Introduction
After returning from a theological conference in Africa, Grant LeMarquand (the former Anglican bishop of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa) noted that it was refreshing to be in a conference where non-western theologians dominated the conversation. At the event, an African priest told LeMarquand, “In Africa, Asia, and Latin America, everyone wants to talk about culture, family, honor, and liberation, but in the west, theologians seem only to want to talk about sex.” This comment indeed reverberates in the minds of those who read the Confessions of St. Augustine of Hippo (Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis), a man oft-revered as the “Father of the Western Church.” Alongside many other crucial doctrines developed by Augustine that have stood the test of time, it is notable that his views on sex as it related to the Christian life is one of the most pervasive. In some ways, Augustine has timelessly defined the nature of sex, sin, and the essence of spiritual ascent for the Church. On the other hand, many of his original premises have evolved beyond his own writings for contemporary Christian understanding.
Sex and Pilgrimage in the Confessions of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo
Augustine’s Confessions is a devotional work written to the Lord in an effort that readers, learning from Augustine’s own life, might aspire to proclaim the same greatness of God that Augustine himself has discovered. For Augustine, the greatest discovery of all is that this life is a journey; all of us are weary pilgrims longing and searching for rest. As Augustine ultimately discovers, that rest—and the joy that comes with it—can only be found in the Lord when we dwell with him in his eternal home. Augustine’s famous quote from his opening chapter reflects this well: “You stir us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you.”[1]
For Augustine, personally, his time of “inquietum/unquiet” was deeply related to his own struggle with carnal desire and lust. When Augustine was sixteen years old, he went to the public baths one day with his father, Patricius, who “saw [him] with unquiet adolescence as [his] only covering and noted [his] ripening sexuality.”[2] While his father—a brand-new Christian catechumen—was filled with “intoxicated glee” at the discovery of his son’s maturity, the reaction of Augustine’s devout mother (Monica) was one of “fear and trembling” at the beginning of a “perverse inclination.” She was not wrong; in fact, Augustine artfully recalls, “From the mud of my fleshly desires and my erupting puberty belched out murky clouds that obscured and darkened my heart until I could not distinguish the calm light of love from the fog of lust.”[3] For Augustine, the two contrasting ideas of love (“calm” and “light”) and lust (“mud,” “murky,” “dark,” and “fog”) were indistinguishable, and he was not yet aware of the distinction between the desires of the soul and the body.
During puberty, Augustine was also surrounded by friends who aided him on his path of wickedness. With great perception, he observes that the depravity found in his group of friends contributed to the urge he felt towards promiscuity, as sexual acts were often followed by bragging rights; not only did Augustine and his friends find pleasure in the acts themselves, but also in telling each other stories about their feats.[4] He goes so far as to call this time “miserable,” as he and his friends “roamed the streets of Babylon and wallowed in its filth.”[5] Near the end of his teenage years, there is a potential for an arranged marriage, but Monica was reluctant for several reasons; primarily, she thought that unresolved lust and depravity would only make a marriage more problematic and dangerous.
Only a year later, Augustine went to study law in the prosperous city of Carthage, where “the din of scandalous love-affairs raged cauldron-like around [him].”[6] The lust that had put Augustine in a frenzy back in his small hometown of Thagaste was now increased exponentially in this vast city where he was alone. Augustine, still not aware of the differentiation between lust and love, states that he “was not yet in love, but was enamored with the idea of love.”[7] Searching for love, Augustine had many more relationships with women, nothing that while love was sweet, even sweeter was a woman’s body.[8] Ultimately, Augustine settled down with one woman (out of respect he does not name her) whom he took as his concubine. Early in their relationship, she bore Augustine a son, Adeodatus, and the couple remained faithful to one another for the next thirteen years.[9] After the time in Carthage, Augustine earned positions teaching grammar and rhetoric in Thagaste, Rome, and eventually Milan. Along the way, he read passages from the Bible, but was uninterested in its “crude” literary style. Instead, he was attracted to Manichæism for its intellectual attributes. Eventually, his mother arranged a marriage for him, forcing him to give up his lover and the mother of his son. Unfortunately, his betrothed was still a minor and Augustine had to wait for her to come of age before they could wed; in the meantime, he took another mistress to satisfy his sexual desires, noting that he “chafed at the delay, for [he] was no lover of marriage but the slave of lust.”[10] It was during this time that he prayed his famous prayer: “Grant me chastity and self-control, but please not yet.”[11]
The marriage ultimately did not happen; Augustine broke off the engagement with his eleven-year-old fiancée. However, while in Milan, Augustine began visiting St. Ambrose of Milan (Aurelius Ambrosius Milanensis), the Catholic bishop of the city who was notable for his masterful oratorical skill. Augustine viewed Ambrose very highly, noting how God used him to bring Augustine closer. Augustine recollects:
This man of God welcomed me with fatherly kindness and showed the charitable concern for my pilgrimage that befitted a bishop. I began to feel affection for him, not at first as a teacher of truth, for that I had given up hope of finding in your Church, but simply as a man who was kind to me…At first the case he was making began to seem defensible to me, and I realized that the Catholic faith…was in fact intellectually respectable…[O]nce, and again, and indeed frequently, I heard some difficult passage of the Old Testament explained figuratively; such passages had been death to me because I was taking them literally.[12]
Alluding to 2 Corinthians 3:6, Augustine had his first awareness of the nature of the spiritual element in pursuing wisdom. He had been reading the Scripture by the letter of the law, and yet there was a Spirit of the Gospel that had been unknown to him in the text.
