Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

without learning walks in the shadow and knows not the light.’ 86 The letter further
indicates the source whence such knowledge should come: ‘Until now, the treasure chest
of the Testament has remained hidden from me, that is, the bookbinding clasps of your
heart, in which a library of all the books is gathered.’ 87 Learning came not simply from
the Bible, but from reading the Bible. The writer closes the letter with an appropriate if
earthy image: ‘I beg that you will frequently sprinkle the dry roots of my understanding
with a basketful of fertilizing dung – that is, the fecundity of your words [Luke 13:8] – so
that when you come to visit me in the customary manner, you will find in me some of the
fruits of your good work.’ 88 Fuscina is clearly part of the same tradition of intertwined
spiritual and intellectual understanding. Women, even those dedicated to God, took pride
in their learning and literary ability.
By contrast, Caesarius, the product of a similar background to that of Avitus, had
taken a different, monastic, path, and the form in which he wrote to Caesaria was also
different. His approach, in Vereor, allows for no intellectual pride. However, both writers
focus on encouragement by exempla rather than feeling the need to provide strict rules for
living. For Avitus and Fuscina, these might have been taken for granted. The mention of
‘modesty’ in the poem might have encompassed a set of behaviour patterns deemed
suitable for the gently-bred pagan or Christian Roman girl. 89 Taking the issue of
enclosure or limitation of movement, so important to Caesarius in the Regula, as one
example, Fuscina may not have expected to move in society to a large extent in any case.
Even in terms of Fuscina’s religious activities, Avitus restricts himself to a mention of ‘a
round of holy duties’ upon which he has no advice to give. 90 Of fundamental importance,
however, is the point that both writers are concerned with interior spirituality, and do not
offer a set of prescriptive guidelines for living. Both stand in a tradition of writing about
virginity, of which figures such as Jerome, Cyprian, Tertullian and Athanasius had also
been a part.
86 Ibid., 128.
87 Ibid., 127.
88 Ibid., 130.
89 For a general introduction to Roman women, see E. Fentham et al., Women in the Classical World:
Image and Text (Oxford, 1994); S. Dixon, Reading Roman women : sources, genres and real life (London,
2001); A. Fraschetti (ed.) Roman Women (Chicago, 2001).
90 CCL v. 5.
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