In the second and third centuries, African Christians completely rejected Roman religious practices and many other forms of civic life. Individual families, however, continued to be divided in religious commitments, so marriage and the life of the extended family were shared by Christians and non-Christians. As a result, Christians had to negotiate points of difference and separation. Because of its role in producing and educating succeeding generations of citizens, in transmitting property, and in building cooperative alliances among groups, the family was a social institution regulated by the imperial government. Christians were not only sympathetic to these imperial objectives but found religious foundations for many of them in the Old Testament legislation, which was itself designed to maintain and protect an ethnic community through marriage, the generation and education of children, and the protection of land ownership.
Still, Christians introduced changes into Jewish and Roman family practices for two principal reasons. First, the church was a voluntary rather than a genetic community: membership was initiated and maintained by commitment to a set of beliefs and standards of conduct. From its beginnings and into the fifth century, a congregation could still expect to maintain itself and grow by recruiting converts from traditional religions rather than by generation and education of children within Christian families. Second, at various times during this period, many Christians anticipated that a divine intervention would soon end the entire earthly order of life: a next generation might become superfluous at any point. Christians, therefore, encouraged the renunciation of marriage and either common ownership of property or sharing of income. Imperial legislation, in contrast, penalized refusal or failure to produce children and used family relationships to maintain economic stability.1
In the fourth century, however, Christianity became the favored religion of the empire: Christians went from being outsiders to sharing responsibility for maintaining the government and economy, and then to assuming it entirely. Anticipation of the end time was transformed into a concern for Christ’s judgment of individuals after their deaths. Christian teachers began to question the superiority of sexual continence and virginity over marriage as a Christian form of life.2 Christianity struggled to maintain a balance between hope for the heavenly future and concern for the earthly present. Augustine, in particular, exploited the complex metaphors describing the relationship between Christ and his spouse — the church — that was at once virgin, mother, and widow to explain and evaluate the roles of the married and the single within the Christian community.
Tertullian understood sexual relations and marriage as instituted by God to serve the increase of the human race and, thus, as good. Although idolatrous practices had been added to the marriage ritual, these vitiated neither its goodness nor God’s protection of it.3 Marriage was a blessing given at the creation and fostered to serve the expansion of the race during the patriarchal period.4 More regularly, however, Tertullian understood marriage and generation as necessary to maintain the human race in the face of death. He specified that Adam and Eve actually began their married life only after they were exiled from Paradise5 and that marriage would not continue in the resurrected condition, when death would be put aside6 and humans would enjoy an angelic condition.7
Later in his life, however, Tertullian interpreted marriage against the horizon of the end of the age and the return of Jesus. He followed Paul in insisting that the time remaining was short and that those who were married should live as though they were not.8 Responsibility for a spouse and children could be a hindrance to the practice of Christian virtue: it made a person less ready and willing to face persecution and give up earthly life when fidelity to Christ required it.9 In troubled times, he argued, the truly faithful should be more concerned to send their wives and children ahead to God than to leave them as a legacy on earth.10
Tertullian also distinguished different forms of marriage practice that God had instituted and allowed during the successive phases of human history. Originally, God had established marriage as absolutely monogamous: a single man and a single woman were to be joined into one flesh; neither was to have a second partner.11 This dispensation continued through Noah and ended with Abraham’s circumcision.12 A descendant of Cain named Lamech13 introduced polygamy, which was subsequently allowed during the patriarchal period, until Moses introduced divorce for the time of the Law.14 Christ began the restoration of the primitive discipline15 and established the church as his virgin-bride.16 He allowed marriage and even remarriage after the death of a spouse, however, because of the initial weakness of Christians. After more than a century, when his teaching had taken root, Christ sent the Holy Spirit, as the initiator of the New Prophecy, to complete the restoration of the original discipline by forbidding a second marriage, even after the death of a spouse.17 Thereafter, a Christian was to have only one spouse.
The devotees of the New Prophecy encouraged virginity and continence, considered marriage a concession, and made continued widowhood obligatory for those whose spouses had died. They objected, however, to the doctrine of the Marcionites, who rejected the Hebrew Bible and Israelite religion as irrelevant for Christians and required that marriage and sexual practice be renounced as a condition for baptism.18
The majority of Christians — to whom Tertullian referred as sensualists or psychics rather than spirituals — rejected the New Prophecy and agreed on a discipline that allowed virginity, continence, marriage, widowhood, and remarriage after the death of a spouse. Christians who were not yet married or had already been widowed at the time of their baptism had the right to marry, at least once, after coming to the faith.19 Some dedicated themselves to virginity or continence from the time of their conversion.20 Those who were divorced, however, were forbidden to marry again, presumably as long as their former spouses were alive.21
Christians who were married at the time of their conversion were to remain in these marriages, even if their spouses did not become Christians. Paul had recognized that the grace of conversion sanctified the spouse to whom a Christian was united at the time.22 Those who were married at or after baptism were allowed to continue sexual relations,23 though the devotees of the New Prophecy considered this a concession to weakness.24 When both partners were Christian, however, they might voluntarily practice continence within marriage.25 Divorce was allowed only for the cause of adultery, but even then a new marriage was excluded.26
Christians also disagreed on the acceptability of marriage to a non-Christian. Some regarded it — whether a first or a second marriage — as a sin that could be forgiven.27 Even before his commitment to the discipline of the New Prophecy, however, Tertullian strongly objected to a Christian’s beginning a union with a non-Christian, insisting that Paul had forbidden it. Not only did he impugn the motives of the Christians — primarily women — who sought such marriages, but he argued that these were the religious equivalent of marrying a slave in imperial law and would result in the loss of Christian freedom.28 He argued that the grace of God would sanctify only that non-Christian partner to whom a Christian was already joined at the time of conversion.29 Many of Tertullian’s arguments were practical and arose from the control that a Roman husband exercised over his wife. Would he approve of her going out to take care of the poor, to attend services at night, especially the Easter vigil? What would he think of her kissing the brethren, washing the feet of the saints, or offering hospitality to a Christian traveler? Would he tolerate her making the sign of the cross over their bed and her body, getting up to pray during the night, rising early to eat the eucharistic bread she brought home? Would he tolerate her refusal to explain her practices, as was required by the Christian discipline of secrecy?30 Thus Tertullian’s consideration was focused on a Christian woman marrying a husband who followed traditional Roman religious practices. Although taking a non-Christian wife may not have given rise to these conflicts, Tertullian gave no indication that it was acceptable.31
Tertullian referred to the rituals of betrothal and marriage at use in imperial culture.32 The promise that began the marriage involved a greeting, a joining of right hands, a kiss, and the giving of a ring. These steps, he argued, initiated the union of male and female; thenceforth the virgin should be regarded as a married woman.33 In describing the marriage of two Christians, Tertullian adapted five elements of the traditional family ritual to the Christian practice: the church arranges, the offering strengthens, the blessing signs, the angels witness, and the Father affirms.34 At least some of these elements, specifically the arranging and the blessing, may have reflected actual practice.35 In the absence of additional corroborating evidence, however, such an interpretation can be only hypothetical.36
Tertullian did witness clearly to two aspects of Christian marriage practice: the use of a contract, or tabulae nuptiales, and a declaration before the congregation. Both served the church’s interest in making the marriage definite and public. Marriage and fornication were distinguished, as Tertullian observed, primarily by that formal contract.37 He did not imply that the tabulae were issued or approved by the church rather than the families involved in the marriage, but only that the tabulae distinguished legitimate sexual relations from those which were forbidden to Christians. Tertullian indicated that the tabulae might be used by Christians to defend against charges of adultery, which could have resulted in excommunication. He pictured a Christian trying to escape condemnation by presenting to the tribunal of Christ tabulae for a marriage to a non-Christian38 or for a second marriage to a Christian.39
Christians also may have declared their marriages in the presence of the community. Those who attempted a union without first professing it before the church were in danger of being judged guilty of adultery or fornication.40 Tertullian challenged the audacity of the Christian who appeared in the assembly to seek recognition of a second marriage in the presence of the clergy and widows, who were explicitly forbidden to remarry.41 These instances provide evidence not for a church ritual of marriage but only for acknowledgment or approval of a marriage structured by imperial law.
Dedicated virginity from birth was understood as a gift of grace and an especially holy form of life open to both men and women.42 Men who followed this way of life did not distinguish themselves in the assembly,43 but women indicated their special status by remaining unveiled in the Christian assembly, like girls.44 Tertullian objected to this practice. Representing the viewpoint of the New Prophecy, he specified that all females should be veiled in the assembly from the time of puberty, just as they would be when they appeared in public.45
Christians whose spouses died were encouraged to remain continent and not marry again.46 Although Paul had discouraged it, remarriage was allowed because of the difficulty of practicing continence.47 The devotees of the New Prophecy, as has been noted, asserted that the Holy Spirit had removed this concession.48 Tertullian recommended that a widower who was lonely or had difficulty managing his household should offer hospitality to one or more widows rather than remarrying.49 The refusal of second marriages was made more complex by the imperial laws that encouraged remarriage and the generation of children by specifying civil and financial disabilities for those who did not meet the standard.50 Tertullian recognized the problem but insisted that Christians should not be concerned with such matters.51
Widows (but apparently not widowers) were accorded a privileged status within the Christian community, providing that they met the requirements of 1 Timothy (5:9): that they had been married only once, had attained sixty years of age, and had borne and raised children.52 In one instance, which Tertullian regarded as clearly inappropriate, a bishop enrolled a consecrated virgin who was not yet twenty years old among the widows in order to provide recognition of her status.53 Like the clergy, the widows were seated in places of honor rather than being required to stand in the assembly.54 They also provided a presence of and a witness to holiness in the assembly. The faithful appeared before them on special occasions, such as a penitential reconciliation55 and a declaration of a marriage.56 They were, however, subject to the same constraints as other women: they should not teach, speak in church, baptize, or celebrate the eucharist even outside the assembly.57 Tertullian suggested that they provided advice and support to matrons who were raising children58 and were available to manage households for widowers.59
Marriage was immediately related to procreation for Romans and for most Christians. Tertullian followed literally and seriously the Pauline marriage teaching, which had been enunciated for what was anticipated would be the short period of time before the return of Jesus. As a result, he discounted the generation and education of children, offering instead a different foundation for the value of marriage. His attitude was modified by his engagement with the New Prophecy movement, but it did not change radically.
The contemporary treatises On the Dress of Women and To His Wife indicate Tertullian’s thinking on marriage that may have been shared by other serious Christians. In each of these, he took a negative stance toward sexual desire even within marriage. Christ, he asserted, taught that sexual desire was morally equivalent to illicit intercourse (Matt. 5:27-28). Hence a Christian woman should not only strive to maintain herself free of lust but should refrain from arousing it toward her own person by provocative dress and cosmetics.60 Even within marriage, a wife should cultivate chastity rather than beauty as a means of pleasing a Christian husband or of assuring a non-Christian one of her fidelity.61
The reflections and advice that Tertullian addressed to his wife clearly were intended for people who were already married at the time of their conversion to Christianity. Because divorce was forbidden, the partners were to continue in marriage, even if only one was Christian. Once the marriage ended in death, a second marriage was conceded only because of the difficulty of living in continence.62 Tertullian also presented a description of the joys of marriage between two Christians. The partners shared one hope, desire, discipline, and service. They were one in flesh and spirit: sharing and encouraging one another in private and communal religious observance and prayer, as well as service to others. They were joined together in Christ, whose peace and presence they enjoyed.63 A family built upon such a marriage would itself have been a church community.64
In the Exhortation to Chastity, written a few years later, Tertullian no longer affirmed that God was conceding sexual relations to married Christians because of human weakness. The divine command to increase and multiply, he explained, had been replaced by one of continence. Hence Christians should abstain from sexual union within an existing marriage and refrain from marrying again after the death of a spouse.65 Marriage was tainted by sexual desire in its origin and practice; sexual relations between spouses were distinguished from illicit intercourse legally but not morally.66 Carnal practice hindered prayer, he asserted, and blocked the gifts of the Holy Spirit.67
The treatises Monogamy and Modesty represent the full flowering of Tertullian’s commitment to the rigorism of the New Prophecy. The teachings of these treatises do not represent contemporary Christian thought or practice, yet they might have developed and exploited attitudes that were broadly shared. Tertullian once again recognized that the Paraclete continued to allow Christians to have one marriage and sexual relations within it, but only as a concession to their weakness.68 With monogamy thus established as the commanded practice, he defined matrimony as God’s joining two into one flesh or blessing the union of two already joined in one flesh. Whether a marriage union had been broken by divorce or death, the joining of either partner to alien flesh was then adultery.69 To justify this assertion that the marriage continued through death, he exploited the role of mutual consent in Roman marriage law. He observed that the intentional union joining two souls actually preceded their bodily union and served as a sacrament or symbol of the spiritual union of Christ and the church.70 The spiritual union of Christian marriage, which was in the soul, not only survived the death of the body but became fuller and deeper in the resurrection of the flesh.71
Thus Tertullian would address the widow: Could you repudiate the husband taken from you by the death that all humans must undergo; who had lived with you in peace; who had never repudiated you? In the Resurrection, he warned, a widow would have to give her spouse an account of her life after his death. How would she justify admitting another person into the soul which she had joined to his?72 Because marriage was primarily an intentional joining of two souls and only consequently the sharing of one flesh, moreover, that spiritual union became more noble as it became more pure and free of fleshly desire.73 Tertullian used the later Pauline teaching on marriage as the symbol of the union of Christ and the church to support the New Prophecy’s demand that Christians not remarry after the death of a spouse. Thus, he extended the marriage into the Resurrection and eternal life, there freeing it from all association with sexual union.
