Chapter 4.—A Difficulty as Regards the Chastity of Unbelievers. None But a Believer is Truly a Chaste Man.13 See Augustin’s work Against Julianus, iv. 3. Book i. of this treatise, ch. 1.
What, then, have we to say when conjugal chastity is discovered even in some unbelievers? Must it be said that they sin, in that they make a bad use of a gift of God, in not restoring it to the worship of Him from whom they received it? Or must these endowments, perchance, be not regarded as gifts of God at all, when they are not believers who exercise them; according to the apostle’s sentiment, when he says, “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin?” 14 Rom. xiv. 23. But who would dare to say that a gift of God is sin? For the soul and the body, and all the natural endowments which are implanted in the soul and the body, even in the persons of sinful men, are still gifts of God; for it is God who made them, and not they themselves. When it is said, “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin,” only those things are meant which men themselves do. When men, therefore, do without faith those things which seem to appertain to conjugal chastity, they do them either to please men, whether themselves or others, or to avoid incurring such troubles as are incidental to human nature in those things which they corruptly desire, or to pay service to devils. Sins are not really resigned, but some sins are overpowered by other sins. God forbid, then, that a man be truly called chaste who observes connubial fidelity to his wife from any other motive than devotion to the true God.
4. Quid ergo dicimus, quando et in quibusdam impiis invenitur pudicitia conjugalis? utrum eo peccare dicendi sunt, quod dono Dei male utantur, non id referentes ad cultum ejus a quo acceperunt? an forte nec dona Dei putanda sunt ista , quando haec infideles agunt, secundum Apostoli sententiam dicentis, Omne quod non est ex fide, peccatum est (Rom. XIV, 23)? Quis autem audeat dicere donum Dei esse peccatum? Anima enim, et corpus, et quaecumque bona animae et corporis naturaliter insita, etiam in peccatoribus dona Dei sunt; quoniam Deus, non ipsi ista fecerunt. De his autem quae faciunt dictum est, Omne quod non est ex fide, peccatum est. Cum igitur faciunt haec homines sine fide, quae videntur ad conjugalem pudicitiam pertinere, sive hominibus placere quaerentes, vel sibi vel aliis, sive in his rebus quas vitiose concupiscunt, humanas molestias devitantes, sive daemonibus servientes; non peccata coercentur, sed aliis peccatis alia peccata vincuntur. Absit ergo pudicum veraciter dici, qui non propter Deum verum fidem connubii servat uxori.