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Augustine of Hippo, On Marriage And Concupiscence
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on augustin’s forwarding to him what he calls his first book “on marriage and concupiscence.”
On Marriage and Concupiscence,
Chapter 1.—Concerning the Argument of This Treatise.
Chapter 2. [II.]—Why This Treatise Was Addressed to Valerius.
Chapter 3 [III.]—Conjugal Chastity the Gift of God.
Chapter 8 [VII.]—The Evil of Lust Does Not Take Away the Good of Marriage.
Chapter 15.—The Teaching of the Apostle on This Subject.
Chapter 18 [XVI.]—Continence Better Than Marriage But Marriage Better Than Fornication.
Chapter 19 [XVII.]—Blessing of Matrimony.
Chapter 20 [XVIII]—Why Children of Wrath are Born of Holy Matrimony.
Chapter 24.—Lust and Shame Come from Sin The Law of Sin The Shamelessness of the Cynics.
Chapter 30 [XXVII.]—The Evil Desires of Concupiscence We Ought to Wish that They May Not Be.
Chapter 31 [XXVIII.]—Who is the Man that Can Say, “It is No More I that Do It”?
Chapter 32.—When Good Will Be Perfectly Done.
Chapter 33 [XXX.]—True Freedom Comes with Willing Delight in God’s Law.
Chapter 34.—How Concupiscence Made a Captive of the Apostle What the Law of Sin Was to the Apostle.
Chapter 35 [XXXI.]—The Flesh, Carnal Affection.
Chapter 36.—Even Now While We Still Have Concupiscence We May Be Safe in Christ.
Chapter 1 [I.]—Introductory Statement.
Chapter 3.—The Same Continued.
Chapter 4.—The Same Continued.
Chapter 5.—The Same Continued.
Chapter 6.—The Same Continued.
Chapter 8.—Augustin Refutes the Passage Adduced Above.
Chapter 10 [IV.]—In What Manner the Adversary’s Cavils Must Be Refuted.
Chapter 11.—The Devil the Author, Not of Nature, But Only of Sin.
Chapter 12.—Eve’s Name Means Life, and is a Great Sacrament of the Church.
Chapter 13.—The Pelagian Argument to Show that the Devil Has No Rights in the Fruits of Marriage.
Chapter 14 [V.]—Concupiscence Alone, in Marriage, is Not of God.
Chapter 16 [VI.]—It is Not of Us, But Our Sins, that the Devil is the Author.
Chapter 18.—The Same Continued.
Chapter 19 [VIII.]—The Pelagians Misunderstand “Seed” In Scripture.
Chapter 20.—Original Sin is Derived from the Faulty Condition of Human Seed.
Chapter 21 [IX.]—It is the Good God That Gives Fruitfulness, and the Devil That Corrupts the Fruit.
Chapter 22.—Shall We Be Ashamed of What We Do, or of What God Does?
Chapter 24 [XI.]—What Covenant of God the New-Born Babe Breaks. What Was the Value of Circumcision.
Chapter 25 [XII.]—Augustin Not the Deviser of Original Sin.
Chapter 26 [XIII.]—The Child in No Sense Formed by Concupiscence.
Chapter 28 [XIV.]—Augustin’s Answer to This Argument. Its Dealing with Scripture.
Chapter 29.—The Same Continued. Augustin Also Asserts that God Forms Man at Birth.
Chapter 30 [XV.]—The Case of Abimelech and His House Examined.
Chapter 31 [XVI.]—Why God Proceeds to Create Human Beings, Who He Knows Will Be Born in Sin.
Chapter 32 [XVII.]—God Not the Author of the Evil in Those Whom He Creates.
Chapter 33 [XVIII.]—Though God Makes Us, We Perish Unless He Re-makes Us in Christ.
Chapter 36 [XXI.]—God Made Nature Good: the Saviour Restores It When Corrupted.
Chapter 39 [XXIV.]—Man Born of Whatever Parentage is Sinful and Capable of Redemption.
Chapter 40 [XXV.]—Augustin Declines the Dilemma Offered Him.
Chapter 43.—The Good Tree in the Gospel that Cannot Bring Forth Evil Fruit, Does Not Mean Marriage.
