1. During the same period of my priesthood I held a debate against a certain Fortunatus, a Manichean priest who had lived for a very long time at Hippo and had led astray so many people that it pleased him to make his home there on their account. This debate of ours, as we disputed, was taken down by stenographers, just as official records are drawn up; for it bears both a date and the name of a consul. We have taken care to gather it into a book, to be committed to memory. The question dealt with there is where evil comes from, I asserting that man's evil arose from the free choice of the will, while he labored to make the case that the nature of evil is coeternal with God. But on the following day he finally confessed that he could find nothing to say against us. Nor, to be sure, did he become a Catholic, yet he did depart from Hippo.

2. In this book what I said—I say that the soul was made by God, like all the other things that were made by God, and that among those things that almighty God made the soul was given the foremost place (Acta c. Fortun. 1, 13)—I said in such a way that I meant it to be taken in a general sense, of the whole of rational creation, although in the holy Scriptures it cannot be found either at all or at least not easily that the souls of the angels are called souls, as we have already said above (Retract. 1, 11, 4).

Likewise in another place: I say, I declared, that there is no sin unless one sins by one's own will (Acta c. Fortun. 2, 21). There I meant that sin to be understood which is not also the punishment of sin; for of such a punishment I said elsewhere in the same debate what had to be said (Acta c. Fortun. 1, 15; Retract. 1, 15, 2).

And likewise I said: So that afterward this same flesh, which tormented us with punishments while we remained in our sins, may be made subject to us in the resurrection and may shake us with no adversity, so as to keep us from observing the law and the divine precepts (Acta c. Fortun. 2, 29). This is not to be taken as though even in that kingdom of God, where we will have an incorruptible and immortal body, the law and the precepts must be drawn from the divine Scriptures; rather, it means that there the eternal law will be most perfectly kept, and that we will hold those two precepts about loving God and neighbor (See Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27) not by reading them but in that perfect and everlasting love itself.

This work begins thus: On the fifth day before the Kalends of September, in the consulship of Arcadius Augustus for the second time and of Rufinus, men of the highest rank.

On the fifth day before the Kalends of September, in the consulship of Arcadius Augustus for the second time and of Rufinus, men of the highest rank, a debate was held against Fortunatus, a priest of the Manicheans, in the city of the region of Hippo, in the Baths of Sossius, in the presence of the people.

1. Augustine said: I now think to be error what before I thought to be truth; whether I judge rightly, I desire to hear from you, who are present.

First of all, I think it the greatest error to believe that almighty God, in whom is our one hope, is in any part violable, or defilable, or corruptible. I know that your heresy affirms this—not, indeed, in the words I have just used; for you too, when questioned, confess that God is incorruptible and altogether inviolable and undefilable. But when you begin to set forth the rest, you are forced to profess that he is corruptible, penetrable, and defilable. For you say that some race of darkness or other rebelled against the kingdom of God, and that almighty God, when he saw what great ruin and devastation threatened his realms unless he set something against the hostile race and resisted it, sent forth this power, from whose mingling with evil and the race of darkness the world was fashioned. Hence it comes that good souls here toil, serve, err, and are corrupted, so that they had need of a liberator to purify them from error, release them from the mingling, and free them from slavery. I think it wicked to believe this—that almighty God feared some hostile race, or suffered necessity, so as to cast us headlong into hardships.

Fortunatus said: Since I know that you were one of us—that is, that you served among the Manicheans—these are the principal tenets of our faith. What is at issue here is our way of life, the false charges with which we are assailed. Therefore let these good men who are present hear from you whether the things for which we are charged and attacked are true or false. For from your teaching, and from your account and demonstration, they will be able to know more truly our way of life, if it is disclosed by you.

2. Augustine said: I did take part. But the question of faith is one thing, the question of morals another; I proposed the question of faith. But if those who are present prefer to hear about morals, I do not shrink from that question either.

Fortunatus said: I wish first to clear myself before your conscience, before which we are defamed, by the testimony of a suitable man, who is suitable for me both now and at the future examination by Christ the just judge, as to whether he saw in us, or experienced, the things that are alleged.