In Tertullian’s view, marriage originally belonged to the natural realm, which Christians shared with everyone else. Thus, God forbade breaking marriage commitments by adultery or divorce, and God confirmed the existing marriages of converts to Christianity. Because the imperial marriage rituals were only incidentally idolatrous and the marriage itself was good, a Christian could participate in its celebration, even when the union was between non-Christians. The grace of conversion sanctified both the Christian and a non-Christian spouse because of their union.
Monogamy was the original form of marriage that God instituted in Adam and Eve, and then restored in Christ. The intentional union of Christian spouses represented the spiritual union of Christ and the church; consequently, it could be broken by neither divorce nor death. Neither was ever to be joined, in flesh or spirit, to another spouse. Marriage between non-Christians could not be ended by divorce or the conversion of one party to Christianity. Such a union, however, was permanently ended by death prior to the conversion of either spouse, and a single remarriage was then allowed to the survivor who became Christian. No such concession was made for a convert who had a living non-Christian spouse at the time of baptism. Neither did Tertullian indicate that converts who had been divorced before baptism were allowed to marry again as Christians. In his view, the marriage bond could be broken by death, but only when neither party was Christian. This understanding of the permanence of marriage contributed to Tertullian’s argument that any violation of the marriage bond of a Christian — by adultery or remarriage — must entail permanent exclusion from the church’s communion.
Marriage originally was blessed with fecundity for the increase and — after sin introduced death — for the preservation of the race. The blessing of fecundity was no longer appropriate for Christian life, however, because of the approach of the end time. Sexual relations were permitted within marriage not for procreation but only as a concession to human weakness. The preferred state was continence before marriage, within marriage, or after the death of a spouse.
Tertullian’s restrictive view of marriage was not generally shared by his fellow Christians. They allowed remarriage after the death of one’s spouse and tolerated marriage to non-Christians. They had even begun to allow those who violated the marriage bond to repent and be readmitted to the communion of the church, thus implying that breaking marriage was a matter between humans, not involving a direct attack on God or on the temple of God, such as was found in idolatry or murder.
Cyprian used analogies and images of marriage and family to explain and justify his understanding of the role of the church in the process of salvation. The church was the mother of all those who have God for father.74 The church, as figured in the Song of Songs (4:12-15), was the bride of Christ, set apart and entrusted with the gifts through which baptism and eucharist were effective.75 Cyprian did not, however, apply these images to the marriage of Christians; he never argued that the monogamy of Christ was normative for his followers, as Tertullian had.76
Cyprian referred on a single occasion to what may be interpreted as the celebration of marriage by Christians. He advised that Christian virgins should not be present for the celebration of weddings because the festivities focused on arousing lust in the groom and encouraging the bride to endure it. Persons who had renounced such behavior should not be present where it was so openly the focus of attention.77 The objection did not refer to idolatry, so the celebration may have been between Christians, though it hardly could have been a church celebration.78
Like Tertullian, Cyprian was concerned that Christians should not marry outside the faith.79 The Decian persecution, however, showed that this was not an adequate safeguard against idolatry. Some Christian households did stand together against the demands of the imperial government, either by suffering imprisonment80 or taking flight.81 In other instances, the heads of households acted to protect their wives, children, and dependents by securing a certificate of compliance with the edict or even performing the required sacrifice. The imperial government apparently allowed them to act as representative of the entire group, while the church regarded them as having acted alone.82 Later, their entire households would support their repentance, intercede for the forgiveness of their sin, and threaten to follow them into schism if reconciliation was refused them.83 Other heads of households, however, not only failed but forced both their families and their retainers to follow them in sacrificing individually.84 Some of these then sought letters of peace from the martyrs for the whole group; they attempted to force the bishops to allow twenty or thirty people to return to communion on the strength of a martyr’s recommendation.85 Cyprian imaginatively described for his congregation the reproaches that infants appearing before the Judgment of Christ would heap upon their parents for having deprived them of salvation by leading them through the ritual of sacrifice to the gods and thereby denying Christ.86 In one dramatic event, a wife refused to accompany her husband in offering the sacrifice. He forced her to appear before the magistrates, whose assistants then held her firmly and dragged her hand through the performance of the required action. Because she persisted in shouting out her refusal and protest, she was punished by exile.87
The response to persecution demonstrated that family ties did pose the challenges to Christian commitment that Tertullian had predicted. Christian husbands compromised to protect their wives, children, servants, and property. Family structures also limited or eliminated the freedom of wives, children, and servants to contradict the decisions of the heads of households.
Cyprian’s writings indicate the growth and development of the practice of consecrated virginity in the Christian community. Virgins were noted among those faithful who withstood the Decian persecution.88 Cyprian was able to defend the episcopal decision to allow penance and reconciliation for the sin of idolatry by pointing out that having granted forgiveness earlier for fornication and adultery had not dulled the ardor of Christians for virginity and continence.89 Virgins were also mentioned among the captives taken by raiders in Numidia; the virgins were then ransomed with funds provided in large part by Christians in Carthage.90 At the outset of the Valerian persecution, consecrated virgins were also among the confessors sentenced to the mines in Numidia.91
In his early treatise On the Dress of Virgins, Cyprian explained the vocation of virgins differently than Tertullian had. He did not appeal to the shortness of time before the return of Jesus as a basis for a command to practice continence, with permission for marriage granted only as a concession to weakness. Instead, he explained that because the earth had been adequately populated, Christians had the freedom to embrace continence as a fulfillment of the renewing grace of baptism. Undertaking such celibacy was not fulfilling a divine command but exercising free choice.92 Consecrated virginity was understood as a commitment to an exemplary Christian life, one which rivaled martyrdom in its renunciation and endurance.93 Cyprian praised his Roman colleague Cornelius’s dedication to virginal chastity in defending him against charges of disciplinary laxity and offered that continence as a qualification for his being elected bishop.94
The problems that Cyprian faced were involved in the development of a discipline appropriate for this form of life, so that it encompassed not only sexual renunciation but a fuller Christian commitment. Some of the virgins continued a privileged and even luxurious lifestyle, one that did not separate them from the activities and entertainments customary for their status in imperial society. They enjoyed their wealth by maintaining their usual dress and grooming, attending traditional celebrations of marriage and displaying themselves in the public baths.95 Cyprian urged that their commitment ought to include not only a withdrawal from sexual engagement, marriage, and childbearing but a separation from the honors and enjoyments that were offered them by imperial culture. He believed that dedicated virgins should not only suppress their own sexual desire but should also take care not to arouse such desire in others.96 Thus, they should not dress and deport themselves in the same way as married or marriageable women.97 Virginity, moreover, should be particularly manifest in generosity toward the poor.98
Cyprian also had to deal with the problem of the living arrangements for consecrated virgins, since separate houses or monasteries had not yet been developed. Some of the virgins, it was discovered, had been sharing housing, and even beds, with clerics and other Christian men. Though the women claimed to be physically inviolate, Cyprian and his colleagues retorted that bodily integrity was not the sole standard of virtue. Their conduct had endangered both themselves and their accomplices; they also had set a bad example for other Christians.99 The bishops laid down the principle that since the virgins were espoused to Christ, they must meet at least the standard of conduct that was expected of a married woman.100 Henceforth, they decided, virgins should be subject to the supervision of the bishops.101 At the same time, the bishops reminded the virgins that if they were unwilling to sustain the commitment they had made, they could and should marry.102
A similar problem of irregular contact seems to have arisen with the initial set of confessors in the Decian persecution who were released or exiled after refusing to perform the required sacrifice. Cyprian insisted that they maintain the high standards of conduct appropriate to their status in the community.103
Unlike the widows and orphans, the virgins may not have been formally enrolled in an order of the church, since they did not require financial support.104 They were, nevertheless, a recognizable group within the community.
The church at Carthage had a formal order of widows who, like the orphans, were supported by the offerings of the faithful.105 Not all the widows in the community, however, required such assistance. This can be inferred from Cyprian’s including the widows, along with the virgins and matrons, in his prohibition of the use of cosmetics, which were a luxury in the ancient world.106 While the special status must have required that the widow promised not to remarry, it is not evident that the age and single-marriage requirements specified in 1 Timothy (5:9) were being enforced. The most important qualification would seem to have been economic.107
Cyprian’s writings provide far less information about Christian marriage practices than Tertullian’s did. The decade of intermittent persecution during which Cyprian served as Bishop of Carthage amply demonstrated the dangers to which Christians were subject through their commitment to marriage, childrearing, and the management of a household. His efforts seem to have been focused on achieving a greater degree of separation from the imperial culture, especially for the dedicated virgins. The order of widows continued to function, though it seems to have been a means of assisting the poor rather than a form of asceticism. Cyprian also indicated that the church was caring for orphans.
By the time Augustine became Bishop of Hippo, Christian emperors had long ago removed the financial penalties earlier imposed on those who refused to marry or to remarry after the death of their spouses. Constantine also lifted the restriction on inheritance for those who did not produce children.108 At the end of the century, Theodosius even imposed restrictions on widows who married too quickly after the death of their husbands and granted benefits to mothers who did not remarry at all.109
Augustine was also drawn into a conflict outside of Africa over the value of dedicated virginity, which engaged Jovinian and Jerome. The former believed that avoiding marriage fostered the Christian life and prevented many troubles but brought no particular heavenly reward. The latter followed an earlier tradition, retorting that marriage was a concession to weakness and valuable only in being a lesser evil than fornication.110 Augustine rejected both positions but insisted that marriage and its renunciation found their value only through participation in the church’s relation to Christ.
Christian marital practice in the late fourth and early fifth century continued to be defined largely by the imperial legislation and culture. It deviated on some points, such as exposing unwanted children and remarriage after divorce, which the Christian emperors did not attempt to suppress.111 It also challenged the cultural standards that allowed the sexual exploitation of servants, and it demanded the same fidelity of husbands that traditionally had been required of wives.112
Augustine’s surviving writings provide evidence of Christian marriage practices. The wedding was celebrated by Christians in the home rather than the church.113 The marriage contract, which specified the property involved and its disposition at the end of the marriage, was read out in the presence of witnesses and signed by them.114 If invited, the bishop was among the witnesses to this agreement.115 The church’s particular interest in the marriage contract was its provision that the conjugal union was entered for the purpose of generating children.116 Fathers gave daughters in marriage so that they might become mothers, Augustine observed, rather than for gratifying their husbands’ lust.117 A father, he remarked, usually had a deeper appreciation for the chastity of his daughter than for his own chastity, or even that of her mother, whose body he enjoyed.118
Despite the terms of the marriage contract regarding children, Augustine assumed that most Christians entered into marriage to satisfy their sexual lust or their desire for luxury. Anyone capable of practicing continence, he believed, would avoid the trials of married life.119 He noted that even if children had not been sought, their parents were moved to love them once they were born.120 The standard of Christian practice within marriage — the limitation of sexual relations to the purpose of generating children — was not achieved normally. Indeed, on the basis of his conversations with married men, Augustine judged that complete continence within marriage was easier to sustain than engaging in sexual intercourse on such a restricted basis.121 Sexual relations for the satisfaction of lust were judged sinful even within marriage, though fidelity to the bond of marriage made this disorder a minor sin. Unlike adultery and fornication, married Christians could be forgiven this sin of lust through the almsgiving and prayer that won pardon for all the failings of daily living.122 Augustine explained that this freer exercise of sexual relations — rather than marriage itself — was the concession to Christians that Paul had recognized.123
Ordinary Christian practice did include temporary suspension of sexual relations within marriage for the purpose of prayer. Augustine particularly recommended this abstinence as part of the Lenten preparation for Easter.124 During this season, it was required of those engaged in immediate preparation for baptism.125
Complete renunciation of sexual relations and commitment to continence within marriage are well evidenced for Christians in the early fifth century.126 After they had lived together for some years, a couple might dedicate themselves together to serving God and undertake the practice of continence.127 The couple’s objective was to focus their marriage partnership, and not just their individual intentions, on pleasing the Lord in the way that those who remained unmarried did not accomplish.128 Augustine insisted that this decision had to be mutual; it could not be imposed on one spouse by the other.129 The Christian whose spouse was unable or unwilling to practice continence must continue to engage in sexual relations for the sake of that partner. Such a person might choose a more limited form of continence by conceding but not demanding the marriage right.130 Augustine provided no indication of how widespread or satisfactory such a practice might have been.
Augustine insisted that Christians should not break their marriages, either for the sake of continence or because of barrenness.131 No Christian who had a living spouse was allowed to marry again, even if that other party had broken the marriage.132
Concubinage was practiced commonly prior to marriage. Male catechumens in particular regularly took a concubine whom they later dismissed in anticipation of marriage or baptism (something that Augustine himself had done).133 When Augustine argued against the practice, his attention was directed primarily at the men; he recognized that the social status of the women involved often allowed them little control over their bodies. He judged that these women might not be sinning in any way, as long as they were faithful to their partners, sought children in the union, and remained continent after they had been dismissed.134
Concubinage during marriage was regularly denounced in Augustine’s preaching. Usually the offender was a husband who had established a sexual relationship with one of his female slaves, though Augustine suggested that wives might also be guilty of abusing male slaves.135 He refused to accept the excuse that this behavior was permissible because it substituted for the violation of another’s spouse.136 Nor was it punishable in imperial law. Augustine actively fought this abuse of servants.
Augustine recognized that wives had limited resources for restraining their husbands from adultery and that the culture praised wives who were tolerant of their husbands’ escapades. He argued that as Christians they must be more concerned for their spouses’ salvation. If they failed to effect a change of behavior, he suggested that they report the offenders to the bishop so that he could confront them.137 Although he never named individuals before the congregation, he warned adulterers not to come forward at the distribution of the eucharist lest they be humiliated by his refusal of communion.138 Legislation adopted by the African church late in Augustine’s episcopate forbade the exposure of a person guilty of any punishable crime; such episcopal threats against adulterers may have provided one reason for the restriction.139
The evidence for the Christian practice of marriage addresses primarily, if not exclusively, the union of free persons in what the imperial legislation called coniugium. A slave was incapable of entering into this form of marriage. Roman law recognized the union of a slave to either another slave or a free person under the title of contubernium. It specified the rights of the master of the slave over the union and its offspring, and the conditions under which a free partner in such a union might avoid enslavement.140 It did not grant to slaves the rights over their bodies that free persons enjoyed.
