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The Ambivalence and Lust of Marriage: With and Beyond Augustine Towards a Theology of Marriage as Consecrated Sacrifice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2013

Daryl Ellis
Daryl Ellis*
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37240, [email protected]
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Abstract

This article argues that the Christian West's indebtedness to contractual logic in regard to marriage, as canonically depicted in 1 Corinthians 7, has resulted in a corresponding theological and pastoral myopia. The weakness of this reliance, as seen paradigmatically in Augustine's theology of marriage, consists in its articulation of marriage's constitution apart from any meaningful reference to the particular dynamics of any given marital common life. ‘Marriage’, in this sense, remains extrinsic to the living of marriage. Augustine doubly solidifies this separation by construing marriage as a contractually negotiated site for the sinful, though forgivable, expression of sexual desire, which he then roots in a christological account of sacrament whereby the sacramental bond of marriage can never be broken regardless of the lived particularities of marital life. A promising corrective can be found by way of a theological retrieval of a minor set of images suggestively employed in passages such as Ephesians 5:21–33 and Revelation 19:7–9 rooted in cultic themes such as sacrifice and consecration, which Augustine employs in describing marriage's preferred ecclesial alternative: the consecration of virginity. The constructive result is a theology of marriage in which every moment of marital life is marked by the ambivalence of vulnerably and ‘deathly’ surrendering to one another, which is pre-eminently embodied in the surrender of Christ himself upon the cross to the one he called Father. This ambivalence is characterised by the dual possibility, inherent in the posture of surrender itself, in which the result can either bear the healing fruits of love and reciprocal embrace or the tragic inhumanity of abuse, rejection and manipulation. Finally, the sacrificial and contractual elements of marriage might be ultimately reconciled in a refigured notion of ‘covenant’, which too often has been understood simply as a synonym for ‘contract’. Instead, a proper covenantal understanding of marriage emerges as a participatory analogy to the entire, complicated and contingent history of God, with God's people marked by seemingly endless cycles of sin, repentance, forgiveness and restoration. Intriguingly, this history was also founded within a temporal space outlined by a mix of contractual elements and cultic regulations. Likewise, the covenantal founding of a marriage mirrors a similar dynamic: the initial ‘contractual’ vows speak into existence a temporalised space within which a daily, mundane life of love might come to pass and bear its fruits, in due time, by God's grace and the daily improvisations of love and sacrifice.

Keywords

Augustinechristologycontractdesiremarriagesacrifice
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 30 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2013

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References

1 This is in spite of Witte, John's influential book, From Sacrament to Contract (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997)Google Scholar. This article is not a detailed rebuttal of Witte, but there is an implied critique running throughout the argument. In addition to the seminal Pauline example, other paradigmatic examples are easy to find. Augustine compared the rules regulating spousal sexuality to those governing a ‘transaction’ involving the exchange of straw or gold (Augustine, , ‘The Excellence of Marriage’, in Marriage and Virginity, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, trans. Kearney, Ray (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999), 4.4Google Scholar). Similarly, Luther identified marriage as little more than ‘any other worldly undertaking’ akin to the way one might ‘buy from, speak to, [or] deal with’ anyone (Luther, Martin, ‘The Estate of Marriage, 1922’, in Luther's Works, vol. 45 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1962), p. 25Google Scholar). Finally, whatever else one finally makes of Roman Catholic twentieth-century controversies surrounding marriage, at the minimum they illustrate how bound even thickly sacramental accounts of marriage continue to be to some notion of a ‘non-voidable contract’ or a ‘juridical reality’ that ‘has its origins in a consent once for all juridically efficacious’. The first citation is drawn from Theodore Mackin's conclusion regarding the discordant nature of these controversies. The second citation is from an address of Pope Paul VI's in response to the Utrecht-Haarlem controversy. For both citations, cf. Mackin, Theodore, Divorce and Remarriage (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), pp. 513, 515Google Scholar.

