Stoic Musonius Rufus, St Augustine, and Ruth on Concupiscence, Love or Lust?

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Today we will learn and reflect on the writings of St Augustine and Musonius Rufus
on concupiscence.
Concupiscence exists when we do not truly love our friends and neighbors, but
rather use them for our selfish profit or pleasure.
You may ask, how can we benefit when we ponder the question of concupiscence?
We expect to benefit from our friendships, we expect or hope that our friends will
act like friends, we are devastated when our lovers love sours, turning into
hatefulness. As St John the Cross teaches us, we should be careful in choosing our
close friends, our love for our friends should increase in us our Love for God and
our neighbor. If each close friend places their friend’s interest ahead of their own,
their friendship will be a blessed friendship indeed.

At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources
used for this video, and my blogs that also cover this
topic. Please, we welcome interesting questions in
the comments, sometimes these will generate short
videos of their own. Let us learn and reflect
together!

To find the source of any
direct quotes in this blog,
please type in the phrase to
the search box in my blog to
see the referenced footnote.

St Augustine’s most famous quote, made before his ultimate conversion,
was a prayer to God, “Please, Lord, grant me chastity, but not yet.” This
shows that St Augustine was quite human, just like us, and quite honest
about his struggles with intimacy.
We must not forget that St Paul and the early Church Fathers lived in a
Greek culture. St Augustine tells us in his Confessions that he
experienced a double conversion from the false philosophy of the
Manicheans, first a conversion to the transcendent ideas of the
Platonists, which prepared him for his second conversion to
Christianity. The Platonic and stoic philosophers rejected crass hedonism,
living a life in moderation, controlling the passions, seeking to improve
the soul and the state, and both greatly influenced Christianity. Greek
philosophy was what theology is today, Socrates teaches us that the
unexamined life is not worth living.

We in the modern world instinctively dislike St Augustine’s
teachings on concupiscence, but this tells us more about
ourselves than St Augustine, for the modern Freudian world view
tends to err on the side of hedonism, letting loose our deepest
passions lest they devour us, whereas the ancient Stoics and
Church Fathers stress instead a life of prayer and obedience,
controlling the passions, encouraging the virtues.

Putting this in another way, Professor Philip Carey posits that the
difference in world view between the ancient and modern world
mean that the ancient anxiety differs from the modern
anxiety. The ancients did not have large cities and lived closer to
nature and closer to wild beasts that could possibly tear them to
pieces, so the ancient anxiety is our passions would rule us so we
would become like the wild beasts. This fear is reflected in the
many stories of Greek heroes like Hercules fighting fierce beast
like the hydra in this painting, and the myth of Theseus fighting
the half-man, half-bull minotaur.

Hercules and the Hydra, Antonio Pollaiuolo, 1400’s Theseus Killing the Minotaur

The modern anxiety, see in movies like 2001 Space Odyssey and
the Terminator series, is we will become cold and dispassionate
like the computers who more convincingly mimic human speech
and thoughts, so the modern anxiety is we will be cold and
uncaring like the unfeeling computers we interact with on a daily
basis.

We can also see this differing point of view by contrasting the
half-man creatures in the ancient and modern world.
The Greek myths describe a half-man, half-horse creatures known
as centaurs in Greek myth, as we can see in this mosaic found in
Hadrian’s villa of centaurs fighting pure beasts.
One modern analogy of a half-man creature are the Borgs in Star
Trek, who captured Captain Picard and turned him into a half-
man, half-droid composite in some famous episodes in that
series, and Darth Vader, who is more machine than man. We
cannot forget R2D2 and C-Threepio, droids that seem somewhat
human.

Mosaic of Centaur, Hadrian’s Villa

Our error is we instinctively assume that the past twenty centuries
are just like our twentieth century, and nothing could be further
from the truth. If Christians from ancient Rome, from St
Augustine’s time, were able to peek forward fifteen centuries,
they would be awe-struck and dumbfounded, life is much more
unimaginably better today than anything they could
imagine. Marriage in the ancient world was for bearing children,
not for love, marriage was serious business in the ancient
world. The infant mortality rate was sky high, most infants did not
live out their first year, and those who survived often died before
the age of ten. The ancients had no aspirin, children and adults
both often died from fever. Most children died before their tenth
birthday. Many women died in childbirth, and often wealthy
women updated their wills when they became pregnant.

