^ Gen. iii. 7.
* Gen. iv. I.
[Book II.
have been begotten by means of the organs of generation, not less obedient than the other members to a quiet and normal will) is not of the Father, but is of the world.'
CH.\P. 18. — THE SAME CONTINUED.
But now, I pray you, look a little more attentively, and observe how he contrives to find a name wherewith to cover again what he blushes to unfold. " For," says he, " Adam begot him by the power of his members, not by diversity of merits." Now I confess I do not understand what he meant by the latter clause, not by diversity of merits; but when he said, " by the power of his members," I believe he wished to express what he is ashamed to say openly and clearly. He preferred to use the phrase, " by the power of his members," rather than say, " by the lust of the flesh." Plainly — even if the thought did not occur to him — he intimated a something which has an evident application to the subject. For what is more powerful than a man's members, when they are not in due submission to a man's will? Even if they be restrained by tern-, perance or continence, their use and control are not in any man's power. Adam, then, begat his sons by what our author calls " the power of his members," over which, before he begat them, he blushed, after his sin. If, however, he had never sinned, he would not have begotten them by the. power, but in the obedience, of his members. For he would himself have ha.d i\\Q po^oer to rule them as subjects to his will, if he, too, by the same will had only submitted himself as a subject to a more powerful One.
iCHAP. 19 [VIII.] — THE PELAGIANS MISUNDER- STAND " SEED " IN SCRIPTURE.
He goes on to say: " After a while the divine Scripture says again, ' Adam knew Eve his wife; and she bare a son, and he called his name Seth: saying, The Lord hath raised me up another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.' " He then adds: " The Divinity is said to have raised up the seed itself, as a proof that the sexual union was His appointment." This person did not understand what the Scripture records; for he supposed that the reason why it is said, The Lord hath raised me up another seed instead of Abel, was none other than that God might be supposed to have excited in him a desire for sexual intercourse, by means whereof seed might be raised for being poured into the woman's womb. He was perfectly unaware that what the Scripture has said is not " Has raised me up seed " in the sense he uses, but only as meaning " Has given me a son." Lideed, Adam did not use the words in question after his sexual ' I John ii. 16.
intercourse, when he emitted his seed, but after his wife's confinement, in which he received his son b)' the gift of God. For what gratification is there (except perhaps for lascivious {)ersons, and those who, as the apostle says with prohibition, " possess their vessel in the lust of concupiscence " ^) in the mere shedding of seed as the ultimate pleasure of sexual union, unless it is followed by the true and proper fruit of marriage — conception and birth?
CHAP. 20. — ORIGINAL SIN IS DERIVED FROM THE FAULTY CONDFTION OF HUMAN SEED.
This, however, I would not say, as implying at all that we must look for some other creator than the supreme and true God, of either human seed or of man himself who comes from the seed; but as meaning, that the seed would have issued from the human being by the quiet and normal obedience of his members to his will's command, if sin had not preceded. The question now before us does not concern the nature of human seed, but its corruption. Now the nature has God for its author; it is from its corruption that original sin is derived. If, indeed, the seed had itself no corruption, what means that passage in the Book of Wisdom, " Not being ignorant that they were a naughty generation, and that their malice was inbred, and that their cogitation would never be changed; for their seed was accursed from the beginning "?3 Now whatever may be the particular application of these words, they are spoken of mankind. How, then, is the malice of every man inbred, and his seed cursed from the beginning, unless it be in respect of the fact, that "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for in him all have sinned"?•♦ But where is the man whose " evil cogitation can never be changed," unless because it cannot be effected by himself, but only by divine grace; without the assistance of which, what are human beings, but that which the Apostle Peter says of them, when he describes them as " natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed"?s Accordingly, the Apostle Paul, in a certain passage, having iDoth conditions in view, — even the wrath of God with which we are born, and the grace whereby we are delivered, — says: " Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; by whose grace we are saved.'"' What, then, is 3 Wisd. xii. 10, II. 6 Eph. ii. 3-5.
man's "natural malice," and "the seed cursed from the beginning; " and what are "the natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed," and what the "by nature children of wrath"? Was this the condition of the nature which was formed in Adam? God forbid! Inasmuch as his pure nature, however, was corrupted in him, it has run on in this condition by natural descent through all, and still is running; so that there is no deliverance for it from this ruin, except by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
CHAP. 21 [iX.] IT IS THE GOOD GOD THAT GIVES FRUITFULNESS, AND THE DEVIL THAT I CORRUPTS THE FRUIT.
