Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 40

[Heading:] You want learned judges, but not catholic ones. 1. JULIAN: It would be dealt with us conveniently, if either the opportunity were granted to defend the cause of truth before learned judges, or — since this is for the present denied — we were at least not battered by any tumult of the unlearned. AUGUSTINE: Such learned judges you certainly seek, who, unless they had been cultivated and adorned with the liberal disciplines, and were not ignorant of what even the philosophers of this world thought, could not judge concerning your sayings.

[Heading continued] Such a one here was Ambrose, whom, if you do not shun as judge, you ought not to doubt that you have been most justly condemned. For he said: 'All men are born under sin, whose very origin is in fault'; that by these words of his he might show Christ the Savior, that is Jesus, to be necessary for little children; and since you contradict him, you must confess that you wish to have learned judges in such a way that you refuse to have catholic Christian judges. [Heading:] We suffer losses. 2. JULIAN: And because we suffer the loss of a trophy that ought to be raised up for the salvation of the Churches — a trophy which the prudence of the examiners would have conferred upon a good cause by wondrous votes; or [failing that] the assent of the crowd would have availed nothing else than to our insults.

Of these two parts of men, then, which I have mentioned, the one would profit us, the other would do no harm, if either the former obtained power, or the latter modesty. But because there is great confusion of affairs, and a very great multitude of the stupid, the rudders of reason are snatched away from the Church, so that popular dogma sails with its horn raised aloft. AUGUSTINE: If what we assert is popular dogma, then this is not the dogma of the Manichees — this which, with a mind gone astray, you attack among Christian peoples. For you rightly despise the madness of the Manichees, found in a few; but you have your own madness too, by which, under the name of the Manichees, you try to render hostile to us those peoples whom you shun as judges;

as though the peoples, deceived by your loquacity, could call Ambrose a Manichee, could call Cyprian a Manichee — who, for the sake of the salvation even of little children, taught that there is original sin. But such peoples Ambrose did not make, but found; Cyprian himself likewise did not make, but found; such peoples your own father too found in the Church, when you were baptized, as is said, as a little child; such catholic peoples, finally, you also found. Restrain yourselves; we confess that our dogma is popular, because we are the people of Him who was called Jesus for this reason, that He saves His people from their sins; and when you wish to separate little children from this people, you rather separate yourselves. [Heading:] Do not glory in fewness. 3. JULIAN:

Thus, since to the prudent little is permitted, but to the base whatever they please is even permitted, by the decree of seditions the censorship of virtues has been excluded from the Churches; and this stands against us among the common people, that we refuse to be an addition to error; among the common people, I say, who, weighing the merit of an opinion by its prosperity, esteem that opinion the truer which they observe to please the greater number. AUGUSTINE: Does the Manichee please the greater number? Are they not, like parricides, both few and most wicked? Do not, then, glory in fewness, and — what is more vain — say that our dogma pleases the greater number, while casting in our teeth the dogma of a detestable few. [Heading:] Our teachings are not stated subtly. 4. JULIAN:

And what Tully says against Epicurus — that it is a manifest argument that those things are not stated subtly, since men of every sort everywhere profess that they find them pleasing — this these men, as with everything, in their perverse manner, think to pertain to the testimony of wisdom. AUGUSTINE: But in this sentence Tully was conquered and convicted by Him who says: 'Praise the Lord, all you nations; praise Him, all you peoples.' Whom you seek not truly to teach, but subtly to deceive some of them, and to add them to your fewness, by extolling the subtlety of a few secular philosophers, and by reproaching us that our teachings are not stated subtly, and that therefore men of every sort everywhere profess that they find them pleasing.

Yet you have several times said of me that I do nothing more than contrive that I not be understood; how, then, does what I defend please the multitude, unless because that multitude is catholic, to which your heresy deservedly gives displeasure? [Heading:] Chaste souls. 5. JULIAN: For it thoroughly delights souls in heat to defame whatever of the saints there ever was, anywhere, lest they be corrected by the examples of illustrious works. AUGUSTINE: Souls in heat, then, rather run after you, who praise lust; for chaste souls, by censuring, refute the very thing for which, by being assailed, they are said to be praised. [Heading:] What delights lustful souls. 6. JULIAN:

It thoroughly delights and deeply affects them to plead the weakness of nature, to say that the flesh is subject to inborn sins, and not to place the effect of amendment in the will of man, but to call the crimes of one's pursuits the functions of the members; [and to say] that this is the catholic faith — to confess free choice, but such that by it a man is compelled to do evil and cannot will the good. AUGUSTINE: Why are you angry with us, who seek the effect of amendment all the more surely, the more faithfully we ask it of the Lord? In vain do you spread out your puffed-up tongue with proud voice; we do not at all, we do not wish to be counted among those who trust in their own strength. Our soul thirsts for God, to whom it says: 'I will love you, O Lord, my strength.' For a man can will the good;

but the will is prepared by the Lord; while, being corrupted, it willingly inclines to evil, on account of which nature must be healed. [Heading:] Without the grace of God man cannot be freed from evil. 7. JULIAN: [You call] vain and heretical the words of men who assert that the just God created man free for good work, and that it is in each one's power to withdraw from evil and to shine with the pursuits of virtue — so that upon those who cast their disgraceful deeds back onto the necessity of the flesh, the goad of anxieties and fears may be fixed. AUGUSTINE: We do not call vain and heretical the words of men who assert that the just God created man free for good work. For such indeed He created Adam, in whom we all were; but by sinning he ruined himself, and all of us in himself.

