Though monasticism flourished during the Middle Ages as never before or since, and though the era is justly called the Age of Faith, voluntary chastity was the exception in medieval society, and marriage was the rule.
It's hard to say they are wrong when scripture says that chastity is superior to marriage, and that marriage should only be practised when one is 'hot'. Of course, be also says not to deprive one another.
"Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another."
Yes, to the medieval mind, the superiority of chastity was self-evident, since the testimony of Scripture was quite clear on that topic. But still, relatively few chose chastity over marriage, so the medieval Church faced the complicated task of fully integrating marriage into the economy of grace and sanctification despite the fact that St. Paul spoke in favor of chastity.
Thank you Robert for a fascinating essay, as always.
I have several thoughts.
The first is that I accept virginity/ chastity for the sake of the kingdom of heaven is superior to marriage, in that one's love goes straight to Christ rather than alongside/ through another person. That, I think, is why St John the Evangelist is called 'the beloved'. The other Apostles were married men.
My second thought is that God created married love; thus He created the joy of physical union in marriage - a union that is also open to life. He intended couples to experience that intense unitive pleasure as an intrinsic part of the marital bond.
Thus I do not understand the idea of 'carnal' love being separate from, and negatively contrasted with, 'procreative' love. In holy matrimony there is no distinction.
All God asks is that the couple reflect His own creativity in their marital love. Their love must be 'open to life'.
This does not mean, however, that conjugal love can only be expressed during the time of the month when the wife might conceive and is banned at all other times: during pregnancy, during breastfeeding, during times when conception is unlikely. What of couples who learn that they cannot conceive at all? That God has given them a cross of infertility? Are they therefore to be banned from conjugal love for good?
God wills the goodness of married love. He wants couples to reflect that goodness in their physical expression of love. They are to be generous towards one another - and at the same time generous to Him in engendering new life.
Before the 20th century understanding of a woman's fertile cycle, couples made love and babies followed- or not. Now, guided by prayer, prudence, discernment as to their circumstances and so on, couples can space their children using natural, not non-contraceptive, methods.
Artificial contraceptive is a great evil, as Humane Vitae says, as it pushes God out of the marital embrace when He ought to be at the centre of it.
Having written all this, you will realise that I reject the teachings of these past saints. These teachings are flawed.
As you remarked Robert, in an earlier post, they make me reach for the smelling salts!
I repeat, God created men and women to marry - and in their sexual union to express their love of Him and their love for each other.
His first miracle was the marriage feast of Cana: the wine jars overflowing with the best wine. That is how He sees marriage.
I will stop here though there is lots more to say.
Thank you for this lovely and clearly articulated reflection. Based on what you have written here, I would say that my personal views on this matter are identical to yours. That is, in part, why I find these medieval perspectives so thought-provoking. They come to us from wise and holy Christians who lived in a wise and holy (and thoroughly Christian) age, and yet we feel that something is lacking in their treatment of this very important topic. This series on marriage is thus an exploration of how we can learn from their views, or perhaps in some way reconcile them with ours, by giving special consideration to the cultural and spiritual context from which they emerged.
Yes indeed. I do not mean in any way to dismiss the medieval concept of marriage, influenced as it was by St Augustine. Learning about the Middle Ages in your illuminating series helps to deepen our faith in the 21st century.
I have now read the opening paragraph of Peter Kwasniewski's article on marriage in the link you provided, (I can't somehow open the whole text as you need an app) and am glad, and relieved, to see that St Thomas Aquinas concurs with me (or is it the other way round?)
Thank you for reasonably addressing what to most is a rather "sensitive" topic. While I can't claim any particular depth of analysis, I would nevertheless observe the following:
1. Before considering a saint, and especially a Church Father, to be in some way "off the mark" on something, it would seem better to consider that we in our time simply can't properly conceive of the saint's perspective of exceptional personal holiness and spiritual "sensitivity".
2. And following from that, I would propose the saints you've quoted are speaking more to the fact that habitual indulgence in "mere" carnal desires, even without actual sin, can definitely compromise one's clarity of mind, strength of will and resistance to the flesh appetites in general.
