What Might Christianity’s Virgin Martyrs Teach Us About the Epstein Scandal?

This article may not be appropriate for anyone who has suffered sexual assault.

The orgiastic violence and depravity leaking from the Epstein files have dominated the news cycle for months. It seems that every level of society, from bankers and lawyers to tech CEOs to financial institutions to modeling agencies to international royalty to the US government itself, is implicated in ongoing, systemic protection and promotion of Epstein’s depravity. Still, his violation of young girls is not culturally aberrant, and it is not new if you know about the horrific Marc Dutroux case.

Saint Agatha, an adolescent girl, made a vow of virginity and refused to marry a pagan man. She was sent to a brothel and forced to undergo extreme torture and violations before she eventually died. Saint Cecilia similarly made a vow of virginity, and at her wedding to her pagan husband sang songs to God. Her piety converted her husband, who similarly swore himself to chastity and suffered martyrdom with her at the hands of the Romans. The British princess Saint Ursula and her eleven companions (or 11,000, depending on the story) made a pilgrimage to Rome when they were captured by the Huns. Refusing to wed a pagan prince, Ursula suffered torture and martyrdom. St Agnes of Rome and St Lucia, both adolescent girls, refused marriage to pagans and were sent to brothels, tortured, and eventually martyred for their faith.

The history of the early Christian church has literally hundreds of similar stories of girls, sometimes as young as twelve or thirteen, proclaiming their faith and their chastity, denying control of their bodies to the evil men who have power over them, defying princes, governors, and sometimes their own parents in the process. The Church positively affirms their actions, regarding them as heroes of the faith and celebrating their steadfast faith.

I think of these stories when I read about the evils that Epstein and all his accomplices did. The un-Christian world views women as consumable, expendable, and disposable. Consider the rampant pornographic elements of society. It’s known that Epstein had involvement not just in Victoria’s Secret, but in its juvenile equivalent, Pink. Additionally, he allegedly had business connections to Abercrombie & Fitch, The Limited, and Justice. AI can generate lewd pictures of unclothed women and girls. Young influencers are pressured into becoming online prostitutes, often as soon as they turn 18. Even Christian culture is not immune to these sexualized excesses. I’ve read more than one online, ostensibly Christian commentator, talking about women “hitting the wall,” implying that a woman’s worth is tied to her physical attractiveness. Doug Wilson speaks about women in explicitly pornographic ways. The TPUSA half-time show, a supposedly countercultural, Christian answer to Bad Bunny’s lewd performance, featured Kid Rock, who in 2001 wrote a song for the children’s movie Osmosis Jones. His song celebrated statutory rape of underage girls.

In contrast, true Christian ethics regard women not as deformed men, the ancient Greco-Roman view, nor as objects to be used and discarded. At the time of the apostle Paul, the cultural expectation was that women would be vessels for legitimate children, while their husbands were free to pursue other relationships, with enslaved women or boys, with prostitutes, or with other unmarried, available women. There was no expectation for marital fidelity or chastity for men. Paul, by contrast, calls wives and husbands to a mutual relationship where neither is deprived, and both are holy and chaste, a stark and vehement rejection of the contemporary expectations, a reformation of marriage back to what is pictured in Song of Songs and in Genesis.

In the Gospels, Jesus comforts the women regarded as worthless in his society. He heals the woman whose menstrual cycle had rendered her unclean for twelve years, taking pity upon her, loving her, and calling her daughter. He announces himself to the Samaritan woman at the well, and she brings the other Samaritans to faith, as John says, “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony. He told me everything I ever did.” An evil society uses and degrades women. God loves them as his children.

Which brings us back to the virgin martyrs. These girls took to heart Matthew 10:28-31:

And fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not, therefore; ye are of more value than many sparrows.

The girls recognized that their bodies belonged not to human men, but to the Father in heaven, and they exercised authority and control over their bodies, enduring suffering for God’s sake and believing in His promise of eternal life. The perversity of their culture attempted to mar them, but their faith rendered them inviolate.

Christian parents, raise your children to have the same steadfast faith as these young women. Teach them modesty, not to avoid the lust of evil men, which is impossible, but to honor God with their bodies. Do not place them in positions of danger or exploitation. Don’t post pictures of your children on the internet. Certainly, do not allow them near beauty pageants or modeling agencies. Show respect for your own bodies and the bodies of your children. Reject the cultural message that a woman’s value lies in her appearance, even when it comes from ostensibly Christian sources.

American society is seeded through with self-satisfaction, self-aggrandizement, and hedonism. We can learn to live better by following the virtuous examples of Agatha, Cecilia, Lucy, Perpetua, Felicity, and countless other Christian saints.