CHAPTER EIGHT

l. Hieron.Epist. 66.13 (mytrans.). 2. Hieron. Epist. 22.32. 3. AmbroseEpist. 20.28 (mytrans.). 4. Hieron.Epist. 108.7, cf. 66.13, 130.4. 5. Hieron.Epist.108.20 (mytrans.). 6. Hieron. Epist. 107.11. 7. Hieron. Epist. 130.13, cf. idem, Comm. inMatheum 3 ad 19.12: "deliciae matronales?' 8. See the excellent overview by Gabriel Sanders, "Kybele und Attis:' in Die orientalischen &ligionen im R.iimerreich, ed. Maarten Vermaseren (Leiden: B. J.

NOTES TO PAGES 247-49

379

Brill, 1981), 264-,-97. See also the overviews for the Roman imperial period by Mary Beard, "The Roman and the Foreign: The Cult ofthe 'GreatMother' in Im·perial Rome;' in Shamanism, History, and the State, ed. N. Thomas and C. Humphrey (Ann.Arbor.: University ofMichigan Press, 1994), 164-90; and Tur_:~an, Cultes orientaux, chap. l. There is a considerable amount of schalarship by . Maarten J~ Yennaseren on the cult: see Cybele and Attis: The Myth and the Cult (London: Thaines and HU:dson, 1977) and alsoLegend ofAttis. He has also collected .i:ogether many of the literary and inscriptional references to the cult in his Corpus Cultus Cybelae.Attidisque (CCCA) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977-89); seealso ·the collected essays by Eugene Lane, ed., Cybele,Attis andRclated Cults: Essays in Memory ofM. J Vermareren (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996 ). The most detailed examination of the cult, especially in the Roman Empire, still remains that by Henri Graillot, Le culte de Cybele: Mere des dieux, aRome et dans Pempire romain (Paris: Fontemoing, 1912). I am indebted in what follows to all of these scholars. 9. For examples of this multiple identification, see Apul. Met. 11.5, Auson. Epigr. 32. 10. See J. B. Rives, Religion andAuthority in Roman Garthage fromAugustus to Constantine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), for the Romanizarion ofPunic religion in the classical era. Salvian of Marseilles (De gubernatione Dei 7.18-9) made disparaging remarks about the cult of the Mother of the Gods in North Africa, which rnight attest to its continued existence into the rnid-fifth century, but his comments were more likely talcen from Augustine's writings, and Salvian, in any case, was writing from Gaul. 11. SeeHerodianBasileiaHistoria 1.11.2, Pliny HN5.17, Ov.Fast. 4.361-4. See Eugene Lane, "The Name ofCybele's Priests the 'Galloi;" in Cybele,Attis, and Rclated Cults, ed. E. Lane, 117-33. 12. Julian Or. 5.165B-166A. See also Giulia Gasparro, Soteriology andMystic Aspects in the Cult ofCybele andAttis (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985); and Robert Turcan, "Attis Platonicus;' in Cybele,Attis, andRclated Cults, ed. E. Lane, 387-403. 13. Firm. Mat. Err. prof rel. 3, cf. Amm. Mare. 22.9.15, cf. Lactant. Div. inst. 1.21, idem, Epit. div. inst. 18.5-6, August. De civ. D. 7.25. 14. Hieron. Comm. inMatheum 3 ad 19.12. See also A. D. Nock, "Eunuchs in Ancient Religion;' Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 23 (1925): 25-33; and the rebuttal by Rousselle, Porneia, chap. 7. 15. Ps.-LucianDe Dea Syria 51. Vermaseren (Cybele andAttis, 97) describes the clothing of the eunuch priests from several sources: a colared tunic, a head veil or turban over long and bleached hair, jewelry including neclclaces, earrings, and finger rings, and facial powder. 16. See Tert.Ad nat. 1.10.45-7, idem,Apol. 15.4-5, Arn.Adv. nat. 4.35. 17. Lactant. Div. inst. 1.17 (my trans.), cf. idem, Epit. div. inst. 8.6. 18. Tert.Adnat. 2.7.16, cf. Min. Fel. Oct. 22.4, Am.Adv. nat. 1.41, 5.8-17. 19. Prudent. c. Symm. 211. 51-2. 20. Lactant. Div. inst. 1.21: "amputato enim sexu nec uiros se nec feminas faciunt." 21. Tert.Ad nat. 1.20.4: "de tertio sexu: illud aptius de uiro et femina uiris et feminis iunctum?' I have changed the translators' "third race in sex" to "third sex?'

380

NOTES TO PAGES 249-54

22. August. De civ. D. 7.24: "nec conuenatur in feminam nec uir relinquarur:' 23. Prudent. Perist. 10 ll. 196-200. 24. Prudent. Perist 10 ll. 1059-75. 25. Prudent.Perist. 10ll.1091-3. 26. See the critical analysis of ancient writers on the topic by Mary B~a:rd and· ~. John Henderson, "With This Body I Thee Worship: Sacred Prostitution in An-· tiquity;' in Gender and the Body in the Ancient MediterraneanJ ed.. M. Wylce (Oxc •. ford: Blackwell. ,., 56-79. 27. Apul . .i'li[rr. 7.~',6. 28. Paulinus ofNola Carmen 19.169-71, cf. idem,Epist. 31.3. 29. Firm.Mat.Err.profrel.4.1-2. 30. Firm. Mat. Err. prof rel. 4.2: ''uiros muliebria pati et hanc impuri et impudici corporis labern gloriosa ostentatione detegere. Publicant facinora sua et contaminati corporis uitium cum maxima delectationis macula confitenrur:' Cf. Min. Fel. Oct. 28.10-1, Tert. De resurrectione mortuorum 16 (where he is disgusted at the thought ofkissing agallus as weil as a prostitute, implying that both perform oral sex). 31. Firm. Mat. Err. prof rel. 4.2: "Negant se uiros esse, et non sunt: mulieres se uolunt credi, sed aliud qualiscumque qualitas corporis confitetur." 32. Firm. Mat. Err. prof rel. 4.3. 33. August. De civ. D. 2.5: "istos, qui fl.agitiosissimae consuetudinis uitiis oblectari magis quam obluctari student:' 34. August. De civ. D. 7.26. 35. August. De civ. D. 6.8: "uiros muliebria pati non est secundum naturam, sed contra naruram:' 36. August. De civ. D. 7.27: "coronatione uirilium pudendorum, mercede stuprorum, sectione membrorum, abscisione genitalium, consecratione mollium, festis inpurorum obscenorumque ludorum:' 37. August. De civ. D. 6.7. I have replaced the translators "men" with "per0

;:,),

sons:'

38. August. De civ. D. 6.10. For classical references, see Lynn Roller, "The Ideology of the Eunuch Priest;' in Gender and the Body in the Ancient MediterraneanJ ed. M. Wyke (Oxford: Blaclcwell, 1998), 118-35. See also Deborah Sawyer (Women and Religion in the First Christian Centuries [New Yorlc: Routledge, 1996]), chap. 7, who argues thatthe cultoftheMother ofthe Gods challenged traditional Roman gender roles while the cult of the vestal virgins reinforced them. 39. See Turcan, Heliogabale; and Martin Frey, Untersuchungen zur Religion und zur Religionspolitik des Kaisers Elagabal (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1989), esp. chap. 2. See also the connection made by Firmicus Matemus (Err. prof rel. 8.2) betweenAttis and the sun. The late-third-century emperor Claudius II Gothicus also supported the religion after Elagabalus (see H. A. Diuus Claudius 4.2 ). 40. Claud. InEutropium 11. 326. 41. Tert.Adv. .Marcionem 1.13. On the archeological evidence ofshrines in the late ancient West, see Vermaseren, Cybele andAttisJ chaps. 2, 6. 42. August. De civ. D. 2.26, 2.4, cf. Firm. Mat. Err. prof rel. 18.