Thank you for these thoughtful comments, Tom. In general I agree with what you're saying here, and in fact your perspectives form something of a bridge to the discussion in the article posted today, which I think you'll enjoy (https://viamediaevalis.substack.com/p/bitter-medicine-and-the-wings-of).
An excellent essay, but with one error: you appear to confuse 'chastity' with 'continence'. Continence (as shown in the extract you provide from the Book of Tobit) is the avoidance of all sexual relations; chastity, however, means the avoidance of all *extramarital* sexual intercourse, and thus varies with one's state in life. A married man or woman who has intercourse only with his/her wife is chaste, though not continent; the chastity of a monk or nun is identical with their continence.
Thank you for this comment. I see where you're coming from, but the situation is not as straightforward as you describe. First of all, I tend to avoid the word "continence"; it is less familiar to modern readers, or it may even be familiar primarily in its medical sense (the first definition of "continent" in a recent Oxford Dictionary is "able to control movements of the bowels and bladder"). Second, you may perceive a clear distinction in meaning between the English words "continence" and "chastity," but that distinction is not inherent in the words. The first definition of "chastity" in the Oxford English Dictionary is "purity from unlawful sexual intercourse; continence." The second is "abstinence from all sexual intercourse; virginity, celibacy." The first definition of "continence" is "self-restraint, in regard to impulse, appetite, or desire," and the second is "self-restraint in the matter of sexual appetite, displayed either by due moderation or (as more frequently taken) by entire abstinence. (Sometimes identified with, sometimes distinguished from, 'chastity')." Thus, both words mean both things, and since "continence" is now associated with the distracting medical sense, I generally use "chastity." More specific meanings can be conveyed by such terms as "marital chastity" or "virginity."
It sounded to me like Augustine was criticizing wanting only-carnal-pleasure in cohabitation, without children (the spouse alone, with no will for children). St. Augustine and St. Gregory are fathers and doctors of the church.
It seems pretty clear to me that he is associating intercourse animated primarily by carnal desire, rather than the desire for procreation, with venial sin. He says this again elsewhere in the same treatise. He calls fornication and adultery "damnable disgraces," but he adds that when marital intercourse occurs because of "an overbearing lust of pleasure" instead of a "prevailing desire for children," it is a venial sin.
I also wonder if Augustine's personal experiences with serious sexual sin influenced his perspectives on this topic. The negativity would be understandable from someone who was so deeply wounded by his past transgressions—he began Book Two of the Confessions by saying, "I will now call to mind my past foulness, and the carnal corruptions of my soul.... For love of Thy love I do it; reviewing my most wicked ways in the very bitterness of my remembrance."
St Augustine did clearly love the woman he lived with, as they were together for 17 years at least, and had a son together. But he did not experience a Christian marriage, which would have been a very different kind of relationship. And it is clear that this personal experience did influence his views on 'carnality'.
Sounds right. In proverbs, contrasted with adultery/fornication, we have…
“Drink water out of thy own cistern, and the streams of thy own well: Let thy fountains be conveyed abroad, and in the streets divide thy waters. Keep them to thyself alone, neither let strangers be partakers with thee. Let thy vein be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth: Let her be thy dearest hind, and most agreeable fawn: let her breasts inebriate thee at all times; he thou delighted continually with her love. Why art thou seduced, my son, by a strange woman, and art cherished in the bosom of another?”
“St. Augustine and St. Gregory are fathers and doctors of the church.”
This is true but it does it mean they are infallible or cannot err in what they write or teach. It is their opinion and, while learned, has no special protections or inspiration. Neither is it necessarily magisterial teaching. They enjoy no special inspiration. Neither is the fact they have been so designated an infallible pronouncement. In other words, they Can be wrong.
I am hoping for a discussion on Dante and courtly love/ chivalry in general. The scandal of love often presented as adultery or the struggle not to fall in to sexual sin. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a good one too.
Yes, that's another dimension of this topic, and quite an interesting one. Courtly love was a strange mixture of Christian and not-very-Christian attitudes. Actually, to some extent it wouldn't fit well into this series, since it tended to separate romantic love from the Christian framework of a stable, sacramental marriage.
