Reading Agnes in Early Christianity: The Changing Images of St.

Agnes of Rome

Abstract

This paper examines the three earliest surviving accounts of St. Agnes’ martyrdom. It traces the

development of St. Agnes narratives in early Christianity and argues the authors shaped the martyrdom

according to their own political and religious concerns. At the same time, these authors collectively formed

an evovling virgin martyr tradition that represented how an ideal Christian looks like while the Constantin-

ian Christendom was establsihing itself.

Introduction

The Roman martyr Agnes, who died in the midst of the Great Persecution of Christians by the

Roman Emperor Diocletian (303-311 CE), was a particularly famous martyr among Early Christians. Nev-

ertheless, despite fourth-century archaeological evidence for her veneration around the Via Nomentana,

where her catacomb and Basilica are, there is no written narrative of her life until the late fourth and early

fifth centuries. Agnes’ popularity and undocumented life thus provided adequate potential and flexibility

for early Christian leaders to develop the cult in a way that suited their religious and political concerns.1 Fo-

cusing on the three earliest surviving accounts of Agnes’ passion, this paper explores the development of

St. Agnes narratives in early Christianity. More specifically, it examines the historical context of these ac-

counts and argues that the authors shaped the martyrdom according to their own agendas; while at the

same time, collectively formed an evolving virgin martyr tradition that represented the ideal Christian

woman. The paper follows the chronological development of the texts. First, it briefly analyses the pre-nar-

1 This paper bases on an established acknowledgment in early martyrdom studies that Christian communities used martyrdom to
construct their own identity. In earlier era, Peter Brown speculates that the clergy promoted enthusiasm for the growing cult of
saints in order to maintain the congregation’s unity. Ref. Peter Brown, The Cult of Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 23-49. More recently, Elizabeth Castelli in Martyrdom and Memory examines the
relationship between the martyrs themselves and the communities who embraced them. According to Castelli, execution for
religious conviction does not make a martyr, but rather the community creates the martyr through interpreting that death. Eliza-
beth Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 29. Another book with similar aims is Lucy
Grig’s Making Martyrs in Late Antiquity (London: Duckworth, 2004).
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rative veneration of Agnes around her tomb in Rome. Then, it examines the texts of Pope Damasus (c.

304-384), Bishop Ambrose of Milan (c. 338-397), and the Iberian poet Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (348-

c. 405) within a broader fourth-century interpretive context correspondingly. Given that all of these writers

were either living in or having close connection with Rome in the fourth century, the analysis focuses main-

ly in Rome.

I. Prologue: Pre-textual Veneration of St. Agnes

Plenty of evidence suggest that the veneration of Agnes existed before its literary records. Agnes’

legend attests that she was martyred in Rome in the late third or early fourth century. Being a young noble

virgin, Agnes is renowned for defending her faith against paganism, in addition to preserving her virginity.

She was one of the first martyrs to be commemorated in Rome, and one of the earliest female saints to

have a substantial cult throughout the empire. Her cult on the Via Nomentana is testified by the Depositio

martyrum, Rome’s earliest calendar that existed in the mid-fourth century, suggesting that there were venera-

tions surrounding Agnes’ death in the early Christian community. 2 As noted by Damasus, Ambrose and

Prudentius, there were certainly some anecdotes about Agnes’ life in oral form; but the origins of her cult

are very obscure. Except for the pre-textual material evidence for her veneration in Rome, the root of her

story is hardly traceable today.3

Already in the mid-fourth century, Agnes’ popularity is indicated by the numerous portraits that

survive in gold-glass. Agnes’ importance as a Roman saint is demonstrated by her depiction together with

two prominent Roman saints: Peter and Paul. Indeed, Agnes is the most frequently represented saint after

these two.4 In the Roman catacomb of Panfilo, a fragment of gold-glass is probably the earliest fourth-cen-

2 Robert Markus, End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge: CUP, 1990), 98.

3Her exact death year is not provided, but tradition places her martyrdom around the Diocletian persecution. Alban Butler and
Paul Burns, Bulter’s Lives of the Saints: January (Tunbridge Wells, Kent: Burns & Oates Liturgical Press, 1995), 146.

