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A Body to Love and Detest

Kerin Graham Hoffman

In the early centuries of the first millennium C.E., the complicated transition from Roman paganism to Christianity became a dominant issue in the lives of all who lived within the Roman sphere of influence. One of the dominant issues within these religions, and indeed in all religious traditions throughout time, was the image of body and its role in earthly affairs as well as in afterlife and salvation. Major discrepancies and similarities exist between pagan and Christian conceptions of the body, as well as within the religions themselves. Tradition, social necessity, human desire and human willpower all contributed to a menagerie of beliefs and practices.

Four literary works from this time, approximately from the beginning of the millennium to the fifth century, demonstrate the many interconnecting attitudes of the period toward the body, sexuality and purity: Lucius Apuleius’ The Golden Ass, Augustine’s Confessions, Vibia Perpetua’s The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity and Gerontius’ The Life of Melania the Younger. While all agree that it is the soul which is able to understand God, each have a unique view of the physical body’s role in that spiritual relationship. From virginity to sex during wedlock to promiscuity, each sees her or his body as virtuous or corrupted, a vessel for Christ, an instrument of pleasure, or both. However what is certain is that the differences between pagan and Christian belief are not clearly definable. Contrary to stereotypical characterization, pagans were not all promiscuous and Christians were not all celibate flagellants. Through a close reading of the writings of these authors it becomes apparent that the existence and measure of these themes varied from person to person, depending on circumstance and personality.

First, Roman pagan society had, at the very least, a genuine appreciation for the human form and its capabilities. The very principles and structure of their beliefs did not mandate otherwise. Venus, the goddess of Love, and her notoriously effective son Cupid were prominent, respectable gods whose actions and connotations evoked passion (spiritual and physical) as well as reverence. Furthermore, the mortal tendency to love and lust was an emulation of the gods themselves— Mount Olympus was not known for its lack of sexual bantering and promiscuity among its worshipful immortals. Apuleius’ The Golden Ass is a perfect example of this attitude. The main character, the author himself, becomes involved with a maid, Fotis, while he is a guest at her master’s house, and theirs becomes an affair of tireless physical passion.

Not once in Lucius’ account is there mentioned a feeling of regret toward his actions, nor one of fault or impurity. In his Address to the Reader the author asks to be excused for the oddity of being transformed into an ass—not for the impropriety of his actions as a human. The love between Fotis and Lucius, except for the fatigue caused by such exercise, is a pleasurable medicine and not a sin. Both feel exhausted yet rejuvenated, satisfied and titillated. At one point Lucius implores Fotis to “soothe my agony with a single kiss”(Apuleius 32). Furthermore, when he tells her he is “dying” out of need for her, she promises to heal him with the power of her body.

Apart from physical satiation, the characters demonstrate an admiration for the body and its facility. During their first night together, as Fotis undresses herself and lets down her hair, she is “transformed into a living statue: the Love-goddess rising from the sea,” and Lucius is soon after overcome by her “supple hips” (Apuleius 38). The comparison to Venus, the paramount beauty, and appreciation of Fotis’ figure connote more than a desire to have sex purely for personal enjoyment. Instead Lucius and Fotis enjoy the taste and sight of each other as well as touch, and value the body for its powers of fulfillment, release and earthly satisfaction.

The sentiments of Lucius and Fotis represent the bulk of their pagan society. Yet equally important is the small population of people who live a different life—one of complete devotion to a god or goddess. For example, at the end of The Golden Ass Lucius’ human form is restored by the goddess Isis, on the condition that he apply himself completely to her service. He must become a priest, a job that requires chastity, fasting and meditation—setting aside all previous emotions and needs to focus only on the goddess.

Therefore while Lucius’ tradition of sexual freedom is very different from the standard life of an early Christian, the “more Christian” concept of complete devotion to a deity was not unknown. Because of this, some scholars of Apuleius conclude that he writes a religious novel; that the transformation at the end from miserable ass to goddess-loving human is symbolic of discarding pagan folly.

However in his Address to the Reader Apuleius characterizes his work as “a string of anecdotes” intended purely for entertainment. According to him the book is not an attempt to instruct or proselytize, but is designed for enjoyment. Certainly amusing is the author’s choice of beast—the ass is one of the more awkward and amusing animals. The hilarity of Lucius’ calamitous mishaps while in the form of an ass overshadows claims (again mentioned in the Introduction) of the ass as a symbol of both licentiousness and sovereignty; his comedy is a tool of the author. The requirements of Apuleius’ devotion to Isis are not a punishment for past transgressions or a deliverance from the symbolism of living as an ass. Rather, Isis recognizes him “on account of his former innocence and good behavior”—for being an honorable citizen and a fair master who has committed no crimes of moral or physical consequence (Apuleius 273).

