In St.
Augustine’s, “On Marriage and Concupiscience,” he writes,
“But
in the married, as these things are desirable and praiseworthy, so the others
are to be tolerated, that no lapse occur into damnable sins; that is, into
fornications and adulteries. To escape this evil, even such embraces of husband
and wife as have not procreation for their object, but serve an overbearing
concupiscence, are permitted, so far as to be within range of forgiveness,
though not prescribed by way of commandment: 1 Corinthians 7:6 and the married
pair are enjoined not to defraud one the other, lest Satan should tempt them by
reason of their incontinence. 1 Corinthians 7:5 For thus says the Scripture:
"Let the husband render unto the wife her due: and likewise also the wife
unto the husband. The wife has not power of her own body, but the husband: and
likewise also the husband has not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud
not one the other; except it be with consent for a time, that you may have
leisure for prayer; and then come together again, that Satan tempt you not for
your incontinency. But I speak this by permission, and not of
commandment." 1 Corinthians 7:3-6 Now in a case where permission must be
given, it cannot by any means be contended that there is not some amount of
sin. Since, however, the cohabitation for the purpose of procreating children,
which must be admitted to be the proper end of marriage, is not sinful, what is
it which the apostle allows to be permissible, but that married persons, when
they have not the gift of continence, may require one from the other the due of
the flesh— and that not from a wish for procreation, but for the pleasure of
concupiscence? This gratification incurs not the imputation of guilt on account
of marriage, but receives permission on account of marriage. This, therefore,
must be reckoned among the praises of matrimony; that, on its own account, it
makes pardonable that which does not essentially appertain to itself. For the
nuptial embrace, which subserves the demands of concupiscence, is so effected
as not to impede the child-bearing, which is the end and aim of marriage.
It
is, however, one thing for married persons to have intercourse only for the
wish to beget children, which is not sinful: it is another thing for them to
desire carnal pleasure in cohabitation, but with the spouse only, which
involves venial sin. For although propagation of offspring is not the motive of
the intercourse, there is still no attempt to prevent such propagation, either
by wrong desire or evil appliance. They who resort to these, although called by
the name of spouses, are really not such; they retain no vestige of true
matrimony, but pretend the honorable designation as a cloak for criminal
conduct. Having also proceeded so far, they are betrayed into exposing their
children, which are born against their will. They hate to nourish and retain
those whom they were afraid they would beget. This infliction of cruelty on
their offspring so reluctantly begotten, unmasks the sin which they had practiced
in darkness, and drags it clearly into the light of day. The open cruelty
reproves the concealed sin. Sometimes, indeed, this lustful cruelty, or, if you
please, cruel lust, resorts to such extravagant methods as to use poisonous
drugs to secure barrenness; or else, if unsuccessful in this, to destroy the
conceived seed by some means previous to birth, preferring that its offspring
should rather perish than receive vitality; or if it was advancing to life
within the womb, should be slain before it was born. Well, if both parties
alike are so flagitious, they are not husband and wife; and if such were their
character from the beginning, they have not come together by wedlock but by
debauchery. But if the two are not alike in such sin, I boldly declare either
that the woman is, so to say, the husband's harlot; or the man the wife's
adulterer.”
St. Augustine's
moral theology on this matter is distinguished by motive, not the point of time
in the fertility cycle:
(1)
Mortal sin:
Deliberate intent to frustrate procreation.
(2)
Venial sin: No intent
to frustrate procreation, but motivated primarily by desire for carnal
pleasure.
(3)
No sin: Motivated solely
by wish to beget children.
This severe
view that procreation must be the sole motive in the use of marriage is by no
means the universal teaching of Catholic theologians, who have generally
allowed that there is no sin in desiring pleasure as long as this is not to the
exclusion of the primary motive of procreation. Even in the Augustinian view,
there is no reference to the time in the cycle. More generally, no canonical
penance was ever prescribed for the use of marriage during any time of the
cycle besides menstruation.
Granted, you
could combine Augustinian rigor with modern knowledge of the narrow window of
fertility to produce a prohibition against intercourse in all but a few days a
month. Such a discipline has never been required of married Catholics under
pain of sin. As soon as medical knowledge of "infertile" periods in
the cycle first appeared in the nineteenth century, the Church consistently
ruled that the use of marriage is licit during these periods.