1 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.
saymg " 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 I 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.
CHAP. 22, — SHALL ^\'E BE ASHAMED OF WHAT WE DO, OR OF WHAT GOD DOES?
It is, however, oi pleasure that this man spoke in his passage, because pleasure can be even honourable: of carnal concupiscence, or lust.
' Gen. ix. I.
2 Matt. V. 45.
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?
CHAP. 23 [X.] — THE PELAGIANS AFFIRM TH\T GOD IN THE CASE OF ABRAHAM AND SAR.AH AROUSED CONCUPISCENCE AS A GIFT FROM HEAVEN.
He has much also to say, though to no purpose, concerning Abraham and Sarah, how they received a son according to the promise; and at last he mentions the word concupiscence. But [Book II.
he does not add the usual phrase, "of the flesh," because this is the very thing which causes the shame. Whereas, on account of concupiscence there is sometimes a call for boasting, inasmuch as there is a concupiscence of the spirit against the flesh,' and a concupiscence of wisdom.^ Accordingly, he says: ''Now you have certainly defined as naturally evil this concupiscence which is indispensable for fecundity; whence comes it, therefore, that it is aroused in aged men by the gift of Heaven? Make it clear then, if you can, tiiat that belongs to the devil's work, which you see is conferred by God as a gift." He says this, just as if concupiscence of the flesh had been previously wanting in them, and as if God had bestowed it upon them. No doubt it was inherent in this body of death; that fecundity, however, was wanting of which God is the author; and this was actually given whensoever God willed to confer the gift. Be it, however, far from us to affirm, what he thought we meant to say, that Isaac was begotten without the heat of sexual union.
CHAP. 24 [XI.] — WHAT COVENANT OF GOD THE NEW-BORN BABE BREAKS. WHAT WAS THE VALUE OF CIRCUMCISION.
But let him inform us how it was that his ^ soul would be cut off from his people if he had not been circumcised on the eighth day. How could he have so sinned, how so offended God, as to be punished for the neglect of others towards him with so severe a sentence, had there been no original sin in the case? For thus ran the commandment of God concerning the circumcision of infants: "The uncircumcised man-child, whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised on the eighth day, his soul shall be cut off from his people; because he hath broken my covenant." '* Let him tell us, if he can, how that child broke God's covenant, — an innocent babe, so far as he was personally concerned, of eight days' age; and yet there is by no means any falsehood uttered here by God or Holy Scripture. The fact is, the covenant of God which he then broke was not this which commanded circumcision, but that which forbade the tree; when " by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for in him all have sinned." s And in his case the expiation of this was signified by the circumcision of the eighth day, that is, by the sacrament of the Mediator who was to be incarnate. For it was through this same faith in Christ, who was to come in the flesh, and was to die for us, and on the third day (which coming after the seventh or Sabbath day, was to be * Gal. V. 17.
- Wisd. vi. 21. The word in the Latin Bible in both cases is " concupisccntia," the eighth) to rise again, that even holy men were saved of old. For " He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification." ^ Ever since circumcision was instituted^ amongst the people of God, which was at that j time the sign of the righteousness of faith, it ' availed also to signify the cleansing even in infants of the original and primitive sin, just as baptism in like manner from the time of its institution began to be of avail for the renewal of man. Not that there was no justification by faith before circumcision; for even when he was still in uncircumcision, Abraham was himself justified by faith, being the father of those nations which should also imitate his faith. ^ In former times, however, the sacramental mystery of justification by faith lay concealed in every mode. Still it was the self-same faith in the Mediator which saved the saints of old, both small and great — not the old covenant, " which gendereth to bondage; " ^ not the law, which was not so given as to be able to give life; "? but the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.'° For as we believe that Christ has come in the flesh, so they believed that He was to come; as, again, we believe that He has died, so they believed that He would die; and as we believe that He has risen from the dead, so they believed that He would rise again; whilst both we and they believe alike, that He will hereafter come to judge the quick and the dead. Let not this man, then, throw any hindrance in the way of its salvation upon human nature, by setting up a bad defence of its merits; because we are all born under sin, and are delivered therefrom by the only One who was born without sin.
