Abstract

Saint Augustine was the first thinker in the West to systematize the notion of concupiscence, that is, the general disordered effect of human being following upon original sin. Many people have found fault with his understanding of concupiscence and allied notions. I try to show that his notion of concupiscence is not as simple as some people have thought, whether friend or foe, and that it in fact developed in a sense of development introduced by Cardinal Newman in the previous century. My primary strategy of showing development in Augustine's understanding of concupiscence is to show the corresponding developments in his conceptions of original sin, the origin of the soul, and the overall value of the body