4Lucy Grig, Making of Martyrs in Late Antiquity (London: Duckworth and Co., Ltd, 2004), 203-30. Also Lucy Grig, “Portraits,
Pontiffs and the Christianization of Fourth Century Rome,” Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 72, No. 4 (2004): 204.
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tury iconographical evidence of Agnes (Fig. 1).5 Architecturally, the complex of buildings on the Via No-

mentana, the catacombs, the Basilica of Sant’ Agnese, and the adjacent mausoleum of Santa Costanza, also

demonstrate the development of Agnes’ cult that pre-dates literary records. According to the Liber Pontifi-

calis, Constantine the Great (274-337) built the Basilica of Sant’ Agnese on Agnes’ tomb ex rogatu filiae suae.6

And Constantina who died in 354 had evidently already built her tomb-rotunda on the same site, presum-

ably between 337 and 351 when she lived in Rome before her departure to the East to marry Caesar Gal-

lus.7 On the funerary tempulum, an inscription ascribed to Constantina shows her adoration to the saint,

which states:

“I, Constantina, venerating God and dedicated to Christ, having provided all the expenses
with devoted mind. At divine bidding and with the great help of Christ, consecrated this
templum of Agnes, victorious virgin; because she has prevailed over the temples of all earth-
ly works, [Here] where the loftiest roof gleams with gold.” 8

Although the pre-text history of Constantina’s veneration to Agnes is still vague,9 her burial next to Agnes’

shrine is definitely a milestone in the development of the cult. After Constantina’s death, the burial com-

plex was continued in use by the Roman authorities.10

No matter the intention of the imperial desire to associate with Agnes, there is no doubt that

Agnes had already attained immense popularity in the Empire before her story was written down in the

5 The gold-glass shows a young woman with aristocratic headdress and hairstyle stands in orans position. The inscription
“A.G.N.E.S” clearly identifies her. In the background, there are scrolls, stars, and doves one on either side of the saint. The
doves are offering her the dual crowns. Ref. Ch. R. Morey and G. Ferrari, The Gold-Glass Collection of the Vatican Library with Addi-
tional Catalogues of Other Gold-Glass Collections (Vatican: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1959), ills. 75ff.

6 John R. Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 140.

7 Alan Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 138.

8Diehl, ILCV 1768, lines 1-6. I have followed above the translation given, with discussion, in Curran, Pagan City and Christian
Capital, 128.

9 Even Constantina’s name was confused in the hagiographical record. Repeatedly, Constantina appears as Constantia, Constantini
august filia. Constantia, however, was the name of Constantine’s sister, not his daughter. But both sixth-century texts Passio
Agentis and the Passion Gallicani erroneously assign the aunt’s name to her niece. Moreover, the reference of Agnes’ cure to
Constantina only emerges by the sixth century. Hannah Jones, “Agnes and Constantia: Domesticity and Cult Patronage in the
Passion of Agnes,” Cooper and Hillner, eds., Religion, Dynasty and Patronage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 119.

10 Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital, 140.

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fourth century. Based upon the pre-narrative material evidence, Agnes’ story was further delineated in the

literary sources as a form of culture making. By studying the historical context of each individual Agnes

source, one can recognise how the saint is shaped and used to constitute the surrounding community by

the authors’ concerns.

II. A Glorious Model: St. Agnes in Damasus’ Elogium

In the immediately post-Constantinian decades, Damasus, Bishop of Rome from 366 to 384, creat-

ed the earliest written account of St. Agnes’ martyrdom as a means to Christianise the city and to legitimise

his bishopric. His articulation came in the form of an elogium, made up of ten lines of dactylic hexameter

(an epic meter used by Virgil); it was inscribed at Agnes’ catacomb:

“Rumor tells that her holy parents related how

Agnes, at the mournful song of the horn, plucked up from
The lap of her nurse having suddenly ceased to be a girl;
She willingly refused the rage and threats of a savage tyrant:
She wished her noble body to burn with flames,
With her little strength she overcame immense fear,
And overspread hair to cover her nude limbs,
So that no face about to perish might see the temple of the lord.
Oh my venerable nourisher, oh holy glory of chastity,
I beg you to favour the prayers of Damasus, o glorious virgin.”11

A Willful Female Model

In this simple elogium, Damasus states two distinctive elements of Agnes’ martyrdom: her youth and

purity. Agnes’ exceptional youth is described as her sudden “plucked up from the lap of her nurse.” De-

spite her youth, however, she is portrayed as a determined martyr, who gladly rejected the perils from a

tyrant, and wished herself to be burnt. Agnes’ virginity is not explicitly mentioned here, but Damasus re-

ported a miracle of long flowing hair of Agnes to obscure the view of her naked body from her torturers.

Although this miraculous coverage is not necessarily interpreted as a protection and thus an emphasis on

11Damasus, “Carmina.” in J. P. Migne, ed. Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina (Paris, 1844-1890, suppl 1958-74), vol. 13, Col.
403A-405A. 1-10. My own translation.
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Agnes’ virginity, the miracle still reflects Damasus’ particular attitude toward the image of women. Indeed,

the concept of lust arising from seeing and being seen was already secure in early Christian tradition. Ter-

tullian (c.160-c.225), for example, urges the concealment of virgins, proclaiming the danger that awaits the

virgin without her veil. He also explains that the veil is a protective barrier against temptation and asserts

that the veil indicates virginity.12 Moreover, Damasus’ depiction of a concealed Agnes differs from that of

another well-received early female martyr: Perpetua. Perpetua writes about the significance of her own

bodily exposure through a dream, in which she eludes the male gaze by recasting her body as “male.”13

Damasus’ Agnes is also publicly exposed, but subsequently concealed by hair. In this way, Damasus por-

trayed Agnes as a youthful Christian woman, who bravely faced her martyrdom without subverting any

gender norms in Roman society. Unlike Perpetua, she was not a masculine figure, yet she was no less a glo-

rious martyr, revealed by her strength of will and endurance.

