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Geoffrey D. Dunn

Journal of Early Christian Studies, Volume 11, Number 1, Spring 2003,

pp. 1-20 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: 10.1353/earl.2003.0003

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/earl/summary/v011/11.1dunn.html

Access provided by Australian Catholic University (15 Jun 2014 21:10 GMT)
 DUNN/INFECTED SHEEP 1

Infected Sheep and

Diseased Cattle, or the
Pure and Holy Flock: Cyprian’s
Pastoral Care of Virgins

GEOFFREY D. DUNN

Virgins were held in high regard in the North African churches of the third
century. Much can be learned about how Cyprian of Carthage operated as
bishop by examining his pastoral care of virgins. An analysis of every
reference to virgins in his writings reveals that he considered ecclesiastical
discipline particularly important for them in that they lived as symbols of the
purity of the Church itself. De habitu uirginum, written in Cyprian’s earliest
years as bishop, indicates an uncompromising stance: those virgins who
indulged in an excessive beauty regime were infected and diseased, and a
contagion to the rest of the community. They had to be cut off from the
Church. Several years later, after the Decian persecution, we find in Epistula 4
a more lenient Cyprian: virgins who had not been sexually intimate with the
men with whom they had lived could be readmitted to communion. In the
years from 251, penance rather than excommunication became the way for
Cyprian to cure those infections which threatened the purity of the Church for
all those who submitted to his authority.

Virginity was not simply a theological issue for Cyprian, the mid-third-
century bishop of Carthage. It was foremost a pastoral issue. The female
virgins of Carthage were one of the four groups of women who came to
his attention in the North African metropolis.1 The purpose of this paper
is not to examine Cyprian’s theology or attitude towards female virgins

1. The other groups are female confessors and martyrs, widows, and other women.
This paper was made possible through funding from the Australian Research Council.
I am grateful to the comments of the referees of this paper who have helped me
tighten the argument and clarify my thoughts.

Journal of Early Christian Studies 11:1, 1–20 © 2003 The Johns Hopkins University Press
2 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

but rather to examine his relationship as bishop with them. It is this

element of his pastoral ministry or pastoral care involving Christian
women that has received almost no attention thus far in scholarly writing.2
The importance of women in terms of the pastoral care offered by
clerics (especially bishops) rather than simply in terms of the theological
attitudes toward them has been highlighted in recent years across the
spectrum of early Christian literature. As one example, I point to the
work of Pauline Allen and Wendy Mayer, which has been focused particu-
larly on John Chrysostom and Severus of Antioch.3 They offer seven,
often overlapping, categories of pastoral care: administration, education,
direction for daily life, social welfare, mission, intercession, and the appli-
cation of ritualized care. I am interested in how Cyprian’s pastoral minis-
try with regard to female virgins relates to the categories that they have
discerned.
The results of this research into every reference of Cyprian to women
are too extensive to be presented in a single paper. Hence, the focus here
will be only on the female virgins. We are fortunate in that virginity is the
theme of an early treatise by Cyprian as well as being a topic in several of
his letters. What I intend to argue is that virgins held a place of particular
importance for him in that he considered them to be the living embodi-
ment of the nature of the Church in its purity. The evidence that exists
shows that he expected a higher degree of behavioral conformity from

2. In this paper I am using “pastoral care” and “pastoral ministry” synonymously,

even though I am aware that these terms can mean different things to different
writers. The dissertation of J. Warren Jacobs, “Saint Cyprian of Carthage as Minister:
A Study of Cyprian’s Language for the Problem of Christian Living and Pastoral
Concerns and Relationships” (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1976), is an exception
to the lack of attention.
3. Pauline Allen, “The Homilist and the Congregation: A Case-Study of Chrysostom’s
Homilies on Hebrews,” Aug 36 (1996): 397–421; eadem, “John Chrysostom’s
Homilies on I and II Thessalonians: The Preacher and His Audience,” SP 31 (1997):
3–21; eadem, “The Identity of Sixth-Century Preachers and Audiences in Byzantium,”
Mediterranean Archaeology 11 (1998): 245–53; eadem, “Severus of Antioch and
Pastoral Care,” in Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church, vol. 1, ed. Pauline
Allen, Wendy Mayer and Lawrence Cross (Brisbane: Centre for Early Christian
Studies, Australian Catholic University, 1999), 387–400; eadem, “Severus of Antioch
as Pastoral Carer,” SP 35 (2001): 353–68; Wendy Mayer, “Constantinopolitan
Women in Chrysostom’s Circle,” VC 53 (1999): 265–88; eadem, “Female Participa-
tion and the Late Fourth-Century Preacher’s Audience,” Aug 39 (1999): 139–47;
eadem, “At Constantinople, How Often Did John Chrysostom Preach? Addressing
Assumptions about the Workload of a Bishop,” Sacris Erudiri 40 (2001): 83–105;
Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen, John Chrysostom, Early Church Fathers (London:
Routledge, 2000); eaedem, “Through a Bishop’s Eyes: Towards a Definition of
Pastoral Care in Late Antiquity,” Aug 40 (2000): 345–97.
 DUNN/INFECTED SHEEP 3

them than from any other group in the community. The overriding con-
cern Cyprian had with his entire community (not just female virgins) was
the maintenance of a Christian lifestyle through the application of ecclesi-
astical discipline. On the virgins of Carthage who would not accept his
guidelines for their personal conduct Cyprian pronounced judgment: they
were no longer a part of the pure and holy flock (and no longer a symbol
of the purity of the whole flock itself) and would be cut off from the
Church as though they were contagious animals.4 The problem of the
infection of the Christian community was the key issue faced by Cyprian
throughout his episcopate. It is worth contrasting his policy for dealing
with “infectious” virgins with those he had for dealing with other “infec-
tious” individuals and groups within the Church. I begin with all Cyprian’s
general comments about female virgins before investigating the two more
detailed statements he made.

