Around 402 CE, Augustine wrote epistulae 77 and 78, responding to the sounded alarm of Satan's disturbance of the Christian community at Hippo. Allegations of sexual harassment had surfaced, that a monk, Spes, had made ‘unchaste and impure advances’ to the priest Bonifatius.Footnote 1 Bonifatius had refused to consent or to suffer Spes's transgressive sexual behaviour in silence. But Spes made counter-allegations against Bonifatius, that he was the perpetrator of abuse not the victim, and the dispute had rumbled unhappily on.Footnote 2 Epistulae 77 and 78 bring the dispute into sharp focus, illuminating Augustine's awkward position as he tries to assert his episcopal authority whilst resolving tensions and maintaining the cohesion of his congregation. In their focus on queer sexuality, these letters are unusual. Same-sex acts and sexual violence are mostly tightly controlled and deliberately erased in antiquity. Until a problem becomes impossible to ignore, narratives, critiques and conversations addressing sexual violence and harassment are largely absent. The repression of sexual violence by ancient writers like Augustine means that this article is necessarily concerned with missing critiques, missing conversations, about what and who is missing, as well as what is more plainly evident. This article applies critical understandings of gendered violence, victimisation and harm to reach beyond previous approaches. It engages with the case of sexual abuse solely between men intrinsically, and as a uniquely available point of comparison with sexual violence perpetrated by men against women. The central objective of this research is to examine how sexual violence is gendered, in Augustine's response, in the adjudication of the case, and in the behaviours and expectations of both victim and perpetrator. Whilst working outwards from absence and silence is a central historiographical approach to sexual abuse, gender and violence in the past, this article reaches new understandings by turning towards evidence that is usually siloed and working it back into a framework of sexual violence in Augustine's letters.Footnote 3
As opposed to other textual forms, Augustine's letters in particular can provide unique insight into sexual abuse. The reciprocity of textual exchanges with actors in communicative networks means that Augustine's letters often foreground his pragmatic response to queries and demands, whilst also preserving at least crystallised moments in the progression of cases. Most recent research has trended towards a methodology that centralises silence and absence. Ulriika Vihervalli reveals the biases in Augustine's responses to sexual violence towards sanctified women, and foregrounds the absence of complaints by non-sanctified persons.Footnote 4 Jennifer Barry highlights the persistence of victim-blaming, doubting of female voices, and undermining of accounts of sexual violence in Augustine's writings, approaches that extend far beyond an ancient context.Footnote 5 Midori Hartman demonstrates the inconsistencies in Augustine's approach to sexual violence depending on his rhetorical objective: his willingness to frame Christian women raped during the sack of Rome as martyrs in epistula 111 does not extend to his discussions in De civitate Dei.Footnote 6 The messiness and multidimensionality of sexual violence against women by men and same-sex sexual violence outside the sphere of the Church is largely unrepresented in Augustine's letters. If we can identify Augustine's generalised approach to sexual violence, it is responsive rather than preventative, and preoccupied with the aftermath of violence, particularly in the punishment of the perpetrator. Whilst the overwhelming majority of victims of sexual violence are women and girls, their experiences and needs are often overlooked, and their outcomes are not centralised: in most cases, what happens to the victim remains an unanswered question.Footnote 7
Sexual abuse and violence have always been a fundamental aspect of ancient societies, but critical approaches to these overlooked topics are a relatively recent development. Whilst considerable attention has been given to rape in antiquity, research into other forms of sexual and gendered violence such as sexual abuse in warfare or domestic violence is atomised across an unconnected field that lacks a structural centre.Footnote 8 More specifically, Augustine's representations and responses concerning sexual violence have received increasing consideration in the last two decades, correlating with a greater scholarly focus on women and gender in his writings. But gendered and sexual violence more broadly in his letter collection have received less critical notice.Footnote 9 Scholarship has not entirely neglected the dispute between Spes and Bonifatius, but the exceptionalism of the case has been seen as a reason not to engage with it. Most notably, Danuta Shanzer's articles have treated it specifically and within a wider context of sexual scandals, but without any particular consideration of gender.Footnote 10 The perceived delicacy of events and Augustine's deliberate ambiguity about the sexual abuse deters scholarly attention, and the compulsion to turn away from the case in fifth-century Hippo informs modern critical responses.Footnote 11
Augustine's first resolve not to manage the dispute actively and to leave Spes and Bonifatius to God failed.Footnote 12 Members of Hippo's congregation refused to attend services whilst Bonifatius's name remained on the lists of presbyters, and Spes's attempts to lever to his advantage and attain promotion to the priesthood, either by Augustine directly or by letters of recommendation from Augustine to another bishop, were denied, intensifying Spes's complaints.Footnote 13 Spes argued that if he could not be ordained to the priesthood, then Bonifatius should be stripped of his clerical status. At this point, Bonifatius's desire to avoid further disturbance in the Church and his willingness to acquiesce in Spes's objections forced Augustine to act. He instructed Spes and Bonifatius to bind themselves, seemingly by an oath, to visit St Felix's shrine at Cimitile, Italy. Augustine intended that increased proximity to the divine in this holy place would disturb the perpetrator's guilty conscience, provoking him into miraculous confession. Augustine's role as bishop burdened him not only with the spiritual well-being of his community, but with arbitrating civil and ecclesiastical disputes in his own court, the audientia episcopalis.Footnote 14 Augustine's familiarity with Roman law is evident in his letters; he kept copies of laws and distributed them alongside letters where he needed to invoke legislative protocol.Footnote 15 His involvement in various types of legal arbitration runs like a thread throughout his letters. This was an addition to his workload that he did not always welcome – he complains to Alypius in epistula 9* how the civil punishment of crimes is neglected, wearing out the Church leadership as a result.Footnote 16 Augustine's letters show that his judicial activities were mainly (but not always) reserved for ecclesiastical rather than civil matters, and he arbitrated various disputes over landownership, inheritance and sexual violence within the Church.Footnote 17