Considering Christianisation and Orthodoxy

This image of Agnes should also be examined in relation to Damasus’ political and religious con-

cerns, which are highly attached to the physical place where the elogium was craved. As a new Pope, Dama-

sus used the elogia to impose control over the Christian community at Rome.14 Agnes’ elogium was no excep-

tion of his project.

When Damasus became Pope, Rome was still filled with statues, temples and mausoleums all cov-

ered with their elogia dedicated to Rome’s glorious pagan exempla.15 Facing an enormous influx of new con-

verts, many of whom came from the pagan aristocracy, Damasus saw the urgency to offer them an alterna-

tive. As a virgin martyr who died during the last great persecution of Christians at Rome, Agnes stood as a

unique figure in this new Christian epoch. Her local glamour at Rome made her an excellent martyr for

12 Tertullian, De virginibus uelandis, 15.

13 “Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis,” X, 7, in J.A. Robinson., The Passion of Perpetua (New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2004).

14Dennis E. Trout, “Damasus and the invention of Early Christian Rome,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Vol. 33,
No. 3 (2003): 527.

15 Trout, “Damasus and the invention of Early Christian Rome,” 519.

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Damasus. By writing an elogium for Agnes at her shrine, Damasus exalted her as a glorious figure compara-

ble to pagan goddess. Agnes’ Roman identity was further addressed by the use of Virgilian meter. As Eliz-

abeth Clark puts it, in respond to Julian’s prohibition for Christians on studying classical rhetoric and

grammar, Damasus’ elogia served as pedagogical text to replace Virgil.16 Therefore, the Agnes elogium was an

attempt to establish the Church’s continuity with their Roman past, as well as a redefinition of what an ide-

al woman looks like in Christendom.

Besides Christianising Romans, because of the immediate events that happened at her shrine,

Agnes’ elogium also conveyed a strong representation of orthodoxy which was particularly important to

Damasus’ political life. Agnes’ shrine was attached to two major political events. The first one happened

before Damasus’ reign, when his predecessor Pope Liberius (d. 366) was exiled by Constantius II (317-361)

because of refusing Arianism, and a new Pope Felix II was elected. After three years, once Liberius re-

turned to Rome, he sought refuge with Constantina at Agnes’ shrine and asked her to negotiate on his be-

half with her brother Constantius.17 The Liber Pontificalis suggests that Liberius’ acquaintance with Constan-

tina was also a close bond with orthodoxy because she never took up the Arian position of her brother.

This doctrinal position was thus physically associated with Agnes’ shrine.18 The second event occurred

right after Liberius’ death. A group of clerics who had not perjured themselves during Liberius’ exile elect-

ed Ursinus as their new bishop, while the rest of the clergy supported Damasus. To eliminate the opposi-

tion, Damasus is said to have taken some objectionable actions to exile Ursinus. After the exile, Ursinus’

supporters gathered and held services at the Basilica to Saint Agnes in Via Nomenana. Damasus took this

as an affront to his authority and responded forcefully with a massacre. 19

16E.A. Clark and D.F. Hatch, The Golden Bough, the Oaken Cross: The Virgilian cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba (American Academy of
Religion: Texts and Translations, 1981), 7-8.

17 Andreas Agnellus, Liber Pontificalis, PLL, 1, 207.

18 Agnellus, Liber Pontificalis, 37.4.

19Ekhard Wirbelauer, ed., “Collectio Avellana,” 1.6-12., Zwei Papste in Rom : der Konflikt zwischen Laurentius und Sym-
machus (498-514): Studien und Texte (Tuduv: Munchen, 2007); Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital, 145.
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 These two events gave a special meaning to Agnes’ shrine, which represented the unbroken line of

orthodoxy as well as the ties to the previous bishop. Therefore, Damasus’ elogium to the martyr demonstrat-

ed the strategic importance of Agnes for his early papacy, and was as a proof of his legitimacy.20 His el-

ogium to Agnes represented devotion to the “orthodox martyr” and was thus a proclamation of his own

orthodoxy. By providing the only hagiographical description of Agnes at her shrine, and shaping her as a

glorious virgin martyr, Damasus was the first to use the memory of Agnes to shape the Christian commu-

nity around him according to his priorities and purposes.