I. VIRGINS IN CYPRIAN’S WRITINGS

No virgins are mentioned by name anywhere in Cyprian’s writings, unless

the reference to Metucosa and Valeria in Epistula 82 is understood to
include them with the three male recipients of the letter as virgins, which
may well be a reasonable reading.5 It would seem, at least as far as
Cyprian claimed, that virginity as an embraced condition was popular in
African Christianity. As Kate Cooper argues, asceticism in Cyprian’s com-
munity provided lay Christians with a sense of self-identity that was
easier to obtain through virginity than through martyrdom.6 By embraced
condition I mean those who had made some kind of commitment to
virginity rather than those who were simply unmarried. How that com-
mitment was ritualized is not something we learn from Cyprian. He
stated sometime after the synod of 251 that granting reconciliation to
adulterers had not made virginity or chastity any less popular or glori-
ous.7 He wanted to persuade bishop Antonianus that offering the hope of
reconciliation to the lapsi would not make martyrdom any less attrac-
tive.8 A similar thought was expressed in the stinging rebuke to Florentinus

4. Cyprian, de habi. 17 (CSEL 3.1:200).

5. The suggestion of one of the referees for this paper that Numeria and Candida,
mentioned in Celerinus’ letter to Lucianus ([Cyprian], ep. 21 [CCL 3B:111–15]), were
virgins, while possible, is speculative.
6. Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 77.
7. Cyprian, ep. 55.20.2 (CCL 3B:279).
8. Ibid., 55.20.1 (CCL 3B:279).
4 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

(Puppianus).9 Cyprian boasted that confessors, bishops, virgins and wid-

ows accepted him as legitimate bishop and accepted his policy of granting
reconciliation. It is obvious that virgins and widows formed distinct
groups and were held in high regard. It would seem that Cyprian received
the support (or was claiming to receive the support) of these women in
rebutting the claims of the rigorists that he was becoming too lax in his
treatment of the lapsi. That those who had embraced such a rigorous
lifestyle supported the bishop (or could be thus claimed to support him)
may have been particularly helpful for him.
In Epistula 76, which comes from near the end of Cyprian’s life, during
the Valerianic persecution, virgins are listed as in the mines with the
Numidian bishops as confessors. This is his only reference to virgins as
confessors in his letters and it means that we know nothing about them as
confessors or lapsae during the earlier Decian persecution, except for a
reference to some as confessors in De lapsis 2.10 It is unwise to construct
an argument ex silentio, but it could be that there had been few lapsed
virgins and few virgin confessors, too few to warrant any comment from
Cyprian or the bishops at the synod in spring 251.11 The Decian persecu-
tion is the best-illustrated period of Cyprian’s episcopate and the fact that
virgins receive little mention must be of some significance.
In Epistula 62, often dated to 253 but not conclusively so,12 Cyprian
referred to the kidnapping of Christian men and women by barbarians.13
He told the eight Numidian bishops who had written to him how gener-
ous his local community, whom he had consulted, had been in raising a
ransom.14 Cyprian noted that contributions came from both men and

9. Ibid., 66.7.3 (CCL 3C:441–42).

10. Cyprian, de laps. 2 (CCL 3:221).
11. On the synod of 251 see Joseph A. Fischer, “Die Konzilien zu Karthago und
Rom in Jahr 251,” Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum 11 (1979): 263–86; Geoffrey D.
Dunn, “The Carthaginian Synod of 251: Cyprian’s Model of Pastoral Ministry,” in I
concili della cristianità occidentale secoli III–V (xxx incontro di studiosi dell’antichità
cristiana, Roma 3–5 maggio 2001), Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 78 (Rome:
Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2002), 235–57.
12. G. W. Clarke, The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, vol. 3: Letters 55–66,
ACW 46 (New York: Newman Press, 1986), 277–78. Cf. Luc Duquenne, Chronologie
des lettres de S. Cyprien: La dossier de la persécution de Dèce, Subsidia Hagiographica
54 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1972), 20–21.
13. Cyprian, ep. 62.1.1 (CCL 3C:385): de fratrum nostrorum et sororum.
14. Ibid., 62.3.1 (CCL 3C:387). It is clear that Cyprian consulted lay Christians as
well as clergy because he stated that one hundred thousand sesterces had been raised
by both (62.3.2 [CCL 3C:387]). The reference to fathers and husbands imagining the
captives as their own sons or wives (62.2.3 [CCL 3C:386]) cannot be taken as a
reference to lay Christians only, given that clergy could be married.
 DUNN/INFECTED SHEEP 5

women.15 The most distressing point in the news from Numidia was that
virgins were among the captives.16 The concern from Carthage was that
they would be the targets of sexual victimization. The ransom of captives
was seen in late antiquity as a normal part of a bishop’s pastoral respon-
sibilities of intercession (as listed by Allen and Mayer). What Cyprian
tells us is that there was a heightened sense of responsibility when those
captives included virgins.
It is here that we find the key to Cyprian’s thinking about virgins which
was to determine his pastoral interaction with them. Their consecration
to Christ in modesty and perpetual chastity (membra Christo dicata et ad
aeternum continentiae honorem pudica uirtute deuota) gave them a dig-
nity superior to that of the other captives, both women and men alike.
They were the living examples of the purity of the Church. As they had
symbolic significance for the community, Cyprian had higher expecta-
tions for their behavior and dealt with them in terms of ecclesiastical
discipline more stringently than with other groups, as we can tell from De
habitu uirginum and Epistula 4.

II. VIRGINS IN CYPRIAN’S DE HABITU VIRGINUM

De habitu uirginum is dated to 249, early in Cyprian’s episcopate.17 This
ascetical and ethical work provides much useful information, for the

15. Ibid., 62.4.2 (CCL 3C:388). This would indicate that there were women of
independent financial means within the Carthaginian church.
16. Ibid., 62.2.3 (CCL 3C:386–87). It is fairly clear that the virgins to whom
Cyprian referred were female because of his statement about his fear that “they may
be debauched in brothels and abused by procurers . . .” (lenonum et lupanarum
stupra deflenda sunt . . .).
17. Paul Monceaux, Histoire littéraire de l’Afrique chrétienne depuis les origines
jusqu’à l’invasion arabe (Paris: E. Leroux, 1902), 2:251; E. W. Watson, “The De
Habitu Virginum of St. Cyprian,” JTS 22 (1920–21): 361–63; Angela Elizabeth
Keenan, Thasci Caecili Cypriani, De Habitu Virginum: A Commentary with an
Introduction and Translation, Catholic University of America Patristic Studies 34
(Washington: Catholic University of America, 1932), 4; Michael M. Sage, Cyprian,
Patristic Monograph Series 1 (Cambridge: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1975),
381. This dating makes sense to me when I look at a statement like nulla sit uenia
ultra delinquere, postquam Deum nosse coepisti (de habi. 2 [CSEL 3.1:189]). It is a
sentiment we find in Tertullian’s de pud. (see, for example, 16.5 [CCL 2:1312]) and it
would have to come early in Cyprian’s episcopate rather than from a time when he
was dealing with the numerous lapsi of the Decian persecution. A passage like de
habi. 6 (CSEL 3.1:192)—tunc plane quando in nominis confessione cruciatur, quando
fortior femina uiris torquentibus inuenitur, quando ignes aut cruces aut ferrum aut
bestias patitur ut coronetur—is based upon Tertulian de cult. 2.3.3 (CCL 1:356–57)
rather than upon recent events.
6 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