Augustine's surviving letters that address the dispute between Spes and Bonifatius (epistulae 77 and 78) are representative of pressure points in the controversy where Augustine was forced to escalate his response, and his epistolary network heated up with increased communication. Although it is unattested, epistula 77 seems to be a reply to a ghost-letter, a letter from Felix and Hilarinus that does not survive.Footnote 18 Augustine is responding to specific points, such as the request for Bonifatius's name to be removed from the clergy register. Epistula 77 mentions a decree (placitum) about Spes and Bonifatius that could be read to Hilarinus and Felix, if they wish it.Footnote 19 This decree could record Spes and Bonifatius's commitment to travelling together to St Felix's shrine, demonstrating Augustine's active management of the case in the face of complaints from his congregation. Augustine's reference seems to suggest that the decree was sent with epistula 77, although, like the ghost-letter from Hilarinus and Felix, this is not confirmed by the extant letter.
In epistula 77, Augustine makes reference to Spes's request for letters from Augustine to another bishop, advising his promotion. Augustine rather obliquely explains his reasoning in sending Spes and Bonifatius to the shine of Felix at Nola, because if any divine revelation should identify the perpetrator, a trustworthy account could more easily be written to Augustine from there.Footnote 20 Dennis Trout has plausibly understood this as a tacit reference to Augustine's reliance on Paulinus of Nola to provide such documentation.Footnote 21 Trout also speculates about a ghost-letter that Augustine would have written to Paulinus in Nola, delivered by Spes and Bonifatius on their strained pilgrimage.Footnote 22 It seems probable that Augustine supplied a letter of recommendation to Bonifatius, counted here as another ghost-letter. At Bonifatius's request, the letter did not authenticate his clerical rank, enabling Bonifatius and Spes to be treated equally in an unknown place.Footnote 23 But unless Augustine's letter positively recommended Spes, which seems unlikely, Bonifatius's reception in Italy would already have been made partial by Augustine's letter.
Most critical approaches overlook the existence of an implied, unattested matrix of communications surrounding epistulae 77 and 78. Two observations can be made: first, in a case marked by obscurity, if we take into account these implied, ghostly texts, we already know more than we think we know. Secondly, the sexual violence on which the case centres is firmly marginalised, at least within the epistolary response. Augustine directs his rhetoric away from the shadowy acts that have caused the disturbance, concentrating instead on damage limitation. His management strategies are designed not to resolve the conflict, but to contain it, and to address its consequences, principally in his attempts to direct the collective response of Hippo's Christian community to Bonifatius and Spes.
Augustine's first line of defence is to redirect appeals and complaints from his resentful congregation, reframing their outrage and distress through Scripture (Matt. 24:12–13). Scandals such as these test and prove the faithful, and have been divinely foretold, Augustine writes.Footnote 24 This way lies salvation.Footnote 25 After reassurance that this is all part of God's mysterious plan, Augustine shifts towards defensively appealing to his position. He creates distance between his responsibility as bishop and how the case should be decided, asking how he as a man can judge clearly ‘the secret acts of men’.Footnote 26 In emphasising the difference between sacred and profane justice, and the privacy of male sexual behaviour, Augustine represents himself as defeated in the case, justifying the deferral of judgement quite literally to God: ‘While the case which has arisen between him and Spes is still subject to divine decision according to their degree … who am I to dare to forestall the verdict of God?’Footnote 27 He appeals to legal precedents established in civil contexts whereby a case that is referred to a higher power cannot be altered to avoid prejudicing the higher judge. Thus, Augustine does not dare even to remove Bonifatius's name from the register of priests to avoid injuring the power of God with whom the case now rests.Footnote 28
In this context of escalating tensions, increasing pressure to resolve the case, and Augustine's recusal, what type of justice can Spes and Bonifatius hope to receive? Although Augustine argues that the truth of the matter can only be revealed by divine judgement, he nevertheless advocates persuasively on behalf of Bonifatius, the accuser of Spes, as truth-teller. In epistula 77, Augustine writes that he has not found evidence of Bonifatius's wrongdoing, and he emphatically does not believe any such thing of him.Footnote 29 For Augustine, Spes is undoubtedly lost, whereas Bonifatius's reputation is only damaged. In epistula 78, Augustine explicitly defends Bonifatius's innocence, based on his refusal to consent to Spes's sexual harassment or to keep silent about it.Footnote 30 Augustine has unambiguously arrived at his verdict, finding that Bonifatius's conscience is clear. But Augustine's awareness that implementing his decision will not resolve the matter reveals how the conflict has widened beyond the individual to the group.Footnote 31 Mutual consensus has broken down, factionalism has intervened and deadlock has immobilised the dispute.
