{"id":16981,"date":"2015-01-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1806"},"modified":"2015-01-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T00:00:00","slug":"rape-and-consolatio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/01\/rape-and-consolatio\/","title":{"rendered":"Rape and Consolatio"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

I<\/span>n a 2013 article in Augustinian Studies<\/em>, Melanie Webb argues that Augustine challenged a deeply entrenched Roman and North African \u201cheritage of valorized suicides\u201d in his \u00a0treatment of rape, shame, and suicide in the first book of\u00a0City of God<\/em><\/a>. That heritage included Christian writers, like Jerome who argued that when chastity is lost \u201call virtue crumbles\u201d (37).<\/p>\n

According to Webb, Augustine\u2019s rejection of this tradition was far more basic than many recent interpreters have suggested. Contrary to some depictions of Augustine, she writes that \u201che is repulsed by the idea that Lucretia\u2014or any woman\u2014could have \u2018enjoyed\u2019 or \u2018wanted\u2019 rape\u201d (40\u201341). In fact, \u201cAugustine does not understand rape primarily as a sexual encounter, but as torture and bereavement,\u201d something that \u201cwarrants consolation\u2014a judgment, it seems, that Augustine is the first to make\u201d (41).<\/p>\n

To make her case, Webb pays close attention to the structure of Augustine\u2019s argument. She notes how he juxtaposes the story of the excruciating torture of Regulus with the story of the rape of Lucretia, pointing to verbal echoes that suggest that Augustine considered the two events to be part of the same genus. To be raped is to be experience a kind of confinement, enslavement, and torture.<\/p>\n

In Augustine\u2019s analysis, Lucretia\u2019s suicide following her rape arises from a mistaken notion of pudicitia<\/em>, \u201cchastity.\u201d In Livy\u2019s account, when Tarquin damages Lucretia\u2019s chastity, her marriage and her standing in the world is destroyed. The wound of rape can be atoned only by the further wound of suicide, a sacrificial act that restores the dignity that she had lost. For Augustine, this is erroneous from the foundations, since \u201cLucretia\u2019s chastity (pudicitia<\/em>) is never at stake in the rape,\u201d and she only thinks so because she mistakenly locates the \u201cquality of pudicitia<\/em> soundly in her body, and does not allow it to be a quality of her moral subjectivity\u201d (42). Lucretia\u2019s chastity had not in fact been damaged at all, and she did no wrong until she took her own life.<\/p>\n

B<\/span>ut the story is not only an indictment of Lucretia for self-murder, but an indictment of the values of Roman valor that pressured her to do so: \u201cAugustine argues that it is motivated by shame (pudor), a social phenomenon such that all of Rome is implicated in her death. . . . [N]othing in Roman society made continued living desirable or trustworthy after her rape\u201d (43).<\/p>\n

Recent scholars have claimed that Augustine laid the foundations for contemporary views that women desire and enjoy being raped. According to Jennifer Thompson, \u201cAugustine believes that rape is a crime, not because it employs violence or destroys the victim\u2019s integrity, but rather because the victim may enjoy it and therefore stain the purity of her will\u201d (40). Webb shows that this analysis confuses terms and concepts that Augustine keeps separate. He distinguishes between arousal (uoluptas<\/em>) and enjoyment or desire (libido<\/em>); the former refers to physical responses to stimuli, but the fact that a woman\u2019s body responds to stimulating during a rape doesn\u2019t mean she enjoyed it. A woman could no more enjoy being raped than Regulus could enjoy torture. Subtle psychologist that he is, Augustine recognizes that a woman\u2019s arousal while being raped contributes to the shame she feels after. At the center of his discussion is the assurance that a rape victim does not need to be ashamed either of the fact of her violation or the arousal she might have experienced in the midst of it: \u201cWhile shame is merited by the disobedience of libido<\/em> to uoluntas<\/em>, Augustine does not describe a woman\u2019s arousal in rape with reference to the woman\u2019s libido. . . .\u00a0<\/em>Because uoluptas<\/em> and libido<\/em> are not interchangeable terms, one may experience uoluptas<\/em> even when aliena libido<\/em> is perpetrated on one\u2019s body\u201d\u00a0<\/i>(51\u20132).<\/p>\n

To the Christian women victimized by barbarian conquerors, Augustine offers consolation. Webb notes that consolatio<\/em> is offered in cases of loss and bereavement, especially to women who have lost sons. By responding to rape with consolatio<\/em>, Augustine changes the context and terms for evaluation of rape. It is not a violation of chastity, and thus no cause for shame. Augustine treats rape as social death and bereavement, and upends Roman and Roman Christian ways of responding to rape: \u201cWith stories of virtuous suicides in the air, if women did not do absolutely everything they could to prevent their own rapes, then they were under suspicion and, in effect, exiled from their communities. The exile was so total that, if any women did not commit suicide (or if they evaded being killed by their fathers or brothers) as an attestation of their innocence, they have been struck from the extant historical record\u201d (55).<\/p>\n

Augustine is the first to address rape victims with consolatio<\/em>, and in so doing he turns consolation into social critique: \u201chis consolation cannot simply be an exhortation to rape-survivors to re-orient themselves within a society that regards them with shaming suspicion. It must also be an admonition to civil leaders to re-orient society toward rape-survivors as dignified women without requiring \u2018proof\u2019 of innocence. Augustine initiates his project of social criticism through the genre of consolatio<\/em>\u201d (57).<\/p>\n

Melanie Webb, \u201c\u2018On Lucretia Who Slew Herself\u2019: Rape and Consolation in Augustine\u2019s De ciuitate dei<\/em>,\u201d Augustinian Studies<\/em> 44:1 (2013)37-58. Thanks to Dennis Hou for alerting me to the article.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a 2013 article in Augustinian Studies, Melanie Webb argues that Augustine challenged a deeply entrenched Roman and North African \u201cheritage of valorized suicides\u201d in his \u00a0treatment of rape, shame, and suicide in the first book of\u00a0City of God. That heritage included Christian writers, like Jerome who argued that when chastity is lost \u201call virtue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,1183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-augustine","category-rape"],"yoast_head":"\nRape and Consolatio<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a 2013 article in Augustinian Studies, Melanie Webb argues that Augustine challenged a deeply entrenched Roman and North African “heritage of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/01\/rape-and-consolatio\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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