In stark contrast to this is Augustine, a fourth Century figure destined for sainthood, writing in the Confessions about his personal struggle to cast away bodily sin and embrace God without doubt or hesitation. Similar to the fate of Lucius, early Christians felt they could not achieve the latter without accomplishing the former. Monks, priests, virgins and laypeople alike strove to overcome the desires of the body in order to concentrate on the mind and soul, and to move closer to an understanding of God.

Writing retrospectively, Augustine tells of his lustful youth, spent in “sins of the flesh which defiled my soul” (Augustine 43). He connects the misuse of his body with an unclean soul, and this unclean soul with an inability to comprehend the will of God to alter his ways. His sin becomes so pervasive that “[he] could not distinguish the clear light of true love from the murk of lust” (Augustine 43). He cannot see God through the smog of lust within his soul, and neither can he hear His words, “For I had been deafened by the clank of my chains,” or, in other words, his punishment (Augustine 43).

Augustine does consider his body a vessel of sin. He does not go as far as self-mutilation or starvation, yet scorns his body as weak and inadequate, unable to resist the seductions of the devil. Augustine has a passion for God that he spends the majority of his life trying to fulfill. His ceaseless discourse on the helplessness of his body in the face of sexual pleasure (as well as moral descent) indicates how deeply early Christians were willing to suffer (usually in the form of physical neglect) for enlightenment and salvation. To Augustine and others, the path to God is almost exclusively reached through the soul and heart, not the unclean body.

During his struggle to reach God while at the same time maintaining his unchaste life (for fear of failure should he attempt celibacy), Augustine considers marriage as an alternative. He convinces himself that a lawful, monogamous relationship, under the pretext of producing an heir for the betterment of family and society, would satisfy both his need for carnal pleasures and his desire to avoid an eternity in Hell. Yet while he waits for his bride to reach a marriageable age, Augustine again succumbs to his body and “because I was more a slave of lust than a true lover of marriage,” he takes another mistress and destroys the sanctity of his betrothal (Augustine 131).

The institution of marriage is the exception where acceptance of sexual intercourse is concerned. Because of its justification, Augustine sees it as the middle path—a compromise —although his motives are not entirely pure. He is unable to resist the lure of the body, and this presents the principal torment for the majority of his life. Augustine wishes to be able to discipline himself enough to emulate a devotion such as Lucius’, but cannot. This leads to both a pathetic condemnation of his body and a plea to God to aid him in the struggle against evil and temptation. His body is the root of what he considers his greatest weakness, and a hindrance to any remedy.

While Augustine cannot overcome his body so late in life and after so much time spent indulging it, those who are raised in a generally customary environment could use their obligatory marriage as just what Augustine strove for—a sinless imperfection. Certainly, not every married couple in Late Antique Rome could boast of a blissful sex life. The importance lies in an individual’s ability to live a life without virginity and with all the cares and responsibilities of the world and still be able to find God. Moreover, saints could be made out of martyrs with a spouse and children.

In Pepetua’s The Passion of Saints Felicity and Perpetua, both saints are married with children. They are members of the Roman aristocracy, condemned to execution by the pagan emperor. Although Perpetua herself writes most of the narrative, contemporary witnesses wrote parts of the beginning and end. Nowhere is the saints’ marriage or motherhood mentioned as disgraceful or impure, and their relatively normal and comfortable lives do not diminish the significance of their martyrdom. Felicity’s pregnancy even provides the grounds for the postponement of her torture because “it is not lawful for women that are with child to be brought forth for torment” (Perpetua 162). This is probably due in part to the pagan view, as seen in Apuleius, that sex and love are natural, not taboo.

Although she does not shy away from her gruesome fate, Perpetua, like Augustine, makes no mention of a desire for self-mortification or denial. On the contrary, she often refers to the comfort of her physical body. Perpetua is able to convince a prison guard that during a particular feast day she and the other prisoners should be fed well and made comfortable, to display the wealth and benevolence of the emperor. Later, when Perpetua is finally given to the beasts to be devoured, she attends first to her appearance and then to her impending fate when “her robe being rent at the side, she drew it over to cover her thigh, mindful rather of modesty than of pain” (Perpetua 63). Perpetua’s body is not virginal, yet virtuous and beautiful just the same.

