Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 16

III. DISPUTATION AGAINST FORTUNATUS. On the sixth and fifth day before the Kalends of September, in the consulship of Arcadius Augustus (for the second time) and of Q. Rufinus, most illustrious men, was held a disputation against Fortunatus, a presbyter of the Manichees, in the city of the Hipponensian regions, in the baths of Sossius, in the presence of the people. AUGUSTINE said: I now hold to be error what before I held to be truth; whether I judge rightly, I desire to hear from you who are present. FORTUNATUS said: Begin to set forth the error. AUGUSTINE said: In the first place, I hold it the greatest error to believe that Almighty God, in whom is our one hope, is in any part violable, or defilable, or corruptible. This I know your heresy affirms—not indeed in the words I have now used;

for you also, when questioned, confess that God is incorruptible, and in every way inviolable and undefilable; but when you begin to set forth the rest, you are compelled to confess him corruptible, penetrable, and defilable. For you say that some race of darkness—I know not what—rebelled against the kingdom of God; and that Almighty God, when he saw how great a ruin and devastation threatened his kingdoms unless he opposed something to the hostile race and resisted it, sent forth this Power, from whose commingling with the evil and dark race the world was fabricated; and that hence it is that here the good souls labor, are enslaved, err, and are corrupted, so that they had need of a liberator

who should purge them from error, and loose them from the commingling, and free them from servitude. This I hold it a wickedness to believe: that Almighty God feared some hostile race, or suffered any necessity, so as to hurl us into miseries. FORTUNATUS said: Since I know that you were in our midst—that is, that you administered among the Manichees—these are the principal points of our faith. But here it is our conduct that is in question, concerning which we are assailed with false charges. Let these good men present hear from you, therefore, whether the things for which we are accused and assailed are true or false. For from your teaching and from your exposition and demonstration they will be able to know our conduct more truly than truth itself, if it be revealed by you. Were you present at the prayer? AUGUSTINE said:

I was present. But it is one question concerning faith, another concerning morals; I have proposed the question of faith. Yet if those who are present would rather hear about morals, I do not shun that question either. FORTUNATUS said: I wish first to clear myself before your conscience—before you by whom we are said to be polluted—by the testimony of a fit man, who both now is fit for me and will be so in the future examination of Christ's just judgment, if he has seen in us, or has come to know, those things which are cast up against us. AUGUSTINE said: You call me to another matter, when I have proposed the question of faith. But concerning your morals those who are your Elect can know fully. You know, however, that I was not one of your Elect, but a Hearer.

And so, although I was indeed present at your prayer—as you asked—whether you have among yourselves some separate prayer, God alone and you can know. Yet in the prayer at which I was present I saw nothing shameful done, but only observed something contrary to the faith which I afterwards learned and approved: namely, that you make your prayer toward the sun. Besides this, in that prayer of yours I learned nothing new. But whoever shall put to you any question concerning morals, puts it to your Elect. What you do among yourselves who are the Elect, I cannot know. For I have often heard from you that you receive the Eucharist; but since the time of receiving was hidden from me, how could I know what you receive? And so keep, if you please,

the question of morals in reserve, so that you may discuss it among your Elect, if it can be discussed. To me a faith was given by you which today I disapprove. Concerning that faith I have made my proposal. Let it be answered to me according to my proposal. FORTUNATUS said: Our very profession is this: that God is incorruptible, that he is luminous, unapproachable, ungraspable, impassible; that he dwells in his own eternal light; that he brings forth nothing corruptible from himself, neither darkness nor demons nor Satan, nor can anything hostile be found in his kingdom; that he directed a Savior like unto himself;

that the Word, born from the foundation of the world when he was fabricating the world, came among men after the fabric of the world; that he chose souls worthy of himself, sanctified for his holy will by his heavenly commandments, imbued with faith and reason concerning heavenly things; and that under his leadership these same souls will again return to the kingdom of God, according to his holy promise—he who said: 'I am the way, the truth, and the door,' and 'No one can come to the Father except through me.' In these things we believe, because otherwise souls—that is, by another mediator—will not be able to return to the kingdom of God, unless they have found him, the truth, the way, and the door. For he himself said: 'He who has seen me has seen the Father also,' and:

'He who believes in me shall not taste death forever, but shall pass over from death to life, and shall not come into judgment.' In these things we believe, and this is the account of our faith: and, according to the strength of our mind, to obey his commandments, following the one faith of this Trinity—of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. AUGUSTINE said: These souls, which you confess to come from death to life through Christ—what cause hurled them into death? FORTUNATUS said: From here now deign to proceed and to controvert, if there is nothing besides God. AUGUSTINE said: Nay, do you deign to answer what you are asked: what cause gave these souls over to death? FORTUNATUS said: Nay, do you deign to say whether there is anything besides God, or whether all things are in God. AUGUSTINE said:

This I can answer: that the Lord has willed me to know that God can suffer no necessity, nor be in any part violated or corrupted. And since you too confess this, I ask by what necessity he sent souls hither—those souls which you say return through Christ. FORTUNATUS said: As you have said that thus far God has revealed to you that he is incorruptible, so also to me; the reason is to be sought how, or for what cause, the souls came into this world, so that now he might deservedly free them from this world through his only-begotten Son, who is like unto himself, if there is nothing besides himself. AUGUSTINE said: We ought not to frustrate so many who are present, and to go from the question proposed to another matter, if we both confess

if we grant to each other that God is incorruptible and inviolable and could suffer nothing—from which it follows that your heresy is false, which says that God, when he saw devastation and ruin threatening his kingdoms, sent forth a Power to war against the race of darkness, and that from that commingling our souls here labor—then my argument is brief and, so far as I judge, most plain to anyone. If God could suffer nothing from the race of darkness, because he is inviolable, then without cause he sent us hither to suffer miseries here. But if he could suffer something, he is not inviolable, and you deceive those to whom you say that God is inviolable. For this your heresy denies, when you set forth the rest. FORTUNATUS said:

We hold this, which the blessed apostle Paul instructs us in, who said: 'Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus; who, though he was established in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man; he humbled himself, becoming subject even unto death.' This, then, we hold concerning ourselves which we hold also concerning Christ: that he, though established in the form of God, became subject even unto death, in order that he might show the likeness of our souls.

And just as in himself he showed the likeness of death, and showed the Father in himself and himself in the Father, being raised from among the dead—in that same way let us hold also concerning our souls that it shall come to pass that through him we shall be able to be freed from this death: a death which is either alien to God, or, if it is proper to God, then his mercy ceases, and the name of liberator and the works of the liberating one. AUGUSTINE said: I ask how we came into death; and you say how we are freed from death. FORTUNATUS said: The apostle spoke thus, of how we ought to hold concerning our souls, which Christ showed us. If Christ was in passion and death, so we too; if by the will of the Father he descended into passion and death, so we too. AUGUSTINE said:

It is known to all that the Catholic faith so holds: that our Lord—that is, the Power and Wisdom of God, and the Word, through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made—took upon himself a man for our liberation. In that very man whom he took upon himself, he demonstrated those things which you say. But we now inquire concerning the substance of God himself and of his ineffable majesty, whether anything can harm it or cannot. For if anything can harm him, he is not inviolable; if nothing can harm him, what was the race of darkness going to do to him—against which you say war was waged by God before the foundation of the world, in which war you assert that we, that is, the souls (which it is now manifest are in need of a liberator),

have been commingled with all evil and entangled in death? For I return to that briefest point: if he could be harmed, he is not inviolable; if he could not, then cruelly he sent us hither to suffer these things. FORTUNATUS said: Is the soul of God, or not? AUGUSTINE said: If it is just that answer not be made to my questions, and that I be questioned, I will answer. FORTUNATUS said: If the soul acts in what is its own, this I ask of you. AUGUSTINE said: I will say what you have asked; only remember that you were unwilling to answer my questions, whereas I answer yours. If you ask whether the soul descended from God, it is indeed a great question; but whether it descended from God or not, this I answer concerning the soul: that it is not God—that God is one thing, the soul another.

God is inviolable, incorruptible, impenetrable, and undefilable, and can be corrupted in no part, and can be harmed in no part. But the soul we see to be both a sinner and to be tossed about in misery and to seek the truth and to be in need of a liberator. This mutability of the soul shows me that the soul is not God. For if the soul is the substance of God, then the substance of God errs, the substance of God is corrupted, the substance of God is violated, the substance of God is deceived—which it is a wickedness to say. FORTUNATUS said: You have therefore denied that the soul is from God, so long as it is enslaved to sins and vices and worldly things and is led by error—which cannot come to pass, either that God should suffer this, or his substance.

For God is incorruptible, and his substance is unstained and holy. But here it is asked of you whether the soul is from God or not. And this we confess and show from the coming of the Savior, from his holy preaching, from his very lesson: since he has mercy on souls, and the soul is said to have come according to his will, that he might free that same soul from death and lead it to eternal glory and restore it to the Father. But what do you yourself say or hope concerning the soul—whether it is from God or not? And that the substance of God, from which you deny the soul to be, can be subject to no passions? AUGUSTINE said: I so denied that the soul is the substance of God, as to deny that it is God, yet that it is from God as its author, because it was made by God.

One thing is he who made, another that which he made; he who made cannot at all be corruptible; but that which he made can in no wise be equal to him who made it. FORTUNATUS said: Neither did I say that the soul is like God. But since you have said that the soul is made and that there is nothing besides God, I ask: whence did God find the substance for the soul? AUGUSTINE said: Only remember that I answer the things you ask, whereas you do not answer the things I ask. I say that the soul was made by God, as all other things which were made by God; and that among those things which Almighty God made, the chief place was given to the soul. But if you ask whence God made the soul, remember to confess with me that God is Almighty.

