“Accept this Twofold Consolation, you Faint-hearted Creatures”: St. Augustine and Contemporary Definitions of Rape

Abstract

Contemporary discourse about rape - from media coverage to second-wave feminist theory - owes both its concepts and its rhetoric to a crucial shift in the definition of rape. In 410 C.E., Augustine of Hippo set out to redefine rape from a pagan concept of stuprum or sexual misconduct to a chastity-based and specifically Christian notion. Augustine's definition of rape as sex against a woman's will persists to this day, with serious consequences; his mix of forensic and epedeictic rhetoric, too, continues to set a damaging precedent followed unknowingly by feminists and media outlets alike. Augustine's concept of will is inseparable from the Christian idea of chastity, and his definition of rape holds up an ideal of chastity at the very moment that it asserts that our fallen state and the nature of our genitals renders any pure will to chastity impossible. As a result, rather than focus on the guilt of perpetrators, Augustine obsessively probes the consciences of victims, suggesting that they deserve and indeed solicit their own abuse.