focus is on “practical rather than . . . speculative aspects” and the purpose

was “to present to people instruction regarding their attitude toward a
pagan world whose principles were at variance with Christian ideals.”18 It
should not be read as an abstract, theological text but more as a practical
statement of policy. It is less a treatise than a pastoral letter.19 Yet, what
are we to make of Watson’s assertion that, because this treatise borrows
from Tertullian’s six treatises concerning women, “[s]o composite an
origin can hardly be that of a document framed to meet an actual need”?20
How are we to interpret his statement that it is “a very bookish produc-
tion and one that shews no close touch with reality”?21
I would agree with Watson that we need not associate the writing of
this treatise with any particular occasion, but I would not agree with him
that we could not. Keenan may have been right that Cyprian wrote as a
new bishop in response to his awareness of a continuing laxity of lifestyle
among virgins at Carthage.22 Cyprian may have found Tertullian’s old
ideas still useful and modelled his own response on that of his master.
This is a different explanation than Watson’s idea that this work was
written at leisure simply as an academic exercise. Thus, the treatise is not
simply a statement of Cyprian’s theological opinion but is a document
that reflects his teaching to a section of his community.23 In other words,
writing the treatise was itself an exercise of pastoral ministry.
What is interesting is that very little in the pastoral letter or treatise
concerns virgins specifically or exclusively at all. The major source from
which Cyprian drew was Tertullian’s De cultu feminarum, a work that
was addressed to women in general rather than to virgins in particular.24
Furthermore, his comments, insofar as they were meant for virgins, were
for female virgins. He was aware that the gospel comments about chastity
were taken as referring only to men (Matt 19.11–12). He connected that

18. Keenan, De Habitu Virginum, 33.

19. Adalbert G. Hamman, “Ascèse et virginité à Carthage au III e siècle,” in
Memoriam Sanctorum Venerantes: Miscellanea in onore di Victor Saxer (Rome:
Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 1992), 511.
20. Watson, “De Habitu Virginum,” 363.
21. Ibid.
22. Keenan, De Habitu Virginum, 2.
23. This is the sense offered by Johannes Quasten, Patrology, vol. 2: The Ante-
Nicene Literature after Irenaeus (Utrecht: Spectrum, 1953), 347–48; M. F. Wiles,
“The Theological Legacy of St. Cyprian,” JEH 14 (1963): 141; and Sage, Cyprian,
155–56.
24. Keenan, De Habitu Virginum, 13–25; M. Galdi, “De Tertulliani de cultu
feminarum et Cypriani ad virgines libellis Commentatio,” in Raccolta di Scritti in
onore di F. Ramorino (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1927), 539–67.
 DUNN/INFECTED SHEEP 7

idea with the one found in Gen 2.21–23. For Cyprian, the second creation
story meant that as woman was formed from man, whatever applied to
men applied equally to women.25
Tertullian’s treatise on virgins was concerned with urging those virgins
within the Christian community who had decided to distinguish them-
selves from married women by not attending liturgical worship veiled, to
reconsider their position.26 Cyprian had little to say about veiling.27 He
was more interested in the proper relationship between wealth and ap-
pearance. Such concerns also appear in Tertullian’s De uirginibus uelandis,28
but not to the same extent as they do in Cyprian. Tertullian’s De cultu
feminarum is a more obvious inspiration. This concern with how women
appeared is, as Gillian Clark states, “[o]ne of the standard criticisms of
women, rooted in tradition and repeated in endless patristic sermons”
and “an area of misinterpretations between the sexes. . . .”29
The work begins with some comment on the importance of ecclesiasti-
cal discipline.30 This is then connected with the contrast between purity
and contagion. The old impurity had been washed away in baptism and
the call of the Christian life was to preserve that new purity.31 Cyprian
praised virgins for having chosen the higher calling and indicated that his
advice was so that they could enjoy the rewards of their virginity by

25. Cyprian, de habi. 4 (CSEL 3.1:190). Jo Ann McNamara, A New Song: Celibate
Women in the First Three Christian Centuries (New York: Harrington Park Press,
1985), 100, notes that Cyprian here was defending the idea of female virginity and
chastity as being a valid lifestyle in the face of the discomfort this idea brought to
men.
26. Geoffrey D. Dunn, Tertullian, The Early Church Fathers (London: Routledge,
forthcoming).
27. At de habi. 5 (CSEL 3.1:191), Cyprian asked why virgins were seen in public
with their hair styled. It would appear that they were without a veil, yet his complaint
was not that they were not wearing a veil but that they made themselves unnecessarily
attractive. The ritual significance of veiling, evident in Western churches in the next
century, is not found in Cyprian. See David G. Hunter, “Clerical Celibacy and the
Veiling of Virgins: New Boundaries in Late Christian Antiquity,” in The Limits of
Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R. A.
Markus, ed. William E. Klingshirn and Mark Vessey (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1999), 139–52.
28. Tertullian, de uirg. 12.2 (CCL 2.1222).
29. Gillian Clark, Women in Late Antiquity: Pagan and Christian Lifestyles
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 105.
30. Cyprian, de habi. 1–2 (CSEL 3.1:187–89).
31. Ibid., 2 (CSEL 3.1:188). The quotations from 1 Cor 6.19–20 and Jn 5.14
provide the connection between the idea of purity and Cyprian’s focus on sexual
abstinence: clarificemus et portemus Deum puro et mundo corpore et obseruatione
meliore. . . .
8 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