Slaves were baptized members of the church. The celebrated third-century martyr, Felicity, was a mother and may have been a slave.141 The legislation of the African church specified that no one could be ordained bishop, presbyter, or deacon unless his entire household was already Christian.142 In the same context, restrictions were set on the women who could be allowed to live in the household of a married cleric. In addition to his blood relatives, allowance was made for the introduction of the wives of his sons and servants.143 Augustine assumed that Christians would have their slaves baptized.144 Some provision must have been made for their marriage. Yet in his attacks on the sexual abuse of slaves, Augustine never denounced this sin as adultery, a violation of what may be inferred to be the marriage rights of their Christian partners.145
In one instance, Augustine considered a situation parallel to that of slaves. He described a relationship of a man and a woman, neither married to anyone else, who agreed to limit their sexual relations to one another and to continue so until the death of one party, with the further proviso that they were open to the generation of children, though this was not the reason for their union.146 He judged that if these conditions were realized, the agreement might be called a marriage.147 This he clearly distinguished from the temporary concubinage in which a woman of a lower station was taken as a sexual partner until a suitable marriage for the ambitious male was arranged. The bishop seems not to have concerned himself more directly and explicitly, however, with the marriages of Christian slaves, even in Christian households.
Some evidence of Christian marriage between slaves in this period may be provided by the inscription on a marble plaque (fig. 124), dated to the second half of the fourth century and found in the Christian catacomb of Severus at Hadrumetum. It was prepared by Urbanus for the tomb of his wife, Varia Victoria, and it commemorates their forty-five-year relationship. The inscription describes their union: “Urbanus, husband (maritus), made this for the sake of his dear wife (coniunx), Varia Victoria, in memory of their forty-five-year contubernium.”148 Neither Urbanus (nor Varia Victoria) can be identified with certainty as Christian, though the location of this epitaph in a Christian catacomb suggests that as probable.149 The union is characterized as a contubernium, in which at least one party would have been a slave. The partners, however, are titled maritus and coniunx, terms proper to the free-born or freed partners in a coniugium.150 Since the dedication was for a person buried in a Christian catacomb, it might indicate that the church recognized the married status of the couple, at least one of whom was or had been a slave.
Augustine indicated that most of the households in Hippo were headed by Christians and that all of them included at least some Christians.151 Most of what he had to say about family life, however, was focused on the relationship of the spouses. In this, his sermons do not mirror the remarkable observations about childhood and childrearing that are found in the initial books of the Confessions.
Most of Augustine’s observations about parenting in the sermons were intended to help the congregation understand the ways that God dealt with them. The attention that parents lavished on their children could help them appreciate God’s generosity and care for them. Though some parents turned their children over to nurses and pursued their own pleasures,152 most cared for their children’s needs themselves. He remarked, for example, on the way mothers rubbed their children vigorously in the bath to make them healthy.153 Some parents also tried to limit the number of their children, so that they would be able not only to provide for their care but to leave each with sufficient resources for independent living.154 Augustine recognized providing an inheritance for children as a legitimate parental responsibility.155
The heads of households in particular were called to imitate the divine care by training their children and servants in true religion and proper conduct. They were to exercise their authority to make sure that they were Christian, Catholic, and free of heresy.156 A man had to have accomplished this in order to qualify for the office of bishop, presbyter, or deacon.157 The head should then ensure that the behavior of the members of the household was proper for Christians, requiring them to fulfill the baptismal promises that had been made for them as infants or urged upon them when they were older.158 Forgiving offenses did not mitigate the responsibility of householders to administer the punishments that would promote the good conduct and salvation of their dependents. To refrain from correcting was cruelty, not mercy; to discipline was right, provided that it was prompted and guided by love and concern for salvation.159 A father should expect to be feared as well as loved.160 The master in turn should be prepared to listen to others and adapt to them in order to maintain the unity of the family.161
In some instances, however, Augustine warned parents against opposing the proper and legitimate aspirations of their children. The demands of family relationships, even those sanctioned by the Decalogue, must be subordinated to the love and service of God.162 Love of spouse and children must never, for example, hold a person back from witness to Christ.163 A son who wanted to become a monk or a daughter who wanted to become a consecrated virgin might have had to oppose the preferences of a father who wanted an heir and a mother desiring grandchildren.164
Augustine occasionally acknowledged the most complex set of relationships within Christian families and households: those centered on the slaves. He knew that slavery was bitter and that slaves were often justified in grumbling about their work.165 Masters had control of the slaves and all of their possessions, which masters could confiscate to satisfy for negligence and loss.166 He knew that masters regularly neglected the spiritual welfare of their servants and did not seek their improvement.167 Yet, Augustine followed the scriptural standard in affirming the institution itself: slaves were not to expect manumission from Christian masters. They were to submit to their masters, even when these were not good persons. In this way, servants could contribute to the unity of the household.168 Masters for their part were required to seek forgiveness, at least from God, for harsh treatment and abuse of servants. Though they did not have to humble themselves by seeking the servant’s pardon, Augustine taught, they should convey their remorse and apology by acting with special gentleness toward those they had offended or harmed.169
The clergy also owned slaves. Before being ordained, bishops, presbyters, and deacons had to have made all their slaves Christians; they could retain them in their households after being ordained and even acquire partners for their slaves if none were available in the household.170 Members of the clergy of the church of Hippo continued to own slaves. They freed the slaves when Augustine required it after an audit of their personal possessions.171
Masters and estate owners apparently dictated the religious affiliation of their slaves and agricultural workers (coloni). Augustine used this power against the Donatists by appealing to landlords to secure the adherence of their workers to the Catholic communion.172 He protested when a Donatist bishop leased an imperially owned estate and rebaptized its staff.173
In many ways, slaves seem to have been invisible to church leaders. Augustine, as has been noted, never protested against the violation of the marital relationship of the servants who were sexually abused. During the Pelagian controversy, he neither cited the absence of autonomous free choice in slaves’ conversion and baptism, nor did he use it as an example of the way in which God worked for their salvation.
Family and other social relationships seem to have been considered significant only during earthly life. Christian tomb epitaphs typically recorded the name of the deceased, the age at death, and often the person’s ecclesial status (e.g., “faithful, innocent, lived in peace”). Only rarely were family relationships mentioned, and the ancestral family name (nomen) was often omitted. This conformed to the growing use of a single name in the Late Empire, but it might reflect also a Christian practice of eschewing social class distinctions.174 Ordinarily, only the first name (praenomen) appears, such as Crescentia or Dardanius (figs. 135, 137), and exceptions are rare: the memorial of Blossus (fig. 120), whose nomen may indicate aristocratic status. Additionally, while clerical or ecclesial role might be included (e.g., episcopus or diaconus), and the deceased might be identified as being a servant of God (famulus/a dei, fig. 141), indicators of social status such as slave or freed (libertus/a or servus/a) are virtually never included. Moreover, Christians tended to be interred within dedicated areas of cemeteries or in funerary churches that were not organized to encourage burials according to familial groups.175 In fourth- and fifth-century practice, marriage and family ties were for earthly life alone, contrary to Tertullian’s insistence that Christian marriage lasted into the resurrection of the dead.
A possible exception to the practice of ignoring family relations is the rare double-portrait mosaic from Thabraca dated to the late fourth or early fifth century. It shows a male seated at a desk and a female standing in the prayer position (fig. 139), and it covered a single sarcophagus that contained two bodies of persons who almost certainly died at the same time. These two individuals appear to have been father and daughter rather than a married couple, and the daughter a consecrated virgin. This interpretation is based on a reconstruction of the epitaph as identifying her as Victoria filia Sacra (Victoria, sacred daughter).176 She wears a veil that covers her head and upper body.177 Over the man’s head are the remains of the formula, In Pace. He holds a stylus in his right hand and appears to be writing on a tablet or scroll. The letters MAR (or MAI) are visible, and they suggest that he may be producing a list (or calendar) of martyrs.
Augustine’s writings and the contemporary legislation of the African councils indicate that consecrated virginity was widespread and flourishing. Though some Christian parents resisted the desires of their children to dedicate themselves to this practice, the church as a whole held these women in high honor.178 In the celebration of the eucharist, for example, the deceased virgins were commemorated immediately after the martyrs.179
Though virginity was an individual decision and a woman could follow this way of life in her family home, her status was formalized by her making a vow and receiving a head covering, called a mitra, which indicated her bridal relationship to Christ.180 Councils in the 390s restricted the ritual of dedication to the bishop and only later allowed a presbyter to preside with the bishop’s permission, presumably in a rural congregation.181 Formal consecration of a virgin was to be delayed until her twenty-fifth year, the same age specified for ordination to the first of the clerical grades for which sexual continence was required.182 A later council decided that the ritual might be performed earlier for a virgin, if she was being pressured by a marriage proposal, was in danger of being abducted and ravished, or was in danger of death. The protection of the church might have been helpful in preserving from harm a girl whose family lacked the standing to do so. Even in these cases, however, the virgin had to be at least twenty years old, well past the initial age of betrothal and marriage.183 Augustine himself had responsibility for an orphaned girl who expressed a desire to become a consecrated virgin. He considered her much too young to be taken seriously in this regard, though she was already being pressed by a suitor for marriage.184
The living arrangements for virgins were still developing even in the fifth century. Some lived with their families and continued to be subject to their parents.185 A council recommended that upon the death of their parents, they should be placed in the homes of serious Christian women, who might be understood as widows, though this was not specified. In any case, they were to be supervised and not allowed to wander.186 If the Victoria described above (fig. 139) was, indeed, a consecrated virgin and was buried with her father, then she may have continued to live with her birth family at home, even after her consecration. Other virgins seem to have lived independently, retaining their property and using it at their discretion.187 As in Cyprian’s time, some of these were accused of living in luxury, contrary to their high calling.188
Finally, monasteries for women were beginning to develop. They included virgins who sold their property and lived by the common fund. Such seems to have been the status of the minor daughter of the presbyter Januarius, whose failure to dispose of his property caused such problems.189 Augustine’s own sister, presumably a widow rather than a virgin, was head of one such community for which he later wrote a rule of life. The ideals he set for the monastery were those he attempted to realize in the common life of his clergy: living from a common fund and in the sharing of goods, providing mutual support in the dedicated life, and caring for one another by correction and punishment when necessary. Augustine was particularly concerned that these women guard not only their bodies but their intentions by opposing the first movements of sexual attraction and taking care not to desire to be attractive to others.190 Another Victoria (who was buried in the same martyrs’ chapel as the Victoria called “daughter” in fig. 139) is addressed both as “mother” (mater) and as “servant of God” (famula dei). Another woman, Glyceria, appears to have commissioned the tomb mosaic. While Glyceria may have been Victoria’s daughter by birth, Victoria’s identity as “mother” as well as “servant of God” might indicate that she was the head of a community of women.191 Another instance is found in the portrait-type tomb mosaic made for Pompeia Maxima, servant of God (fig. 142). Like the Victoria in the double-portrait mosaic from Thabraca (fig. 139), Pompeia is depicted wearing a veil, which might be a mitra, the covering specified for a consecrated virgin.