At some point, Augustine’s friends also introduced him to The Life of Antony, attributed to St. Athanasius of Alexandria (Athanasius Alexandrinus). In this biography of St. Anthony, a monk of the desert (Antonius Monachus), Augustine’s friends found a model of virtue and wisdom, a life of holiness that reflected the guilt and shame of their own lives back to them. Augustine noted the instant changes in his friends’ eyes, and the tears of joy when they realized that they could become “friend[s] of God here and now,” as new life was birthed within them.[13] They instantly decided to serve God wholly, selling their possessions, committing their lives to him, and importantly, determining to live in virginity. Both of these friends were engaged, and after their conversions, their fiancées also committed themselves to virginity unto the Lord. These changes greatly affected Augustine, as he, too, was presented not only with his own depravity but also experienced a great longing toward union with the Lord.
After this relationship with Ambrose, a new understanding of the nature of the Gospel, and the reflection on the life of St. Anthony of the Desert and how it had profoundly transformed his friends, Augustine’s mind and heart began to notice a change. One day, after hearing a voice of a little child tell him over and over again to “pick it up and read,” Augustine tearfully opened the Scriptures to the first passage he came upon, which happened to be Rom 13:13-14.[14] Reading this passage not only as a commanding law, but for the first time, as life-giving Gospel, Augustine recognized the Lord revealing it directly to him. In an instant, Augustine, too, had been converted. What followed was the receiving of baptism, growth in the Christian spiritual life, and a continued relationship with Ambrose.
By the fourth century, the practice of clerical celibacy had already risen as the standard, and as bishop of Milan, Ambrose adhered and supported this on theological grounds. In fact, Ambrose wrote extensively on this practice, arguing that the ministerial office be kept “pure and unspotted,” with aspirants having never enjoyed conjugal intercourse.[15] Ambrose’s position certainly influenced Augustine, and Augustine was forced to wrestle with chastity as a virtue, noting that it was “only [Ambrose’s] celibacy which seemed to me a burdensome undertaking.”[16] However, as Augustine continued on his spiritual pilgrimage, growing in his faith, he would come to alter his views on sex completely. He began to see abstinence and celibacy as possible virtues that could be attained through the Gospel:
I had not begun to guess, still less experience in my own case, what hope [Ambrose] bore within him, or what a struggle he waged against the temptations to which his eminent position exposed him, or the encouragement he received in times of difficulty, or what exquisite delights he savored in his secret mouth, the mouth of his heart, as he chewed the bread of your word.[17]
Up until this point, Augustine had struggled with chastity as he had only read the Scriptures as law, and did not fully see the merit of chastity to begin with. But he began to see how the pleasures and pains of celibacy could only be properly discerned from within the Church; contrary to his earlier understanding, abstinence could be fertile ground for greater hope, encouragement, and pleasure against the temptations of the flesh. While Augustine had journeyed through life believing that continence had to be achieved by his own strength (a strength he notes he was not conscious of), he says that he was “too stupid to realize that, as scripture testifies, no one can be continent except by [God’s] gift.”[18] Instead, as Augustine learned, celibacy is a spiritual gift that can be granted to all who seek it and receive it according to God’s will.