Hi Robert, you have a nice string of articles on marriage. I have been studying this topic myself for a number of years, independently. Although, Saint Augustine may well be incorrect in deeming the marital act for pleasure as being a venial sin (if that is what he truly concludes) but it appears to me that we are listening to saints who take for granted that the ideal and ultimate goal for our lives is that we are to imitate Christ. That is, they do not couch their writings with frequent statements to bring to our remembrance that we are to imitate Christ, it is understood as a premise to their writings. Since Christ was not married, how do we imitate Him if we are married? With martial chastity. This is so important to Christians that Scripture says that a bishop should be of only one wife. The understanding, presented by numerous recent writers, is that after a man has his family, he can live continent and enter the clergy, as I understand the apostles did as much. It is also my understanding that the married laity, back in the day, received once per year which was related to the acknowledgement that conjugal relations, although not sinful, but yet it left the person inappropriately disposed to receive more often. I believe the purity of mind (as well as body, of course) was so important to Christians prior to modernity (say prior to the 18th century) that they had a goal to imitate Christ as perfectly as they could, including purity of mind. Each person varied in how close or far they achieved their goal. So the Church has a precept that we must receive once per year, that is for all of us, even if we are not good imitators of Christ. That is an awesome precept. A slow read of the History of Sacra Tridentina Synodus by Ferreres puts this in perspective. When we think of fasting, we don't think about removing a pleasure in our lives, we think about imitating Christ, training our bodies to be subjected to our will, giving up something for Christ to be more in conformance to His will. When we think of a chaste marriage, we don't think about removing a pleasure in our lives, we think about imitating Christ, training our bodies to be subjected to our will, and giving up something for Christ to be more in conformance to His will. We eat a meal even on fast day. And a chaste married life is not necessarily continent, as I understand it. So St. Paul said to be as he is but, if you can't, then marry. Well said. For a married couple today, who strive to imitate Christ, marital chastity would be part of their spiritual life.
Was the pleasure of marital sex denied to couples who were well past childbearing? When the pleasure is no longer born of strong physical impulse but is deliberately pursued because of the memory of joy given there.
As Jeffrey said, the Church has never formally and definitively placed any such restrictions on married couples. The exhortations or condemnations pronounced by spiritual writers should be interpreted as counsels for growing in holiness—the Church may invite married couples to practice abstinence when childbearing is impossible, but she does not impose such abstinence under pain of sin.
Hi Trudy. In my understanding, the marital act is not denied to any married couple, irrespective of old age. However, the marital act can be deliberately avoided, if both spouses agree, to imitate Christ and increase in virtue. For those spouses, the "memory of joy" may be just that, a memory but one we might not want to dwell on. Please read Venerable Mary of Agreda's book "City of God" for a beautiful description of the respectful, holy and chaste marriage of Mary and Joseph and for inspiration.
You might also read Stefan Heid "Celibacy in the Early Church" or even Cochini "Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy". The closest I can think of about "denying" the marital act past childbearing years is the example set by the Apostles, the words of St. Paul "I wish all men were as myself" 1 Cor 7:7, the examples of the clergy in the early church presented by those two authors mentioned above and our celibate priesthood of today that we see every day which is quite a signpost (although none of these sources seem to "deny" the act in old age, they just offer us a goal for imitating our Lord). I believe our faith is a maximalist faith (always striving to do more), not a minimalist faith (doing the minimum required to stay in a state of grace). To me, it is interesting to read Sacra Tridentina Synodus (parts of which is found in your 1962 missal) with a minimalist world view and then read it again with a maximalist world view and notice the significant difference in the interpretation.
This is an area that is not talked about a lot due to modesty. I have appreciated the essay. Certainly we are not living a life in which we are simply avoiding sin. That is not a life that rests and trusts in Christ. He was not married but yet He created marriage in all its fullness.
I wonder if there is a way to understand St. Augustine as saying something that is, as you’ve said elsewhere, hard for us moderns to believe because it is too good to be true, too childlike, even. What if Christian spouses approached the marital act & procreation the way Chesterton said God approaches the sun each morning: do it again! The fact that it is not naturally possible to conceive each time need not take away that disposition, it seems to me. Maybe if we lack that, we are missing something precious enough to rise to the level of venial sin, if we think of sin as a sad lack of a good.