seeking to please only God.32 They were put on a pedestal as the flower of
the tree (flos germinis) and as the image of God (Dei imago); they re-
flected the holiness of God (respondens ad sanctimoniam Domini) and
were the more illustrious part of Christ’s flock (inlustrior portio gregis
Christi).33 Virgins vowed themselves to God not only in the spirit (as did
all other Christians presumably) but in the flesh as well.34 Cyprian no
doubt felt he had to take special interest in their conduct because it was
meant to be a model for and symbol of the rest of the community. If his
call to modesty applied to all women, it applied particularly to virgins.
Their renunciation of the world was to inspire other Christians to a
similar renunciation, just as their embracing the lures of the world would
encourage other Christians to do the same. As with the rest of society,
virginity was not just about the individual but about the social unit. Kate
Cooper has pointed out that an unmarried daughter in Roman society
was a sign of her family’s resistance to the need to compromise its dynas-
tic integrity through marriage alliances.35 The Christian virgin, married to
Christ, proclaimed the Christian refusal to compromise allegiance to
Christ.
Cyprian stated quite explicitly that he was exhorting with affection, not
exercising power.36 This may well be simply a rhetorical topos, but I think
this was part of his carrot-and-stick approach. The stick is the judgment
he pronounced at the end of the treatise on those who had sought to find
human favor by their manner of dress. The carrot was to encourage rather
than command other virgins not to imitate their wayward sisters.
The idea of pleasing God alone through purity of life is his essential
argument, even though the context is different when contrasted with
Tertullian. The latter had argued that the married woman did not need
beauty treatment or extravagant clothing as their husbands loved them
already and that all they would succeed in doing would be to create
problems by attracting other men.37 For Cyprian, the argument was that
the virgin who was not looking for a husband must not look as though

32. Ibid., 3–4 (CSEL 3.1:189–90). This is the only near-explicit reference by
Cyprian to the hierarchy of Christian life-states. If it is present elsewhere it is only
implicit. At the end of the treatise (21 [CSEL 3.1:202]) we find the reference to the
hundredfold reward for martyrdom and the sixtyfold reward for virginity.
33. Ibid., 3 (CSEL 3.1:189).
34. Ibid., 4 (CSEL 3.1:190).
35. Cooper, Virgin and the Bride, 76.
36. Cyprian, de habi. 3 (CSEL 3.1:189): has adhortamur adfectu potius quam
potestate.
37. Tertullian, de cult. 2.4 (CCL 1:357).
 DUNN/INFECTED SHEEP 9

she were looking.38 A virgin needed not only purity of body but needed to
appear pure in body through modesty of adornment.
The next seven chapters (nearly one-third of the total) deal with the
question of how wealth was to be used, for the temptation to adornment
was one faced more by wealthy women than by poor. The section is held
together by the epanaphorous use of locupletem te dicis et diuitem in four
successive paragraphs.39 A rich Christian was one rich spiritually rather
than materially. Materially rich Christians (and we deduce that a few
Carthaginian virgins were) had an obligation to help the poor rather than
adorn themselves. While there are a number of direct references to virgins
throughout this part of the treatise, these comments could have been
directed to any wealthy Christian woman (or man). This is the case in
chapter 8, which repeats the earlier central argument about women not
needing to please anyone else but God, where Cyprian applied his com-
ments about the need for moderation explicitly both to virgins and to
married women. In other instances Cyprian merely took what Tertullian
had written about women and applied it to the context of virgins, as we
find with the comments about not dressing like prostitutes.40
From this point Cyprian introduced a new argument. Not only do
luxury goods and extravagant practices (like dyed cloth, necklaces, ear-
rings, painted faces and dyed hair) waste what has been entrusted to the
wealthy and make them look like the most immodest of people, they also
alter what God has created.41 If God wanted women to wear purple wool,
God would have created purple-fleeced sheep! This argument against
tampering with nature also was borrowed from Tertullian.42 It was a
point not restricted to virgins; Cyprian realized it could be put equally
well to widows, married women and to all women.43 So, even if women

38. Cyprian, de habi. 5–6 (CSEL 3.1:190–92).

39. Ibid., 8–11 (CSEL 3.1:193–95): “You say you are wealthy and rich. . . .” We
can note the change from the third to second person references to virgins.
40. Tertullian, de cult. 2.10, 12 (CCL 1:364–66, 367–68); Cyprian, de habi. 12–13
(CSEL 3.1:195–97).
41. Cyprian, de habi. 14 (CSEL 3.1:197–98).
42. Tertullian, de cult. 1.8.2 (CCL 1:350); 2.10.1 (CCL 1:364–65). It is interesting
to note that what appears to be a positive attitude in Tertullian about these things
(Nimirum enim deus demonstrauit sucis herbarum et concharum saliuius incoquere
lanas) was expressed quite negatively by Cyprian (de habi. 14 [CSEL 3.1:197]: Neque
enim Deus coccineas aut purpureas oues fecit aut herbarum sucis et conchyliis
tinguere et colorare lanas docuit). Cyprian has not changed Tertullian around but
read him as being ironic in his statement. If Cyprian was right, then this is an example
of how one must be careful to read Tertullian in context and not always at face value.
43. Cyprian, de habi. 15 (CSEL 3.1:198).
10 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

could claim that their beauty regime and wardrobe were not an exercise
in tarting themselves up to win male approval, it was an insult to God to
try to improve on creation. Not only would they run the risk of not being
recognized by God on the day of judgement, they would also run the risk
of not being able to recognize God, so clouded would their eyes be with
make-up.44 Not only did these women pollute themselves, they would
pollute others. Here Cyprian referred to both married women and vir-
gins. The solution was to treat those virgins as infected sheep and dis-
eased cattle which had to be separated from the unspoilt flock lest they all
suffer.45
We have seen that in chapter 3 Cyprian noted that he was exhorting the
virgins, but which ones? Was he addressing virgins who had already
fallen as victims of fashion to reform their lives or was he urging virgins
not to fall like others had? This is an important question. The first would
cast Cyprian in a more favorable light, at least as far as modern readers
are concerned. Yet, a careful reading of the text indicates that Cyprian
took the second approach. He was urging virgins not to give in to the
temptation to adorn their bodies. Those virgins who had given in had
compromised their symbolic status within the Christian community, a
status which could not be regained.46 They were not to be given a second
chance. Cyprian’s words about those virgins are clear: inter uirgines non
putem debere numerari. . . .47 This is entirely typical of the pre-Decian
disciple of Tertullian.
Here was Cyprian’s pastoral policy for dealing with virgins who had
not followed the scriptures. The oneness and holiness of the Church were
paramount. Removal from the esteemed caste was the means of maintain-
ing ecclesiastical discipline and of preserving something which was held
in the highest regard. The common good always came before individual
liberty. It is to be noted that Cyprian was passing judgement on their
status as virgins, but did he have anything to say about their status as
Christians? It would seem that this was lost as well, for he finished
chapter 17 saying that those virgins who did not live modestly had per-