III. A Modest Virgin: St. Agnes in Ambrose’s De virginibus

Within a decade of Damasus’ elogium, Ambrose wrote the first prose narrative of Agnes’ martyr-

dom in De virginibus, a public commemoration to virginity written to his sister Marcellina in Rome after he

served as bishop of Milan for only two years.21 Due to his aristocratic background and family connections,

Ambrose was particularly well connected with the city of Rome at the beginning of his tenure.22 His rela-

tionship between Pope Liberius and Damasus was an important component in the development of De vir-

ginibus, especially for Agnes’ narrative. However, Ambrose’s enthusiasm on promoting virginity, and assign-

ing rule for female asceticism determined how Agnes was shaped into a modest exemplum of virgins in De

virginibus.

Passive Martyrdom, Active Chastity

Ambrose introduces Agnes with details leading up to the martyrdom that are not presented in

Damasus’ elogium. He defines Agnes’ martyrdom on the basis of her youth, her surrender to chastity and

20 Marianne Saghy notes that Damasus focused his attention on martyrs who had once been bishops in times of strife: Dama-
sus focused his attention on martyrs whom he could easily associate himself with. Saghy demonstrates how two associations
with former bishops of Rome served to bolster Damasus’ own authority. Curran demonstrates that much of Damasus’ building
occurred in areas of the city where his support was weakest, among the suburbia which surrounded the city itself. Marianne
Saghy, “Scinditur in partes populous: Pope Damasus and the Martyrs of Rome,” Early Medieval Europe 9(2000):3, 278; Curran, Pagan
City and Christian Capital, 142-146.

21Ambrose, “De virginibus,” I.1.2 in J. P. Migne, ed. Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina (Paris, 1844-1890, suppl 1958-74), vol.
16, Col. 187-232B. Boniface Ramsey trans., Ambrose (New York: Routledge, 1997), 73.

22 John Moorehead, Ambrose: Church and Society in the Late Roman World (New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 1999), 21.
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her violent death, praising it as “a new kind of martyrdom.”23 In fact, Ambrose’s Agnes is truly new in the

sense that she is depicted quite differently from previous female martyrs. While Roman female martyrs

were usually described as having masculine characteristics, Ambrose portrays Agnes as a passive figure who

accepts and awaits her fate.24 This submissive image of Agnes is further revealed when a comparison is

made with Perpetua’s narrative. The Passio Perpetuae portrays Perpetua as a proud, outspoken figure, who

embraces her gender transformation in a vision and fights as a soldier of Christ. This depiction contrasts

starkly with that of the Agnes who lowers her head as a sign of self-effacement in Ambrose’s text:

“She stood, she prayed, she bowed her neck. You could see the executioner tremble as if
he himself had been condemned, his hand shake, his face grow pale as he feared for anoth-
er’s distress, although the girl did not fear for her own.”25

The episode is surprisingly reminiscent of Perpetua’s death, but the way they approach that death is signifi-

cantly different:

“Perpetua, however, so that she might taste something of pain, having been struck on her
bone she cried out, and she herself bore the inexperienced gladiator’s wandering hand to
her own neck.” 26

Although Ambrose highlights Agnes’ fearless in facing death, he portrayed Agnes, unlike Perpetua, as a

subservient and silent victim of persecution.

While depicting Agnes as a passive sufferer, Ambrose exaggerates Agnes’ purity, innocence, and

exceptionally stalwart preservation of her virginity. Ambrose reported Agnes’ age as twelve, the common

23 Ambrose, “De virginibus,” I.2.8.

24 D. Boyarain, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999),
67-92; Ambrose, “De virginibus,” I.2.9.

25 Ambrose,, “De virginibus,” I.2.9.

26 “Passio S. Perpetuae,” XXI, 9.

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and legal age for Roman girls to be married and deflowered.27 Nevertheless, Ambrose has Agnes actively

avoiding marriage and embracing the torture with joy:

“No bride would hasten to her wedding as joyfully as the virgin proceeded with lively step
to the place of her torture, her head adorned not with curls but with Christ, encircled not
with flowers but with virtue.”28

Ambrose further addresses her refusal to marry at the end of his account:

“With what terror the executioner behaved in order to frighten her, with what flattery he
sought to persuade her! How many yearned for her to come to them in marriage! But she
said: ‘It would be an insult to my bridegroom for me to desire to be attractive. Let him take
me who was the first to choose me.’”29

Through a bridal metaphor, Ambrose describes the intimate relationship between Agnes and Christ, and

her chaste love toward Him. At the end, Agnes is assured a “crown” as a reward for her sacrifice. Notably,

Ambrose’s text is the earliest account that praises Agnes for winning double martyrdom: “she both re-

mained a virgin and she obtained martyrdom.”30 After all, Agnes is praised in Ambrose’s account as the

paragon of virginity.

