Traditional Roman Republic Virtues versus Christian Virtues - Essay Example

Traditional Roman Republic Virtues versus Christian Virtues Two primary sources showcase female martyrs because of how they fought for their faith and virtues. “The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas” shows an excerpt of the prison diary of a young Christian woman, Perpetua, who died as a martyr in Carthage in 202 or 203 CE, along with several other martyrs.1 The next text is Livy’s “The Rape of Lucretia,” from the History of Rome,2 which narrates how the King of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus’s son, Sextus Tarquinius, raped the virtuous Roman matron, Lucretia. The text shows that the developing Christian tradition values women and men as virtuous when they embrace suffering for their faith over family duties and state oppression of their religious right, while the traditional Roman Republic promotes the virtue of purity for women and the virtue of courage for men through defending the honor of their family at all costs. Perpetua and Lucretia depict different virtues as women, wherein Perpetua is shown as virtuous because she willingly accepted suffering for her faith, while Lucretia took suffering in her own hands and asked others to avenge her marred integrity because she and her society assigned ultimate virtue on her sexual purity. Perpetua is different from Lucretia because she lived by the Christian virtue of suffering for her faith rather than renouncing it. She shows courage in accepting her suffering. Her punishment was to face gladiators, and, before they killed her, she told her brother and others: “You must all stand fast in the faith and love one another, and do not be weakened by what we have gone through.”3 She embraced her suffering with pride and love. Lucretia did not die for her religious beliefs, but because of her soiled sexuality. She did not even wait for others to punish her for being impure. She said this before committing suicide: “I will absolve myself of blame, and I will not free myself from punishment. No woman shall use Lucretia as her example in dishonor.”4 She could not accept living anymore after being raped because she and her society believed that women must be sexually pure (i.e. have sexual relations only with their husbands). Lucretia killed herself because of her shame, while Perpetua sacrificed her life for her Christian faith. The male interlocutors in these women’s lives lived according to their cultural virtues, wherein Christian males in Perpetua’s life suffered with her. The Christian males did not value courage through violent battles, but, like Perpetua, accepted suffering from their oppressors. Saturus, one of the captured slaves and martyrs, told the soldier Pudens before he died: “Good-bye. Remember me, and remember the faith. These things should not disturb you but rather strengthen you.”5 He did not strike these soldiers back. He did not feel ill towards them too. Instead, similar to Perpetua, he embraced his suffering as a symbol of his courage as a Christian. The non-Christians in Perpetua’s life asked her to denounce her faith because the traditional Roman republic was largely pagan and value family obligations over religious dedication. Perpetua’s father repeatedly asked Perpetua to give up her faith, so that she may live. He told her: Daughter, he said, have pity on my grey head--have pity on me your father, if I deserve to be called your father, if I have favoured you above all your brothers, if I have raised you to reach this prime of your life. Do not abandon me to be the reproach of men. Think of your brothers, think of your mother and your aunt, think of your child, who will not be able to live once you are gone. Give up your pride! You will destroy all of us! None of us will ever be able to speak freely again if anything happens to you.6 This example shows how his father values their family roles more than their religion. He wanted to make Perpetua guilty for choosing God over them, as he reminded her that he loved her above all siblings and that he expected her obedience. His statement reflects the virtues of the traditional Roman society that valued the family over religion and paganism over Christianity. Contrary to the males in Perpetua’s life, the males in Lucretia’s life did not accept the suffering of Lucretia because they resorted to violent vengeance. They were not like Perpetua’s male family members who allowed Perpetua to die. These males submitted to the will of the state, while Lucretia’s family would not permit injustice to fall on them. Brutus took the bloody knife from Lucretia and said: By this blood, which was so pure before the crime of the prince, I swear before you, O gods, to chase the King Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, with his criminal wife and all their offspring, by fire, iron, and all the methods I have at my disposal, and never to tolerate Kings in Rome evermore, whether of that family of any other.7 The first sentence shows that the men also believe that Lucretia was no longer pure because she was raped. The next sentences show that they valued courage in defending the family’s honor. They valued vengeance that was wide in extent, since they wanted the King, his wife, and all their children to suffer because of the mistake of one family member only. In addition, they applied discrimination for the rest of other Kings of Rome and their families. Their grief was so intense because of the soiled virtues of their female family member and the importance of bravery in attaining justice for her. Perpetua and Lucretia, together with their male interlocutors, are portrayed as having different virtues, depending on their Christian or traditional Roman pagan beliefs. Perpetua and her fellow Christian prisoners valued their Christian faith over their family duties and embraced suffering for Christianity. Lucretia and her male interlocutors valued her sexual purity above all, where Lucretia would rather die than live as a raped woman, and her male family members would want to kill the whole family of that who raped her and to ban Roman kings and their families in their lands. Hence, these women died for different reasons and through different means because of the divergence in virtues that they personally believed in versus that of the traditional Roman society. Read More