NOTES TO PAGE 255

381

43. See Marle Smith, The Early History ofGod: Yamveh and the Other Deities in . Ancient Israel (San Francisco: Rarper & Row, 1990); Richard Pettey, Asherah: Goddess ofisrael (New Yorlc: Peter Lang, 1990); and Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 3d ed. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990); se·e also the more .. :conservative approaches of Saul_ Olyan, Asherah and the Cult ofYahweh in Israel, . SoCiety ofBiblicalLiterature Monograph Series, 34 (Adanta: Scholars, 1988); and William Reed, TheAsherah in the Old Testament (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1949). · 44. Beatrice Broolcs ("Fertility Cult Functionaries in the Old Testament;' Journal ofBiblical Literature 60 [1941]: 227-53) examines the evidence for the qadlshtm and argues that they were sacred prostitutes; see also Greenberg (Construction of Homosexuality, 94-106, 135-41). Broolcs's conclusions were questioned by Eugene Fisher ("Cultic Prostitution in the Ancient Near East? AReassessment;' Biblical Theology Bulletin 6 [1976]: 225-36), who sees it only as a post-Biblical interpretation, and by Mayer Gruber ("The qädls in the Boolc of Kings andin other Sources;' Tarbiz 52 [1983]: 167-76), who thinlcs of the qadlshtm as "Canaanite cultic singers?' I find the basis of these rebuttals unconvincing. There is the link between the qadlshah and female sacred prostitution: Joan Westenholz, "Tamar, Qedesä, Qadistu, and Sacred Prostitution in Mesopotamia;' Harvard Theological Review 82 (1989): 245-66; and Karel van der Toorn, "Female Prostitution in Payment ofVows in Ancient Israel;' Journal of BiblicalLiterature 108 (1989): 193-205; seealso Mayer Gruber, "The Hebrew Qfdesäh and Her Canaanite and Alclcadian Cognates;' in The Motherhood of God and Other Studies (Adanta: Schalars Press, 1992). It also seems clear that there were sacred male prostitutes in other areas of ancient southwest Asia: see Will Roscoe, "Priests of the Goddess: Gender Transgression in Ancient Religion;' Historyof&ligions35 (1996): 195-230, whosummarizestheextantevidence. There is also the derogatory use of the term kelebh, a term linlced in the typical parallelisms ofBiblical texts with zönäh ("secular female prostitute") and perhaps meaning a secular male prostitute: see D. Wmton Thomas, "Kelebh 'Dog': Its Origins and Some Usages ofit in the Old Testament;' Vetus Testamentum 10 (1960): 4102 7; see also Phyllis Bird ("'To Play the Harlot': An Inquiry into an Old Testament Metaphor;' in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, ed. Peggy Day [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989], 75-94; reprinted inMissing Persans andMistakenidentities: Women and Gender inAncient Israel [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997], 219-36) who argues that the Deuteronomic reformers compared qadeshöth to zönöth as a way of demeaning sacred sexual activity. The same might weil have been true of the connection between dogs and qadlshtm, but Bird ("The End of the Male Cult Prostitute: A Literary-Historical and Sociological Analysis of Hebrew qädes-qedesfm," in Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, vol. 66, ed. J. A. Emerton [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997], 37-80), does not thinlc that they ever existed, and argues unconvincingly that they were invented only as a literary parallelism to the qadeshöth. 45. On mourning for Tammuz, see Ezelc 8.14; on castration of priests, Deut. 23.1 (specifying both crushed testicles and amputated penis); on sexual penetration of males, Lev. 18.22; on transvestism, Deut. 22.5. For discussion of these

382

NOTES TO PAGES 256-57

te.'Cts see Saul Olyan, "'And with a Male You Shall Not Lie the Lying Down of a Woman': On the Meaning and Signifi.cance·ofLeviticus 18:22 and 20:l3:'Journal ofthe History ofSexuality 5 (1994): 179-206. For late ancierit Jewish.inter~ pretations of these prohibitions, see also Daniel Boyarin, ''Are There AnyJews i.ti 'The History of Sexuality'?"Journal ofthe History ofSexuality 5 ( 1995): 333..;.55; · and Michael Satlow, '"They Abused Hirn like a Woman': Homoeroticism, Gender Blurring, and the Rabbis in Late Antiquity;'Journal ofthe History ofSexuality . 5 (1994): 1-25. 46. Both Greenberg (Construction of Homosexuality, 190-202) and Olyan ('~d with a Male You Shall Not Lie") reject any connection between the Levitical prohibition and male cultic prostitution; Olyan (181-82 n. 6) also rejects altogether the existence of male cultic prostitution. Olyan suggests instead that the term tiPabhah connotes "the violation of a socially constructed boundary, the undermining or reversal of what is conventional, the order of things as the ancient might see it?' Yet all of its uses from texts of this period refer to religious violations, except one (Deut. 25.16: cheating in measurements) which might be a later interpolation; moreover, this not preclude the fact that what the q~deshi:m were doing through their castration, transvestism, and ailtic sexual activity was considered a "violation;' "undermining or reversal?' See instead Calum Garmichael, "Forbidden Mixtures in Deuteronomy xxii 9-11 and Leviticus xix 19:' Vetus Testamenturn 45 (1995): 433-48, who notes that the mixed cloth·oflinen and wool (sha'atnez) condemned as tö'a bhah was of the type worn by cultic prostitutes. See also Paul Humbert, "Le substantiv tß>ebtt et Je verbe t>b dans l'Ancien Testament,~Zeitschriftfürdiealttestamentliche Wzssenschaft72 (1960): 217-37, who reviews all wes of the terms. Professor Saul Olyan was kind enough to read and critique this part of the manuscript and disagreed with my conclusions, but did not provide me with any new reasons to reject them. 47. Ezek. 8.14. 48. 1 Kings 14:24, 15.12, 22.47, 2 Kings 23.7, Job 36.14. Only once did he use a different term for qädesh; at Deut. 23.17-8 he translated it as scortato1j meaning "one who frequents prostitutes." Perhaps he had not yet understood its precise meaning, near the beginning ofhis translation, although it might have been his attempt to create a male equivalent and parallelism to the term scortum) meaning "harlot?' He also consistently translated the term q<Jdeshah as meretri.x) "female prostitute?' 49. Hieron. Comm. in Osee 1.4.14. 50. This is also the sense of the Septuagint Greek translation of the term, ßi>EI.:uyJ.La, from the verb ßSel.:ucrcrEtv (to malce Joathsome or fearsome). 51. Rom. 1.23-9. 52. Bernadette Brooten (Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism [Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1996], 363-72) discusses the passage at length and provides an annotated bibliography of modern scholars on the passage. Schotars who have linlced the passage to Greek traditions of pederasty, as is most commonly clone and as Brooten herself does, are unable to explain the "reward" (Greek av-ttJ.LtcsSia, Latin merces). Robin Scroggs (The New Testament and Homosexuality: Contextual Background for Contemporary De-

NOTES TO PAGE 257

383

bate [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983], 115-16), writes: "Finally, thearnbiguouslast phrase calls for attention .... Bither Paul is hinring at physical disease (perhaps venereal) ... or he counts the distortion of homosexuality itself as the punishment?'.Martti Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A H'istorical Perspec.'tive (Minneapoii.s: Fortress Press, 1998) also ignores the connection. Boswell . (Christianity, Social Tolerance, 1 08) noted the possibility of a connection with sacred prostinition but rejected it, also mentioning the "mysterious reference" at the end ofthe passage (113 n. 72). Curiously, Boswell attributes the connection . between this passage.and sacred prostitution to Herman van de Spijker (Die gleichgeschlechtliche Zuneigung. Homotropie: Homosexualität, Homoerotik, Homophilieund die KatholischeMoraltheologie [Freiburg: Walter-VerlagOlten, 1968], 82) but this scholar rejects that interpretation. Van de Spijker, in turn, attributes the argument to Robert Wood ("Homosexual Behavior in the Bible;' One Institute Quarterly 5 [1962]: 10-19, esp. 16), but this scholar does not even discuss this interpretation in bis article. The origins of this interpretation are therefore unknown. 53. Especially Wisd. 14.12-31. 54. Hieron. Comm. in Osee 1.4.14. 55. In her otherwise superlative book on sexual activity between women in antiquity, Brooten (Love between Women, 195-302 ), is mistaken in her assessment that Paul condernned sex between women in this passage. The link was made only through a false parallel with the "men doing sharneless things with men" and "consumed with passion for each other"; ofthe women it is only said that they have turned "from natural intercourse" (in fact, "natural use;' Greek "-n)v <jlucn.riJv xpftm.v;' Latin "naturalem usum") "to unnatural practices" (Greek "etc; -n)v 1tapa <jlucnv;' Latin "in eum usum qui est contra naturarn"). See Roy Bowen Ward ("Why Unnatural? The Tradition behind Romans 1:26-27:' Harvard Theological Review 90 [1997]: 263-84), though, for contemporaty definitions of"unnatural" that implied all types of nonprocreative sex, including sex for pleasure's sake and that would certainly have included sex as part of cultic practices, although Ward does not suggest this interpretation. Brooten misinterprets the reference to "their women" targeting a specific group of women, narnely, cultic prostitutes (Love between Women, 240-41); she must also note (258) the alleged "particularly enigmatic'' reference to "appropriate reward" by asking: "Did Paul envisage a venereal disease?" She does note the possibility of a relationship to cultic prostitution (253 n. 106) but says without further consideration that the "proposal has not gained acceptance," and adds incorrectly that the Roman-period sources on homoeroticism do not focus on cultic prostitution." She also admits problems with the late ancient extrapolations ofRomans 1 that refer to cultic prostitution. The ancient Ethlopic version ofthe Apocalypse ofPeter (she notes, "considered by scholars tobe closer to the original than the Greek," 306 n. 5) contains the following precise reference (quoting from her text): "These are they who cut their flesh, sodomites and the women who were with them." She is puzzled that the Apocalypse of Paul also only refers to male homoeroticism ( 314). Finally, she cannot successfully explain why Augustine links the passage to sex between a man and a woman (De bono conjugali 11, see Brooten,