Ambrose’s Theology of Virginity and Agnes’ Double Martyrdom

Ambrose explains that he chooses to write De virginibus because it helps preserve both his modesty

and the modesty of his audience.31 It is thus not surprising that he emphasises Agnes’ virginity and mod-

esty for theological purpose. As the Agnes narrative shows, however, virginity means more than sexual ab-

stinence to Ambrose. The proper demonstration of virginity—modesty—also matters.

27 Porneia Aline Rousselle, On Desire and the Body in Antiquity. trans. Felicia Pheasant, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 27. For the
early Church, Peter Brown claims “(t)he median age of Roman girls at marriage may have been as low as fourteen” (The Body and
Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988, 6). Brent D. Shaw
places brides’ average age at most likely around seventeen or eighteen, but acknowledges twelve as still the youngest legal age
(“The Age of Roman Girls at Marriage: Some Reconsiderations” The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 77 (1987), 30–46).

28 Ambrose, “De virginibus,” I.2.8.

29 Ambrose, “De virginibus,” I.2.9.

30 Ambrose, “De virginibus,” I.2.9.

31 Ambrose, “De virginibus,” I.1.1., 16.

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 “You [Agnes] have, then, a twofold martyrdom in one victim—that of modesty and that of reli-

gion.”32 Ambrose denotes this double martyrdom as a combination of modesty and religion, although later

authors consider the double crown to represent triumph in retaining one’s virginity (i.e. chastity) and the

act of death (i.e martyrdom).33 This emphasis on “modesty” recurs throughout Ambrose’s work and be-

comes a major factor in his interpretation of feminine sanctity, as he first outlined in De virginibus:

“Chastity is increased by its own sacrifices. It is not virginity which is bought at a price, and
not possessed through eagerness for virtue; it is not integrity which is bid upon in an auc-
tion, and weighed out for a time. The first victory of chastity is to conquer the desires of
one’s own faculties.” 34

In other words, “modesty” is an abstract quality which is obtained not only by being chaste but also by act-

ing modestly, as modesty reflects one’s real spirituality. A virgin must demonstrate her virginity to the

world. It is not enough to be a virgin, one must also outwardly exude that “modesty”. According to Am-

brose, this modesty is demonstrated through bashful and above all silent behaviour.35 The outward appear-

ance of the virgin is one that embodies this principle:

“Let virginity be signalled first by the voice, let modesty close the mouth, let religion ex-
clude weakness, let custom instruct nature. Her gravity is what should first announce a vir-
gin to me— her obvious modesty, her sober gait, her chaste visage: let these tokens of pu-
rity precede the other indications of virtue.”36

32 Ambrose, “De virginibus,” I.2.9.

33Although some modern translators choose to translate pudor as “chastity” rather than “modesty,” Ambrose frequently employs
the latin word castus when referring specifically to sexual abstinence. And pudor seems to denote a general quality.

34 Ambrose, “De virginibus,” I.2.12.

35 “It is better for a virgin to be parsimonious with her words than to abound in wickedness. For if women are ordered even to
be silent in church concerning divine matters and to ask their husbands at home (cf. 1 Cor. 14:34– 35), how cautious do we think
virgins should be, in whom modesty is an adornment of their age and silence a recommendation of their modesty?.” Ambrose,
“De virginibus,” III.3.9.

36 Ambrose, “De virginibus,” III.3.13.

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It is silence that commends modesty. This quality echoes how Ambrose shapes Agnes in De virginibus. By

portraying her as a submissive, meek virgin who beholds her own persecution, Ambrose is endorsing

Agnes as an epitome of modesty.

Through employing Agnes’ double crown as a concrete imagery, Ambrose is also connecting sexual

asceticism to martyrdom. At Christ’s incarnation, Ambrose believes that Heaven started to infuse itself

into the earthly realm, repairing the effects of sin. He thus claims:

“After the Lord entered into this body and joined the Deity to a body without any stain of
confusion, this custom characteristic of the heavenly life [virginity] spread throughout the
world and implanted itself in human bodies. It is this that the angels who minister upon the
earth declared would come to be, which would offer to the Lord the obedient service of an
unsullied body. This is that heavenly army which the host of praising angels prophesied
would exist on earth.”37

Virginity, and martyrdom along with it, was evidence of Christianity’s truth because the earthly world was

passing away. Before Christ’s advent, the “natural” life characterized human relations, but now self-mortifi-

cation, whether it be martyrdom or virginity, characterized God’s people. The double crown of Agnes,

therefore, allows Ambrose to link martyrdom with asceticism. In spite of the fact that not all martyrs were

virgins, Ambrose intertwines the two through Agnes’ legend, intimating that sexual renunciation is the

foundation for female martyrdom.