3. Augustine said: You call me to something else, whereas I proposed the question of faith. As for your morals, those who are your Elect can know them fully. But you know that I was not one of your Elect, but a Hearer. And so, although I did take part in your prayer, as you asked, whether you hold some prayer separately among yourselves God alone can know, and you. Yet in the prayer in which I took part, I saw nothing shameful done; I only noticed something contrary to the faith, which I afterward learned and proved—namely, that you make your prayer toward the sun. Apart from this, I discovered nothing new in that prayer of yours. But whoever raises against you some question about morals, raises it against your Elect. What you do among yourselves, you who are the Elect, I cannot know. For I often heard from you that you receive the Eucharist; but since the time of receiving it was hidden from me, how could I know what it is you receive? And so keep the question about morals, if you please, to be discussed among your Elect, if it can be discussed. The faith was given me by you, which today I reject. About that faith I have put my question; let an answer be given me to what I have proposed.

Fortunatus said: This too is our profession: that God is incorruptible, that he is luminous, unapproachable, ungraspable, impassible, that he dwells in his own eternal light, that he brings forth from himself nothing corruptible, and that neither darkness, nor demons, nor Satan, nor anything hostile can be found in his kingdom. But he sent forth a Savior like himself: the Word, born from the foundation of the world, when he fashioned the world, who after the fashioning of the world came among men; and he chose souls worthy of himself, fit for his holy will, sanctified by his heavenly commandments and imbued with faith and the reason of heavenly things; and with him as their guide these same souls will return again from here to the kingdom of God, according to his holy promise, he who said: I am the way, the truth, and the door (See John 14:6; 10:7); and: No one can come to the Father except through me (John 14:6).

These things we believe, because otherwise souls—that is, with another as mediator—will not be able to return to the kingdom of God, unless they have found him to be the way, the truth, and the door. For he himself said: Whoever has seen me has seen also my Father (John 14:9); and: Whoever believes in me will not taste death forever, but passes over from death to life, and will not come into judgment (John 5:24). These things we believe, and this is the ground of our faith, and that we obey his commandments to the utmost of our soul's strength, following the one faith of this Trinity, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

4. Augustine said: These souls, which you grant come from death to life through Christ—what cause cast them headlong into death?

Fortunatus said: From this point on deign to proceed and to argue the opposite, if there is nothing besides God.

5. Augustine said: No, rather you deign to answer what you are asked: what cause gave these souls over to death?

Fortunatus said: No, rather you deign to say whether there is anything besides God, or whether all things are in God.

6. Augustine said: This I can answer, what the Lord willed me to know: that God can suffer no necessity, nor be in any part violated or corrupted. And since you too confess this, I ask by what necessity he sent here the souls which you say return through Christ.

Fortunatus said: As you have said, since God has thus far revealed to you that he is incorruptible, just as he has to me, the reason must be sought how and for what cause the souls came into this world, so that he might now rightly free them from this world through his only-begotten Son, who is like himself—if there is nothing besides him.

7. Augustine said: We must not disappoint the many who are present, nor go from the question proposed to something else. Thus we both confess, thus we grant each other, that God is incorruptible and inviolable and could suffer nothing; from which it follows that your heresy is false, which says that God, when he saw devastation and ruin threatening his realms, sent forth a power to wage war with the race of darkness, and that from that mingling our souls toil. My argument, then, is brief and, as I judge, perfectly plain to anyone. If God could suffer nothing from the race of darkness, because he is inviolable, then he sent us here without cause, so that we should suffer hardships here. But if he could suffer something, he is not inviolable, and you deceive those to whom you say that God is inviolable. For this is what your heresy denies, when you set forth the rest.

Fortunatus said: We think what the blessed apostle Paul teaches us, who said: Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus; who, though he was established in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and found in appearance as a man; he humbled himself, and became subject even to death (Phil 2:5–8). This, then, we think about ourselves, just as about Christ; who, though he was established in the form of God, became subject even to death, in order to show the likeness of our souls. And just as he showed in himself the likeness of death, and that he was raised by the Father from among the dead, in the same way we think it will be also with our souls: that through him we will be able to be freed from this death—which is either foreign to God, or, if it is God's own, then both his mercy ceases, and the name of liberator, and the works of the one who frees.

8. Augustine said: I ask how we came into death, and you tell me how we are freed from death.

Fortunatus said: The Apostle said in this way how we ought to think about our souls—what Christ showed us. If Christ was in suffering and death, so were we; if by the will of the Father he descended into suffering and death, so did we.