I also wonder if the last quote from Rolle you included isn’t addressing men with vows of chastity in particular? When he says his remarks apply to he “who covets to love Christ”, I took this to mean “he who seeks to love Christ alone” on the order of St. John. In which case, his remarks seem unimpeachably sound as advice to religious.
This is all very well said. Your point about St. Augustine is an important (and complex one), because it brings up the issue of our new scientific understanding of human physiology and how this plays into our experience of marital sexuality. I completely agree that the procreative disposition can be present even when conception is impossible or extremely unlikely—𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦, which will always be imperfect. Even when spouses are deliberately avoiding pregnancy for appropriate reasons, the procreative disposition can still be present, if spouses have a childlike openness to something that seems undesirable by the standards of human prudence but may not be deemed undesirable by God. However, we don't want to go too far in softening these medieval perspectives. There is no doubt that some medieval writers warned against the potential sinfulness of marital sexuality. And Hildegard understood perfectly well that conception is impossible when the woman is pregnant, and she harshly and unequivocally condemned the notion of having intercourse during this time.
It's difficult for us to know exactly who Rolle's intended audience was. It's possible that he was writing primarily for religious or people inclined to the religious life, but Rolle was a very popular author whose works were read widely (he is little known today because he was forgotten after the Reformation). There's no reason to believe that his readership was restricted to religious, and the book I'm quoting from (The Fire of Love) is not a manual for monastic spirituality; it's an impassioned treatise that is like autobiography combined with a guide to devout Christian living. Also, I must admit that I selectively quoted Rolle to make his statements less offensive to modern Christians. Without the selective quoting, his attitude toward spousal love would sound even more negative, my point being that he could have given advice to religious without speaking with such extreme negativity about the alternative.
Complex indeed, and your points about how modern scientific knowledge adds to the complexity sparks a thousand thoughts for me, all running back to the roots of things at issue throughout your writing. The weight scientific knowledge is given in the modern mind tends to obscure light and docility. I love that you articulate an approach to scientific knowledge that recognizes its imperfection and places it in hands open versus gripped around it. Managing to recover that disposition takes nothing short of grace.
With St. Hildegard, I thought she saw the marital act as potentially harmful to a developing baby? As far as I know, even modern secular doctors advise that some pregnancy complications can render intercourse a risk to the child. Regardless, I admit there is something instinctively beautiful about abstaining during pregnancy, and I don’t balk at a standard that requires long abstinence of us if only because God requires it of all of us — before we are married, if we are ill, after we are widowed, etc. As is often the case, what is unthinkable for moderns is simply a regular part of human life, which reveals how divorced from reality the modern mind tragically is.
I’m reminded of Chesterton again, who I think said it should astonish us that we get to take part in the act at all. Approaching it from that perspective of childlike gratitude maybe makes the cross of abstinence light, easy, and sweet, but here again, we are firmly in the realm of what grace alone can do for us.
Again, very well said, and the ultimate wisdom in your comments flows from an awareness that is increasingly rare, even in Christian circles: 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭, and it really does make hard things easier—perhaps it even makes the impossible possible. Abstinence at any point in life is hard, but medieval writers lived in a society flooded with divine grace, and they instinctively factored the power of this grace into their vision of life and morality. Modern secular societies, which ignore or even reject grace, lead us to unwise conclusions about what can and should be done by those who are made strong in the strength of God.
We need to be careful with these theological terms when we're discussing medieval marriage, because the marital theology we have now was slowly developing during the Middle Ages (we'll talk about this more on Tuesday). Christian marriage existed for centuries, through the Early Middle Ages and into the High Middle Ages, before its sacramental nature was clearly defined. Even the emphasis on physical consummation was associated with the gradually developing understanding of marriage as a sacramental contract. Canonists in the High Middle Ages considered exchange of vows (without consummation) as adequate for a valid marriage, but consummation gave the union a more perfect form of indissolubility. It was, however, assumed that any sincere and voluntary exchange of vows would be followed by physical consummation.
It's hard to say they are wrong when scripture says that chastity is superior to marriage, and that marriage should only be practised when one is 'hot'. Of course, be also says not to deprive one another.
"Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another."
