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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 14 [V.]—Concupiscence Alone, in Marriage, is Not of God.
You see the terms of his question to us: what the devil can find in the sexes to call his own, by reason of which they should be in his power, who are born of parents of whatsoever kind, unless they be born again in Christ; he asks us, moreover, whether it is the difference in the sexes which we ascribe to the devil, or their union, or their very fruitfulness. We answer, then, nothing of these qualities, inasmuch as the difference of sex belongs to “the vessels” of the parents; while the union of the two pertains to the procreation of children; and their fruitfulness to the blessing pronounced on the marriage institution. But all these things are of God; yet amongst them he was unwilling to name that “lust of the flesh, which is not of the Father, but is of the world;”169 1 John ii. 16. and “of this world” the devil is said to be “the prince.”170 John xiv. 30. Now, the devil found no carnal concupiscence in the Lord, because the Lord did not come as a man to men by its means. Accordingly, He says Himself: “The prince of this world cometh, and findeth nothing in me”171 John xiv. 30.—nothing, that is, of sin; neither that which is derived from birth, nor that which is added during life. Among all the natural goods of procreation which he mentioned, he was, I repeat, unwilling to name this particular fact of concupiscence, over which even marriage blushes, which glories in all these before-mentioned goods. For why is the especial work of parents withdrawn and hidden even from the eyes of their children, except that it is impossible for them to be occupied in laudable procreation without shameful lust? Because of this it was that even they were ashamed who first covered their nakedness.172 Gen. iii. 7. These portions of their person were not suggestive of shame before, but deserved to be commended and praised as the work of God. They put on their covering when they felt their shame, and they felt their shame when, after their own disobedience to their Maker, they felt their members disobedient to themselves. Our quoter of extracts likewise felt ashamed of this concupiscence. For he mentioned the difference of the sexes; he mentioned also their union, and he mentioned their fertility; but this last concomitant of lust he blushed to mention. And no wonder if mere talkers are ashamed of that which we see parents themselves, so interested in their function, blush to think of.
CAPUT V.
14. Vides igitur quemadmodum nos interroget, quid suum diabolus cognoscat in sexibus, per quod sub illo sint, qui de parentibus qualibuscumque nascuntur, nisi renascantur in Christo: utrum diversitatem sexuum dicamus ad diabolum pertinere, 0444 an commixtionem, an ipsam fecunditatem. Respondemus itaque, nihil horum: quia et diversitas sexuum pertinet ad vasa gignentium, et utriusque commixtio ad seminationem pertinet filiorum, et ipsa fecunditas ad benedictionem pertinet nuptiarum. Haec autem omnia ex Deo: sed iste in his omnibus noluit nominare concupiscentiam carnis, quae non est a Patre, sed ex mundo est (I Joan. II, 16); cujus mundi princeps dictus est diabolus: qui eam in Domino non invenit, quia Dominus homo non per ipsam ad homines venit: unde dicit etiam ipse, Ecce venit princeps hujus mundi, et in me nihil invenit (Joan. XIV, 30): nihil utique peccati, nec quod a nascente trahitur, nec quod a vivente additur. Hanc iste noluit nominare in his omnibus, quae commemoravit, naturalibus bonis, de qua etiam nuptiae confunduntur, quae de his bonis omnibus gloriantur. Nam quare illud opus conjugatorum subtrahitur et absconditur etiam oculis filiorum, nisi quia non possunt esse in laudanda commixtione, sine pudenda libidine? De hac erubuerunt etiam qui primi pudenda texerunt (Gen. III, 7), quae prius pudenda non fuerunt, sed tanquam Dei opera praedicanda atque glorianda . Tunc ergo texerunt, quando erubuerunt: tunc autem erubuerunt, quando post inobedientiam suam inobedientia membra senserunt. De hac erubuit etiam iste laudator: commemoravit enim sexuum diversitatem, commemoravit commixtionem, commemoravit fecunditatem; illam vero commemorare verecundatus est. Nec mirum si pudet laudantes, quod videmus ipsos pudere generantes.