9. Augustine said: It is known to all that the Catholic faith holds this: that our Lord—that is, the Power and Wisdom of God (See 1 Cor 1:24), and the Word through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made (See John 1:3)—took up a man for our liberation. In that very man whom he took up, he showed those things you speak of. But we are now asking about the substance of God himself and of his ineffable majesty, whether anything can harm it, or cannot. For if anything can harm it, it is not inviolable. If nothing can harm it, what was the race of darkness going to do to it, against which you say war was waged by God before the foundation of the world—in which war you assert that we, that is, souls, which are now plainly in need of a liberator, were mingled with all evil and entangled in death? For I come back to that briefest point: if it could be harmed, it is not inviolable; if it could not, then he cruelly sent us here to suffer these things.

Fortunatus said: Is the soul God's, or not?

10. Augustine said: If it is just that my questions not be answered, and yet that I be questioned, I will answer.

Fortunatus said: Does the soul act on its own? This I ask of you.

11. Augustine said: I will indeed say what you asked; only remember this: that you were unwilling to answer my questions, while I answer yours. If you ask whether the soul descended from God, that is indeed a great question; but whether it descended from God or not, this I answer about the soul: that it is not God; that God is one thing, the soul another. God is inviolable, incorruptible, impenetrable, and undefilable, and cannot be corrupted in any part, and cannot be harmed in any part. But the soul we see to be both a sinner, and caught up in hardship, and seeking the truth, and in need of a liberator. This changeableness of the soul shows me that the soul is not God. For if the soul is the substance of God, then the substance of God errs, the substance of God is corrupted, the substance of God is violated, the substance of God is deceived—which it is wicked to say.

Fortunatus said: Then you have denied that the soul is from God, so long as it is enslaved to sins and vices and worldly things, and is led by error—which cannot happen, that either God or his substance should suffer this. For God is incorruptible, and his substance is unstained and holy. But here it is asked of you, whether the soul is from God or not. This we confess, and we show it from the coming of the Savior, from his holy preaching, from his choosing, when he has mercy on souls; and the soul is said to have come according to his decision, that he might free it from death, and lead it to eternal glory, and restore it to the Father. But what do you yourself say or hope about the soul, whether it is from God or not? The substance of God, from which you deny the soul to be, can be subject to no passions.

12. Augustine said: I denied that the soul is the substance of God in such a way as to deny that it is God; yet I grant that it is from God as its author, because it was made by God. The one who made is one thing, what he made is another. The one who made cannot at all be corruptible; but what he made cannot at all be equal to the one who made it.

Fortunatus said: Nor did I say that the soul is like God. But since you said that the soul is something made, and that there is nothing besides God, I ask from where God devised the substance of the soul.

13. Augustine said: Only remember that I answer the things you ask, while you do not answer the things I ask. I say that the soul was made by God, like all the other things that were made by God; and that among those things that almighty God made, the foremost place was given to the soul. But if you ask from what God made the soul, remember to confess with me that God is almighty. And he is not almighty who needs to be helped by some matter from which to make what he wills. From which it follows that, according to our faith, all the things that God made through his Word and Wisdom, he made out of nothing. For thus we read: he himself commanded, and they were made; he himself ordered, and they were established (Ps 148:5).

Fortunatus said: Do all things consist by his command?

14. Augustine said: So I believe, but all the things that were made.

Fortunatus said: The things that were made are in concord, but because they are unsuited to one another, it follows from this that there is not one substance, even though by the command of the one God these same things came together for the composition and the face of this world. For the rest, it is plain from the things themselves that darkness and light have nothing alike, truth and falsehood nothing alike, death and life nothing alike, soul and body nothing alike, and the rest like these, which are distant from one another both in names and in forms; and that our Lord rightly said: The tree that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up (Matt 15:13), and will be cast into the fire, because it does not bring forth good fruit (Matt 7:19; 3:10); and that there is a tree firmly rooted. Hence indeed it is plain, from the nature of things, that there are two substances in this world, which consist of forms and names; of which one is of the body, the other indeed eternal, the substance of the almighty Father, which we believe to be.

15. Augustine said: These contraries that move you, so that we sense things hostile to us, came about because of our sin—that is, because of the sin of man. For God made all things good and ordered them well; but he did not make sin; and this alone is what is called evil, our voluntary sin. There is also another kind of evil, which is the punishment of sin. Since, then, there are two kinds of evils, sin and the punishment of sin, sin does not pertain to God, but the punishment of sin pertains to the avenger. For just as God is good, who established all things, so he is just, in that he takes vengeance upon sin. Since, then, all things are arranged in the best way, what now seems to us to be hostile rightly befell man fallen, who was unwilling to keep the law of God. For to the rational soul that is in man, God gave free choice.