When a consecrated virgin violated her vow, even by marrying, she was considered an adulteress against Christ. Her offense was not in the marrying itself, however, but in having turned away from the high station to which she had committed herself.192 Augustine did not make a judgment on the status of the marriage, as he did recognize that of a dedicated widow who had violated her promise and married.193
The canonical legislation and Augustine’s own correspondence indicate that the bishops had reason to worry about the safety and the good reputation of women whom they had consecrated as virgins. A mid-fourth-century council of Carthage specified that virgins were neither to live with men nor permit men to have access to them.194 This, it will be recalled, had been a problem a century earlier, in Cyprian’s time. Some problems continued to arise from relationships with clerics. Continent clerics — which would have included deacons and presbyters — were forbidden to visit widows or virgins except with the permission of or at the command of a bishop or presbyter (presumably the pastor in a rural church). Moreover, that superior was to specify a suitable clerical or lay companion to accompany them on the visit. Even bishops and presbyters were to have a companion, another cleric or a serious lay Christian, when they undertook such a visit.195 The concern was not without foundation. A Donatist bishop was accused of raping a virgin whom he had himself dedicated.196 Augustine reported that both a rural subdeacon and a monk had to be punished for inappropriate contact with consecrated virgins. The former bolted to the Donatist communion and took two virgins (sanctimoniales) with him, where they led dissolute lives.197
The greatest danger, however, came not from wayward clerics seeking the company of nuns but from men abusing their positions of power. Augustine had to deal with two instances in which an official had violated a consecrated virgin. The bailiff on a country estate had violently assaulted a virgin who came from another estate to work wool. He was forced to undergo public penance and was removed from his office by the proprietor. Augustine urged that no further action be taken in imperial court, where the rape would have brought a severe penalty.198 In another instance, he responded in outrage to the intervention of the Roman bishop demanding the disciplining of clerics of the diocese of Hippo who had attacked a man of standing in the imperial service. The petitioner had neglected to inform the Roman bishop that he had abducted and raped a nun. The clerics in question had tracked him down, rescued the nun, and administered a sound beating to the man. Augustine pointedly demanded whether the Roman bishop was suggesting that a person who considered himself beyond the reach of imperial prosecution and cared nothing for the sanctions of the church should have been treated with greater respect by the clerics — not to mention being defended by the Roman bishop.199
The virgins themselves were not always well-behaved. While visiting an estate on church business, one of Augustine’s clerics had been approached by a virgin during the night. The deacon contended under questioning that he had maintained his distance as best he could and had found a way to extricate himself from the situation without betraying the indiscretion of the virgin. She apparently came to grief some years later, when the cleric was already serving as a presbyter; she then accused him of causing her downfall. Augustine trusted the cleric, and his rural congregation affirmed his good character.200
Dedicated widows were distinguished by a vow not to marry again.201 Unlike the provision made for the dedication of virgins, the canonical legislation did not specify that only a bishop or delegated presbyter could confirm such a vow.202 The widows followed a discipline that was not significantly different from that of consecrated virgins: only males who were blood relatives could live in their households,203 and they could be visited by clerics accompanied by suitable companions only as permitted or directed by the bishop.204 Augustine indicated that the requirements of widows to have been married only once and to be sixty years of age were not being enforced.205 He did not specify that these women dressed differently than other widows.206
Widows were exhorted not simply to combat sexual temptations but to beware lest their suppression of sensuality leave them open to other vices, particularly to a love of money.207 They should, then, dedicate themselves to prayer, fasting, reading psalms, studying the scripture, and assisting the poor.208 The tomb of a certain widow (vidua) named Matrona describes her as “living in the faith” and now resting in peace (fig. 119). Matrona may or may not have been enrolled in a class of dedicated widows.209
In some instances, widows broke their vow and married again. Some teachers judged that these persons were guilty of adultery against Christ: their marriages should be broken, and they should be required to return to their celibate state. Augustine disagreed strongly with this position. He judged, on the basis of a careful analysis of 1 Timothy (5:11-12), that the failed widow’s sin was not in the marriage itself, which was a good. The sin was the prior desire to marry she had nurtured after making a commitment to living as a widow. She had set out on a higher path and then turned back. Thus, she was guilty of infidelity to God but not of adultery against Christ. The marriage itself was not to be disturbed, lest the partner from whom the widow would be separated become an adulterer by marrying again.210 This judgment indicates that the vow of widowhood — unlike the marriage that broke it — was not considered an impediment to the woman’s marriage. The analysis of this widow’s failure was not unlike that of a dedicated virgin who decided to marry; in both cases, Augustine seems to have condemned their turning back from a higher calling rather than the marriage itself.211
In one instance, Augustine also reported the abduction of a widow, presumably a younger woman, by a youth who wanted to take her as his wife. The young man, a catechumen, was warned in a dream not to harm her; he repented, returned her to the bishop, and was apparently so shaken by the experience that he sought baptism.212
Another form of widowhood appears only indirectly in the literature on marriage. Ambitious men — such as Augustine himself — regularly took concubines from a lower social class and dismissed them before entering into an advantageous marriage. To these women, Augustine recommended the life of continence that his own partner had embraced.213 Since the regulations on age and childrearing were no longer being applied, such women may have been regarded or even enrolled as widows.214
Dedicated widowhood appears to have functioned as a recognized and approved form of asceticism. The order of widows to which 1 Timothy referred was a means of specifying the destitute who needed the church’s support; this aspect of the practice is not evidenced in Augustine’s writings.
Augustine’s doctrine on marriage was subject to many different influences. He found himself an early victim of his sexual urges. Through his stable relationship with the mother of his son and the experience of childrearing, he seems to have found something of a remedy for that sense of disintegration. Reaction against the extreme Manichean doctrine must have played a part in his coming to the judgment that sexual differentiation and generation were integral to the original divine plan for the creation and humanity’s role in it. The controversy over the relative values of marriage and continence, which pitted Jerome against Jovinian, may have exercised literate Christians, especially in Carthage, and may be reflected in Augustine’s insistence on the primacy of the marital bond as a form of Christian charity.215 In the end, in On the City of God, he asserted that human sexual differentiation transcended its temporary function of generation; the sexual organs endured as ornaments decorating the resurrected body, inspiring praise of the wisdom and mercy of the Creator, who did not sacrifice beauty to utility in forming the human body.216
Sexual differentiation and marriage were assigned different roles in the successive stages of the building of the city of God. As with most other things Augustine puzzled over, his understanding changed over his career of writing. His explanation of Christian marriage reflected both the practice of his congregation and the growing attraction of the monastic life.
The primary function of sexual differentiation and generation in the divine plan was the uniting of human society through bonds of affection, a role assigned to marriage in Paradise and retained in the fallen world. Sexual differentiation established a natural hierarchy that contributed to the stability of the marital union, a hierarchy that was not to be confused with the mastery imposed as a punishment for the Fall or the servitude that resulted from the sinful drive to dominate.217 Had God given Adam a male rather than a female companion, then the ordering of their society might have been based upon age or some other difference; sexual differentiation served this purpose admirably.218 Generation also promoted an affective bond. The formation of Eve from Adam himself and the derivation of all human beings from that one couple added the link of kinship to that of participation in a common nature.219 Augustine recognized a unitive value in parent-child relationships but not in sexual intercourse itself. In Paradise, where sexual activity would have been free of the violence and irrationality that characterized it after the Fall, it would express — but not itself contribute to building — a tender love between the spouses.220 Among Christians, he claimed, a mutually agreed continence built a stronger marriage union than sexual practice.221
The blessings of affective unity promoted by marriage became even more important in the fallen state of humanity. Augustine explained that the prohibition of marriage between siblings and the avoidance of marriage between cousins was aimed at joining together more individuals and families by adding a second form of kinship to the blood bond. The prohibition of marriage within families extended these marital relations to new individuals and groups: through marriage, people gained new relatives rather than strengthening their links to those received through birth. Moreover, societies tended to restrict marriage groups somewhat, to prevent the dissipation of the binding power of such relationships.222 During the patriarchal period in Israel, the natural hierarchal ordering of the sexes permitted a single man to take many wives and thus establish even wider family unions.223
For all their value, the affective bonds of marital companionship and kinship were still viewed by Augustine as ambivalent forces. Following 1 Timothy (2:14), he insisted that Adam had disobeyed God’s command not because he was deceived by Satan but through affection and concern for his wife.224 A similar analysis of the deleterious effects of human fellowship had been advanced earlier in the recounting of the stealing of pears in Confessions.225 Augustine did not blame sexual attraction for all disorder: Adam was drawn into his sin by affection, not lust, which he did not experience until after the Fall.226 Solomon did not fare so well.227
Yet marriage remained a significant means of achieving human unity even in the fallen world. In the Christian era, its unitive function actually took precedence over childbearing: no spouse could be put aside because of sterility; even among the elderly, marriage retained its full value.228 In Augustine’s view, however, continence within marriage fostered a deeper and more lasting bond than sexual relations; not only was the voluntary union of souls better and stronger than the pleasurable joining of bodies, but it would endure eternally.229
Thus, Augustine gave the bonds of marriage and kinship an instrumental or secondary role in building the unity of the Christian church and the heavenly city of God. That wider union of souls, he never tired of explaining, was established by the gift of charity, the living presence of the Holy Spirit that joined together in love persons who did not even know each other in the flesh. As shall be seen below, the power of concupiscence and the demands of living as a family in the fallen state hampered even the faithful and loving union of man and wife; these made consecrated virginity or continence within marriage more effective than sexual relations in building the Kingdom of God.
The second necessary role of sexual differentiation and marriage in the divine plan for creation was the multiplication and spread of the human race over the earth. Sexual generation was chosen by God originally to complete the blessing and decoration of the earth by filling it with humans. After the fall of Adam and Eve, procreation assumed the added burden of checking the effects of mortality by replacing the dying with the living. Further, the promise God made to Abraham was fulfilled through marriage and procreation; these were necessary to develop and sustain the people God had assigned the role of preparing for the coming of Jesus. Genetic relationships retained no such role in the Christian period, however, when the divine gifts reached beyond the confines of a single ethnic group to embrace the whole of humanity. Once the destined number of the saints had finally been regenerated in the church through baptism, both marriage and procreation would cease. They would have no place in the final perfection of the city of God. These variations in the procreative function of marriage in the stages of the divine plan of creation, redemption, and fulfillment require more attention.
During the first decade and a half of his writing career, Augustine avoided all discussion of the role of marriage and procreation in Paradise. He offered figurative, spiritualized interpretations of the formation of male and female, and of the divine command to increase, multiply, and fill the earth. Sexual generation seemed to have belonged only to the fallen world. In the paradise narrative, Adam and Eve served as allegorical figures for the intellectual and emotive faculties of the soul, which were commanded to cooperate in producing the offspring of good works.230 Such spiritualizing interpretation continued through Confessions, where the command to generate was interpreted as an order to exercise the mind’s creativity by multiplying linguistic expressions of a single idea and uncovering the multitude of meanings carried by a single expression.231 This figurative meaning of sexual generation was also used in On the Good of Marriage, but there Augustine finally considered the literal sense: the multiplication of the race. He assumed that only mortal bodies could engage in sexual intercourse and generation. Sexual generation would have been possible in Paradise, he explained, if Adam and Eve had mortal bodies that were somehow preserved from actual death.232 In the third book of The Literal Commentary on Genesis, Augustine briefly considered the possibility of sexual intercourse and birth in bodies that were immortal by nature. But for the Fall, he speculated, Adam and Eve might have parented a holy and just society.233 Soon enough, however, Augustine turned away from exploring generation and multiplication in spiritual or immortal bodies.234 In the ninth book of The Literal Commentary on Genesis and consistently thereafter, he maintained that only naturally mortal bodies could engage in sexual intercourse and generation, though such naturally mortal bodies would have been preserved from actually undergoing death. Through Adam and Eve, the destined number of humans would have been sexually generated in mortal bodies, he explained, which would then have been transformed — a generation at a time or all at once — into an immortal condition, without ever passing through death.235
By the final books of this commentary, Augustine had severed any necessary link between carnal concupiscence and copulation, which had prevented his acknowledging sexual generation in Paradise.236 Had they only been faithful to God, Adam and Eve would have enjoyed sexual relations free from the violence, irrationality, and domination that characterized the fallen condition. In Paradise, neither sexual relations nor even birth would have caused any harm to the female body.237 In On the City of God, the tree of life was assigned the function of preventing the actual death of Adam and Eve’s naturally mortal bodies, whose corruptible nature was required for the completion of the creation by the sexual generation of humans in Paradise.238 Thus Augustine explained that sexual generation had been integral to the divine plan for humanity and required bodies that were naturally mortal. In Paradise, these bodies had been protected from corruption and death; their sexual activities were free of the lust that Augustine found so pervasive and disruptive of relations among fallen humans.
Through the fall into sin, humanity lost the paradisial protections against actual mortality. Sexual generation became the necessary — but now painful — means not only of filling the earth and completing the destined number of saints, but also of replacing the dying. By God’s subsequent intervention, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob became a genetic community that was to foreshadow and prepare for the coming of Christ. The patriarchs, therefore, accepted procreation as a divinely imposed duty, to which they dedicated themselves despite what Augustine believed was their virtuous preference for sexual continence.239 They even accepted multiple wives and the servants provided by their spouses in holy obedience to the divine command to be fruitful.240 Within these complex marriages, he claimed, they used sexual relations only for the procreation of children.241
In the Christian period, the link between generation and the economy of salvation was finally loosened. The church, which replaced Israel as the sign of the invisible city of the saints on earth, was no longer established and maintained by the generation of a race or an ethnic community. Instead, the church acquired its members by conversion from among the nations and spiritual regeneration in baptism. The rate of carnal generation among the non-Christian nations, Augustine contended, was quite adequate to supply the number of saints determined by God for the heavenly city. Hence, Christians had no duty to raise up children for the Kingdom of God: they were free to practice either virginity or continence within marriage.242 Among Christians, therefore, procreation no longer made a necessary contribution to building the city of God, which was better served by continence and efforts to convert pagans. Unlike the patriarchs, Augustine observed, Christians generally sought children for carnal rather than spiritual motives.243
Augustine did not follow his African predecessors in focusing on Paul’s assumption that marriage and procreation were superfluous because the time before the return of Christ was short. Instead, he argued that the coming of the end depended on completing the number of the saints.244 Indeed, if all Christians were to accept the divine call to continence, the predestined number of saints would be achieved in them, and the Lord would return.245
In the heavenly city of God, which would be brought to fullness in the Resurrection, neither marriage nor procreation would have any role.246 Sexual differentiation, however, would remain, since it was the original constitution of humanity and thus integral to its perfection. In the formation of the human body, Augustine observed, God seems never to have sacrificed beauty to utility. Thus the sexual organs would remain as ornaments of the resurrected body once their generative function had passed. They would be contemplated by the saints without any admixture of desire for intercourse, as indeed they were in Paradise at the beginning. God would be praised in this way for sexual bodies.247
Augustine considered Paul’s reflections in 1 Corinthians (7:25-40) on the ways in which marriage distracted Christians from the service of Christ in On the Good of Marriage. He decided that Paul was referring to the demands that the present sinful age placed upon those who married, raised children, and thus engaged in civil affairs.248 Augustine also noticed Paul’s exhortation to those already married to live as though they were not (1 Cor. 7:29). It was possible, he argued, for married Christians to turn away from the pursuit of the status prized in imperial culture and to dedicate themselves to the Lord. Such a conversion could be accomplished, however, only among spouses who esteemed and appreciated one another’s fidelity to Christ, modesty, and other virtues rather than honorable social position, wealth, and beauty.249 Though Christian spouses might rise to such a way of life, he cautioned, no one originally intended marriage as a means to attain such virtue.250 Once again, Augustine concluded that marriage, of itself, made no contribution to the Christian life.
