Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 46

A LETTER TO COUNT VALERIUS. To his lord, illustrious and deservedly most excellent, and in the love of Christ most dear son, Valerius: Augustine, greeting in the Lord. Whereas I had long been troubled that I had written several times and had merited no reply from your Sublimity, suddenly I received three letters from your Benignity:

one, not sent to me alone, by my fellow-bishop Vindemialis, and not long after, two by my fellow-presbyter Firmus. This holy man, joined to us — as you could learn from him — by a most intimate charity, by conversing much with us about your excellence and truthfully making known to us of what sort he had come to know you in the bowels of Christ, surpassed not only those letters which the aforesaid bishop or which he himself brought, but even those which we complained of not having received. And therefore his account of you was the sweeter to us, because he said those things which you yourself could not have written back even had I inquired, lest, contrary to what Holy Scripture forbids, you should become a proclaimer of your own praises.

And yet I too am afraid to write these things to you, lest I incur the suspicion of a flatterer, my lord, illustrious and deservedly most excellent and in the love of Christ most dear son. See, therefore, what delight and gladness it was to me to hear your praises in Christ — or rather, in you, the praises of Christ — from him who could neither deceive me because of his faith, nor be ignorant of these things because of his friendship with you.

But other things also, and from others — though not so many nor so certain — we nevertheless have heard: how sound and catholic your faith is, how pious your expectation of things to come, how great your love of God and of the brethren, how you are not proudly wise amid your lofty honours, nor set your hope in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God, and are rich in good works; how your house is a rest and solace to the saints and a terror to the impious; how great is your care that no one lie in wait for the members of Christ, cloaked under the veil of the name of Christ, whether among His old or His more recent enemies; and how provident you are for the salvation of those same enemies, yet hostile to their error. These things and the like, as I said, we are wont to hear even from others;

but now, through the aforementioned brother, we have come to know these things more fully and more attested. Furthermore, concerning your conjugal chastity — that we might love and praise this too in you — what should we have heard, save from some intimate familiar of yours, who knew your life not on the surface but inwardly? Concerning this good of yours, then, this gift of God, it delights me also to speak with you more familiarly and somewhat at greater length. I know that I am no burden to you if I send something lengthy, whereby, in reading, you may be longer with us. For I have learned this too: that amid your many and great cares you read easily and gladly, and are quite delighted by our little works — even those which we have written to others — if any have been able to come into your hands.

How much more, then, that which is written to you, where I speak as though to one present, both do you deign to attend more attentively and to receive more gratefully! From this letter, therefore, proceed to the book which I have sent together with it, which will itself, at its very beginning, more conveniently make known to your Reverence both why it was written and why it was sent to you in particular. Book IV. TWO BOOKS ON MARRIAGE AND CONCUPISCENCE, TO COUNT VALERIUS. BOOK ONE. The new heretics, most beloved son Valerius, who contend that the medicine of Christ, by which sins are healed, is not necessary for little ones born of the flesh,

they most odiously cry out that we are condemners of marriage and of the divine work by which God creates men from males and females, because we say that those who are born of such union draw upon themselves original sin — of which the Apostle says: 'By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so it passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned' — and because we do not deny that these, of whatever sort of parents they are born, are still under the devil, unless they be born again in Christ and, by His grace, rescued from the power of darkness, be transferred into the kingdom of Him who willed not to be born of that same union of the two sexes.

Because, then, we say this — which is contained in the most ancient and firmest rule of the catholic faith — these asserters of a novel and perverse dogma, who say there is no sin in little ones that is washed away by the laver of regeneration, faithlessly or ignorantly calumniate us as though we condemned marriage, and as though we said that the work of God — that is, the man who is born of it — is the work of the devil; and they do not perceive that the good of marriage can no more be accused on account of the original evil which is drawn from it, than the evil of adulteries and fornications can be excused on account of the natural good which is born of it. For just as sin, whether drawn by little ones from this source or from that, is the work of the devil, so man, whether born from this source or from that, is the work of God.

The intention, therefore, of this book is this: that, as far as the Lord deigns to help us, we may distinguish the evil of carnal concupiscence — on account of which man, who is born through it, draws original sin — from the goodness of marriage. For this shameful concupiscence, which is shamelessly praised by the shameless, would not exist had man not first sinned; but marriage would exist even had no one sinned. For indeed the sowing of children would take place, without this disease, in a body of that life, without which it now cannot take place in this body of death. And why I have wished to write to you in particular on this matter, there are three chief causes, which I shall briefly make known. One is that, by Christ's gift, there is in you a great observance of conjugal chastity;

the second, that against these profane novelties, which we here resist by disputation, you have effectively resisted by your authority, in curbing and pressing them; the third, that I have learned that a certain piece of writing, composed by them, has come into your hands — which, although with most robust faith you laughed to scorn, it is nevertheless good that we should also know how to help by defending what we believe. For the Apostle Peter enjoins that we be ready for confession to everyone who asks of us a reason concerning our faith and hope; and the Apostle Paul: 'Let your speech,' he says, 'be seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man.' These are chiefly the things that have compelled me, that in this volume I might have with you such discourse as the Lord should deign to grant.

For it never pleased me to thrust something of my little works, to be read, upon any illustrious man conspicuous for so great a sublimity as you yourself are — especially one not now enjoying a leisured dignity, but still occupied with public and indeed military affairs — when he had not asked it of me, not so much diligently as impudently. If, therefore, I have now done any such thing, on account of the causes I have mentioned graciously pardon it, and bend a well-disposed mind to what follows. That conjugal chastity too is a gift of God, the most blessed Paul shows, where, speaking of this matter, he says: 'I would that all men were even as myself; but every one hath his proper gift from God, one after this manner, and another after that.'

