The Church Fathers · 419–421
On Marriage and Concupiscence
De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
What it is
Marriage is good, its three goods are offspring, fidelity, and the bond — and yet the desire by which children are conceived is itself disordered, and carries the fault forward into every child born. Julian of Eclanum read this and accused Augustine of never having stopped being a Manichaean.
Why it lasted
The book that fixed the link between sexual desire and original sin in Western theology, and the one Augustine's critics have gone to ever since. The whole quarrel with Julian starts here.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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