But he is not Almighty who seeks to be aided by some material out of which to make what he wills. From which it follows that, according to our faith, all things which God made through his Word and Wisdom, he made out of nothing. For so we read: 'He himself commanded, and they were made; he himself ordered, and they were established.' FORTUNATUS said: Do all things consist from his command? AUGUSTINE said: So I believe, but all things that have been made. FORTUNATUS said: The made things agree, but because these things are incongruous with one another, by this it is established that they are not one substance, although by the command of the one they came to the composition and appearance of this world. For the rest, it is plain from the very things that darkness and light are in no way alike;

truth and falsehood are in no way alike, death and life are in no way alike, soul and body are in no way alike, and other things similar to these, which differ from one another both in names and in kinds; and that our Lord rightly said: 'The tree which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up and cast into the fire,' the tree which shall not bring forth good fruits—and that there is a tree rooted. Hence indeed it is established, both by the reason of things, that there are two substances in this world, which differ in kinds and in names: of which one is of the body, but the other eternal, of the Almighty Father, which we believe to be. AUGUSTINE said: These contraries, which move you to hold that we are opposed to one another, have befallen on account of our sin—that is, on account of the sin of man.

For God made all things good, and ordered them well; but he did not make sin, and this alone is what is called evil—our own voluntary sin. There is also another kind of evil, which is the punishment of sin. Since, then, there are two kinds of evils, sin and the punishment of sin, sin does not pertain to God, but the punishment of sin pertains to the avenger. For as God is good, in that he established all things, so he is just, in that he takes vengeance upon sin. Since, therefore, all things are most excellently ordered, those things which now seem to us to be adverse have deservedly befallen fallen man, who was unwilling to keep the law of God. For to the rational soul, which is in man, God gave free will; for so man could have merits, if we were good by will, not by necessity.

Since, therefore, it behooved that one be good not by necessity but by will, it behooved that God should give the soul free will. But to this soul, obeying his laws, he subjected all things without adversity, so that the other things which God founded should serve it, if it too had willed to serve God; but if it had been unwilling to serve God, then those things which served it should be turned into its punishment. Wherefore, if all things have been rightly ordered by God, they are also good, and God does not suffer evil. FORTUNATUS said: He does not suffer it, but God forestalls evil. AUGUSTINE said: From whom then was he going to suffer? FORTUNATUS said: This is my point: that he willed to forestall it—not rashly, but by power and foreknowledge.

But for the rest, deny that evil exists besides God, since through his precepts he has shown that there are other things which come to pass besides his will. A precept does not intervene except where there is also contrariety; free faculty of living is not given except where there is a fall—according to the reasoning of the apostle, who says: 'And you, when you were dead in your offenses and sins, in which you once walked according to the guidance of this world, according to the prince of the power of this air, the spirit who now works in the sons of unbelief, among whom we too, and all, once conducted ourselves in the desires of our flesh, doing the wills of the counsels of the flesh; and we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.'

'But God, who is rich in all mercy, had mercy on us; and when we were dead in sins, he made us alive together in Christ, by whose grace you have been saved; and he raised us up together and seated us together with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that he might show in the ages to come'—and so on, up to that which is written—'slaying the enmity in himself. And coming, he preached peace to you who were far off, peace to those who were near; because through him we both have access to the Father in one Spirit.' AUGUSTINE said: This lesson of the apostle, which you have wished to recite, if I am not mistaken, makes very much for me and against your faith.

First, because that very free will, by which I said it comes to pass that the soul sins, is here sufficiently expressed, when he named sins and when he said that our reconciliation with God is made through Jesus Christ. For by sinning we were turned away from God, but by keeping the precepts of Christ we are reconciled to God, so that we who were dead in sins, by keeping his precepts may be quickened and may have peace with him in one Spirit—from whom we were alienated by not keeping his commandments, even as is preached in our faith concerning the man who was first created. Now therefore I ask of you, according to that lesson which has been read, how we can have sins, if a contrary nature compels us to do what we do.

For he who is compelled by necessity to do something does not sin; but he who sins, sins by free will. Wherefore is repentance commanded to us, if we have done no evil, but the race of darkness has? I ask likewise: to whom is the pardon of sins given—to us, or to the race of darkness? If the pardon of sins is given to the race of darkness, then it too will reign with God, receiving the pardon of sins; but if the pardon of sins is given to us, it is manifest that we sinned by will. For it is foolish enough that pardon should be granted to him who has done no evil; and he has done no evil who has done nothing by his own will.