In his search for a resolution, Augustine represents himself as forced to supersede his own ecclesiastical arbitration with a divine justice that is intrinsically ambiguous. Parallels have been drawn between Augustine's resolution and the miracle of the ordeal in later medieval contexts, where innocence or guilt was determined through God's intervention (or lack of it) to protect the accused person.Footnote 32 Peter Brown describes the ordeal as ‘a controlled miracle’, and observes that it functioned as God revealing truth rather than any specific fact: ‘He was judging the status of a person or of a group, whether they and their claims were “pure” and “just”. He was not deciding whether a piece of land really belonged to a certain claimant.’Footnote 33 Brown sees that the individual issues were less at stake than the status in the community of the groups that had been brought into conflict, and Augustine's search for the miracle of God's revelation was intended to generate consensus through a resolution that could not be disputed.Footnote 34 Augustine's design to displace the dispute physically was intended to mitigate the unbearable antagonism that divided the community along partisan lines. St Felix's shrine offered a spectacular salve to the marginalisation of Spes and Bonifatius from the community by sin and the association of sin. Augustine envisions performative justice at the holy sanctuary that functions to ostracise Spes and Bonifatius, which will then enable their reintegration into the community at Hippo. Ultimately, it protects Augustine from being disenfranchised from his own congregation.
We can see, then, that Augustine's judicial solution was already slanted, and was not victim-centred.Footnote 35 Forcing a victim to undertake a long journey to a foreign place with their alleged perpetrator would compound their suffering and trauma, and would risk exposing them to further harm. A process that treats victim and alleged perpetrator as equivalents elides the power imbalance that is at the root of the perpetration of harm. Augustine's solution was convenient for the community at Hippo, alienated along fault lines of blame and uncomfortable with the association of sin and disreputability.Footnote 36 But it was not convenient for the victim. Theorist Sara Ahmed has highlighted how sexual harassment works by increasing the costs of fighting against something, making it easier to accept something than to struggle against it, even if that acceptance is itself how the victim is diminished.Footnote 37 Bonifatius's desire to de-escalate his complaint in acquiescing in Spes's demand that he should be stripped of his clerical status is a concession that attempts to appease the perpetrator and safeguard against further harm. It indicates the high cost of holding Spes to account; the harassment as well as the process to resolve it was harmful. Ahmed reminds us that the term harass derives from the French harasser, to tire out, to vex.Footnote 38 To speak about harassment provokes further harassment, until the victim is worn down and stops pushing forward the allegation.
The sexual violence perpetrated against Bonifatius, and his attempt to bring Spes to account should be seen not as an anomalous or isolated incident, but as part of a process of victimisation and harm. Spes's response to Bonifatius's attempts to hold him accountable echoes a standardised pattern of perpetrator defence, commonly known as DARVO, an acronym that stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.Footnote 39 This offensive reaction from perpetrators of wrongdoing, particularly sexual offences, includes denying the abuse, attacking the victim's credibility and reversing the roles of victim and offender, all of which Spes does effectively. Spes's manipulative denial gaslights his community into believing his victim status, and his attempts to reduce Bonifatius's clerical status seek to degrade his credibility. The disappearance of Bonifatius and Spes, both from Hippo and from our historical view, because of what Bonifatius tried to bring into view, was a necessary intervention from Augustine. His solution gives the appearance that the problem has been dealt with, enabling the community at Hippo to move forward. But the problem has not been dealt with, it has only been shifted onto another sphere, prolonging the dispute through stalling tactics that place a judicial resolution far beyond human control.