CHAP. 25 [XII.] AUGUSTIN NOT THE DEVISER OF ORIGINAL SIN.
" This sexual connection of bodies," he says, " together with the ardour, with the pleasure, with the emission of seed, was made by God, and is praiseworthy on its own account, and is therefore to be approved; it, moreover, became sometimes even a great gift to pious men." He distinctly and severally repeated the phrases, "with ardour," " with pleasure," "with emission of seed." He did not, however, venture to say, " with lust." Why is this, if it be not that he is ashamed to name what he does not blush to praise? A gift, indeed, for pious men is the prosperous propagation of children; but not that shame-producing excitement of the members, which our nature would not feel were it in a sound state, although corrupted nature now experiences it. On this account, indeed, it is that he who is born of it requires to be born again, in order that he may be a member of Christ; and that 6 Rom. iv. 25. 9 Gal. iii. 21.
7 Rom. iv. 10, II. '° Rom. vii. 25.
8 Gal. iv. 24.
Chap. 27.]
29; he of whom he is born, even though he be aheady born again, wants to be freed from that which exists in this body of death by reason of the law of sin. Now since this is the case, how is it he goes on to say, " You must, therefore, of necessity confess that the original sin which you had devised is done away with "? It was not I who devised the original sin, which the catholic faith holds from ancient times; but you, who deny it, are undoubtedly an innovating heretic. In the judgment of God, all are in the devil's power, born in sin, unless they are regenerated in Christ.
CHAP. 26 [XIII.] THE CHILD IN NO SENSE FORMED BY CONCUPISCENCE.
But as he was speaking of Abraham and Sarah, he goes on to say: " If, indeed, you were to affirm that the natural use was strong in them, and there was no offspring, my answer will be: Whom the Creator promised, the Creator also gave; the child which is born is not the work of cohabitation, but of God. He, indeed, who made the first man of the dust, fashions all men out of seed. As, therefore, the dust of the earth, which was taken as the material, was not the author of man; so likewise that power of sexual pleasure which forms and commingles the seminal elements does not complete the entire process of man's making, but rather presents to God, out of the treasures of nature, material with which He vouchsafes to make the human being." Now the whole of this statement of his, except where he says, that the seminal elements are formed and commingled by sexual pleasure, would be correctly expressed by him were he only earnest in making it to defend the catholic sense. To us, however, who are fully aware what he strives to make out of it, he speaks indeed correctly in a perverse manner. The exceptional statement to the general truth, which I do not deny belongs to this passage, is untrue for tliis reason, because the pleasure in question of carnal concupiscence does not form the seminal elements. These are already in the body, and are formed by the same true God who created the body itself. They do not receive their existence from the libidinous pleasure, but are excited and emitted in company with it. Whether, indeed, suclr pleasure accompanies the commingling of the seminal elements of the two sexes in the womb, is a question which perhaps women may be able to determine from their inmost feelings; but it is improper for us to push an idle curiosity.so far. That concupiscence, however, which we have to be ashamed of, and the shame of which has given to our secret members their shameful designation, ///-denda, had no existence in the body during its life in paradise before the entrance of sin; but it began to exist " in the body of this death " after sin, the rebellion of the members retaliating man's own disobedience. Without this concupiscence it was quite possible to effect the function of the wedded pair in the procreation of children: just as many a laborious work is accomplished by the compliant operation of our otiier limbs, without any lascivious heat; for they are simply moved by the direction of the will, not excited by the ardour of concupiscence.
