Bridget
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Saint Augustine and Christian Marriage
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
Great Catholic Books Newsletter
Volume I, Number 2
It must seem strange, or even a bit archaic, to address oneself to a
topic like "Saint Augustine and Christian Marriage."
What makes it odd is that Augustine died in 430 A.D. and this is the
last decade of the twentieth century. If anything has changed it is the
attitude towards marriage in the past 1500 years.
And besides, are not some theologians nowadays saying that if there is
one single person in Christian history responsible for the painful
tension between the modern age and the Church's antiquated notion of
marriage it is Saint Augustine. His wooden orthodoxy and ? so say the
critics ? his preoccupation with man's sinful nature made him see sin
everywhere, even in the marital embrace of husband and wife. Anybody
but Augustine!
But that is precisely why we had better take another look at Augustine,
lest we mistake the myth for the man, and dismiss as unimportant the
one great witness of Christian tradition on whom the Second Vatican
Council mainly relied for its understanding of Christian marriage.
If we look closely at the doctrine on marriage in the "Constitution on
the Church in the Modern World," we shall find that all the basic
premises of this document on the meaning and responsibilities of
marriage are the premises of Saint Augustine. Not only is Augustine's
famous treatise on "The Good of Marriage" directly used by the Council,
but what Augustine said the Council canonizes with its authority, as
the Church's magisterium has been canonizing over the centuries.
What makes Augustine especially relevant is that his stand on
contraception and marital indissolubility taught then is being taught
still ? an eloquent witness to the Church's doctrinal stability and a
warning rebuke to those who would water down the teachings of Christ to
accommodate the Gospel to the world.
Augustine had the enemies of Christian marriage in his day, and we have
them in ours. What he wrote then is worth hearing now, because the
Christian marriage he defended needs defense today, and for much the
same reasons, seeing that the opposition to Christ and His message of
salvation has not essentially changed.
Marriage Elevated by Christ
For St. Augustine, when God became man He raised marriage to a level it
had never had before. Christ made marriage the living witness of the
New Testament. This meant that Christian marriage was to reveal to the
world the Savior's New Commandment of selfless love.
Christ's commandment "Love one another as I have loved you," was to
prove to the world that married Christians were indeed His disciples.
How? By their practice of such love as the world had never seen before:
love between the spouses and love from the spouses to their children,
as not even the Mosaic law required.
Given the high demands of charity placed on His married followers,
Christ provided also the means they would need to live out this
superhuman love. That is why He instituted the sacrament of matrimony.
Blessings of Christian Marriage
One of the surprises in St. Augustine is that he wrote so extensively
on marriage and always associated marriage with consecrated chastity.
Those blessings for Augustine, as for the Church (using Augustine's
language ever since) are three: children, mutual faith, and sacrament.
As we look more closely at each of these, we shall better understand
the Catholic Church's position on marriage today.
Children
Over the centuries, Augustine has been quoted in his classic statement:
"The procreation of children is the first, natural, and legitimate
purpose of marriage."
Every word in this statement needs to be scrutinized:
* Purpose is the divinely instituted purpose intended by God.
* Procreation of children includes also their nurture, not only in body
but also in spirit. "Parents are to be parents twice over
and they are
to be educators twice over
"
* First means fundamental, or basic, which may never be subordinated as
a means to another, even good, end.
* Natural is built in, on which grace builds, and without which there
is no foundation for grace. It is intended by God for all, and not only
Christians; but Christians are especially to know what their
responsibility is as creatures.
* Legitimate means based on law, therefore that to which every
conscience must conform to be true.
Augustine says a great deal about the duties of Christians to live up
to their fundamental purpose.
He distinguishes two kinds of sins that a couple commit against this
first blessing of marriage:
The first sin he calls mortal, and equates it with fornication and
adultery for gravity, when the married couple deliberately seek to
prevent conception while enjoying intercourse.
Since Augustine's time, the Church's hierarchy, notably the Popes, have
been quoting Augustine in this matter ? being sure that they were
reflecting the Church's constant tradition. He speaks of "evil
appliances," used in his day. They were evil then and they are evil
now, only they have since become more sophisticated.
The second kind of sin he calls venial, which may come as a surprise to
some people. Augustine has been much maligned on this point. He says
that when marital intercourse is had without the use of contraceptives
but performed with what we might call "a contraceptive frame of mine,"
it is nevertheless wrong and venially sinful.
What can this mean? It can mean that a couple do not use physical
contraceptives but when they have intercourse they either selfishly
hope they will not have a pregnancy, or selfishly do not want a
conception, or when their only purpose in having intercourse is to
enjoy the pleasures of sex, they do not sin gravely, but they do sin
venially.
Why should Augustine say this? Because Christians, in his estimation,
should never become so preoccupied with the sexual experience as to
ignore either the procreative purpose of intercourse, or the unitive
purpose of intercourse.