Augustine might have been expected to incorporate into the building of the church and the heavenly city the loving care extended by parents to their children. On more than one occasion, he demonstrated his sensitivity to the efficacy of his mother’s love for him and the way he was moved by the intelligence and goodness of his son.251 His analysis in On the City of God acknowledged that the love of God did move Christians to concern for others. The objective of such engagement, however, should be eternal salvation rather than the passing goods of earthly life. The command proper to the Christian age was to multiply spiritually rather than carnally.252 The loving labor that provided physical and mental nurture for children somehow escaped his attention and appreciation. Moreover, even the emotional turmoil that resulted from Christian love and concern for another’s salvation was interpreted as a sign of human weakness in the fallen condition.253
Augustine rejected a role for marriage and procreation in the heavenly city of God, for he believed the New Testament clearly taught this in Christ’s response to the question about the woman who buried seven husbands (Matt. 22:30) and in Paul’s assertion that a widow is no longer bound to her husband (Rom. 7:2). Yet he did recognize marriage as integral to the city of God on earth: first, in Paradise for completing the beauty of creation, and then, after the Fall, for establishing the Jewish people to carry the promise of salvation. Once the earthly city of God passed into the Christian era, however, the role of marriage became radically restricted: procreation was no longer necessary; the affection that united the church community was to be a universal charity rather than the family ties fostered by marriage and childbearing.
In the bond of marriage, however, Augustine discerned a particular form of charity and mutual service that was particularly well-suited to the weakness of humanity in its fallen condition. He agreed with Tertullian that the union of souls between a man and a woman was essential to marriage. This union could be achieved even in the absence of any sexual relations,254 but it usually was realized in their fidelity to one another in an exclusive bodily union.255 Although their sexual relations should have been directed to the generation of children, they actually served in assisting one another to contain the forces of lust that assailed them. The partners exercised mutual charity by submitting to and serving each other’s sexual needs, which were inseparable from the fallen condition.256 The partner seeking the satisfaction of desire was dominated by lust and thereby sinned, though fidelity to the bond of marriage rendered that sin minor and easily forgiven.257 The partner who only served the spouse’s sexual need rather than his or her own desire acted not in lust but in virtuous love.258
Continence within marriage was a recommended Christian practice. As has been indicated above, Augustine insisted that it should be attempted only when both partners agreed to it, and it must not be imposed by one on the other.259 If one was unwilling or unable, the spouse seeking a higher form of life might refrain from initiating sexual relations but must not reject the advances of the partner.260 Although Augustine did not develop the parallel, this form of restrained sexual practice mirrored the virtuous conduct of the patriarchs, who engaged in sexual intercourse only for the purpose of fulfilling the divine command to generate children. The Christian, however, sought the spiritual good of the spouse.261
The bond of marriage was constituted not by the exclusivity of bodily relations but by the union of souls. Thus, Augustine insisted that spouses had to love rather than use one another. Chaste love within marriage was gratuitous; it focused on the person of the spouse rather than on one’s private good in the gifts that might be bestowed by a spouse. Thus, calamities and adversity, he observed, often proved marriages chaste and faithful.262 He lamented the failure of many parents to appreciate this Christian love when they sought a wealthy rather than a virtuous partner for their child.263 To marry for riches, Augustine warned his congregation, was a perversion comparable to preaching the gospel for personal gain.264
Augustine’s understanding of the faithful bond of marriage was a development of Tertullian’s notion that marriage did not end in death, since it belonged primarily to the soul. Augustine, however, understood marriage as a particular and temporary form of Christian love that would be perfected and surpassed when charity reached its fullness and universality in the Resurrection.
Augustine recognized different symbolic or sacramental functions of marriage in the successive conditions of humanity. The statement in Genesis (2:24) that a man leaves his father and mother in order to cling to his wife could not have applied literally to Adam and Eve in Paradise, because they had no parents to leave.265 It referred most fully to Christ, who left the Father to come to the church, his bride, who was formed from his side as he slept on the cross.266
The marriages of the patriarchs to their many wives foreshadowed the union of the many nations to Christ in the church. Their families, beset by jealousy and conflict, symbolized the imperfect church of the present age, which is itself divided by the presence of sinners within its communion.267
The monogamous marriage of Christians, however, symbolized the eschatological union of Christ and the purified church. There the faithful would be united perfectly in mind and heart, so that they would constitute a single bride for Christ. This union was signified most fully by the discipline the church applied to its clergy: they might have only a single wife during the whole of their lives.268 The marriages of lay Christians also manifested the union of Christ to the church: the union of the partners took precedence over their generation of children, and it could not be broken even by infidelity.269 Christian virginity and widowhood, as has been noted, symbolized other aspects of the church’s relation to Christ: the integrity of its faith and its total trust.270
In his treatise On the Good of Marriage, Augustine went further in developing his understanding of the indissolubility of marriage by drawing a parallel to the sacrament of orders. Although Christians entered marriage for the purpose of generating children, the holiness of the sacrament endured even when no children were born; it could be broken only by death. Similarly, a cleric was ordained for the service of a congregation, but the sacrament of the Lord remained upon him even if no congregation was formed or if he was removed from office for misconduct.271 This undeveloped analogy was intended to link the permanence of Christian marriage to that of orders and, by implication, baptism. In a long and rambling New Year’s Day sermon, Augustine gave another hint of a more elaborate parallel between the symbolic meaning of marriage and orders. An Israelite priest, he remarked, had to be without bodily defect because his wholeness symbolized the perfect sinlessness of the soul of Christ, the true priest.272
In his later treatise On Marriage and Concupiscence, Augustine drew out the parallel between the efficacy of marriage and that of baptism. The ritual of baptism, he recalled, established a permanent relationship between Christ and the Christian, a sign that survived even if the faith it symbolized was lost. Similarly, marriage created a bond between the partners that lasted as long as they were both living; the reality signified was the exclusive bodily union in which they persevered. Even if the bodily union was disrupted, the marriage bond itself endured and made any other bodily union adulterous. This same sign and union was preserved forever in the union of Christ and his church.273
Augustine’s understanding of marriage engaged the levels of sign and reality found elsewhere in his sacramental theology. The shared promise that constituted marriage was a sign of the bodily union of the spouses, which was itself a sign of the spiritual union of their souls, and both, in turn, were signs of the union of Christ to the church. Both the bodily and the intentional unions of marriage, like that of Christ and the church, were charged with the complex interaction of sin and grace in the fallen world. Each, however, had a positive role in the mystery of salvation. For Augustine, marriage and sexual union were goods rather than tolerated evils; though burdened by mortality and lust, they were yet a realization of charity and a sign of salvation.274
Augustine’s discussion of the practice of virginity in his treatise on that subject was dominated by the controversy aroused by Jovinian, who contended that continence was of no more religious value than marital chastity. Augustine indicated that the question was being widely discussed, so he was impelled to respond in the two treatises On the Good of Marriage and On Virginity.275 The latter treatise dealt with issues of scriptural interpretation that were peculiar to the theological controversy and were not reflected in Augustine’s preaching on the subject of marriage and vowed continence. Chief among these were the veracity of Paul’s statements in affirming the goodness of marriage276 and whether the advantage of virginity was limited to avoiding troubles during earthly life or included a greater heavenly reward as well.277
The virginity that Augustine saw as religiously significant was not focused on the physical integrity of the body that would be lost through sexual intercourse. This bodily virginity was a natural condition replicated in all offspring, he observed, and thus without particular religious value. Similarly, the maiden who was anticipating marriage and motherhood was surpassed by the chaste matron who had already attained these goals. Even by the Pauline standard, the latter was superior because her distraction was limited to pleasing only one husband, not many suitors.278 Physical integrity was, however, essential to the consecrated state recognized in the church. A woman who had been forcibly violated was disqualified, even though she was innocent of any wrongdoing.279 Moreover, once bodily virginity had been lost, it could not be restored in any way.280
In Augustine’s view, bodily virginity was valuable as a symbol of the integrity of faith, the fidelity of the church to Christ.281 To serve as that sign, however, it had to be vowed by the individual and consecrated by the church. The Christian virgin must not only abstain from sexual intercourse but manifest a fidelity to Christ in all her conduct: living in chastity and modesty, avoiding the arousal of lust, shunning luxury, and adorning herself with virtues to please Christ.282 The consecrated virgin thereby entered into and symbolized the marital relation of the whole church to Christ.283 Thus, Augustine consistently applied to the church that text of Isaiah (61:10) on the adornment of the bride, which was used to name the mitra or head covering given the virgin at her dedication.284 All the members of the church were called to share this spiritual fidelity to Christ in the exclusivity of their faith; only the consecrated virgins realized that integrity in their bodies.285 For this reason, consecrated virginity in schism from the church, among the Donatists, was an empty sign, contradicting itself.286
Augustine, his congregation, and indeed the church of Africa never seem to have doubted that virginity and sexual continence were of high value for Christians. On the popular scale of holiness, virginity was exceeded only by martyrdom. In the liturgy, the deceased virgins were commemorated immediately after the martyrs; they were followed by those committed to continence, such as the dedicated widows, the monks, and the higher ranks of the clergy. The practice of marital chastity held the next position.287 Virginity was particularly valued, Augustine explained, because it preserved the body in its original integrity for its creator, undamaged by the violence and lust necessary for sexual activity after the Fall. Only Mary, the mother of Christ, was granted the privilege of motherhood without suffering bodily injury.288
Marriage had been of particular value as it prepared for the coming of Christ, but it did not make the same contribution to the church, which was constituted by spiritual rather than bodily relationships.289 Marriage brought forth children in Adam, who must then be reborn spiritually through the church.290 Indeed, a wealthy Christian virgin could purchase and convert more slaves than a mother could bear and raise children.291 So the blessing of fertility no longer compensated for the loss of bodily integrity.292 More importantly, the toils and troubles of married life took their toll on the Christian’s attention to pleasing Christ: the jealous suspicions of spouses, the danger and concerns of having and raising children, the sorrow and worries of widowhood.293 The virgin was spared because her spouse was Christ, whom she could trust without fear of being misunderstood. She was not, however, promised a blissful life on earth: her reward was in heaven.294
While Augustine recognized and affirmed the superiority of consecrated virginity to marital chastity, he refused to let the perfection of Christian life be measured primarily by a standard of sexual practice. Christ taught and practiced goodness in many forms, as was clear in the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-12). The Holy Spirit bestowed many different gifts for the building up of the body of Christ. Most of these virtues and gifts were received and exercised by Christians without any differentiation based on their marital status. Indeed, the ideal of Christian communal life, which was the abandoning of private possessions to share a common fund, was not generally practiced by virgins.295
In Augustine’s view, Christian virgins in North Africa were subject to a particular failing of self-satisfaction or pride arising from their high standing within the communities.296 They tended to look down on the married, even their own parents.297 Augustine suggested a number of different considerations through which this temptation might be overcome. Humility was, he reminded them, the teaching and exemplary practice of Christ.298 It was better to be married and humble than virginal and proud of it.299 Like all other Christians, virgins should confess and seek pardon for their sins. Indeed, they should count as forgiven all those sins from which they were delivered by their high calling.300 This calling was itself a gift that God both gave and preserved; indeed, the wisdom to recognize its gratuity was itself a gift.301 More incisively, Augustine observed that the whole church recognized martyrdom as a greater gift than virginity. This virtue, however, lay hidden in the soul until its presence — or absence — was manifest by some test. Virgins should acknowledge, therefore, that many married women were already martyrs in their hearts, while they themselves might be faithful only because they were protected by God from a challenge to which they were not equal.302 As the virgins were honored in the church, therefore, so should they in turn honor the married.303
The life of the dedicated widow was understood in the same way as that of the consecrated virgin: she was free of the distractions of pleasing a husband and could therefore give her attention to the Lord.304 Like the virgin, the widow had to struggle against sexual temptations, but these were greater in her case because she had added to the lust that all people suffered as a consequence of the Fall a habit of enjoyment that she had acquired during her married life.305
Augustine insisted that the widows held a higher place within the body of Christ than the married and a lower place than the virgins. A widow’s status was, however, completely dependent upon her membership in that body and, thus, on the other members. The church included all three states of life and was richer for the variety than it would have been with only one.306 Actually, the church was herself a widow, just as she was a virgin and a mother.307 She was deprived of the physical presence of her husband and depended on God alone for all her strength.308 This trust and hope in God seem to have been the value of Christian life symbolized by the dedicated widows. In this sense, every Christian was called to be a widow and to participate in this virtue of the church.309
Augustine indicated that some were teaching that the widow became a bride of Christ by vowing never to marry again. If she went back on that vow and married, she would become an adulteress against Christ, and the marriage must be dissolved. Augustine rejected this position. He insisted that the widow’s relationship to Christ was not equivalent to the one she had to an earthly husband; the language of marriage was used in a metaphorical way and indeed was mediated through the church’s relationship to Christ. To prove his point, he proposed the case of a married woman who, with the approval of her husband, pledged herself to continence within marriage. Would this mean, he asked, that the woman had committed adultery with Christ, since her earthly husband was still alive and she was still married to him?310 Thus, he agreed that a failed widow had sinned by breaking her vow, but she was not guilty of adultery. Her new marriage, itself a good, was not to be disturbed.311
Augustine affirmed the established pattern of setting the martyrs and virgins at the top of the hierarchy of lifestyles in the Christian church, with widows and celibate clergy following directly, and then the married laity. He confessed no little difficulty in working out the symbolism of the three levels of reward indicated in the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:18-23). All the forms of Christian life, he insisted, were to be honored.312 Each was a participation in and an enrichment of the life of the church itself, and, therefore, as its members, Christians shared in all of them.
Augustine witnessed to the development of marriage practice in the imperial culture that supported Christian faith. The church accepted and even approved remarriage after the death of a spouse. The status of the consecrated virgin was formalized, and laws were established for the age of consecration, the cleric presiding at the ritual, and the supervision of her living arrangements. Some of the virgins were organized into religious communities of shared goods. The status of consecrated widows was similar to that of virgins; their earlier qualifications for financial assistance were no longer related to their status in the church, and even the wealthy could be recognized for renouncing another marriage.