This change in understanding meant several things for Augustine. Eventually, Augustine entered into monastic life before entering into priestly ordination (and ultimately serving in the episcopate). After his conversion, he chose celibacy as the pursuit of the ideal life (noting that becoming a eunuch could open one up to receive God’s embrace more vigorously). He advocated for abstinence, believing this to be the only viable option for him and his friends as Christians seeking to live in community.[19] He also comes to understand the nature of virginity not of being “sterile,” but connecting it to “fruitfulness” in chastity as a marriage to the bridegroom “conceives in joy,” and noting it as a “better choice” than earthly marriage.[20] Yet, Augustine also discussed the “glory of wedlock…in terms of guiding the course of a marriage and bring up children,” noting that there is a difference “between a marriage contracted for the purpose of founding a family, and a relationship of love charged with carnal desire in which children may be born even against the parents’ wishes.”[21]
Ultimately for Augustine, his Confessions are a testament to the pilgrimage—to motion and rest. As he discovers throughout a lifetime, creatures naturally seek out their rightful places, as all creatures have a weight that pulls them into their proper place of rest. It is only when things are disordered that they are in motion. Augustine uses this analogy to talk about the pilgrim’s movement towards rest in the heavenly city of Jerusalem—the Lord’s house. The weight of the pilgrim is the love of God, and the movement is upward.[22] For Augustine, his pilgrimage was a journey of growth in many areas as he contemplated the actualization of the Christian life. However, lust and sex were at the heart of the disorder in his own life, and Augustine realized that he could not continue steadfastly in the enjoyment of God because of the weight of his carnal habit.[23] Perhaps intimately related to his life-long journey, his movement towards the monastic life and his victory over the lust of the flesh were initiated by a change in habits, as Augustine noted that unceasing communion with God required not only the right object of affection, but also the right habits of apprehension. For Augustine, “the truth is that disordered lust springs from a perverted will; when lust is pandered to, a habit is formed; when habit is not checked, it hardens into compulsion.”[24]
Sex and Pilgrimage in Early Christian Writings
While Augustine arguably may have had the largest influence in western Christianity, and his Confessions are uniquely open about his own personal illicit sexual encounters and struggles, his view of sex in relation to the Christian life was not a new concept. Augustine was influenced by the lives and writings of other saints in his day.
Mentioned in Augustine’s own work, Athanasius’ Life of Antony is an autobiographical account of St. Anthony of the Desert. Much of the work discusses Anthony’s temptations of the flesh and the spiritual battle he wages against demons to overcome them. For Anthony, pleasure of the flesh was certainly sinful, including lust and sex, thus Anthony led a life of asceticism and celibacy. During one temptation, a demon appeared to Anthony, first in the form of a dragon and then in the form of a boy covered in darkness. When Anthony asked who the demon is, he responds,
I am the friend of whoredom, and have taken upon me incitements which lead to it against the young. I am called the spirit of lust. How many have I deceived who wished to live soberly, how many are the chaste whom by my incitements I have over-persuaded![25]
According to Augustine, it was Anthony’s life that inspired his friends to convert to Christianity, end their engagements, sell their possessions, and live the celibate life—a life that was intimately connected to Christian virtue.
Others, too, from diverse life situations shared in these views. One wealthy woman, St. Melania the Elder (Antonius Melania), sold every possession she had after her husband died and entered the monastic life. She spent time in Alexandria until her friend, St. Athanasius, died. She ultimately moved to Jerusalem, where she founded a cloister that would grow to house over fifty virgins. Her granddaughter, St. Melania the Younger (Valerius Melania), also entered the monastic life, however, as a married woman. Married at the age of thirteen, she had two sons who died in infancy. When she turned twenty, she found marriage so “hateful” that she and her husband, Pinianus, entered the ascetic life with an agreement of chastity. They moved to Thagaste where they became friends with Augustine, and they founded a dual community for celibate men and women, of which she and her husband led together in separate houses. Within the bonds of marriage, Melania and Pinianus lived under vows of chastity and communal asceticism for the rest of their lives, founding other convents and cloisters and ultimately dying in Jerusalem.[26]
An example more difficult for the modern Christian to understand is that of St. Macrina the Younger (Macrina Junioris), sister of St. Basil of Cæsarea (Basilius Cæsariensis), St. Gregory of Nyssa (Gregorius Nyssenus), St. Naucratius the Hermit (Naucratius Eremita), and St. Peter of Sebaste (Petrus Sebastenus). When Macrina was twelve, her father arranged her marriage to a wealthy young man. However, before she was old enough for the wedding, her fiancé died suddenly, and her father began to look for other suitors. Macrina, wise in matters of faith, determined that the engagement had already been set, and the death of her betrothed did not make her free to marry another. Instead, she maintained that it was unlawful to be unfaithful to the marriage already arranged, and according to her brother, Gregory, she “persisted that the man who had been linked to her by her parents’ arrangement was not dead, but that she considered him who lived to God, thanks to the hope of the resurrection, to be absent only, not dead; it was wrong not to keep faith with the bridegroom who was away.”[27]
For each of these early Christian saints, celibacy, virginity, and monasticism were intimately tied to the foundations of the Christian life, not an “alternative” path that solely strange or exceptional Christians follow. To venture as a pilgrim on the path to the heavenly city, to ascent the spiritual life towards union with Christ, the “necessity” of sexual virginity was an included aspect of the individual’s “fullness” of complete virginity and transformation from sin. To live a sanctified and holy life meant to “leave the world” and the passions and necessities found there.