Behold, he said that this too is a gift from God — though inferior to that continence in which he wished all to be as himself — yet a gift from God. Whence we understand that, when these things are enjoined that they be done, nothing else is shown than that there must be in us, for the receiving and having of them, also our own will; but when they are demonstrated to be gifts of God, we learn from whom they are to be sought, if they are not had, and to whom thanks are to be given, if they are had, and that our own wills avail too little for seeking, taking, and retaining these things, unless they be divinely assisted. What, then, do we say, when conjugal chastity is found even in certain impious persons?

Are they to be said to sin in this, that they misuse a gift of God, not referring it to the worship of Him from whom they received it? Or are these perhaps not even to be reckoned gifts of God, when unbelievers do them, according to the Apostle's sentence which says: 'Whatsoever is not of faith is sin'? But who would dare to say that a gift of God is sin? For the soul and the body and whatever goods are naturally implanted in soul and body — even in sinners — are gifts of God, since it is God, and not they themselves, who made these things; but concerning the things which they do it is said: 'Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.'

When, therefore, men without faith do these things which seem to pertain to conjugal chastity — whether seeking to please men, either themselves or others, or in these matters which they viciously covet avoiding human troubles, or serving demons — sins are not restrained, but sins are conquered by other sins. Far be it, then, that he be truly called chaste who does not keep faith with his wife in wedlock for the sake of the true God. The coupling, therefore, of male and female for the sake of begetting is the natural good of marriage.

But he misuses this good who uses it bestially, so that his intention is in the pleasure of lust, not in the will of propagation — although in not a few animals devoid of reason, as in most birds, a certain confederacy as it were of unions is kept, and the social skill of nest-building, and in turn the divided times of brooding the eggs and the alternating labour of nourishing the young, make them seem, when they couple, to be engaged rather in the business of continuing their kind than of satisfying lust. Of which two things, the former is, in the beast, like the man; the latter, in the man, like the beast.

But that which I said pertains to the nature of marriage — that male and female be joined in the fellowship of begetting, and thus not defraud one another, just as every fellowship naturally does not want a fraudulent partner — this manifest good, nevertheless, when unbelievers have it, because they use it unbelievingly, they turn into evil and sin. In that same manner, then, the faithful marriages of believers turn even that concupiscence of the flesh — by which the flesh lusts against the spirit — into a use of righteousness. For they have the intention of begetting those to be regenerated, so that those who are born of them as children of the world may be born again as children of God.

Wherefore those who beget children not with this intention, this will, this end — that they may transfer them from the members of the first man into the members of Christ — but, as unbelieving parents, glory in unbelieving offspring, even if they be of such great observance that, according to the marriage tablets, they lie together only for the sake of procreating children, there is not in them true conjugal chastity. For since chastity is a virtue, to which the vice contrary is unchastity, and since all virtues — even those which operate through the body — dwell in the soul, how by true reasoning is the body asserted to be chaste, when the soul itself commits fornication away from the true God? Which fornication that holy Psalm accuses, where it says: 'For behold, they that put themselves far from Thee shall perish;'

Thou hast destroyed all them that go a-whoring from Thee.' True chastity, therefore — whether conjugal, or widowed, or virginal — is not to be so called, save that which is devoted to true faith. For since by right judgment consecrated virginity is preferred to marriage, what Christian of sober mind would not set even Christian catholic wives who have had but one husband before not only the Vestals, but even before heretical virgins? So greatly avails faith, of which the Apostle says: 'Whatsoever is not of faith is sin,' and of which it is likewise written to the Hebrews: 'Without faith it is impossible to please God.' Since these things are so, assuredly they err who, when carnal lust is blamed, suppose that marriage is condemned, as though this disease were from wedlock and not from sin.

Were not those first spouses, whose marriage God blessed, saying: 'Increase and multiply,' naked and not ashamed? Why, then, after sin, was there confusion arising from those members, unless because there arose there an unseemly motion, which, had men not sinned, marriage would without doubt not have had? Or was it perhaps, as certain persons suppose — because they attend too little diligently to what they read — that the first men were created blind, like dogs, and (what is more absurd) that not, like dogs, by growing, but by sinning, they acquired sight? Far be it to believe this. But that which moves those who think this is that which is read: 'Taking of its fruit, she ate; and she gave to her husband with her, and they ate. And the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.'

Hence it is that those who understand too little suppose that beforehand their eyes were closed, because Divine Scripture testifies that these were then opened. But surely did Hagar too, the handmaid of Sarah, when — her son thirsting and weeping — she opened her eyes and saw a well, have her eyes closed before? Or those two disciples, after the Lord's resurrection, were they walking on the way with Him with closed eyes — of whom the Gospel speaks, that in the breaking of bread their eyes were opened, and they knew Him? That, then, which is written of the first men:

'The eyes of both were opened,' we ought to understand as their having been made attentive to gazing at and recognizing what new thing had happened in their body — a body which assuredly lay subject, exposed and known, daily to their open eyes. Otherwise, how could Adam, with closed eyes, have imposed names upon all the terrestrial and flying animals brought to him — which he would not do save by distinguishing, and could not distinguish save by seeing? How, finally, was the woman herself shown to him, when he said: 'This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh'?

Finally, if anyone shall be so contentious as to say that he could have done these things not by seeing but by touching, what will he say of that which is there read — that the woman saw how fair to the eyes to behold was the tree of which she was about to take the forbidden food? They were, then, naked and not ashamed — not because they did not see, but because they had felt nothing in those members, which they saw, whereby they should be ashamed. For it is not said, 'They were both naked and did not know it,' but, 'They were not ashamed.' For since nothing had preceded that was not lawful, nothing had followed of which they should be ashamed.

