THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA Augustine’s Unfinished Work Against Julian: The Ancient and Contemporary Dispute Over Concupiscence A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Theology and Religious Studies Of The Catholic University of America In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Doctor of Philosophy By Joshua M. Evans Washington, D.C. 2016 Augustine’s Unfinished Work Against Julian: The Ancient and Contemporary Dispute Over Concupiscence Joshua M. Evans, Ph.D. Director: Joseph E. Capizzi, Ph.D. Augustine of Hippo’s account of sexuality and concupiscence (concupiscentia; libido) has long been both praised and vilified. Even so, scholars often cannot agree about what positions Augustine holds on fundamental issues within his account of concupiscence. The first issue is whether Augustine thinks concupiscence is caused exclusively or primarily by the soul, or whether concupiscence is often caused by the body. The second issue is whether Augustine thinks concupiscence in the form of sexual desire is wholly an effect of the fall or was present and good before the fall. Within these interpretive debates, Augustine’s final book, contra Iulianum opus imperfectum (Unfinished Work in Answer to Julian), has been relatively neglected, especially in moral theology and ethics. Focusing on Augustine’s later works and drawing significantly on contra Iulianum opus imperfectum, I argue that the bodily element of concupiscence is central to Augustine’s mature theology of sexuality and is central to understanding Augustine’s final position on Edenic concupiscence. Chapter one shows that rival interpretations of Augustine’s claims about bodily desire and sexual desire in Eden often underlie rival evaluative claims about Augustine’s views on sexuality and concupiscence. Chapter two examines Augustine’s dispute with Julian of Eclanum and shows how Augustine’s views on concupiscence and the fallen body emerge from Augustine’s broader theological commitments regarding God, creation, and God’s original plan for human nature. Chapter three shows that Augustine’s mature theology holds that concupiscence is very often a desire of the body distinct from desires of the will. Here I show how Augustine’s theory of bodily desire fits well with his broader anthropological commitments regarding sensation and embodiment. Chapter four applies Augustine’s account of bodily desire to his development on the issue of sexual desire in Eden. I show that Augustine develops significantly on the issue, with his final position in contra Iulianum opus imperfectum being that sexual concupiscence might or might not have been present in Eden. I show how Augustine’s final ambivalent position results from tensions within Augustine’s account of bodily desire. Overall, the project is in conversation with scholarship in theology, philosophy, history, and gender and sexuality studies. This dissertation by Joshua M. Evans fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in Moral Theology/Ethics approved by Joseph E. Capizzi, Ph.D., as director, and by John S. Grabowski, Ph.D., and Chad C. Pecknold, Ph.D. as Readers. ______________________________________ Joseph E. Capizzi, Ph.D., Director ______________________________________ John S. Grabowski, Ph.D., Reader ______________________________________ Chad C. Pecknold, Ph.D., Reader ii To all my teachers iii TABLE OF CONTENTS NOTE ON CITATIONS . v ABBREVIATIONS . vi INTRODUCTION . 1 CHAPTER ONE AUGUSTINE ON TRIAL . 15 CHAPTER TWO AUGUSTINE’S THEOLOGICAL LANDSCAPE. 72 CHAPTER THREE DESIRES OF THE BODY . 126 CHAPTER FOUR EDENIC SEXUAL DESIRE . .210 CONCLUSION . 299 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 318 iv NOTE ON CITATIONS I cite Augustine’s works within the text of the dissertation, rather than the footnotes, primarily because the footnotes would otherwise become unwieldy. My method of citation is generally the following: (op. I.2,3 [4]) indicates the work (op.), book (I), chapter (2), and paragraph (3) standard to any English or Latin printing of a work of Augustine’s, and the brackets include the page number ([4]) of the central English translation I use for that work. When I use an alternative English translation, I indicate which one in the citation. For simplicity’s sake, I refer to Augustine’s works by their Latin names or abbreviations and assume that the reader, if uncertain, will refer back to the list of works here in order to see which English text corresponds to the Latin name. In recent literature there is some inconsistency in styles of abbreviation of Augustine’s works. I follow the guide in Augustine Through the Ages, p. xxxv-xlii, though I follow others in using I rather than J (c. Iul. rather than c. Jul.). v ABBREVIATIONS LATIN TEXTS Corpus Christianorum Series Latina CCSL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum CSEL Patrologia Latina PL SERIES Ancient Christian Writers FC Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers NPNF The Works of Saint Augustine WSA WORK, ABBREVIATION, MAIN ENGLISH TRANSLATION USED IN THE DISSERTATION Contra