1 Corinthians 7:1-7
Yes, to the medieval mind, the superiority of chastity was self-evident, since the testimony of Scripture was quite clear on that topic. But still, relatively few chose chastity over marriage, so the medieval Church faced the complicated task of fully integrating marriage into the economy of grace and sanctification despite the fact that St. Paul spoke in favor of chastity.
Thank you Robert for a fascinating essay, as always.
I have several thoughts.
The first is that I accept virginity/ chastity for the sake of the kingdom of heaven is superior to marriage, in that one's love goes straight to Christ rather than alongside/ through another person. That, I think, is why St John the Evangelist is called 'the beloved'. The other Apostles were married men.
My second thought is that God created married love; thus He created the joy of physical union in marriage - a union that is also open to life. He intended couples to experience that intense unitive pleasure as an intrinsic part of the marital bond.
Thus I do not understand the idea of 'carnal' love being separate from, and negatively contrasted with, 'procreative' love. In holy matrimony there is no distinction.
All God asks is that the couple reflect His own creativity in their marital love. Their love must be 'open to life'.
This does not mean, however, that conjugal love can only be expressed during the time of the month when the wife might conceive and is banned at all other times: during pregnancy, during breastfeeding, during times when conception is unlikely. What of couples who learn that they cannot conceive at all? That God has given them a cross of infertility? Are they therefore to be banned from conjugal love for good?
God wills the goodness of married love. He wants couples to reflect that goodness in their physical expression of love. They are to be generous towards one another - and at the same time generous to Him in engendering new life.
Before the 20th century understanding of a woman's fertile cycle, couples made love and babies followed- or not. Now, guided by prayer, prudence, discernment as to their circumstances and so on, couples can space their children using natural, not non-contraceptive, methods.
Artificial contraceptive is a great evil, as Humane Vitae says, as it pushes God out of the marital embrace when He ought to be at the centre of it.
Having written all this, you will realise that I reject the teachings of these past saints. These teachings are flawed.
As you remarked Robert, in an earlier post, they make me reach for the smelling salts!
I repeat, God created men and women to marry - and in their sexual union to express their love of Him and their love for each other.
His first miracle was the marriage feast of Cana: the wine jars overflowing with the best wine. That is how He sees marriage.
I will stop here though there is lots more to say.
Thank you for this lovely and clearly articulated reflection. Based on what you have written here, I would say that my personal views on this matter are identical to yours. That is, in part, why I find these medieval perspectives so thought-provoking. They come to us from wise and holy Christians who lived in a wise and holy (and thoroughly Christian) age, and yet we feel that something is lacking in their treatment of this very important topic. This series on marriage is thus an exploration of how we can learn from their views, or perhaps in some way reconcile them with ours, by giving special consideration to the cultural and spiritual context from which they emerged.
Yes indeed. I do not mean in any way to dismiss the medieval concept of marriage, influenced as it was by St Augustine. Learning about the Middle Ages in your illuminating series helps to deepen our faith in the 21st century.
I have now read the opening paragraph of Peter Kwasniewski's article on marriage in the link you provided, (I can't somehow open the whole text as you need an app) and am glad, and relieved, to see that St Thomas Aquinas concurs with me (or is it the other way round?)
Thank you for reasonably addressing what to most is a rather "sensitive" topic. While I can't claim any particular depth of analysis, I would nevertheless observe the following:
1. Before considering a saint, and especially a Church Father, to be in some way "off the mark" on something, it would seem better to consider that we in our time simply can't properly conceive of the saint's perspective of exceptional personal holiness and spiritual "sensitivity".
2. And following from that, I would propose the saints you've quoted are speaking more to the fact that habitual indulgence in "mere" carnal desires, even without actual sin, can definitely compromise one's clarity of mind, strength of will and resistance to the flesh appetites in general.
God bless you for your great work!
Thank you for these thoughtful comments, Tom. In general I agree with what you're saying here, and in fact your perspectives form something of a bridge to the discussion in the article posted today, which I think you'll enjoy (https://viamediaevalis.substack.com/p/bitter-medicine-and-the-wings-of).