Augustine rejected the positions taken by both Jovinian and Jerome, each of which focused on virginity as an individual’s relationship to God and Christ. Instead, he insisted that the church itself embraced all three roles; thus, individuals participated in the virginal, widowed, or marital state of the church. Each of the three symbolized a different aspect of the church’s complex relation to Christ and, as such, shared in the other two. None of the states in itself determined personal holiness or standing before God.
Augustine’s understanding of marriage was developed in response not only to the conflict over virginity but to the challenge of Manicheism. He affirmed that sexual differentiation and marriage were integral to the original divine plan for creation. Sexual intercourse and generation were possible, however, only in a mortal body. Thus, Augustine explained that the paradisial bodies of Adam and Eve had been mortal by nature but protected from actual death, and that the resurrected body would be sexually differentiated but would not engage in sexual activity.
Procreation had a religious role in filling the earth by establishing the human race, and then in building and maintaining Israel in preparation for the coming of Christ. The city of God in its Christian form could be established, maintained, and completed by conversion rather than generation. Christian marriage maintained its value, however, by fostering the intentional union of charity and by restraining the lust that was consequent upon the Fall. But this marital love had to transcend the boundaries that were integral to its sexual fidelity and the limits of even an extended family. Virginity and widowhood, along with the practice of continence within marriage, were necessary to symbolize the fullness that Christian love would attain in the heavenly city.
In making the principal good of marriage the intentional union of the spouses in Christian love and insisting that these bonds were built more effectively by shared continence than by sexual practice, Augustine reversed the prior understanding of virginity and widowhood in terms of marriage. The virgin or widow did not substitute a heavenly for an earthly husband; she enjoyed a relationship of marriage to Christ only as a member of the church. Turning back from this vow by marrying was not to be understood as adultery against Christ. Instead, all three states were defined by the standard of charity, the spiritual love of God and neighbor that constituted the church community. Marriage could foster such love primarily by transcending the affection engendered by sexual union and generation. Virginity and widowhood had to cultivate the same spiritual love. The particular value of each of the three states was in symbolizing and enacting the complex relationship of the church to Christ.
Bonds of affection between spouses, parents, siblings, and children are well-recorded on funerary epitaphs in Late Antiquity. They provide evidence of the quality and kind of domestic and marital relationships as well as indicating religious affiliation. Studies of such epigraphical remains have demonstrated that Christians were different in certain respects from their traditionalist neighbors by the inclusion of certain phrases and the avoidance of others. Christian burial inscriptions generally used only a single name, omitting the ancestral family name and only rarely mentioning the donors of a monument or other relationships. Additionally, social status is almost always missing (e.g., libertus or servus). This practice grew in the Late Empire, and exceptions are rare. By contrast, the funerary inscriptions of some upper-class pagans prominently feature their ancestral names (cf. fig. 145, featuring two mosaics which record the full names of Gaius Julius Serenus and Numitoria Saturnina) and include the common Roman evocation of the sacred shades — Dis Manibus Sacrum). Moreover, Christians tended to be interred within dedicated areas of cemeteries or within churches, rather than with members of their birth families. Christian cemeteries and funerary churches were not organized to encourage burials according to familial groups.313 In most instances where epitaphs name two individuals, no familial relationship is mentioned, even if they are assumed to be related. One exception is the tomb mosaic of the deacon Crescentius, aged 65, and his son Bruttanicus, aged 28 (fig. 148). A more typical example is the tomb of the two virgins Privata and Victoria (fig. 144).
One well-preserved exception, a tomb mosaic from the Christian catacombs of Hadrumetum, shows several fish and a dolphin entwined upon an anchor (fig. 122). The epitaph included with the iconography reads “Hermes to his sweet wife and children.”314 Hermes’s name suggests that he originally was a pagan, but the iconography itself is typically Christian.
Another exception seems to indicate rather complex family relationships (fig. 124). A marble plaque dated from the mid-fourth to the late fourth century was inscribed from Urbanus of Hadrumetum for the tomb of his wife, Varia Victoria. It has been discussed above as indicating a possible instance of marriage of a Christian slave. Commemorating their forty-five-year relationship, the inscription describes their union: “Urbanus, husband, made this for the sake of his dear wife, Varia Victoria, in memory of their forty-five-year contubernium.” At some point in their years together, however, that status was changed, as indicated by the use of the words “wife” (coniunx) and “husband” (maritus), which are titles granted only to legally married free or freed persons.315 This change of status might be alluded to in the first word of the inscription. Rather than being a part of the woman’s name (Varia, for the gens Varius), it might modify her spousal status as “changed” over time. Thus, Urbanus and Victoria both may have been slaves who were freed at some point, or Urbanus may have been free-born and entered this semi-sanctioned relationship with his slave concubine.316
A third exception is the double-portrait mosaic from Thabraca that shows a male seated at a desk and a female standing in the prayer position (fig. 139). It too has been discussed above.317 Another tomb mosaic from the same chapel in Thabraca was found to cover a sarcophagus containing two skeletons. Although not a portrait mosaic (the image includes a cantharus, two lambs, doves, and a Christogram), the reconstructed epitaph indicates that this was probably a married couple whose names were Stercorius and Crescentina. In this instance the two seem to have been considered martyrs, as their epitaph speaks of their having crowns in perpetuity.318
In some instances, in addition to Victoria, filia sacra (fig. 139), and the two virgins Privata and Victoria (fig. 144), the tomb mosaics appear to identify consecrated women as such. For example, the epitaph for a certain Victoria reads mater dei famula — she may have been the superior of a convent of nuns. The portrait and inscription for Pompeia Maxima shows her wearing a veil and describes her also as famula dei (fig. 142).
Thus, the archeological remains show that Christians distanced themselves from traditional Roman practice by granting a more limited significance to the multi-generational family. They did not regularly include family identifiers and relationships in burial inscriptions. Instead, they seem to have been more interested in representing their religious status (e.g., fidelis) or role within the religious community (e.g., episcopus, vidua, famulus/a dei, presbyterissa) that might continue to carry weight in the afterlife. Tertullian’s thesis that Christian marriage survived death and was revived in the Resurrection did not reflect broader or subsequent attitudes and practices.
The generation of children was a primary purpose of marriage in both Roman and Jewish practice because the good of the society depended upon preparing the next generation to continue the life of the family and the community. Mortality itself was a primary enemy of the society, always threatening its existence. Christianity focused on an eschatological good that was to be attained by each of its adherents beyond the limits of mortal existence. It was, moreover, a voluntary society that could fill its membership by recruiting converts rather than relying on generation and education. Thus, it had a radically different attitude toward marriage and family life. The Christian teachers were more interested in the quality and stability of the affective bond between the married couple and in their sexual fidelity to one another than in the generation of children and the transmission of property through families.
Although they considered generation the primary reason for the sexual differentiation of humanity and the objective that should be used to regulate sexual relations within marriage, none of the teachers considered the generation and education of children a religious responsibility of Christians. Tertullian asserted, without developing a coherent explanation, that procreation was a concession to mortality. He believed that the battle against human extinction would be carried on by others — it was not the responsibility of Christians. Although Augustine taught that sexual generation was the original divine plan for the expansion of the human race and was not initially necessitated by the onset of mortality after the Fall, he argued that God’s objectives would be fulfilled without the engagement of Christians in procreation. Since others would produce an adequate number of human beings, Christians should attend to filling up the determined number of the saints by converting others and persevering in holy living. Sexual continence would promote the achievement of that goal more expeditiously. Tertullian and Cyprian both noted, moreover, that responsibility for a family and household placed a Christian in even greater danger of apostasy during time of persecution: many householders failed to confess Christ, because they sought to shield and protect their dependents and the property that supported them. Working as he did in an age when Christianity was not only tolerated but supported by the imperial government, Augustine showed a greater appreciation for the social roles of marriage in procreating and providing for the successive generations. He found a remnant of the conflict between Christian and family responsibilities, however, in parents’ opposition to their children’s desires to serve as clergy, monks, or nuns. Like his predecessors, he insisted that the primary religious value of marriage was to be found not in procreation but in the affective union between the partners.
Tertullian identified the intentional union of the spouses as the religious value of Christian marriage. Because this union both preceded and survived the bodily union, he concluded that marriage continued through death and reached its fullness in the Resurrection. Thus, a Christian should have only a single marriage partner. The sexual, bodily union was, in his judgment, a concession to human weakness that made no contribution to the intentional union constituting the marriage. The ideal Christian marriage was, then, a partnership in serving God, one that would prove a support rather than a hindrance to piety, even in time of persecution. Such an affective union between spouses functioned as a sign or symbol of the spiritual union between Christ and the church.
Augustine also affirmed the primacy of the affective union of Christian spouses. With charity as its foundation, marriage could be both a realization and a symbol of the love that joined the church to Christ. The universality of the charity that established the intentional union of marriage was, however, in tension with the limits of the relations built on family bonds and the exclusivity of sexual union between the partners. Thus, sexual fidelity, even when limited to a single lifetime spouse, could symbolize only imperfectly the affective union of Christian marriage and that of the church to Christ. Although the sexual union could express the mutual care of the partners — particularly in containing the forces of lust — it could not establish the kind of affective union proper to Christian marriage. The marriage itself could not survive in the Resurrection, where charity reached its fullness and universality. Augustine noted that marriage could grow into a partnership in the service of God, often by the partners’ decision to embrace continence, but that it was seldom, if ever, undertaken for this purpose. Those who were capable of doing so would prefer to avoid the troubles of married life and embrace the continence of consecrated life from the beginning.
Consecrated virgins, mostly female, were highly honored in the Christian church, surpassed only by the martyrs and confessors. Like the confessors, who survived their witness to Christ, the virgins often proved independent and disruptive members of the community. Because their glory was in their bodily integrity, as the confessors’ was in their scars, they sometimes had to be reminded that their achievement did not constitute the fullness of the Christian life; they had to be exhorted to join the community in the practice of Christian virtues. Tertullian had to insist that they wear the veil of mature women rather than parading as perpetual adolescents. Similarly, Cyprian declared that virgins were espoused to Christ and therefore should exercise the modesty and restraint characteristic of matrons. The imperial support for virginity and widowhood beginning in the second half of the fourth century, as well as its cultivation by Ambrose and Jerome, led to new levels of conflict.
Augustine countered the virgin’s pride by explaining that every Christian’s relationship to Christ was mediated by that of the church itself. The church as a whole was the bride of Christ and mother of Christians. Married couples displayed this relationship in their affective union and fidelity. The integrity of the virgin’s body symbolized the church’s fidelity to Christ alone. Widows lived the earthly church’s longing for the return of her spouse. Though Augustine affirmed a hierarchy in the symbolic value of these ways of life — with virginity highest and marriage lowest — he insisted that this hierarchy did not determine the religious standing of individuals before God. A matron might far surpass a virgin, for example, in the holiness constituted by charity. He insisted, moreover, that the relation of the virgin and widow to Christ was symbolic of the church’s status. One who turned back from her good purpose and married did not thereby commit adultery against Christ, just as a matron who dedicated herself to continence with her husband’s permission did not thereby commit adultery with Christ.
Thus, Augustine attempted to understand the three bodily states as symbols of an intentional union of faith and love that participated in the church’s union with Christ.
At the end of the second century, all married Christians were encouraged to embrace widowhood after the death of their first spouse. Such practice was required of the clergy, and the adherents of the New Prophecy insisted that it be embraced by all. The requirements specified in 1 Timothy (5:9) distinguished those widows who enjoyed special status within the community. In Cyprian’s time, the status seems to have been conferred primarily on the basis of economic need, with the stipulation that the widow promise not to remarry.
In the fourth century, the emperors removed the financial disabilities that earlier legislation had imposed on widows who had not yet produced the requisite number of children. By Augustine’s time, widows were distinguished only by their vow not to marry again; the economic and childrearing requirements were no longer operative. Neither did the status seem, of itself, to have qualified those who assumed it for financial support from the community. Augustine’s innovation was to note the widowed state of the church itself, which these women symbolized.
Unlike the other rituals that constituted the church — baptism, eucharist, penance and orders — marriage would not be identified as a “sacrament” until the medieval period. Along with virginity and widowhood, however, it already was being treated as a form of life which enacted and symbolized the church’s complex relationship to Christ. Marriage was recognized as an integral part of the created order, necessary for the establishment of the human race and for preserving it from extinction after the Fall. In their Christian form, however, marriage, virginity, and widowhood together were understood as means of developing the universal love that transcended the natural order.
1. On the development of Roman marriage practice and law, the following studies have proven useful: Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991); Judith Evans Grubbs, Law and Family in Late Antiquity: The Emperor Constantine’s Marriage Legislation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); Judith Evans Grubbs, Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: A Sourcebook on Marriage, Divorce, and Widowhood (London and New York: Routledge, 2002).
2. Jovinian, for example, explained the Pauline teaching in 1 Cor. 7:25-40 as advice for living in the present, not as a promise of greater reward in the future. For a full treatment of the ensuing controversy, see David G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jovinianist Controversy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
3. Thus, in Idol. 16.1-3, Tertullian argued that a Christian could attend a pagan marriage ritual because the idolatrous practices were incidental. This did not mean, however, that he thought a Christian could participate in a sacrifice as part of a marriage celebration, as Cor. 13.4 makes clear.
