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Life Of St. Agatha's Journey Analysis

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Transcending the Material in The Life of St. Agatha
In response to prompt 3

Aelfric’s traditional virgin martyr legend, The Life of St. Agatha, depicts the body and its physical suffering as a means of transcending the material and paving a way to the Divine. The spectacle of Agatha’s suffering parallels Christ’s, and as she responds to her torture, she elicits response from men, women, art, and literature both in medieval times and the modern day. The passage in lines 108-175 serves as the climax of the homily and the amputation of Agatha’s breast marks the attempts of Quintianus to make Agatha incomplete both physically and spiritually. I wish to explore the theme of the body, particularly the breast, as it relates to the themes of speech, …show more content…

Agatha, the body serves as the means of witnessing to Christ through suffering and the subsequent miracle of bodily healing. This bodily healing requires the physical appearance of a “hoar-haired man”, St. Peter the Apostle. He restores her breast and her external body is made whole and “then shone there a great light in the dark prison”. Just as Agatha’s breast is restored and her external body is made whole, her internalized (spiritual) light is externalized. Agatha also uses speech to witness to Christ; when she is questioned “Dost thou yet name Christ?”, she answers, “Christ I confess with my lips and ever call upon Him with my heart”. Here, Agatha demonstrates that she uses her body (her lips and heart) to engage with Christ in conversation. She also uses her breast to signify an acknowledgement and anxiety about Christ’s suffering; after the crucifixion, “all the people … beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts”. In a similar manner to these scriptural figures, Agatha responds to Christ’s suffering through the amputation of her breasts. His suffering fuels her spiritual conviction and offers the way to elevate above the temporal wickedness of the world. Earlier in the passage, Agatha depicts herself as “God’s handmaid”, subordinating her worldly nobility to the divine calling of martyr, Christ’s servant and witness to his death. This spiritual elevation of Agatha contrasts the materiality Quintianus, whose understanding is restricted

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