Although some theologians also addressed the Church’s concern about virginity, Ambrose was the

first to connect his theology of virginity to Agnes, through centering her story around her double martyr-

dom.38 In his narrative, modesty and religion are the personality traits which bring about Agnes’ virginity

and martyrdom. Ambrose therefore crowns Agnes for the appropriateness of her personality and self-con-

trol rather than the action behind her sacrifice. Just like Damasus, Ambrose appropriates the martyr to bol-

37 Ambrose, “De virginibus,” I.1.13.

38Athanasius’s fragmentary Letter to the Virgins is one of the earliest ascetic works that clearly privileges the virginal female body.
Ambrose’s slightly younger contemporary Jerome produces a more developed portrait of the heretical harlot for the West, as
well as a still more influential letter concerning female virginity. Ref. Peter Brown, The Body & Society, 34.
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ster his own agenda in De virginibus. In order to convince young Roman women to embrace ascetic virginity,

he framed Agnes as a plethora of significant exempla at his disposal.

IV. A Personal Saint: St. Agnes in Prudentius’ the Peristephanon

After Damasus and Ambrose wrote their accoutns, Prudentius composed a poem for Agnes in his

hagiographic poetry collection, the Peristephanon (“Crowns of Martyrdom”). The Peristephanon is a collection of

fourteen lyric martyr hymns, their subjects extend from the Roman church to the local saints of the Span-

ish cities. From the Peristephanon, one can understand what the cult of martyrs meant to a Christian of late

antiquity.39 Prudentius’ account referenced both Damasus and Ambrose’s versions, but with various em-

phases and new additions on Roman pagan elements. Prudentius, who lived in the Roman Iberia, produced

his book in response to his age — a time when the Roman world strived to accommodate its traditional

past with its new faith. As he notes in the preface of the Peristephanon:

“Let her fight against heresies, expound the Catholic faith, trample on the rites of the hea-
then, strike down thy idols, O Rome, devote song to the martyrs, and praise the apostles.
And I write or speak of these themes,…” 40

Although he was not a bishop, having no responsibility to promote virginity in his region, he saw himself

as a someone transforming and Christianising the empire, especially by asserting the roles and functions of

the saints. He, therefore, characterised Agnes as a powerful and personal saint by means of classical refer-

ence.

Agnes as a Powerful Saint

Among the authors examined here, Prudentius offers the most detailed account of Agnes’ martyr-

dom. In the Peristephanon, Agnes’ poem is the final hymn (Pe. 14). In spite of the poetic form, the poem

apparently follows Ambrose’s account more closely than Damasus’. The story develops in a similar man-

39Michael John Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs: The Liber Peristephanon of Prudentius (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan,
1993), 1-8.

40 Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, “Peristephanon,” Preface, H.J. Thomas trans., ed. Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1949).
1! 2
ner: Agnes is presented as a tender virgin, arrested for refusing to sacrifice at a pagan altar. It includes

Damasus’ hair miracle, and also the bridal language adopted by Ambrose. In addition, it adds an entirely

new element to the narrative where the persecutor says:

“I am resolved to thrust her into a public brothel unless she lays her head on the altar and
now asks pardon of Minerva, the virgin whom she, a virgin too, persists in slighting.” 41

However, Agnes is drawn into the forum, but does not make it to a brothel. Readers are directed to believe

that Agnes has been stripped and put on display: “While she stood there the crowd avoided her in sorrow,

turning their faces away lest any look too rudely on her modesty.” 42 When one man dared to do so, he is

punished by “a fire came flying like a thunderbolt and with its quivering blaze struck his eyes,” and he is

“blind from the gleaming flash.”43 Through compiling the existing materials and adding his new additions,

Prudentius gives us a strong and powerful image of Agnes.

In the Peristephanon, Agnes is portrayed as a heroine by means of classical references. She is a hero-

ine, in the sense that she does not fear death. In Prudentius’ narrative, Agnes’ persecutors become frustrat-

ed in persuading her. Her death is thus ordered in the name of the emperor, and a young executioner ap-

proaches her. Agnes, however, meets her impending death with defiance:

“I rejoice that there comes a man like this, a savage, cruel, wild man-at-arms, rather than a
listless, soft, womanish youth bathed in perfume, coming to destroy me with the death of
my honor.”44

Moreover, her heroic image is emphasized through her endangered virginity. Virginia Burrus notes

a connection between Prudentius’ Agnes and the mythical account of Polyxena found in both Virgil and

41 Prudentius, “Peristephanon,” XIV, 25-28.

42 Prudentius, “Peristephanon,” XIV, 40-2.

43 Prudentius, “Peristephanon,” XIV, 46-48.

44 Prudentius, “Peristephanon,” XIV, 68-73.

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Ovid. In each account, the unhappy virgin embraces death as a way to permanently preserve her virginity.45

While remaining a female figure throughout the narrative, Prudentius’ Agnes is nevertheless not a quiet

agent who bends her neck obediently to the executioner. She is a woman who proudly stares death in the

face and embraces it passionately. Precisely for this reason, Agnes’ speech adds an element of defiance—

her demand for death—not present in De virginibus. This addition changes the entire nature of her execu-

tion. Agnes now bends her neck for Christ, not the executioner.46 Her act is, therefore, one of defiance

rather than submission.