Today, therefore, since God promises to the soul the pardon of sins and reconciliation if it desists from sinning and does penance for its sins—if the soul should answer according to your faith and say: 'For what did I sin? What did I deserve? Why did you expel me from your kingdoms, that I should fight against some race I know not of? I was depressed, I was mingled, I was corrupted, I was made to fail; free will was not preserved to me. You know the necessity by which I was pressed; why do you charge to me the wounds which I received? Why do you compel me to penance, since you are the cause of my wounds;

since you know what things I suffered—that the race of darkness wrought them upon me by your authorship, you who could not be violated and yet, willing to guard your kingdoms (to which nothing could be harmed), hurled me into miseries? If indeed I am a part of you, who came forth from your very bowels, if from your kingdom and from your mouth, I ought not to have suffered anything in this race of darkness, so that that incorrupt part of you should be subjected to it, if I was a part of the Lord. But now, since it could not be tempered except by my corruption, how am I either called a part of you, or do you remain inviolable, or are you not cruel, who willed that I should suffer for these kingdoms, to which nothing could be harmed by that race of darkness?'

To this reply, if you please, and deign also to expound to me how it was said by the apostle Paul: 'We were by nature children of wrath,' whom he says were reconciled to God. If, therefore, they were by nature children of wrath, how do you say that the soul is by nature a daughter of God and a portion of God? FORTUNATUS said: If the apostle had said, according to the soul, that we are by nature children of wrath, the soul would have been alienated from God by the mouth of the apostle; and in this way you show by your reasoning that the soul is not God's, because, as the apostle says, we are by nature children of wrath. But if it was according to that whereby the same apostle was held under the law, descending from the seed of Abraham, as he himself testifies, it is established that he spoke of us as having been children of wrath corporeally, just as also the rest.

But he shows the substance of the soul, that it is from God, and that the soul cannot otherwise be reconciled to God except through the Master, who is Christ Jesus. Yet with the enmity slain, the soul seemed to have become unworthy of God; but because it was sent forth, this we confess—that it both draws its origin from Almighty God and was sent to seal his will, just as we believe that Christ the Savior also came from heaven to fulfill the will of the Father. And this will of the Father was this: to free our souls from that same enmity, the enmity being slain. And if it had not been adverse to God, it would not be called enmity, where there was unity; nor would slaying be spoken of or take place, where there was life. AUGUSTINE said:

Remember that the apostle said we were alienated from God by our conduct. FORTUNATUS said: I hand down that there were two substances: that in the substance of light God is held, as we said above, incorruptible; but that there was a contrary nature of darkness. That this is conquered by the power of God I confess even today, and that for my return Christ the Savior was sent forth, as the same apostle before said. AUGUSTINE said: It was interposed by those who hear us, that we should discuss the faith of the two natures by reasonings. But since you have again taken refuge in the Scriptures, I descend to them, and I demand that nothing be passed over, lest, using certain chapters, we bring clouds upon those to whom the Scriptures are not known.

Let us therefore consider from the beginning what the apostle Paul has in his epistle to the Romans. For in the very first page is something that is vehemently against you. For he says: 'Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, predestined unto the Gospel of God—which he had before promised through his prophets in the holy Scriptures—concerning his Son, who was made to him of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestined the Son of God in power according to the spirit of sanctification, by the resurrection of the dead, of Jesus Christ our Lord.' We see the apostle teaching us concerning our Lord, that he was both predestined in the power of God before the flesh, and according to the flesh was made to him of the seed of David.

Since you have always denied this and still deny it, how do you clamor for the Scriptures, that we should discourse rather according to them? FORTUNATUS said: You assert that according to the flesh he is of the seed of David, whereas he is preached to have been born of a virgin, and the Son of God is magnified. For it cannot be otherwise than that what is of the spirit be held as spirit, and what is of the flesh be understood as flesh. Against which is the very authority of the Gospel, whereby it is said that flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God, nor shall corruption possess incorruption. Here an uproar was made by those sitting by, who wished rather to proceed by reasonings, because they saw that he was unwilling to accept all the things that are written in the codex of the apostle.

Then a general discussion began to be held by all, until he said that the word of God was bound in the race of darkness. And when those who were present had shuddered at this, they departed. On the following day, a notary being again employed, the matter was conducted thus. FORTUNATUS said: I say that Almighty God brings forth nothing evil from himself, and that the things which are his remain incorrupt, sprung and begotten from the one inviolable source; but that the other things, which in this world are engaged as contraries, do not flow from God, nor obeyed God as their prince in this age—that is, that they do not draw their origin from him. These things, therefore, we have received in faith: that evils are alien to God. AUGUSTINE said: And this is our faith too: that God is not the begetter of evils, nor made any nature evil.