44. Ibid., 17 (CSEL 3.1:199): quando oculi tibi non sunt quos Deus fecit sed quos
diabolus infecit.
45. Ibid., 17 (CSEL 3.1:200): tamquam contactas oues et morbidas pecudes a
sancto et puro grege uirginitatis arceri. . . .
46. Ibid., 2 (CSEL 3.1:189): nulla sit uenia ultra delinquere, postquam Deum nosse
coepisti would seem to indicate that those virgins who had failed were beyond help.
See also 21 (CSEL 3.1:201–2), where Cyprian seems to have been urging preventative
rather than rehabilitative action. It is clear from the last chapter (24 [CSEL 3.1:204]),
that Cyprian was only addressing the bonae uirgines.
47. Ibid., 17 (CSEL 3.1:200).
 DUNN/INFECTED SHEEP 11

ished (perierunt).48 If I am right, then we see a double standard in Cyprian,

for he passed no such judgement on the married women who had be-
haved in the same way. We may conclude that Cyprian held the virgins to
a more exacting lifestyle than others.
It is interesting to note that Cyprian referred to the need to remove the
“infected” virgins lest they contaminate the others while they were to-
gether.49 Was this a reference to a living arrangement of a community of
virgins? It could well be. While I shall argue that there is nothing in
Epistula 4 to prove that virgins in Pomponius’ church lived in community,
there is nothing to say that this was not the case at Carthage or that both
practices did not exist in one or both churches. I think it is possible that
there was some form of communal life among virgins in Carthage, based
upon Cyprian’s comment. I would be a little reluctant to endorse Keenan’s
observations that “[t]here is no question of community life. . . . Conse-
crated virgins sought to attain their ideal, a life of close union with God,
without resigning either home or liberty. . . .”50
The pamphlet concludes with some other practical considerations. The
adoption of pagan idolatry was to be avoided.51 Cyprian’s advice to
virgins was to avoid situations that threatened their continence: wedding
receptions and mixed bathing at public baths.52 Like the martyrs, virgins
were to follow the straight and narrow, hard and difficult path to glory.53
Virginity had many advantages, Cyprian exhorted in the peroratio: it
freed women from the pains of childbirth and freed them from having to
obey a husband. Christ was their master.54 The need expressed in Genesis
for the world to be populated no longer existed.55 Some could choose to

48. Ibid., 20 (CSEL 3.1:201): quam fuerant praemiis ingentibus uirgines destinatae,
tam magna supplicia pro amissa uirginitate sensurae.
49. Ibid., 17 (CSEL 3.1:200): . . . ne contagio suo ceteras polluant, dum simul
degunt, ne perdant alias quaecumque perierunt.
50. Keenan, De Habitu Virginum, 7.
51. Jacobs, “Saint Cyprian of Carthage as Minister,” 71–72.
52. Cyprian, de habi. 18–19 (CSEL 3.1:200–201).
53. Ibid., 21 (CSEL 3.1:202): arta et angusta est uia quae ducit ad uitam, durus et
arduus limes qui tendit ad gloriam. See Simone Deléani, “Limes viae. Essai
d’interprétation philologique et littéraire d’une alliance de mots utilisée par saint
Cyprien,” Revue de philologie 58 (1984): 245–62. We find a similar expression in
Cyprian, ep. 4.5.1 (CCL 3B:25): Arta et angusta uia est per quam gradimur ad uitam,
sed summus et magnus est fructus cum peruenimus ad gloriam. The biblical allusion
is to Matt 7.14. One of the things Keenan did not investigate was the relationship
between the treatise and other parts of Cyprian’s literary output.
54. Cyprian, de habi. 22 (CSEL 3.1:203).
55. See Carlo Tibiletti, “Ascetismo e storia della salvezza nel De habitu virginum di
Cipriano,” Aug 19 (1979): 431–42.
12 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

occupy the better rooms in God’s house through asceticism.56 The last
thing we learn from this treatise is that there were both older and younger
virgins in Carthage.57
Being interested in Cyprian’s pastoral practice means that one has to
ask what the consequences were of the issuing of this treatise. What
impact did it have? Unfortunately, we know next to nothing. McNamara
suggests that Cyprian had no more success than had Tertullian in getting
these wealthy and independent women to curb their ways.58 Yet perhaps
we have a glimpse. If some of the women who donated to the ransom
appeal mentioned in Epistula 62 were virgins (and it has to be said that
we are not told), then, given a dating of the letter after De habitu uirginum,
perhaps Cyprian’s urgings had achieved a positive result. May we con-
clude that because we do not hear of this again he was successful? Did
Cyprian ever revise this policy? To address that we must look later in his
episcopate.

III. VIRGINS IN CYPRIAN’S EPISTULA 4

The letter which has the most to tell us about Cyprian’s pastoral engage-
ment with virgins is Epistula 4. It can be dated to Cyprian’s time as bishop
but not during his two extended absences from Carthage (250–251 and
257–258).59 Given the similarity between the response Cyprian gave in
this letter and that given to the Decian persecution,60 it could be suggested
that a date after the spring synod of 251 (but before the synod of 253
when the threat of renewed persecution saw a change in policy) would be

56. Cyprian, de habi. 23 (CSEL 3.1:203–4).

57. Ibid., 24 (CSEL 3.1:204).
58. McNamara, New Song, 117.
59. G. W. Clarke, “Praecedit Dissertatio Biographica/Chronologica de Cypriani
Vita ac Scriptis quam Composuit,” in Sancti Cypriani Episcopi Opera, pars 3.3:
Prolegomena, CCL 3D (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 691. Lack of space prevents me
from considering the relationship between ep. 4 and the pseudo-Cyprianic De
singularitate clericorum.
60. The response to the Decian persecution was to advise bishops to readmit the
penitent libellatici to immediate communion, to readmit the penitent sacrificati to
communion only just before death, and to continue to exclude from communion only
those who performed no penance. The response here was to advise Pomponius to
readmit penitent virgins who were still virgins, to extend the penance of those women
who had lost their virginity, to keep the excommunication imposed on the men, to
threaten any virgin with excommunication if they took up living with these men in the
future, and to deny readmission to those virgins who performed no penance. The
similarity concerns the fact that there were degrees of response.
 DUNN/INFECTED SHEEP 13

