Anti-Pelagian Dossier 9

Likewise in book 2, chapter 16, the words of Julian: 'But the feeble patronage of your [Baluz. blind] opinion multiplies sins, it does not diminish them. This itching, therefore, of wretched men who decrease of their own accord, can bring no weight to bear against the very reasoning of truth. But since they assert that a natural sin is confirmed by some passages of the Scriptures, and especially of the apostle Paul,' etc. 1. To these things. No one says that sin is natural, or that it is nature, but that it is original; and that it is in nature, not outside nature; nor, however, can it absurdly or [Baluz. om. however, or] abusively be called natural—yet not nature: for, deceived yourself, you deceive whom you can [Baluz. add. And yet].

Between the original and the natural there is some distance; and although what is original can also be called natural, yet what is original (originarium) does not compel one to confess that it is anything natural [Baluz. and natural]. And take an example: nature is every man, of whatever age, sex, and condition; but origin is the senator, the curial, the slave, the colonus, the barbarian—which are not names of nature, but originary names of condition. So we do not say that sin is nature or natural, but a cause of an origin enslaved through sin in servile bondage. 2. Although, as we have already said, it cannot exist apart from the nature in which it is, unless you most madly suppose that it must be sought outside this nature:

or that it has [Baluz. om. or] of its own a substance or nature belonging to itself—and may you, thus thinking, be devoured by the Manichaeans, who in their impiety rave that the nature of evil holds and possesses, in its own right, the sovereignty of its own status and origin.