CHAP. 27. THE PELAGIANS ARGUE THAT GOD SOMETIMES CLOSES THE WOMB IN ANGER, AND OPENS IT WHEN APPEASED.
Carefully consider the rest o^ his remarks: " This likewise," says he, " is confirmed by the apostle's authority. For when the blessed Paul spoke of the resurrection of the dead, he said, 'Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened.' ' And afterwards, ' But God giveth it a body as it pleaseth Him, and to every seed its own body.' If, therefore, God," says he, " has assigned to human seed, as to every thing else, its own proper body, which no wise or pious man will deny, how will you prove that any \)Qxson IS born guilty? Do, I beg of you, reflect with what a noose this assertion of natural sin is choked. But come," he says, " deal more gcndy with youi-self, I pray you. Believe me, God made even you: it must, however, be confessed, that a serious error has infected you. For what profaner opinion can be broached than that either God did not make man, or else that He made him for the devil; or, at any rate, that the devil framed God's image, that is, man, — which clearly is a statement not more absurd than impious? Is then," says he, "God so poor in resources, so lacking in all sense of propriety, as not to have had aught which He could confer on holy men as their reward, except what the devil, after making them his dupes, might infuse into them for their vitiation?^ Would you like to know, however, tliat even in the case of those who are no saints, God can be proved to have bestowed this power of procreation of children?
When Abraliam, struck with fear among a foreign nation, said that Sarah, his wife, was his sister, it is said that Abimelech, the king of the country, abducted her for a night's enjoyment of her. But God, who had the holy woman's honour in His keeping, appeared to Abimelech in his sleep, and restrained the royal audacity; threatening him with death if he went to the length of violating the wife. Then Abimelech said: ' Wilt thou, O Lord, slay an innocent and righteous nation? Did they not tell me that they were brother and sister? Therefore.Abime- ' I Cor. XV. 36.
2 The translation adopts the conjecture of the Benedictine etliiors: in viiiui'i, instead of in vitio or initio, as the MSS. read.
[Book II.
lech arose early in the morning, and took a thousand pieces of silver, and sheep, and oxen, and men-servants, and women-servants, and gave them to Abraham, and sent away his wife untouched. But Abraham prayed unto God for Abimelech; and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maid-servants.' " ' Now why he narrated all this at so great a length, you may find in these few words which he added: " God," he says, " at the prayer of Abraham, restored their potency of generation, which had been taken away from the wombs of even the meanest servants; because God had closed up every womb in the house of Abimelech.^ Consider now," says he, " whether that ought to be called a natural evil which sometimes God when angry takes away, and when appeased restores. He," says he, " makes the children both of the pious and of the ungodly, inasmuch as the circumstance of their being parents appertains to that nature which rejoices in God as its Author, whilst the fact of their impiety belongs to the depravity of their desires, and this comes to every person whatever as the consequence of free will."
CHAP. 28 [xrv.] — augusttn's answer to this ARGUMENT. ITS DEALING WITH SCRIPTURE.
Now to this lengthy statement of his we have to say in answer, that, in the passages which he has quoted from the sacred writings, there is nothing said about that shameful lust, which we say did not exist in the body of our first parents in their blessedness, when they were naked and were not ashamed.^ The first passage from the apostle was spoken of the seeds of corn, which first die in order to be quickened. For some reason or other, he was unwilling to complete the verse for his quotation. All he adduces from it is: " Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened; " but the apostle adds, " except it die." •♦ This writer, however, so far as I can judge, wished this passage, which treats only of corn seeds, to be understood of human seed, by such as read it without either understanding the Holy Scriptures or recollecting them. Indeed, he not merely curtailed this particular sentence, by omitting the clause, " except it die," but he omitted the following words, in which the apostle explained of what seeds he was speaking; for the apostle adds: " And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body which shall be, but the bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain." s This he omitted, and closed up his context with what the apostle then writes: " But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed its own body; "just as if the apostle spoke of man in cohabitation when he said, " Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened," with a view to our understanding of human seed, that it is quickened by God, not by man in cohabitation begetting children. For he had previously said: " Sexual pleasure does not complete the entire process of man's making, but rather presents to God, out of the treasures of nature, material with which He vouchsafes to make the human being." ^ He then added the quotation, as if the apostle affirmed as follows: Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, — quickened, that is, by thyself; but God forms the human being out of thy seed. As if the apostle had not said the intermediate words, which this writer chose to pass over; and as if the apostle's aim was to speak of human seed thus: " Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened; but God giveth to the seed a body such as pleaseth Flim, and to every seed its own body." Indeed, after the apostle's words, he introduces remarks of his own to this effect: " If, therefore, God has assigned to human seed, as to everything else, its own proper body, which no wise or pious man will deny; " quite as if the apostle in the passage in question spoke of human seed.