But since each of us agrees that God is incorruptible and undefilable, it belongs to the prudent and the faithful to judge which faith is the purer and the more worthy of God's majesty: that one, where it is asserted that either the power of God, or some part of God, or the word of God can be changed, violated, corrupted, bound; or that one, where it is said that both Almighty God and all his nature and substance can never in any part be corrupted, but that evils exist by the voluntary sin of the soul, to which God gave free will.

For if God had not granted free will, there could be no just judgment of punishment, nor merit for acting rightly, nor any divine precept that penitence be done for sins, nor even that very pardon of sins which God has granted to us through our Lord Jesus Christ; because he who does not sin by will does not sin. This, I think, is plain and evident to all. Therefore it ought not to trouble us if we suffer certain hardships in the things which God has made, in accordance with our deserts. For just as he is good, so that he established all things, so he is just, so that he does not spare sins. And these sins, as I said, would not be sins unless there were a free will in us.

For if, for the sake of argument, someone were bound in his other limbs by another person, and something false were written by his hand without his own will—I ask: if this were made plain to a judge, could he condemn this man on a charge of forgery? Wherefore, if it is manifest that there is no sin where there is no free choice of the will, I wish to hear what evil that soul—which you call either a part, or a power, or a word, or whatever else of God—has done, that it should be punished by God, or should do penance for sin so as to merit pardon, when it has itself sinned in nothing. FORTUNATUS said: Concerning substances I have set forth that God is held to be the creator only of good things, but the avenger of evil things, inasmuch as evils are not from him.

Rightly, therefore, do I hold this view, that God also avenges evils, because they are not from him. But if they were from him, or if he gave license to sin—which you say by God's having given free will—he would then be found an accomplice of my transgression, inasmuch as he would be the author of my transgression; or else he would be ignorant that I was going to transgress, whom he himself would not have established as worthy of himself. This, then, is what I have set forth; and what I now ask is whether God established evils or not, and whether he himself established an end for the evils. For those things which we have said were made by God as their maker—as being created and begotten by him incorruptible—both reason approves and the gospel faith teaches concerning these matters.

These things I have set forth, which belong to our belief and which by you can be confirmed in this our profession, yet in such a way that the authority of the Christian faith is not lacking. And because in no way can I show that I believe rightly, unless I have confirmed that same faith by the authority of the Scriptures, this then is what I have intimated, what I have said. Either, if evils came into the world with God as their author, deign to say this yourself; or, if it is rightly believed that evils are not from God, the contemplation of things present ought also to pursue this and take it up. I spoke of substances, not of the sin which is at work within us. For if what we think of doing—the transgressions—had no origin, we would not be compelled to come to sin or to transgression.

For because we sin unwillingly and are compelled by a substance contrary and hostile to us, therefore we follow the knowledge of things. When the soul has been admonished by this knowledge and restored to its former memory, it will recognize whence it draws its origin, in what evil it is engaged, and by what goods, amending again what it sinned unwillingly, it may—through the amendment of its transgressions, by the grace of good works—establish for itself the merit of reconciliation with God, God our Saviour being the author, who teaches us both to practice good and to flee evil. For it is set before us that it is not by any contrary nature, but of his own accord, that a man either serves righteousness or makes himself liable to sins—there being no contrary race present, if the soul dwells alone, set within the body.

To which God, as you say, gave free will—it would be without sin, nor would it make itself liable to sins. AUGUSTINE said: I say that there is no sin if one does not sin by one's own will; and hence too there is reward, because by our own will we do right things. Or if he who sins unwillingly deserves punishment, then he too who does good unwillingly ought to deserve reward. But who is there who would doubt that no reward is conferred except upon him who has done something with a good will? From which we understand that punishment too is inflicted upon him who has done something with an evil will. But since you recall me to the prior natures and substances, my faith is that Almighty God—and this is above all to be observed and fixed in the mind—that Almighty God, just and good, made good things; but those things,

things which were made by him cannot be such as he is who made them. For it is unjust and foolish to believe that the works are equal to the craftsman, and the things founded equal to their founder. Wherefore, if it is a pious faith that God made all good things, than which nevertheless he himself is far more excellent and by far more surpassing, the origin and head of evil is in sin, just as the Apostle said: the root of all evils is covetousness, which some following have made shipwreck of the faith and have entangled themselves in many sorrows. For if you seek the root of all evils, you have the Apostle saying that the root of all evils is covetousness. The root of a root I cannot seek;

or if there is some other evil whose root is not covetousness, then covetousness will not be the root of all evils. But if it is true that the root of all evils is covetousness, in vain do we seek some other kind of evil. Now that contrary nature of yours which you bring in—since I have already answered your objections, I beg that you too deign to tell me—if that contrary nature is the whole of evil, and there can be no sin except from it, then it alone ought to deserve punishment, not the soul, from which the sin does not come. But if you say that it alone deserves punishment and the soul does not, I ask: to whom has penitence been given, which has been commanded to repent? If the soul has been commanded to repent, then from it the sin came, and it sinned by its own will.

