Marriage and Virginity (review)

Augustine, Marriage and Virginity. Translated by Ray Kearney. Edited with notes and introductions by David G. Hunter. The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, vol. I.9. New Hyde Park: New City Press, 1999. Pp. 251.

This volume presents new translations of five of Augustine's works: The Excellence of Marriage (De bono conjugali), Holy Virginity (De sancta virginitate), The Excellence of Widowhood (De bono viduitatis ad Julianam), Adulterous Marriages (De conjugiis adulterinis), and Continence (De continentia). It also includes a general introduction to Augustine's thoughts on sexuality and marriage, as well as short introductions to each work individually. There are also indexes of Scripture and subjects.

Although "only" a translation, the volume is to be commended on several points. The translation itself is in eminently readable, clear English that should be accessible to anyone interested in Augustine. It conveys the sense of the original without tortured English syntax, which is a formidable accomplishment with Augustine's Latin. On a specific point, I found the translation's use of gender-inclusive language to be balanced and reasonable, but it will probably therefore not be satisfactory to everyone. On the one hand, the exclusive man or mankind is avoided (e.g., The Excellence of Marriage 20.23; 23.29), but where a specifically masculine image is used, the translation does not obscure it (e.g., The Excellence of Marriage, 22.27, now reads, ". . . anyone who did not emit seed for Israel was accursed," which had been cleaned up in the Fathers of the Church translation to be he "who did not rear children in Israel"). The supplied chapter titles are also accurate and a great aid to finding subjects and studying the work.

On a larger scale, the collecting of these works into one volume is of great value, as it rescues them from being included in a more miscellaneous collection of Augustine's "other works" (cf. Fathers of the Church, where most of the works are in the volume Treatises on Marriage and Other Subjects). Gathered in this way, the works take on much more meaning as an examination of the development and continuity within Augustine's thought on marriage and sexuality over a span of twenty years. The general introduction does an excellent job of placing these works in the context of Augustine's career, showing how Augustine reacts to controversies with the Manichees, Jovinian, Jerome, and the Pelagians, while maintaining a commitment to the threefold goods of marriage--procreation, fidelity, and sacrament. This is a wonderful collection that allows readers to see the complexity of Augustine's thought on a difficult topic, a topic for which he has often been misunderstood and maligned.

Kim Paffenroth
Villanova University

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