Chapter 45.—Answer to This Argument: The Apostle Says We All Sinned in One.
Chapter 47.—The Scriptures Repeatedly Teach Us that All Sin in One.
Chapter 48.—Original Sin Arose from Adam’s Depraved Will. Whence the Corrupt Will Sprang.
Chapter 49 [XXIX.]—In Infants Nature is of God, and the Corruption of Nature of the Devil.
Chapter 52 [XXX.]—Sin Was the Origin of All Shameful Concupiscence.
Chapter 53 [XXXI.]—Concupiscence Need Not Have Been Necessary for Fruitfulness.
Chapter 54 [XXXII.]—How Marriage is Now Different Since the Existence of Sin.
Chapter 55 [XXXIII.]—Lust is a Disease The Word “Passion” In the Ecclesiastical Sense.
Chapter 57 [XXXIV.]—The Great Sin of the First Man.
Chapter 60.—Let Not the Pelagians Indulge Themselves in a Cruel Defence of Infants.
Chapter 2. [II.]—Why This Treatise Was Addressed to Valerius.
Now there are three very special reasons, which I will briefly indicate, why I wished to write to you particularly on this subject. One is, because by the gift of Christ you are a strict observer of conjugal chastity. Another is, because by your great care and diligence you have effectually withstood those profane novelties which we are resisting in our present discussion. The third is, because of my learning that something which they had committed to writing had found its way into your hands; and although in your robust faith you could despise such an attempt, it is still a good thing for us also to know how to bring aid to our faith by defending it. For the Apostle Peter instructs us to be “ready always to give an answer to every one that asketh us a reason of the faith and hope that is in us;”10 1 Pet. iii. 15. [The reading “faith and hope” stands in certain Latin Biblical mss. Also, e.g., Codices Harleianus and Toletanus. Traces of a similar reading are not unknown also in Greek (Origen, Basil) and Syriac (Peshitto) sources.—W.] and the Apostle Paul says, “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.”11 Col. iv. 6. These are the motives which chiefly impel me to hold such converse with you in this volume, as the Lord shall enable me. I have never liked, indeed, to intrude the perusal of any of my humble labours on any eminent person, who is like yourself conspicuous to all from the elevation of his office, without his own request,—especially when he is not blessed with the enjoyment of a dignified retirement, but is still occupied in the public duties of a soldier’s profession; this has always seemed to me to savour more impertinence than of respectful esteem. If, then, I have incurred censure of this kind, while acting on the reasons which I have now mentioned, I crave the favour of your forgiveness, and kindly regard to the following arguments.
CAPUT II.
2. Cur opus ad Valerium scripserit. Cur autem ad te potissimum de hac re scribere voluerim, tres maximae causae sunt, quas breviter intimabo. Una est, quia donante Christo, magna tibi est observantia pudicitiae conjugalis. Altera, quia profanis istis novitatibus, quibus hic disputando resistimus, tu potestate curando et instando efficaciter restitisti. Tertia, quoniam quiddam litterarum ab eis conscriptum in tuas manus venisse cognovi: quod licet fide robustissima irriseris, bonum est tamen ut etiam noverimus defendendo adjuvare quod credimus. Apostolus enim Petrus, paratos nos esse praecipit ad satisfactionem omni poscenti nos rationem de fide et spe nostra (I Petr. III, 15). Et apostolus Paulus: Sermo, inquit, vester in gratia conditus sit sale, ut sciatis quomodo oporteat vos unicuique respondere (Coloss. IV, 6). Ista sunt quae me praecipue compulerunt, ut in hoc volumine tecum haberem, qualem Dominus dignaretur donare, sermonem. Nam mihi nunquam placuit cuiquam illustri viro, et tanta quanta es ipse sublimitate conspicuo, praesertim non otiosa dignitate jam fruenti, sed adhuc actibus publicis eisdemque militaribus occupato, 0415 aliquid meorum opusculorum legendum non a me petenti, non tam diligenter, quam impudenter impingere. Si quid ergo tale nunc feci propter eas quas commemoravi causas, dignanter ignosce, et benevolum animum ad ea quae sequuntur intende.