There, man — having first transgressed God's law — began to have in his members another law warring against his mind, and felt the evil of his own disobedience, when he found the disobedience of his own flesh most deservedly requited to him. For such an opening of the eyes had the serpent by seduction promised, namely, to the knowing of something which it were better not to know. Then indeed man felt within himself what he had done; then he distinguished evil from good, not by lacking it, but by suffering it through and through. For it was unjust that he should be obeyed by his servant — that is, by his body — who had not obeyed his own Lord.

For what is it that the eyes, the lips, the tongue, the hands, the feet, the bendings of the back, the neck, and the sides — that they may be moved to their fitting works — are placed in our power, when we have a body free and sound from impediments; but, when it comes to sowing children, the members created for this work do not serve at the nod of the will, but one waits for lust, as though it were of its own right, to stir them, and sometimes it does not act though the mind wills, while sometimes it acts even when the mind is unwilling? Would not the liberty of the human will hereby blush, that by despising God who commands it lost its own command even over its own members?

But where could it more fittingly be shown that human nature was depraved by the deserving of disobedience than in these disobedient parts, from which, through succession, that very nature subsists? For it is on this account that these parts of the body are properly called by the name of 'nature.' This motion, therefore — unseemly precisely because disobedient — when those first men had felt it in their flesh and had blushed at their nakedness, they covered those same members with fig-leaves, so that at least by the choice of those ashamed there might be veiled what was not moved by the choice of the willing; and, since what unseemly aroused them was a shame, by covering there might come to be what was seemly.

Because, then, not even by the adjoining of this evil could the good of marriage perish, the imprudent suppose that this is not an evil, but pertains to that good. But it is distinguished — not only by subtle reasoning, but even by the most common natural judgment — which appeared even in those first men and is held today by married persons. For what they afterward did by propagation, this is the good of wedlock; but what they earlier covered in confusion, this is the evil of concupiscence, which everywhere shuns the gaze and, in its shame, seeks secrecy. Accordingly, marriage — because out of that evil it too makes something good — glories; because it cannot come to pass without that evil, it blushes.

Just as if someone with a lamed foot should reach some good even by limping, and neither on account of the evil of the limping is that arrival evil, nor on account of the good of that arrival is the limping good — so neither ought we, on account of the evil of lust, to condemn marriage, nor, on account of the good of marriage, to praise lust. For this is indeed that disease of which the Apostle, speaking even to married believers, says: 'For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from fornication, that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour, not in the disease of desire, even as the Gentiles who know not God.'

Therefore not only must the faithful married man not make use of another's vessel — which those do who covet other men's wives — but he must also know that he is not to possess even his own vessel in the disease of carnal concupiscence. This is not to be so understood as though the Apostle had forbidden conjugal — that is, lawful and honourable — intercourse; but rather that this intercourse, which would have had nothing of morbid lust attached to it if free choice had not perished in it through the sin that went before (whereas now it does have that attached to it), belongs not to the will but to necessity, without which, nevertheless, the fruit of that very will cannot be attained in the procreation of children.

This will, in the marriages of the faithful, is not bounded by the aim that children may be born into this world as those who will pass away, but that they may be reborn in Christ as those who will abide. If this comes about, there will be from the marriage the reward of full felicity; but if it does not come about, there will be for the spouses the peace of a good will. With this intention of heart, whoever possesses his own vessel — that is, his wife — assuredly possesses it not in the disease of desire, like the Gentiles who know not God, but in sanctification and honour, like the faithful who hope in God.

For a man uses that evil of concupiscence, and is not overcome by it, when he bridles and restrains it as it seethes with disordered and unseemly motions, and relaxes and applies it only with a view to offspring — that he may carnally beget those who are to be spiritually regenerated, not that he may subject the spirit to the flesh in sordid servitude. That the holy fathers, from Abraham and before Abraham — to whom God bears witness that they were pleasing to Him — thus made use of their wives, no Christian ought to doubt, since to certain individuals it was even granted to have several wives, where the reason was the multiplying of offspring, not the seeking of varied pleasure.

For if that multiplicity of wives had not been displeasing to the God of our fathers — who is also our God — on the ground that lust might thereby more abundantly disport itself, then holy women likewise would each have served several husbands. But if any woman did so, what would have driven her, save the foulness of concupiscence, to have several husbands, since by such licence she would not have had more children? Yet that it pertains rather to the good of marriage to be not one man and many women, but one man and one woman, the very first union of spouses, made by divine act, sufficiently indicates — so that from that source marriages might take their beginning, where the example might be regarded as more honourable. But as the human race went forward, good women were joined to certain good men, several to each.

Whence it appears that the one course sought rather the modesty of dignity, while the other permitted the nature of fecundity. For rule too, by nature, can more readily belong to one over many than to many over one. Nor can it be doubted that by the natural order men should have rule over women rather than women over men. Observing this, the Apostle says: 'The head of the woman is the man,' and: 'Wives, be subject to your husbands'; and the Apostle Peter says: 'even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.' And although this is so — that the nature of things having principle loves singularity, whereas we more readily see plurality among things subordinate — nevertheless several women would never lawfully be joined to one man, unless from this more children were born.

