If the Adam and Eve stories are true, then what the hell happened to us?   In Chapter 8, Zimmerman discusses the Council of Trent’s decrees on “concupiscence”.  This term points to an attraction to sin than neither destroys our free will nor displeases God.  Unless of course, attraction becomes deeds and deeds become addiction.

Needless to say, the term “concupiscence” is actually more slippery than that, because, at the Council of Trent, at least, some proposed that “concupiscence” is a feature, or consequence, of Original Sin.  At this point, “concupiscence” became more than an attractor. It became like a gravitational field.  Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.

These varying ways of looking at “concupiscence” was the fuel for drama, not on its own accord, but in regards to the concept of Baptism.  Baptism somehow washes away Original Sin.  But concupiscence is another matter.

In the end, the Council finally decided that concupiscence did not suddenly start with Original Sin and that the best way to think of it is: Spontaneous and vigorous natural drives.  These include all those tempting thoughts that passed through the mind of mythic Eve before she plucked the forbidden fruit.  Her free will was not hopelessly entangled in the irresistible onslaughts of concupiscence.

Instead, she was naïve.  In the Genesis Story, her naiveté was part and parcel of the idea that she and Adam were naked yet without shame (Chapter 9).  At this point, Zimmerman brings up St. Augustine with a cautionary note: Beware the 13^th chapter of the 13^th book of the City of God.  Here, Augustine proposed that, upon eating the fruit, Adam and Eve experienced a new motion in their flesh, in strict retribution of their own disobedience to God.  Any woman knows that men tend to experience “new motion” in their flesh.  Yet so few regard it as strict retribution of their own disobedience to God.

At the same time, any man knows that women tend to experience “new motion” in their flesh.  And how often do we regard it as strict retribution of our own disobedience to God?  What a difference.

Obviously, nakedness connotes vulnerability.  “Naked without shame” goes with feelings of invulnerability.  “Naked with shame” goes with feelings of vulnerability.

Augustine implied that Adam and Eve’s feelings of invulnerability were a condition that made their transgression possible.  We can describe those feelings of invulnerability as “pride”.

Yet “pride”, so conceived, does not seem to dovetail with Paul, in his letter to the Romans, who wrote:  I do not understand my own actions.  I do not do what I want.  I do what I hate.  What does that imply?  Because I admit that what I do is what I hate, and because I admit the law is good, I am willing to venture that the source of my unwanted actions, the one responsible for my unwanted actions, is the sin that dwells in me.

To me, that sounds like addiction, one of the end points of concupiscence, rather than pride.  Sin has dissociated Paul from the law and from his own actions.

Thus, at the end of chapter 9, Zimmerman has brought the reader through a traditional rendering of the Story of Adam and Eve, and how the Council of Trent dealt with issues concerning the interpretation of Genesis and other scriptures.  Zimmerman paints a multifaceted picture that is difficult to summarize because his synthesis focuses on what the Council focused on, points of disputation, where the Story of Adam and Eve were only part of anyone’s arguments.  I did my best.

So what are we left with?  On one hand, there is the St. Augustine side of the picture, containing images of invulnerability, wayward members, shamelessness and pride.  On the other hand, there is a non-St. Augustine side of the picture, containing images of naiveté, concupiscence, dissociation from law, and addiction.  Each side of the picture has a different theo-dramatic flavor.