Chapter 16 [VI.]--It is Not of Us, But Our Sins, that the Devil is the Author.
He puts to us, then, another question, saying, "Whom, then, do you confess to be the author of infants? The true God?" I answer: [2232] "Yes; the true God." He then remarks, "But He did not make evil;" and again asks, "Whether we confess the devil to be the creator of infants?" Then again he answers, "But he did not create human nature." He then closes the subject, as it were, with this inference: "Since union is evil, and the condition of our bodies is degraded, therefore you ascribe our bodies to an evil creator." My answer to this is, I do not ascribe to an evil creator our bodies, but our sins; by reason of which it came to pass that, whereas in our bodies, that is to say, in what God has made, all was honourable and well-pleasing, there yet accrued in the intercourse of male and female what caused shame, so that their union was not such as might have been in the body of that unimpaired life, but such as we see with a blush in the body of this death. "But God," says he, "has divided in sex what He would unite in operation. So that from Him comes the union of bodies, from whom first came the creation of bodies." We have already furnished an answer to this statement, when we said that these bodies are of God. But as regards the disobedience of the members of these bodies, this comes through the lust of the flesh which "is not of the Father." [2233] He goes on to say, that "it is impossible for evil fruits to spring from so many good things, such as bodies, sexes, and their unions; or that human beings should be made by God for the purpose of their being, by lawful right, as you maintain, held in possession by the devil." Now it has been already affirmed, that they are not thus held because they are men, which designation belongs to their nature, of which the devil is not the author; but because they are sinners, which designation is the result of that fault of nature of which the devil is the author.
[2232] This is the Benedictine reading; but another reading has "he answers," which seems to suit the context. See the following: "again he answers."
[2233] 1 John ii. 16.
Chapter 17 [VII.]--The Pelagians are Not Ashamed to Eulogize Concupiscence, Although They are Ashamed to Mention Its Name.
But among so many names of good things, such as bodies, sexes, unions, he never once mentions the lust or concupiscence of the flesh. He is silent, because he is ashamed; and yet with a strange shamelessness of shame (if the expression may be used), he is not ashamed to praise what he is ashamed to mention. Now just observe how he prefers to point to his object by circumlocution rather than by direct mention of it. "After that the man," says he, "by natural appetite knew his wife." See again, he refused to say, He knew his wife by carnal concupiscence; but he used the phrase, "by natural appetite," by which it is open to us to understand that holy and honourable will which wills the procreation of children, and not that lust, of which even he is so much ashamed, forsooth, that he prefers to use ambiguous language to us, to expressing his mind in unmistakeable words. "Now what is the meaning of his phrase--"by natural appetite"? Is not both the wish to be saved and the wish to beget, nourish, and educate children, natural appetite? and is it not likewise of reason, and not of lust? Since, however, we can ascertain his intention, we are pretty sure that he meant by these words to indicate the lust of the organs of generation. Do not the words in question appear to you to be the fig-leaves, under cover of which is hidden nothing else but that which he feels ashamed of? For just as they of old sewed the leaves together [2234] as a girdle of concealment, so has this man woven a web of circumlocution to hide his meaning. Let him weave out his statement: "But when the man knew his wife by natural appetite, the divine Scripture says, Eve conceived, and bare a son, and called his name Cain. But what," he adds, "does Adam say? Let us hear: I have obtained a man from God. So that it is evident that he was God's work, and the divine Scripture testifies to his having been received from God." [2235] Well, who can entertain a doubt on this point? Who can deny this statement, especially if he be a catholic Christian? A man is God's work; but carnal concupiscence (without which, if sin had not preceded, man would have been begotten by means of the organs of generation, not less obedient than the other members to a quiet and normal will) is not of the Father, but is of the world. [2236]
[2234] Gen. iii. 7.
[2235] Gen. iv. 1.
[2236] 1 John ii. 16.