384

NOTES TO PAGES 257-59

Love between Women, 353), although she notes correctly that Ambrosiaster (Comm. in epist. ad Romanos 1.26 [CSEL 81.1]) understood the passage as meaning "mulier mulierem turpi desiderio ad usum adpeteret" ("a woman seek.s after a woman for use with shameful desire"). The only scholar to recognize that the phrase does not refer to sex between women is James Miller, "The Practice of Romans 1:26: Homosexual or Heterosexual?" NoPum Testamentum 37 (1995): 1-11. 56. Gal. 5:12. 57. Phil. 3.2-4 ("canes:' "Kuve<;''). 58. Rev. 22.15 ("canes. . . impudici . . . idolis servientes;' "KUVe~ ... 1t6pvot ... etöroA.oA.a"tpcn"). Cf. the similar list at Rev. 21.8, where all the terms are more-or-less repeated, except that "dogs" is replaced with öetA.oi. (translated into Latin as timides, meaning "cowards:' but also meaning "the wretched" in Greek) and eßl5eA.uyjleV01 (translated in Latin as execrati, "the detestable:' but derived from the same Greek term ßöeA.uyjla used to translate the Hebrew tö'a bhah, "abomination"). 59. Matt. 19.12. 60. Dig. 50.16.128. 61. Zavim (ed. and trans. P. Blackman, 7 vols., 2d ed. [New York: Judaica, 1983]) 2.1. 62. Yevamoth 8.1-6. 63. Gen. 39.1 (Potiphar, the official of the pharaohin Egypt whose wife tried to seduce the patriarchJoseph), Jth.12.10-5 (Bagoas, the charge d'affaires ofthe Assyrian c9mmander Holofernes), Jer. 38.7-13 and 39.15-8 (Ebedmelech, courtier to 'King Zedelciah, perhaps the same man as the nameless commander of the defenders of Jerusalem at the time of the prophet Jeremiah), Dan. 1.3-21 (Ashpenaz, who trained the prophet Daniel to serve at Nebuchadnezzar's court), and 1 Chron. 28.1 (nameless functionaries ofKing David's court). 64. E.g., Matt. 19.29. 65. Isa. 56.3-5. The passage, found in the patt ofthe book attributed to the anonymaus writer often identified as Trito-Isaiah, may be based on the historical return of the Jews from exile in Babylon, where many of the men may well have been castrated as slaves or brought eunuch slaves with them when they returned to Israel. Cf. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 93b. This passage ofTrito-Isaiah was incorporated with earlier parts of the Biblical book of Isaiah (written by the socalled Deutero-Isaiah) that had anticipated a future restorarion of the independentkingdem oflsrael. 66. Acts 8.26-39. Clarice Martin ("The Function ofActs 8:26-40 within the Narrative Structure of the Book ofActs: The Signifi.cance of the Eunuch's Provenance for Acts 1:8c'' [Ph.D diss., Duke University, 1985]) discusses the signifi.cance of the Ethiopian nationality of the eunuch for this theme of inclusiveness, especially the fact that he is the first non-Jewish convert to Christianity recorded in Acts, but not his status as a eunuch. 67. Josef Blinzler, "E'toiv euvouxot: Zur Auslegung von Mt 19.12;' Zeitschrift für Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 48 (1957): 254-70. Jerome (Epist. 58.3) and Paulinus ofNola (Epist. 31.3) both mentioned a shrine to Tammuz at

NOTES TO PAGES 259-63

385

Bethlehem. Both probably got their information from Eusebius (De vita Constantini 3.55), but how long before the fourth century it was built is impossible · to say. There might have been itinerantgalli in the region even without an or.ganized shrine. Daniel Constantin ("Esseniens et eunuques:' RevUe de Qumran 6 -_- [1968]: 35 3-90) suggests that the third type of eunuchwas a reference to the Es- sehes, who renounced Sex for the salce of the coming Messianic kingdom, but such an inteq)retation already assumes a figurative understanding for the selfcastration. 68. Matt. 6.19-21,24-34,19.16-22. 69. Matt. 5.29-30, cf. Matt. 18.8-9, Mark 9.43-7. 70. Justin MartyrApologia 29.2-3. 71. Traditio apostolica 16: "Meretrix vel homo luxuriosus vel qui se abscidit, et si quis alius facit rem quam non decet dicere, reiciantur; impuri enim sunt?' 72. Council ofNicaea (ed. G. Alberigo et al., Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta [Bologna: Dehoniane, 1991]) canon l. See also the discussion by H. J. Schroeder, The Disciplinary Decrees ofthe General Councils (St. Louis: B. Herder,

1937), 18-19. 73. Euseb. Hist. eccl. 6.8. 74. See John Dechow, Dogma andMysticism in Early Christianity: Epiphanius ofSalamis and theLrgacy ofOrigen (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1988), 128-35, who reviews the evidence for and against Eusebius's account. See also Brower, "Ambivalent Bodies:' who writes (209 n. 56): "Significantly, perhaps, Origen was 'conducting' his catechetical activity in the school previously led by Clement who ... attested to the presence of those who had castrated themselves out offaithfulness to Jesus' words;" and (209 n. 57): "Others havenoted thatin Origen's own writings he never refers to this action. They also note that in his commentary on Matthew's Gospel, he apparently disavowed any support for men who interpreted the eunuch-saying literally." See Origen Commentaria in epangelium secundumMatthaeum 15.1-4. 75. Hieron.Epist. 84.8 (mytrans.). 76. Epiphanius ofSalamisAdv. haereses 58. 77. Hieron. Epist. 22.27 (my trans.). 78. Acta ]oannis 53-54. See J. K. Elliott, TheApocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Glarendon Press, 1993), 303-10, 326; Brower, "Ambivalent Bodies:' 221-22 n. 84. 79. Usener, "Legenden der Pelagia." 80. On the connection between Bacchus and Cybele, see Kirlc Summers, "Lucretius' Roman Cybele:' in Cybele> Attis and Rßlated Cults> ed. E. Lane; Stephen Benko, The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian &ots ofMariology (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993), 64-69. On theshrineto Cybele andBacchus atRome, see Mary Woodley, "The Sacred Precincts of Cybele" (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Los Angeles, 1989), 65. 81. HippoL Haer. 5.1-6. 82. August. Tractatus in Johannis epangelium 7.6: "Pilleatus christianus." 83. On these parallels, seeA. T. Fear, "Cybele and Christ:' in Cybele>Attis and Rßlated Cults> ed. E. Lane; Arthur Evans, The God ofEcstasy: Sex&les and theMad-

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NOTES TO PAGES 263-64

ness ofDionysos (N ew York: St. Martin's Press, 1988), chap. 7; Geoffrey Ashe, The Vi1JJin: Mary's Cult and the Re-emergence ofthe Goddess (London: Arkana, 1976); Benko, Virgin Goddess (on Santa Maria Maggiore, 164).· . 84. On the use ofbodily mutilation in Roman judicial pt:oceedings, see Harries, Law and Empire, .chaps. 6 and ·7; Laurent Angliviel de la Beau.ffielle, ~'La tor~ · ture dans Ies Resgestae d'Ammien Marcellin;' in Institutions, socitfte et vfe politique dans Pempire romain au IVe siecle ap. J-C., ed. M. Christo! et al. (Rome: Ecok Fran<;aise de Rome, 1992); Ramsay MacMullen, ''Judicial Savagery in the Roman Empire;' Chiron 16 (1986): 147-66. 85. See esp. Peter Brown, "The Rise and Function ofthe Holy Man in Late Antiquity;" Journal ofRoman Studies 61 ( 1971): 80-101; reprinted in Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berlceley: University of California Press, 1982), 103-52. Fora comparison ofthe Christian holy man with the "divine man" ofpagan religion, see Gail Patersan Corrington, The 'Vivine Man»: His Origin and Function in Hellenistic Popular Religion (New York: Peter Lang, 1986). See also Brower, "Ambivalent Bodies;' on the charismatic power of the Christian eunuchs. 86. Saintly eunuchs from late antiquity include NereuS and Achilleus (AASS 12 May), Calocerus and Parthenius (AASS 19 May), Prothus and Hyacinthus (AASS 11 September), Indes (Nicephorus Callistus, Ecclesiastica Historia [PG 145] 7.6), Tigrius (AASS 12 January; Sozomen Historia ecclesiastica [PG 67] 8.24), Boethazat and Azat (Menologium Basilianum Graecorum [PG 117] 20 November and l4 April), Melito ofSardes (Eusebius Historia ecclesiastica 5.24). The limited hist9rical evidence for the subjects of these stories is discussed by Baudouin de Gaiffier, "Palatins et eunuques dans quelques documents hagiographiques;' Analeeta Bollandiana 75 (1957): 17-46. See also Browe, Geschichte der Entmannung, 20. 87. Brower (''Ambivalent Bodies;' 4), who sees the same pattern, suggests a similar explanation: that "self-made, religious eunuchs may have exercised powerful roles outside the ecclesiastical power structure; they must, therefore, be reigned [sie] in or absorbed"; adding (292) that "by employing commonly-held views about eunuchs, masculinity, and moderate asceticism, the Church's interpretation succeededin consolidating its own nascent power or authority." He also suggests (285) that eunuchs, as liminal figures, were "a constant and uncomfortable remirrder of the irnpermanence of social norms?' 88. For an example ofthe allegorical use of circumcision by a patristic writer, see Ambrose De Abraham 2.11. See also Clark, Reading Renunciation, 225-30. Roman law specified that Jews who circumcised their sons were exempt from any charge of castration, although all others who circumcised rislced the penalty (Dig. 48.8.11). In the HistoriaAugusta (Hadr. 14.2) it was claimed that Hadrian had driven the Jews to revolt by denying them the right to castrate their sons; Cassius Dio says more reliably (69.12-4) that the revolt occurred because Hadrian had dedicated a temple to Jupiter on the site of the former Temple. See also the interesring discussions on circumcision and gender difference by David Balcan, And They Took Themselves Wives: The Emergence of Patriarchy in Western Civilization (New York: Rarper & Row, 1979), 140-47; and by Shaye Cohen, "Why Aren't