Epistulae 77 and 78 demonstrate that, for Augustine, justice is an afterthought. The letters crystalise not around specific allegations or criminal acts as we might expect, but around clerical status, ecclesiastical authority and individual and institutional reputation. The formal positioning of Spes and Bonifatius within the Church, namely Bonifatius's continuing position as a presbyter and Spes's attempts to force his own promotion to presbyterial level, is the principal issue of contention in both letters. Augustine's letters do not well represent the manoeuvrings that occurred before he put stylus to chartus, and there is a considerable logical gap between allegations of sexual harassment coming to light and Spes's opportunism in using the case to advance his status: it is an unusual position from which to negotiate. Really what epistulae 77 and 78 offer us is the opportunity to read a micro-incident of victimisation and harm between individuals translated into professional opportunism that implicates a much wider communal group.
Augustine's arguably ineffective policy of containment includes attempts to conceal the controversy. He twice defends his actions for not bringing the case to the attention of the wider community, explaining that he did not want to trouble his congregation with ‘sharp and useless sorrow’.Footnote 40 The case provoked a litigious and conservative response that reveals how pressing the threat of allegations of sexual harassment was to institutional and individual reputations. The Catholic Christian community at Hippo had been made vulnerable to attack by the dispute. As Augustine observes, those whose evil tongues are sweetened by these sorrows, especially Donatists, seize upon the example of a fallen monk to demonstrate the moral failure of all those sanctified within the Catholic Church. Augustine brackets male–male sexual harassment with adulterous women, making his point with an ill-fitting analogy that not all wives are cast off and not all mothers accused when one married woman commits adultery.Footnote 41 Augustine's epistolographic response shows that the case is first and foremost perceived as a threat: to his reputation as bishop, to Bonifatius's integrity as a presbyter, to the standing of Hippo's Christian community and to the wider Catholic Church. Epistula 78 especially, as a longer letter following on from epistula 77 and addressed to a much wider audience, is part of a top-down policy of damage control that seeks to retain institutional legitimacy by curtailing complaints from Hippo's Christian community, limiting the opportunity for the case to be mobilised by the opposition, and silencing the complainants Spes and Bonifatius through their physical removal.
Adjudicating abuse across Augustine's letters
Sexual violence in Augustine's letters features through male-specific narratives, where the values and experiences of men are foregrounded, and female victims are incidental at best. But where does this bias originate? Is it situated against victims and those who bring forward these discomfiting and difficult cases? Or does the bias run along gendered lines? Are male victims alongside male perpetrators treated differently from female victims and their male perpetrators? Do their expectations and outcomes differ, and is the justice accessible to victims consistent? The restricted scope of the evidence for sexual violence, especially where the perpetrator and victim are both male, means that it is not possible to reach absolute answers. But there are instructive comparisons to be made with other examples of sexual abuse against women and girls that Augustine adjudicated in the letter collection.
Pauline Allen has highlighted the disparity between classical letter-writing, where female addressees were almost exclusively close family members, and the fourth–sixth centuries CE, where letters were written to Christian women more widely, without the need for close familial ties.Footnote 42 And this epistolographic shift in communication with women is certainly seen in Augustine, where no letters to female relatives including his mother, Monica, sister or ‘concubine’ survive, whereas letters to Christian women seeking advice or transporting relics on Augustine's behalf are evident in his collection.Footnote 43 Jennifer Ebbeler has noted how much of Augustine's correspondence with women is confined to the ‘amorphous mass’ at the end of the collection, and it is similarly notable how much more prominent sexual violence and slavery are in the Divjak collection.Footnote 44
Unlike most other cases which involve female victims, the dispute between Spes and Bonifatius lingers on the determination of truth rather than the appropriate punishment for the perpetrator. Augustine writes epistulae 77 and 78 in the midst of the controversy, but his epistolographic interventions are typically staged late. Epistula 9* in the Divjak series shows Augustine responding not to the kidnap and rape of a consecrated virgin in a church, not to the punishment of her perpetrator by local clergy, not to the perpetrator's complaints at his punishment, not even to Pope Celestine's demand to have the clergy punished for beating the perpetrator, but to his colleague Alypius, who is now adjudicating the case.Footnote 45 As in epistula 77, Augustine throws up his hands at the case, asking what a bishop or the clergy is to do about these crimes committed by men. Whilst it is not clear if Augustine is referring to sexual crimes or crimes in general, he does not replicate his argument from epistula 77 that the inscrutability of the ‘private acts of men’ means that the case cannot be decided; the case has already been decided and there is no question of guilt. Instead epistula 9* is preoccupied with how to deal effectively and appropriately with perpetrators, weighing the options of corporeal punishment and excommunication.