Hence it is now not in the power of the sons of men to be freed from evil, unless the grace of God gives them the power to become sons of God. For this reason, not upon those who, as you say, cast their disgraceful deeds back onto the necessity of the flesh, but upon those who pour out prayers to God that they be not led into the temptations of disgraceful deeds, is the goad of anxiety and fear fixed — lest they consent to your most proud and most ungrateful-to-God disputations. [Heading:] Original passion. 8. JULIAN:

Finally, [you complain] that in Churches which possess great honor and a great people it is preached that the force of sin is so great that — before the form of the members, before the beginning and coming of the soul, hovering over the seeds once cast — it invades the secret place of the mother and makes those about to be born guilty, and that guilt, older than birth itself, awaits the substance; and that this law of sin, dwelling thereafter in the members, compels captive man to be a slave to crimes — a man worthier of mercy amid his shameful deeds than of chastisement; seeing that what we call the vices of a depraved will is, in the Church, by men and women and by great bishops, named 'original passion.' AUGUSTINE:

Ambrose, the great bishop, answers you — he whom your own heresiarch praised in glowing terms — and he says: 'It was to Eve's woe that she gave birth, so that childbearing bequeathed to women an inheritance, and that each one, formed by the pleasure of concupiscence, poured into the generative organs and curdled in blood, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, should first undergo the contagion of sins before drawing in the gift of the vital spirit.' And so human nature, Julian, is a thing to be healed by God's mercy, not — as you vainly declaim — to be praised as though it were whole. And that not only patiently, but even with thanksgiving. 9. JUL. These, then, are the harlots of the Manichaean doctrines, most impure, that pander to itching ears. AUG. Charge Ambrose with being a Manichaean, if you dare.

Consider against whom you are speaking, when you want it to seem that you are speaking against me; and if you have any fear of God or any human shame, be silent. It is fitting that I should hear your abuse against such men not only patiently but even with thanksgiving; but you, in tearing such men to pieces, ought both to blush before men and to dread the judgments of God. 'A stinging nettle itches.' 10. JUL. This nettle has stirred up our enemies of both sexes — a nettle once indeed made biting by the vice of bad habit, yet was being treated, as it were, with certain healing ointments of salutary exhortations. AUG. 'A stinging nettle itches' — yes, but for one who praises lust. But if, because of bad habit, as you rightly perceive, a man cries out, 'I do not the good that I would; but the evil which I would not, that I do';

then surely at least in this case you confess that the human will has lost the power of good works — a will to which, unless the help of divine grace comes to its aid, what does the copious and ornate eloquence of any exhorter profit it? 'God has often relieved the ruins of the times when they seemed past hope.' 11. JUL. But now, after lust has begun to be offered in place of medicine, and authority has been added to delight, so that by the consent of almost the whole world this baseness — a queen mighty in her members, ruler of minds, stormer of chastity, and unconquered captor of all souls — runs riot; the cause of defending the truth has become for us as much harder as it is more honourable. For against headlong peoples, hostile to their own remedies, the rarity of those who heal by discourse avails little. What then?

Should we, in view of these things, sound the retreat, and pass over our own insults with silence, and from the harbour of a clear conscience laugh at the shipwrecks of others? But against such indifference there speaks, first, the kindness which we owe to the human race; then the hope and faith which we have in God, who — beyond the fact that he has often relieved the ruins of the times when they seemed past hope — has nevertheless rewarded with eternal recompense that constancy which he willed to be exercised even up to the hour of death, even if for the present no effect should follow. AUG. In what way does God relieve the ruins of evil wills (through which the times are indeed reproached, when they are rightly reproached), except by working good wills in the hearts of men?

Or if they can, let the evil wills raise themselves up — as you, by holding a most senseless opinion, have become a great ruin. Wherefore we pray for you yourselves, and would that God might deign to hear us concerning you as he did concerning your brother Turbantius. 'Rejoicing in the consolation of faith.' 12. JUL. Rejoicing therefore in this consolation of faith, let us press on with the work we have begun, and make good the promised disputations; not doubting that this very thing is the greatest part of the reward, that we have taken our stand upon the citadel of that doctrine which, though the malice of so many and the error of yet more assail it, has nevertheless so escaped the doubtful hazards that it is renowned by its possession of an invincible victory. AUG.

You award yourself the palm against so many bishops of God, who before us learned and taught in the Church of Christ the very things you attack, drinking and ministering from the fountains of Israel. This, then, that you do, is not to be renowned by the possession of victory, but to flow shamefully into the sewer of hateful arrogance. For to be renowned is to be strong; but how can you be strong by the possession of victory, you who try to pollute Catholic doctrines, ancient and unconquered? 'You speak falsehoods.' 13. JUL. For if, as both the earlier discourse has disclosed and the one to follow will show, whatever is reason, whatever is learning, whatever is justice, whatever is piety, whatever belongs to the sacred testimonies, supports this doctrine which we defend;

our enemies gain nothing by all their effort except that they be proved most shameless toward the learned, most defiant toward the saints, and most profane toward God. AUG. But you speak falsehoods: for neither reason, nor sound learning, nor justice, nor piety, nor the sacred Testimonies support your doctrine; on the contrary, all these, as those who rightly understand judge, overturn your doctrine. For reason discerns that it can scarcely arrive at any truth, hindered as it is by the slowness of nature; learning has the penalty of toil in that same slowness of nature; justice cries out that it does not pertain to her that the sons of Adam should be pressed by a heavy yoke from the day of their coming forth from their mother's womb, without any merit of sins;

piety, against this evil, implores divine help; the sacred Testimonies admonish the human mind that this may be done. 'We praise the office of Christian power.' 14. JUL. And indeed how little the Traducianists possess to oppose, by reason, to the force by which they are crushed, is attested by these very books against which we contend — as their other writings also attest — books which, directed to a military man (as he himself can profess) occupied more with other affairs than with letters, beg for the aid of powerlessness against us, and on their own behalf commend up and down the decrees of little mobs, whether rustic or theatrical, decrees which by what counsel they were promulgated no history records. AUG. We do not beg for the aid of powerlessness against you;

but rather on your behalf, that you may be restrained from your sacrilegious daring, we praise the office of Christian power. See, then, how you call rustics and theatricals such men as Cyprian and Ambrose and so many learned scribes in the kingdom of God, their associates. 'He hopes that another sins in himself.' 15. JUL. This, however, we can by no means deny, that it greatly pleases the crowds (as I have said) — namely, these muddy men — to impute the faults of the will to nature, and to vindicate the wantonness of morals by the defaming of seeds; so that no one may ever try to amend what he hopes another perpetrates in himself. AUG. Who told you that another perpetrates anyone's sin? Seeing that even he who says, 'Now it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me' —

