Theodicy and Chaste Women

In Book 1 of the City of God, Augustine responds to critics who pointed out that Christians and pagans, good and bad people, suffered equally in the destruction of Rome. As he summarizes the argument at the beginning of Book 2, he wrote to “relieve the anxieties which disturb many when they observe that the blessings of God, and the common and daily casualties, fall to the lot of bad men and good without distinction” (2.2).

Yet, his “main” aim is more specific: He wants to “minister some consolation to those holy and chaste women who were outraged by the enemy, in such a way as to shock their modesty, though not to sully their purity, and that I might preserve them from being ashamed of life, though they have no guilt to be ashamed of” (2.2). He is writing about Christian women who were raped during the pillaging of Rome. He assures them that their souls remained pure because they were violated without their consent, whatever men had done to their bodies.

So, Book 1 lays the foundations of a sort of theodicy, discusses providence and God’s involvement in calamitous events, sketches a theory of the relation of body and soul, clarifies the Christian notion of purity, engages in sharp polemics with critics of the church – Book 1 sets up all this theological apparatus to a pastoral concern. A central part of the opening argument of the greatest work of Latin patristic theology, arguably the greatest works of Christian theology ever written, devotes the resources of Christian theology to relieve rape victims of shame.

In his integration of biblical, philosophical, historical, and pastoral concerns, as in so much else, Augustine remains the model to which all theologians aspire.