The Wedding at Cana by Frans Francken the Younger, c. 1618–20

The Wedding at Cana Barthélemy Parrocel, painted 1600’s

Marrying for love is a modern luxury, the thought of going to a
sterile and safe modern hospital with anesthesia and surgical staff
on hand to deliver little Johnny would have been totally
unimaginable to the ancient Christians. Faced with the risks of
childbirth many ancient couples chose abstention rather than the
life of the wife. We cannot fault the ancient Christians for their
views on love and marriage, insisting that these risks are best
justified in the bearing of children. We can thank God that we live
in a day when love in marriage is indeed blissful and with greatly
reduced medical risks.

Although concupiscence, the using of others solely for your
personal pleasure or advantage, is a Latin word of St Augustine,
this concept definitely is at the core of stoic philosophy. The
belief that physical intimacy is morally wrong outside of marriage,
and within marriage should be restricted to the begetting of
children, was first taught not by St Augustine but by the stoic
philosophers, Musonius Rufus in particular.

Epictetus, whose sayings often echo Musonius
Rufus, his teacher and mentor, talks about the
passions thus: “It is enough for animals to eat and
drink and copulate, and do all the other things
they do. But for men, who God has given the
intellectual faculty, these things are not sufficient;
for unless we act in a proper and orderly manner,
conforming to our nature, we shall never attain
our true end.”
EPICTETUS: ROMAN STOIC PHILOSOPHER

Controlling the passions is a common stoic teaching, Seneca and
Marcus Aurelius also advise us to control our passions.
Many who denigrate St Augustine for his overly strict attitudes on
intimacy and concupiscence do not realize that he was repeating
what Stoic philosophers taught.

Rufus gives us advice that is very similar to the
teachings of St Augustine: “men who are neither
licentious nor wicked must consider only those
intimate acts between husband and wife for the
creation of children to be right and lawful, but
intimate acts that chase after mere pleasure, even in
marriage, to be wrong and unlawful.”

What if nobody is hurt by these acts of
pleasure? Rufus maintains “everyone who acts
wrongly and unjustly, even if doesn’t hurt those near
to him, immediately shows himself to be entirely
base and dishonorable.”

What Rufus and St Augustine are saying to us is simply we should
not use another person SOLELY for our own pleasure. We in the
modern world should feel blessed that modern medicine ensures
that our wives are not risking their lives every time they bear our
children. This advice would not sound so draconian if we were
living in ancient times.

Rufus sounds more like St Paul in his next
lecture on marriage, where he says that the
purpose of marriage is children, and that they
should “consider all things as common
possession and nothing as private, not even the
body itself.”
Although children are important to marriage,
there must also be “companionship and care of
husband and wife for each other, both in
sickness and in health and on every occasion.”

The Church teaches that marriage is a monastic
calling, and Rufus agrees, saying that “when
this mutual care is complete, each spouse
competes to surpass the other in giving such
care. Such a marriage is admirable and
deserves emulation, such a partnership is
beautiful.” But when one or both spouses are
selfish rather than selfless, when they neglect
the concerns of their spouse, “they either break
apart completely from each other, or their
marriage is worse than solitude.” “Souls that
are naturally disposed towards self-control
and justice, in a word, virtue, they are
obviously most suitable for marriage.”

Although concupiscence usually refers to close friendships and
intimate relationship, a broader view of concupiscence is that it is
about controlling the appetites, and our habits, and the first
habit to control is our eating habits.
Rufus agreed with the early Church Fathers, their monastic rules
constantly stress the spiritual benefits that flow from controlling
your appetites and denying the belly. Rufus remembers how
Socrates said that while most men live to eat, he eats to live.

Likewise, Rufus says, “gluttony is nothing other than
lack of self-control with respect to food, and people
prefer pleasant-tasting food to nutritious
food.” “Mastering one’s appetites for food and drink
is the beginning and basis of self-control.” Rufus
prefers foods that you can eat without cooking,
fruits, vegetables, milk, cheese, and honeycombs,
and he prefers simple food over gourmet meals and
sweets. “A meat-based diet is too crude for humans
and is more suitable for wild beasts.”