Whence, if one woman should lie with several men, since for her this brings no multiplying of offspring but only the frequenting of lust, she cannot be a wife but a harlot. And since indeed not only fecundity, whose fruit is in offspring, nor only chastity, whose bond is faith, but also a certain sacrament of marriage is commended to the faithful who are married — whence the Apostle says: 'Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church' — the reality of this sacrament is, without doubt, that the man and woman joined in wedlock should remain inseparably as long as they live, and that it should not be lawful, except for the cause of fornication, for one spouse to be put away from the other.

For this is preserved in Christ and the Church, that the living, joined with the living, may in eternity be separated by no divorce. So great is the observance of this sacrament in the city of our God, on His holy mountain — that is, in the Church of Christ, among all the faithful who are married, who are without doubt members of Christ — that, although women marry and wives are taken for the sake of procreating children, it is not lawful to forsake even a barren spouse in order that another, being fruitful, may be taken.

But if anyone should do so, he is not, by the law of this world — where, when a bill of divorce intervenes, it is permitted without crime to contract new marriages with others (which the Lord testifies that even holy Moses allowed the Israelites because of their hardness of heart) — but by the law of the Gospel he is guilty of adultery; as is she too, if she should marry another. So far do the rights of marriage, once entered into between the living, endure, that those who have been separated from one another are rather spouses to each other than they are to those to whom they have attached themselves afterward. For with these others they would not be adulterers, unless they remained spouses to each other. Finally, once the husband is dead with whom there was a true marriage, a true marriage can be made with him with whom before there was adultery.

Thus there remains between the living something conjugal, which neither separation nor union with another can take away. But it remains to the harm of guilt, not to the bond of covenant — just as the soul of an apostate, as it were withdrawing from marriage with Christ, even when faith is lost does not lose the sacrament of faith which it received in the laver of regeneration. For it would without doubt be restored to him should he return, if he had lost it in departing. He who has departed, however, has this to the heaping up of punishment, not to the meriting of reward. But as for those to whom it has been pleasing, by consent, to abstain forever from the use of carnal concupiscence, far be it that the conjugal bond between them should be broken;

nay, it will be all the firmer, the more they have entered upon those compacts with each other which must be kept the more dearly and the more harmoniously, not by the pleasurable bindings of bodies but by the voluntary affections of souls. For it was not deceitfully that it was said by the angel to Joseph: 'Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife.' She is called wife from the first faith of betrothal, whom he had neither known nor was to know by intercourse; nor had the appellation 'wife' perished, nor had it remained false, where there had been and was to be no commingling of flesh whatever. For that virgin was on this account more holily and more wondrously pleasing to her husband, in that, being fruitful without a husband, she was unlike him in offspring yet equal to him in faith.

On account of which faithful marriage, both were counted worthy to be called the parents of Christ — and not only she as mother, but also he as father, being as it were the husband of His mother — both in mind, not in flesh; yet whether he was father in mind alone or she mother both in mind and in flesh, both were nevertheless parents of His lowliness, not of His loftiness; of His weakness, not of His divinity. For the Gospel does not lie, where it is read: 'And His father and mother were marvelling at those things which were spoken concerning Him'; and in another place: 'And His parents went every year to Jerusalem'; likewise a little later: 'And His mother said unto Him: Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.'

But He, to show that He had a Father besides them, who begot Him without a mother, answered them: 'How is it that ye sought me? Knew ye not that I must be about my Father's business?' And again, lest by this saying He should be thought to have denied them as parents, the Evangelist, continuing, added: 'And they understood not the word which He spake unto them. And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them.' To whom subject, if not to His parents? And who was subject, if not Jesus Christ, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God? Why then subject to those who were far below the form of God, unless because He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, of which form they were the parents?

But since she brought forth without his sowing, assuredly neither would both be parents even of that form of a servant, unless they were spouses to each other, even without the commingling of flesh. Whence too the series of generations, when the parents of Christ are commemorated by the linking of succession, ought rather to have been carried down, as indeed was done, to Joseph — lest in that marriage injury should be done to the male sex, which is certainly the stronger, since nothing was lost to the truth, because both Joseph and Mary were of the seed of David, from whom Christ was foretold to come. Thus every good of marriage was fulfilled in those parents of Christ: offspring, fidelity, sacrament. The offspring we recognize as the Lord Jesus Himself; fidelity, because there was no adultery; sacrament, because there was no divorce.

Only nuptial intercourse was absent there, because in sinful flesh it could not come to pass without that concupiscence of the flesh which befell as a result of sin — that concupiscence without which He willed to be conceived who was to be without sin, not in sinful flesh, but in the likeness of sinful flesh — that from this too He might teach that all flesh which is born of intercourse is flesh of sin, since indeed that flesh alone which was not born thereof was not flesh of sin. Yet conjugal intercourse, which is done with the intention of begetting, is not itself sin, because the good will of the mind leads the following pleasure of the body, does not follow it as leading; nor is the human will dragged along by conquering sin, when the wound of sin is justly reduced to the use of begetting.

A certain itch of this wound reigns in the foulnesses of adulteries, fornications, and defilements of every kind and of all impurities; but in the necessary intimacies of marriages it serves. There it is condemned as such a shameful thing in the master; here it is put to shame as an honourable thing in the attendant. Therefore this lust is not the good of marriage, but the obscenity of sinners, the necessity of those who beget, the ardour of wantonness, the shame of marriage. Why then should not those remain spouses who by consent cease to have intercourse, if Joseph and Mary remained spouses, who never even began to have intercourse?

For this propagation of children, which among the holy fathers was a most dutiful office for the sake of begetting and preserving the people of God, in whom the prophecy of Christ had to go before, now no longer has that necessity. For now, from all nations, there lies open an abundance of children to be spiritually begotten, from whatever source they may have been carnally born. And what is written, 'A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing,' is recognized as distributed through that time and this: for that was the time of embracing, but this the time of refraining from embracing. And so the Apostle too, when he was speaking of this, says: 'But this I say, brethren: the time is short.'

