the apostles vacated by Judas, Acts 1:21-26.
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.
BookX 419
The bearing ofHebrews 7:4-10 on the question
19, 34 ln the letter which is entitled "To the Hebrews"31 there is a passage that deserves the most careful attention. The person of Melchizedek had just been introduced as a type of this reality that was to come, and through him the author goes on to distinguish the priesthood of Christ from that of Levi: See therefore, he says, what sort of man this is, to whom even Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth partfrom thefirst-fruits. And these indeed who are of the sons ofLevi, on receiving the priesthood have a mandatefrom the tithes of the people according to the law, 32 that isfrom their brothers, although they too came outfrom the loins ofAbraham. One however who is notoftheir kin tithedAbraham and blessed the one who had the promise. But without any contradiction the one who is less is blessed by the one who is greater. And here indeed dying men receive tithes, but there one who testifies that he lives. And, as it is right to say, because ofAbraham Levi too, the receiver of a tithe, was tithed; for he was still in the loins of Abraham (Heb 7:4-10).
So if the fact that Christ as high priest was prefigured by the one who tithed Abraham also serves to underline by how great a margin the priesthood of Christ surpasses the Levitical priesthood, then assuredly Christ was not tithed by him.
"But ifthe reason Levi was tithed is that he was in the loins ofAbraham, then the reason Christ was not tithed is that he was not in the loins of Abraham."
But now, ifwe accept that it was not according to the soul but only according to the flesh that Levi was in Abraham, then Christ too was there, because Christ
31 . 1n The City of God Book 16,22, Augustine simply states his awareness of the question of the authorship of Hebrews without expressing his views on the subject. As there was no doubt in any quarters of the Catholic Church about the letter's canonicity, he doubtless thought that the question of whether Saint Paul was its author or not did not claim his serious attention. But earlier on in his career he does seem to have oscillated between the two positions. Thus here he seems to align himself with those, mainly in the Churches of the East, who denied Pauline authorship. He uses the same kind of expression as we have here in Sermon 7,6 (111,1 in this series). There (note 15)1 refer the reader to an article by O. Rottmanner in Revue Benedictine.
1 8 ( 1 90 1 ); "S. Augustin sur I 'auteur de I 'Epitre aux Hebreux." 1 have not been able to consult this volume, but thanks to the researches of my friend Dr. Robert Markus, professor emeritus of Medieval History at Nottingham University, 1 can now inform the reader of what Rottmanner has to say. 1n one of his earliest works, his Unfinished Commentary on the Letter to the Romans, written before he became bishop, Augustine again states his awareness of the issue, and his basic lack of interest in it, but all the same he includes the letter among those of "the apostle." 1n works written shortly after he became bishop, 397 to 400, he simply refers to it as being by the apostle. Then in mid-career, so to say, he changed to the kind of language we have here, where the Pauline authorship is at least doubted. But in Sermon 1 59,1 (date about 4 1 7), we are back again with the letter being attributed to the apostle. Clearly the issue did not belong to the kind of biblical "criticism" that Augustine went in for, or was bothered about. 32. 1 am giving a literal translation of Augustine's text, which is a very bad, ill-educated rendering of the Greek of what was probably a very inferior Greek manuscript, in which the verb apodekatoun, to tithe, may have appeared, or been read, as apo dekatois, from tithes.