a likely possibility.61 This seems to me to be a reasonable hypothesis, even

though there is no reference to the persecution in this text. I would place
it after De habitu uirginum because it would be reasonable to expect
Cyprian to have addressed the question of virgins sharing accommoda-
tion with men in the treatise if it was written later than the letter, and we
find nothing much about it at all. Even if cohabitation were not the
problem in Carthage as it was in Pomponius’ church, if the treatise
followed the letter, one could imagine Cyprian mentioning the problem in
the treatise as well by way of reinforcing his policy decision.62 I also date
it later because we find here a slightly more lenient bishop in action, one
who had changed because of his experiences during the persecution.
It is worth pointing out that the problem discussed (the treatment of
virgins of questionable sexual moral behavior) had not arisen within
Cyprian’s own church; it had occurred in the church of bishop Pomponius,
probably located within the province of Africa Proconsularis.63 What this
letter establishes is that there was an order of virgins in at least one other,
much smaller, church apart from Carthage. I shall discuss first the situation
in Pomponius’ community and then Cyprian’s comments on Pomponius’
response.
What is known as fact is that a number of these virgins had been
discovered sharing their beds with men and there had been embracing
and kissing, but they denied that they had lost their virginity.64 Cyprian’s
letter indicates that these female virgins had made a commitment to a
chaste life and were not simply single women.65 There is nothing in the
letter though to prove that all these women lived together in one commu-
nity. The fact that the excommunicated deacon was mentioned only in
connection with one particular virgin could suggest possibly that these
women lived individually or in small groups, but not all together.66

61. G. W. Clarke, The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, vol. 1: Letters 1–27,
ACW 43 (New York: Newman Press, 1984), 170. Cf. Monceaux, Histoire littéraire,
2:68; Sage, Cyprian, 365.
62. This is why I would disagree with Sage, Cyprian, 151, who sees both
documents arising from the same incident.
63. This is based on identifying the Pomponius of Dionysiana mentioned in
sententiae episcoporum numero LXXXVII (CSEL 3.1:453) with this Pomponius,
although this must be far from certain.
64. Cyprian, ep. 4.1.1 (CCL 3B:17–18); 4.3.1 (CCL 3B:21). Of course, it could
indicate only that the deacon was interested in visiting one particular individual
within a community of virgins.
65. Ibid., 4.1.1 (CCL 3B:17).
66. Ibid., 4.1.1 (CCL 3B:17); 4.4.1 (CCL 3B:22). See L. W. Countryman, The Rich
Christian in the Church of the Early Empire: Contradictions and Accommodations,
Texts and Studies in Religion 7 (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1980), 188.
14 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

Was this a case of these men visiting these virgins on an occasional basis
or of boundaries being crossed by a man and a woman who lived in the
same accommodation? Elizabeth Clark and Graeme Clarke think it was
the latter.67 This is a separate question from the one above about whether
all the women lived together. We can agree with them on this because of
Cyprian’s advice that not only should virgins not share the same bed with
men, but they should not live with them either.68 In fact, Cyprian’s words
suggest that the female virgins had moved in with the men rather than the
men with the women.69
It is possible that Pomponius’ community contained large or small
households of celibate people, but there is actually no indication that all
these men were dedicated celibates like the women.70 The situation in
Pomponius’ church may have been that not only were some ascetic women
living in households with ascetic men but that some ascetic women were

67. Elizabeth A. Clark, “John Chrysostom and the Subintroductae,” Church

History 46 (1977): 172 n.13; Clarke, Letters 1, 173–74 n.6. Hamman, “Ascèse et
virginité,” 512, and McNamara, A New Song, 113, are others who support this
position. On 114, McNamara suggests that this might only “have been a particularly
adventurous fraction of the virginal community who sought boldly to alter their
condition by living like men among men.”
68. Cyprian, ep. 4.2.1 (CCL 3B:19): non dico simul dormire, sed nec simul uiuere . . . .
69. Ibid.: nec pati uirgines cum masculis habitare. However, in commenting on the
deacon, Cyprian’s remark indicates that the deacon had visited the virgin on occasion
(4.1.1 [CCL 3B:22]: qui cum uirgine saepe mansit) rather than lived with her.
70. Cf. Blake Leyerle, Theatrical Shows and Ascetic Lives: John Chrysostom’s
Attack on Spiritual Marriage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 81; Ben
Witherington, Women in the Earliest Churches, Society for New Testament Studies
Monograph Series 59 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 203; Jean
LaPorte, The Role of Women in Early Christianity, Studies in Women and Religion 7
(New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1982), 77. If by use of a term like “spiritual
marriage” we imagine a permanent, committed relationship between a celibate man
and a celibate woman (sexless marriage), then I would find difficulty in applying that
to the situation described in this letter. Tertullian had suggested that widowers (and
divorced men?) who could not manage their households could enter into an
arrangement with widows (de cast. 12.2 [CCL 2:1032]; de mon. 16.3 [CCL 2:1251]).
The fact that he suggested that such a man could have several such “wives” would
probably mean that he was not referring to a sexless marriage (in the sense of a
publicly contracted permanent relationship) if he meant several concurrently (though
if he meant several in succession then it could refer to contracted though sexless
marriages). This would be an exception to his otherwise absolute belief in monogamy
in his Montanist years. We have no reason to believe in ep. 4 that it was anything
other than a much looser arrangement. That Cyprian considered the virgins married
to Christ (ep. 4.3.2 [CCL 3B:21]) would suggest that they were not married in any
sense to anyone else. The English term “spiritual marriage” is perhaps not the most
helpful, for it suggests a degree of commitment that was not there, it would seem, in
Cyprian’s time at least.
 DUNN/INFECTED SHEEP 15