immediately adding, 'For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing' — shows that whatever it is, it is his own; because even the flesh itself pertains to him who consists of flesh and spirit. And yet you are unwilling to hold with Ambrose the view that this evil, by which the flesh lusts against the spirit, has, through the transgression of the first man, been turned into our nature. But you too, since you are wont to say that in these apostolic words the violence of bad habit is expressed, what is it that you just now wished to say: 'that no one may ever try to amend what he knows another perpetrates in himself'? Since surely you would have him amend himself who says, 'It is not I that do it,' and would have this done by the strength of his own will;

whereas you see how weak is the will of him who says, 'The good that I would, I do not.' At least this man, I beg, permit to implore divine help — the man in whom you see the choice of his own will to have failed. 'The sin of another cannot be imputed by God to little ones.' 16. JUL. But the feeble patronage of a blind opinion multiplies sins, it does not diminish them. This itching, therefore, of the wretched and of those who fall sick of their own accord, will be able to bring no weight against reason itself; but because they assert that natural sin is confirmed by certain passages of the Scriptures, and especially by the words of the apostle Paul — the exposition of which I have deferred to the second volume, and the time for rendering it is at hand —

I shall first briefly distinguish (that the reader may be better instructed) both what has been done and what is to be done. It has been shown, then, that nothing can be proved by the holy Scriptures which justice cannot defend; because if in the law of God there is a perfect form of justice, then through it nothing is allowed to its adversary — that is, to injustice — to acquire of virtue; and by this, what reason refutes, authority cannot vindicate. Next it has been proved that God is known to us by his virtues; and therefore his justice, like his omnipotence, is to be confessed; and if the destruction of it be admitted, his whole majesty will begin to totter; because God is just in such a way that, if he were proved not to be just, he would be convicted of not being God; and it has been concluded that we venerate God as most just in the Trinity;

and it has appeared irrefutably that the sin of another cannot be imputed by him to little ones. AUG. Why do you not confess that a heavy yoke could not have been laid by the omnipotent Just One upon the sons of Adam, from the day of their coming forth from their mother's womb, without any merit of sin? 'The definition of sin.' 17. JUL. But just as concerning the definition of justice, so also concerning the condition of sin it has been discoursed, that sin has appeared to be nothing else than an evil will, which was free to abstain from that which it had wickedly desired. AUG. This is altogether the sin of the first man, whence the origin of evil descended into men. For to him it was fully free to abstain from that which he had wickedly desired; because there was not yet the vice by which the flesh lusts against the spirit;

he did not yet say, 'The good that I would, I do not'; not yet placed in the flesh of sin, he had no need of any help from the likeness of sinful flesh. 'Without will there is no sin.' 18. JUL. And by this it has been most clearly taught by testimony that in those being born there is no sin, since in them the use of the will could not be found. AUG. And whence the heavy yoke, except because they so lack the use of the will that they nevertheless are bound by the chain of their guilty origin? 'We have restored to the evangelical dignity.' 19. JUL. Moreover, that free choice is denied by those who say that sins are natural, has been shown by a lucid disputation.

This indeed the African denied, not in his own words (lest it should have less weight), but by the testimony of the Gospel, as though more authoritative; which testimony we, by expounding it, have restored to its evangelical dignity. We have also rescued the testimony of the apostle Paul from the snares of the calumniator, and have shown, with the Prophet as witness, that our God, the potter of good vessels, is the Creator of all. AUG. There you have been answered, and it has been shown how far you have strayed from the truth. What remains? 20. JUL. These things, then, having been chiefly established in the first book — any one of which abundantly suffices for the victory of truth — it remains, out of abundance, that we discuss the opinion of the Teacher of the Gentiles, whereby he said that through one man sin entered into the world;

and, when necessary, to support it with the definitions which we set forth beforehand; and to prove that reason has in no way lied; but that it is the crime of injustice to impute the pursuits of some to the births of others; and that this very thing which is unjust — although no one ought to doubt it on this account — nevertheless displeases God and is forbidden by him, we shall teach by the testimonies of the law, whether in this book or in the following. From which it is necessarily concluded both that we most rightly defend that no one is born with sin, and that God cannot judge the newborn as guilty; and by this, that free choice is as entire, as nature is harmless in each one before the use of his own will. AUG.

Speak, let us see what you are going to say about the Apostle's testimony — as vainly as you have said the foregoing things. 'Rebels against both piety and reason.' 21. JUL. But the Manichaeans, rebels against both piety and reason — who think both that there is sin before the time of the will, which the nature of things does not allow; and that God, whom they argue to be unjust, exists as such; and that they defame the holy Pages, by whose monuments they allege the crime of the divinity to be proved — since of the three not one can be shown by reason, that is, neither sin without will, nor iniquity in God, nor perversity in the law: these alone are demonstrated to be foolish, shameless, and impious. AUG. Blush:

Ambrose was not a Manichaean when he said that a man first undergoes the contagion of sins before he draws in the gift of the vital spirit; but neither did those sins exist except from the will whence they draw their origin; and therefore neither is there iniquity in God, who on this account laid a heavy yoke upon the newborn; nor perversity in the law, in which this is learned to be most true — which you yourselves would see, unless you rather had perverse eyes. 'The Sacred Scriptures always guard the honour of God.' 22. JUL. Let it therefore cling above all to the mind of the prudent reader, that in all the sacred Scriptures only that is contained which is wise unto the honour of the Catholic God, as is illustrated by the light of frequent statements;

and if anywhere a harsher expression should raise a question, it is indeed certain that the author of that passage did not there hold what is unjust; but it must be understood according to that which both clear reason and the splendour of other passages, in which there is no ambiguity, have made plain. Now therefore let us set down the words of him with whom we are dealing. Indeed, in that chapter of his sayings which he had brought right up to God the potter of sinners — against which we contended in the preceding book — he said briefly that through one man sin entered into the world; but he did not linger over the exposition of the passage itself.