An excellent essay, but with one error: you appear to confuse 'chastity' with 'continence'. Continence (as shown in the extract you provide from the Book of Tobit) is the avoidance of all sexual relations; chastity, however, means the avoidance of all *extramarital* sexual intercourse, and thus varies with one's state in life. A married man or woman who has intercourse only with his/her wife is chaste, though not continent; the chastity of a monk or nun is identical with their continence.
Thank you for this comment. I see where you're coming from, but the situation is not as straightforward as you describe. First of all, I tend to avoid the word "continence"; it is less familiar to modern readers, or it may even be familiar primarily in its medical sense (the first definition of "continent" in a recent Oxford Dictionary is "able to control movements of the bowels and bladder"). Second, you may perceive a clear distinction in meaning between the English words "continence" and "chastity," but that distinction is not inherent in the words. The first definition of "chastity" in the Oxford English Dictionary is "purity from unlawful sexual intercourse; continence." The second is "abstinence from all sexual intercourse; virginity, celibacy." The first definition of "continence" is "self-restraint, in regard to impulse, appetite, or desire," and the second is "self-restraint in the matter of sexual appetite, displayed either by due moderation or (as more frequently taken) by entire abstinence. (Sometimes identified with, sometimes distinguished from, 'chastity')." Thus, both words mean both things, and since "continence" is now associated with the distracting medical sense, I generally use "chastity." More specific meanings can be conveyed by such terms as "marital chastity" or "virginity."
It sounded to me like Augustine was criticizing wanting only-carnal-pleasure in cohabitation, without children (the spouse alone, with no will for children). St. Augustine and St. Gregory are fathers and doctors of the church.
It seems pretty clear to me that he is associating intercourse animated primarily by carnal desire, rather than the desire for procreation, with venial sin. He says this again elsewhere in the same treatise. He calls fornication and adultery "damnable disgraces," but he adds that when marital intercourse occurs because of "an overbearing lust of pleasure" instead of a "prevailing desire for children," it is a venial sin.
I wonder if he came down hard on this matter, since he was once caught in such straits as a younger man?
I also wonder if Augustine's personal experiences with serious sexual sin influenced his perspectives on this topic. The negativity would be understandable from someone who was so deeply wounded by his past transgressions—he began Book Two of the Confessions by saying, "I will now call to mind my past foulness, and the carnal corruptions of my soul.... For love of Thy love I do it; reviewing my most wicked ways in the very bitterness of my remembrance."
St Augustine did clearly love the woman he lived with, as they were together for 17 years at least, and had a son together. But he did not experience a Christian marriage, which would have been a very different kind of relationship. And it is clear that this personal experience did influence his views on 'carnality'.
Sounds right. In proverbs, contrasted with adultery/fornication, we have…
“Drink water out of thy own cistern, and the streams of thy own well: Let thy fountains be conveyed abroad, and in the streets divide thy waters. Keep them to thyself alone, neither let strangers be partakers with thee. Let thy vein be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth: Let her be thy dearest hind, and most agreeable fawn: let her breasts inebriate thee at all times; he thou delighted continually with her love. Why art thou seduced, my son, by a strange woman, and art cherished in the bosom of another?”
Proverbs 5:15-20 DRC1752
“St. Augustine and St. Gregory are fathers and doctors of the church.”
This is true but it does it mean they are infallible or cannot err in what they write or teach. It is their opinion and, while learned, has no special protections or inspiration. Neither is it necessarily magisterial teaching. They enjoy no special inspiration. Neither is the fact they have been so designated an infallible pronouncement. In other words, they Can be wrong.
I am hoping for a discussion on Dante and courtly love/ chivalry in general. The scandal of love often presented as adultery or the struggle not to fall in to sexual sin. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a good one too.
Yes, that's another dimension of this topic, and quite an interesting one. Courtly love was a strange mixture of Christian and not-very-Christian attitudes. Actually, to some extent it wouldn't fit well into this series, since it tended to separate romantic love from the Christian framework of a stable, sacramental marriage.
I think the scandal is central to understanding God’s love for us.
