[Scotswife]

Thank you for the link.
It still appears to me that there was a running theme in the early writings that any sex outside of procreation was evil - that sex was only for procreation.

[redgolum]

Augustine did have the view (or at least had the view at times) that any sex was at best a venal sin, and that sex for any reason but procreation was a mortal one. But many of those statements can be traced to his earlier stint with the Manichees.

However, he was not along in the view that the only purpose of sex was for procreation. That was actually the common view in all of Christendom until the early 20th century.