Augustine and the Early Church in Conversation
Augustine was certainly influenced by St. Anthony and others who have entered into the ascetic life, and it appears that Augustine’s reading of The Life of Antony was a significant turning point in his understanding of flesh, lust, sex, and demonic activity. This work certainly shaped his understanding of concupiscence and virginity, as did the teaching of Ambrose. It seems clear that in these early centuries of the Church, celibacy was a large component of the virtuous or holy life, as evidenced by so many Christian writers. Whether this had always been there from the time of the apostles could be argued in some ways using Paul’s epistles. However, it is also possible that this did not become the spiritual “ideal” until the rise of eremitic monasticism and asceticism, and Paul does also have good things to say about marriage, noting that bishops were most likely married in 1 Tim 3.
In the case of the three saintly women who ultimately took vows of celibacy, each of the three has experience with marriage. One is widow, one is still faithfully “betrothed” to a physically dead man, and the other takes a vow of chastity while remaining married. These are all certainly in agreement with Augustine’s views in his Confessions. His mother, Monica, becomes a widow during Augustine’s teenaged years and remains celibate for the rest of her life; she is the model of the virtuous life for Augustine. As far as the betrothal is concerned, a key theme of Augustine’s Confessions is the journey to the heavenly city, and his pilgrimage to that place includes a learned understanding of the permanent fusion between the physical and the spiritual; for Augustine, Macrina’s betrothed is certainly still living in the heavenly city although his earthly body has deceased. When it comes to chastity within the bonds of marriage, this also seems to be an ideal value promoted by Augustine. For it is not the marriage itself that proves problematic for him, but the concupiscence of original sin and lust that inevitably comes with the sexual act and is passed down to offspring. For Augustine, even marital sex comes with attached sin, and humans are helpless to rid themselves of it outside of a life of virginity and holiness (physical and spiritual) in all things.
While, other than its procreative aspects, Augustine’s Confessions speaks very little of a positive nature concerning marriage (essentially viewing it as a distraction from the Christian life), his later writings make great efforts to speak positively about the marital state. While Augustine certainly views virginity as a higher virtue than marriage, he does indeed believe marriage to have good, and he writes several treatises on the topic.[28] Even so, Augustine expounded on the sentiments of the Christian world surrounding him, and became the first to systematize a theology of virginity, marriage, sex, and lust which would lead to perhaps his greatest contribution, that of creation and original sin. His own experiences detailed in his Confessions certainly provide the backdrop for his theology, and ultimately, Augustine’s other great contribution to the Church was his conclusion of the necessity of humility and the grace of God to achieve spiritual ascent.
