On Marriage and Concupiscence — Book II

St. Augustine of Hippo

1. 0. Greeting
2. 1. [I.]— Introductory Statement.
3. 2. [II.]— In This and the Four Next Chapters He Adduces the Garbled Extracts He Has to Consider.
4. 3. — The Same Continued.
5. 4. — The Same Continued.
6. 5. — The Same Continued.
7. 6. — The Same Continued.
8. 7. [III.] Augustine Adduces a Passage Selected from the Preface of Julianus. (See The Unfinished Work, i. 73.)
9. 8. — Augustine Refutes the Passage Adduced Above.
10. 9. — The Catholics Maintain the Doctrine of Original Sin, and Thus are Far from Being Manicheans.
11. 10. [IV.]— In What Manner the Adversary's Cavils Must Be Refuted.
12. 11. — The Devil the Author, Not of Nature, But Only of Sin.
13. 12. — Eve's Name Means Life, and is a Great Sacrament of the Church.
14. 13. — The Pelagian Argument to Show that the Devil Has No Rights in the Fruits of Marriage.
15. 14. [V.]— Concupiscence Alone, in Marriage, is Not of God.
16. 15. — Man, by Birth, is Placed Under the Dominion of the Devil Through Sin; We Were All One in Adam When He Sinned.
17. 16. [VI.]— It is Not of Us, But Our Sins, that the Devil is the Author.
18. 17. [VII.]— The Pelagians are Not Ashamed to Eulogize Concupiscence, Although They are Ashamed to Mention Its Name.
19. 18. — The Same Continued.
20. 19. [VIII.]— The Pelagians Misunderstand Seed In Scripture.
21. 20. — Original Sin is Derived from the Faulty Condition of Human Seed.
22. 21. [IX.]— It is the Good God That Gives Fruitfulness, and the Devil That Corrupts the Fruit.
23. 22. — Shall We Be Ashamed of What We Do, or of What God Does?
24. 23. [X.]— The Pelagians Affirm that God in the Case of Abraham and Sarah Aroused Concupiscence as a Gift from Heaven.
25. 24. [XI.]— What Covenant of God the New-Born Babe Breaks. What Was the Value of Circumcision.
26. 25. [XII.]— Augustine Not the Deviser of Original Sin.
27. 26. [XIII.]— The Child in No Sense Formed by Concupiscence.
28. 27. — The Pelagians Argue that God Sometimes Closes the Womb in Anger, and Opens It When Appeased.
29. 28. [XIV.]— Augustine's Answer to This Argument. Its Dealing with Scripture.
30. 29. — The Same Continued. Augustine Also Asserts that God Forms Man at Birth.
31. 30. [XV.]— The Case of Abimelech and His House Examined.
32. 31. [XVI.]— Why God Proceeds to Create Human Beings, Who He Knows Will Be Born in Sin.
33. 32. [XVII.]— God Not the Author of the Evil in Those Whom He Creates.
34. 33. [XVIII.]— Though God Makes Us, We Perish Unless He Re-makes Us in Christ.
35. 34. [XIX.]— The Pelagians Argue that Cohabitation Rightly Used is a Good, and What is Born from It is Good.
36. 35. [XX.]— He Answers the Arguments of Julianus. What is the Natural Use of the Woman? What is the Unnatural Use?
37. 36. [XXI.]— God Made Nature Good: the Saviour Restores It When Corrupted.
38. 37. [XXII.]— If There is No Marriage Without Cohabitation, So There is No Cohabitation Without Shame.
39. 38. [XXIII.]— Jovinian Used Formerly to Call Catholics Manicheans; The Arians Also Used to Call Catholics Sabellians.
40. 39. [XXIV.]— Man Born of Whatever Parentage is Sinful and Capable of Redemption.
41. 40. [XXV.]— Augustine Declines the Dilemma Offered Him.
42. 41. [XXVI.]— The Pelagians Argue that Original Sin Cannot Come Through Marriage If Marriage is Good.
43. 42. — The Pelagians Try to Get Rid of Original Sin by Their Praise of God's Works; Marriage, in Its Nature and by Its Institution, is Not the Cause of Sin.
44. 43. — The Good Tree in the Gospel that Cannot Bring Forth Evil Fruit, Does Not Mean Marriage.
45. 44. [XXVII.]— The Pelagians Argue that If Sin Comes by Birth, All Married People Deserve Condemnation.
46. 45. — Answer to This Argument: The Apostle Says We All Sinned in One.
47. 46. — The Reign of Death, What It Is; The Figure of the Future Adam; How All Men are Justified Through Christ.
48. 47. — The Scriptures Repeatedly Teach Us that All Sin in One.
49. 48. — Original Sin Arose from Adam's Depraved Will. Whence the Corrupt Will Sprang.
50. 49. [XXIX.]— In Infants Nature is of God, and the Corruption of Nature of the Devil.
51. 50. — The Rise and Origin of Evil. The Exorcism and Exsufflation of Infants, a Primitive Christian Rite.
52. 51. — To Call Those that Teach Original Sin Manicheans is to Accuse Ambrose, Cyprian, and the Whole Church.
53. 52. [XXX.]— Sin Was the Origin of All Shameful Concupiscence.
54. 53. [XXXI.]— Concupiscence Need Not Have Been Necessary for Fruitfulness.
55. 54. [XXXII.]— How Marriage is Now Different Since the Existence of Sin.
56. 55. [XXXIII.]— Lust is a Disease; The Word Passion In the Ecclesiastical Sense.
57. 56. — The Pelagians Allow that Christ Died Even for Infants; Julianus Slays Himself with His Own Sword.
58. 57. [XXXIV.]— The Great Sin of the First Man.
59. 58. — Adam's Sin is Derived from Him to Every One Who is Born Even of Regenerate Parents; The Example of the Olive Tree and the Wild Olive.
60. 59. [XXXV.]— The Pelagians Can Hardly Venture to Place Concupiscence in Paradise Before the Commission of Sin.
61. 60. — Let Not the Pelagians Indulge Themselves in a Cruel Defence of Infants.