But after he had discoursed with many words against those excerpts which he confirms were sent to him, he came to some passage of my sayings, which he set before himself as though about to assail it; but, alleging nothing according to that on which he had been struck, he flew off to this saying of the Apostle, in which he says that through one man sin entered into the world; and according to his own doctrine he laboured to expound the context of the passage itself;

on account of which I, passing over other matters, hastened to that portion — since I had promised that this question would be resolved in the second volume — both to fulfil the pledge of my promise, and to show what his argumentation was, lest I should be thought to have committed a fraud if, suppressing his exposition, I brought in the one which we confess to be Catholic. AUG. It is a Pelagian one you are going to bring in, not a Catholic one. Catholic is that exposition which shows God to be just amid so many and so great punishments and torments of little ones; which none of them would suffer in paradise with any equity, if human nature had not been corrupted by sin and deservedly condemned. 'It is false that I stole.' 23. JUL. Reviewing, therefore, in my first work, his opinion in which he had said:

'For just as sin, whether it be drawn from this side or from that in little ones, is the work of the devil; so man, whether he be born from this side or from that, is the work of God' — it is thus now reported here by me, as it is contained in my work, whence this man had stolen the greatest part. AUG. You dispute truly in just such a way as it is true that I stole those things; whereas rather he to whom the little document was sent transferred, from your work, by his own arbitration and judgment, what he wished and as he wished. 'Understand that the truth has taken from you the licence of roaming.' 24. JUL. I answered therefore there: You indeed (I would say it with all deference to your mastership) shuffle, but understand that the truth has taken from you the licence of roaming.

For behold, even we acquiesce that sin is the work of an evil will, or is the work of the devil; but through what is this sin found in a little one? Through the will? But there was none in him. Through the form of the body? But this God bestowed. Through the entrance of the soul? But it owes nothing to the bodily seed, being newly created by God. Through marriage? But this pertains to the work of the parents, whom you had premised not to have sinned in this act; and if you had not truly conceded that, as the progress of your discourse indicates, then those very acts are to be execrated, which caused the evil. But those acts do not have a substance of their own; rather, by their own name they indicate the work of persons; therefore the parents, who by their union caused the sin, are by right damnable.

It therefore can no longer be doubted that spouses are consigned to eternal punishment, by whose labour it was brought about that the devil should attain to exercising dominion over men. And if you concede this, you will lose all that whole which you seemed before to have held — that is, what you had said, that man is the work of God. For it necessarily follows: since through the commingling of bodies there is origin for those begotten, if evil is in men through origin, and the devil's right over men through evil, then the devil is the author of men, from whom is the origin of those being born. After which I again repeated his very words: 'For just as sin, whether it be drawn from this side or from that, is the work of the devil; so man, whether he be born from this side or from that, is the work of God.' And forthwith I rose up in this manner:

When I ponder that timid utterance of yours, by which you say that marriage is not an evil, I cannot consider those other discourses of yours without laughter. For if you believe that men are made by God, and that spouses are innocent, see how it cannot stand that original sin is drawn from them. Surely he who is born does not sin, he who begot does not sin, he who created does not sin; through what cracks, amid so many safeguards of innocence, do you feign that sin has entered? AUG. Already, by these words of yours, even when I had read your very books, it suffices that I have answered. But here too I admonish that the Apostle rather is to be heard than you, who pointed out not a hidden crack but a most open door, by which sin entered into the world, and by sin death;

and so it passed upon all men, in whom all sinned; which words of his, when you begin to expound them according to yourselves and not according to their own meaning, then it will appear against what rectitude of truth you struggle with your most tortuous loquacity. 'Albeit with interpolation.' 25. JUL. This context, then, from my former work he has proposed to himself in this his second book, albeit with interpolation. For both the formation of the body I mentioned, and the entrance of the soul — which reason as well as the authority of the sacred law and of the Catholic Church confirms to be newly created by God in each one — he has, I suppose, artfully passed over. AUG.

Whoever reads my six books, in which I refuted your four — from the first of which he culled what he wished and as he wished, the one to whom I replied in this book which you now vainly try to refute with most talkative emptiness — will find that I so answered you in my third book, that he may see that it was not I who artfully passed over what you say; but rather he, to whose little document I was replying, who was unwilling to transfer this from your work, whether from a zeal for brevity, or because he thought it did not pertain to the case. 'That the Apostle answers me to all these things.' 26. JUL. Now the rest, albeit varied with some discourses, he has strung together. Against these objections of mine, then, he devised nothing with which to strike me back;

but confessing, by his poverty of arguing, that I had gathered the truth, he says that to all these things the Apostle should answer me — the Apostle who pronounces that through one man sin entered into this world. In which passage, what learned man would reckon him to have had a sound head, who did not understand that he must either pass over the things against which he could find nothing, or devise whatever things he might allege against my objections, to whose confirmation he might join the Apostle's words? AUG. But you are better refuted by the apostolic words than by mine, and yet you do not yield even to the apostolic ones; but you prefer to pervert even them, rather than to correct yourself. 'The ship of your fallacies.' 27. JUL.

I therefore asked, most consistently, that all learning might acknowledge along with me, through what the sin — which is called the work of an evil will and the work of the devil — should be found in a little one: whether through the will? But that there was none in him, even this man with whom we deal confesses; whether through marriage? But that this pertains to the work of the parents, no one doubts, whom he had premised not to have sinned in this commingling; or if the disputer should repent of this concession, as the progress of the work indicated, he would profess the parents to be guilty, by whose union a kingdom over the image of God was being prepared for the devil; and I added, by the necessary steps of the disputations, that through original sin the devil is defined as the author of bodies;

for if evil is in men through origin, and the devil's right over men through evil, then the devil is the author of men, from whom is the origin of those being born. And since I had caught the Traducianists to be shut up in the Manichaean cave, I turned the key, that I might afford an escape to the captives, and I admonished that, if he truly believed men to be made by God, and purely confessed spouses to be innocent, he should understand that original sin cannot be drawn from them. Surely, I said, he who is born does not sin, he who begot does not sin, he who created does not sin; through what cracks, amid so many safeguards of innocence, do you feign that sin has entered?