Conclusion
As one whose early life entering adulthood looked much like Augustine’s, there is much appreciation to be found in his Confessions, and it is a work in which every young man (or woman) transitioning through puberty would gain value. Augustine’s views on sex and marriage (as well as that of other early Christian writers) are culturally hard to grasp for the modern Christian, especially those who identify themselves as “Protestant.” However, his experiences, the questions he wrestles with, and his own journey of communion with Christ are compelling and challenge the modern reader. While Augustine’s Confessions has certainly shaped Catholic doctrine in the west until the present, some aspects have prevailed over others. In contemporary Christian culture, especially in North American evangelicalism, there is a largely negative view towards sex. This has been noted most recently in the questions surrounding the evangelical “purity movement.” However, evangelicals are beginning to shift their teaching related to sex. They are starting to highlight the positive nature of it in the married state, instead of exclusively condemning it for youth and singles. Perhaps the great departure from Augustine is the difference between law and Gospel. While Augustine has a critical view of sex and intercourse through his connection to original sin, he arguably does so in a positive light that affirms the fullness and fruitfulness of a holy and “virgin” life. The proclamation of this “good news” of virginity in relation to spiritual ascent is not one practiced well by modern evangelicals, and it is something most appreciated by this reader. Ultimately, much can be learned from Augustine’s own experience, and the dominant Christian views of his era. Most important, however, is learning from his fervent desire to confess his sin in humility, seek unity and rest with the Lord, and grow in his actualization of the Christian life as a pilgrim in this world.
[1] Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis, The Confessions, Part I 1.1.1, ed. John E. Rotelle, trans. Maria Boulding, vol. 1, Second Edition., The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2012), 39. Original Latin is: “tu excitas, ut laudare te delectet, quia fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te” (Augustinus, St. Augustine’s Confessions, Vol. 1: Latin Text 1.1, 2).
[2] Augustinus, Confessions 2.3.6, trans. Boulding, 65. Original Latin is: “vidit pubescentem et inquieta indutum adulescentia” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 2.3, 72).
[3] Augustinus, Confessions 2.2.2, trans. Boulding, 62. In the original Latin, Augustine uses the phrase concupiscentia carnis for “fleshly desires”: “…sed exhalabantur nebulæ de limosa concupiscentia carnis et scatebra pubertatis, et obnubilabant atque obfuscabant cor meum, ut non discerneretur serenitas dilectionis a caligine libidinis” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 2.2, 66). This is directly related to the same phrase used in Jerome’s Vulgate in 1 John 2:16. In the vast majority of translations, this is simply rendered into the English as “concupiscence,” which contains the sense of a burning, passionate, driven desire (see Augustinus, The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustin with a Sketch of His Life and Work, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. J. G. Pilkington, 1886; Augustinus, St. Augustine’s Confessions, vol.1, ed. T. E. Page and W. H. D. Rouse, trans. William Watts, 1912; Augustinus, Confessions, ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari, trans. Vernon J. Bourke, 1953; Augustinus, The Confessions of St. Augustine, trans. E. B. Pusey, 1996).
[4] Augustinus, Confessions 2.3.7, trans. Boulding, 66.
[5] Augustinus, Confessions 2.3.8, trans. Boulding, 66. Original Latin is: “agebam platearum Babyloniæ, et volutabar in cæno eius tamquam” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 2.3, 74).
[6] Augustinus, Confessions 3.1.1, trans. Boulding, 75. Original Latin is: “et circumstrepebat me undique sartago flagitiosorum amorum” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 3.1, 98).
[7] Augustinus, Confessions 3.1.1, trans. Boulding, 75. Original Latin is: “nondum amabam, et amare amabam” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 3.1, 98).
[8] Augustinus, Confessions 3.1.1, trans. Boulding, 75.
[9] Augustinus, Confessions 4.1.2, trans. Boulding, 93.
[10] Augustinus, Confessions 6.15.25, trans. Boulding, 156. Original Latin is: “dilationis inpatiens…quia non amator coniugii sed libidinis servus eram,” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 6.15, 324).
[11] Augustinus, Confessions 8.7.17, trans. Boulding, 198. Original Latin is: “da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo,” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 8.7, 440).
[12] Augustinus, Confessions 5.13.23-5.14.24, trans. Boulding, 131-132. Original Latin is: “suscepit me paterne ille homo dei et peregrinationem meam satis episcopaliter dilexit. et eum amare coepi primo quidem non tamquam doctorem veri, quod in ecclesia tua prorsus desperabam, sed tamquam hominem benignum in me…nam primo etiam ipsa defendi posse mihi iam coeperunt videri, et fidem catholicam…iam non inpudenter asseri existimabam…maxime audito uno atque altero, et sæpius ænigmate soluto de scriptis veteribus, ubi, cum ad litteram acciperem, occidebar.” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 5:13-5:14, 254-258).
[13] Augustinus, Confessions 8.6.15, trans. Boulding, 197. Original Latin is: “amicus autem dei…ecce nunc fio,” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 8.6, 434).