2 Three come to mind: (1) contractual logic provides a neat framework for absolute moral prohibitions; (2) it has provided for a convenient elision of ecclesial and civil marriages; and (3) it is also easily amenable to the literal transaction of money, political favours and property (sometimes including the bride herself).

3 Mackin, Divorce and Remarriage, p. 515.

4 Augustine, , ‘Marriage and Desire’, in Answer to the Pelagians, II (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1998), 1.10.11Google Scholar.

5 All quotations from ‘The Excellence of Marriage’ will be given parenthetically and are taken from the Kearney trans. cited n. 1 unless otherwise noted.

6 Augustine, ‘Holy Virginity’, in Marriage and Virginity, 6.6.

7 Cf. ibid., 2.2, 6.6.

8 Cf. ibid., 12.12.

9 Cf. Augustine, ‘Marriage and Desire’, 1.21.23.

10 Ibid., 1.13.12.

11 Ibid., 1.10.11.

12 Mackin, Divorce and Remarriage, p. 515.

13 Cavadini, John C., ‘The Sacramentality of Marriage in the Fathers’, Pro Ecclesia 17 (2008), pp. 442–63Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., p. 451.

15 Ibid., p. 455.

16 Ibid., p. 456.

17 Cf. Augustine, ‘Excellence of Widowhood’, in Marriage and Virginity, 10.13. See n. 1 above for full citation of volume.

18 Cavadini, ‘Sacramentality of Marriage’, pp. 455–6.

19 Ibid., p. 459.

20 Cf. Klein, Rebekka A., ‘Die Inhumanität des Animal Sociale: Vier Thesen zum interdisziplinären Beitrag der theologischen Anthropologie’, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 51 (2009), pp. 427–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Cf. Jüngel, Eberhard, God as the Mystery of the World: On the Foundation of the Theology of the Crucified One in the Dispute between Theism and Atheism, trans. Guder, Darrell L. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 314–30Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., p. 326.

23 Cf. Augustine, , The City of God against the Pagans, ed. Dyson, R. W. (Cambridge: CUP, 1998), 14.13Google Scholar and Augustine, , On Christian Teaching, ed. Green, R. P. H. (Oxford: OUP, 1997), 1.23Google Scholar.

24 While I realise that concupiscence can always function with this dynamic of power and domination in Augustine's thought, it is not a dimension of ‘lust’ that he particularly expands upon in the context of marriage.

25 David G. Hunter, ‘Introduction’, in Augustine, Marriage and Virginity, p. 19. See n. 1 above for full citation of volume.

26 Cf. Paul II, Pope John, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans. Waldstein, Michael (Boston, MA: Pauline Books, 2006), pp. 178–90Google Scholar.

27 Cavadini, ‘Sacramentality of Marriage’, p. 463.

28 This list is meant as a gesture towards Goldstein, Valerie Saiving's classic article, ‘The Human Situation: A Feminine View’, Journal of Religion 40 (1960), pp. 100–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar. While I do not have space in this context to develop this point, I fully acknowledge that the libido dominandi does not take a universal form and may vary across many variables of power (e.g. gender, socio-economic status, race).

29 Augustine, ‘Holy Virginity’, 1.1.

30 Cf. ibid., 2.2–6.6.

31 ibid., 2.2.

32 Cf. ibid., 5.5, 7.7, 27.27, 28.28.

33 Ibid., 31.31.

34 Ibid.

35 Cf. ibid.

36 Ibid., 52.53.

37 Ibid., 27.27.

38 1 Cor 7:16a.

39 The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Publishing, 1979), p. 423.

40 Mackin, Divorce and Remarriage, p. 512.

41 Many thanks to Ted Smith, Patout Burns, Dexter Brewer, Amy Mears, Ben Anthony and my colleagues in the Theology and Practice Seminar at Vanderbilt University, out of which this article was born, for their comments and generous feedback on earlier versions of the article.