On Marriage and Concupiscence

St. Augustine of Hippo (b. AD 354) is considered the single most influential theologian in the history of the Church in the western world. His doctrine on marriage and sexuality provided the foundation of Catholic thought on the subject for centuries. In fact, more than fifteen hundred years after he wrote about the "goods" of marriage, Augustine's thoughts structured Pius XI's 1930 encyclical on Christian marriage. This volume masterfully gathers, for the first time, Augustine's principal writings on the subject.

In introducing the collection, Elizabeth Clark provides an uncommonly well balanced portrait of Augustine. She explains that Augustine's sexual ethic took shape as he responded to his opponents: Manicheans and Pelagians, extreme ascetics as well as anti-ascetics. In the atmosphere of raging debates and heresy, Augustine developed a sexual and marital ethic that praised the goodness of creation and of reproduction while upholding the sinfulness of sexual list.

The writings included in this collection document the chronological development of Augustine's sexual ethic. Augustine unveils his thoughts on his turbulent adolescent desires; his entry into the Christian Church; his reaction to the Manichean teachings on the body, reproduction, and marriage; his response to ascetic debates within late-fourth-century Christianity; his discourse with followers of Pelagius; and his eventual statement on original sin, lust, and the goodness of marriage and reproduction.

This volume is the first in the Selections from the Fathers of the Church series, a projected series of volumes on various themes found in the writings of the Church Fathers.