§ 153. THE AUGUSTINIAX SYSTEM CONTINUED. 827
describes in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Homans. (Aiigustiue referred this passage to the regenerate state.) The rebellion of the spirit against God involved, as its natura] punishment, the rebellion of the flesh against the spirit. ConGiijpiscent'm^ therefore, is substantially the same as what Paul calls in the bad sense "flesh." It is not the sensual constitution in itself, but its predominance over the higher, rational nature of man.* It is true, however, that Augustine, in his longing after an unimpeded life in the spirit, was inclined to treat even lawful appetites, such as hunger and thirst, so far as they assume the form of craving desire, as at least remotely connected with the fall." Julian attributed the strength of animal desire to the animal element in the original nature of man. Augustine answered, that the superiority of man to the brute consists in the complete dominion of reason over the sensual nature, and that therefore his approach to the brute in this respect is a punishment from God. Concupiscence then is no more a merely corporeal thing than the biblical crap^^ but has its seat in the soul, without which no lust arises. We must, therefore, suppose a conflict in the soul itself, a lower, earthly, self-seeking instinct, and a higher, god-like impulse.
This is the generic sense of concupiscentia : the struggle of the collective sensual and psychical desires against the god-like spirit. But Augustine frequently employs the word, as other corresponding terms are used, in the narrower sense of unlawful sexual desire. This appeared immediately after the fall, in the shame of our first parents, which was not for their nakedness itself, since this was nothing new to them, but for the
' Not the " aentiendi vivacitas," but the " libido sentiendi, quae no3 ad sentienduin, sive consentientes mente, sive repugnantes, appetitu carnalis voluptatis impellit." C. Julianum, 1. iv. c. 14 (§ 65, torn. x. f. 615). He illustrates the difference by a reference to Matt, v, 28. " Non ait Dominus : qui viderit mulierem, sed : qui viderit ad concupiscendum, jam moechatms est eavi in corde suo. . . . Illud [viderej Deu3 coudidit, instruendo corpus humanum ; lUud [videre ad concupiscendum] dia> bolus seminavit, persuadendo peccatum."
* '' Quis autem mente sobrius non mallet, si fieri posset, sine ulla mc *daci voluptate carnali vel arida sumere alimenta, vel humida, sicut sumimus hsec aeria, qua de circumfusis auris respirando et spirando sorbemua et fundimus ? " Contra Jul w. c. 14, § 68. f. 616.
828 TniED PEKIOD. A.D. 311-590.
lusting of the body ; for sometliing, therefore, in and of itself good (the body's own enjoyment, as it were), but now unlaw fully rising, through the discord between body and soul. But would there then have been propagation without the fall? Unquestionably ; but it would have left the dominion of reason over the sensual desire uudisturbed. Propagation would havo been the act of a pure will and chaste love, and would have had no more shame about it than the scattering of seed upon the maternal bosom of the earth. But now lust rules the spirit ; and Augustine in his earlier years had had bitter experience of its tyranny. To this element of sin in the act of procreation he ascribes the pains of child-birth, which in fact appear in Genesis as a consequence of the fall, and as a curse from God. Had man remained pure, " the ripe fruit would have descended from the maternal womb without labor or pain of the woman, as the fruit descends from the tree." '
6. Physical deaths with its retinue of diseases and bodily pains. Adam was indeed created mortal, that is, capable of death, but not subject to death. By a natural development the possibility of dying would have been overcome by the power of immortality ; the body would have been gradually spiritualized and clothed with glory, without a violent transition or even the weakness of old aace. But now man is fallen under the bitter necessity of death. Because the spirit forsook God willingly, it must now forsake the body unwillingly. With profound discernment Augustine shows that not only the actual severance of soul and body, but the whole life of sinful man is a continual dying. Even with the pains of birth and the first cry of the child does death begin. The threatening of the Lord, therefore : " In tlie day ye eat thereof, ye shall die," began at once to be fullilled. For though our first parents lived many years afterwards, they immediately began to grow old and to die. Life is an unceasing march towards death, and '' to no one is it granted, even for a little, to stand Btill, or to go more slowly, but all are constrained to go with equal pace, and no one is impellecl differently from others For he whose life has been shorter, saw therefore no shortei
* Dc civitatc Dei, xiv. 26.