What, I ask, could be composed more holy, more true, more lucid, more brief and more solid, than that, after the three premises which I had taken up with my adversary's concession, I should infer a fourth, in which was the sum of the conclusion? For since sometimes from one, or from two premises, a third is necessarily gathered, by what law, after three things conceded to me, should I not be permitted to infer a fourth which adheres to them? And this indeed in the second disputation; but in the former, five or more are conceded to me, after which a legitimate and invincible conclusion is reached. AUG. See through how many things you wander, fearing lest the Apostle's words, heard without your prejudices, should condemn you, as they have already condemned you by the judgment of the Catholic Church.

But run wherever you will, delay as long as you will, multiply your circlings in whatever direction you will; whenever the ship of your fallacies comes to those same words of truth, without doubt you will be shipwrecked. 'No crack remains.' 28. JUL. Let us therefore now turn to him. You had granted me that sin is the work of the will; I could have said forthwith, consistently: But the will that sins is none in little ones; therefore sin is not in little ones. But that you might be pressed by more witnesses, I gradually inquired through what this sin was found in a little one; whether perhaps through the will? After which, with you conniving, I took it up that there was in him no consciousness of will; I added, lest through the first fault he had drawn the lineaments of the members.

But you had conceded that these things are formed by God, and are on this account good. I sought a third point: whether through the entrance of the soul you thought guilt was conveyed. But it was established that this soul is new, that it might owe nothing to the seeds. I next brought in: whether (since nothing remained for you to be charged with concerning these) you would call marriage — that is, the commingling of bodies — the work of the devil? But that this pertains to the work of the parents, with you too assenting, I showed. All those things, then, which we said above having been settled, your theory of transmission consigned to the devil the spouses who had been the cause of the sin. After all which, I drove home what was near to you, so as to say that you believe the devil to be the author of bodies, to whom you had reckoned the work of commingling, without which the origin of bodies could not be.

And this disputation indeed showed by what disease you were oppressed; but that second one proved both you to be pitiable with such notions, and the Catholics to be unconquered even by the support of your fear. For, with you granting that men are made by God, and that spouses are innocent, and that little ones of themselves do nothing; these three being taken up, it was irrefutably inferred that, since he who is born does not sin, he who begot does not sin, he who created does not sin, no crack remained through which sin might be taught to have entered. If, then, what has been concluded displeases you, deny what you granted, and say either that he who begot sinned, or he who created, or he who is born;

of which one is insane, another Manichaean, the third worse than the Manichaeans: insane, if you should say that little ones transgress; Manichaean, if you should accuse the spouses; worse than the Manichaeans, if you should reckon God the author of sin. But if all these things are so alien from the truth that you still dread to confess them freely, with what shamelessness, O most senseless man of all, do you persist in denying this which has been inferred by us? AUG. When you come to the words of the Apostle, there you will find not a crack, but a most open door, by which sin entered into the world;

which door you will indeed try to close, but out of the mouth of infants and sucklings — who seek Christ rather as their Saviour than you as their praiser, and who by no winding disputations, but by mute weepings, testify their misery far more surely (a misery which, assuredly, if the rectitude and beatitude of the first man had remained, they could in no way have had in paradise) — with all your loquacity you will be vanquished. 'Here the case of four persons is at issue.' 29. JUL. Here the case of four persons is at issue: of God the maker, of the two parents from whom the material is supplied to the one who works, and of the little one who is born. You say that sin dwells in this chorus; I ask, by whom it is made — whether by God? You deny it. By the father? Just as much you deny it. By the mother? The same you deny. By the little one?

You deny it; and do you still not think it has been concluded, since that cannot be among these four which none of these four admits? AUG. Say whatever you will: at some time you are going to come to the words of the Apostle; and whoever recalls them through the several places of these your argumentations — which, for the reader's weariness, we are unwilling constantly to repeat — by that very recollection they answer you. 'What you hold you cannot define.' 30. JUL. To persuade of what, then, do you either re-read the Scriptures or name accomplices, you who still cannot define what you hold? What does it profit you to teach that Adam transgressed, which I in no way refute?

We ask, Adam having died so many ages ago, through what the sin — by which the image of God is transferred into the right of the devil — is found in a little one. AUG. Why do you too not admit into the kingdom of God the image of God, that has according to you no merit of sin? Why is there ministered the blood which, from the likeness of sinful flesh, was poured out for the remission of sins, that the little one may drink it, so that he may be able to have life, if he comes into death from the origin of no sin? If this displeases you, openly deny Christ to the little one, openly deny that he died for the little ones, he who died one for all; whence it is gathered what the Apostle says: 'Then all were dead, and he died for all.' Say openly: The little ones who have no sin are not dead;

they have no need of the death of Christ on their behalf, in which they may be baptized. Now say evidently what you secretly hold, since you sufficiently betray by your disputation what you hold; say, I say, that little ones are made Christians in vain; but see whether you ought to call yourself a Christian. 'We are free to behold the innocence of the newborn.' 31. JUL. If through the commingling of the parents, condemn marriages by profession, which you condemn by argumentation; and take from us the labour by which we have convicted you of being a Manichaean.

But if you do not dare to say this, and, obstinate against reason, incline toward those who lie together, so that through portents of arguments hitherto unheard of you say that lust is diabolical, and that this lust, seated in the sense of those who copulate, pertains to the pleasure of the parents but to the guilt of the newborn — you do indeed betray your own madness and baseness; but I beg that you not so presume upon yourself as to think that we are not free, with honour to God, to behold the innocence of the newborn; when it is lawful and pleasing to you, with accusation of God, to purge the members of the lustful from the guilt which you ascribe to lust. AUG. By whatever itch you may praise lust — that is, the concupiscence of the flesh — the apostle John says that it is not of the Father, but is of the world;

It is on this account that the devil is rightly called the prince of the world. For we know that God made the world. Therefore conjugal chastity makes good use of this evil of the concupiscence of the flesh; and spiritual regeneration looses the guilt of this evil which is contracted by those who are born. So long as you have no understanding of this, you will be no Catholic, but a future Pelagian; and however much you may fancy that you are defending the Holy Scriptures, you will in fact be contradicting them. But as for me, as often as you call me a Manichaean on account of that which you contradict, you assuredly call him one also who says that a man, poured into the genital members and compacted together with the pleasure of concupiscence, takes up the contagion of transgressions before he draws in the gift of the vital spirit.