'It remaineth, that both they who have wives be as though they had none, and they that weep as though they wept not, and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not, and they that buy as though they possessed not, and they that use this world as if they used it not; for the fashion of this world passeth away. But I would have you to be without care.' All these things, that I may say something briefly here in exposition, I think are thus to be understood. 'This I say, brethren,' he says: 'the time is short'; the people of God is no longer to be propagated by carnal generation, but is now to be gathered by spiritual regeneration.

It remains, therefore, that both they who have wives be not subjected to carnal concupiscence, and they who weep at the sadness of present evil, rejoice in the hope of future good, and they who rejoice on account of some temporal advantage, fear the eternal judgment, and they who buy so possess by having as not to cleave by loving, and they who use this world consider themselves to be passing on, not to remain; for the fashion of this world passeth away. 'I would have you,' he says, 'to be without care' — that is: I would have you keep your heart above, among those things which pass not away. Then he adds and says:

He that is without a wife careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he that is joined in matrimony careth for the things of the world, how he may please his wife.' And thus in a certain way he expounds what he had said above: 'They that have wives, let them be as though they had none.' For those who so have wives as to care for the things that are the Lord's, how they may please the Lord, and care not, in the things that are of the world, to please their wives, are as though they had none. And this comes about with that ease when the wives too are such that their husbands please them, not because they are rich, nor because they are exalted, nor because they are noble in birth, nor because they are lovely in the flesh, but because they are faithful, because they are religious, because they are chaste, because they are good men.

But among married persons, just as these things are to be desired and praised, so other things are to be tolerated, lest one fall headlong into damnable disgraces — that is, into fornications or adulteries. On account of avoiding which evil, even those acts of intercourse between spouses which are not done for the sake of begetting, but serve conquering concupiscence, in which they are bidden 'not to defraud one another, lest Satan tempt them for their incontinence,' are indeed not enjoined by way of command, yet are conceded by way of indulgence. For thus it is written: 'Let the husband render unto the wife her due, and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The woman hath not power over her own body, but the man; and likewise also the man hath not power over his own body, but the woman.'

'Defraud ye not one the other, except it be by consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to prayer; and again be together, lest Satan tempt you for your incontinence. But this I say by way of indulgence, not by way of command.' Where, therefore, indulgence is to be given, it can by no means be denied that there is something of fault. Since, then, intercourse with the intention of begetting is not blameworthy — which is what is properly to be imputed to marriage — what does the Apostle concede by way of indulgence, save that spouses, while they do not contain themselves, demand the debt of the flesh from one another not by the will of offspring but by the pleasure of lust? Which pleasure, nevertheless, does not fall into fault on account of marriage, but on account of marriage receives indulgence.

Wherefore in this respect too marriages are praiseworthy, because that also which does not pertain to itself they cause to be pardoned on account of themselves. For not even that intercourse by which concupiscence is served is so carried on that offspring, which marriage demands, is hindered. Yet it is one thing not to have intercourse save by the will of begetting alone, which has no fault; another to seek the pleasure of the flesh in having intercourse, yet not beyond the spouse, which has venial fault — because, even though intercourse is not had for the cause of propagating offspring, nevertheless the propagation of offspring is not, for the cause of this lust, obstructed, whether by evil wish or by evil deed.

For those who do this, although they are called spouses, are not, nor do they retain any truth of marriage, but hold out an honourable name as a veil for their baseness. And they are betrayed when they proceed so far as to expose the children who are born to them against their will. For they hate to nourish or to have those whom they feared to beget. And so, when a dark iniquity rages against its own children whom it begot unwillingly, it is brought forth into the light by manifest iniquity, and the hidden baseness is convicted by open cruelty.

Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, goes so far as even to procure poisons of sterility, and, if these avail nothing, in some way to extinguish and pour forth the conceived offspring within the womb — willing its own offspring rather to perish than to live, or, if it were already alive in the womb, to be slain before it is born. Assuredly, if both are such, they are not spouses; and if from the beginning they were such, they came together not by marriage but rather by debauchery. But if both are not such, I dare to say: either she is in a certain way the harlot of her husband, or he is the adulterer of his wife.

Since, therefore, marriages cannot be such as those of the first human beings might have been, had sin not gone before, let them be such as those of the holy fathers were: so that the shameful concupiscence of the flesh — which was not in paradise before sin, nor after sin has it been permitted to be (yet because it is necessary that it be in this body of death) — should not be served, but rather itself be compelled to serve for nothing except the propagating of offspring. Or, because this time, which we have already said to be a time of refraining from embracing, does not have the necessity of this office — since on every side, among all nations, there is so great a fertility of children to be spiritually begotten — let him who can receive that better good of surpassing continence receive it;

but he who cannot receive it, even if he takes a wife, sins not; and let the woman, if she does not contain herself, marry. 'For it is good for a man not to touch a woman.' But because 'not all receive this word, but they to whom it is given,' it remains that, on account of fornications, every man should have his own wife and every woman her own husband, and that thus the weakness of incontinence, lest it fall into the ruin of disgraces, may be taken up into the honourableness of marriage. For what the Apostle says of women, 'I will therefore that the younger marry,' can be said of men also: I will that the younger take wives — so that it may pertain to both sexes to beget children, to be fathers and mothers of households, to give no occasion to the adversary for the sake of reproach.