Similarly, the early Church Fathers encourage fasting from meat
on Wednesday and Fridays, and during Lent and many of the
other fast weeks in the Church calendar. Many people
mistakenly think fasting means abstaining from food completely
for a long period of time, and that is not the teaching of the
Church. Fasting means eating in moderation, eating only what is
necessary, and abstaining from certain foods according to the
church calendar. Those who are old or sick or have medical
conditions that would be aggravated by fasting are not
encouraged to fast if it would damage their health.
The early Church Fathers in the Philokalia teach us that living a
godly life is living a life of discipline and self-control, fasting and
prayer.

Likewise, Rufus tells us that “the
man who wants to live a godly
life must not only learn the
lessons which pertain to virtue
but train himself to follow them
eagerly and rigorously.” The
philosopher has to train both
his soul and his body by
enduring hardships and not
giving into pleasures but instead
we should “accustom ourselves
to cold, heat, thirst, hunger,
scarcity of food, hardness of
bed, abstaining from pleasures,
and enduing pains.”

Rufus continues, “The person
who is practicing to become a
philosopher exercise self-
discipline, so he does not
welcome pleasure and avoid
pain, so that he won’t love
living and fear death, and in
the case of money, so he
won’t honor receiving over
giving.” “The man who wants
to be good must not only
learn the lessons which
pertain to virtue but also
train himself to follow them
eagerly and rigorously.”

We can see that what Musonius Rufus advises us regarding
concupiscence is actually stricter and more severe than the
teachings of St Augustine.
In contrast with the stoic philosophers and the Eastern Church
Fathers who were mostly celibate monks, St Augustine was a
bishop who preached and counseled the laymen, many of whom
were married, in the parishes of his diocese, which meant he was
more attuned to the spiritual needs of the many married people
in the pews.

St Augustine starts his discussion on “On the
Good of Marriage” with a discussion how
marriage is first a friendship in bonds of family,
and a friendship between man and wife,
friends who walk together, side by side, raising
children, growing old together.
St Augustine is a bit harsher in “Marriage and
Concupiscence,” teaching that “in matrimony,
let these nuptial blessings be the objects of our
love – offspring, fidelity, the sacramental
bond.” This sacramental bond is meant to be
ever-enduring, “lost neither by divorce nor by
adultery, and should be guarded by husband
and wife with concord and charity.”

St Augustine ends this paragraph with a
conclusion many modern readers would
hesitate concluding, and I doubt were St
Augustine to be alive today he would put it this
way, but even so, we should be open to the
message, for it has application to modern men
also:
“Carnal concupiscence must not be ascribed to
marriage; it is only to be tolerated in
marriage. It is not a good which comes out of
the essence of marriage, but an evil which is
the accident of original sin.”

How can we imagine St Augustine would rephrase this were he to be alive
today? Perhaps he would assert that although physical intimacy is a glue that
holds marriages together, and provides the children which bring joy into our lives,
this physical intimacy should be far down the list, behind friendship, behind
parenthood, behind emotional intimacy, behind our Love for God, which should
come first, and through which all our other loves become stronger, but if physical
intimacy is the only glue holding our marriage together, all we would have is one
big sticky mess, a mucky tar baby.
When discussing concupiscence, the Book of Ruth provides illumination. There are
few truly happy marriages in the Old Testament, one shining exception is the
marriage of Ruth and Boaz. Naomi and her husband moved from Judea to Moab
to escape a famine, their two sons married two Moabite women, but over the
years she became destitute when first her husband, then her two sons, died.
Naomi, in desperation, decided to move back to Judea, although she had lost
touch with her relatives. She tells her daughters-in-law to stay and remarry local
men, but Ruth, showing character, refuses to leave Naomi:

Ruth Gleaning in the Fields, Alexandre
Cabanel, painted 1800's
Naomi with her Daughters-in-Law,
Henry Nelson O'Neil, painted 1844

Ruth Gleaning in the Fields, Alexandre
Cabanel, painted 1800's
Naomi with her Daughters-in-Law,
Henry Nelson O'Neil, painted 1844
But Ruth said to Naomi,
“Do not press me to leave you
or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die—
there will I be buried.
May the LORD do thus and so to me,
and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!”
Ruth 1:16-17

Jewish law states that when farmers harvest their grain, they
must leave behind sheaves of grain for those who are destitute
can glean the grain.
Boaz notices the graceful beauty of Ruth as she gleans in the
fields, and instructs his workers to leave behind extra sheaves of
grain for Ruth to glean.
To truly understand the story, we must remember that the
ancient Hebrews saw the Moabite women as somewhat loose.