For he could have merit only if we were good by will, not by necessity. Since, then, one ought to be good not by necessity but by will, it was fitting that God should give the soul free choice. And to this soul, while it obeyed his laws, he made all things subject without adversity, so that the other things God founded would serve it, if it too had been willing to serve God. But if it had been unwilling to serve God, then the things that served it would be turned into its punishment. Therefore, if all things were rightly ordered by God, they are good, and God does not suffer evil.

Fortunatus said: He does not suffer evil, but he forestalls it.

16. Augustine said: From whom, then, was he going to suffer?

Fortunatus said: This is my point: that he willed to forestall it—not rashly, but by power and foreknowledge. For the rest, deny that there is evil besides God, when I have shown by the precepts that there are other things which happen apart from his will. A precept does not intervene except where there is also contrariety. The free capacity to live is not given except where there is a fall, according to the reasoning of the Apostle, who says:

And you, when you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of this air, the spirit who now works in the sons of distrust, among whom we too and all once conducted ourselves in the desires of our flesh, doing the wishes of the counsels of the flesh, and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest. But God, who is rich in all mercy, had mercy on us. And when we were dead in our sins, he brought us to life together in Christ, by whose grace you have been saved; and he raised us up together, and seated us together in the heavens with Christ Jesus, that he might show in the ages to come the abundant riches of his grace in his goodness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not from yourselves, for it is the gift of God; not from works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared that we should walk in them. Wherefore be mindful that you were once gentiles in the flesh, who were called the uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision made by hand in the flesh, because you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the way of life of Israel, and strangers to the covenants, having no hope of the promise, and without God in this world. But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been made near in the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who made both one, and breaking down the dividing wall of the partition, the enmities, in his flesh; abolishing the law of commandments in its decrees, that he might create the two in himself into one new man, making peace, that he might reconcile both in one body to God, through the cross slaying the enmities in himself. And coming, he preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father (Eph 2:1–18).

17. Augustine said: This reading from the Apostle, which you wished to recite, makes—if I am not mistaken—very much for me, and against your faith. First, because that very free choice, by which I said it comes about that the soul sins, is sufficiently expressed here, when he named sins, and when he said that our reconciliation with God comes about through Jesus Christ. For by sinning we were turned away from God; but by keeping the precepts of Christ, we are reconciled to God, so that we who were dead in our sins may, by keeping his precepts, be brought to life, and may have peace with him in one Spirit, he from whom we were alienated by not keeping his commandments—as is proclaimed in our faith concerning the man who was first established.

Therefore I now ask you, according to the reading that has been read, how we can have sins, if a contrary nature compels us to do what we do. For whoever is compelled by necessity to do something does not sin. But whoever sins, sins by free choice. Why, then, is repentance commanded of us, if we have done no evil, but the race of darkness has? I ask likewise, to whom is the pardon of sins given—to us, or to the race of darkness? But if the pardon of sins is given to the race of darkness, then it too will reign with God, receiving the pardon of sins. But if the pardon of sins is given to us, it is plain that we sinned by will. For it is foolish enough that pardon should be granted to one who has done no evil. And he has done no evil who has done nothing by his own will. Today, then, when God promises the soul the pardon of sins and reconciliation, if it ceases to sin and does penance for its sins, suppose it answers according to your faith and says: What have I sinned? What have I deserved? Why have you driven me from your realms, to fight against some race or other? I was cast down, I was mingled, I was corrupted, I was made to fail; free choice was not preserved in me. You know the necessity by which I was pressed: why do you charge me with the wounds I received?

Why do you compel me to repent, when you are the cause of my wounds; when you know what I have suffered—that the race of darkness wrought it in me, with you as its author, you who could not be violated, and yet, willing to guard your realms, to which nothing could be harmed, cast me headlong into miseries?

If indeed I am a part of you, who came forth from your inmost being, if I am from your kingdom and from your mouth, I ought not to have suffered anything in this race of darkness, so that, while I remained uncorrupted, it might be subdued, if I were a part of the Lord. But now, since it could not be tempered except by my corruption, how am I either called a part of you, or how do you remain inviolable, or how are you not cruel, you who willed me to suffer for these realms, to which nothing could be harmed by that race of darkness?