NOTES TO PAGES 26)-70

387

Jewish Women Circumcised?" in Gender and the Body in the Ancient Mediterranean, ed. M. Wyke (Oxford: Blaclcwell, 1998), 136-54. 89. Tert. Ad u.xorem 1.6. Tertullian's discussions of castration arealso discussedby Georg!; Sanders, "Les galles et le gallat devant l'opiniori chretienne;' in _ :Homomages aMitarten Vermaserert, ed. M. de Boer (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978). - · - 90. Tert. De cultu feminarum 2. 9. 91. Tert. 1Je cultu feminarum 82.9: "castigarido et castrando, ut ita dixerim!' 92. Tert. De exhortatione castitatis 7: "castratam licentiam saepius nubendi?' 93. Tert. De resurrectione mortuorum 60. 94. Tert. De monogamia 5. I have changed the translators' "celibate" for spado to "eunuch?' 95. Tert. De monogamia 3. I have changed the translators' "virgins" for spadones to "eunuchs" and "virgin" for spado to "eunuch?' 96. See Greville Freeman, "Montanism and the Pagan Cults ofPhrygia;' DominicanStudies 3 (1950): 297-316; Benko, VirginGoddess, chap. 4; Goree, "Cultural Bases ofMontanism;' passim. Jerome referred to Montanns as "a eunuch and half-man" (Epist. 41.4: "abscisum et semiuirum"). 97. Tert. Adv. Marcionem 1.1, cf. Apul. Met. l. 9 for the same legend, which was supposed to explain the similarity between the words castrare (to castrate) and castor (beaver). 98. Tert.Adv. Marcionem 1.29, cf idem,Adv. Valentinianos 30.3, Ps.-Tert. Carmen adv.Marcionem 511. 55-61. 99. Tert. De monogamia 7. 100. Tert.Adv. Marcionem 1.29, cf idem, De resurrectione mortuorum 61.6-7. 101. On virgins, see Hieron. Epist. 55.4, August. De sancta virginitate 36, Prudent.Amartigenia 1. 9 57; on continent persons, August. De continentia 2. 5, idem, De doctrina christiana 3.17; on men in sexless marriages, Hieron. Epist. 49.2; on women in sexless marriages, Hieron. Epist. 123.10; on w:idows, Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 12.6.27, August. De adulterinis coniugiis 2.19. See Brower, ''Ambivalent Bodies:' passim, for numerous other references, including Eastern ones. 102. Hieron. Epist. 14.6 (trans. Mierow), cf idem, Epist. 66.8, 22.30. 103. Hieron.Adv. Iovinianum 1.12. 104. AmbroseDe viduis 13.75-7 (I have made many changes to the translation). 105. Hieron. Comm. in evangeliumMatthaei 3 ad 19.12: "cum possint esse uiri ... sed considerandae uires sunt ... et milites suos?' 106. John Cassian Gontationes 12.1, cf 1.20. 107. SalvianDegubernatione Dei 3.8. 108. ValerianHomelia 17.6, cf. Hieron. Comm. inMatheum 3 ad 18.8. 109. ValerianHomelia 6.6. 110. · Hieron. De Exodo in vigilia Paschae (ed. CCSL 78; trans. M. Ewald, FC 57): "et Helias nihil in se habens molle atque muliebre, sed totum uirile et rigidum (homo quippe hirsutus erat)?' Cf. idem, Epist. 22.11, Paulinus ofNola Epist. 24.14. The description of John the Baptist is found in Mark 1.6. I have changed the translator's "shaggf' for hirsutus to "hairy.''

388

NOTES TO PAGES 270-75

111. Ambrase De fuga saeculi 6.34. The story ofElijah is related in 1 Kings 17.1-2 Kings 2.1. lt specifi.cally relates (at 1 Kings 19.3) that Elijah "was afraid and fled for bis life?' · · · 112. Hieron. Epist. 22.11 (my trans.): "omnis igitur adyersus viros diaboli. virtus in lumbis est?' Cf idem, Homelia 60. · · . · 113. See William Lawrence, "The History of·the Interpretation. of Acts 8:26-40 by the Church Fathers prior to the Fall ofRome" (Ph.l). diss., Union Theological Seminary, 1984). 114. E.g.,Hieron.Epist. 46.13. 115. Hieran. Epist. 53.5 (my trans.): "eunuchus, immo uir?' 116. Hieran. Adv. Iovinianum 1.12: "spado ... qui ob robur fidei, viri nomen obtinuit?' Cf also idem, Epist. 69.6, Peter Chrysologus Sermo 61. 117. August. ContraFaustumManichaeum (ed. CSEL 25.1) 16.22, cf.14.13 for Augustine's exegesis on Isaiah's remark on eunuchs, cf idem, De sancta virginitate 24. 118. Petrus Chrysologus Sermo 56.2. 119. John Cassian Conlationes 7.2. 120. John Cassian Conlationes 7.2. 121. John Cassian Conlationes 7.2. 122. Michel Foucault ("The Battle for Chastity;' in Western Scxuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times) ed. P. Ariesand A. Bejin [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985]) argues generally for an interiorization of sexuality in Cassian's writings. 123. August.Deciv.D. 6.7. 124. August. De haeresibus (ed. CCSL 46) 37. Augustine took most ofbis information from Epiphanius of Salamis (Adv. haereses 58). 125. Firm. Mat. Err. prof rel. 4.3. 126. Firm. Mat. Err. prof rel. 4.3. 127. Min. Fel. Oct. (ed. CSEL 2; trans. R. Wallis, ANF 4) 24.4-5. 128. Jerome (Epist. 22.34-6, 125.11) described the life ofmonasticism in bis day for a Western audience. There is a vast secondary Iiterature on early male monasticism, most of it on the East. On the origins ofWestern monasticism in particular, see Rousseau,Ascetia)Authority; Henry Chadwick, "TheAscetic Ideal in the History of the Church;' in Heresy and Orthodoxy in the Early Church (London: Variorum, 1991); Jacques Fontaine, ":Uaristocratie occidentale devant le monachisme aux IVeme et Veme siecles;' Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 15 (1979): 28-53; seealso the discussion by Markus, End ofAncient Christianity) chaps. 3, 4, and 5. 129. Hieron. Epist. 125.17 (trans. Wright): "quasi de thalamo uirgo procedas?' 130. John Cassian Conlationes 1.8. 131. August. De opere monachorum (ed. CSEL 41; trans. M. Muldowney; FC 16) 32: "non ergo propterea se negent uiros, quia masculino sexu nihil operanrur?' 132. August. De opere monachorum 31. On the Nazirites, see Num 6.5, Judg

13.5.

NOTES TO PAGES 27)-80

389

133. Cf. Paulinus of Nola Epist. 23.10-1 (on the theme of monlcs as Nazirites) and 22.1-2 (on the unkempt appearance and foul smell of monks). 134. Hieran. Epist. 14.6 (trans. Mieraw) . .135. · Hieron ..Epist. 14~ 10 (trans. Wright). 136. Hieron. Epist. 14.2 (trans. Wright): "delicate miles:' cf. 14.10: "delica. tu$ es.?' 13'('. LeoEpist. 167.14.. 138. John Cassian Gonlaiiones 1.2. 139. John Cassian Gon/ationes 4.6. 140. John Cassian Gon/ationes 6.10, cf. 1.5 (monks are like archers, who are only successful if they are not distracted from their targets), 4.7 (their bodies and soulswage batdes against each other), 5.14 (vices are their military enemies), 24.25 (their sufferings are warfare). Cf. also idem, De institutis coenobiorum 7.21 (monlcsmustfightagainstgreed), 10.25 (monks mustresisttemptation and not flee fram it), 11.19 (monks must use all means at their disposal to fight). 141. See Malone, Monk and the Martyr, 70 n. 18. Cf. Augustine De opere monachorum 28: "o serui dei, milites Christi"; cf. also Hieran. Epist. 14.4. 142. Sulpicius Severus VitasanctiMartini 15 (pagans attempted to revenge themselves against him, they were unable to wound him), d: 14 (two angels dressedas soldiers appear to assistMartin), idem,Dialogi 2.3 (Martin suffered the blows of wicked mule-drivers, who found that the mules then refused to move ). See Stancliffe, St. Martin. 143. Sulpicius Severus Vita sanctiMartini 20. 144. Sulpicius SeverusDialogi (ed.PL 20; trans. G. Walshetal.,FG7) 2.11, cf. Hieron.Epist. 22.21. 145. Hieran. Epist. 125.7 (my trans.), cf. 52.5, John Cassian, De institutis coenobiorum 6.13. Brown (Body and Society, 243-44) suggests that misogyny was a means of creating a clear separation between all-male monastic environments and mixed secular ones. 146. Sulpicius Severus VitasanctiMartini 10. 147. Hieran. Vita sancti Pauli primi eremitae 17. 148. John Cassian Gon/ationes 24.26, cf. idem, De institutione coenobiorum 2.3, 4.5, 4.29. 149. Hieran. Epist. 125.15 (my trans.), cf. idem, De oboedientia (ed. GGSL 78). 150. John Cassian Gontationes 16.23. 151. August. Gonftssiones 8.5. 152. August. Gonftssiones 9.4. 153. Hieran.Epist. 22.19 (mytrans.): "Aliumeunuchumnecessitasfaciat,me uoluntas?' 154. See Markus, End ofAncient Ghristianity, chaps. 12, 13, and 14. 155. Hieran. Epist. 14.2-3 (trans. Wright), cf. idem, Homilia inMatthaeum 18, ct: also the farnilial opposition recorded by Sulpicius Severus Vita sanctiMartini 2. 156. John Cassian Gontationes 21.1 (on the first abandonment by Theonas of