living in family households that included married and single (as distinct
from celibate) men as well. I suggest this because, even though Cyprian’s
recommended treatment dealt more harshly with the men rather than the
women, he nowhere made any mention of celibate men breaking their
vow, as he did about the women.71 I believe that Cyprian was advising
Pomponius that virgins should not live in any household with men (mar-
ried or unmarried) and that female virgins should live either on their own,
or with their immediate family, or in communities of female virgins, or in
communities of women only (perhaps living with widows). Even if it were
a case of celibate men living in the same house as celibate women, the fact
that Cyprian could recommend either separation or marriage for the
virgins unwilling to persevere with their vow, would lead to the conclu-
sion that their mutual relationships had not been sexless marriages in the
sense of a formal, contracted, though sexless, commitment. It would seem
to suggest something more like a housekeeping or housemate situation.72
All we can say is that we cannot be certain of exactly what the living
arrangements were. Given the focus of this paper, it is not really possible
to investigate these relationships further. One can imagine the benefits of
the arrangement from the men’s perspective in that they could gain a live-
in housekeeper. What was the benefit for the women? Was it that they
could “redefine their own lives”?73
We may turn our attention now to Cyprian’s response to Pomponius’
actions. It would seem that Pomponius had excommunicated everyone
involved without the possibility of reconciliation74 and had written to
Cyprian for his advice about whether this was the right thing to have
done, at least as far as the women were concerned.75 Cyprian, together
with the bishops and presbyters he consulted, supported the excommuni-
cation of the men without distinction.76 With regard to the virgins he
recommended that those who had performed penance and who were
discovered (through physical examination by midwives) to have pre-
served their physical (if not spiritual) virginity ought to be readmitted to
communion. If any of the women were found associating with those men

71. Cyprian, ep. 4.3.2 (CCL 3B:21).

72. As one of the referees for this paper suggested, perhaps what we find here is
that bishops like Cyprian and Pomponius had little understanding of the realities of
arrangements in lower-class households.
73. McNamara, New Song, 112.
74. Cyprian, ep. 4.4.1 (CCL 3B:22).
75. Ibid., 4.1.1 (CCL 3B:17).
76. Ibid., 4.4.1 (CCL 3B:22).
16 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

in the future the advice was that they were to be excommunicated perma-
nently.77 Those who were discovered to have lost their virginity were to
continue with a more stringent penance for an appropriate period until
being readmitted to communion after public confession of their sin.78
Presumably they too would face the threat of permanent excommunica-
tion for future lapses. Those virgins who showed no signs of remorse and
had not separated from the men after Pomponius’ initial decision ought to
remain excommunicated.79
Cyprian acknowledged explicitly that dealing with this issue was a
pastoral concern, for he reminded Pomponius that they were both made
shepherds in the Church (Jer 3.15).80 For him, a bishop’s pastoral care
was twofold. On one level, when dealing with failings, a bishop was to
insist on ecclesiastical discipline as handed down by the apostles.81 Even if
such a policy was seen to be harsh82 (as the laxists also claimed about
Cyprian’s treatment of the lapsi), it was the only way for them to attain
the path to salvation and the only way for bishops themselves to be
pleasing to Christ.83 The second thing was for bishops to be vigilant in
preventing such failings occurring in the first place.84 The best way for this
to happen was if virgins were under the guidance and control of bish-
ops.85 For this to work, Church leaders needed to be shining examples of
the lifestyle they preached.86 While part of Cyprian’s solution was this

77. Ibid., 4.4.1 (CCL 3B:22–23). Cf. Anne Jensen, God’s Self-Confident Daugh-
ters: Early Christianity and the Liberation of Women, tr. O. C. Dean (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 21: “women who wanted to live in Spiritual
partnership were prepared to undergo an examination by midwives. . . .” They were
required to have the examination rather than simply prepared to have it. Further, this
examination was for virgins prepared to leave a spiritual partnership (or some such
arrangement) rather than for those who wanted to live it.
78. J. Patout Burns, Cyprian the Bishop, Routledge Early Church Monographs
(London: Routledge, 2002), 65, states that the dedicated virgins who could prove that
their sexual integrity had not been corrupted were reduced to a probationary status.
Yet, unlike lapsed clergy who were readmitted to communion only as lay people, these
virgins did not lose their status as virgins.
79. Cyprian, ep. 4.4.2 (CCL 3B:23).
80. Ibid., 4.1.2 (CCL 3B:18).
81. Ibid.
82. Ibid., 4.5.2 (CCL 3B:25). This could suggest a date for the letter in a time when
Cyprian was conscious of the laxist threat to his leadership.
83. Ibid., 4.5.1–2 (CCL 3B:25–26). Self-interest was never far from Cyprian’s
episcopal insistence on ecclesiastical discipline.
84. Ibid., 4.2.1 (CCL 3B:18).
85. Ibid., 4.2.1 (CCL 3B:19).
86. Ibid., 4.3.3 (CCL 3B:21–22).
 DUNN/INFECTED SHEEP 17

challenge to male clerical leaders, most of his solution was not about
putting in place a strategy that would curb the actions of any other
libidinous men but of controlling the women. This was obviously the
easier method and reflected the fact that women in the societies of the
Roman Empire were under male control. Perhaps one could make the
case that the problem had arisen because the freedom enjoyed by Chris-
tian female virgins made them vulnerable to being preyed upon by power-
ful men. Maybe Cyprian thought that breaking the connection between
certain men and virgins and placing the latter under the control of bish-
ops would be a way of ensuring their freedom. Whether the virgins
themselves saw episcopal control as a means to freedom or not we do not
know. In fact, we do not know anything from their point of view at all.
The fact though that Cyprian wanted greater control would suggest that
these virgins were not marginalized or secluded as they would later be.87
While Cyprian recognized that a life of virginity would be rewarded,
nowhere in this letter did he state that virginity was a better state of life
than being married.88 At one point he noted that those unable to continue
in a life of chastity would be better off marrying than being punished
eternally for their sins.89 Marriage was certainly better than a pretended
or false virginity. It has to be admitted, though, that while he wrote of the
rewards of virginity a number of times, he never referred to any rewards
for living the married life.
What we read in the letter is Cyprian’s obvious belief that the men were
more to blame than the virgins, who were seen to have two mitigating
conditions: the weakness of their gender and their age.90 While Cyprian
accepted the commonly held view about the limitations of being female, it
was not something he felt the need here to highlight. There is no sense
that Cyprian blamed the virgins for tempting the men. Any sexual sin was
treated severely in the North African churches. Some bishops earlier than
Cyprian had refused to grant any reconciliation to adulterers.91 In this
case the virgins were married to Christ and thus, if their relationships