4. Tert. Marc. 1.29.2-4; Ux. 1.2.1-2.
5. Tert. Mon. 5.5, 17.5.
6. Tert. Res. 61.4; parallel in Res. 36.5-6.
7. Tert. Ux. 1.1.5.
8. Tert. Ux. 1.5.4; Cast. 6.1-2; Mon. 7.4.
9. Tert. Ux. 1.5.2; Cast. 12.3.
10. Tert. Ux. 1.5.1.
11. Tert. Cast. 2.1-2; Mon. 4.2.
12. Tert. Mon. 4.5; Tertullian argued for this interpretation of Abraham in Mon. 6.2.
13. Tert. Cast. 5.4; Mon. 4.4.
14. Tert. Ux. 1.2.2; Mon. 14.
15. Tert. Ux. 2.2.8, 7.1; Mon. 5.1, 14.
16. Tert. Cast. 5.1-4; Mon. 5.7.
17. Tert. Mon. 3.1–4.1.
18. Tert. Marc. 1.29.1; 5.7.6.
19. Tertullian, however, regarded this as a concession which should not be exploited (Mon. 11.9-13).
20. Tert. Ux. 1.6.2.
21. Tert. Mon. 11.9-10.
22. Tert. Ux. 2.2.9.
23. Tert. Mon. 3.2.
24. Tert. Mon. 3.8, 10.
25. Tert. Ux. 1.6.2; Cast. 1.4.
26. Tert. Ux. 2.2.8, 7.1; Mon. 9.1, 7-8.
27. Tert. Ux. 2.3.1; Mon. 11.10.
28. Christian widows wanted high lifestyles and could not find rich men in the Christian community who were unmarried and would give them this lifestyle (Tert. Ux. 2.8.3). Tertullian adapted the argument from the contemporary law regulating the marriage of a free woman to a slave, by which she could become subject to his master (Ux. 2.8.1). For the development of the law, see Grubbs, Women and the Law in the Roman Empire, 143-44.
29. Tert. Ux. 2.2.9.
30. Tert. Ux. 2.5.2.
31. Tert. Marc. 5.7.8; Mon. 11.10-11.
32. See Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 125-60; Grubbs, Law and Family in Late Antiquity, 140-202.
33. Tert. Virg. 11.3, 5; Or. 22.10; Apol. 6.4.
34. Tert. Ux. 2.8.6.
35. See Kenneth Stevenson, Nuptial Blessing: A Study of Christian Marriage Rites (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 18-19.
36. Following David G. Hunter, “Augustine and the Making of Marriage in Roman North Africa,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 11 (2003): 66-71.
37. Tert. Cast. 9.3-4.
38. Tert. Ux. 2.3.1.
39. Tert. Pud. 1.20.
40. Tert. Pud. 4.4.
41. Tert. Mon. 11.1.
42. Tert. Apol. 9; Cast. 1.4; Ux. 1.8.2.
43. Tert. Virg. 10.1-2, 4, 14-16.
44. Tert. Virg. 2-8, 9.1, 16.4.
45. Tert. Virg. 13.1.
46. Tert. Ux. 1.7.2.
47. Tert. Ux. 2.1.3.
48. Tert. Mon. 14.
49. Tert. Cast. 12.2; Mon. 16.3.
50. By the legislation of Augustus, inheritance was restricted for those who did not produce three children or who failed to remarry within three years after the death of a spouse. See Grubbs, Women and the Law in the Roman Empire, 83-87.
51. Tert. Mon. 16.4; Cast. 12.3.
52. Tert. Virg. 9.3; Ux. 1.7.4.
53. Tert. Virg. 9.2. The advantage of being recognized as a widow or the obstacle to enrollment as a virgin was not explained. Later legislation would allow enrollment as a virgin before the prescribed age in order to help a person resist pressure to marry. Reg. Carth. 126; see below, p. 464.
54. Tert. Cast. 11.2; Virg. 9.3.
55. Tert. Pud. 13.7.
56. Tert. Mon. 11.1.
57. Tert. Virg. 9.1.
58. Tert. Virg. 9.3.
59. Tert. Cast. 12.2; Mon. 16.3.
60. Tert. Cult. fem. 2.2.
61. Tert. Cult. fem. 4.2.
62. Tert. Ux. 2.1.3; the alternative motives, such as greed and ambition, were clearly to be rejected (Ux. 1.4.2; 2.8.3-4).
63. Tert. Ux. 2.8.6-9.
64. Tert. Ux. 2.8.9.
65. Tert. Cast. 6.1-2.
66. Tert. Cast. 9.1-4.
67. Tert. Cast. 10.2, 11.1.
68. Tert. Mon. 3.8, 10.
69. Tert. Mon. 9.4.
70. Tert. Mon. 5.1, 7.
71. Tert. Mon. 10.4, 8.
72. Tert. Mon. 10.1-5.
73. Tert. Mon. 10.8.
74. Cypr. Ep. 74.7.2.
75. Cypr. Ep. 74.11.2.
76. Tert. Cast. 5.1-4; Mon. 5.7.
77. Cypr. Hab. uirg. 18.
78. For this argument, see Hunter, “Augustine and the Making of Marriage in Roman North Africa,” pp. 69-70 and n. 28, who credits the interpretation to Victor Saxer, Vie liturgique et quotidienne à Carthage vers le milieu du 3ème siècle, le témoignage de saint Cyprien et de ses contemporains d’Afrique (Città del Vaticano: Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 1969), 325-26.
79. Cypr. Test. 3.62.
80. Cypr. Ep. 6.3.1 notes the presence of women in the prison among the confessors.
81. Thus the parents of the infant who had been contaminated by her nurse (Cypr. Laps. 25).
82. Cypr. Ep. 55.13.2.
83. Cypr. Ep. 55.15.1.
84. Cypr. Ep. 55.13.2.
85. Cypr. Ep. 15.4.
86. Cypr. Laps. 7.
87. Cypr. Ep. 24.1.1.
88. Cypr. Laps. 2.
89. Cypr. Ep. 55.20.2.
90. Cypr. Ep. 62.2.3.
91. Cypr. Ep. 76.6.1.
92. Cypr. Hab. uirg. 23.
93. Cypr. Hab. uirg. 21. The martyrs earned a hundred-fold reward and the virgins a sixty-fold reward (Ep. 76.6.1).
94. Cypr. Ep. 55.8.3.
95. Cypr. Hab. uirg. 5, 7, 9, 10, 18-20.
96. Cypr. Hab. uirg. 9, 18, 19, 21.
97. Cypr. Hab. uirg. 5, 7, 10.
98. Cypr. Hab. uirg. 11.
99. Cypr. Ep. 4.2.3–3.1.
100. Cypr. Ep. 4.3.2. In Hab. uirg. 20, he accused those who displayed their bodies in the public baths of being adulterous toward Christ.
101. Cypr. Ep. 4.2.1.
102. Cypr. Ep. 4.2.3.
103. Cypr. Ep. 13.5.1; 14.3.2; and 11.1.3 may refer to the same incidents. Later, in Unit. eccl. 20, Cyprian was more explicit in accusing the confessors of fornication and adultery.
104. They are not listed with the groups requiring care in Cypr. Ep. 7.2; 52.1.2, 2.5; this may only have meant that they were not supported by the church, as orphans and widows were.
105. Cypr. Ep. 7.2; 52.1.2, 2.5; Eleem. 15.
106. Cypr. Hab. uirg. 15.
107. Cyprian cited the text of 1 Tim. 5:3, 6, 8, 11-12 in Test. but without the specification of age and having had only one husband in 1 Tim. 5:9, which he never cited.
108. C.Th. 8.16.1, 17.2. See Grubbs, Women and the Law in the Roman Empire, 102-4.
109. C.Th. 3.8.1, 2; 5.1.8; 8.13.1; C. Just. 5.10.1. See Grubbs, Women and the Law in the Roman Empire, 223-24, 229-32.
110. Hieron. Iou. 1.5, 7-13. See Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity, 30-35.
111. Augustine indicated that the practice of exposing children continued (Psal. 137.8).
112. Aug. Serm. 9 is largely dedicated to this problem.
113. With music and songs (Aug. Psal. 41.9).
114. Aug. Serm. 51.13.22.
115. Aug. Serm. 332.4; Psal. 149.15; Possid. Vita Aug. 27.5.
116. Aug. Serm. 51.13.22; Mor. eccl. 2.18.65; Faust. 15.7; Pecc. or. 38.43; Ciu. 14.18; Iul. 3.21.43.
117. Aug. Serm. 51.13.22.
118. Aug. Serm. 343.7.
119. Aug. Bon. coniug. 13.15; Serm. Dolb. 12(354A).10-12.
120. Aug. Conf. 4.2.2.
121. Aug. Serm. 278.9.9.
122. Aug. Serm. 9.18; 51.13.22; 278.10.10; Iul. 3.21.43; Bon. coniug. 4.4–6.6. Interestingly, Augustine always interpreted the shame and secrecy associated with sexual practice as an indicator of its moral ambiguity rather than of any ritual impurity it entailed.
123. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 12(354A).7-9.
124. Aug. Serm. 205.2; 206.3; 208.1; 209.3; 210.6.9.
126. Aug. Serm. 51.13.21.
127. Aug. Bon. coniug. 12.14.
128. Aug. Bon. coniug. 3.3.
129. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 12(354A).3-6.
130. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 12(354A).12; Psal. 147.4; 149.15.
131. Aug. Psal. 149.15: Bon. coniug. 7.7, 24.32.
132. Aug. Serm. 260; 392.2.
133. Aug. Serm. 392.2.
134. Aug. Bon. coniug. 5.5; Serm. 224.3. See Conf. 6.15.25 for this decision by Augustine’s own concubine. Such women may have been recognized as widows, though clear evidence of such a status is not available.
135. Aug. Serm. 9.4.
136. Aug. Serm. 9.11; he never addressed the question of the violation of a marriage between Christian servants by a master’s abuse of one of the servants.
137. Aug. Serm. 392.4.
138. Aug. Serm. 392.5.
139. Con. Hipp. a. 427, 8.
140. See Grubbs, Women and the Law in the Roman Empire, 102-4.
141. Pas. Perp. 2, 15. Revocatus was also described as servus (Pas. Perp. 2). Unlike Perpetua, the other mother in this account, Felicity’s marital status is not described.
142. Bru. Hipp. 17.
143. Bru. Hipp. 16. The term ducere was not restricted to a coniunx, though it was the term used for marriage.
144. In dismissing the argument that virgins did not bear children for the church, Augustine pointed out that they could purchase slaves and have them made Christian (Virg. 9.9).
145. Aug. Serm. 9.11 and Serm. 224.3 certainly provided the occasion for such an argument. Masters may have avoided slaves who had a partner within the household, but the silence might also indicate a lack of concern for the Christian rights of the slaves.
146. The explicit provision of procreation in imperial marriage practice was related to the transmission of property. Slaves’ right to property and its disposition were subject to the discretion of their masters. Thus the case Augustine described would have fit a marriage agreement between slaves.
147. Aug. Bon. coniug. 5.5.
148. Varie+Victoriae+Coniugi+Karissimi+Urbanus+Maritus+Memoriae+Causa+Obcontubernio+Anni+XLV+Fecit. The translation (above) is hypothetical, since the grammar is slightly irregular. For example, “Varie” might not be part of the woman’s name (from the gens Varius), but rather a modifier of “conuigi,” just as “karissimi” appears to be a misspelled dative form.
149. The small crosses that separate the words may be only decorative details, and the inscription does not include any of the expected Christian assertions (e.g., “fidelis in pace”; cf. fig. 124). But it does omit the traditional pagan evocation of the Dis Manibus Sacrum (“sacred to the shades of the dead”) and any specific indicators of the partners being free, freed, or slaves, which is characteristic of Christian inscriptions.
150. It is extremely unlikely that Victoria was a freedwoman in relationship with her slave Urbanus, since for a woman to enter such a relationship would have been a crime in most parts of the empire, unless Urbanus was an imperial slave (cf. C.Th. 4.12.1-4). That Victoria was someone else’s slave seems equally unlikely. The social status of the partners may have changed during their long union, thus accounting for the conflict in terminology.
151. Aug. Serm. 302.19.
152. Aug. Serm. frg. Verbr. 2-3(4A).2.
153. Aug. Psal. 33.2.20.
154. Aug. Serm. 57.2.2.
155. Thus he rebuked a mother who had given away the property her son could have expected to inherit, refused to accept gifts which would disinherit children, and limited his appeals for almsgiving and gifts to the church. See Aug. Ep. 262.8; Serm. 355.4-5; 356.7, and Serm. 9.20; 86.9.11–11.12; Psal. 48.1.14; 131.19.
156. Aug. Serm. 94.
157. Bru. Hipp. 17. In Virg. 9.9, Augustine noted that a wealthy virgin could buy slaves and make them Christians, thus contributing more members to the church than she could by marrying and raising children.
158. Aug. Serm. 50.24.
159. This point is made repeatedly in Augustine’s writings: Serm. 5.2; 13.9; 83.7.8; Serm. Dolb. 21(159B).1, 5, 7; Serm. Frang. 5(163B).3; 9(114A).6; Psal. 62.10; 88.2.2; 102.14; 140.18; Eu. Io. 51.13; Ciu. 19.12.
160. Aug. Psal. 118.31.3.
161. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 13(159A).13.
162. Aug. Serm. 344.2; Serm. Etaix 1(65A).5-7; Serm. Dolb. 13(159A).6-13.
163. Aug. Serm. Etaix 1(65A).9-11; Serm. Lamb. 15(335G).1.
164. Aug. Serm. 161.12.12; Serm. Denis 20(16A).12; Psal. 44.11.
165. Aug. Psal. 99.7.
166. Aug. Psal. 49.17; Serm. Dolb. 21(159B).5, 7; Serm. 296.4.
167. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 21(159B).4.
168. Aug. Psal. 124.7.
169. Aug. Serm. 211.4.
170. Bru. Hipp. 16-17.
171. Aug. Serm. 356.6-7.
172. Aug. Ep. 58.1.
173. Aug. Ep. 66.1.
174. See Benet Salway, “What’s in a Name? A Survey of Roman Onomastic Practice from c. 700 B.C. to A.D. 700,” Journal of Roman Studies 84 (1994): 124-45.