390

NOTES TO PAGES 280-86

his wife), 21.8 (on his return horne), 21.9 (on her refusal and his second abandonment of her), and 21.10 (Cassian's conclusion). .. 157. Hieron.Epist. 125.15 (trans. Wright). SeeMarlcus,EndofAncientChris~: tianity> chap. 11, on the monastery as an ideal society in miniature. . ·· 158. John Cassian De institutis coenobiorum (ed. J,-C. Guy (Pru:is: :cerf, 1965]) 4. 27-8. 15 9. Hieron. Epist. 123.7 (my trans.): "euirat uirum, et aeterna debilitatefit castus?' 160. John Cassian Contationes 22.3. 161. John CassianDe institutis coenobiorum 5.6,12-9. See Rousselle, Porneia> chap. 10, on the modern studies and comparison with the diet of thegalli. 162. John Cassian Contationes 12. 7. 163. On involuntary erections, see John Cassian Conlationes 12.9. On nocturnal emissions, see John Cassian Conlationes 22.6, idem, De institutis coenobiorum 6.10-11,19-23. 164. John Cassian De institutis coenobiorum 1.1.1: "monachurn ut militem Christi in procinctu semper belli positurn accinctus lurnbis?' C£ 1.11.1-3, 5.21.1. 165. John Cassian Conlationes 12.6. 166. John Cassian Conlationes 22.3. See also David Brakke, "The Problematization ofNocturnal Emissions in Early Christian Syria, Egypt, and Gaul;'Journal ofEarly Christian Studies 3 (1995): 419-60. I am grateful to him for an advance copy of his article. 167. Set; SalvianDegubernatione Dei 8.4. CONCLUSION

l. Hieron. Epist. 60.1 (trans. Wright; I have changed "grandeur" for magnitudo to "magnitude"). See also J. H. D. Scourfield, Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary onJerome> Letter 60 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), who provides detailed comments. 2. Hieron. Epist. 60.1 (trans. Wright). 3. Hieron. Epist. 60.2 (trans. Wright). 4. Hieron. Epist. 60.9 (trans. Wright). 5. Hieron. Epist. 60.10 (trans. Wright). The words are from Mt 19.21. 6. Hieron.Epist. 60.10 (trans. Wright). 7. Hieron. Epist. 60.8 (trans. Wright; I have changed "of other people's merits" for de alienis bonis to "ofthe merits of others"). 8. Hieron.Epist. 60.10(trans. Wright;Ihavechanged "him"to''you''twice). 9. Hieron. Epist. 60.10 (trans. Wright). 10. Hieron. Epist. 60.10-1 (trans. Wright). 11. Hieron.Epist. 60.19 (trans. Wright). 12. Hieron. Epist. 60.15 (trans. Wright). 13. Hieron. Epist. 60.16 (trans. Wright; I have changed the translators "pence" to "coins"). 14. Hieron. Epist. 60.17 (trans. Wright). 15. Hieron.Epist. 60.16 (trans. Wright). ThequotationisfromAeneid2.369.

NOTES TO PAGES 286-93

391

16. Hieron. Epist. 60.1 (trans. Wright) . . 17. Robert Markus, End ofAncient Christianity) 362, quoting in part from Alasdair Maclntrye, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre D~e, Ind.: Uni-· versityofNotre Dame Press, 1988). . 18~ Hieron. Epist. 60.4 (trans. Wright). 19. See Turcan; Cultesorientaux) 325-38, on the similarities in religious impuls~ behilld belief in Christianity and belief in other mystery religions, and his explanation for the eventual success of Christianity in the amalgamation of the transcendent, omnipotent God with the suffering, humanlike God. 20. Hieron. Epist. 60.11 (trans. Wright). 21. Hieron. Epist. 14. 22. Hieron. Epist. 60.9 (trans. Wright). 23. Hieron. Epist. 60.10 (trans. Wright). 24. Hieron.Epist. 60.14 (trans. Wright). 25. ProbaCento (ed. and trans. E. ClarkandD. Hatch [AnnArbor: Edwards, 1981]) ll. 263-5. 26. Proba Cento ll. 522-3. The incident is from Mark 10.17-22. 27. Proba Cento ll. 3-8. See also on Proba: Elizabeth A. Clarlc, "Faltonia Betitita Proba and her Virgilian Poem: The Christian Matron as Artist;' inAscetic Piety arid Women)s Faith; and Elizabeth A. Clark and Diane Hatch, "Jesus as Hero in the Vergilian Cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba;' Vergilius 27 (1981): 31-39; reprinted inAscetic Piety and Women)s Faith: Essays on LateAncient Christianity) Studies in Women and Religion, l (Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Meilen Press, 1986). 28. Jo Ann McNamara, "Sexual Equality and the Cult ofVirginity in Early Christian Thought;' Feminist Studies 3 (1976): 145-5 8; idem, "Wives and Widows in Early Christian Thought;' International Journal of Women)s Studies 2 (1979): 575-92; andRosemaryRadfordRuether, "Mothers ofthe Church: Ascetic Women in the Late Patristic Age;' in Women of Spirit) ed. R. Ruether and A. McLaughlin (New York: Sirnon and Schuster, 1979). See also Ross S. Kraemer, "The Conversion of Women to Ascetic Forms of Christianity;' Signs 6 (1980): 298-307 for the same approach to earlier and Bastern sources. 29. Flore Dupriez, La conditionfeminine et les peres de PEglise latine (Montreal: Paulines, 1982), 89: "Le christianisme mit a l'honneur des vertues dites 'feminines' de douceur, de patience, d'amour des autres, de generosite du pardon, de Soumission ala volonte divine. On sait combien de femmes repondaient avec enthousiasme acet ideal, moins nouveau pour elles que pour les hommes?' 30. Anne Yarbrough, "Christianization in the Fourth Century: The Example ofRoman WomeO:' Church History 45 (1976): 149-65. This article was a reply to Peter Brown, ''Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman Aristocracy;'Journal ofRmnan Studies 51 (1961): 1-ll. 31. Hiclcey, Women ofthe RnmanAristocracy. 32. Salisbury, Church Fathers) chaps. 4, 5, 6, and 7, respectively; seealso chapter 8 for her sumrnary and conclusion. 33. McNamara,ANew Song. 34. Averil Cameron, "Vrrginity as Metaphor: Women and the Rhetoric of

392

NOTES TO PAGES 294-98

Early Christianity:' in History as Text: The Writing of Ancient History) ed. A. Cameron (London: Duclcworth, 1988), i84, 191...:.92. 35. Castelli, "I Will Malce Mary Male:' 33. · 36. Kate Cooper, "Insinuations of Womanly lnfl.uence: An Aspect.of the Christianization of the Roman Aristocracy,"Journal ofRDman Studies 82. (1992): 150-64. . 37. Micheie Salzman, ''Aristocratic Women: Conductors of Christianity iri the Fourth Century:' Helios 16 (1989): 207-20. 38. Cooper, Vit;gin and the Bride) 84-85. 39. Castelli, "I Will Malce Mary Male:' 33. 40. On this theme, see Mark Muesse, "Religious Machismo: Masculinity and Fundamentalism:' and Evelyn Kirldey, "Is It Manly toBe Christian? The Debate in Victorian andModernAmerica:' in&deemingMen: Religion andMasculinities) ed. Stephen Boyd et al. (Louisville, Ky.: Westrninster/John Knox Press, 1996).

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Index

abomination. See tö>abhah Abraham, 195-96' Achilles, 218 Actium, battle of, 38 actors and actresses, 171,210-13. See also spectacles Adam and Eve, 134, 154, 173, 174, 179, 198,217,221,222,228,230,235, 263 Ado~,94,246,256

adultery, 81-83, 98-99, 143, 162, 163, 164-65,190 affection, familial. See familial affection Agdistis, 24 Agnes, 214-15,231,242 Alypius, 176, 199 lunazons,31,66,201 lunbroseofMilan, 105,120,122, 126-36,138-39,141,142,147-48, 152,154,155,159-60,165,169, 170-72,173,174,177,184,192, 193,195,203,207,208,209-10, 212,216,230-31,232,236, 239,241-43,245,268-69, 270 lunbrosiaster, 165 Ammianus Marcellinus, 19-20, 27, 32, 35,42,49,56,61,62,67-68, 78, 90-91,170,240 anal sex, 29, 35, 89

angels and vitaangelica> 179, 183, 197, 229,231,233,263,264,271 anger, 27-28 Anthemius (emperor; ruled 467-472), 27, 42,158 Anthusa, 262 Antichrist, 120 antirrlllitarwm,39,107-9 Antioch, 47, 67 Antonines, 7 Aphrodite, 23, 246. See also Venus Apollo,l69 Apuleius, 7, 57,251 Arbitio, 67-68 Arcadius (emperor; ruled 395-408), 36, 65 arenas. See spectacles Arians, 130, 135, 141, 148, 154, 171 aristocracy: definition of, 8; ranks of the, 51-52 army. See soldiers arsenokoitai> 166, 257 asceticism, 187,222, 235-37, 284, 288. See also monks and male monasticism Asherah, 255 Ataulf,40 athletes. See charioteers; gladiators; spectacles Attis, 24, 246, 249, 250, 261, 262-63, 288

