Lust cannot imagine temperance, and a creature can cling to God so as not to be extended into times. Augustine says the man who exceeds with one wife does not believe that the fathers used many wives with temperance, looking only to the duty of those times. Such men measure the saints by themselves, as if praise must puff up and insult must cast down. The apostles were neither puffed up nor cast down. David bore the injury of Absalom and mourned his death for the son’s sin, not for his own loss. The ewe-lamb accused the adultery, and the desire is called a guest, not a king. In Solomon it reigned. What was done then as a duty is not to be transferred now into a habit of life. In the Confessions the heaven of heavens is the creature whose will God is, not co-eternal, drawing its support from Him, varied by no change. He calls it the house of God, a pure mind, the city of holy spirits above the heavens that are seen. Aquinas asks how the mother of Christ was prepared. She was sanctified in the womb after the soul was infused, not before. Original sin was remitted. The spark was bound, and she did not sin. She was a virgin in conceiving, in bearing, and after the birth.

### Today’s Readings:

Augustine — On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapters 19–22 (Sections 28–32)

Augustine — The Confessions, Book 12, Chapter 11 (Section 12)

Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 3, Questions 27–28

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