What is the point of owning a slave if you can’t just rape her whenever you want? That was the question that troubled a “pagan” slaver who had captured Julia, today’s saint, when her African city was overrun in 439.

The problem for the slaver was that Julia was not merely someone he wanted to ravish, but someone he wanted to woo, to win over, to have by his side. Somehow, it never occurred to him that perhaps she would not be interested in engaging in an intimate relationship with her owner. What is more, she was Christian when captured, and Christian she remained. The slaver, unsuccessful as a suitor and having lost his appetite for rape, decided instead to make her his bookkeeper and traveling companion. Julia, having no choice physically, went about with him and, when he went off to debauch himself at various ports of call, remained behind in her quarters.

At one island where the slaver went to transact business, the governor, Felix, found Julia to his liking and offered to buy her (four of his slave girls in exchange for Julia). In a step with grave consequences, the slaver declined the governor’s “generous offer” at which point the governor decided to forcibly take Julia himself, and without payment to the slaver.

Julia was no more interested in becoming part of Felix’s harem than of being the slaver’s property. Butler writes:

Felix thinking himself derided by her undaunted and resolute air, in a transport of rage caused her to be struck on the face, and the hair of her head to be torn off; and lastly, ordered her to be hanged on a cross till she expired.

Julia is celebrated as a “virgin martyr” by the Church and celebrated as a “saint.” Yet, through Butler’s account, Julia primarily comes across as one who simply refused to accept the identity of a slave–regardless of who wrested physical control over her presence and who attempted to make her into something that she chose not to be.

People who deal in money and power never can and never will understand those who have no interest in their dealings. What is more, people who do not fear nor find themselves intrigued by (let alone attracted to) slavers and moguls and politicos invariably become targets. They do not accept the authority that money coupled with brute force seem to endow certain individuals with. They are thereby subversive, and, as potential examples to others, threaten an entire way of life based upon greed, wealth, and consumption.

Julia represents so much more than a woman who kept her hymen undisturbed and who refused “in the name of Christ” to become a pagan. Julia, irrespective of religious affiliation, refused to become someone she was not, just because powerful men wanted to grab her pussy and would “reward” her cooperation or punish her disobedience.