For if the soul is compelled to do evil, and it is not the one that did the evil, is it not foolish and full of madness that the race of darkness should have sinned and I should repent of the sins? Is it not full of madness that the race of darkness should have sinned and to me should be given the pardon of sins? For how, according to your faith, can I say: What have I done? What have I committed? With you I was, whole I was, defiled by no stain I was; you sent me hither, you suffered necessity, you took precaution for your kingdoms, when a great stain and devastation threatened them. Since, therefore, you knew the necessity by which I have been oppressed here, by which I could not breathe, which I could not resist—why do you accuse me as though I were sinning? Or why do you promise the pardon of sins?

To this answer without evasions, if it please you, just as I answered you without evasions. FORTUNATUS said: This is what we say, that the soul is compelled by a contrary nature to transgress; of which you refuse to allow that there is a root, except only in this, that the evil which is at work within us—whereas it is agreed that, apart from our bodies, evils are at work in the whole world. Not those things which we have in our bodies alone, but those which are at work in the whole world and pass under the names of goods, have an evil root. For your worthiness said that this is the root of evils, covetousness, which is at work in our bodies; whereas, since covetousness for evil is not from our bodies, it is at work in the whole world from that primal contrary nature.

For the Apostle named covetousness to be the root of evils, not one single evil—the covetousness which you called the root of all evils. But covetousness is not understood in one manner only—the covetousness which you called the root of all evils—as though it were at work only in our hearts; whereas it is agreed that this evil which is at work in us descends from an evil author, and that this root which you say it is, is a little portion of evil, so that it is not the root itself, but is a little portion of evil—of that evil which is everywhere at work. This root and evil tree our Lord called one that never brings forth good fruits, which his Father did not plant, and which deservedly is to be uprooted and cast into the fire. For as to your saying that sin ought to be imputed to the contrary nature—that nature is the nature of evil;

and this is the sin of the soul, if, after the admonition of our Saviour and his sound doctrine, the soul separates itself from the contrary and hostile stock, and adorning itself with purer things; otherwise it cannot be restored to its own substance. For it has been said: If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin. But now, because I have come and spoken, and they refused to believe me, they shall not have pardon of sin. Whence it is plain that penitence is rightly given after the coming of the Saviour and after this knowledge of things, by which the soul, washed as it were in a divine fountain from the filth and vices both of the whole world and of the bodies in which that same soul dwells, may be presented again in the kingdom of God, whence it came forth.

For it has been said by the Apostle that the prudence of the flesh is hostile to God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. It is plain, therefore, from these things, that the soul seems to sin by the operation of that which is not subject to the law of God, not of its own accord. For likewise it follows that the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, so that you do not do whatever things you will. He says again: I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and leading me captive into the law of sin and death. Wretched man that I am, therefore, who shall deliver me from the body of this death, except the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world? AUGUSTINE said:

I acknowledge and embrace the testimonies of the divine Scriptures. And in what manner they agree with my faith, as God will deign to grant, I will expound in few words. I say that there was free choice of the will in that man who was first formed. He was so made that nothing at all would resist his will, if he willed to keep God's precepts. But after he himself sinned by free will, we who descend from his stock have been cast headlong into necessity. Now each one of us can, by moderate consideration, find that what I say is true. For today, in our actions, before we are entangled by any habit, we have free choice to do something or not to do it.

But when by this liberty we have done something, and the pernicious sweetness and pleasure of the deed itself has held the soul fast, by that same habit of its own it is so entangled that afterward it cannot conquer what by sinning it has fashioned for itself. We see many who are unwilling to swear, but because habit has already taken hold of the tongue, they cannot restrain it, since those things go forth from their mouth which we cannot say do not belong to the stock of evil. For—to deal with you in these words, which would that they might be understood in the heart as truly as they never depart from your mouth—you swear by the Paraclete. If, then, you wish to prove that what I say is true, resolve not to swear, and you will see that habit carried whither it is wont. And this is what fights against the soul.

A habit formed together with the flesh—this indeed is the prudence of the flesh, which, so long as it is such, cannot be made subject to the law of God, so long as it is the prudence of the flesh; but when the soul is enlightened, it ceases to be that prudence of the flesh. For it was said that the prudence of the flesh cannot be subject to the law of God, in the same way as if it were said that icy snow cannot be hot. For in no way, so long as it is snow, can it be hot.

But just as that snow is dissolved by heat and ceases to be snow, so that it can grow warm, even so that prudence of the flesh, that is, the habit formed together with the flesh—when our mind has been enlightened and God has subjected the whole man to himself according to the arbitration of the divine law—in place of that evil habit of the soul makes a good habit. Whence those two trees, the good tree and the bad tree, which you have mentioned, it was most truly said by the Lord that they have their own fruits, that is, that neither can the good give evil fruits nor the bad give good ones, but rather evil fruits so long as it is bad. Let us take two men: a good man and a bad man. So long as he is good, he cannot give bad fruits; so long as he is bad, he cannot give good fruits.

