The City of God, Volume I

The longest and most detailed section of the book addresses the violation of Christian women during the sack. Augustine defends their sanctity with a rigorous analysis of the nature of purity. He establishes as an unassailable principle that virtue has its throne in the soul and rules the members of the body, making them holy through the holiness of the will. When the will remains firm and unshaken, nothing that another person does to or upon the body can be imputed as sin to the one who suffers it, provided the sufferer does not consent. Purity is a virtue of the soul, not a quality of the body that can be destroyed by external violence. If purity could be taken away by force, it would not be a virtue but a physical attribute like beauty or health. But since it resides in the will, it remains intact even when the body is violated.

Augustine acknowledges that a pure woman who suffers violation may feel shame, fearing that the pleasure of the act might be attributed to her consent. But this shame is a proof of her purity, not evidence of guilt. The body may experience sensations apart from the will’s consent, just as a sleeper may experience movements he does not choose. The sanctity of the body consists not in the integrity of its members but in the holy purpose to which the will dedicates it. A virgin who goes to meet her seducer with the intention of yielding has already lost her sanctity, though her body remains untouched; a woman who is violated against her will retains her sanctity, for her will has not consented.

Augustine then addresses the question of suicide, which some have thought a noble escape from dishonor. He condemns suicide in the strongest terms, arguing that it is murder and a violation of the commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” The commandment does not say “Thou shalt not kill thy neighbor”; it is absolute, and therefore includes oneself. He examines the famous case of Lucretia, the Roman matron who killed herself after being violated by Tarquin’s son. The pagans celebrate her chastity, yet they face a dilemma: if she was chaste, she had no cause to kill herself, for she had committed no sin; if she killed herself because she felt polluted, she implicitly admitted some consent, yet she is praised for chastity. Either she was an adulteress, in which case she should not be praised, or she was chaste, in which case she committed murder by killing an innocent woman—herself. Augustine suggests that Lucretia may have been driven by pride and shame, unable to bear the thought that others might believe she consented, rather than by a pure love of virtue. The Christian women who suffered similar outrages and yet live have chosen a better path: they have not added the crime of self-murder to the suffering inflicted by another’s sin.

Augustine extends his condemnation of suicide to the famous examples of Cato and other noble pagans. Cato killed himself at Utica rather than submit to Caesar’s rule, yet he urged his son to trust in Caesar’s clemency. If submission to a conqueror was shameful, why did Cato spare his son that shame? The truth is that Cato could not bear to be pardoned by his enemy; his suicide was an act of pride, not of magnanimity. Augustine contrasts Cato with Regulus, who endured captivity and torture rather than violate his oath. Regulus, though he worshipped false gods, displayed a true fortitude that Christians should emulate in their willingness to suffer for the truth. The Christian, who looks for a heavenly country, has even less reason to take his own life, for he knows that present sufferings work out an eternal weight of glory.

Augustine considers the objection that suicide might be justified to prevent future sin, either one’s own or another’s. He argues that this reasoning, if valid, would justify suicide immediately after baptism, when all past sins are forgiven, to avoid the possibility of future sin. But this is plainly absurd. No one should commit a certain and present evil to avoid an uncertain and future one. If a woman fears she might consent to violation under pressure, she should trust in God’s grace to preserve her will, not take her own life. The motions of the flesh that occur without the will’s consent are not imputed as sin, whether one is awake or asleep. Augustine acknowledges that some women in times of persecution have drowned themselves to escape violation and are venerated as martyrs, but he refuses to judge their case, leaving it to God who knows the secrets of the heart. For the general rule, he maintains that suicide is never lawful except by direct divine command, which must be clearly attested.

Augustine then addresses the question of why God permitted these outrages to befall continent Christian women. He suggests that God may have allowed them to cure pride or to prevent pride from arising. Some women may have been unduly puffed up by their continence and desirous of human praise; the loss of that which wins human applause may have been necessary to teach them humility. Others, though not yet proud, might have become so had they not been humbled by suffering. In either case, the loss is not of chastity but of the occasion for pride. God, who delights in the purity of his saints, would not have permitted these disasters if they could destroy the sanctity he had bestowed. The women who suffer can be assured that their chastity remains intact, for it is preserved by the steadfastness of their will and the grace of God.

In the final chapters, Augustine exposes the true motive of the pagan critics. They complain of Christianity not because they love virtue but because they desire to live in shameful luxury without disturbance. Their longing for peace and prosperity is not for the sake of using these blessings temperately and piously but for the sake of running riot in every kind of pleasure. Augustine cites the example of Scipio Nasica, the Roman pontiff who was unanimously judged the best citizen of his time. When the senate debated whether to destroy Carthage, Nasica opposed the measure, fearing that the removal of a great rival would lead to moral decay. He understood that fear is a wholesome guardian for citizens and that security is the enemy of weak minds. When Carthage was destroyed, his fears were realized: concord was destroyed by sedition, civil wars brought massacres and proscriptions, and the lust of rule subdued the citizens under the yoke of a few. Nasica also opposed the construction of a permanent theater, warning that the luxurious manners of Greece would sap Roman virtue. So persuasive was his speech that the senate prohibited even the temporary benches that had been used for theatrical performances.