175. See the above discussion of funerary inscriptions and mosaics, pp. 120-24. On this question, generally, see Ann Marie Yasin, “Funerary Monuments and Collective Identity: From Roman Family to Christian Community,” The Art Bulletin 87 (September 2005): 433.
176. This reading is based on rendering what appears on the mosaic as “Iilia” to be “Filia” and taking the final “S” (before “in pace”) to be an abbreviation for “Sacra.” An alternative rendering, “Puella,” has been suggested, which seems implausible, although this is the suggestion of Yvette Duval, Loca sanctorum Africae: Le culte des martyrs en Afrique du IVe au VIIe siècle, 2 vols. (Rome: École française de Rome, 1982), 1:431.
178. Aug. Serm. 161.10.10, 12.12.
179. Aug. Virg. 45.46.
180. Aug. Serm. 148.2; Reg. Carth. 126; on the head covering, see Optat. Parm. 2.19. In Parm. 6.4 the head covering is used as a sign of the vow. The term used in Parm. 2.19, mitra, was derived from Isaiah 61:10 in the African Latin version of the text. It was used by Tertullian in Virg. 17 in this sense, and in Marc. 4.11.7 for Christ. The text was applied to Christ and the church in Aug. Ep. 140.6.18; Ep. Io. 1.2; Psal. 30.2.1.4; 74.4; 101.1.2; Serm. 91.7.8; Serm. Dolb. 22(341*).19.
181. Con. Carth. a. 390, 3; Bru. Hipp. 24, 34; Reg. Carth. 38.
182. Bru. Hipp. 1b; Cau. Apiar. 16.
183. Con. Carth. a. 418; Reg. Carth. 126.
184. Aug. Ep. 253-55. Augustine judged that she was also too young to choose a husband, though he considered the suitor himself unworthy because he was not a Christian.
185. Bru. Hipp. 31; Aug. Ep. Divj. 13*.2; Con. Carth. a. 345-48, 3-4.
186. Bru. Hipp. 31. The woman identified by her honorific tomb cover as a “matrona uidua” might have been such a supervisor of virgins (fig. 119).
187. Aug. Serm. 355.6.
188. Aug. Virg. 34.34.
189. Aug. Serm. 355.3.
190. Aug. Ep. 211, esp. 211.10.
191. If not, this is another example of the rare appearance of a family relationship in a Christian tomb mosaic.
192. Aug. Psal. 83.4. Augustine refused to apply the same term to widows who married (Vid. 9.12–10.13).
193. See below, pp. 467-68.
194. Con. Carth. a. 345-48, 3.
195. Bru. Hipp. 24.
196. Optat. Parm. 2.19. The incident occurred during the repossession of the basilica at Tipasa and may have been intended to degrade her for having gone into Catholic communion during his exile.
197. Aug. Ep. 35.2; Ep. Divj. 20*.5.
198. Aug. Ep. Divj. 15*.3; C.Th. 9.25.1, 3.
199. Aug. Ep. Divj. 9*.
200. Aug. Ep. Divj. 13*.1-3.
201. Aug. Vid. 8.11, 19.23; Ep. Divj. 3*.3; Serm. 208.1.
202. For the virgin, Con. Carth. a. 390, 3; Bru. Hipp. 24, 34; Reg. Carth. 38.
203. Con. Carth. a. 345-48, 4. The same rule applied to both men and women who were dedicated.
204. Bru. Hipp. 24; Reg. Carth. 38.
205. The example is given in Aug. Vid. 13.16 that a young woman who has been married twice for short periods of time and then dedicated herself to widowhood might be better than one who had been married only once for a long time.
206. Aug. Ep. 262.9 deals with a married woman who dressed like a widow.
207. Aug. Ep. 130.3.7-8; Vid. 21.26.
208. Aug. Vid. 14.17, 21.26.
209. The inscription here reads “Matrona vidua vixit in fide et requievit in pace die non(o) kal(endas) Febr(u)arias.” See James H. Terry, “Christian Tomb Mosaics of Late Roman, Vandalic, and Byzantine Byzacena” (Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri–Columbia, 1998), no. 133, pp. 528-29.
210. Aug. Vid. 9.12–11.14.
211. Aug. Psal. 83.4; Agon. 31.33.
212. Aug. Dulc. 7.3. The events occurred in Mauretania Sitifensis, and Augustine claimed that all the parties were still alive at the time of his writing.
213. Aug. Bon. coniug. 5.5; Serm. 224.3. Conf. 6.15.25 narrates the decision of the mother of his son.
214. Augustine’s concubine may have undertaken such a life in Thagaste; see Garry Wills, Saint Augustine (New York: Viking Press, 1999), 65.
215. On this, see David Hunter’s treatment in “Augustine and the Making of Marriage in Roman North Africa.”
216. Aug. Ciu. 22.15, 17, 24.
217. Aug. Bon. coniug. 3.3; Gen. litt. 11.37.50. The original hierarchal relation of male and female was based on love. The one which resulted from sin and extended to the domination of one male by another was not based on love.
218. Aug. Gen. litt. 9.5.9.
219. Aug. Bon. coniug. 1.1; Gen. litt. 9.9.14-15; Ciu. 12.21, 27; 14.1; 22.17.
220. Even the reference to leaving father and mother to become one flesh with a wife (Gen. 2:24) was said not to apply to Adam and Eve but to be prophetic of Christ or descriptive of marriage in the fallen state (Aug. Gen. litt. 2.13.19).
221. Aug. Bon. coniug. 3.3.
222. Aug. Ciu. 15.16.
223. Aug. Bon. coniug. 17.20; Nupt. 1.9.10. A union of many men to one woman would have violated the hierarchical order of nature, while offering no increase in fertility.
224. 1 Tim. 2:13-14; Aug. Gen. litt. 11.42.59; Ciu. 14.12-14.
225. Aug. Conf. 2.8.16.
226. Aug. Gen. litt. 11.42.59; Ciu. 14.12. In Gen. litt. 11.41.57, Augustine rejected the interpretation that Adam and Eve sinned by having sexual intercourse prior to the time allowed by God.
227. Aug. Ciu. 14.11.
228. Aug. Bon. coniug. 1.1, 3.3, 24.32.
229. Aug. Bon. coniug. 3.3, 8.8, 9.9; Nupt. 1.11.12. This was the position taken by Tertullian.
230. Aug. Gen. Man. 1.19.30; 2.11.15, 13.21.
231. Aug. Catech. 18.29 and Conf. 13.24.37.
232. Aug. Bon. coniug. 2.2.
233. Aug. Gen. litt. 3.21.33.
234. For Robert J. O’Connell’s interpretation of this passage, see The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine’s Later Works (New York: Fordham University Press, 1987), 207-8.
235. Aug. Gen. litt. 9.3.5-6, 5.9–6.10, 9.14-15.
236. For example, Aug. Gen. Man. 1.19.30 and Gen. litt. 3.21.33.
237. The problem itself was asserted in Aug. Gen. Man. 1.19.30 and Catech. 18.29. The solution was proposed in Gen. litt. 9.9.14–13.23. It was repeated in Pecc. or. 35.40 and Nupt. 2.13.26.
238. Aug. Ciu. 13.20, 23.
239. Aug. Bon. coniug. 9.9, 16.18; Nupt. 1.13.14. They would have preferred continence: Bon. coniug. 15.17, 17.19.
240. Aug. Bon. coniug. 13.15, 15.17, 16.18; Nupt. 1.9.10.
241. Aug. Bon. coniug. 13.15, 17.19.
242. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 12(354A).10-12.
243. Aug. Bon. coniug. 17.19.
244. Augustine firmly rejected all attempts to calculate the end of time. Instead, he focused on the end of individual lives. Serm. 93.7.8; 97.1; 109.1, 4; Psal. 88.2.5.
245. Aug. Bon. coniug. 10.10.
246. Aug. Serm. Lamb. 22(335L).2.
247. Aug. Ciu. 22.15, 17, 24; Serm. 243.3.3–8.7. Augustine explained that Adam and Eve did not procreate in Paradise because God had not yet commanded it before the Fall, and they had no lust to move them to sexual activity (Gen. litt. 9.4.8; Ciu. 14.21).
248. Aug. Bon. coniug. 10.10.
249. Aug. Nupt. 1.13.15.
250. Aug. Bon. coniug. 12.14.
251. Aug. Conf. 9.6.14; 9.8.17–11.28. Not least among these is his observation that the dead must be unaware of the plight of the living because he could not imagine that his mother could have known his cares and sufferings since her death without ever visiting him in his dreams (Cur. 13.16).
252. Aug. Bon. coniug. 17.19; Serm. Guelf. 32(340A).7.
253. Aug. Ciu. 14.9.
254. Aug. Bon. coniug. 3.3, 6.6, 23.28.
255. Aug. Bon. coniug. 3.3, 4.4.
256. Aug. Bon. coniug. 4.4, 6.6.
257. Aug. Serm. 51.13.22; Serm. Dolb. 12(354A).7-9.
258. Aug. Bon. coniug. 4.4, 6.6.
259. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 12(354A).3-6, 12.
260. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 12(354A).12; Psal. 147.4; 149.15. In this, the rights of the wife were the same as those of the husband.
261. David Hunter developed this point in “Augustine and the Making of Marriage in Roman North Africa.”
262. Aug. Serm. 137.8.9; Psal. 55.17.
263. Aug. Psal. 72.33; Augustine knew whereof he spoke, though he did not criticize this failing in his mother (Conf. 6.13.23).
264. Aug. Serm. 137.8.9.
265. Aug. Gen. litt. 2.13.19.
266. Aug. Gen. Man. 2.24.37; Ciu. 22.17; Psal. 138.2.
267. Aug. Bon. coniug. 18.21.
268. Aug. Bon. coniug. 18.21.
269. Aug. Bon. coniug. 7.7, 15.17, 18.21.
270. Aug. Virg. 2.2; Serm. 192.2; 196.2.
271. Aug. Bon. coniug. 24.32.
272. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 26(198*).49.
273. Aug. Nupt. 1.10.11, 21.23, 29.32–30.33.
274. Aug. Bon. coniug. 8.8.
275. Aug. Retract. 2.22-23.
276. Aug. Virg. 16.16–18.18.
277. Aug. Virg. 13.13, 19.19, 23.23–27.27.
278. Aug. Virg. 11.11.
279. Aug. Bon. coniug. 18.21.
280. Aug. Virg. 29.29.
281. Aug. Virg. 2.2; Serm. 184.1.1; 188.3.4.
282. Aug. Virg. 8.8, 34.34; Serm. 132.3; 161.10.10, 12.12.
283. Aug. Eu. Io. 9.2.
284. Aug. Ep. 140.6.18; Ep. Io. 1.2; Psal. 30.2.1.4; 74.4; 101.1.2; Serm. 91.7.8; Serm. Dolb. 22(341*).19. Their Latin version, based on LXX, attributed both parts of the Hebrew parallel to the bride, the mitra and ornamenta. For the use in the dedication ritual, see Optat. Parm. 2.19; CSEL 26:54.19. Tertullian applied the text to the church (Marc. 4.2.7).
285. Aug. Virg. 2.2; Psal. 90.2.9; 147.10; Eu. Io. 13.12.
286. Aug. Psal. 44.31-32; Eu. Io. 13.13.
287. Aug. Serm. 343.4; Vid. 45.46.
288. Aug. Virg. 8.8; Gen. litt. 9.3.5-7, 10.18.
289. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 12(354A).10-12; Vid. 3.3.
290. Aug. Virg. 7.7.
291. Aug. Virg. 9.9.
292. Aug. Virg. 9.9.
293. Aug. Virg. 16.16, 55.56.
294. Aug. Virg. 22.22, 55.56.
295. Aug. Virg. 45.46–46.46. In the Rule, the church’s practice of common life, mutual care, fasting, and prayer were added to the renunciation of marriage (Ep. 211.2).
296. Augustine began addressing the question in Virg. 31.31 and continued with it for the remainder of the treatise.
297. Aug. Serm. 354.4.4, 7.8–8.9.
298. Aug. Virg. 31.31–33.34; 35.35; 37.38.
299. Aug. Serm. 213.8; Psal. 99.13.
300. Aug. Virg. 40.41; 48.48–52.53.
301. Aug. Virg. 40.41–43.44; 52.53.
302. Aug. Virg. 44.45–47.47. In Eu. Io. 51.13, he made a similar comparison between bishops and married people; many martyrs were married people rather than clergy.
303. Aug. Serm. 354.4.4.
304. Aug. Vid. 2.3.
305. Aug. Iul. 6.18.55.
306. Aug. Vid. 3.4–6.9.
307. Aug. Serm. 192.2; 196.2.
308. Aug. Psal. 131.23; 145.18; Qu. eu. 2.45.2; Iob 24.
309. Aug. Psal. 131.23.
310. Aug. Vid. 10.13; Agon. 31.33.
311. This language turned up again in the Spanish collection of the legislation of the African church, into which it was interpolated (Con. Carth. a. 398, 104). See Charles Munier, CCSL 149:326-28, 353, for the text and the judgment of its inauthenticity.
312. Aug. Virg. 45.46–46.46; Serm. 304.2.2; Ciu. 15.26.
313. For the discussion of funerary inscriptions and mosaics, see above, pp. 120-24. On this question, generally, see Yasin, “Funerary Monuments and Collective Identity.”
314. Hermes conuigi et fil(iis) dulcissimis.
315. For the text and its peculiarities, see above, p. 459, n. 148.
318. Margaret Alexander reconstructed this epitaph as including the words “perpetuitatis coronam acceperunt quod Deo.” See Margaret Alexander, “Early Christian Tomb Mosaics in North Africa” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1958), 2:231. Presumably those buried in Thabraca’s Chapel of the Martyrs (cf. Crescentinus, fig. 143) would have died during the Vandal era, possibly as faithful Nicenes, persecuted for their faith. See the discussion of Vandal persecution above, pp. 69-75.