Through the pieces of her character revealed in The Passion, the author suggests that Perpetua is married out of love or necessity rather than purely lust, and lives without sin. By living an honorable life her soul is left untainted and she is able to recognize the path of God and to trust in Christianity in the face of opposition and death. Through belief in Christ her body has become a “vessel” for Christ (Perpetua 58). It is not meant to be hurt unnecessarily or neglected, neither subjected to sinful lust nor completely denied every satisfaction of a worldly existence. Through her body Perpetua lives in this world both to fulfill her role in society and adhere unflinchingly to her beliefs. Through her body she may live the will of God, and when that body is dead her still untainted soul will transcend the physical world and enter Heaven.

Gerontius’ The Life of Melania the Younger provides another example of belief in the value of the human body. Again, Melania is a member of the Roman aristocracy, forced into an arranged marriage. She is raised within the influence of her grandmother, a devout and earnest Christian, who greatly affects her way of thinking. However, unlike Perpetua, Melania expresses the painful knowledge that her true destiny lies with “complete” devotion to Christ. She is “[w]ounded by divine love,” which for her translates into a need to be, among other things, chaste (Gerontius 27). She entreats her husband to abstain from intercourse, offering him all that she has, “if only you will leave my body free so that I may present it spotless, with my soul, to Christ on that fearsome day. For it is in this way that I shall fulfill my desire for God” (Gerontius 28). Furthermore, it is through chastity that they both “will see the power of Christ” (Gerontius 30). Clearly, according to Melania spiritual proximity to Christ and a body saved only for Christ’s use are crucial parallels.

Yet the differentiation between disdain for sex and lust and the hatred of the physical body itself is important. For Melania,

[t]he present life is brief, like a dream in every way. Why then do we corrupt our bodies that are temples of the lord…? Why do we exchange the purity in which Christ teaches us to live for momentary corruption and filthy pleasures? (Gerontius 47)

Like Perpetua and Augustine, Melania views her body as a space for Christ to dwell, as a sacred place. It is not the body that is naturally corrupt and polluted, but instead the acts that the body may perform that taint it if left to suffer temptation by a weak heart. Therefore according to Melania sin, not the body, prevents salvation.

In her desire to atone for the past misuse of her body and prove her humility, Melania also represents another aspect of Christian conviction—the belief that the body is an entity to be disciplined (and unlike Augustine, her contemporary, she is able to achieve that discipline). For after a sin of the flesh has been committed, one’s body is no longer a haven for Christ but a pawn of the devil. In Melania’s case, although she has wholeheartedly abandoned corporeal gratification, she believes that no amount of good deeds can save her from the grasp of Satan.

Thus, unlike Perpetua and Augustine, Melania willingly harms and denies her body. Melania scorns all luxury; she wears garments of coarse wool and abrasive hair shirts, while committing herself to strict regimes of fasting, sleeping and praying. Meanwhile she rejects the suggestion that she is wearing herself out. For, as the holy man Nestoros tells her, “the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared to the coming glory that is to be revealed to us” (Gerontius 51). To prove her penitence and devotion to God Melania forces herself to live chastely and sparingly while urging others to do the same. She considers her body to be corrupted by sexual acts and will gladly spend the rest of her life in atonement for her body’s actions, regardless of her desire from an early age to avoid just that.

Apuleius, Augustine, Perpetua and Melania each hold different beliefs about the body. It is interesting that the two women are much better at holding to their convictions, and that even though they come from very similar backgrounds, those convictions lead them in very different directions. Apuleius and Augustine both begin and end in the same degree of sexual activity, yet their reasons for changing could not be more different. While the nature of Apuleius devotion to Isis requires that he live in celibacy, there is no reason to believe that he would have chosen this path under normal circumstances. The Christians, however, show an array of popular alternatives. Pagans did indeed find pleasure in the body, while Christians found pleasure in everything from the voice of Christ to the filth of sin. The last will bar the way to salvation and yet the first will all but hold one’s hand the whole way there.

References

Apuleius. 1951. The Transformations of Lucius Otherwise Known as The Golden Ass. Trans. Robert Graves. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Augustine.1961. Confessions. Trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin. London: Penguin Books.

Gerontius. 1984. Life of Melania the Younger. Trans. Elizabeth A. Clark. Toronto.

Perpetua. 1998. “The Passion of the Saints Felicity and Perpetua.” Trans. W. H. Shewring. In Patrick J. Geary, ed., Readings in Early Medieval History. Vol. I: The Early Middle Ages, pp. 58-64. Ontario: Canada.