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33. “Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
but I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed
adultery with her already in his heart.” The lesser righteousness, therefore, is not to commit
adultery by carnal connection; but the greater righteousness of the kingdom of God is not
to commit adultery in the heart. Now, the man who does not commit adultery in the heart,
much more easily guards against committing adultery in actual fact. Hence He who gave
the later precept confirmed the earlier; for He came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it.
It is well worthy of consideration that He did not say, Whosoever lusteth after a woman,
but,” Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her,”109 i.e. turneth toward her with this
aim and this intent, that he may lust after her; which, in fact, is not merely to be tickled110
by fleshly delight, but fully to consent to lust; so that the forbidden appetite is not restrained,
but satisfied if opportunity should be given.
34. For there are three things which go to complete sin: the suggestion of, the taking
pleasure in, and the consenting to. Suggestion takes place either by means of memory, or
by means of the bodily senses, when we see, or hear, or smell, or taste, or touch anything.
And if it give us pleasure to enjoy this, this pleasure, if illicit, must be restrained. Just as
when we are fasting, and on seeing food the appetite of the palate is stirred up, this does not
happen without pleasure; but we do not consent to this liking, and111 we repress it by the
right of reason, which has the supremacy. But if consent shall take place, the sin will be
complete, known to God in our heart, although it may not become known to men by deed.
There are, then, these steps: the suggestion is made, as it were, by a serpent, that is to say,
by a fleeting and rapid, i.e. a temporary, movement of bodies: for if there are also any such
images moving about in the soul, they have been derived from without from the body; and
if any hidden sensation of the body besides those five senses touches the soul, that also is
temporary and fleeting; and therefore the more clandestinely it glides in, so as to affect the
process of thinking, the more aptly is it compared to a serpent. Hence these three stages, as
I was beginning to say, resemble that transaction which is described in Genesis, so that the
suggestion and a certain measure of suasion is put forth, as it were, by the serpent; but the
taking pleasure in it lies in the carnal appetite, as it were in Eve; and the consent lies in the
reason, as it were in the man: and these things having been acted through, the man is driven
forth, as it were, from paradise, i.e. from the most blessed light of righteousness, into
death112—in all respects most righteously. For he who puts forth suasion does not compel.
109 The Greek πρὸς τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσαι refers to sin of intent. “The particle πρός indicates the mental aim”
(Tholuck, Meyer, etc.). So Augustin, rightly: “Qui hoc fine et hoc animo attenderit.”
110 Titillari.
111 The reading “if” has been proposed by some.
112 Gen. iii.
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Chapter XII