Moral Filth and the Sinning Body: Hell, Purgatory, Resurrection

Abstract

As famously attributed to Augustine, we are born between urine and feces (“inter faeces et urinam nascimur”).1 The mingled sexual and excretory organs necessitate secrecy. We feel nausea for “both kinds of ‘filth.’ We cannot even know if excrement smells bad because of our disgust for it, or if its bad smell is what causes that disgust.”2 At the same time, the entanglement of these functions makes desire an integral element in filth production. Desire—for erotic or excremental fulfillment—must be disciplined. By analogizing sin—particularly sexually related sins—with filth, the Church Fathers attempted to control and shame the individual into socially constructive behavior. Our bodies are cause enough for us to be disgusted with ourselves. Excrement became a means to control the body and to punish the soul.