This is Ambrose, Julian; you are calling Ambrose a Manichaean, you madman! The concupiscence of the flesh, the devil's shoot. Julian: For when you declare that the concupiscence of the flesh was planted in man by the prince of darkness, and that it is the devil's shoot, bringing forth the human race out of itself like its own fruit, you plainly reveal that you name not God but the devil as the maker of men; by which most impious doctrine both the business of marriage — that is, the intercourse of the genitals — and all flesh is condemned. Augustine: It is not condemned; but neither is it praised by you as though it were sound, so that even by your own confession it may be healed by its Creator and Saviour. For in those in whom this is not done, it will without any doubt be condemned. You put down nothing of the Manichaeans' impiety. Julian:

But when after this sacrilege you add and say that you profess the pleasure of the begetting spouses to be indeed devilish, and the stirring of the genitals devilish, yet that neither the very members which are moved, nor the spouses who are affected with the pleasure, are guilty — but that in place of all these you accuse the new men, that is, the raw work of the deity in those being born — you put down indeed nothing of the Manichaeans' impiety, but you display so monstrous a frenzy of a deranged head that it would be judged more fittingly to be nursed than lopped off, were it not that your will and zeal in this matter, and the ruin of many, and your own obstinacy, and the multiplication of your Scriptural quotations, all spoke against you. Augustine:

I ought not to hear these insults with indignation, since I hold them in common with those doctors of the Church who understand that sin entered into the world through one man in the way the upright Apostle speaks, not in the way the utterly perverse Julian opines. Among these — to be silent about others — are the African Cyprian, the Gaul Hilary, the Italian Ambrose, the Greek Gregory; by whom, most learned and most prudent judges, such as you complain in your vain presumption that you cannot find, your heresy was condemned before it was born. You flatter the devil and lust. Julian: Read also the fourth book of my work concerning this; and you will understand how much, under the guise of accusing, you flatter the devil, whom you call your father, and lust, your mother. Augustine:

I have also read your fourth book, and in my sixth I have answered you point by point in reply to it; but which of us has prevailed, let the devout reader of us both judge. That sin passes over by the imitation of that one man. Julian: But now let us look at the words of the Apostle, whom you said replies to me on all the points I set forth above. To all these things the Apostle replied against this man, who neither censures the will of the little child — which is not yet its own in it for sinning — nor marriage insofar as it is marriage, which has from God not only its institution but also its blessing; nor parents insofar as they are parents, joined mutually in a lawful and legitimate way for the procreation of children; but he says: 'Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death;'

'and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.' If these men were to perceive this with Catholic ears and minds, they would not hold rebellious spirits against the faith and grace of Christ, nor would they strive in vain to twist these apostolic words — so lucid and so manifest — to their own peculiar and heretical sense, asserting that it was said for this reason: that Adam sinned first, in whom thereafter whoever willed to sin found an example of sinning;

so that sin, namely, passes over from that one man into all men not by generation but by the imitation of that one man — whereas assuredly, if the Apostle had here wished imitation to be understood, he would have said that sin entered into this world and passed through all men not through one man, but rather through the devil. For concerning the devil it is written: 'They imitate him who are of his part.' But he said 'through one man' — from whom the generation of men certainly began — precisely in order to teach that original sin has gone through all by generation. Augustine: You have quoted the words of my book; now say at last in what way the words of the Apostle which I set down there are to be taken;

so that you may be more and more clearly shown to be a heretic, by setting yourself up as one who praises, in order to take away the Saviour from little children. You abuse the ignorance of those who favour you. Julian: Whoever the learned reader of our works may be, he understands that you abuse the ignorance of those who favour you, and that you lurk under the ambiguity of words. But the remaining crowd, of whom the Prophet speaks to God: 'Thou hast reckoned men like the fishes of the sea,' is deceived by a reciprocal leading-on, and, ignorant of the saving distinction, thinks that everything can be joined in reality which it has seen to be associated in words. But what is consequent, what is contradictory, and, when certain things are granted, what the impregnable and venerable law of reasoning compels to be inferred — none but the most learned and most attentive man discerns.

Augustine: You still go about seeking dialecticians and avoiding ecclesiastical judges. Say now at last how it is to be taken: 'Through one man sin entered into the world' — understanding this better, forsooth, than he who said: 'All die in Adam, because through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death; and so it passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned. Therefore by the fault of that one is the death of all.' And the same man says elsewhere: 'Adam was, and in him we all were; Adam perished, and in him all perished.' It is Ambrose who says this, not just anyone from the crowd, whose unlearned multitude — unable to judge of your disputations — you despise with too haughty a neck and too shameless a brow;

it is Ambrose, I say, to whom in no respect are you equal even in those secular letters over which you puff yourself up so greatly; but as for what he is in ecclesiastical matters, hear it, or read it, from Pelagius your own teacher, and do not love a sense alien from the sense of so great a doctor. In your book you heap together what Catholics and what Manichaeans say. Julian: And this is why, above all, pitying the ruins of the Churches, we appeal to the examination of men illustrious for their prudence, so that it may appear not what is said, but what is consistently said. For if the dispute were held under such a council, it certainly would not be permitted to you either to bring in what you had denied, or to deny what you had affirmed;

but in your book, which no censorship of shame chastens, you confidently heap together both what Catholics say and what Manichaeans say, content with this one opinion — if only you may be said to have made a reply; but what weight your discourse has, what consistency, you think it foolish even to consider. Augustine: I beg you, say now how this is to be understood: 'Through one man sin entered into the world.' Why do you still slander, revile, prevaricate? If in the council whose judgment you seem to desire there were seated Cyprian, Hilary, Ambrose, Gregory, Basil, John of Constantinople — to be silent about others — would you dare to seek more learned, more prudent, more truthful judges?