Of special
note, however, is St. Augustine’s statement,
“It
is, however, one thing for married persons to have intercourse only for the
wish to beget children, which is not sinful: it is another thing for them to
desire carnal pleasure in cohabitation, but with the spouse only, which
involves venial sin. For although propagation of offspring is not the motive of
the intercourse, there is still no attempt to prevent such propagation, either
by wrong desire or evil appliance.”
The Latin
reads:
Sedtamenaliudest
non concumbere nisi sola voluntategenerandi, quod non habetculpam,
aliudcarnisconcumbendoadpeterevoluptatem, sed non praeterconiugem, quod
venialemhabetculpam, quia, etsi non causa propagandaeprolisconcumbitur, non
tamenhuiuslibidinis causa
propagationiprolisobsistitursivevotomalosiveoperemalo.
Some have
attempted to use the phrase “wrong desire” as means to argue against the
practice of Natural Family Planning. However, the phrase "wrong
desire"1 in this case was a
common euphemism for sodomistic and other unnatural desires. If you want to
find fault with NFP on an Augustinian basis, you would have to take the view
that natural conjugal desire is sinful when not accompanied by a positive
intent to procreate with each act. That would make it at least venially sinful.
Of course, with such rigor, not only NFP, but any use of marriage during known
infertile periods would be sinful, even if the fertile periods are also used.
Fr. Brian
Harrison has shown that the Church only condemned frustrating the natural power
of the act, and has never imposed an absolute prohibition of selective
abstinence during fertile periods:www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=6452
Still, it
should be noted that this permission is not absolute, as it requires "just
and grave causes," and should only be allowed for a finite period. It is
possible to sin mortally by abusing NFP, as with anything else licit in itself
(food, drink, etc.).
1 In Latin, it reads
"sive voto malosiveoperemalo," literally: "either through bad
desire or through bad works."
The "votum
malum" in question cannot be mere concupiscence, i.e., the spouses' desire
for carnal pleasure. In the preceding sentence, St. Augustine said that acting
on such desire is only a venial sin, in contrast with this votummalum and opere
mala. Besides, his preferred term for concupiscence as desire is
"desiderium," not votum. The Latin votum connotes intention (as in
voto, vow), so the desire in question is a bad intention, i.e., a desire for a
bad object. We are not talking about the mere absence of a desire for
procreation, nor about the ordinary concupiscence between spouses.
We see this in
another rare Augustinian use of voto malo, discussing the command not to return
evil for evil:
Si
enim pro malo no estcuiquam reddendum,; no solum factum malum pro facto malo,
sednecvotummalum reddendum est pro facto velvotomalo. (Enarratio in Psalmum
LXXVIII)
Here
"votomalo" clearly means evil desire in the sense of evil intention,
i.e., desiring an evil object, even if an evil act is not accomplished.
In the context
of sexuality, desiring an evil or morally wrong object is what the Scholastics
would later call "sins against nature" or sins of impurity, i.e,
desiring the wrong sex, the wrong organ, or the wrong mode of copulation. These
perverse desires are all intrinsically contraceptive.
The English
translator appears to agree that St. Augustine is referring to perversions,
when he translates "bad works" as "evil appliances."
"Wrong desire," by analogy, refers to any perverse desires that would
prevent procreation. They are "wrong" because they are directed to
the wrong object. The notion of perversion or unnaturality is further implied
in St. Augustine's subsequent severe comment that such people are not really
spouses at all, but are behaving criminally. Unnatural acts were widely known
to be criminal in his time; if he was referring to the mere use of marriage during
natural infertility, this would have been lost on his readers.
In St.
Augustine's time, the only known way a "wrong desire" could prevent
propagation was by leading one to a sodomistic or onanistic act. He cannot have
intended what could not have occurred to him, i.e., that "wrong
desire" may include choice of "infertile periods," which were
unknown at the time. You can apply St. Augustine's principles and make an
inference about whether partial or exclusive use of "infertile
periods" might be considered a "wrong desire," but you cannot
make him pronounce on a question that did not occur to him (or anyone else
before the 19th century). This quotation does not prove that he intended to
condemn the use of infertile periods, since "wrong desire" has an alternative,
more obvious referent understood in his time. St. Thomas and other Scholastics
who allowed the liceity of marital acts during accidental infertility (i.e.,
due to age or health) showed no awareness that they were contradicting St.
Augustine, though De nuptiiset concupiscentia was widely cited.
Ever since the
ovulatory cycle was discovered, the Magisterium has clearly allowed the liceity
of selective abstinence for just and grave causes. All such judgments are
summarized in this article: http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt103.html
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