To Florus 4.31

Yet since the defender of inherited sin cannot move even a fingernail’s breadth away from it, and wears out my modesty with his rhetorical elegance over why the act of sexual union itself pleases different people, I choose to settle these points with the brevity appropriate to matters already treated. Both here and in passages below, where I said, “For this reason a man will leave father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two will be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24), and added that the prophet came close to endangering modesty in order to express faithfully what took place, he is delighted, as though he had found plunder. He exults and cries: “An entirely open confession, forced out by the power of truth! Let the reason be given why the prophet came close to endangering modesty when expressing God’s works. Can it really be that human works should cause no shame but be openly gloried in, while divine works are shameful? Can it really be that, when God’s works are spoken of and expressed, the prophet’s love or labor wins no honor, but his modesty is endangered? What could God have done that his spokesman would be ashamed to say? More seriously, should a human being be ashamed of some work that God, not man, has done in man, when all craftsmen labor and strive as much as they can not to be ashamed of their works? Surely what shames us is what shamed those first human beings when they covered their private parts (compare Genesis 3:7). It is the punishment of sin, the wound and trace of sin, the lure and fuel of sin, the law in our members fighting against the law of the mind (compare Romans 7:23). This causes shame, and rightly causes shame. For if this were not so, what could be more ungrateful or irreligious than for us to be ashamed in our members, not of our own fault or punishment, but of God’s works?” (Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.9.22).

His delight is certainly clear. He cannot put a bridle on his joy. He has hold of a statement of mine by which he thinks he can show that natural desire is evil and assign it to the devil’s works. He says that this statement was forced from my mouth by the power of truth, and proclaims that it is utterly wicked and profane if we acknowledge that things we say were made by God must be covered out of modesty. But, carried away by his excitement, he could not weigh what he was saying. He asserts that there is nothing shameful in God’s works, but that the activity of the reproductive organs is shameful and therefore cannot be assigned to the Creator’s works. Then suddenly he confesses that it was assigned to our bodies not only honorably but justly, not only by God creating but even by God judging! I showed in the third book of my earlier work that the same thing cannot be both punishment and guilt.