Possibly St Augustine would point out that the concept that physical intimacy is
always damnable before marriage but always blessed and blissful after marriage is
a very shallow view of the virtue of marriage. Nobody among neither the ancients
nor the moderns can deny the value of both spouses announcing their fidelity to
one another in marriage. St Augustine admits that concupiscence should be
tolerated in marriage, a debt that should be honored. His message for us today is
whether before or after marriage, the doubt raised by physical intimacy is whether
we are using the other for our physical pleasure, and we can never be sure
whether we are or not. Since we are less in danger of putting our spouse at risk of
physical harm or death today than in the ancient world, deeming this a venial sin is
not helpful, but regarding our passions as venial faults can be helpful, particularly if
awareness of our venial faults leads us to humility and love for our spouse, seeking
to put their needs over ours, seeking to serve rather than abuse our spouses, being
ever aware that we hold their hearts in our hands, that we should never squeeze
too hard.

Landscape with Ruth and Boaz, Joseph Anton Koch, painted 1823-1825

Ruth and Boaz, Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, painted 1640's

Naomi notices the attention Boaz is paying to her beautiful daughter-in-law, Ruth,
and look at their facial expressions in this painting by Berchem. We must
remember how exposed widows were in the ancient world, if they had no property
they were quite exposed, their only hope would be to find someone who would
marry and protect them, which would have been impossible for an older widow
like Naomi.

Naomi her mother-in-law said to
Ruth, “My daughter, I need to seek
some security for you, so that it
may be well with you. Now here is
our kinsman Boaz, with whose
young women you have been
working. See, he is winnowing
barley tonight at the threshing
floor. Now wash and anoint
yourself and put on your best
clothes and go down to the
threshing floor; but do not make
yourself known to the man until he
has finished eating and drinking.
When he lies down, observe the
place where he lies; then, go and
uncover his feet and lie down; and
he will tell you what to do.” She
said to her, “All that you tell me I
will do.” Ruth 3:1-5

Uncover his feet? Two big feet? Or two big feet and a small third foot?
This is common usage and a common question in many languages and cultures,
the ancient Hebrew culture included

So Ruth went down to the threshing
floor and did just as her mother-in-law
had instructed her. When Boaz had
eaten and drunk, and he was in a
contented mood, he went to lie down
at the end of the heap of grain. Then
Ruth came stealthily and uncovered
his feet and lay down. At midnight,
the man was startled, and turned
over, and there, lying at his feet, was
a woman! He said, “Who are you?”
And she answered, “I am Ruth, your
servant; spread your cloak over your
servant, for you are next-of-kin.” He
said, “May you be blessed by the
Lord, my daughter; this last instance
of your loyalty is better than the first;
you have not gone after young men,
whether poor or rich." Ruth 1:6-10

What happened that night? If you were the original audience hearing this story for
the very first time, your interpretation may at variance with all classical rabbinic
and Christian commentators, for all these commentators affirm that Ruth did not
sacrifice her chastity that night she spent alone with Boaz at the winepress. Of
course, the commentators interpreted these verses thus, we don’t want to
encourage young men to take advantage of the young ladies in the pews.