[14] Augustinus, Confessions 8.12.29, trans. Boulding, 206. Original Latin is: “tolle lege,” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 8.12, 464). Rom 13:13-14: “Not in dissipation and drunkenness, nor in debauchery and lewdness, nor in arguing and jealousy; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh or the gratification of your desires.”
[15] Aurelius Ambrosius Milanensis, “On the Duties of the Clergy,” in St. Ambrose: Select Works and Letters, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. H. de Romestin, E. de Romestin, and H. T. F. Duckworth, vol. 10, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1896), 41.
[16] Augustinus, Confessions 6.3.3, trans. Boulding, 137. Original Latin is: “cælibatus tantum eius mihi laboriosus videbatur,” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 6.3, 272).
[17] Augustinus, Confessions 6.3.3, trans. Boulding, 137. Original Latin is: “quid autem ille spei gereret, adversus ipsius excellentiæ temptamenta quid luctaminis haberet, quidve solaminis in adversis, et occultum os eius, quod erat in corde eius, quam sapida gaudia de pane tuo ruminaret, nec conicere noveram nec expertus eram,” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 6.3, 272).
[18] Augustinus, Confessions 6.11.20, trans. Boulding, 152. Original Latin is: “cum tam stultus essem, ut nescirem, sicut scriptum est, neminem posse esse continentem, nisi tu dederis,” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 6.11, 314).
[19] Augustinus, Confessions 2.2.3, trans. Boulding, 63; Augustinus, Confessions 9.3.6, trans. Boulding, 213.
[20] Augustinus, Confessions 8.11.27, trans. Boulding, 205; Augustinus, Confessions 8.1.2, trans. Boulding, 185.
[21] Augustinus, Confessions 6.12.22, trans. Boulding, 154. Original Latin is: “coniugale decus in officio regendi matrimonii et suscipiendorum liberorum,” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 6.12, 318); Augustinus, Confessions 4.2.2, trans. Boulding, 93. Original Latin is: “quid distaret inter coniugalis placiti modum, quod foederatum esset generandi gratia, et pactum libidinosi amoris, ubi proles etiam contra votum nascitur,” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 4.2, 150).
[22] Augustinus, Confessions 13.9.10, trans. Boulding, 348.
[23] Augustinus, Confessions 7.17.23, trans. Boulding, 176.
[24] Augustinus, Confessions 8.5.10, trans. Boulding, 192-193. Original Latin is: “quippe voluntate perversa facta est libido, et dum servitur libidini, facta est consuetudo, et dum consuetudini non resistitur, facta est necessitas,” (Augustinus, Confessions, Latin Text 8.5, 424).
[25] Athanasius Alexandrinus, “The Life of Antony,” tr. John Henry Newman, in Readings in World Christian History: Earliest Christianity to 1453, ed. John Wayland Coakley and Andrea Sterk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013), 133.
[26] Palladius Helenopolitanus, “The Lausiac History,” tr. Johannes Quasten, Walter J. Burghardt, and Thomas Comerford Lawler, in Readings in World Christian History: Earliest Christianity to 1453, ed. John Wayland Coakley and Andrea Sterk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013), 155-158.
[27] Gregorius Nyssenus, “The Life of St. Macrina,” tr. W. K. Lowther Clarke, in Readings in World Christian History: Earliest Christianity to 1453, ed. John Wayland Coakley and Andrea Sterk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013), 147-154.
[28] Augustine writes a full treatise in defense of marriage, calling it good. This immediately refuted the chief charge of Manichæism, which preferred the state of virginity but in condemnation of marriage. However, for Augustine, intended also to refute the doctrine of Jovinianus (a fourth-century opponent of asceticism), which considered the marital state of being equal to virginity. Augustine still views virginity as a higher state, but argues that there is good in marriage found in proles (offspring), fides (fidelity), and sacramentum (sacrament). Far more could be said about Augustine’s understanding of sex and concupiscence in relation to marriage. See Augustine’s De bono coniugali (The Good of Marriage), De incompetentibus nuptiis (Adulterous Marriages), and De sancta virginitate (Holy Virginity), as well as his Contra Adimantum Manichæi discipulum (Against Adimantus Disciple of Mani) and De Moribus Ecclesiæ Catholicæ (On the Morals of the Catholic Church).
Ex Vitæ Verborum 