Reading Agnes: The Rhetoric of Gender in Ambrose and Prudentius

Abstract

Readings of two late fourth-century versions of the tale of the virgin martyr Agnes illumine the place of gender within a late ancient Christian discourse that locates itself in complex relation to both a Christian and a classical past. In Ambrose's account, the tale of Agnes, juxtaposed with that of Thecla, constitutes a reworking of the apocryphal tale of the conversion and witness of a sexually continent woman. In Prudentius' text, allusions to the virginal heroine of classical tragedy represent Agnes as a new Polyxena. Through such intertextual play, the ambiguously gendered virgin martyr emerges not only as a model for the disciplining of the would-be virago of female asceticism but also as a representation of the "body" of a discourse of orthodoxy that deploys the dual rhetorics of martyrdom and empire, inscribing itself as feminine in an ascetic subversion of the masculine discourse of clssical speech, whereby the transcendently male authority of this Christian discourse is paradoxically asserted.

Mimicking Virgins: Colonial Ambivalence and the Ancient Romance

“…Aubin 1998 follows Perkins and Cooper closely in making a case for reading the Apocryphal Acts-in particular the Acts of Thekla-as resistant romances, highlighting ideological differences between pagan novels and the Christian texts. Note that my own earlier study, Burrus 1987, while pursuing a folkloristic approach to the Apocryphal Acts and thus resisting their identification as literary romances, likewise emphasizes the ideological differences between the Greek romances and the Christian Acts-positions I obviously modify in this present essay.…”

“…In KL, it is our interest that fades as Achilles Tatius lets his text peter out, neglecting even to close the framing dialogue with which it began-neglecting, moreover, to describe the couple's long-deferred lovemaking, "rites of Aphrodite" now narratively displaced by the celebration of their "long-awaited marriage," where it is presumably not Aphrodite but Artemis who gives the bride away. (Is she thus still a "virgin"-if one can speak of such a thing as a married 21 I have elsewhere explored patterns of male appropriation of female virginity within Christian texts of the late Roman empire: e.g., Burrus 1995 and2000.112-22, 131-33, 135-52, 179-83. For a comparative treatment of the male appropriation of female virginity in rabbinic texts, see Boyarin 1999.67-92.…”

The cult of Saint Thecla in Anglo-Saxon England: the problem of Aldhelm‘s sources

“…63 Burrus then quotes Ambrose, who states that the beasts turned their eyes to the ground, as 'no-one', neither men nor beasts, THE CULT OF SAINT THECLA 49 should see the naked virgin. In Ambrose's text, the lion initially represents the sexual violence signalled by both the 'rage' (furor) of Thecla's would-be husband and the 'immodest eyes' (impudicos ... oculos) of the male onlookers who gaze upon the spectacle of her nakedness; yet, 'by some transfusion of nature' the beast achieves a restrained attitude of masculine reverence for the self-sacrificing virgin who, we are told, freely offers to the lion her 'vital parts' (vitalia ipsa).…”

Rewriting masculinity with male bodies: The sexualization of male martyrs in Prudentius’ Peristephanon

“…Agnes stridently refutes the Tyrannus, stating that, while he may kill her, Christ will protect her virginity and her pudor (31-7). So the iudex orders her stripped in the square but the crowds turn away to protect Agnes' 'verendum' ('thing that must be venerated or feared') 65 (38-42) 66 .…”

“…Presumably he has the power to command Laurence to pay "taxes" but he does not demand, command or even simply ask. Conybeare notes a lack of 'authoritative masculine pronoun[s]' in the prefect's speech and highlights his use of impersonal constructions (66,68,83) 130…”