Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 40 part 2/4

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;