429

430

INDEX

Augustan laws on marriage. See marriage, Augustan laws on Augustine ofHippo, 7, 13, 23, 106-7, 108,122-24,126,135,139-42,148, 152,153-54,155,157,159,165, 167,169,173-74,175,176-77,18182,186,187,188-89,190,194,195, 197,199,203,209,220,233-36, 249,253,254,262,265,271,272, 273-75,278,289,291 Augusrus (emperor; ruled 27 B.C.E.l4C.E.), 71-72 Aurelian (emperor; ruled270-275), 62 Aurelius Victor, 27, 28, 88, 93, 101 Ausonius,24,35,55,91-92,93,94,237 Avitus (emperor; ruled 455-456), 42, 48, 158 Bacchus (god), 94, 169,241,246,251, 262 Bacchus (martyr). See Sergius and Bacchus (martyrs) baptism,114,115,118, 120,121,128, 171,224,259 barbarians, 7, 37, 41, 43, 47-49, 51, 59, 62,90-91,105,122,124,285-86.See also ethnic minorities; Germans; Goths Barbelo and Sophia, myth of, 222 basilicas, 157, 245, 263 battles. See war Beatirudes, 207-8 Bellona,31 betrothal gifi:s. See reverse dowry Bible and Biblical interpretation, 13, 112, 126,127,133,134,136,137,141, 146,153,154,156,161,162,165-68, 179,180-81,188,189,192,195,196, 197,207-8,211,218,221,224,231, 234,241,255-60,262,264,265, 267-68,269-71,285,291,295,297 bishops and episcopal office, 10, 125, 129, 132,137,142-60,197,276,279, 286, 289. See also clergy and clerical office; sacerdos and sacerdotium Biturigans, 158-59 Boudicca, 8, 40 brideofChrist, 125,137-42, 144, 147, 148,149,184,185,193,197,225, 236-37,239,243,274,282,295 brideprice. See reverse dowry Brown, Peter, 11

Buddha, 179 bureaucracy, imperial, 37, 54,64 Butler, Judith, 3 Caecilian ofCarthage, 123, 149,289 Caelestis, 246,251-52 Caelius Aurelianus, 25-26, 80 Callixtus ofRome, 155 Cameron, Averil, 13, 293 Caracalla (emperor; ruled 211-217), 59, 63 Carinus (emperor; ruled 283-285), 93 Carthage,113,115,118,126,142-43, 145,186,217,247,251,253,265 Cassius Dio, 8, 9, 27, 29, 32, 34, 40, 46, 59,88-89,93,96,100-1,210 Castelli, Elizabeth, 294 Castissima, 232 castration, 31-32, 33-35, 62; self-castration, 247-50, 253-73, 275. See also eunuchs cathedrals, 15 7. See also basilicas Catholic. See orthodox and orthodoxy Cato, 201 Celantia, 190-91 charioteers, 175-76, 177, 178, 285 chastity. See sexual renunciation children,34,70-75,100,106,188,19597, 198, 290; spiritual, 204. See also daughters; sons Christ. See Jesus Christ Christian ideal of masculinity 6, 10, 206, 239,281-82,287,296-97 Christian ideology, defmition of, 10, 12-13 Chromatius of Aquileia, 208 Church fathers. See fathers, of the Church Cicero, 159, 169 cinaedi, 88, 169, 251 Circumcellians, 123, 289 circumcision, 221-22,257,263,264,271 clarissimi, 51, 64, 84 Clark, ElizabethA., 11-12 classical ideals of masculinity, 6, 19-20, 77,78,287 Claudian, 36, 38, 47, 60, 65-69, 78, 94, 96-100,102,254 Claudius Mamertinus, 39, 65 clergyandclericaloffice, 108,129, 151, 202-3,209-10,232,243,260,284, 286, 289. See also women, exclusion of, from ecclesiastical offices

INDEX

clothing, 57-60, 163,215-19,265, 277-78,285. See also transvestism Commodian, 120, 121 Commodus (emperor; ruled 177-192), 28-29,45,46,89,91 concupiscentia. See sexual desire confessors, 119, 143-46 Connell, Robert, 4 Connolly, William, 13 Constims (emperor; ruled 337-350), 101 Constantine I (emperor; ruled 306-337), 21,52,54,62,73,74,75,76,80,82, 83,85,98,107,130,131,135,156, 157,184,260 Constantinople, 62, 237, 285 Constantius II (emperor; ruled 351-361), 67-68, 82-83, 101 constitutiones, 53 consuls and consulship, 36, 51, 55, 65, 68, 97,128,160 conversion, of men, 294-96; process of, 12-13; ofwomen, 292-96 Cooper, Kate, 294 Cornelius ofRome, 147,153 councils, Church, 108, 156-57 cowardice, 30, 44, 111, 118 cross-dressing. See transvestism curiales. See decurions cursus honorum, 50, 55, 128 Cybele, 24, 213, 246, 249,262, 263, 266. See also Mother of the Gods CyprianofCarthage, 109-10,111,11819,120,126,142-47,150-51,153, 154,162,167,173,177,189,193, 196,197,204,212,239,289 daughters: ofdecurions, 53-54; ofdesignated praetors, 52. See also children David, 133-34 deaconesses, 150 decurions, 53-54, 155 demilitar~ation,39,40

Democritus, 287 demographic decline. See population decline depilation, 91, 218. See also hair and hairiness desertion in war, 43-44; as metaphor, 119 desire. See sexual desire

431

Deuteronomic reforms, 255 Devil,116,119,120-21,159,162,166, 173-74,227,228,235,270,276 Diocletian (emperor; ruled284-305), 8, 51, 53, 54,85 divorce, 71, 72, 75-76, 77 dogs, 255, 257-58 Domitian (emperor; ruled 81-96), 100-1 Domna and Indes, 262 Donatists, 123, 149, 153,289 dowry,71,72-73, 76 Dupriez, Flore, 293 Earinus, 100 Easterners, 9, 47, 62, 240; and Bastern Christian sects, 284, 187, 222, 226. See also ethnic minorities Ecdicia, 191 Edwards, Catharine, 14 Egeria, 224 egregii, 51 Elagabalus (emperor; ruled218-222), 7, 41,57-59,63-64,86,88-89,91, 135,167,218,240,247,253-54 Elijah, 136, 270 Emeterius and Chelidonius of Calahorra, 116,198 eminentissimi, 52,65 Epicureans, 181 Epiphanius ofSalamis, 261 episcopal office and authority. See bishops and episcopal office erubescere, 133, 139, 154 Esau, 196, 208 Ethiopian eunuch, 259, 270-71 ethnic minorities, 3, 9, 39, 47-49, 62, 263. See also barbarians; Greek people and culture; Jews Eudocia, 237 Eugenia, 231 Eugenius, 131, 132 Eulalia, 238 eunuchs,14,31-36,61-69,96-102, 245-82,295 Euphrosyne, 232 Eusebius (historian), 9, 114,261 Eusebius (eunuch), 36,67-68 Eustochium, 236 Eutherius, 35,62 Eutropius, 36,65-67,69,97-100, 102, 254

432

INDEX

Fabiola, 163, 164, 200, 202-3 familial affection, 71, 160, 195-97,27980,291 families. See children; daughters; fathers; marriage; mothers; sons fathers, 52, 70-75, 83-84, 195-97, 201, 203-4,280, 285; ofthe Church, 11, 204 Faustina, 29 Firrnicus Maternus, 169-70, 251-52,265, 272 flight from the world, 127-28, 281 friendship, 158, 195, 197-201, 232, 283-84,285 Furia, 201-2 Gabriel, 231,236 Gainas,285 Galen,80 Galerius (emperor; ruled 293-311 ), 249 Galla Placidia, 135 galli) 247-54, 256, 259-60, 262, 264, 265,266,272,275,281,297 Gallus, 68 games. See spectacles Ganymede, 94, 168, 169 Garber, Marjorie, 14 Genesius, 213 Germans, 39, 43, 47-49, 286. See also barbarians; Goths Gerontius, 237 Gervasius and Protasius, 135, 198 gladiators, 29, 45-47, 176-77, 185, 210, 214-15. See also spectacles Gleason, Maud, 13 gkJriosi> 52 Gnostics, 222, 225, 226 Gospel ofMatthew, 258-60,265 Goths, 40, 49, 90, 131, 286. See also barbarians; Germans governors and governorship, 51, 56, 97, 126,128,129 Grand Chamberlain. See praepositus sacri cubiculi Gratian (emperor; ruled 375-383), 132 Greek Christian theology and theologians, 137,139,141,162,180 Greek language, 9, 162 Greek people and culture, 47, 91, 221-22, 263,274