I Wrote a treatise, under the title On Marriage and Concupiscence, and addressed it to the Count Valerius, on learning that he had been informed of the Pelagians that they charge us with condemning marriage. Now in that treatise I showed the distinction, as criticially and accurately as I was able, between the good of marriage and the evil of carnal concupiscence, — an evil which is well used by conjugal chastity. On receiving my treatise, the illustrious man whom I have named sent me in a short paper a few sentences culled from a work of Julianus, a Pelagian heretic. In this work he has thought fit to extend to four books his answer to the before-mentioned treatise of mine, which is limited to one book only, On Marriage and Concupiscence. I do not know to whom we were indebted for the said extracts: he confined his selection, evidently on purpose, to the first book of Julianus' work. At the request of Valerius, I lost no time in drawing up my answer to the extracts. And thus it happened that I have written a second book also under the same title; and in reply to this Julianus has drawn up to eight books, in excess of his loquacious powers.

Whoever has perused this second book of mine, addressed (as the first was) to the Count Valerius, and drawn up (as, indeed, both were) for his use, will have discovered that there are some points in which I have not answered Julianus, but that I meant my work rather for him who made the extracts from that writer's books, and who did not arrange them in the order in which he found them. He deemed some considerable alteration necessary in his arrangement, very probably with the view of appropriating by this method as his own the thoughts which evidently were another person's.

Augustine, in this latter book, refutes sundry sentences which had been culled by some unknown author from the first of four books that Julianus had published in opposition to the former book of his treatise On Marriage and Concupiscence; which sentences had been forwarded to him at the instance of the Count Valerius. He vindicates the Catholic doctrine of original sin from his opponent's cavils and subtleties, and particularly shows how diverse it is from the infamous heresy of the Manicheans.