In marriage, nevertheless, let the nuptial goods be loved: offspring, fidelity, sacrament. But offspring, not only that it may be born, but also that it may be reborn; for it is born unto punishment, unless it be reborn unto life. Fidelity, however, not such as even unbelievers jealous for the flesh have between themselves; for what husband, however impious, wants an adulterous wife? Or what woman, however impious, wants an adulterous husband? This good in wedlock is indeed natural, yet carnal. But a member of Christ ought to fear his spouse's adultery for the spouse's sake, not for his own, and to hope from Christ for the reward of the fidelity which he shows to his spouse. And the sacrament, which not even the separated and the adulterous lose, let the spouses harmoniously and chastely keep.

For this alone is what even a sterile marriage holds by the right of piety, when the hope of fecundity — for which it had been joined — is already lost. Let him who wishes to praise marriage praise these nuptial goods in marriage. But the concupiscence of the flesh is not to be imputed to marriage, but to be tolerated. For it is not a good coming from natural wedlock, but an evil befalling from ancient sin. On account of this, therefore, it comes about that even from just and lawful marriages of the sons of God, not sons of God but sons of the age are begotten; because even those who beget, if they are already regenerate, do not beget from this that they are sons of God, but from that they are still sons of the age. For it is the Lord's saying: 'The children of this age beget and are begotten.'

From that, then, whereby we are still sons of this age, our outer man is corrupted; from this too the sons of this age are begotten, nor do they become sons of God unless they be regenerated. But from that whereby we are sons of God, the inner man is renewed day by day, although even the outer man himself has been sanctified through the laver of regeneration and has received the hope of future incorruption — on account of which it is rightly called the temple of God. 'Your bodies,' says the Apostle, 'are the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which ye have from God, and ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a great price. Glorify therefore God in your body.' All this is said not only on account of present sanctification, but chiefly on account of that hope, of which the same Apostle elsewhere says:

But we ourselves also, having the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.' If, therefore, according to the Apostle, the redemption of our body is awaited, assuredly what is awaited is still hoped for, is not yet held. Whence he adds and says: 'For by hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.' Not therefore through that which we await, but through that which we tolerate, are carnal children propagated. Far be it, then, from a faithful man, when he hears from the Apostle:

Love your wives,' love the concupiscence of the flesh in his wife, which he ought not to love even in himself, hearing another Apostle: 'Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him; for all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever, even as God abideth for ever.' From this lust of the flesh, then, what is born is born assuredly unto the world, not unto God; but it is born unto God when it is reborn of water and the Spirit.

Regeneration alone remits the guilt of this concupiscence, which generation draws along. Therefore let that which has been generated be regenerated, because it cannot otherwise be that what has been drawn along should be remitted. For that what has been remitted in the parent should be drawn along in the offspring comes to pass in wondrous ways indeed, yet nevertheless comes to pass. These things are invisible and to unbelievers incredible, yet true; but that they might have some visible example, divine providence has provided this in certain trees. For why should we not believe that it was so instituted, that from the olive should be born the wild olive? Or is it not to be believed that in some thing which was created for the uses of men the Creator provided and instituted something that might serve as an example for the human race?

It is a wonder, then, how those who have been freed from the bond of sin through grace should nevertheless beget children bound by the same bond, who must in the same way be freed. We confess it is a wonder. But that the seeds of wild olives lie hidden even in the seeds of olives — when would this too be believed, unless it were proved by experience? Accordingly, just as from the seed of the wild olive is born the wild olive, and from the seed of the olive is born nothing but the wild olive, though between the wild olive and the olive there is very great difference — so from the flesh of the sinner and from the flesh of the just man is born, in either case, a sinner, although between the sinner and the just man there is very great difference. And the sinner is begotten as yet no sinner by act and new by birth, but old by guilt: a man from the Creator, a captive from the deceiver, in need of a Redeemer.

But it is asked how the captivity of the offspring can be drawn along even from parents already redeemed. And because it is not tracked out by easy reasoning nor unfolded in speech, it is not believed by unbelievers — as though that too which we said about the wild olive and the olive, namely that the offspring of a dissimilar kind should be similar, some reasoning easily finds out or speech unfolds. But this can be discerned by anyone who is willing to test it. Let it therefore serve as an example, from which that too may be believed which cannot be discerned.

For the Christian faith does not doubt — that faith which the new heretics have begun to assail — both that those who are washed in the laver of regeneration are redeemed from the power of the devil, and that those who have not yet been redeemed by such regeneration, even the little children of the redeemed, are captives under the power of the same devil, unless they too be redeemed by the same grace of Christ. For we do not doubt that that benefit of God, of which the Apostle speaks, pertains to all ages: 'who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.'

From this power of darkness, therefore, of which the devil is prince — that is, from the power of the devil and his angels — whoever shall deny that little children are rescued when they are baptized, is convicted by the very truth of the Church's own sacraments, which no heretical novelty is permitted to take away or change in the Church of Christ, the Head ruling and aiding His whole body, the little ones together with the great. In truth, therefore, not in falsity, the devil's power is exorcised in little children, and they renounce him — because, since they cannot do so through themselves, they do so through the hearts and mouths of those who carry them — that, rescued from the power of darkness, they may be translated into the kingdom of their Lord.

What, then, is in them, through which they are held in the power of the devil, until they be rescued thence through the sacrament of Christ's baptism? What is it, save sin? For the devil found nothing else whereby he might make human nature subject to his own right, that good nature which a good Author instituted. But little children have committed no sin proper to their own life. There remains, therefore, original sin, through which they are held captive under the power of the devil, unless from thence they be redeemed by the laver of regeneration and the blood of Christ, and pass over into the kingdom of their Redeemer, the power of their captor being frustrated and the power being given whereby, from sons of this age, they may become sons of God.

Now, then, if we should in a certain way interrogate those goods of marriage, whence sin could have been propagated by them into little children, the operation of propagating offspring will answer us: 'I in paradise should be more happy, if sin had not been admitted. For to me pertains that blessing of God: Increase and multiply. For this good work diverse members of a diverse sex were created, which indeed already existed before sin, but were not shameful.' Fidelity of chastity will answer: 'If there had been no sin, what could have been more secure for me in paradise, where neither my own lust would goad me nor another's tempt me?' The sacrament of wedlock too will answer: 'Concerning me, before sin, it was said in paradise:

A man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh — which the Apostle says is a great sacrament in Christ and in the Church. That, therefore, which in Christ and in the Church is great, this in single individual men and wives is least, yet still a sacrament of inseparable union.' Which of these is in marriage, whence the bond of sin might pass into posterity? Surely none; and certainly by these three goods the goodness of marriage would hold itself perfectly — by which goods marriages are good even now. But further, if that concupiscence of the flesh should be interrogated, by which those things were made shameful which before were not shameful, will it not answer that it began to be in the members of man after sin?

And so it, called by the apostolic words 'the law of sin' because it has made man subject to itself, since man was unwilling to be subject to his God — and that it is such is proved by the fact that the first married pair then blushed for it, when they covered their shameful parts, and all now blush when they seek out secret places for intercourse, nor dare to have witnesses of this work, even the children whom they have begotten thereby. Against which natural sense of shame the error of the Cynic philosophers struggled with marvellous shamelessness, since they judged that this — because it was lawful and honourable — ought to be done openly with a spouse. Whence deservedly the uncleanness of this shamelessness received a canine name; for from this the Cynics were so called.

This concupiscence in every respect, this law of sin dwelling in the members, which the law of righteousness forbids us to obey — the Apostle saying, 'Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof; neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin' — this concupiscence, I say, which is expiated only by the sacrament of regeneration, surely transmits by generation the bond of sin to posterity, unless they too be loosed from it by regeneration. For concupiscence itself is indeed no longer sin in those who have been regenerated, when consent is not given to it for unlawful deeds, and when the members are not yielded up by the mind, as queen, that they may carry out those deeds — so that even if that which is written, 'Thou shalt not covet,' be not fulfilled, at least that may be fulfilled which is read elsewhere:

'Go not after thy lusts.' But because in a certain manner of speaking it is called sin, inasmuch as it was produced by sin and, if it conquers, produces sin, its guilt has force in the one begotten; and this guilt the grace of Christ, through the remission of all sins, does not suffer to have force in the one who has been regenerated, provided he does not obey it when it in a certain way commands him to evil deeds. Now it is called sin in this way, because it was produced by sin, although in the regenerate it is not itself sin — just as speech is called 'the tongue' which the tongue makes, and writing is called 'the hand' which the hand makes; and likewise it is called sin because sin, if it conquers, produces it, just as cold is called 'sluggish,' not because it is produced by sluggish men, but because it makes men sluggish.

This wound, inflicted by the devil upon the human race, compels whatever is born through it to be under the devil, as though he plucked by right a fruit from his own shrub — not that human nature is from him, since it is only from God, but the vice, which is not from God. For human nature is condemned not on account of itself, which is praiseworthy because it is the work of God, but on account of the damnable vice by which it has been corrupted. And on account of that for which it is condemned, on that account also it is subjected to the damnable devil; for the devil too is an unclean spirit, and certainly the good is that he is spirit, the evil that he is unclean — since he is spirit by nature, unclean by vice: of which two the former is from God, the latter from himself.

Therefore he does not hold men, whether of greater or of infant age, on account of their being men, but on account of their being unclean. Whoever, then, wonders that a creature of God is subjected to the devil, let him not wonder; for a creature of God is subjected to a creature of God, the lesser to the greater, since man is subjected to an angel — yet not on account of nature, but on account of vice, since the unclean is subjected to the unclean. This is his fruit from the ancient stock of uncleanness which he planted in man; and he himself indeed shall suffer greater punishments at the last judgment, the more unclean he is; yet even those for whom in that condemnation it will be more tolerable are subjected to him as to the prince and author of sin, since there will be no cause of condemnation except sin.

Wherefore the devil holds as guilty those little ones who are born, not from the good by which marriage is good, but from the evil of concupiscence, of which marriage indeed makes good use, yet at which even marriage blushes. For although marriage is honorable in all things that properly pertain to it as goods — even if it should keep the bed undefiled not only from fornications and adulteries, which are damnable enormities, but also from those excesses of intercourse which take place not for the sake of offspring, will governing, but for the sake of pleasure, lust prevailing (which in married persons are venial sins) — nevertheless, when it comes to the work of begetting, that very lawful and honorable intercourse cannot take place without the ardor of lust, so that what belongs to reason, not to lust, may be accomplished.

Which ardor certainly, whether it follow or precede the will, nevertheless moves those members which cannot be moved by the will only by a certain command as it were of its own; and thus it shows itself to be not the servant of one who commands, but the punishment of a disobedient will — to be roused not by free choice, but by some enticing goad, and therefore to be a thing of shame.

From this concupiscence of the flesh, which, although in the regenerate it is no longer reckoned as sin, nevertheless befalls nature only from sin — from this, I say, concupiscence of the flesh, as from a daughter of sin, and, when consent is given to it for shameful things, also the mother of many sins, whatever offspring is born is bound by original sin, unless it be born again in Him whom a virgin conceived without this concupiscence; and for this reason, when He deigned to be born in the flesh, He alone was born without sin.