They themselves cry out against your dogmas, they themselves condemn your writings by their own writings; what more do you seek? This I have already taught sufficiently in the first and second of my books, of which I have issued six against your four; but see, I am still prepared to hear you: say now how it is to be taken, that through one man sin entered into the world. You profess that you are too weak. Julian: Finally, granting without hesitation the things I demanded, and looking at what would be concluded from them, you profess that you are too weak for what we have built up — that the Apostle Paul stands in the way of all those things which we have said — yet you bring him in as conceding the very things which you yourself had granted. For you say:

The Apostle does not censure the will of the little child, which is not yet its own in it for sinning; and once this is granted, it is already proven that there cannot be in that child any sin at all, whose only condition — even according to your own definition — is the will to admit what justice forbids, and from which it is free to abstain. Augustine: This is the definition of that sin which is not also the penalty of sin. For where you contend that there are voices of evil habit, and thus stifle the voices of your own dogma, say — if you dare — how it is free to the will of man to abstain from evil, when you hear: 'It is not what I will that I do,' or else deny that it is evil, when you hear: 'I do not do the good that I will; but the evil that I will not, this I do.'

But we certainly acknowledge that this sin is the penalty of sin; and therefore it must be distinguished from that definition of sin in which the will commits that from which it is free to abstain. Understand what I say; and say now, I pray, how it is to be taken: 'Through one man sin entered into the world.' Not even a sign of crime in the boy. Julian: Therefore, if the Apostle does not censure in that child its own will — which he understands could not even have existed — he certainly declares that not even a sign of crime appears in it, that justice above all so judging which does not impute sin except to him from whom it is free to abstain. But not content to have granted this alone, you add:

Nor does the Apostle censure marriage insofar as it is marriage, which has from God not only its institution but also its blessing. This by itself alone could equally suffice to overthrow natural sin; because, if the Apostle knows — as he does know — that marriage is not to be censured, to whose bringing-about and ministry and instrument belongs the union of the sexes with pleasure, instituted and blessed by God, then no devilish possession can sprout from these, nor is their fruit guilty, especially before that justice which does not impute sin except from where it is free to abstain. Augustine:

Do not, I beseech you, suppose that the intercourse of spouses in paradise would have been with such pleasure as lust now produces — lust which does not rise up at the beck of the will, and which, though it must be restrained, nevertheless troublesomely importunes even the minds of the saints. Far be it that such a pleasure of paradise, such peace and happiness, should be imagined by the faithful and the prudent. Children are born from the force of the seeds, not from the obscenity of vices. Julian: Let us consider also the third point, in which your kindness may be seen in the ease of your acquiescence. Nor does the Apostle censure parents insofar as they are parents, joined mutually in a lawful and legitimate way for the procreation of children. Weigh what you have said — that parents are not censured by the Apostle insofar as they are parents.

Therefore he declares that they, insofar as they are parents, cannot bear fruit for the devil, nor does anything of theirs, insofar as they are parents, pertain to the devil; but children pertain to parents only insofar as they are parents; therefore they are proven neither guilty, nor under the reign of the devil, nor liable to be censured by the devil. For that what we have said may become clear by repetition: the union of the sexes shares in offspring only insofar as those who are spouses become parents; but if they should wish to do anything more wantonly between themselves, or to stray through illicit acts of adultery, this cannot pertain to the children, who are born from the force of the seeds, not from the obscenity of vices. Augustine:

Do you now confess that even among spouses there can be a wantonness of intercourse? Behold what that fair undertaking of yours accomplishes; for this does not happen except when it is yielded to, since it drives even spouses joined for the sake of procreating children — under no necessity of sowing offspring — toward that wantonness which you too reprehend. You wished to be so great a praiser of it that no one would believe you would dare to be even its assailant; for indeed you did not blush to praise it so as neither to be freed from it nor to be ashamed even to place it in the blessedness of paradise. To those being born are conveyed seeds, not disgraceful deeds. Julian: Therefore to those being born are conveyed the seeds of those who beget, not their disgraceful deeds;

but the force of the seeds God instituted, and — as you are compelled to confess — blessed. Augustine: The seeds God instituted; but those who are able so to distinguish in a vitiated nature its good from its evil that they neither think nature to be an evil nor think the vice to be nature — they are able to distinguish which of these two pertains to God's creating, and which to his healing. But this you cannot do, so long as you are Pelagians, not Catholics. Say now, I pray, say now how it is to be taken, that through one man sin entered into the world. The sins of parents cannot pertain to children. Julian: Therefore children are not guilty even when their parents sin in their generation; because they pertain to their children only insofar as they are parents;

therefore children too pertain to parents only insofar as they are children. For it is established that those who beget communicate the germs of nature, not of fault. But if, as reason demonstrates, you declare that the Apostle also confirms this, then rightly, with him teaching, we maintain that the sins of parents cannot pertain to children; since both the Apostle, resplendent with the Holy Spirit, and we, instructed by the light of reason, and you, oppressed by the weight of the truth you assail, may commonly and truly confess that parents, insofar as they are parents, are not guilty; but that they pertain to children only insofar as they are parents; therefore that children, insofar as they are children — that is, before they do anything by their own will — cannot be guilty. Augustine:

Parents indeed are parents by begetting, and children are children by being born; but neither to beget nor to be born is an evil, since it pertains to the institution of God, and both could take place in paradise without shameful lust, if no one had sinned. For shameful lust, unless it had either arisen from sin or been vitiated by sin, would not be shameful; and either it would not have existed at all, and without it the genital members would serve those begetting just as the hands serve those working; or it would so follow the will that it could never solicit one who is unwilling;

that it is not now such, chastity teaches, which fights against such motions of it, both in the married — lest they even wantonly disport between themselves, or slip into adulteries — and in all who are continent — lest, by consenting to it, they be cast down. Behold from what original sin is drawn; behold that on account of which he willed not to be born, who came not to bear his own sin, but to take away ours. This structure can never be shaken. Julian: Let the talents of Manichaean reasoning now go and contrive whatever they can; let them endure the long torments of their cogitations as long as they wish; not arrogantly but religiously do I promise that this structure can never be shaken. Augustine:

