Black Sin: Confessions of a Melancholic

Abstract

Challenging Freud’s contention that the origin of religion is the need for a protective Father – rather than an oceanic feeling of eternity – Augustine’s Confessions (as I read it) indicates that such an oceanic experience generated the concept of original sin, in order to justify a theological procedure for returning to that ecstatic experience, thereby laying the foundation for Christianity. Kristeva’s theory of melancholia facilitates our realization that Christianity springs from a wish for maternal fulfillment, a propensity to cling to the plenitude that occupies the void of das Ding. Augustine’s melancholic subjectivity as it operates in his formation of Christianity allows us to grasp the psychosexual underpinnings of the concept of original sin, with its ironic capacity to compel belief in a purity of spiritual oneness. Through his analysis of City of God and Against Julian in Confessions of the Flesh, Michel Foucault not only underscores Augustine’s obsession with sex but also suggests that the consumption of the forbidden fruit might “be understood in a sexual way.” The Christian son/daughter therefore, ideally, fuses with the mother-Church to experience an oceanic state of completeness prior to sexual differentiation, an all-embracing fullness that enables a (Monica-inspired) victory – through evasion – over the Law of the Father, the disease of desire, and its concomitant lack. Although Augustine held psychoanalytic theory within his perceptual and conceptual grasp, he veers off personally as he imbibes mystical milk. Yet in doing so, he instigated two thousand years of Christianity: thanks to Augustine, Imaginary maternal protection can be enjoyed through the jouissance of an oceanic feeling, celebrated in dozens of Madonna del Latte paintings.