Editing Augustine of Hippo (section)

==== Sexuality and the sexes ====
For Augustine, the evil of sexual immorality was not in the sexual act itself, but in the emotions that typically accompany it. In ''On Christian Doctrine'' Augustine contrasts love, which is enjoyment on account of God, and lust, which is not on account of God.<ref>Augustine of Hippo, ''On Christian Doctrine'', 3.37</ref> Augustine claims that, following the Fall, sexual lust (''concupiscentia'') has become necessary for copulation (as required to stimulate male erection), sexual lust is an evil result of the Fall, and therefore, evil must inevitably accompany sexual intercourse (''On marriage and concupiscence'' [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_V/On_Marriage_and_Concupiscence/Book_I/Chapter_19 1.19]<ref>[https://la.wikisource.org/wiki/De_Nuptiis_et_Concupiscentia_ad_Valerium Latin text]: "Carnis autem concupiscentia non est nuptiis imputanda, sed toleranda. Non enim est ex naturali connubio veniens bonum, sed ex antiquo peccato accidens malum." (Carnal concupiscence, however, must not be ascribed to marriage: it is only to be tolerated in marriage. It is not a good which comes out of the essence of marriage, but an evil which is the accident of original sin.)</ref>). Therefore, following the Fall, even marital sex carried out merely to procreate inevitably perpetuates evil (''On marriage and concupiscence'' 1.27; ''A Treatise against Two Letters of the Pelagians'' 2.27). For Augustine, proper love exercises a denial of selfish pleasure and the subjugation of corporeal desire to God. The only way to avoid evil caused by sexual intercourse is to take the "better" way (''Confessions'' 8.2) and abstain from marriage (''On marriage and concupiscence'' 1.31). Sex within marriage is not, however, for Augustine a sin, although necessarily produces the evil of sexual lust. Based on the same logic, Augustine also declared the pious virgins raped during the sack of Rome to be innocent because they did not intend to sin nor enjoy the act.{{sfn|Russell|1945|p=356}}<ref>Augustine of Hippo, ''City of God'', Book I, Ch. 16, 18.</ref>

Before the Fall, Augustine believed sex was a passionless affair, "just like many a laborious work accomplished by the compliant operation of our other limbs, without any lascivious heat",<ref>''On marriage and concupiscence'' [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_V/On_Marriage_and_Concupiscence/Book_II/Chapter_26 2.26], [http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/02m/0354-0430,_Augustinus,_De_Nuptiis_Et_Concupiscentia,_MLT.pdf Latin text]: "Sine qua libidine poterat opus fieri conjugum in generatione filiorum, sicut multa opera fiunt obedientia caeterorum sine illo ardore membrorum, quae voluptatis nutu moventur, non aestu libidinis concitantur."</ref> that the seed "might be sown without any shameful lust, the genital members simply obeying the inclination of the will".<ref>''On marriage and concupiscence'' [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_V/On_Marriage_and_Concupiscence/Book_II/Chapter_29 2.29], [http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/02m/0354-0430,_Augustinus,_De_Nuptiis_Et_Concupiscentia,_MLT.pdf Latin text]: "sereretur sine ulla pudenda libidine, ad voluntatis nutum membris obsequentibus genitalibus"; cf. ''City of God'' 14.23</ref> After the Fall, by contrast, the penis cannot be controlled by mere will, subject instead to both unwanted impotence and involuntary erections: "Sometimes the urge arises unwanted; sometimes, on the other hand, it forsakes the eager lover, and desire grows cold in the body while burning in the mind... It arouses the mind, but it does not follow through what it has begun and arouse the body also" (''City of God'' 14.16).

Augustine censured those who try to prevent the creation of offspring when engaging in sexual relations, saying that though they may be nominally married they are not really, but are using that designation as a cloak for turpitude. When they allow their unwanted children to die of exposure, they unmask their sin. Sometimes they use drugs to produce sterility, or other means to try to destroy the fetus before they are born. Their marriage is not wedlock but debauchery.<ref>''On marriage and concupiscence'' [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_V/On_Marriage_and_Concupiscence/Book_I/Chapter_17 1.17], [https://la.wikisource.org/wiki/De_Nuptiis_et_Concupiscentia_ad_Valerium Latin text]: "Aliquando eo usque pervenit haec libidinosa crudelitas vel libido crudelis, ut etiam sterilitatis venena procuret et si nihil valuerit, conceptos fetus aliquo modo intra viscera exstinguat ac fundat, volendo suam prolem prius interire quam vivere, aut si in utero iam vivebat, occidi ante quam nasci. Prorsus si ambo tales sunt, coniuges non sunt; et si ab initio tales fuerunt, non sibi per connubium, sed per stuprum potius convenerunt."</ref>

Augustine believed Adam and Eve had both already chosen in their hearts to disobey God's command not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge before Eve took the fruit, ate it, and gave it to Adam.<ref name="ReferenceC">Augustine of Hippo, ''City of God'', 14.13</ref>{{sfn|Clark|1996|p=}} Accordingly, Augustine did not believe Adam was any less guilty of sin.<ref name="ReferenceC" />{{sfn|Clark|1986|pp=139–162}} Augustine praises women and their role in society and in the Church. In his ''Tractates on the Gospel of John'', Augustine, commenting on the [[Samaritan]] woman from John 4:1–42, uses the woman as a figure of the Church in agreement with the New Testament teaching that the Church is the bride of Christ.<ref>{{bibleverse|John|4:1–42}}</ref> "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her."<ref>{{bibleverse|Eph|5:25}}</ref>

Augustine believed that "woman has been made for man" and that "in sex she is physically subject to him in the same way as our natural impulses need to be subjected to the reasoning power of the mind, in order that the actions to which they lead may be inspired by the principles of good conduct".<ref>{{cite book |last1=May Schott |first1=Robin |title=Discovering Feminist Philosophy Knowledge, Ethics, Politics |date=2003 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers |page=32}}</ref> Women were created as a "helper" to men for Augustine.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deborah F. |first1=Sawyer |title=Women and Religion in the First Christian Centuries |date=2002 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |page=152}}</ref>