“... In justifying divine punishment, Augustine is therefore keen to point out factors that make concupiscentia seem as a perfectly deserved and reasonable consequence for the evil choice that Adam and Eve made in Paradise. Concupiscentia, as a divine punishment, has an intellectual form and use in the fallen humanity. With other punitive sufferings, concupiscentia teaches the fallen humankind of its glorious past and inglorious fall, and makes understandable the miseries of the present life. In addition, it turns the Christian intellect to gaze at the life that lies in the future. Augustine thereby invites his readers to acknowledge the intellectual contents of concupiscentia: as a divine punishment, it has a reflective value, which may be given certain intellectual significance, so that it can be seen to refer both to the history of humankind, and to its future hope alike: Thus, “An heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day that they return to the mother of all things.” Yet even this evil is found to be marvellous; for it teaches us to live soberly and to understand (intellegamus) that, by reason of that first and most grievous sin which was committed in Paradise, this life has been made penal to us, and that all the promises of the new covenant refer only to our new inheritance in the world to come. [transl. Dyson] ...”