Hi Robert, you have a nice string of articles on marriage. I have been studying this topic myself for a number of years, independently. Although, Saint Augustine may well be incorrect in deeming the marital act for pleasure as being a venial sin (if that is what he truly concludes) but it appears to me that we are listening to saints who take for granted that the ideal and ultimate goal for our lives is that we are to imitate Christ. That is, they do not couch their writings with frequent statements to bring to our remembrance that we are to imitate Christ, it is understood as a premise to their writings. Since Christ was not married, how do we imitate Him if we are married? With martial chastity. This is so important to Christians that Scripture says that a bishop should be of only one wife. The understanding, presented by numerous recent writers, is that after a man has his family, he can live continent and enter the clergy, as I understand the apostles did as much. It is also my understanding that the married laity, back in the day, received once per year which was related to the acknowledgement that conjugal relations, although not sinful, but yet it left the person inappropriately disposed to receive more often. I believe the purity of mind (as well as body, of course) was so important to Christians prior to modernity (say prior to the 18th century) that they had a goal to imitate Christ as perfectly as they could, including purity of mind. Each person varied in how close or far they achieved their goal. So the Church has a precept that we must receive once per year, that is for all of us, even if we are not good imitators of Christ. That is an awesome precept. A slow read of the History of Sacra Tridentina Synodus by Ferreres puts this in perspective. When we think of fasting, we don't think about removing a pleasure in our lives, we think about imitating Christ, training our bodies to be subjected to our will, giving up something for Christ to be more in conformance to His will. When we think of a chaste marriage, we don't think about removing a pleasure in our lives, we think about imitating Christ, training our bodies to be subjected to our will, and giving up something for Christ to be more in conformance to His will. We eat a meal even on fast day. And a chaste married life is not necessarily continent, as I understand it. So St. Paul said to be as he is but, if you can't, then marry. Well said. For a married couple today, who strive to imitate Christ, marital chastity would be part of their spiritual life.
Thank you, Jeffrey, for sharing your insightful thoughts on this issue.
Was the pleasure of marital sex denied to couples who were well past childbearing? When the pleasure is no longer born of strong physical impulse but is deliberately pursued because of the memory of joy given there.
As Jeffrey said, the Church has never formally and definitively placed any such restrictions on married couples. The exhortations or condemnations pronounced by spiritual writers should be interpreted as counsels for growing in holiness—the Church may invite married couples to practice abstinence when childbearing is impossible, but she does not impose such abstinence under pain of sin.
Hi Trudy. In my understanding, the marital act is not denied to any married couple, irrespective of old age. However, the marital act can be deliberately avoided, if both spouses agree, to imitate Christ and increase in virtue. For those spouses, the "memory of joy" may be just that, a memory but one we might not want to dwell on. Please read Venerable Mary of Agreda's book "City of God" for a beautiful description of the respectful, holy and chaste marriage of Mary and Joseph and for inspiration.
You might also read Stefan Heid "Celibacy in the Early Church" or even Cochini "Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy". The closest I can think of about "denying" the marital act past childbearing years is the example set by the Apostles, the words of St. Paul "I wish all men were as myself" 1 Cor 7:7, the examples of the clergy in the early church presented by those two authors mentioned above and our celibate priesthood of today that we see every day which is quite a signpost (although none of these sources seem to "deny" the act in old age, they just offer us a goal for imitating our Lord). I believe our faith is a maximalist faith (always striving to do more), not a minimalist faith (doing the minimum required to stay in a state of grace). To me, it is interesting to read Sacra Tridentina Synodus (parts of which is found in your 1962 missal) with a minimalist world view and then read it again with a maximalist world view and notice the significant difference in the interpretation.
This is an area that is not talked about a lot due to modesty. I have appreciated the essay. Certainly we are not living a life in which we are simply avoiding sin. That is not a life that rests and trusts in Christ. He was not married but yet He created marriage in all its fullness.
I wonder if there is a way to understand St. Augustine as saying something that is, as you’ve said elsewhere, hard for us moderns to believe because it is too good to be true, too childlike, even. What if Christian spouses approached the marital act & procreation the way Chesterton said God approaches the sun each morning: do it again! The fact that it is not naturally possible to conceive each time need not take away that disposition, it seems to me. Maybe if we lack that, we are missing something precious enough to rise to the level of venial sin, if we think of sin as a sad lack of a good.
I also wonder if the last quote from Rolle you included isn’t addressing men with vows of chastity in particular? When he says his remarks apply to he “who covets to love Christ”, I took this to mean “he who seeks to love Christ alone” on the order of St. John. In which case, his remarks seem unimpeachably sound as advice to religious.
This is all very well said. Your point about St. Augustine is an important (and complex one), because it brings up the issue of our new scientific understanding of human physiology and how this plays into our experience of marital sexuality. I completely agree that the procreative disposition can be present even when conception is impossible or extremely unlikely—𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦, which will always be imperfect. Even when spouses are deliberately avoiding pregnancy for appropriate reasons, the procreative disposition can still be present, if spouses have a childlike openness to something that seems undesirable by the standards of human prudence but may not be deemed undesirable by God. However, we don't want to go too far in softening these medieval perspectives. There is no doubt that some medieval writers warned against the potential sinfulness of marital sexuality. And Hildegard understood perfectly well that conception is impossible when the woman is pregnant, and she harshly and unequivocally condemned the notion of having intercourse during this time.
It's difficult for us to know exactly who Rolle's intended audience was. It's possible that he was writing primarily for religious or people inclined to the religious life, but Rolle was a very popular author whose works were read widely (he is little known today because he was forgotten after the Reformation). There's no reason to believe that his readership was restricted to religious, and the book I'm quoting from (The Fire of Love) is not a manual for monastic spirituality; it's an impassioned treatise that is like autobiography combined with a guide to devout Christian living. Also, I must admit that I selectively quoted Rolle to make his statements less offensive to modern Christians. Without the selective quoting, his attitude toward spousal love would sound even more negative, my point being that he could have given advice to religious without speaking with such extreme negativity about the alternative.
Complex indeed, and your points about how modern scientific knowledge adds to the complexity sparks a thousand thoughts for me, all running back to the roots of things at issue throughout your writing. The weight scientific knowledge is given in the modern mind tends to obscure light and docility. I love that you articulate an approach to scientific knowledge that recognizes its imperfection and places it in hands open versus gripped around it. Managing to recover that disposition takes nothing short of grace.
With St. Hildegard, I thought she saw the marital act as potentially harmful to a developing baby? As far as I know, even modern secular doctors advise that some pregnancy complications can render intercourse a risk to the child. Regardless, I admit there is something instinctively beautiful about abstaining during pregnancy, and I don’t balk at a standard that requires long abstinence of us if only because God requires it of all of us — before we are married, if we are ill, after we are widowed, etc. As is often the case, what is unthinkable for moderns is simply a regular part of human life, which reveals how divorced from reality the modern mind tragically is.
I’m reminded of Chesterton again, who I think said it should astonish us that we get to take part in the act at all. Approaching it from that perspective of childlike gratitude maybe makes the cross of abstinence light, easy, and sweet, but here again, we are firmly in the realm of what grace alone can do for us.
Again, very well said, and the ultimate wisdom in your comments flows from an awareness that is increasingly rare, even in Christian circles: 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭, and it really does make hard things easier—perhaps it even makes the impossible possible. Abstinence at any point in life is hard, but medieval writers lived in a society flooded with divine grace, and they instinctively factored the power of this grace into their vision of life and morality. Modern secular societies, which ignore or even reject grace, lead us to unwise conclusions about what can and should be done by those who are made strong in the strength of God.
Perhaps you might also remark on the fact that intercourse is the ‘matter’ of the sacrament of matrimony. Without the matter, there is no grace.
We need to be careful with these theological terms when we're discussing medieval marriage, because the marital theology we have now was slowly developing during the Middle Ages (we'll talk about this more on Tuesday). Christian marriage existed for centuries, through the Early Middle Ages and into the High Middle Ages, before its sacramental nature was clearly defined. Even the emphasis on physical consummation was associated with the gradually developing understanding of marriage as a sacramental contract. Canonists in the High Middle Ages considered exchange of vows (without consummation) as adequate for a valid marriage, but consummation gave the union a more perfect form of indissolubility. It was, however, assumed that any sincere and voluntary exchange of vows would be followed by physical consummation.
The matter of the Sacrament of Matrimony is the consent and the form is the exchange of vows.
I believe the form of matrimony is the consent, the exchange of vows.
I'm not clear on the question—which teaching are you referring to?