Answer to this, if you please; and deign also to explain to me this: how it was said by Paul the apostle, We were by nature children of wrath, those whom he says were reconciled to God. If, then, they were by nature children of wrath, how do you say that by nature the soul is a daughter and a portion of God?

Fortunatus said: If the Apostle had said with respect to the soul that we are by nature children of wrath, the soul would have been alienated from God by the mouth of the Apostle. And in this way you show, by reasoning, that the soul is not God's, because by nature, the Apostle says, we are children of wrath. But if it was with respect to that by which the same Apostle was held under the law, descending from the seed of Abraham, as he himself testifies, then it is plain that he said in a bodily sense that we were children of wrath, like the rest.

But concerning the substance of the soul he shows that it is from God, and that the soul cannot otherwise be reconciled to God except through the master, who is Christ Jesus. For when the enmity was slain, the soul seemed to have shown itself unworthy of God. But because it was sent—this we confess—yet by almighty God, both drawing its origin from him and sent to seal his will. Just as we believe that Christ the Savior also came from heaven to fulfill the will of the Father. And this will of the Father was this: to free our souls from that same enmity, the same enmity having been slain. And if this enmity had not been hostile to God, it would neither be called enmity where there was unity, nor would there be said or done a slaying where there was life.

18. Augustine said: Remember that the Apostle said that we are alienated from God by our way of life.

Fortunatus said: I hold that there were two substances. In the substance of light there is God, as we said above, incorruptible; but there was a contrary nature of darkness, which I confess even today to be conquered by the power of God, and that for my return Christ was sent as Savior, as the same Apostle said before.

19. Augustine said: It was laid upon us by those who hear us that we should examine the doctrine of the two natures by reasoning. But since you have again taken refuge in the Scriptures, I come down to them, and I require that nothing be passed over, lest by using certain chapters we bring clouds over those to whom the Scriptures are not known. Let us consider, then, from the beginning of what the Apostle has in his Letter to the Romans. For on the first page there is something strongly against you. For he says: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he had promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was made for him from the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestined the Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of sanctification, by the resurrection of the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 1:1–4). We see that the Apostle teaches us about our Lord, that he was both predestined in the power of God before the flesh, and made for him according to the flesh from the seed of David. Since you have always denied this and still deny it, how do you demand the Scriptures, so that we should discuss according to them rather?

Fortunatus said: You assert that he is from the seed of David according to the flesh, whereas he is proclaimed to have been born of a virgin, and is magnified as the Son of God. For it cannot be otherwise than that what is of the spirit be held to be spirit, and what is of the flesh be understood to be flesh. Against this is the very authority of the Gospel, by which it is said that flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God, nor will corruption possess incorruption (1 Cor 15:50).

At this an uproar arose from those sitting by, who wished the matter to be conducted rather by reasoning, because they saw that he was unwilling to accept all the things that are written in the book of the Apostle. Then conversation began to be carried on here and there by everyone, until he said that the word of God was bound in the race of darkness. And when those who were present shuddered at this, they departed.

On the following day, a stenographer again being brought in, the matter was conducted thus.

Fortunatus said: I say that almighty God brings forth nothing evil from himself, and that the things that are his remain uncorrupted, sprung and begotten from one inviolable source; but the other things, contrary, that are found in this world, do not flow from God, nor have they obeyed God as their prince in this age—that is, they do not draw their origin from him. These things, then, we have received in our faith: that evils are foreign to God.

20. Augustine said: Our faith too is this: that God is not the begetter of evils, nor did he make any nature evil. But since each of us agrees that God is incorruptible and undefilable, it belongs to the prudent and the faithful to weigh which faith is purer and worthier of the majesty of God: that one in which it is asserted that the power of God, or some part of God, or the word of God can be changed, violated, corrupted, bound; or that one in which it is said that both almighty God and all his nature and substance can never in any part be corrupted, but that evils come from the voluntary sin of the soul, to which God gave free choice. And if God had not given this free choice, there could be no just judgment of punishing, nor merit of doing rightly, nor a divine precept that penance be done for sins; nor that pardon of sins itself, which God granted us through our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who does not sin by will does not sin. This, I think, is open and clear to all. Wherefore it ought not to disturb us if we suffer some troubles, deserved by our merits, in the things that God made. For just as he is good, in that he established all things, so he is just, in that he does not spare sins. And these sins, as I said, would not be sins if there were no free will in us. For if, say, someone were bound by another in his other members, and a falsehood were written by his hand without his own will—I ask, if this were made plain to a judge, could he condemn this man on the charge of falsehood? Wherefore, if it is plain that there is no sin where there is no free choice of the will, I wish to hear, soul—which you call either a part, or a power, or the word, or whatever else of God—what evil it has done, that it should be punished by God, or do penance for sin, or merit pardon, when it itself has sinned in nothing.

