In the author's article Woman the Temptress the importance of the creation story, and its role in a presumption of male superiority and the need to control women was evident. Augustine added a few details to the story of the Garden of Eden, which led to the notion of an ‘original sin’. He provided the foundations of Christian sexual theology upon which Albert and Aquinas later built their ‘truths’. He not only identified woman as the site and cause of sin, but located the original sin in the genitals. The transmission of original sin from one generation to the next was through the sexual act. Yet, this act was necessary if the species was to procreate. Augustine contained sexual intercourse in marriage. Woman’s role and status in marriage is that of a slave and as a vehicle to contain man’s lust. . His sexual theology was biologically determined, strongly influenced by the patriarchal beliefs and assumptions of the wider world. Augustine held on to Manichaean ideas of a permanent evil existing in human beings which remained a determining spiritual force in Christianity
Augustine added a few details to the story of the Garden of Eden, which led to the notion of an ‘original in’. He argued that all sin originated with the 'original' sin, which had come from the sexual act. His evidence for the assumption that 'original sin' had come from the genitals was that after Adam and Eve had disobeyed God, 'they were ashamed and covered their sexual parts with fig leaves'.1 Augustine concluded, ‘this is where it (original sin) comes from'. Further, it was through sexual intercourse that 'original sin' was passed from generation to generation. Sin and the sexual act were inextricable linked. Eve was cast as the villain, as she tempted a weak-willed Adam to have sex. Therefore, sin entered the world via a woman. Woman was the site and cause of sin. It followed that all women posed a threat to all men.
Crucial factors in Augustine’s formulation of his doctrine of ‘original sin’ were patriarchal beliefs, a fear of women and sexuality; and Manichean pessimism. Prejudicial notions about women and their bodies are evident as Eve, not Adam, was identified as the cause of sin in the world.2 Woman's body, not man’s body, is the site of sin. In his concern to ascertain whether Adam and Eve had sexual intercourse he reveals a link with the beliefs of the wider world. 'I do not see what sort of help woman was created to provide men with, if one excludes the purpose of procreation.....what other help could she be?’3 In other words, woman is only good for sex. Augustine was convinced that had Eve not tempted Adam to sin the human race would have remained in a state of prelapsarian purity.Augustine's conclusions that 'original' sin came from sexual intercourse ensured that sexual activity and sin would have the highest profile in Christian theology. The identification of woman as the site and cause of sin ensured that women, sexuality and sin would be inextricably bound together as the doctrine of 'original' sin became a cornerstone of Christian objective 'truth'. Implicit in this doctrine are: the association of woman with nature, physicality and evil. Women's bodies were the site of sin and sexual intercourse the expression of sin; women, sex and sin were intertwined.
It is evident from Augustine's discourse that his sexual theology was strongly influenced by the patriarchal beliefs and assumptions of the wider world. Augustine's theology was rooted in biologically determined theories about woman and man. His
doctrine of 'original' sin was influenced by his beliefs in the inferiority of woman together with a fear of women and sexuality. This doctrine supported and sustained beliefs of the wider world concerning the dangerousness of women, sexual
activity and pollution. The writings of Augustine supported patriarchy in the Church, in society, and in the family through the pater familias.
The inferior status of woman was confirmed and her role to sexually and physically service
men and provide the means of procreation. A woman was subject to her husband, his property, his slave. Augustine used his mother Monica to remind women that their role in life was to serve men. He explained,
'when she (Monica) reached marriageable age she was given to a husband whom she served as master…They (wives) had all heard she said, the marriage contract read out to them and from that day they ought to regard it as a legal instrument by which they were made servants; so they should remember their station and not set themselves up against their masters'. 4
Having constructed the doctrine of original sin Augustine was faced with several dilemmas. First, the sexual act was necessary if the species was to survive. He had to find a way to ‘allow’ sexual intercourse, but contain it at the same time. He reasoned that man is ‘naturally’ inclined to lust as a permanent evil existed in the human body – that of sexual desire and pleasure.5 Man needs to satisfy this urge to evil, but the power that was sex was not to be trusted to ordinary people, they must be guided.‘It turns away from what marriage is for. Husbands turn wives into shameful harlots and the marriage beds bordello and fathers-in-law are pimps’.6
The notion of fidelity in marriage focused on the woman. Augustine approved of polygamy, which he described as an ‘unselfish act’. ‘I rather approve using the fertility of many women for an unselfish purpose than using the flesh of a single woman for her own sake’.7 Polygamy does not contradict the order of creation, but polyandry does, because women are their husband’s slaves.
