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The man, then, would have sown the seed, and the woman received it,
as need required, the generative organs being moved by the will, not
excited by lust. For we move at will not only those members which are
furnished With joints of solid bone, as the hands, feet, and
fingers, but we move also at will those Which are composed of slack
and soft nerves: we can put them in motion, or stretch them out, or
bend and twist them, or contract and stiffen them, as we do with the
muscles of the mouth and face. The lungs, which are the very
tenderest of the viscera except the brain, and are therefore carefully
sheltered in the cavity of the chest, yet for all purposes of inhaling
and exhaling the breath, and of uttering and modulating the voice, are
obedient to the will when we breathe, exhale, speak, shout, or
sing, just as the bellows obey the smith or the organist. I will not
press the fact that some animals have a natural power to move a single
spot of the skin with which their whole body is covered, if they have
felt on it anything they wish to drive off, a power so great, that by
this shivering tremor of the skin they can not only shake off flies that
have settled on them, but even spears that have fixed in their flesh.
Man, it is true, has not this power; but is this any reason for
supposing that God could not give it to such creatures as He wished to
possess it? And therefore man himself also might very well have
enjoyed absolute power over his members had he not forfeited it by his
disobedience; for it was not difficult for God to form him so that
what is now moved in his body only by lust should have been moved only
at will.
We know, too, that some men are differently constituted from others,
and have some rare and remarkable faculty of doing with their body what
other men can by no effort do, and, indeed, scarcely believe when
they hear of others doing. There are persons who can move their ears,
either one at a time, or both together. There are some who, without
moving the head, can bring the hair down upon the forehead, and move
the whole scalp backwards and forwards at pleasure. Some, by lightly
pressing their stomach, bring up an incredible quantity and variety of
things they have swallowed, and produce whatever they please, quite
whole, as if out of a bag. Some so accurately mimic the voices of
birds and beasts and other men, that, unless they are seen, the
difference cannot be told. Some have such command of their bowels,
that they can break wind continuously at pleasure, so as to produce the
effect of singing. I myself have known a man who was accustomed to
sweat whenever he wished. It is well known that some weep when they
please, and shed a flood of tears. But far more incredible is that
which some of our brethren saw quite recently. There was a presbyter
called Restitutus, in the parish of the Calamensian Church, who,
as often as he pleased (and he was asked to do this by those who
desired to witness so remarkable a phenomenon), on some one imitating
the wailings of mourners, became so insensible, and lay in a state so
like death, that not only had he no feeling when they pinched and
pricked him, but even when fire was applied to him, and he was burned
by it, he had no sense of pain except afterwards from the wound. And
that his body remained motionless, not by reason of his self-command,
but because he was insensible, was proved by the fact that he breathed
no more than a dead man; and yet he said that, when any one spoke with
more than ordinary distinctness, he heard the voice, but as if it were
a long way off. Seeing, then, that even in this mortal and miserable
life the body serves some men by many remarkable movements and moods
beyond the ordinary course of nature, what reason is there for doubting
that, before man was involved by his sin in this weak and corruptible
condition, his members might have served his will for the propagation
of offspring without lust? Man has been given over to himself because
he abandoned God, while he sought to be self-satisfying; and
disobeying God, he could not obey even himself. Hence it is that he
is involved in the obvious misery of being unable to live as he wishes.
For if he lived as he wished, he would think himself blessed; but he
could not be so if he lived wickedly.
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