What you call a structure is to you a ruin, which has so pressed you down that it compelled you to praise what you assail — if indeed there is in you any chastity whatsoever, such as makes you assail what you praise. Repeating the same things by the same things. Julian: With what face, then, do you subjoin: But 'through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death; and so it passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned'? Which you interpret in this way, that the Apostle says sin was transmitted from that one man into posterity by generation. Above you had conceded that the Teacher of the Nations accuses nothing in marriage, which God had blessed; that there is no will to sin in the one being born;

and that parents, insofar as they are parents, are joined to one another lawfully and legitimately for the procreation of children; and forthwith you add — as though you had spoken the foregoing while asleep — that the crime is transmitted to posterity by generation. For if they beget only insofar as they are parents; and insofar as they are parents, they are joined lawfully and legitimately; and this union is not disapproved by the Apostle, because it is by God not only instituted but also blessed; with what mouth, by what law, with what face, do you affirm this generation to be the cause of guilt, a root of crimes, a slave of the devil? Augustine: I know not now how many times these things have been said, and answered. By your verbosity you stir up for yourself a fog which does not permit you to distinguish the malice of vices from the goodness of nature;

and, repeating the same things by the same things even to the point of hateful tedium, you still do not say how it is to be taken, that through one man sin entered into the world. Even you perceive it when you dissent. Julian: Therefore it does not deserve to be censured by the Apostle, yet is possessed by the devil; it is instituted by God, yet is the source of crimes; it is finally, as you confess, blessed by God, yet is accused by you as a devilish shoot. Augustine: God blessed marriage, not the concupiscence of the flesh resisting the spirit, which did not exist before sin; but sin, just as neither that concupiscence which resists the spirit, God did not bless.

Furthermore, the marriage which he blessed — if sin, by which nature was vitiated, had not been committed — would either use the genital members just as we use the others, obedient to the will without any lust; or shameful lust would not be there, since it would never resist the will, such as it now certainly is not; which indeed even you perceive, when you dissent from it as it solicits and entices. Yet marriage even now is praiseworthy; because it neither institutes this evil in men, but finds it; and it makes good use of that evil by the intention of begetting, although those who are begotten draw from it original sin, on account of which they must be regenerated. Now at least. Julian:

That you have accomplished nothing with me, the erudition of all letters testifies; but how you strive against the Apostle, and rave against God, the conflict of your own opinions demonstrates. But now that it has been shown that these things cannot be joined which the nature of things dissociates, let us also question the Apostle, lest there be thought to reside in his meaning that barbarity which is proven to be in your opinions. Augustine: Say now at least the thing you were putting off by such windings. An example of sin entered into the world through him who sinned by imitating no one. Julian: I hear, then, Paul declaring that: 'Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death; and so it passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.'

Which you affirm was said not on account of the example of sin, but on account of generation; and you call us heretics, who refer it to example; and you think yourself aided by this argument: 'Assuredly,' you say, 'if the Apostle had wished imitation to be understood, he would have said that sin entered not through one man, but through the devil, and passed through all men. For concerning the devil it is written: They imitate him who are of his part. But he said through one man for this reason — from whom the generation of men certainly began — in order to teach that original sin has gone through all by generation.'

But I see that the Apostle has brought forth nothing that would look toward the defamation of human generation, nothing toward the condemnation of natural innocence, nothing toward the crime of the divine work. Augustine: You keep saying, for a long time, 'Nothing'; and when you have ceased to repeat this word, you will be going to say nothing. For who would not laugh at you, trying to persuade that what the Apostle says — 'through one man sin entered into the world' — does not pertain to generation; whereas that man himself was not begotten by anyone from whom the rest might be begotten; but you say it pertains to example, whereas the example of sin, which those who came after might imitate, did not enter into the world except through him who sinned by imitating no one? For he sinned first.

But that this was not Adam, but the devil, what Christian is ignorant? What is it, then, that pleases you, except both not to be silent and to say nothing? Do you deny that men sin by imitation? Julian: Finally, that which the very words had not indicated, you, trying to gather by argumentation, add: that if he were speaking of imitation, he ought to have mentioned the devil; but that because he wished it to be understood of generation, he preferred to say 'man' rather than 'demon.' I ask, then, what was the occasion of this opinion for you. For what? Do you deny that men sin by imitation? And although the matter, being settled, does not need the attestation of the Scriptures, yet hear David: 'Do not emulate among the malicious, nor be envious of those who work iniquity;'

do not emulate him who prospers in his way. Then all the Scriptures of the Old Testament admonish Israel not to imitate the rite of the profane nation. What necessity, then, compelled this — that the Apostle, if he wished imitation to be understood, should name the devil rather than man, since he knew that men sin by the imitation both of men and of the devil? Either, therefore, prove that it is impossible to sin by the imitation of men, and that this is nowhere contained in the law, and thus assert that a place is prepared for your suspicion; or else, if it is manifest that by nothing more than by the imitation of vices have sins gained strength, you have gathered with vast ignorance that the Apostle would assuredly have spoken of the devil, if he had wished imitation to be understood. Augustine:

Did I not say before that you would say nothing, O man who most loquaciously speaks by speaking nothing? There are indeed sins of imitation in the world, when men follow the examples of sinning men; yet the sin which the sinners imitate did not enter into the world through those men whom anyone imitates, but through him who first, imitating no one, sinned; this is the devil, whom all imitate who are of his part. So too the sin which is committed not by imitating, but is drawn by being born, entered into the world through him who first begot a man. You have therefore said nothing, and only in order to deceive certain readers, to weary certain readers, you were unwilling to be silent. The sin of imitation entered into the world through the devil. Julian: