The passion of Perpetua - Christian woman martyred in Carthage in A.D. 203

day on which Perpetua and Felicitas, holy slave-women of God, were

rewarded with the crown of martyrdom which [words] ... we have heard

as they were read aloud ... those words, so shining and luminescent, we

have taken in by ear, we have considered in our minds, and honoured in

our belief.(80) Beginning with a concession -- that his talents might not be equal to the praise they merit -- Augustine launches into his interpretation of her words for his listeners: "For what could be more glorious than these women, whom men admire much more readily than they imitate?" He then gives expression to a normal male judgement: measured against the standards set for excellence, the actions of these women have outdone those of men. But he is then left with the task of explaining their unusual "virility". He appeals first to Pauline scripture, where, in the millennial scheme of things, actual gender differences are to be abolished: according to Paul "there will be found inside men neither male nor female".(81) Then he goes on to make the connection:

even in the case of these women -- although female in body, the virtue

of their mind/soul (anima) concealed the sexuality of their flesh, and what

is considered so shameful in the physical limbs of their bodies does not

appear in their simple actions. To Augustine, Perpetua's sexual chastity becomes the key to her being able to tread on the snake's head in her vision -- from which claim he is then able to make a connection never apparent in Perpetua's own words: "Thus the head of that old snake, which was the cause of the fall of woman, was made into a step by which she [Perpetua] could ascend [to Paradise]". That is to say, Augustine is able to suggest to his listeners an essential fault in Perpetua's gender, to which he can then attach the imagery of the snake -- a not overly subtle way of bringing to the mind of his parishioners a different sort of moral order in which Perpetua's achievements can be placed.(82) He can then appropriate her gaze and transfer it to his auditors who, with the "gaze of faith", can witness the martyr's crown, and who can now understand that, in facing the charge of "that savage cow", Perpetua was merely shedding her own body in this world.

The second of Augustine's sermons replays many of these same themes, only with greater force. "For the [martyr's] crown is more glorious", he begins:

in the case where the sex is weaker. Because, it goes without saying, a

male mind in a female body is able to achieve greater things [relatively

speaking, that is] so long as feminine fragility does not give out beneath

such an onerous burden.(83) He then once again specifically attaches what Perpetua and Felicitas did to domination by men, by husbands, and from there to the traditional "Eve theme":

It was good for them that they clung to one husband, He to whom the

Church, being one, is presented as a pure virgin. It was a good thing, I

say, that they clung to that man from whom they drew the strength they