‘Now a slave never has several masters, but a master does have several slaves. Thus we have never heard that the holy women served several living husbands, but we do read that many holy women served one husband’.8
The indissolubility of marriage allowed for man’s ‘natural inclination’ to lust to be confined to one woman. A wife’s role was to always be available to sexually service her husband in order to ensure the containment of his lust. Within these three goods lust could be properly contained. A pessimistic sexual morality permitted sexual intercourse only in marriage and women were classified as stimulants not partners. With Augustine the sexual act was to be mechanical, a call to procreation alone, reduced to an animalistic level with no personal component at all. Augustine decided that before the ‘fall’ of the human race represented by Adam and Eve, the sexual urge had been aroused by the will alone, without the excitement of lust. 9 His horror of lust formed a firm foundation for future Christian understanding of sex.
Second, Augustine presumed that all people are born with an original sin. Unless this sin is removed by Christian baptism the soul is condemned to eternal damnation. Augustine’s doctrine included that of unbaptised infants. Some of his contemporaries did not agree with him. Bishop Julian of Eclanum a Pelagian disagreed with Augustine’s damnation of unbaptised children and sharply attacked him.
‘Augustine, you are far removed from religious feelings, from civilised thinking, indeed from healthy common sense, if you think that your God is capable of committing crimes against justice that are scarcely imaginable even for the barbarians’. Julian called Augustine‘s God ‘a persecutor of infants, who throws babies into eternal fire’ 10
Bishop of Eclanum from 416, was a married, educated priest whose wife was the daughter of the Bishop of Benevento. Julian opposed the sexual pessimism of Augustine and had a positive attitude towards sexual pleasure. It was one of the ‘goods’ of marriage. He defended the sexual urge
‘not as some outstandingly good thing, but as a drive in our bodies made by God - a drive which you claim has been put in us by the devil, making your whole doctrine stand or fall on the discreet behaviour that surrounds the sexual act’ 11.
Julian felt that the sexual urge was the same for Adam and Eve as it was for married couples. He felt that the sexual urge needed at times to be controlled, but could never be said to be ‘fallen’. It was blameworthy only in its excesses. Augustine’s response was to reject Julian’s alternate view writing unceasingly against him in an effort to discredit him. Julian was eventually ousted from the Church as a heretic. Augustine held on to Manichaean ideas of a permanent evil existing in human beings and remained a determining spiritual force in Christianity.12
Third, there was the problem of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who could not be born with original sin and then pass it on to her son Jesus. The solution was to declare that Mary was a virgin, and the only human being to have been born without original sin; hence she could not pass this sin on to her child Jesus. This image of Mary the Virgin Mother, the ‘second Eve’, has been held up as an impossible model for women to follow ever since.
Fourth, there was also the question of who should be saved in childbirth if there was a choice between mother and child. In some Catholic countries women still find that their lives can be sacrificed in order that the unborn child can be baptised. Doctrinally, it is more important that the child be baptised quickly before imminent death than the mother be allowed to live after the death of an unbaptised child. It was not until the late 20th century that it was acceptable for clinicians to make a choice between mother and baby, but only when both were in danger of dying. In a plain choice between mother and baby the baby was to be saved. Celibates appealed to a woman’s conscience, when deciding whether to save herself or her unborn child, but the choice for many women could be much more complicated than that.
The cornerstone of Augustine’s theology is that of ‘original sin’. He laid the blame for evil in the world at the feet of woman the temptress-. Man’s ‘natural inclination to sin as a result of the original sin must be contained within marriage. Woman’s role and status in marriage is that of a slave and as a vehicle to contain man’s lust. . His sexual theology was biologically determined, strongly influenced by the patriarchal beliefs and assumptions of the wider world and Manichaean pessimism. Original sin remains a fundamental doctrine in Christianity. All people are presumed to be born with an original sin. Unless this sin is removed by Christian baptism the soul is condemned to eternal damnation. Even when the sin is removed by baptism the sin ‘weakens’ the human person a, hence their proclivity to sin. The presumed damnation of those who died with the original sin on their souls also gave ‘permission’ for the forced conversion of many non-Christians in the name of God.
References