CHAP. 29. — THE SAME CONTINUED. AUGUSTIN ALSO ASSERTS THAT GOD FORJMS MAN AT BIRTH.
Though I have given special attention to the point, I have failed to discover what assistance he could obtain from this deceitful use of Scripture, except that he wanted to produce the apostle as a witness, and by him to prove, what we also assert, that God forms man of human seed. And inasmuch as no passage directly occurred to him, he deceitfully manipulated this particular one; fearing no doubt that, if the apostle should chance to seem to have spoken of corn seeds, and not of human, in this passage, we should have suggested to us at once by such procedure of his, how to refute him: not indeed as the pure-minded advocate of a chastened will, but as the impudent proclaimer of a profligate voluptuousness. But from the very seeds, forsooth, which the farmers sow in their fields he can be refuted. For why can we not suppose that God could have granted to man in his happy state in paradise, the same course with regard to his own seed which we see granted to the seeds of corn, in such wise that the former might be sown without any shameful lust, the members of generation simply obeying the inclination of the will; just as the latter is sown without any shameful lust, the hands of the husbandman merely moving in obedience to his will? There being, indeed, this difference, that Chap. 31.]
the desire of begetting children in the parent is a nobler one than that which characterizes the farmer, of filling his barns. Then, again, why might not the almighty Creator, with His incontaminable ubiquity, and his power of creating from human seed just what it pleased Him, have operated in women, with respect to what He even now makes, in the self-same manner as He operates in the ground with corn seeds according to His will, making blessed mothers conceive without lustful passion, and bring forth children without parturient pains, inasmuch as there was not (in that state of happiness, and in the body which was not as yet the body of this death, but rather of that life) in woman when receiving seed anything to produce shame, as there was nothing when giving birth to offspring to cause pain? Whoever refuses to believe this, or is unwilling to have it supposed that, while men previous to any sin lived in that happy state of paradise, such a condition as that which we have sketched could not have been permitted in God's will and kindness, must be regarded as the lover of shameful pleasure, rather than the encomiast of desirable fecundity.
CIL\P. 30 [XV.] — THE CASE OF ABIMELECH AND HIS HOUSE EX.\^nNED.
Then, again, as to the passage which he has adduced from the inspired history concerning Abimelech, and God's choosing to close up every womb in his household that the women should not bear children, and afterwards opening them that they might become fruitful, what is all this to the point? What has it to do with that shameful concupiscence which is now the question in dispute? Did God, then, deprive those women of this feeling, and give it to them again just when He liked? The punishment, however, was that they were unable to bear children, and the blessing that they were able to bear them, after the manner of this corruptible flesh. For God would not confer such a blessing upon this body of death, as only that body of life in paradise could have had before sin entered; that is, the process of conceiving without the prurience of lust, and of bearing children without excruciating pain. But why should we not suppose, since, indeed, Scripture says that every womb was closed, that this took place with something of pain, so that the women were unable to bear cohabitation, and that God inflicted this pain in His wrath, and removed it in His mercy? For if lust was to be taken away as an impediment to begetting ofl"-spring, it ought to have been taken away from the men, not from the women. For a woman might perform her share in cohabitation by her will, even if the lust ceased by which she is stimulated, provided it were not absent from the