eliminate that concupiscentia, that lust forbidden by the law which says "You shall not covet
418 The Literal Meaning of Genesis propagation of sin? So not even the body itself of Christ was sown in Mary's womb under that law which has been planted in the members of the body of death and fights back against the law of the mind.28 The holy patriarchs who were married kept a tight rein on this law, only relaxing it to the extent allowed for marital intercourse; it was not however only to the extent allowed that they endured its assaults.29 Accordingly the body of Christ was indeed assumed from the flesh of a woman which had been conceived from that propagation of the flesh of sin; but because it was not itself conceived there in the same way as that flesh had been conceived, it was not in its turn the flesh of sin, but the likeness of theflesh of sin (Rom 8:3).
Thus he did not receive from that source the liability to death which is made manifest in the involuntary motions of the flesh, not willed, indeed, but to be mastered by the will, against which the spirit lusts (Gal 5:17), but he received from there what would suffice, not indeed for cleaning up the contagion of that primal transgression, but for discharging the debt of a death he did not owe and for demonstrating the resurrection that had been promised. Of these one would avail to overcome our fear, the other to strengthen our hope.
33. Finally, if l were to be asked where Jesus Christ received his soul from, I would much rather hear about it from those better qualified and more learned than myself; but still for my part, for what it's worth, I would be happier answering, "from where Adam did," than "from Adam." After all, if dust taken from earth in which no man had worked was fit to be animated, or "ensouled," from on high, how much more would a body, taken from flesh in which again no man had worked, have obtained a good soul by lot! There, I mean to say, a man was being set on his feet who was going to fall, while here another was coming down who was going to lift him up. And perhaps the reason he said, / obtained a good soul by lot (provided, of course, that this can be rightly understood of that other man) is that things given by lot are usually given from on high by God.30 Or else, and this must be said with every confidence, it was lest that soul should be thought to have been borne aloft to such a peak as a result ofsome previous good works. So when the Word eventually became that flesh and dwelt among us, this idea of its being a lottery presented itself, to dispel any suspicion of preceding merits.
28. See Rom 7:23-24. 29. That is, that in their legitimate and restrained use of sex in marriage they could not avoid or eliminate that concupiscentia, that lust forbidden by the law which says "You shall not covet (or lust)." 1t is this bad concupiscence, inseparable in fallen humanity from even legitimate intercourse, that in Augustine's theology transmits original sin. Among the holy patriarchs he mentions he doubtless has in mind the Blessed Virgin's parents. 30. He doubtless had in mind the procedure by which Matthias was chosen to take the place among the apostles vacated by Judas, Acts 1:21-26.