87. Anne Jensen, “Women in the Christianization of the West,” in The Origins of
Christendom in the West, ed. Alan Kreider (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2001), 207.
88. Cyprian, ep. 4.2.3 (CCL 3B:20); 4.5.1 (CCL 3B:25).
89. Ibid., 4.2.3 (CCL 3B:20).
90. Ibid., 4.2.1 (CCL 3B:19). The danger of their age (aetas adhuc lubrica) might
not just be that they were very young but could be simply that they were at an age
(which presumably would extend beyond their teenage years) when men would find
them sexually attractive.
91. Ibid., 55.21.1 (CCL 3B:280).
18 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

with men had been sexual, they would have been guilty of adultery.92 The
sexual reputation of virgins was to be protected even more carefully than
that of women in general.
Yet, we find a somewhat more lenient Cyprian with regard to the
preservation of the reputation of the virgins than we did in De habitu
uirginum. There is no mention in the letter of the virgins who had shared
their beds with men, however chastely, being diseased and infectious to
other virgins as there is in the earlier treatise. Had this letter been written
before the outbreak of the Decian persecution one could imagine that
Cyprian would have endorsed Pomponius’ permanent excommunication
of all involved. Recent events involving the lapsi had taught Cyprian that
penance was one way of dealing with the faults of Christian members.93
Since Cyprian’s thinking about the symbolic value of virginity and the
risks to the rest of the community from the failings of dedicated virgins
remained intact,94 why did he not treat the virgins more severely or the
men less harshly? I have already mentioned Cyprian’s mitigating excuses
for the virgins. Unlike the lapsi, who put only their own salvation at risk,
the men who tempted the virgins to break their vow to Christ not only
risked their own salvation and that of the virgins, but, through them, the
salvation of the whole Church.95 In this letter we find Cyprian both
insisting on the importance of virginity to the Church and of a more
rigorous lifestyle for those vowed to virginity and on the need for a degree
of leniency in dealing with those in the Church who erred. With the
virgins, as with other groups within the Church, we see in Cyprian’s
pastoral ministry the difficult position in which he found himself between
the rigorists and laxists.

IV. CONCLUSION

It is time to draw together this evidence. We could begin by saying that

Cyprian exercised his pastoral care at a distance via correspondence. This
is true for the years when he was in hiding and for the churches outside
Carthage to which he wrote throughout his episcopate. As well, De
habitu uirginum would indicate that even when within his own church it
was important for him to issue pastoral directives in writing.

92. Ibid., 4.3.2 (CCL 3B:21).

93. See, for example, the excellent summary in J. Patout Burns, “On Rebaptism:
Social Organization in the Third Century Church,” JECS 1 (1993), 369–76; idem,
Cyprian the Bishop, 25–77.
94. Cyprian, ep. 4.4.2 (CCL 3B:23).
95. Ibid., 4.5.1 (CCL 3B:25).
 DUNN/INFECTED SHEEP 19

It is true that most of the evidence about Cyprian’s pastoral care con-
cerns people in need. There is no evidence about how Cyprian dealt with
the rest of his community not in some sort of difficulty. We can presume
that Cyprian spent time with these people in normal sacramental, liturgi-
cal or catechetical situations. As well, he would have spent time with
them in moments of simple, everyday dialogue and encounter where he
could listen to them, advise them, be advised by them, encourage them
and even support them. Had the virgins of North Africa not presented
Cyprian with problems we would know next to nothing about them in
the third century and our knowledge of early Christian women would be
even more scarce than it is.
Perhaps one thing that a “pastoral care” approach to Cyprian’s writ-
ings indicates is that the customary division of his output into treatises
and letters is not very helpful. It tends to suggest two distinct genres.
Many of his treatises are pastoral letters and many of his letters are
treatise-like in nature. What distinguishes a number of the so-called trea-
tises from letters is their length. Issues of particular significance required
fuller treatment. Yet his purpose in writing was the same whatever its
length; Cyprian wanted to bring about a practical change.
Like confessors and martyrs, virgins were highly regarded and in
Cyprian’s time this was a lifestyle embraced by both women and men.
The activity of some female virgins became a concern for Cyprian, very
early in his episcopate. He was critical of their desire (and the desire of
other women) to dress finely and present themselves attractively to others.
Virgins were an identifiable group to whom Cyprian directed comments
about the Church’s mission of caring for the poor. He was also critical of
their living arrangements where there was the possibility of scandal or
immoral behavior. Cyprian’s response was to express the desire to assume
responsibility for the running of their lives.
When we consider the seven categories offered by Allen and Mayer,
mentioned at the beginning of this paper, for understanding Cyprian and
the virgins we find nearly every category relevant. We find Cyprian exer-
cising his administrative role in the advice he offered other churches in his
correspondence about the application of the judicial procedures of eccle-
siastical discipline (if we may call them that) like excommunication. He
taught about the true nature of discipline, virginity and wealth. He of-
fered guidance to virgins about how to use their wealth and urged the
virgins to be agents of the church’s social welfare ministry. Although he
was not as explicit with regard to the missionary role of virgins as he was
with regard to martyrs, there is an indication that Cyprian was so con-
cerned about the lifestyle of virgins because the purity of their lives was
20 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

one of the countercultural ways in which pagans could be attracted to

Christianity. We find in one letter Cyprian interceding on behalf of other
Christians not through prayer but the ransom of captives (particularly
virgins) and he joined his whole church (both men and women) to himself
in seeking their release. No doubt the penitential process would have
involved a ritualized form of care, but details are lacking.
The questions of discipline and of maintaining the integrity of the
community in the face of both external and internal threats were the
primary focus of Cyprian’s episcopal activities. Cyprian expected a high
standard of Christian commitment from his community. This was even
more true of virgins who symbolized the very purity of the Church. In De
habitu uirginum we find an uncompromising bishop. Those virgins within
the flock who became diseased were to be removed permanently from
that flock because they were a contagion to others. All Cyprian felt able to
do was warn those who had not yet succumbed to continue resisting the
urge to adorn themselves. A few years later, in the light of the Decian
persecution, Cyprian had to rethink his entire pastoral strategy. This
applied as much to the virgins as it did to the lapsi. Even though he
maintained the need for virgins to be most particular in living an exem-
plary life, he moderated his rigorism and admitted the possibility of
penance as a means of reconciliation. Yet, he tried to avoid the charge of
laxism by highlighting the higher risk of infection that those of a symbolic
status posed.

Geoffrey D. Dunn is a senior research associate in the Centre for

Early Christian Studies at the Brisbane campus of Australian
Catholic University