Iulianum c. Iul. WSA I/24 Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum c. Iul. imp. WSA I/25 De bono coniugali b. coniug. Walsh De civitate Dei civ. Dei Dyson De continentia cont. WSA I/9 De Genesi ad litteram Gn. litt. WSA I/13 De Genesi adversus Manichaeos Gn. adv. Man. WSA I/13 De gratia christi et de peccato originali gr. et pecc. or. WSA I/23 De nuptiis et concupiscentia nupt. et conc. WSA I/24 vi De perfectione iustitiae hominis perf. iust. WSA I/23 De Trinitate trin. WSA I/3 Retractiones retr. FC 60 vii INTRODUCTION The thesis of this dissertation is the following claim: Augustine’s later works, with particular emphasis on the contra Iulianum opus imperfectum, show that the bodily element of concupiscence is central to Augustine’s final account of sexual desire and is central to adjudicating disputes over the proper interpretation of Augustine’s views on other topics in the theology of sexuality, including Augustine’s final position on Edenic sexual desire. If we understand just how central the bodily element of sexual desire is to Augustine’s mature views on human sexuality, we can also better understand his views on related topics, such as whether sexual desire would have been present in Eden. In order to make this argument, I must first show there is in fact a problem that needs engaging. In fact there are three interrelated interpretive problems and one textual problem that prompt the dissertation. In this introduction I identify these problems and outline the dissertation. THE INTERPRETIVE PROBLEMS Scholarship on Augustine of Hippo’s views on human sexuality has been long been marked by significant disagreement over the merits of Augustine’s claims. Yet, as I show in chapter one, the evaluative disputes are often premised on interpretive disputes of a distinctive kind.1 If one scholar thinks Augustine’s thought on an element of sexuality fails because Augustine says X, another scholar will often respond in the following way: “Augustine does not say X. Augustine says –X.” 1 By “interpretive” I simply mean what Augustine actually said. By “evaluative” I mean whether what Augustine actually said is something good or evil to say. 2 Augustine’s interlocutors very often cannot even agree on which position Augustine holds, let alone whether he should hold it. Often the evaluative disputes can be traced back to divergent interpretations of Augustine’s account of sexual concupiscence. A widespread and important interpretive disagreement of the “X or –X” kind concerns Augustine’s position on the relationship of concupiscence to the human body.2 Everyone agrees that for Augustine concupiscence is not merely a desire of the body, since Augustine regularly uses the concept of concupiscence to refer to desires of the soul or will. Yet there is significant, and sometimes unrecognized, disagreement about whether Augustine thinks some forms of concupiscence—especially sexual desire—are in some way desires of the body. One scholar might say Augustine thinks sexual concupiscence is fundamentally caused by the body, while another scholar might say Augustine thinks sexual concupiscence has absolutely nothing to do with the body.3 Since these scholars cannot even agree on exactly what concupiscence is in Augustine’s 2 The concept of concupiscence is inclusive of sexual desire, but broader than sexual desire. For Augustine, all sexual desire is concupiscence, but not all concupiscence is sexual desire. Furthermore, it is very clear to interpreters that not all concupiscence is evil for Augustine, but it is not clear (as I show) whether all sexual desire is evil for Augustine. I use the terms concupiscence, lust, and sexual desire interchangeably, as did Augustine. I discuss Augustine’s use of those terms and their Latin equivalents in chapter three. 3 Chapter three takes up this issue in full, but for the moment consider the following two fundamentally different interpretive accounts of the relationship of concupiscence to the human body. According to David Hunter, “What went wrong [in the Fall], according to Augustine, was precisely a fracture of the original unity and harmony between body and soul that characterized the first human beings….This split within the person—that is, the soul’s loss of control over the body in [sexuality]—was, for Augustine, a just punishment….Although the sin of Adam and Eve did not involve sexual relations, the effects of this sin were felt directly in the ‘animal instinct’ (bestiale motum) now present in their bodies.” See Hunter, “Augustine on the Body” in A Companion to Augustine ed. Mark Vessey and Shelley Reid (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2012), 353-364 (emphasis in original). Hunter says elsewhere that Augustine holds the view that “human beings are born with the same ‘bestial motion’ in their members, which operates independently of rational control by the human mind or will.” See Hunter, “Marriage,” in Augustine Through the Ages (ATTA), 536. In sum, according to Hunter, Augustine thinks sexual concupiscence is in large part a desire of the body distinct from desires of the will.