Fortunatus said: I proposed concerning the substances that God is held to be the creator only of good things, but the avenger of evils, because evils are not from him. Rightly, then, do I hold this: that God also takes vengeance on evils, because they are not from him. For the rest, if they were from him, either he would grant license to sin—which is what you say, that God gave free choice—and then he would be found already a consenter to my offense, in that he would be the author of my offense; or, not knowing what I was going to be, he would do wrong, in establishing one whom he did not make worthy of himself. This, then, is what was proposed by me, and what I now ask: whether or not God instituted evils, and whether he himself instituted an end of evils. For the things that we said were made by him, as God the maker, that they are held to be incorruptible as created and begotten by him, appears from these things, and the gospel faith teaches it.

These things I have proposed which belong to our belief, and which can be confirmed by you in this profession of ours, yet in such a way that the authority of the Christian faith is not lacking. And because I can in no way show that I believe rightly unless I confirm the same faith by the authority of the Scriptures, this then is what I have suggested, what I have said. Either, if evils have appeared in the world with God as their author, deign to say this yourself; or, if it is rightly believed that evils are not from God, this too the consideration of those present ought to pursue and take up. I spoke of the substances, not of the sin that is at work in us. For if what makes us think of doing offenses had no origin, we would not be compelled to come to sin or to offense.

For because we sin unwillingly, and are compelled by a substance contrary and hostile to us, therefore we follow the knowledge of things. By this knowledge the soul, admonished and restored to its former memory, recognizes from what it draws its origin, in what evil it is engaged, and by what goods, amending again what it sinned unwillingly, it may, through the amendment of its offenses, by the grace of good works, secure for itself the merit of reconciliation with God, with our Savior as its author, who teaches us both to practice good things and to flee evil things. For this is what is set before us: that, not by some contrary nature, but of his own accord, a man either serves justice or makes himself liable to sins; since, no contrary race existing, if the soul abode alone, set in the body, to which God, as you say, gave free choice, it would be without sin, nor would it make itself liable to sins.

21. Augustine said: I say that there is no sin unless one sins by one's own will; that hence too there is reward, because by our own will we do what is right. Or if one who sins unwillingly deserves punishment, then one who does well unwillingly ought also to deserve reward. But who would doubt that a reward is not bestowed except on one who has done something with a good will? From which we understand that punishment too is inflicted on one who has done something with an evil will. But since you call me back to the prior natures and substances, my faith is that almighty God—which is above all to be observed and fixed in the mind—almighty God, just and good, made good things. But the things that were made by him cannot be such as he himself is who made them. For it is unjust and foolish to believe that works are equal to the craftsman, and things founded equal to their founder. Wherefore, if it is a holy faith that God made all good things, than which yet he himself is far more excellent and far surpassing, then the origin and head of evil is sin, as the Apostle said: The root of all evils is greed; pursuing which, some have made shipwreck of the faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows (1 Tim 6:10). For if you seek the root of all evils, you have the Apostle saying that the root of all evils is greed. The root of the root I cannot seek. Or if there is some other evil whose root is not greed, then greed will not be the root of all evils. But if it is true that the root of all evils is greed, we seek in vain some other kind of evil.