However, Agnes’ power comes from divine protection rather than her personal strength. The pun-

ishment of the man shows how Agnes’ power works. The man is caught gazing upon the body of Agnes,

and he is punished by having his ability to gaze removed. Prudentius grants the martyr a power not applic-

able to the De virginibus account which describes the virgin with her neck bent and her gaze fixed submis-

sively on the ground.47

Secondly, Agnes’ heroic behavior is also displayed in her determination to maintain her chastity for

Christ, a determination in which she understands her death as her marriage to Christ. Prudentius portrays

how Agnes embraces death as intensely as a bride embracing her marriage bed. The connection between

chaste martyrdom and marriage to Christ is magnified here by the likening the act of execution to sexual

penetration, as Agnes says:

“I shall welcome the whole length of his [the executioner] blade into my bosom, drawing
the sword-blow to the depths of my breast; and so as Christ’s bride I shall o’erleap all the
darkness of the sky and rise higher than the ether.”48

45 Virginia Burrus, “Reading Agnes: The Rhetoric of Gender in Ambrose and Prudentius,” Journal of Early Christian Studies, Vol.
3, No. 1 (Spring 1995), 42; Hannah Jones, Agnes and Constantia, 127-128.

46 Prudentius, “Peristephanon,” XIV, 76-80.

47 Ambrose, “De virginibus,” I.2.9.

48 Prudentius, “Peristephanon,” XIV, 76-80.

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The execution thus becomes a death that brings marriage to Christ. Yet death is not the only requirement

that Agnes must meet. She must also preserve her chastity at all cost. Her bravery is indicated by how she

converts death into a solution to her threatened virginity.

Unlike Ambrose, Prudentius’ narrative emphasizes Agnes’ achievement in protecting her physical

virginity. Prudentius ties the double crown to Agnes’ actions: “A double crown of martyrdom was vouch-

safed to her, the keeping of her virginity untouched by any sin, and then the glory of her dying by her own

will.” 49 To Prudential, Agnes has obtained something uncommon as both a virgin and a martyr, and he

recognizes this as honors of her heroic actions. This double status makes Agnes a more powerful figure

than the standard martyr in the Peristephanon. “Meanwhile God circles the brow of the unwed martyr with

two crowns: one produces the reward of eternal light, issuing sixty fold, in the other is one hundred times

the profit.”50 Prudentius uses this specific terminology to emphasize the greatness of her accomplishment.

Offering Agnes as a New Cult

Prudentius was purposely rewriting the martyrdom, in order to replace a Roman pagan goddess

with Agnes, the powerful saint. To achieve this aim, he is keen to offer a classicized account of Agnes, in

which he compares her explicitly with the virgins of traditional Roman myth. For example, he bluntly re-

counts that “Minerva,” the Roman goddess of wisdom, is the wrong virgin goddess who should not be

worshipped.51 Martha Malmud considers the inclusion of this brothel scene to be a particularly important

reference to early Roman history. According to Malmud, Prudentius wants the reader to interpret Agnes as

a reimagined Rhea Silvia. Roman tradition split the mother of the twins Romulus and Remus into two dif-

ferent figures: Rhea Silvia (the virgin) and the she-wolf. Malmud claims Agnes as another doubled female

49 Prudentius, “Peristephanon,” XIV, 7-9.

50 Prudentius, “Peristephanon,” XIV, 119-123.

51 Prudentius, “Peristephanon,” XIV, 27.

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figure who can serve as both virgin and whore due to the inclusion of this brothel episode.52 Prudentius

thus rewrites Christian heroes as classical Roman myths.

Aiming to transform the Roman world by the new religion, the lyrical poems of the Peristephanon,

nevertheless, were not sung aloud during Mass, but were intended to draw the reader into a personal, emo-

tional experience. Prudentius himself pleads to Agnes in the final lines of his poem, and begs for her for-

giveness:

“I shall be cleansed by the brightness of thy gracious face if thou wilt fill my heart. Noth-
ing is impure which thou dost deign to visit in love or to touch with thy restoring foot.”53

Prudentius secured the power of the martyr as intercessor at the end of the poem with personal affections.