Hadrian (emperor; ruled 117-138), 93, 167 hair and hairiness, 47, 216, 218, 225, 232, 270, 274-75, 295. See also depilation Hannibal, 38 Hebrew language, 162 Helena, 131, 135 Heliodorus,275-76,279,283,289-91 Heliogabalus. See Elagabalus (emperor; ruled 218-222) Hercules, 169, 213, 218 heretics andheresy, 10,145, 149, 161, 178, 180, 186,225,288-89. See also Arians; Circumcellians; Donatists; Jovinian; Manichaeans; Mareion and Marcionists; Montanus (heresiarch) andMontanists; Naasseni; Nestorius; Priscillian of Avila; Valentinus; Valesians hermaphrodites, 22-24, 31, 33 Hermaphroditus, 23 Hermes,23 Herodes,47 Herodian, 59 Hickey, Anne Ewing 293 Hieronymus. See Jerome Hilarion of Gaza, 177 Hilary ofAr!es, 120 Hippolytus ofRome, 107, 120, 155, 164, 226, 260, 262 HistoriaAugusta> 26, 28, 29, 36, 38, 42, 46,48,58,60,61-62,63-65,80, 85-86,89,93,94,210,240,254 homosexuality, 14,87-95, 162, 166-69, 199. See also pederasty; sexual passivity; sexual transgression honestiores> 8 Honorius (ernperor; ruled 395-423), 38, 41,60,65,78,94,131,135 Hopkins, Patrick, 4 household codes, 188, 224 humiliores> 151-52 hurnility, 121, 129, 145, 147, 150, 15153,159,277,284,289 Huns, 48, 66, 158, 163, 286. See also barbarians husbands. See marriage Iamblichus, 78-79 illustres, 52, 64, 156

INDEX

image of God. See women, in the image of God impudicitia, 81, 88-92, 106, 211, 213, 252. See also pudicitia; sexual passivity; sexual transgression incest, 170 infamia, 30, 83, 85, 92, 210 infibulation, 177 Irenaeus ofLyons, 226-27 Irenaeus ofSirmium, 196 Isaac, 196 Isaiah, 258-59 Isis and Osiris, 246, 247 ius liberorum, 72 Jacob, 196, 207, 208 Jerome, 9, 61, 74, 96, 97, 105, 121, 139, 141,142,155,156,162-64,165, 166,169,170,172,173-74,175, 177,178-82,186,195,197,198-99, 200-3,208,213,230-31,232-33, 235-36,237,245,246,256,257, 261,268,270-71,273-80,283-87, 289-91 Jesus Christ, 115, 120, 121, 131, 138-39, 141,145-46,150,153,163,164, 179,188,195,208,209,236,242, 245,258,259-60,261,262,264, 266,269,272,275-76,278,287,292 jewels, 51,58-60, 127,215-16,277 Jews, 112, 130, 137, 141, 162, 221-22, 263,274 Jezebel, 127, 136, 270 John (Aposde), 179 John the Baptist, 179, 270 John Cassian, 7, 35, 198,269,271-72, 273-74,276,278,279-81 Jove. See Jupiter; Zeus Jovian (emperor; ruled 363-364), 76 Jovinian,178-82,204 Judith, 231 JuliaMaesa, 135 JulianofEclanum, 184, 193-94 Julian (emperor; ruled 361-363), 19-20, 35,36,38,42,45,47,49,60,68, 76, 78,82,96,130-31,170,177,240, 246,247,261 Julius the Veteran, 115-16 Jupiter, 42, 168-69. See also Zeus Justin Martyr, 260 Justina,l30,132,135,136,148

433

kelebhlm. See dogs

Lactantius, 21, 22, 44, 97, 131, 165, 168-69,173-74,189,211,219-20, 249 laity, 15 3-54 lapsed Christians, 143-45, 162 Jaw: Christian influence on, 75; on ecclesiastical offices, 156; enforcement of, 32, 248, 260, 263; on marriage, 33, 18384; regulation of, 30, 32-33 Lawrence, 116,117 Leo I (emperor; ruled457-474), 62, 101 Leoll (emperor; ruled474), 102 Leo the Great, 108, 117, 119, 185, 276 Iex Scantinia, 88, 94 libi&W. See sexual desire Licinius (emperor; ruled 308-324), 44 Lucilla, 149, 155 Ludus, 115 Lupus ofTroyes, 157-58 Iust. See sexual desire lu:xury, 56-57, 59, 60-61, 113, 119, 125-27, 215-19. See also wealth Lyons, martyrs of, 111, 114

magistermilitum, 50,65 Magnentius, 44 Majorian (emperor; ruled 45 7-461 ), 42, 74,101,148,158 Majorinus, 149 malakoi, 166,257 Manichaeans, 120, 184-86, 187, 188, 190,199,289 Marcellina, 235, 237 Marcellus, 122 Marcian, 32, 99 Mareion andMarcionists, 185,222,226, 22 8, 266, 267 MarcusAurelius (emperor; ruled 161180),7,27-29,46,95 Marian and James, 198 Marina, 232 Markus, Robert, 286-87 marriage, 70-74, 75-76, 85, 100-2, 110, 175; ages of, 73-74;Augustanlaws on, 71-72,74, 77; Christian views on, 178-94,195-97,200,222,224,268, 290, 297; as slavery, 140; as theological metaphor, 137-42, 147-48. See also adultery; divorce; dowry; remarriage;

434

INDEX

marriage (continued) reverse dowry; sexual renunciation; widows and widowhood marriage payments. See dowry; reverse dowry Mars, 42, 213 MartinofTours, 107,111,114,122,148, 155,276-77 martyrs and martyrdom, 110-17, 122-23, 135-37,143-44,175,182,192,198, 214-15,219,239,240-43,249-50, 263,286,288 Mary Magdalen, 139, 274 Mary (mother ofJesus), 231, 236, 263 masculinity: defmitionof, 5, 21; hegemonic and subordinated forms of, 4, 6, 11 Mater Deum. See Mother of the Gods Matthew, Gospel of. See Gospel of Matthew Matrona, 262 Maxirnian (emperor; ruled 286-305), 85, 168,240 Maximilian,107 Maxirnin, 44 Maximinus (emperor; ruled235-238), 94 Maximus, 60, 61 McNamara, Jo Ann, 11, 292, 293 medical notions: of castration, 33-34, 260; ofsexual activity, 79-80, 172, 174; ofsexual difference, 20-22,2324, 32; ofunmanliness, 25-26 Melania the Eider, 114,237 Melania the Younger, 194,237 Mercury, 213 Milan, 53, 126, 128; basilica incident at, 130,132,135,246 military ideal. See soldiers, image of Minerva, 213 Minucius Felix, 192-93, 272 Mishnah, 258 rnisogyny, 3, 20-21,29, 31, 66, 197,206, 223 Mithra andMithraism, 45, 113-14, 115, 288 mollitia, 21, 24-25, 30, 290-91 Monica,140,142,291 monks and male monasticism, 162, 245, 273-82,289-90. See also women, asceticismof Montanus and Lucius (martyrs), 115

Montanus (heresiarch) and Montanists, 183,184,192,222,227,229,239, 266,288 Mother of the Gods, 246-54, 256, 262, 263,272 mothers, 72, 75, 277, 279, 285; Christian Church as mother, 144, 197 muliercularius) 76, 86 mythology, 23, 246-47 Naasseni, 262 Nabor and Felix, 198 Nana,24 Narcissus, 94 Nazirites, 274 Nemesianus, 95 Neo-Platonism, 20, 225, 261 Nepotian, 283-87, 289-90 Neptune, 213 Nero (emperor; ruled 54-68), 40, 46, 167,201 Nestorius, 237 Nicaea, 53, 62, 260 nobility. See aristocracy nocturnal ernissions, 280-81 nonviolence. See patientia Novatian ofRome, 119, 166, 175, 212 obedience, 154, 278 Oceanus, 163, 202 Opellius Macrinus (emperor; ruled 217-218), 89 Optatus ofMilevis, 149, 155 oralsex,29,35,89,91,98,189-90 Oribasius, 79-80,95, 177 Origen ofAlexandria, 10, 137, 139, 141, 225-26, 261, 269; and Origenist controversy, 232-36, 237 orthodox and orthodoxy, 10, 123, 141, 161, 187-88, 289 Pacatus, 38 pacifism. See antimilitarism Pagels, Elaine, 13 palatium. See bureaucracy, imperial Pammachius,163,164,200 panegyrics, 41-42,48,60-61 Papinian,164 paradox,1,13,111,140-41,208-9,239, 243,282 paterfamilias. See fathers

INDEX

patientia, 109-11, 122 paniapourras, 70-75,82,195,203,209 patriarchs, Biblical, 181, 182. See also Abraham; Esau; Isaac; Jacob patristic. See fathers of the Church Pau1 ofThebes, 277-78 Pau1 (Apostle), 164, 166, 179, 181, 188, 208,221,223,224-25,228,231, 232,256-57,264,265,271,274-75 Paul's Letter to the Romans, 256-57, 262 Pau1a,200-1,235,237,246,291 Paulinus ofMilan, 128, 135, 148-49 Paulinus ofNola, 108,114,128,139, 155,193-94,197,198,203,237, 238,251,291 Paulinus ofPella, 40, 56, 83, 87, 166 Paulus (jurist), 23, 32, 84, 92, 93, 99 pederasty, 87, 89,90-91,93-95,99-100, 168-69,176,200 Pelagia, 232, 262 Pelagius, 190-91, 193 perfeaissimi, 52 performativity of gender, 14 Perpetua ofCarthage, 196-97,227-28, 291 persecutions. See martyrs and martyrdom Pescennius Niger (emperor; ruled 193194), 38-39, 80 Peter (Apostle), 146-47, 149, 181, 188 Peter Chrysologus, 120, 122, 152, 271 Philaster ofBrescia, 185 Phileas ofThmuis, 197 Philip, 259, 270 philosophers and philosophy, 20,78-79, 117,168,179,184,217,232,287.See also Neo-Piatonism; Plato; Socrates; Stoicism physiognomists and physiognomy, 25, 30, 49,95 Plato, 176, 219 Plautianus, 34 Plautilla, 63 politics and political authority, 39, 41-42, 49-61,63-69,128-29,130-35,141, 151-60,278-79,284 Pontius, 198 popesandpapal authority, 146-47 population decline, 71-72, 73, 74, 75 porneia andpornoi, 165 Porphyria, 262 Possidius, 148