But as for that contrary nature of yours which you bring in—since I have already answered your objections—I ask that you deign to tell me: if that contrary nature is the whole of evil, and there can be no sin except from it, then it alone ought to deserve punishment, not the soul, from which sin does not come. But if you say that it alone deserves punishment, and the soul does not, I ask to whom penance has been given, who has been commanded to repent. If the soul has been commanded to repent, then sin comes from it, and it sinned by its own will. For if the soul is compelled to do evil, and it is not the soul that does the evil, is it not foolish and full of madness that the race of darkness should have sinned, and that I should repent of the sins? Is it not full of madness that the race of darkness should have sinned, and that the pardon of sins should be given to me—who can say, according to your faith: What have I done? What have I committed? I was with you, I was whole, I was stained by no defilement; you sent me here, you suffered necessity, you guarded your realms, when great ruin and devastation threatened them. Since, then, you knew the necessity by which I was oppressed here, by which I could not breathe, which I could not resist, why do you accuse me as though I were sinning? Or why do you promise the pardon of sins? Answer this without evasions, if you please, just as I have answered you without evasions.

Fortunatus said: This is what we say: that the soul is compelled by a contrary nature to do wrong; for which you will allow no root except only this, that the evil at work in us; whereas it is plain that, apart from our bodies, evils are at work in the whole world. The things we have in our bodies alone do not exist throughout the whole world—they are, in their names, good; the evil root clings. For Your Worship said that this is the root of evils, greed, which is at work in our bodies; whereas, when there is no greed of evil from our bodies, it is at work in the whole world from that prince, the contrary nature. For the Apostle named greed to be a root of evils, not a single evil, which you called the root of all evils.

But greed, which you called the root of all evils, is not understood in one way only, as though it were at work in our bodies alone; whereas it is plain that this evil that is at work in us descends from an evil author, and that this root which you say it is, is a little portion of evil; so that it is not the root itself, but is a little portion of evil, of that evil which is at work everywhere. This root and evil tree our Lord called the tree that never brings forth good fruit, which his Father did not plant, and which is rightly rooted up and cast into the fire (See Matt 15:13; 7:17–20; 3:10). For as to what you say, that sin ought to be imputed to the contrary nature—that nature is of evil; and this is the sin of the soul, if, after the warning of our Savior and his sound doctrine, the soul separates itself from the contrary and hostile stock, and, adorning itself with purer things, the soul cannot otherwise be restored to its own substance.

For it was said: If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin. But now, because I have come, and have spoken, and they were unwilling to believe me, they will have no pardon for their sin (John 15:22). From which it is plain that penance was rightly given after the coming of the Savior, and after this knowledge of things, by which the soul, as if washed in a divine fount, can be presented from the filth and vices both of the whole world and of the bodies in which this same soul is engaged, to the kingdom of God, from which it came forth. For it was said by the Apostle that the prudence of the flesh is hostile to God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be (Rom 8:6).

It is plain, then, from these things, that the good soul seems to sin by the doing of that which is not subject to the law of God, not of its own accord. For the same thing follows: that the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so that you do not do whatever you wish (Gal 5:17). He says again: I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and leading me captive in the law of sin and death. Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death, except the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world? (Rom 7:23–25)

22. Augustine said: I acknowledge and embrace the testimonies of the divine Scriptures, and I will set forth in a few words how they accord with my faith, as God will deign to grant. I say that there was free choice of the will in that man who was first formed. He was made in such a way that nothing at all would resist his will, if he wished to keep the precepts of God. But after he himself sinned by his free will, we who descend from his stock were cast headlong into necessity. And each one of us can, with moderate consideration, find that what I say is true. For today, in our actions, before we are entangled by any habit, we have free choice to do something or not to do it. But when by this freedom we have done something, and a ruinous sweetness and pleasure of the deed itself has taken hold of the soul, the soul is so entangled by this very habit of its own that afterward it cannot conquer what it has fashioned for itself by sinning. We see that many are unwilling to swear; but because habit has already taken hold of the tongue, they cannot restrain those words from going out of their mouth—words which we cannot say do not belong to the stock of evil. For, to deal with you in these words—which, would that, just as they do not depart from your mouth, so they were also understood in the heart: you swear by the Paraclete. If, then, you wish to test that what I say is true, set yourselves not to swear. You will see that habit is carried where it is wont to go. And this is what fights against the soul: habit formed in the flesh. This indeed is the prudence of the flesh, which, so long as it cannot thus be subjected to the law of God, is for so long the prudence of the flesh; but once the soul is illumined, that ceases to be the prudence of the flesh. For it was said that the prudence of the flesh cannot be subject to the law of God in the way it might be said that icy snow cannot be hot. For in no way, so long as it is snow, can it be hot. But just as that snow is dissolved by heat, and ceases to be snow, so that it can grow warm, so that prudence of the flesh—that is, the habit formed with the flesh—when our mind has been illumined, and God has made the whole man subject to himself for the decision of the divine law, in place of that evil habit of the soul makes a good habit.