St Augustine, like all Church Fathers, starts from the Scriptures in his teaching on
concupiscence, particularly St Paul. There were overly strict Gnostic ascetics in the
early church, and St Paul corrects them in 1 Corinthians 7:

1 Corinthians 7: “It is well for a man not to touch a woman.
But because of cases of 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 set time, to devote yourselves
to prayer, and then come together again, so that Satan may
not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This I
say by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all
were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God,
one having one kind and another a different kind.
To the unmarried and the widows: I say that it is well for
them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not
practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to
marry than to be aflame with passion.”
Saint Augustine, painting by Carlo
Cignani, 1628-1719, Warsaw

Modern man in his interpretation of this may go heavy on the marital
duties and light on the prayer aspect of the marital relationship, but the
ancient Christians valued prayer much more highly. Modern man may
regard this following quote from St Augustine, but based on the above
Scripture passages, and the added risks to bodily harm and even death
the ancients risked with physical intimacy, are these quotes from St
Augustine, in reality, extreme? We will study some more quotes.

St Augustine teaches that here the Apostle
permits the married couple intercourse for
purposes other than “begetting
children. Although evil habits impel them to
such intercourse, yet marriage guards them
from adultery or fornication. For these sins
are not committed because of marriage, but
are pardoned because of marriage.” This is
permitted so each spouse can sustain the
“weakness of the other. If perpetual
continence be pleasing to one of them, they
may not, save with consent of the other.”
Saint Augustine, painting by Carlo
Cignani, 1628-1719, Warsaw

We may object to the phrase “evil habits,” perhaps St Augustine today
would use the term “pernicious habits,” which today is a good phrase, for
we certainly wish to be on guard against using our spouse solely for our
own pleasure, lest we risk that our marriage sink into the state of a single
client brothel.
This comment sounds harsh, but a marriage without purpose may not last,
particularly a marriage when the couple has been married for many years,
they have no plans for children, they spend their time entertaining, the
husband doesn’t want the wife to work, the wife is okay with not having
her own career, they let their lives drift at sea with no shore in sight, no life
preservers, living only to party, living for food and liquor and pleasure,
you wonder, what is the point, what purpose does their life have, where
can they find fulfillment or purpose or salvation in such a banal existence,
droning on, year after year after year?

Here Vatican II and Pope John Paul II uses the language of Kant in
teaching that we should respect the dignity of the person of our spouse,
that we should never use another for pleasure or other benefit, that in
marriage we should always act for the benefit of the other, of our spouse,
that we have a categorical imperative to live according to our moral duty,
regardless of the consequences, regardless of how this benefit ourselves,
that we should always respect the personhood and preciousness of our
neighbor. In this way we love our neighbor as ourselves, in this way we
likewise Love God with all of our heart and with all of our soul and with all
of our mind and with all of our strength, for salvation lies in living our lives
for others rather than living our lives only thinking of ourselves. Those
who are saved do not keep scorecards noting when their friends or
spouses helped them last, or whether they countered our kindnesses with
sufficient quickness.

Similarly, modernity would shudder at the following
teaching of St Augustine, but here our beloved saint
can teach us as much as he taught the ancient
Romans: “Intercourse of marriage for the sake of
begetting children has no fault, and intercourse in the
marital bed to satisfy lust has but venial fault, but
intercourse in adultery or fornication is a deadly fault.”
Rather than reject this passage with a jerk of the knee,
we should seek to understand what St Augustine
means when he says venial. A footnote for Marriage
and Concupiscence has an interesting footnote, “The
Latin word for ‘permission’ is venia, which also means
‘indulgence,’ ‘forbearance,’ ‘forgiveness;’ and so the
sins that may be forgiven are called ‘venial sins,’ i.e.
‘pardonable,’ and in this sense ‘permissible’
sins.” What distinguishes venial sins from mortal sins?
St. Augustine by Peter Paul Rubens,
painted 1636 - 1638

Saint Augustine by Philippe de
Champaigne, painted 1645-1650
The venial faults St Augustine warns against in his
earlier work “On the Good of Marriage” evolves in
a stronger warning against venial sins committed in
the marriage bed in his work on “Marriage and
Concupiscence,” written in response to the laxity
of the Pelagian heresy.
St Augustine mentions this work in his Retractions,
and he wants to add a clarification: “We maintain
that marriage is good; and that it must not be
supposed that the concupiscence of the flesh, or
quoting from Romans 7:23, that ‘the law in our
members which wares against the law of our
mind,’ is a fault of marriage. Conjugal chastity
makes a good use of the evil of concupiscence in
the procreation of children.”

We might find this hard to believe, but in the time of St Augustine there
were those who argued that marriage itself was a sin, but St Augustine, in
rebuttal, assures us that marriage is indeed not a sin.

St Augustine teaches, “we ought not to condemn marriage
because of the evil of lust; nor must we praise lust because of
the good of marriage.” Indeed, St Augustine reminds us that
marriage is sacramental, until death do we part. Indeed, we
should be happy that our beloved St Augustine equates meals
and food with physical intimacy, for as we cannot survive without
food, so the human race cannot survive without the begetting of
children, and both have a certain carnal delight, delights that are
best enjoyed when we avoid excessive binges. As St Augustine
teaches, “from whatever source men be born, if they do not
follow the vices of their parents, but rather worship God and
lead a godly life, they shall be honest and safe. For the seed of
man, whoever his parents may be, is the creation of
God.” Interestingly, in his Retractions, St Augustine offers as an
addition that “the good and right use of lust (in marriage) is not
lust,” but rather a good use of the will.

Certainly concupiscence, the selfish using of another for your own
pleasure, is presumed in relationships where there is no commitment of
marriage, most definitely when there is adultery, but can the venial sin of
concupiscence exist in a marriage between faithful loving
partners? Certainly, if the husband and wife are truly loving, are truly
friends, are both truly unselfish, perhaps concupiscence may be
impossible, but how can there be physical intimacy with some degree of
selfishness? There is always doubt, there is always humility, there is always
repentance and forgiveness for sins both seen and unseen, for no
relationship on earth if perfect, particularly when the passions and desires
bind the relationship together, for better or worse.

St Augustine certainly agrees that we should not possess our
spouse “in the disease of carnal concupiscence.” Then he adds
that we should not understand this to mean that “the apostle
prohibited conjugal cohabitation, lawful and honorable,” and that
must be “not a matter of the will, but of necessity.” St Augustine
further teaches in marriage that concupiscence should not
control us, but we should control concupiscence, “bridling and
restraining its rage,” for what is most important to St Augustine is
that believers bear children in a loving home, so they can be
“born again in Christ, and remain with Him forever.” St Augustine
teaches, “carnal concupiscence is not a good which comes out of
the essence of marriage, but it is an evil which is the accident of
original sin.” If our children are accidents, if our children are
unloved, if our children are unwanted, then “this lustful cruelty
on our children so reluctantly begotten unmasks our sins
practiced in darkness, dragging it out into the light of day.”
Saint Augustine in His Study by
Sandro Botticelli, 1494, Uffizi Gallery

Certainly the main lesson is that the church teaches that what gives
marriage purpose is the bearing of children, so we do not live our lives for
ourselves. Salvation is the purpose of marriage, the salvation of our
children, the salvation of our spouse, and the working out of our
salvation. How does the command to love our neighbor as ourselves
work its way out in marriage? We should consider first the good of our
children in the living of our lives, then we should work for the good of our
spouse, and we should take care of ourselves, but we are last. But last of
all in a marriage should be concupiscence, but we should not neglect
loving kindness and tenderness, that should pervade all the relationships
with our children and with our husband or wife.
Which brings us back to the story of Ruth, who married Boaz, bore him a son, and
many years of happiness. The Book of Ruth ends with a song of rejoicing by the
women in the village:

uth and Boaz, Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, painted 1640's
Then the women said to Naomi,
“Blessed be the Lord, who has not left
you this day without next-of-kin; and
may his name be renowned in Israel! He
shall be to you a restorer of life and a
nourisher of your old age; for your
daughter-in-law who loves you, who is
more to you than seven sons, has borne
him.” Ruth 4:14-15

St. Augustine in His Study, painted 1502 by Vittore Carpaccio
St Augustine teaches, “continence is
a virtue not of the body, but of the
soul. But the virtues of the soul are
sometimes slow in work, sometimes
lie hid in habit, as the virtue of
martyrdom shone forth and
appeared by enduring sufferings.”

I remember asking my Catholic priest about a divorce support group
session where I was a moderator where I informed the participants that
they were in luck, for the Catholic Church was running a special deal. The
special deal was this: that if they suffered through a thoroughly trying
marriage, they got to skip Purgatory, for they suffered sufficient purgation
here on earth. I told the priest that some of the participants objected that
they thought this was a very bad joke that was not at all appreciated. I
asked the priest if he thought my understanding of the theology of
purgation in this instance was sound, and my priest said that yes, that the
application of purgation theology was in this instance a most sound
theology, that enduring to the end a most trying marriage was indeed a
sufficient Purgatory. Of course, he added, in marriages the best interests
of the children always trumps the best interests of the parents, and
discernments of individual situations always trumps general principals,
but as a general principal, this is a most sound theological principal.

Purgatory,
Peter Paul
Rubens,
painted 1640’s
An Angel Frees the
Souls of Purgatory,
Ludovico Carracci,
painted 1610

I remember many years ago attending a pre-Cana session where the
rather liberal materials (since superseded, thank God) that had a cartoon
of a bishop under the bedsheets nosing into the private life of newlyweds,
I really could not stomach reading the text surrounding the cartoon, but it
does sum up the modern attitude towards religion, religion is okay as
long as it is spiritual, but don’t preach to us about such private matters as
morality.
But when reading St Augustine, he does seem extreme sometimes, what
married man has not phantasized about alone time with his wife? Should
he confess his carnal thoughts? How can you tell whether you love your
beloved in a loving manner, rather than carnally? Should we worry
whether we love our wife, or lust for our wife, and whether that is a venial
sin?

These are questions we can never answer,
as we can never be totally sure about our
motivations, only God can judge with
certainty.
Perhaps the only answer is that we should
always confess daily that we do not love our
beloved as we ought, as we can always
confess we don’t forgive as we aught, or
pray ceaselessly as we aught. This is not
confession out of guilt but rather confession
as a spiritual discipline that brings us closer
to the Love of God, to the joy of God’s Love
for us, to our thankfulness for our blessings,
and our sufferings, which bring patience and
endurance and salvation through purgation.

St. Augustine in His Study, painted 1502 by Vittore Carpaccio
St Augustine NEVER preaches guilt,
St Augustine instead preaches love,
and do what you will, for with love
all things are possible.
St Augustine preaches confession,
confession of repentance,
confession of forgiveness,
confessing faith, confessing hope,
and confessing love, and the
greatest of these is love.

SOURCES
We purchased this slim collection of the writings of Musonius Rufus that
is very readable, and is a good translation. We have previously released
a video on his student, the stoic Epictetus, a former slave of a former
slave, who frequently credits Rufus for his wisdom. The Stoic Six Pack
from Amazon has a very readable translation of the writings of Epictetus.
Professor Luke Timothy Johnson turned me on to reading the stoic philosophers,
we highly recommend these Great Courses lectures, they are not on the Great
Courses Plus.
Closely related to the topic of concupiscence, or whether affection is lust or love,
and a closely related topic is the passions. All of the Roman stoic philosophers
advise us that we should never let the passions control us, we should control our
passions, we discussed the passions in our Seneca video in particular.

We were quoting from the writings of St Augustine, “On the Good of
Marriage,” Volume 3 of the Nicene and Post-Nicence Fathers, and “On
Marriage and Concupiscence” in Volume 5, and also Extract from
“Retractions.” These translations were done in 1887, some of usage is
dated and sometimes they can be a little challenging, but overall they
are very readable.

St Augustine, “On the Good of Marriage,” Volume 3.
St Augustine, “On Marriage and Concupiscence,” Volume 5.
St Augustine, Extract from “Retractions.”
These St Augustine translations were first published in 1887.
Christian Book Publishers sells the printed volumes,
Amazon sells inexpensive digital version,
Plus they can be downloaded for free on internet.

We have already recorded videos for most of the Stoic and Cynic
philosophers, we plan to record additional videos on Plutarch, Cicero,
and other stoics in 2021 and 2022.
PLEASE click on the links for our blogs on Musonius Rufus and St
Augustine in the description below.
And please click on the links for our YouTube videos on other
interesting videos that will broaden your knowledge and improve
your soul.

Stoic Musonius Rufus, St Augustine, and Ruth on Concupiscence, Love or Lust?

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