Saint Augustine (354-430)

Of Marriage and Concupiscence

Translated by Peter Holmes

Book II

Chapter 9

What, therefore, is this man’s meaning, in the next passage, wherein he says concerning Noah and his sons, that “they were blessed, even as Adam and Eve were; for God said unto them, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and have dominion over the earth’ ”? To these words of the Almighty he added some of his own, saying “Now that pleasure, which you would have seem diabolical, was resorted to in the case of the above-mentioned married pairs; and it continued to exist, both in the goodness of its institution and in the blessing attached to it. For there can be no doubt that the following words were addressed to Noah and his sons in reference to their bodily connection with their wives, which had become by this time unalterably fixed by use: ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.’ ” It is unnecessary for us to employ many words in repeating our former argument. The point here in question is the corruption in our nature, whereby its goodness has been depraved, of which corruption the devil is the author. That goodness of nature, as it is in itself, the author of which is God, is not the question we have to consider. Now God has never withdrawn from corrupted and depraved nature His own mercy and goodness, so as to deprive man of fruitfulness, vivacity, and health, as well as the very substance of his mind and body, his senses also and reason, as well as food, and nourishment, and growth. He, moreover, “maketh His sun to arise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust”; and all that is good in human nature is from the good God, even in the case of those men who will not be delivered from evil.

It is, however, of pleasure that this man spoke in his passage, because pleasure can be even honourable: of carnal concupiscence, or lust, which produces shame, he made no mention. In some subsequent words, however, he uncovered his susceptibility of shame; and he was unable to dissemble what nature herself has prescribed so forcibly. “There is also,” says he, “that statement: ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh.’ ” Then after these words of God, he goes on to offer some of his own, saying: “That he might express faith in works, the prophet approached very near to a perilling of modesty.” What a confession! How clear and extorted from him by the force of truth! The prophet, it would seem, to express faith in works, almost imperilled modesty, when he said, “They twain shall become one flesh”; wishing it to be understood of the sexual union of the male and the female. Let the cause be alleged, why the prophet, in expressing the works of God, should approach so near an imperilling of modesty? Is it then the case that the works of man ought not to produce shame, but must be gloried in at all events, and that the works of God must produce shame? Is it, that in setting forth and expressing the works of God the prophet’s love or labour receives no honour, but his modesty is imperilled? What, then, was it possible for God to do, which it would be a shame for His prophet to describe? And, what is a weightier question still, could a man be ashamed of any work which not man, but God, has made in man? whereas workmen in all cases strive, with all the labour and diligence in their power, to avoid shame in the works of their own hands. The truth, however, is, that we are ashamed of that very thing which made those primitive human beings ashamed, when they covered their loins. That is the penalty of sin; that is the plague and mark of sin; that is the temptation and very fuel of sin; that is the law in our members warring against the law of our mind; that is the rebellion against our own selves, proceeding from our very selves, which by a most righteous retribution is rendered us by our disobedient members. It is this which makes us ashamed, and justly ashamed. If it were not so, what could be more ungrateful, more irreligious in us, if in our members we were to suffer confusion of face, not for our own fault or penalty, but because of the works of God?

Book II Chapter 8

Book II Chapter 10