As in epistula 9*, female victims of sexual violence are often overlooked or purposefully ignored in the letter collection, obscuring the fraught exercise of claiming victimhood that places women at the centre of the narrative.Footnote 46 The victim of the case in epistula 9*, the nun who was taken from her father's house to a church and raped, is given the briefest mention and remains anonymous.Footnote 47 Similarly, the nun at the centre of the case in epistulae 14* and 15* who was violently raped by Cresconius is hardly mentioned in Augustine's scramble to ensure that Cresconius is not punished excessively: ‘I received a complaint against one of your men but I did not dare mention his name or his sacrilegious disgrace in this letter in case perhaps you become enraged to excess and punish him more violently than is fitting.’Footnote 48 Where the evidence against perpetrators does not rely on female victim testimony, as in epistulae 14* and 15*, Augustine can represent these cases as simple and reductive morality tales, and the focus can rest on punishing the perpetrator.
Female victims move towards the centre only where their testimony is questioned, as in epistula 18* where Augustine positions allegations against the deacon or priest Gitta made by an unnamed woman as potentially false. Augustine is writing to the Christian community at Membliba to explain why their request for Gitta to be their priest cannot be fulfilled; even if only some of what the woman alleged was true, it would be enough to discount Gitta from assuming the role. If she had lied and only what he confessed to was true, he still cannot be a cleric, since all Christians, and clerics especially, have to be innocent of illicit sexual intercourse.Footnote 49 It seems that the unnamed woman made allegations against Gitta not of consensual sexual relations but of sexual abuse, and that Augustine is actively partitioning out the allegations he is prepared to respond to.Footnote 50 As in the case of Spes and Bonifatius, sexual violence is only relevant where it intersects with clerical status, not at the point of perpetration, and not in response to the victim's complaints.
Victim credibility, clerical status and community division are issues that are again evident in epistula 13*, written by Augustine to the priest Restitutus about a cleric whom a nun has accused of rape.Footnote 51 The perpetrator strategy of DARVO is again evident here, and the letter foregrounds the counter-accusation from the cleric, that the nun who made allegations against him was in fact the perpetrator of sexual harassment. There are not two competing narratives here: the female's testimony is left entirely unrepresented, and we have to read the accusation of rape into the letter and ghost-letter that preceded it. Augustine has arrived at his judgement that the cleric is innocent after repeatedly interrogating him, but no mention is made of an interview with the female. Instead Augustine concludes that the nun should not be believed – this lost woman is looking for ‘someone to get her hooks into’, in Eno's memorable translation, as a way of shifting the blame for her dishonour.Footnote 52 Augustine's misogynistic stereotyping relies on a collective conception of women as victim as lascivious and vengeful, and the woman's own sexual immorality is represented as another man's crime. By shifting blame onto the victim, Augustine advocates that the cleric should not be condemned and that he should keep his position unless more evidence is uncovered to prove that he is lying – the woman's words alone are insufficient.
Besides victim-blaming, another effective rhetorical strategy Augustine mobilises is to spectacularly and deliberately miss the point, identifying the problem in epistula 13* as priests who travel alone, leaving themselves vulnerable to accusations of impropriety.Footnote 53 Augustine's response, to advocate against clergy moving around autonomously as a tool of prevention, echoes more recent institutional responses to sexual violence: knowledge avoidance, where the root causes of violence are sidestepped, and inadequate or irrelevant actions, represented as viable solutions, come before more difficult strategies of prevention.Footnote 54
In cases of sexual violence where victim testimony constitutes the central evidence against a male perpetrator, Augustine reveals his propensity to disbelieve female victims, compounding harm on an individual level with institutional betrayal. This is starkly distinct from his approach to the complainant when both perpetrator and victim are male; the female victim in epistula 13* is disbelieved because of the allegations she raised, whereas Bonifatius is believed principally because of the allegations he brings to light against Spes. This gendered disparity means that, for women, stating their victimisation publicly is an insecure method of gaining the sympathetic attention of invested third parties.Footnote 55 The perceived unreliability of female complainants in Augustine's letters is part of a wider nexus of bias where female victims are discredited, dismissed and subject to counter-accusations that deny their victim status.Footnote 56 The reflexive disbelief of women, otherwise known as testimonial injustice, occurs when a speaker receives an unfair deficit of credibility from a hearer as a consequence of the hearer's prejudice.Footnote 57 In epistulae 13* and 18*, Augustine endorses the counter-accusations made by male clergy against female victims, but where both victim and perpetrator are male, as in the case of Spes and Bonifatius, the original accuser is believed. The propensity to disbelieve the female victim, even to suspect them of perjury, is strong enough to dismiss their testimony even where the male cleric has admitted wrongdoing, as in epistula 18*. Augustine's letters reveal that allegations made by women from a subordinate ecclesiastical position are given substantially less credibility and are much less impactful than those made by male clerics.
