Likewise from the same book, chapter sixty-six, the words of Julian. 'Therefore, according to the Apostle, sin entered in through one man, and death through sin, since the world beheld him both guilty and liable to the perpetual damnation of death.' Certainly you were soon saying otherwise, and were denying that sin entered into this world through that one man, whereas now you confess that it did enter. 'But death passed upon all men, because one form of judgement comprehended all the transgressors of the remaining age. Yet this death is not permitted to rage either against the saints or against any innocent persons; but pervades only those whom it has seen to have emulated the transgression:'
which transgression, although it was not made natural, was nevertheless the form of sin; and on this account, although it does not burden those who are born, it nevertheless accuses those who imitate. But judicial death passes upon him in whom all have sinned—yet by free will.' 1. To these things, this: If this death by which Adam was punished is judicial, and it is the one that passed and passes into his posterity—not, as you say, into absolutely all, but only into the imitators—what or of what kind will that other death be which separates the soul from the body? Here, being pressed, you will say: 'Natural; because Adam, whether he sinned or did not sin, would have died.' Behold the Christian pedigree! behold the ancient ecclesiastical tradition!
But you surely see how you tear yourself to pieces—being contrary to yourself in your own statements—like a viper, while you spend empty effort with the rattlings of words rather than with any real declamations. 2. But I would wish to question you more closely about death—of whatever kind it be, what you think—you who permit at least some one or other of them to pass over. I would therefore have you tell me what death is, which in your judgement passes over. Is it a substance or a nature, or some accidental thing? For we remember, at the time when you were present in the city of Rome, with the leaders of this most senseless error of yours, how you used to ventilate the Church among certain simpler folk, in what manner you used to ask: 'What is sin,' you said, 'is it something evil, or good?'
'Evil, surely,' was answered to you. To these things you added: 'Is God then the author and maker of this evil?' 'Far be it, far be it!' was cried out to you; 'how far, how very far be that madness!' Not even the most impious Manichaeus dared to profess this, who neither holds nor professes God to be the author of evil; but most wickedly demands that it have its own principle from eternity, its own essence, and its own nature. Where then you would presently say it must be inquired, 'whether sin were a substance, or a nature, or some accidental thing.' And when Christian simplicity hesitated a little, you would thus infer: 'that sin can in no way be a substance or a nature, because thus it would have' [Baluz. has]
you said, 'God as its maker and author; for there is no nature which God did not establish. But since it was established above that God is not the author of evil, sin is therefore not a substance or a nature, which has most clearly shown itself to be evil; and that which is not a substance,' you say, 'cannot by any right, by any reason, be believed to pass into a substance or a nature, which man is;' and you would conclude: 'wrongly therefore and foolishly is sin believed to be traduced from Adam.' 3. As then I was saying above, allow me too to question you along this same path and by these same lines of argument, that by answering you may teach us.
That death—at least this one which is according to the soul, and is eternal, and which Adam the transgressor received and transmitted to his posterity, which alone you define to pass into however many—not, as the Apostle says, absolutely all men generally, but into very few imitators (for of that other death which separates the soul from the body no mention is made by you)—is it some substance, or a nature, or some accidental thing of a substance? You, if you still have any light in you, will answer, and say, that it has befallen the substance of nature as an accident, and cannot be called a substance, since it was given as a penalty to the first transgressor, and thereafter to the human race; and no prudent man, you will say, would call a penalty a substance or a nature:
whereupon you are presently to be enmeshed in your own snares. By no means has it been declared that that judicial death—which, because it is penal, is no substance—which you transmit at least into the imitators of Adam, can ever pass from substance into substance, or from nature into nature, which man is. 4. Do you see, O distinguished master of the lost and dialectical disputant, do you see whither you have fallen? Do you now at last perceive how far you have strayed from the path of truth? But if for the time being you have any old shame, let these things now suffice; but if God shall have granted you a passage of life, and allowed you time to revise these excellent books of yours, and to
re-read that most wise letter of yours, when God shall will, we will again answer you. Meanwhile I will bring forward also other sayings of yours, which we shun with great execration.