435

praepositus sacri cubiculi, 64-65. See also bureaucracy, imperial praetor, 51, 52 prefects, 51, 52,64-65,96, 126, 128, 160 presbyter, 150, 156, 157, 284 pride. See humility priest. See presbyter; sacerdos and sacerdotium Priscillian of Avila, 184, 185, 289 prisoners of war, 44 Proba, 291-92 procreation, 79, 189-90 prophetesses, 150, 229 prostitutes and prostitution, 75, 85-86, 129,149,162,163,165-66,170, 174-75,191,202,224,227,242, 243, 262. See also sacred prostitution Protasius and Gervasius, 135, 198 Prudentius,116-17,121,131,143,175, 177,208,214-17,238,242,249-50, 263 public life: men in, 1, 37, 50-55, 78, 12829, 132; women in, 50, 97, 150, 212, 224,228,245 pudicitia, 81, 83, 85, 92-93, 95-96, 106, 174,181,185,191,193,202,293 Pulcheria, 135 purple, 51, 59, 60, 157, 262 Pythagoras andPythagoreans, 79,287 q<Jdeshim, 255-56, 257, 297 rape, 83-84, 286 Ravenna, 53 Rebecca, 196 remarriage, 71, 74, 163, 164, 191-93, 201-2,266 reverse dowry, 72-73 Roman citizenship, extension of, 72 Romanus, 117, 208, 249-50 Rome,45,53,180,202,245,260,262, 263; saclc of, 105, 106-7, 122, 124, 286 Ruether, Rosemary Radford, 292 Rufmus (politician), 60, 285 Rufmus (writer), 9, 114, 136, 138, 199, 201,231,232-33,237,261

sacerdos andsacerdotium, 150-51, 156. See also bishops and episcopal office; clergy and clerical office

436

INDEX

sacramentum, 114-15, 118, 188, 189, 193. See also baptism sacred prostitution, 250-54, 255-57 sailors, 29 Salisbury, Joyce, 293 Sallust, 207 Salmacis, 24 Salvian ofMarseilles, 106, 128, 152, 164, 165,166-67,212-13,269 Salzman, Michele, 294 Samson,274 Sardanapalus, 59,218 Satyrus,l72 seduction, 84, 163 self-castration. See Castration self-control, 27, 79, 83 Semiramis, 62 semivir, 25, 169,249 Senate, 9, 53,89 Senator, 155 senatus consulta, 53 Seneca, 253 Serenus, 271-72 Sergius and Bacchus (martyrs ), 198, 24041,243 SeverusAiexander (emperor; ruled 222-235),36,39,42,46,47,58,6364,85-86,135 sex and gender, defmitions of, 5 sexual behavior: of eunuchs, 34-35, 96-l02,250-54,256-58;ofmen, 79-96,162-67,17l,l90-91,19920l;ofvvomen,81-82,97-99,16266,185,190-91,200-1,257.Seeako anal sex; oral sex; sexual desire; sexual passivity; sexual renunciation; sexual transgression sexual desire, 34, 35, 85, 96, 110, 121, 171-75, 179, 183, 184, 190; as theoIogical metaphor, 138-39, 190, 202, 239,267,280-81 sexual immorality. See sexual transgression sexual passivity, 28-29,41,88-92, 167, 199, 242. See ako sexual transgression sexual renunciation, 78, 170-78, 190-91, 224,230-31, 265-72,279,288. See ako virgins and virginity sexual transgression, 28,87-96, 161-70, 183,185-86,199-201,203,213, 219, 242. See ako sexual behavior sexuality. See sexual behavior; sexual desire;

sexual passivity; sexual renunciation; sexual transgression Sidonius Apollinaris, 7, 27, 34, 48, 49, 55, 106,128,155,157-59 silk, 51, 58-59, 163, 216. See ako clothing Siridus ofRome, 181 slaves and slavery, 3, 8, 40, 46, 54, 56, 65, 71,83,84-85,87,96-100,102,126, 140,152,155,185,188,191,195, 202,204,221,224,263,274,277, 278,279 social construction of gender, 14 Socrates, 117, 168, 287 Sodom, legend of, 166 soldiers: image of, 37-39, 41,45-46, 57, 109,113,171,178,181,231,243, 275-77, 284; realities and Jives of, 41,42-44,45,48-49,67-68, 181, 286. See ako soldiers of Christ soldiers ofChrist, 105-24, 141, 142, 144, 158,174-75,184,198-99,219,230, 239,240,250,265,269,276,281,282 SongofSongs, 137-38,141,149,171,225 sons: of decurions, 53-54; of designated praetors, 52; spiritual, 203. See also children Sophia. See Barbelo and Sophia, myth of söphrosyne. See self-control spectabiles, 52 spectacles, 45-47, 176-77,210-13,227, 249, 285. See also actors and actresses; charioteers; gladiators sports. See spectacles Sporus, 100-1 spouse ofChrist. See bride ofChrist Stark, Rodney, 12-13 Stilicho,43,49,65,13l Stoicism, 20,27-28, 78, 80, 82, 109, 179, 284 stuprum. See sexual transgression subintroducti, 200-l submission, 125,130, 134-35, 139-42, 145,278 Sulpicius Severus, 112, 122, 148, 155, 276-77 syneisaktoi. See subintroducti Tacitus (emperor; ruled275-276), 59 Taifali, 90-91 Tammuz,246,255,256

INDEX

Tannit. See Caelestis taurobolium, 45, 114 taxes, 53, 55, 86 temple prostitution. See sacred prostitution Tenttlllian,7,10,35,87,97,107,109-15, 118,121,122,141,151,164,168, 170,173,175,177,182-83,185, 186,191-92,211,213,217-19,227, 228,230,233,235,249,254, 265-67,288,291 theater. See spectacles Thecla,188,222,228,237,242 Theodoric II, 49 Theodosian Code, 7, 9, 101 Theodosius I (emperor; ruled 379-395), 9,43,47,60-61,130,131,133 Theodosius li (emperor; ruled 408-450), 7,76,86,135 Theonas, 279-80 Thessalonica, massacre at, 130 Thiessen, Gerd, 13 Titus (emperor; ruled 79-81), 100-1 tiPiibhah, 255-56 Trajan (emperor; ruled 97-117), 93 transvestism, 14, 57-60,211-13,218, 222-23,227,231-32,240-43,248, 252, 255, 261-262, 293-94. See also clothing Trier, 53, 198-99 tutela perpetua mulierum, 71; disappearanceof, 73 Ulpian, 23, 32, 82, 85, 92, 162, 258 univira, 81, 192, 202, 293 upper classes. See aristocracy Ursicinus, 67-68 usurpers, 39, 50 Valens (emperor; ruled 364-378), 52 Valentiniani (emperor; ruled 364-375), 52 Valentinian li (emperor; ruled 383-392), 130,132,135,154,170-72,232,246 Valentinian III (emperor; ruled 425-455 ), 43,76,185 Valentinus, 226 Valerian ofCimelium, 126, 152, 199, 269 Valesians, 261, 272 Vegetius,38,41,44 veiling of women. See women, veiling of Venus, 101,213,246,251. See also Aphrodite

437

vestal virgins, 151, 253 Victricius ofRouen, 112 Vmcent ofUrins (writer), 204 Vmcent (martyr) 116, 177 virago, 30 Vrrgil, 286,291 virgins and virginity, 80, 81, 84, 106, 110, 148,179-80,182,186,214-15,224, 230-31,236-38,241-42,246,268, 274, 285, 293. See also sexual renunciation virtus, 19-20, 26, 31, 69, 96, 109, 113, 118,121,140,171,172,207-9,219, 230-31,243,292,296 Visigoths. See Goths vita angelica. See angels and vita angelica vita militaris. See soldiers, image of war, 38-40, 43-44,46,48, 66-68, 131, 171, 285-86; Christian views on, 1079, 122, 124,281,292,297. See also soldiers wealth, 38, 52, 55, 110, 126-27, 150, 156,163,237,277-78,288,289 widows and widowhood, 71, 74, 81, 110, 163,164,201-2,231,237,268,285, 293 Williams, Craig, 14 VV1ttig,A1onique,2 wives. See marriage women: asceticism of, 235-38, 292, 293; exclusion of, from ecclesiastical offices, 149-50, 228, 296; as heretics, 14849; in the image ofGod, 216, 225, 228, 233-35, 269; as imperial regents, 135, 137; as martyrs, 114; social and legal status of, 30-31, 52, 71-74; veiling of, 224-25,228, 236-38; views of nature of, 20-21, 29, 30-31, 127, 134-35,174,209,215-17,220,222, 230-31; and women'shistory, 1, 2, 11, 292-94. See also conversion, of women; rnisogyny; public life, women in; sexual behavior, ofwomen; virgins and virginity Yarbrough, Anne, 293 Zenobia,47 Zeus, 24, 240. See also Jupiter