Far be it, then, from us to suppose that our first parents in Paradise felt that lust which caused them afterwards to blush and hide their nakedness, or that by its means they should have fulfilled the benediction of God, "Increase and multiply and replenish the earth;"(1) for it was after sin that lust began.It was after sin that our nature, having lost the power it had over the whole body, but not having lost all shame, perceived, noticed blushed at, and covered it.But that blessing upon marriage, which encouraged them to increase and multiply and replenish the earth, though it continued even after they had sinned, was yet given before they sinned, in order that the procreation of children might be recognized as part of the glory of marriage, and not of the punishment of sin.But now, men being ignorant of the blessedness of Paradise, suppose that children could not have been begotten there in any other way than they know them to be begotten now, i.e., by lust, at which even honorable marriage blushes; some not simply rejecting, but sceptically deriding the divine Scriptures, in which we read that our first parents, after they sinned, were ashamed of their nakedness, and covered it; while others, though they accept and honor Scripture, yet conceive that this expression, "Increase and multiply," refers not to carnal fecundity, because a similar expression is used of the soul in the words, "Thou wilt multiply me with strength in my soul;"(2)and so, too, in the words which follow in Genesis, "And replenish the earth., and subdue it," they understand by the earth the body which the soul fills with its presence, and which it rules over when it is multiplied in strength.And they hold that children could no more then than now be begotten without lust, which, after sin, was kindled, observed, blushed for, and covered;and even that children would not have been born in Paradise, but only outside of it, as in fact it turned out.For it was after they were expelled from it that they came together to beget children, and begot them.
CHAP.22.--OF THE CONJUGAL UNION AS IT WAS ORIGINALLY INSTITUTED ANDBLESSED BY GOD.
But we, for our part, have no manner of doubt that to increase and multiply and replenish the earth in virtue of the blessing of God, is a gift of marriage as God instituted it from the beginning before man sinned, when He created them male and female,--in other words, two sexes manifestly distinct.And it was this work of God on which His blessing was pronounced.
For no sooner had Scripture said, "Male and female created He them,"(3)than it immediately continues, "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Increase, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it," etc.And though all these things may riot unsuitably be interpreted in a spiritual sense, yet "male and female" cannot be understood of two things in one man, as if there were in him one thing which rules, another which is ruled;but it is quite clear that they were created male and female, with bodies of different sexes, for the very purpose of begetting offspring, and so increasing, multiplying, and replenishing the earth; and it is great folly to oppose so plain a fact.It was not of the spirit which commands and the body which obeys, nor of the rational soul which rules and the irrational desire which is ruled, nor of the contemplative virtue which is supreme and the active which is subject, nor of the understanding of the mind and the sense of the body, but plainly of the matrimonial union by which the sexes are mutually bound together, that our Lord, when asked whether it were lawful for any cause to put away one's wife (for on account of the hardness of the hearts of the Israelites Moses permitted a bill of divorcement to be given), answered and said, "Have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh.What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."(1) It is certain, then, that from the first men were created, as we see and know them to be now, of two sexes, male and female, and that they are called one, either on account of the matrimonial union, or on account of the origin of the woman, who was created from the side of the man.And it is by this original example, which God Himself instituted.
that the apostle admonishes all husbands to love their own wives in particular.(2)CHAP.23.--WHETHER GENERATION SHOULD HAVE TAKEN PLACE EVEN IN PARADISEHAD MAN
NOT SINNED, OR WHETHER THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ANY CONTENTION THEREBETWEEN
CHASTITY AND LUST.