But that you may understand that these two trees were so set forth by the Lord that free will might there be signified—that these two trees are not natures, but our wills—he himself says in the Gospel: Either make the tree good, or make the tree bad. Who is there that can make a nature? If, therefore, it is commanded us that we make a tree either good or bad, it is ours to choose which we wish. Concerning this sin of man, then, and concerning this habit of the soul formed together with the flesh, the Apostle says: Let no one seduce you: every creature which has been made by God is good. The same Apostle says, whom you yourself have mentioned:

As by the disobedience of one many were made sinners, so also by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous, since through a man came death, and through a man the resurrection of the dead. So long, therefore, as we bear the image of the earthly man, that is, so long as we live according to the flesh—which is also called the old man—we have the necessity of our habit, so that we do not do what we will. But when the grace of God has inspired in us divine love and has made us subject to his will, to whom it was said: You have been called into liberty, and: The grace of God has freed me from the law of sin and death—now the law of sin is that whosoever sins shall die—from this law we are freed when we have begun to be righteous.

The law of death is that by which it was said to man: You are earth, and into earth you shall go. For from him we are all born thus, because we are earth, and into earth we shall go, on account of the deserving of the sin of the first man. But on account of the grace of God, which frees us from the law of sin and death, being converted to righteousness we are set free; so that afterward this same flesh, which tortured us with punishments while we remained in sins, may be made subject to us in the resurrection and may shake us with no adversity, so as to hinder us from keeping the law and the divine precepts. Whence, since I have answered your objections, deign you to answer that which I desire: in what manner it can come to pass that, if there is a nature contrary to God, sin should be imputed to us,

we who were sent into that nature not by our own will, but by God himself, who could be harmed in nothing. FORTUNATUS said: In this manner, just as the Lord also said to his disciples: Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Hence it is to be known that not with hostile mind did our Saviour will to send his lambs, that is, his disciples, into the midst of wolves—unless there were some contrariety, which he might lay to rest in the likeness of wolves, where he had also sent his disciples, so that the souls which perchance might be deceived in the midst of wolves might be recalled to their proper substance. Hence, then, is plain the antiquity of our times, which we recall, and of our years before the constitution of the world, that in this way souls were sent against the contrary nature,

so that, subjecting that same nature by their suffering, the victory might be rendered to God. For the same Apostle said that our wrestling was not only against flesh and blood, but also against principalities and powers and the spiritual forces of wickedness and the dominion of darkness. If, then, in both places evils are at work and wickednesses are held, now there is not only evil in our bodies, but in the whole world, where souls are seen to be at work—which dwell under this heaven and are entangled. AUGUSTINE said: Our Lord sent his lambs into the midst of wolves, that is, righteous men into the midst of sinful men, for the preaching of the gospel at the time when man was assumed by the inestimable divine Wisdom, that he might call us from sin to righteousness.

But as to the Apostle's saying that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the rest that have been mentioned, this signifies: that the devil and his angels, just as we too, fell and lapsed by sin, we say, and gained possession of earthly things, that is, of sinful men, who, so long as we are sinners, are under their yoke; just as, when we shall be righteous, we shall be under the yoke of righteousness; and against them we have a struggle, so that, migrating to righteousness, we may be freed from their dominion. Therefore, do you also deign to answer me briefly the one thing that I ask. Could God be harmed, or could he not? But I beg you to answer me, 'He could not.' FORTUNATUS said: He could not be harmed. AUGUSTINE said:

Why, then, did he send us hither according to your faith? FORTUNATUS said: This is my profession, that God could not be harmed and that God directed us hither. But since this is contrary to you, do you say by what reason the soul appeared here, which now our God desires to free both by commandments and by his own Son sent forth. AUGUSTINE said: Since I see that you have been unable to answer my questions, and that I wished to ask something, behold, I satisfy you—provided that you remember that you did not answer that which I asked. Why the soul is here in the world, wrapped in miseries, has been said by me not just now, but a little before, I know not how many times. The soul sinned, and therefore it is wretched. It received free will, it used free will as it willed:

it lapsed, was cast out from blessedness, entangled in miseries. To this I recited to you the testimony of the Apostle saying: As through one man death, so also through one the resurrection of the dead. What more do you seek? Whence do you answer: him who could not be harmed—why did he send us hither? FORTUNATUS said: This cause is to be sought, why the soul came hither, or why God desires to free it from here, which lives in the midst of evils. AUGUSTINE said: This cause I ask of you—that is: if God could not be harmed, why did he send us hither? FORTUNATUS said: It is asked by us, if evil cannot harm God, why the soul has been sent hither, or by what reason it has been mingled with the world—which is manifest in that which the Apostle says: Does the thing formed say to him

