The City of God, Volume IIAugustine, of Hippo, Saint
ReligionChristian
The City of God, Volume II
Augustine, of Hippo, Saint
Apologetics -- Early works to 1800; Kingdom of God -- Early works to 1800
The man, then, would have sown the seed, and the woman received it,
as need required, the generative organs being moved by the will, not
excited by lust. For we move at will not only those members which are
furnished with joints of solid bone, as the hands, feet, and fingers,
but we move also at will those which are composed of slack and soft
nerves: we can put them in motion, or stretch them out, or bend and
twist them, or contract and stiffen them, as we do with the muscles
of the mouth and face. The lungs, which are the very tenderest of
the viscera except the brain, and are therefore carefully sheltered
in the cavity of the chest, yet for all purposes of inhaling and
exhaling the breath, and of uttering and modulating the voice, are
obedient to the will when we breathe, exhale, speak, shout, or sing,
just as the bellows obey the smith or the organist. I will not press
the fact that some animals have a natural power to move a single spot
of the skin with which their whole body is covered, if they have felt
on it anything they wish to drive off,--a power so great, that by
this shivering tremor of the skin they can not only shake off flies
that have settled on them, but even spears that have fixed in their
flesh. Man, it is true, has not this power; but is this any reason
for supposing that God could not give it to such creatures as He
wished to possess it? And therefore man himself also might very well
have enjoyed absolute power over his members had he not forfeited it
by his disobedience; for it was not difficult for God to form him
so that what is now moved in his body only by lust should have been
moved only at will.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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