Saint Augustine (354-430)

Of Marriage and Concupiscence

Translated by Peter Holmes

Book II

Chapter 2

The paper which I now answer starts with this title: “Headings out of a book written by Augustine, in reply to which I have culled a few passages out of books.” I perceive from this that the person who forwarded these written papers to your Excellency wanted to make his extracts out of the books he does not name, with a view, so far as I can judge, to getting a quicker answer, in order that he might not delay your urgency. Now, after considering what books they were which he meant, I suppose that it must have been those which Julian mentioned in the Epistle he sent to Rome, a copy of which found its way to me at the same time. For he there says: “They go so far as to allege that marriage, now in dispute, was not instituted by God,—a declaration which may be read in a work of Augustine’s, to which I have lately replied in a treatise of four books.” These are the books, as I believe, from which the extracts were taken. It would, then, have been perhaps the better course if I had set myself deliberately to disprove and refute that entire work of his, which he spread out into four volumes. But I was most unwilling to delay my answer, even as you yourself lost no time in forwarding to me the written statements which I was requested to reply to.

The words which he has quoted and endeavoured to refute out of my book, which I sent to you, and with which you are very well acquainted, are the following: “They are constantly affirming, in their excessive hatred of us, that we condemn marriage and that divine procedure by which God creates human beings by means of men and women, inasmuch as we maintain that they who are born of such a union contract original sin, and do not deny that, of whatever parents they are born, they are still under the devil’s dominion unless they be born again in Christ.” Now, in quoting these words of mine, he took care to omit the testimony of the apostle, which I adduced by the weighty significance of which he felt himself too hard pressed. For, after saying that men at their birth contract original sin, I at once introduced the apostle’s words: “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for in him all men sinned.” Well, as I have already mentioned, he omitted this passage of the apostle, and then closed up the other remarks of mine which have been now quoted. For he knew too well how acceptable to the hearts and consciences of all faithful catholics are these words of the apostle, which I had adopted, but which he omitted,—words which are so direct and so clear, that these new-fangled heretics use every effort in their dark and tortuous glosses to obscure and deprave their force.

But he has added other words of mine, where I have said: “Nor do they reflect that the good of marriage is no more impeachable by reason of the original evil which is derived therefrom, than the evil of adultery and fornication can be excused by reason of the natural good which is born of them. For as sin is the work of the devil, whether derived from this source or from that; so is man, whether born of this or that, the work of God.” Here, too, he has left out some words, in which he was afraid of catholic ears. For to come to the words here quoted, it had previously been said by us: “Because, then, we affirm this doctrine, which is contained in the oldest and unvarying rule of the catholic faith, these propounders of novel and perverse dogmas, who deny that there is in infants any sin to be washed away in the laver of regeneration, in their unbelief or ignorance calumniate us as if we condemned marriage, and as if we asserted to be the devil’s work what is God’s own work, to wit, the human being which is born of marriage.” All this passage he has passed over, and merely quoted the words which follow it, as given above. Now, in the omitted words he was afraid of the clause which suits all hearts in the catholic Church and appeals to the very faith which has been firmly established and transmitted from ancient times with unfaltering voice and excites their hostility most strongly against us. The clause is this: “They deny that there is in infants any sin to be washed away in the laver of regeneration.” For all persons run to church with their infants for no other reason in the world than that the original sin which is contracted in them by their first and natural birth may be cleansed by the regeneration of their second birth.

He then returns to our words, which were quoted before: “We maintain that they who are born of such a union contract original sin; and we do not deny that, of whatever parents they are born, they are still under the devil’s dominion unless they be born again in Christ.” Why he should again refer to these words of ours I cannot tell; he had already cited them a little before. He then proceeds to quote what we said of Christ: “Who willed not to be born from the same union of the two sexes.” But here again he quietly ignored the words which I placed just previous to these words; my entire sentence being this: “That by His grace they may be removed from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of Him who willed not to be born from the same union of the two sexes.” Observe, I pray you, what my words were which he shunned, in the temper of one who is thoroughly opposed to that grace of God which comes through our “Lord Jesus Christ.” He knows well enough that it is the height of improbity and impiety to exclude infants from their interest in the apostle’s words, where he said of God the Father: “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear son.” This, no doubt, is the reason why he preferred to omit rather than quote these words.

He has next adduced that passage of ours, wherein we said: “For there would have been none of this shame-producing concupiscence, which is impudently praised by impudent men, if man had not previously sinned; while as to marriage, it would still have existed, even if no man had sinned: for the procreation of children would have been effected without this disease.” Up to this point he cited my words; but he shrank from adding what comes next—“in the body of that chaste life, although without it this cannot be done in ‘the body of this death.’ ” He would not complete my sentence, but mutilated it somewhat, because he dreaded the apostle’s exclamation, of which my words gave him a reminder: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” For the body of this death existed not in paradise before sin; therefore did we say, “In the body of that chaste life,” which was the life of paradise, “the procreation of children could have been effected without the disease, without which now in the body of this death it cannot be done.” The apostle, however, before arriving at that mention of man’s misery and God’s grace which we have just quoted, had first said: “I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” Then it is that he exclaimed, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” In the body of this death, therefore, such as it was in paradise before sin, there certainly was not “another law in our members warring against the law of our mind”—which now, even when we are unwilling, and withhold consent, and use not our members to fulfil that which it desires, still dwells in these members, and harasses our resisting and repugnant mind. And this conflict in itself, although not involving condemnation, because it does not consummate sin, is nevertheless “wretched,” inasmuch as it has no peace. I think, then, that I have shown you clearly enough that this man had a special object as well as method in quoting my words: he adduced them for refutation in such manner as in some instances to interrupt the context of my sentences by removing what stood between them, and in other instances to curtail them by withdrawing their concluding words; and his reason for doing all this I think I have sufficiently explained.

Book II Chapter 1

Book II Chapter 3