who formed it say: Why have you made me thus? If, then, this matter is to be reasoned about, he is to be interrogated who directed the soul with no necessity compelling him; but if there was a necessity of sending the soul, then rightly there is also a will to free it. AUGUSTINE said: God, then, is pressed by necessity? FORTUNATUS said: Now this is it: do not stir up to odium what has been said, for we do not make God subject to necessity, but say that he sent the soul voluntarily. AUGUSTINE said: Recite what was said above. (And it was recited: But if there was a necessity of sending the soul, then rightly there is also a will to free it.) AUGUSTINE said: We have heard: But if there was a necessity of sending the soul, then rightly there is also a will to free it.

You, then, said that there was a necessity of sending the soul. But if now you wish to say 'will,' this too I add: to him who could be harmed in nothing, it was a cruel will to send the soul to such great miseries. And because I speak for the sake of refutation, I ask pardon of the mercy of that one, in whom we have the hope of liberation from all the errors of the heretics. FORTUNATUS said: You assert that we say God is cruel by sending the soul; whereas God made man and breathed the soul into him; which soul, according to his own foreknowledge, was assuredly to be entangled and, by the benefit of evils, could not be presented to his inheritance. This is either the mark of one ignorant, or of one giving the soul over to these evils which have been mentioned above.

I mentioned this because you said—not very long ago—that God adopted the soul for himself, not that it is from him; for it is one thing to adopt. AUGUSTINE said: Concerning our adoption I remember that I spoke some days ago according to the testimony of the Apostle, who says that we have been called into the adoption of sons. That, then, was not my own, but an apostolic answer. About which matter, that is, about this adoption, let us inquire in its own time, if it please; and concerning that inbreathing I will answer, when you have answered my objections. FORTUNATUS said: I say that there was a going-forth of the soul against the contrary nature, which nature could harm God in nothing. AUGUSTINE said: What need was there of that going-forth, where God had nothing that he should beware of, who could be harmed in nothing? FORTUNATUS

said: Is it established in our conscience that Christ came from God? AUGUSTINE said: Again you question me. Answer what is asked. FORTUNATUS said: Thus I have received in faith, that by the will of God he himself came hither. AUGUSTINE said: And I say: God, almighty, inviolable, unchangeable, who can be harmed in nothing—why did he send the soul hither, to miseries, to error, to these things which we suffer? FORTUNATUS said: For it has been said: I have power to lay down my soul and power to take it up again; he did not say that the soul went forth by the will of God. AUGUSTINE said: But I seek the cause, since God can be harmed in nothing. FORTUNATUS said:

We have already said that God is harmed in nothing, and we have said that the soul is in the contrary nature, in order that it might impose a limit upon the contrary nature; and, the limit having been imposed upon the contrary nature, God takes up that same soul. For he himself said: I have power to lay down my soul and power to take it up. This power my Father gave me, to lay down my soul and to take it up. Of what soul, then, was God, who was speaking in the Son, speaking? It is agreed that it is our soul, which is held in these bodies, that came by the will of God and is again taken up by his will. AUGUSTINE said: Whence our Lord said, 'I have power to lay down my soul and I have power to take it up,' is known to all, because he was about to suffer and to rise again.

But I ask you again and again: if God could be harmed in nothing, why did he send souls hither? FORTUNATUS said: To impose a limit upon the contrary nature. AUGUSTINE said: And did the almighty God, most merciful of all, in order to impose a limit upon the contrary nature, will it therefore to be made moderate, so as to make us immoderate? FORTUNATUS said: But he recalls it to himself for this reason. AUGUSTINE said: If he recalls it to himself from immoderation, from sin, from error, from misery—what need was there for the soul to suffer such great evils for so long a time, until the world is ended, when God, by whom you say it was sent, can be harmed in nothing? FORTUNATUS said: What then shall I say? AUGUSTINE said:

I too know that you have nothing to say, and that I too, when I used to hear you people in this question, never found what I might say, and that from thence I was divinely admonished to leave that error and to convert—or rather to recall—myself to the Catholic faith, by the indulgence of him who did not permit me always to cling to this deception. But if you confess that you have nothing to answer, then, with all present hearing and acknowledging it, since they are faithful, I will, if they permit and are willing, expound the Catholic faith. FORTUNATUS said: Without prejudice to my profession let me say: those things which are objected by you, when I have reconsidered them with my elders

if they should answer this question of mine less than fully—which is likewise now offered to me by you—it will be within my contemplation (since I too desire that my soul be freed with a sure faith) to come to the investigation of this matter which is offered to me by you, and which you promise you will demonstrate. AUGUSTINE said: Thanks be to God.