The gendered disparity of victim credibility has wider consequences beyond the victim and perpetrator. In epistula 13*, Augustine advocates that the priest accused of sexual abuse should keep his position, ordering that the community should not let their love for the priest grow cold.Footnote 58 Augustine mobilises his own correspondence in defence of the priest, instructing the recipient to read his letter (epistula 13*) to the community and explain the incident so that they do not reject the priest; he is, after all, a good man who was confronted with temptation, which could happen to anyone. Augustine's approach, however, to a hostile congregation in epistulae 77 and 78 is very different. The community in Hippo is much less malleable and staunchly opposes Bonifatius's continuing presbyterial role. Accusations of sexual violence brought by a woman are easier for the alleged perpetrator to discount, and for individuals and groups responsible for adjudicating justice to ignore.
If we can identify a gendered disparity in victim credibility in Augustine's letters, how then is truth determined within the judicial process? In epistula 9* to Alypius, Augustine writes that when a case comes to judgement, those who deliver justice must first make enquiries and establish the facts of the case.Footnote 59 In epistula 13*, Augustine reveals how his investigative process relies on interrogation: he repeatedly probed the mind of the man accused of sexual abuse, attempting to intimidate him into confession through fear of divine judgement.Footnote 60 The deliberation of guilt is absent where the perpetrator of sexual violence was caught in the act and his crimes were publicly witnessed, such as in epistula 13*. It is difficult to know how guilt was assigned in the violent rape of a nun in epistulae 14* and 15*, but without mention of the possibility of the perpetrator's innocence or the reliance on victim testimony, it is likely that his crime was more widely witnessed. Augustine's determination of truth is constrained in epistula 18* by the moral standards required for ordination: Gitta's confession of illicit sexual relations is enough to discount him for the priesthood, and that is as far as Augustine needs to push to establish truth.
Augustine's letters often approach sexual violence through the lens of clerical disreputability, and whilst epistula 65 from Augustine to Sanctippus is concerned with embezzlement and immorality rather than sexual violence, it does illuminate Augustine's judicial processes when managing the case of a wayward cleric. The priest Abundantius has been suspended from his office for diverting money intended for the church, and for dining at the house of a woman ‘of evil fame’ (malae famae mulierem) on Christmas Eve rather than fasting.Footnote 61 Prompted by rumours of his reputation for moral deviance, Augustine explains that his first recourse is to gather evidence of Abundantius's wrongdoing, discovering his fraudulent use of church funds, which the priest admitted to. A colleague witnessed Abundantius's illicit activities on Christmas Eve and Abundantius could not deny his presence at the house of ill-repute, although how much he admitted to is unclear.Footnote 62
In writing to Sanctippus as primate of Numidia, informing him of the case and explaining his actions, Augustine is following formal procedure and aiming for maximal transparency, perhaps in anticipation of a complaint from Abundantius which Augustine pre-emptively frames as a ‘false report’ (fallacia).Footnote 63 Augustine writes that he heard the case and gave a full account of his decision to suspend Abundantius from the priesthood, who has a year to plead his case, if he feels there is a case to answer. Augustine advocates for the punishment of clerics according to canon law established at the Council of Carthage (401), but complains that he is forced to adjudicate cases where evidence of wrongdoing is insecure or unknown. Augustine then refers to an earlier canonical law that instructs the case of a priest to be submitted to six bishops, and advocates that if his decision to suspend Abundatius from his priestly office is considered erroneous, any bishop is welcome to restore Abundatius to his clerical status by giving him a church within his own diocese. In epistula 65, Augustine's judicial processes are on display in the careful framing of his actions to his ecclesiastical senior. A report or rumour of clerical wrongdoing prompts evidence-gathering, followed by an interview with the alleged perpetrator with the aim of eliciting a confession, and eyewitness testimony is gathered. The case is then heard formally following the prescriptions of canon law, and an outcome is decreed, with an appeal permissible within one year.
In broad terms, we can see Augustine's judicial process working similarly in the case between Spes and Bonifatius, although the delay between evidence-gathering and the formal hearing means that the determination of guilt has not yet been concluded. Abundantius's admission of wrongdoing and eyewitness testimony are sufficient for Augustine to suspend his clerical status, and there appears to be no question over his guilt. Despite Augustine's clear conviction that Abundantius deserves punishment, he has Augustine's sympathy. Augustine writes to an anonymous priest who advocates for Abundantius to be allowed to return to his home church and live without clerical duties. Although Augustine advises against it, his treatment of Abundantius, who he suggests could be given a parish in another diocese, falls far short of uncompromising condemnation and represents a continued investment of resources in a disreputable former cleric. Augustine's disbelief of the female victim in epistula 13* and his defence of the rapist Cresconius in epistulae 14* and 15* indicate his predisposition to centre perpetrators, particularly of sexual violence, across the letter collection.