But if it be asked how this concupiscence of the flesh remains in the regenerate, in whom remission of all sins has been made, seeing that through it seed is sown and with it fleshly offspring is begotten even of a baptized parent — or, at any rate, if in a baptized parent it can exist and not be sin, why the very same thing should be sin in the offspring: to these questions the answer is that the concupiscence of the flesh is remitted in baptism, not so that it should not exist, but so that it should not be imputed as sin. And although its guilt is now loosed, it nevertheless remains until all our infirmity be healed, as the renewal of the inner man advances from day to day, when the outer man shall have put on incorruption;

for it does not remain substantially, like some body or spirit, but is a certain disposition of evil quality, like a sickness. Therefore nothing remains which is not remitted when it comes to be, as it is written: 'The Lord is merciful to all our iniquities' — but until there also comes to pass that which follows, 'Who healeth all thy sicknesses, who redeemeth thy life from corruption,' there remains in the body of this death the concupiscence of the flesh, whose vicious desires we are commanded not to obey for the committing of unlawful things, lest sin reign in our mortal body. Yet this concupiscence is daily diminished in those who make progress; and in the continent, especially with old age also coming on, by very much the most.

But in those who serve it wickedly, it acquires such strength in them that for the most part, even when their members are already failing with age and those same parts of the body are less able to be moved to that work, it does not cease to rage more shamefully and more shamelessly. In those, therefore, who are regenerated in Christ, when they receive the remission of absolutely all their sins, it is assuredly necessary that the guilt also of this concupiscence — though it still remains — be remitted, so that, as I said, it should not be imputed as sin. For just as the guilt of those sins which cannot remain, since when they are committed they pass away, nevertheless remains and, unless it be remitted, will remain forever, so, when it is remitted, the guilt of this concupiscence is taken away. For this is to have no sin — namely, not to be guilty of sin.

For if anyone, for example, should commit adultery, even if he never afterwards commits it, he is guilty of adultery until the guilt of it be remitted by pardon. He has sin therefore, although that which he committed no longer exists, since it passed away together with the time in which it was done. For if to cease from sinning were to have no sins, it would be enough for Scripture to admonish us thus: 'My son, hast thou sinned? Do so no more.' But it is not enough, for it added: 'And pray concerning thy former sins, that they may be forgiven thee.' They remain, therefore, unless they be remitted. But how do they remain, if they are past — except that though they have passed away in act, they remain in guilt? And so, conversely, it can come to pass that a thing should even remain in act, yet pass away in guilt.

For the concupiscence of the flesh does something even when there is not yielded to it either the consent of the heart, in which it may reign, or the members as instruments by which what it commands may be fulfilled. But what does it do except its very desires, evil and shameful? For if they were good and lawful, the Apostle would not forbid us to obey them, saying: 'Let not sin reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.' For he does not say, 'that ye should have the lusts thereof,' but 'that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof'; so that, since in some these lusts are greater and in others less, according as each has advanced in the newness of the inner man, we may in this maintain the contest of righteousness and chastity, that we obey them not.

Yet we ought to will that these desires themselves should not exist at all, even if in the body of this death we cannot attain this. For hence in another place the same Apostle, speaking as it were by introducing his own person, instructs us, saying: 'For what I would not, that I do; but what I hate, that I do' — that is, I lust; for this too he would not do, that he might be perfect in every part. 'But if what I would not,' he says, 'that I do, I consent unto the law that it is good' — because this too the law does not call by that name which I too would not. For He who says, 'Thou shalt not covet,' wills not that I should covet, and I too will not to covet. In this, therefore, the will of the law and my own agree.

But because he was unwilling to covet and yet was coveting, though by in no wise consenting he was not enslaved to that same concupiscence, he added and said: 'Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.' But a man is much deceived who, consenting to the concupiscence of his flesh and resolving and determining to do what it desires, thinks it may still be said by him: 'It is no more I that do it,' even if he hates it because he consents. For both are present at once: he himself hates, because he knows it to be evil, and he himself does it, because he has determined to do it. But if he should further add that which Scripture forbids, saying:

'Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin' — so that what he has resolved to do in his heart he also completes in his body — and therefore say, 'It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me,' because when he decrees and does it, it displeases him: then he errs so far that he does not even recognize his own self, since, while he is wholly himself, both in his heart resolving and in his body fulfilling, he still thinks that it is not his own self. Whoever, therefore, says, 'It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me,' says truly if he only covets, but not if he decrees it by the consent of his heart, or even accomplishes it by the ministry of his body. Then the Apostle adds: 'For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing;'

'for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not.' This was said for this reason: because good is then perfected when there are no evil desires, just as evil is then perfected when evil desires are obeyed. But when they indeed exist, yet are not obeyed, neither is evil perfected, because they are not obeyed, nor good, because they exist; but there comes to be good in some part, because consent is not given to evil concupiscence, and in some part evil remains, because it is at least coveted. For this reason, then, the Apostle did not say that to do good was not present with him, but to perform it. For he does much good who does that which is written, 'Go not after thy lusts,' but he does not perfect it, because he does not fulfill that which is written, 'Thou shalt not covet.'

To this end, therefore, the law said, 'Thou shalt not covet,' so that, finding ourselves lying in this disease, we might seek the medicine of grace, and might know by that precept both toward what we ought to strive by making progress in this mortal life, and to what we may be able to attain in that most blessed immortality; for unless it were at some time to be perfected, it would never be commanded. Then the Apostle, repeating in order more fully to commend his former statement, says: 'For the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.' And there follows: 'I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me' — that is: