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Sexuality In Augustine's Confessions

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This excerpt from St. Augustine’s Confessions, illustrates two points. Firstly, it illustrates a divergence from ancient western understandings of desire/sex as they relate to the body. The paper will show this divergence by comparing the work of Augustine (and his understanding of desire as it relates to the body) with the work of ancient physician Galen. Secondly, this excerpt centralizes the act of confessing one’s bodily desires as a process by which the soul is purified and the truth about the self and about God is obtained. The paper will show the significance of confession by locating this excerpt within Augustine’s larger text and within the larger paradigm of early Christianity.
This excerpt early Christian understandings of desire/sex and how they relate to the body. This …show more content…

While the excerpt from Augustine’s writing reflect early Christian ideas on sex/desire and how they relate to the body, one must not forget that this excerpt (like all his writing) is an act of confession. For example, Augustine writes “I must now carry my thoughts back to the abominable things, I did in those days..not because I love those sins, but so that I may love you”. In this quote, we see how confessing and remembering one’s inner most sins and desires acts in two significant ways. Firstly, it acts in such a manner that mediates between one’s self-knowledge and one’s access to a corpus of true knowledge, i.e. God. Secondly, it acts in a way that locates desire within the mind so as to pin it down and to censure it. Perhaps, this second point complements the aforementioned point of de-physologizing desire. Because desire- and the soul from which it emerges- has an independent will from that of the body (which has no will) it must be actively, consciously, and independently pursued, dileneated, and analyzied by means of

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