In other words, marital intercourse should not be self-directed but
altruistic. It should express a selfless love directed to another
person beyond the individual married spouse.
Mutual Faith
Having clarified the fact that the fundamental purpose ? not to be a
subordinated purpose ? of marriage is children, Augustine goes on to
say that the second blessing is mutual faith.
By "faith" he means confident trust based on love. What makes it trust
is that the husband is confident about the wife's loyalty to him, and
the wife is confident about the husband's loyalty to her.
What is the basis of their mutual trust? It is their mutual love.
Wherein precisely does the confidence reside, or in what are the two
spouses trustful of one another? In their reliance on the pledge that
each makes to the other not to betray.
She is confident that he will not be unfaithful to her, and he that she
will not be unfaithful to him.
Implicit in this Augustinian idea of mutual trust are many unspoken
elements:
That their married vows are vows, binding and therefore restricting the
liberty that each had before they made the vows.
That marital love is exclusive love, one man and one woman, this man
and this woman, and no other man and no other woman.
Flowing from this Christian idea of mutual faith is Augustine's
beautiful idea of Christian friendship, which he sees exemplified in a
marriage that is truly faithful on both sides. He calls it amicitia,
and he notes how often Scripture uses the nearness and dearness and
exclusiveness, and intimacy of marital love to describe the kind of
love that God has for man and that we should have for God.
One more facet of their mutual faith should be touched upon, and that
is its capacity for producing holiness.
Augustine's mother, Monica, has become for all ages the model of how
fidelity in marriage sanctifies. He speaks of her as "fair, reverent,
amiable, and admirable to her husband."
We are in need of this truth today, to remind ourselves that marital
fidelity is sanctifying; that it has never been easy; and that it is
most sanctifying when it is most demanding.
Sacrament
We should not expect Augustine, in the beginning of the fifth century,
to have a fully developed theology of the sacraments in general or of
matrimony in particular.
Yet, significantly, he used the word "Sacrament" relative to marriage
in a sense that is at first startling but, on reflection, becomes very
meaningful.
Augustine practically equates marriage as a sacrament with marriage as
indissoluble.
Why the correlation? Because he saw all around him, in the decadent
Roman Empire, broken marriages, broken homes, broken promises, broken
hopes, and broken hearts.
He knew, as only an Augustine could understand, how weak is fallen
human nature.
He had written powerfully against the Pelagians who madly claimed that
man could practice virtue without the help of divine grace.
He knew from painful experience how imperious the sex passions can be.
He knew from observation that there is no controlling these passions
without divine assistance, to be finally found only in Jesus Christ.
He saw, and therefore he said, that nothing but a constant influx of
divine power
* strengthening the human will
* subduing the passions, and
* controlling selfish lust, could ever conceivably keep not one or the
other, but whole peoples and nations bound together in marriage until
death, unless Christ comes to our assistance and His grace assists
fallen man.
All of this, and more, he wrapped up in the single Latin word
Sacramentum, sacrament ? which is at once a mystery and a covenant and
a witness to the world:
It is a mystery because only God knows how Christian marriage operates.
But Christ will not be wanting in His grace. He gives the baptized what
no one else has a claim to His abiding assistance until death.
It is a covenant, as Augustine so eloquently pointed out.
Out of his long controversy with the Manichaeans, he made clear that we
are not mere pawns of fate; that we are, with God's grace, masters of
our destiny.
The covenant of marriage is an agreement between Christ and the married
couple. They do their part and He will do His.
* if they are humble,
* if they are chaste,
* if they are obedient,
* if they are trustful
Christ will not fail in His share of the
partnership, since it is three who make the contract, man and woman and
Christ.
It is a witness to the world.
Augustine saw how imperative it was for Christian spouses to be
faithful to their promises, and to accept their marriage as
indissoluble until death. Why? Because, more than almost anything in
the Christian religion, this fidelity and indissolubility testify to
everyone the special presence of God.
* They testify to unbelievers.
* They testify to believers.
* They testify to themselves that what is impossible to nature is
possible to grace; what is impossible to men is possible to God.
God, Augustine taught, can do the impossible, humanly impossible, and
thus show that He is present and active and effective in the lives of
those who believe in Him and, believing, strive to live up to His
commands.
Epilogue
We have much to learn from Augustine, but not the least is that the
teachings of the Catholic Church have not substantially changed in the
past 1500 years.
Today, as in his day, we need to recover the clarity of his faith which
saw in Christian marriage the real test of Christianity.
As goes the Christian family, so goes Christianity; on it depends the
future of the Church.
The secret is to believe that Christ wants the married to trust in the
strength of His grace in their lives. He wants to show them in acts and
not mere words, that He is in the world today ? and nowhere more
eloquently, miraculously present than in the Christian family.
Copyright © 2003 Inter Mirifica
The Real Presence Association, Inc.
Eucharistic Education and Adoration
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__________________
God Bless,
Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
Our Magnum Opus
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