Just how significantly Augustine's treatment of victim and perpetrator is gendered and how this effects a particularly uneven distribution of justice is starkly illuminated if we turn to epistula 262 written to Ecdicia, a victim of domestic abuse who fled with her dependent child. Ecdicia wrote to Augustine for advice, and epistula 262 was Augustine's reply. Ecidicia and her husband had previously taken a vow of continence, although Augustine perceived that Ecdicia had defrauded her husband of the debt she owed him with her body by vowing continence without her husband's permission.Footnote 64 After they had lived chastely together for a long time, Ecdicia's husband broke his vow and committed adultery, for which Augustine vehemently blames Ecdicia, her lack of submissiveness and her immoderate almsgiving.Footnote 65 The bearer of epistula 262 told Augustine that when Ecdicia's husband learned that she had given away almost everything she possessed to two unknown monks, he cursed them and Ecdicia, alleging that they were not servants of God but of men who creep into other people's houses, leading Ecdicia captive and plundering her.Footnote 66 The strong overtones of sexual violence in the language of capturing and plundering complicate and tarnish Ecdicia's donation, degrading the ethical basis of her actions. Augustine strongly criticises Ecdicia for adopting widow's clothes, again without her husband's permission, and argues that Ecdicia's husband should have made her wear the clothing of a wife rather than a widow.Footnote 67 Augustine's rhetorical approach strongly resists the understanding of Ecdicia's behaviour as fulfilling core Christian values of chastity, poverty and almsgiving: her self-denial was only disobedient and reckless, and directly resulted in her husband's spiritual ruin.
Roman law interfered only in a minimal sense with violence within the home, as Julia Hillner has observed.Footnote 68 Domestic abuse and violence were not outlawed; at least within elite contexts, it was not the elimination of violence but the regulation of excessive violence that was emphasised.Footnote 69 Roman law distinguished between adultery, elopement and rape, but these categories were not defined by female consent. As Melanie Webb has highlighted, rape was not clearly or consistently distinguished from other forms of illegitimate sexual activity.Footnote 70 The issue of female marital consent was addressed in Roman law: a woman had to agree to a marriage in order for it to be valid.Footnote 71 Although such legislation has been described as ‘superfluous and irrelevant’, given that women were expected to obey the paterfamilias with regard to marriage, the consent of women appears to have been increasingly considered from the imperial period onwards.Footnote 72 Augustine's conservative response to Ecdicia does not give precedence to her agency or desire; he understands that marital continuity is the only solution to the situation. If Ecdicia truly wants to belong to Christ, she must not scorn her husband but reclaim him, clothing herself in lowliness of mind and offering a sacrifice of tears as if they were blood from a pierced heart.Footnote 73 Ecdicia must pour out devout and continuous prayers for him, and write an apology that begs forgiveness for disposing of her property without permission. Augustine rather disingenuously advocates that Ecdicia should not repent of giving to the poor, but that she excluded her husband from the good deed. Ecdicia should promise her husband that she will be subject to him in all things if he repents and resumes their continence together. Augustine's approach is intended to shame Ecdicia into compliance with a solution that would entirely remove her fragile agency and autonomy, and force her and her child back into an abusive situation.
Augustine's complex rhetorical position seeks to deny Ecdidia's victim-centred narrative, at first attacking her actions, and then reaffirming the theological basis for her good deeds with recourse to Scripture but condemning the way in which she fulfilled these good deeds. Augustine focuses his scrutiny only on her actions and not her husband's, holding her to impossible standards, and revealing his assumption that victims are answerable but perpetrators are not. Through an excessive display of himpathy, Augustine loads Ecdicia with responsibility to ameliorate the situation, which is contingent on her repentance and not her husband's, even though his behaviour is the more sinful.Footnote 74 Hillner has outlined how the rise of Christianity added a new dimension to the authority of the paterfamilias, making him responsible for the spiritual health of the household and the preparation of each member for the Final Judgement.Footnote 75 But Augustine pushes the responsibility for her husband's eternal salvation onto Ecdicia: through his adultery he has plunged headlong into deep destruction, which is something she has done to him. Augustine centres the perpetrator to such an extent that he effectively reverses the roles of victim and perpetrator: the woman who has fled harm with her dependent child is the perpetrator, and the husband with agency, resources and legal, spiritual and moral authority is the victim. Augustine's letter gaslights Ecdicia, obscuring the harms that have been perpetrated against her, which are in turn difficult for us to discern, but could include sexual harassment, verbal abuse, coercion and control, sexual violence or assault, and the threat of further harm. We know that in committing adultery and breaking his vow of continence in anger and indignation, Ecdicia's husband used his emotional response to control her. It was a hostile and aggressive act that was intended to degrade her, and Augustine's letter that layered blame on Ecdicia was further degrading.
