St. Augustine, Marriage & Virginity

 St. Augustine, Marriage & Virginity

*Disclaimer: my posts on marriage and sexuality are based on my research of philosophers and theologians such as St. Augustine. My hope is to merely summarize his thoughts in this post.

St. Augustine was here to find the middle line between Jovinian’s view of celibacy and marriage as equal holiness and Jerome’s manichean view - rejecting marriage

• Jovinian - expressed reservations on asceticism 
• Asceticism: severe self discipline, avoid indulgence (usually for religious reasons)
• Manichean = old religion: everything is either good or evil - black and white (they thought marriage to be evil. Celibicy was the way)

OT - many marriages were poplating the earth -- meant for procreation.
Then Christ and the second coming - christian marriage then changed the marriage and purpose -- future...united to God - one heavenly city.

Excellence of Marriage: 3 goods of marriage which have become classic in catholic moral theology:

1. Procreation of children 

• Human nature is social…

2. Mutual fidelity 

• Abstain from adultery but also ‘responsiblity to have sex - to help others refrain from adultery’ 1 cor 7:4, 4:4

• Augustine fidelity - “a mutual service) (30)

3. Sacramentum (sacramental bond)

• First to articulate marriage as sacramental sign or symbol

  Monogamous and indissolvable till death - this was not true in the OT

Augustine sees marriage parallel to the history of Salvation

Offspring “The original and primary good of marriage, according to Augustine, is the procreation of marriage.”

Mutual fidelity “The married person’s responsibility to have sex with his or her partner in order to help the other to refrain from adultury.” - 1 cor 7:4,

- ‘Augustine describes fidelity as “a mutual service to relive each other’s weakness, and thereby avoid illicit unions”

Sacramentum“It’s significance as a sacred sign or symbol. Augustine is among the very first to articulate the notion of the sacramentality of Christian mariage, which to him means its character as a union that is both monogamous and indissoluble until the death of one of the spouses. For Augistne, the sacramentality of marriage is directly linked to its role in the history of salvation.”

• OT marriages were neither monogamous nor indissoluble - but they had their own unique kind of sacramentality...multiplicity “sacramentally signified the many churches that would one day be subject to christ. But now after the coming of christ, christian marriages bears a different sacrament… a different sacred meaning: ‘therefore just as the sacrament of polygamous marriages of that age was  a symbol of the plurality of people who would be subject to God in all nations of the earth, so too the sacrament of monogamous marriage of our time is a symbol that in the future we shall all be united and subject to God in one heavenly city.” (31)

• “OT saints lived at a time when procreation was still necessary in order to produce the human line of descent that would lead to christ. Although they were quite capable of celibacy, augustine aruges that the patriarhcs and matriarchs married and produced children out of piety in obedience to god’s command. But in the present era of history, since procreation is no longer necessary, the only reason to have children is out of a lack fo self control. For this reason, according to augustine, marriages among christians can never attain the same moral value as the marriages of the old testament saints. “

• “Nevertheless, augustine insists, christians who practice celibacy, while they are embraicng a greater good than married persons, are not necessarily superior, as individuals to married persons. A virgin who lacks the more important virtue of obedience, for example, will be inferior to an obedient married woman.”

“Augiustine, like Jovininan, was concerned about the problem of ascetic elitism in the church. To be sure, Augustine rejected jovinian’s view that no distinction could be made between the holiness of marriage and that of celibacy; he steadfastly maintained the superiority of the celibate life.”

“Until we reach what in the apostles’ word is abominable even to mention  (Eph 5:12) everything would be good in comparison with things that are worse. Who, however, has any doubt that this is an error? Therefore marriage and fornication are not two evils, one worse than the other, but marriage and abstinence are two good things, one better than the other. In the same way health and sickness in this life are not two evils, one worse than the other; but health and immortality are two good things, one better than the other.” (39)

• Can anyone be like christ? Ultimate comparison.