MISOGYNY AND THE SHE-WOLF FROM TERTULLIAN TO MASUCCIO

Unlike their pagan predecessors discussed inchapter 4, early Christian writers were not as tolerant of sexual promiscuity, no matter how generous – with milk or money – were the women who practiced it. In his tract titled To the Nations, Tertullian (ca. 155–230), the first great writer of Latin Christianity, rather predictably thundered against the “abominable cases” of shameless veneration of unworthy divinities – Acca Larentia, first and foremost. She is honored, Tertullian inveighed, even though “she was a hired prostitute, whether as the nurse of Romulus, and therefore called Lupa, because she was a prostitute, or as the mistress of Hercules, now deceased, that is to say, now deified” (486). Tertullian described this woman's two major identities: He saw Larentina (i.e., Acca Larentia, her name having several variations) in either the lupa who rescued and nursed Romulus (no great honor; Tertullian had little respect for Rome's founder, in his view a trickster, fratricide, and rapist) or in the wealthy prostitute who had received great riches through Hercules's help and at her death bequeathed her fortune to the Roman people. In gratitude, the Romans deified her. However, what could be the distinction of accessing heaven for heathens and of becoming divine if prostitutes “mount it in all directions” too? Another early Christian writer, Lactantius (third–fourth century ce) – probably from North Africa like Tertullian – likewise ironizes, in his discussion of the Romans' divinization of the she-wolf: “Now how great must that immortality be thought which is attained even by harlots!” (54).