He, therefore, asks for the powerful martyr to purge him from his unclean state. Agnes is not the only mar-

tyr Prudentius entreats at the end of a hymn, but she is the only one from whom he asks forgiveness. By

recognizing the power of Agnes and praying for her intercession, Prudentius is also affirming the identity

and function of saints in late antiquity.

V. Conclusion: Agnes the Female Exemplum in Christendom

The above examines the historical context and connection of Agnes’ earliest textual records. Tak-

ing advantage of the fluidity of Agnes’ life, all of the authors found a way to shape the martyrdom to fulfill

different needs for their personal or congregational concerns. Damasus initiates the cult of Agnes through

his elogium, in which Agnes is praised as a glorious Roman virgin. By carving his text at Agnes’ catacomb, an

immensely symbolic site of orthodoxy, Damasus was bolstering his authority as the new Pope. Ambrose,

being an advocate of asceticism and in particular of virginity, imagined a modest Agnes, who demonstrates

his theology. Prudentius, deeply concerned about how Christianity can be built upon the classical Roman

past, represented Agnes as a powerful personal saint; who was able to replace the pagan goddesses.

52Martha A. Malmud, A Poetics of Transformation: Prudentius and Classical Mythology (London: Cornell University Press, 1989), 157.
Anne-Marie Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1989), 225.

53 Prudentius, “Peristephanon,” XIV, 124-133.

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 The three accounts differ in genre, content, purpose, and their images of Agnes, but an ideal image

of women is gradually formed and consolidated through the texts. From Damasus to Prudentius, we wit-

ness how the connection between virginity and martyrdom is founded on the double crown imagery, a

founding that reflects their expectation for Christian women in the post-Constantine era. Agnes is celebrat-

ed for obtaining a double crown, which refers to her sacrifice of chastity and martyrdom, i.e. her sacrifices

both in life and in death. The virginity of Agnes, which is interpreted as the expression of chaste love to-

ward God, is elevated to the same level of martyrdom. To some degree, chastity in life became a precondi-

tion of female martyrdom. Women were thus expected to preserve and safeguard their virginity at all costs.

This double crown imagery, however, was a gender-specific virtue. Women are supposed to defend and

express their chastity properly as a females, i.e. not preaching, teaching and baptizing. Agnes, therefore, was

the embodiment of Roman family values that earlier female martyrs, like Thecla and Perpetua, could never

achieve. The endorsement of the double-crown imagery in Agnes’ narrative represents the shift of the

Christian ideal between the pre-Constantinian period and the late fourth and early fifth centuries. As a way

to accommodate the new historical situation, the preservation of virginity is made the way for the faithful

to follow Christ and achieve perfection even without bloody martyrdom. And Agnes, the virgin-martyr,

was someone whom influential Roman women could look to as a decent Christian exemplum.

In spite of her popularity in history, Agnes as an exemplum of virginity is often eclipsed by another

prominent female example of Christian chastity, Thecla.54 Nevertheless, as Kate Cooper has argued, this

essay shows that Thelca was not the only idealized archetype for Western female martyrs.55 In fact, the sub-

sequent female martyr hagiographies in Middle Ages seem to follow Agnes’ story line as a model. Many of

the details that developed with the reiteration of the Agnes narrative can be found in other martyr texts.56

54 Peter Brown begins The Body & Society, his comprehensive study on virginity and feminine identity, with a quote from the
Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla. This demonstrates the influence he finds this particular saint to have on the early Christian
perception of virginity. He later describes the influence which Thecla has on female hagiographical tradition. The Body & Society,
158.

55 Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealised Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 44.

56 Grig, The Making of Martyrs in Late Antiquity, 79.

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Common to all is the renunciation of a suitor to preserve one’s chastity and the consequent punishment by

the suitor in the form of imprisonment and attempted decapitation. This eventually became the standard

tale for many other female martyrs and saints. This is not to say that Agnes stood alone. She was preceded

by well-received female martyrs including Thecla, Perpetua and Felicitas. However, this essay has shown

how Agnes is distinguished in the late fourth century among the other existing female martyrs. When the

clerical authorities of the fourth century rejected audacious female martyrs, they re-created the undocu-

mented story of the Roman virgin Agnes, who represents an ideal female who could be subservient to

their authority as well as traditional patriarchal hierarchy.

In conclusion, the fourth-century bishops Damasus and Ambrose, along with the Iberian poet

Prudentius, helped construct the earliest narratives of Agnes’ passion. They shaped the martyrdom accord-

ing to their agendas and helped popularize her cult throughout Western Christendom. In this progress, a

homogenized narrative of an ideal woman—a virgin martyr—was formed. This ideal image of a woman,

represented by Agnes, would soon replace the more genuine martyrs of ancient Christianity as a more suit-

able female exemplum for the post-Constantinian society.

Appendix

Figure 1. Gold-glass depicting Agnes. 4th Century. Rome, Catacomb of Panfilo.

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