Fleeing an abusive situation is difficult and frequently the result of a careful and sustained period of risk assessment. Often a last resort for victims of domestic violence is to reach out for help, as Ecdicia did in writing to Augustine. The period immediately before and after escape is the most dangerous for victims, including children, when they are most likely to be seriously harmed or murdered. Augustine's response is to emphasise that, as a married woman, Ecdicia had no right to dispose of her own property, to control access to her body, to resist the authority of her husband or to remove his son to an unknown place. He reminds Ecdicia chillingly that legal authority over her child rests with her husband, and that he cannot be denied custody of the child when he learns where Ecdicia has taken him:
As for your son, since you received him in lawful and honourable marriage, who does not know that he is more subject to his father's authority than to yours? Therefore, his father cannot be denied custody of him whenever he learns where he is and legally demands him.Footnote 76
Augustine's coercion of Ecdicia is absolute; he makes her accountable not only for her husband's spiritual welfare but also represents that Ecdicia must reconcile with her husband for the spiritual sake of her son: ‘Consequently, your union of hearts is necessary for him, so that as according to your will, he may be brought up and educated in the wisdom of God.’Footnote 77 Augustine sees that Ecdicia's choices to give away her possessions and flee her husband compromise her child's spiritual and economic future. Dependants like children are often mobilised against victims of domestic violence as weapons of abuse, and Augustine exploits this structure of oppression to force her and her child back into an abusive environment.
What capacity would Ecdicia have to resist Augustine's overbearing advice? Assessing the reach of Augustine's authority in a local and generalised sense in North Africa in the fifth century is fraught with difficulties, but it is unlikely that Ecdicia would have been able to brush off his instructions easily, especially when she and her child were isolated and vulnerable. Ecdicia lacks support from every single known adult actor within her immediate network. The bearer of her letter to Augustine discloses information about her donation that she had not included in the letter. The bearer could also disclose her family's location, further compromising her precarious position.Footnote 78 With the weight of the institutional Church behind him, Augustine's reaction to Ecdicia's disclosure sidesteps responsibility for her well-being and safety, denying her justice and failing to hold her husband to account.Footnote 79
Although it was legal for Roman men like Ecdicia's husband to have sexual relationships outside marriage, in sermo 392 Augustine preached that wives who know of their husbands’ infidelity or broken vows of chastity should inform him directly.Footnote 80 Through Augustine, Christ orders shamelessly unchaste husbands to perform the humility of penance to absolve them of their sins. They should refrain from communion, and they are summoned before God's judgement. Augustine instructs wronged wives not to tolerate calmly their husbands' infidelities. Instead he demands they be jealous of their husbands, not for the sake of their bodies, but for the sake of their souls.Footnote 81 How can we reconcile what Augustine preaches here with his response to Ecdicia in epistula 262? In his sermon, Augustine is uncompromising in his condemnation of adulterous husbands, painstakingly setting out each circumstance in which infidelity is not allowed. Men who break the bonds of marriage are centred, but in epistula 262, Augustine reserves his criticism for Ecdicia only, blaming her for her husband's infidelity. In his sermon, Augustine argues that men compromise their eternal souls through infidelity, and that wives must not be indifferent but fight obstinately with them over their chastity. By comparison, Ecdicia's response of fleeing her husband appears self-interested and transgressive. Augustine's encouragement to women to inform him of their husbands’ infidelities reveals the double standard in epistula 262, for when Ecdicia follows his request, Augustine blames her for it and makes her responsible for fixing the situation.
Conclusion
No further evidence concerning Ecdicia and her child survives, and it is impossible to know if she was forced to follow Augustine's advice and return to her husband, or if she managed to maintain her autonomy. In writing to Augustine and making him aware of the harms perpetrated against her as she must have done, Ecdicia advocated for herself, claiming entitlement to redress and sympathy, perhaps as the earliest attested victim of domestic abuse to flee with a child. Epistula 262 stands out within the letter collection because the female assertion of agency and entitlement to acknowledgement of harm is unusual, and Augustine pushes back against it. Instead, women are explicitly and implicitly expected to provide a caring and sympathetic audience for men's victim narratives. In other words, one of the goods women are characteristically held to owe dominant men is their moral focus and emotional energy, something which abusive men often feel excessively entitled to.Footnote 82 Augustine's blaming of female victims for the sexual violence and domestic abuse perpetrated against them is an end-point conclusion within a thought-system of patriarchal entitlement and hostile misogyny where women are not entitled to acknowledgement and redress. Even raising an accusation of harm against a man is a dangerous transgression of the boundaries of gendered societal expectations.Footnote 83 This system is so complete in Augustine's fifth-century North Africa that only through comparison of his reaction to a male victim of sexual harassment can we see how polarised his conception of female and male victimhood is. Although this article seeks to highlight the framework of misogyny that was embedded in Augustine's epistemology, it does not argue that his response to Ecdicia was exceptional, or exceptionally heinous. Instead, Augustine's letters illuminate normative levels of violence in domestic and familial environments that are simultaneously interpersonal and structural, and that reflect the rigid hierarchisation of Roman society dominated by patriarchal thought systems and constructions of power.
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