From which it was most truly said by the Lord, concerning those two trees, the good tree and the evil tree which you mentioned, that they have their own fruits—that is, that neither can the good give evil fruits, nor the evil good ones, but only so long as it is evil. Let us take two men, a good man and an evil man. So long as he is good, he cannot give evil fruits; so long as he is evil, he cannot give good fruits. But that you may understand that these two trees were so placed by the Lord that free choice was signified there, and that these two trees are not natures but our wills, he himself says in the Gospel: Either make the tree good, or make the tree evil (Matt 12:33). Who is there that can make a nature? If, then, we are commanded to make the tree either good or evil, it is ours to choose what we wish. Concerning this sin of man, then, and concerning this habit of the soul formed with the flesh, the Apostle says: Let no one lead you astray (Eph 5:6): Every creature that was made by God is good (1 Tim 4:4). The same Apostle, whom you yourself mentioned, says: As by the disobedience of one many were made sinners, so also by the obedience of one many will be made just (Rom 5:19). For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:21). So long, then, as we bear the image of the earthly man (1 Cor 15:49)—that is, so long as we live according to the flesh, who is also called the old man—we have the necessity of our habit, so that we do not do what we wish. But when the grace of God has breathed into us divine love, and has made us subject to his will, we to whom it was said: You have been called to freedom (Gal 5:13); and: The grace of God has freed me from the law of sin and death (Rom 8:2)—and the law of sin is that whoever sins shall die.

From this law we are freed, when we have begun to be just. The law of death is that by which it was said to man: You are earth, and to earth you will go (Gen 3:19). For from him we are all so born, because we are earth, and to earth we will go, because of the merit of the sin of the first man. But because of the grace of God, which frees us from the law of sin and death, having been turned to justice we are freed; so that afterward this same flesh, which tormented us with punishments while we remained in our sins, may be made subject to us in the resurrection, and may shake us with no adversity, so as to keep us from observing the law of God and the divine precepts. And so, since I have answered your questions, deign you to answer what I desire: how it can come about that, if there is a nature contrary to God, sin should be imputed to us, who were sent into that nature not by will, but by God himself, to whom nothing could be harmed.

Fortunatus said: In this manner, as the Lord too said to his disciples: Behold, I send you as sheep into the midst of wolves (Matt 10:16). Hence it is to be known that our Savior did not with a hostile mind wish to direct his lambs—that is, his disciples—into the midst of wolves, unless there were some contrariety which set the same, in the likeness of wolves, in the place where he had also sent his disciples; so that the souls which perhaps might be deceived in the midst of wolves might be called back to their own substance. Hence, then, appears the antiquity of our times which we recall, and of our years, that before the foundation of the world souls were sent in this manner against the contrary nature, so that, subduing it by their suffering, the victory might be rendered to God. For the same Apostle said that there was a struggle not only against flesh and blood, but also against principalities and powers, and the spiritual forces of wickedness, and the dominion of darkness (See Eph 6:12). If, then, evils are at work in both places and wickednesses are held, then evil is now not only in our bodies, but in the whole world, where souls are seen to be engaged, which dwell beneath this heaven and are entangled.

23. Augustine said: The Lord sent his lambs into the midst of wolves—that is, just men into the midst of sinful men, for the preaching of the Gospel, at the time when a man was taken up by the inestimable divine Wisdom, that he might call us from sin to justice. And as for what the Apostle says, that we have a struggle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, and the rest that were mentioned, this signifies the devil and his angels, who, just as we also, fell by sin and were cast down, and laid hold of earthly things—that is, sinful men, who, so long as we are sinners, are under their yoke; just as, when we are just, we will be under the yoke of justice; and we have a struggle against them, so that, passing over to justice, we may be freed from their dominion. Therefore deign also to answer me briefly the one thing I ask. Could God be harmed, or could he not? But I ask that you answer me, he could not.

Fortunatus said: He could not be harmed.

24. Augustine said: Why, then, did he send us here, according to your faith?

Fortunatus said: My profession is this: that God could not be harmed, and that God directed us here. But since this is contrary to your view, you tell me by what reasoning the soul appeared here, which our God now desires to free, both by his commandments and by his own Son sent forth?

25. Augustine said: Since I see that you could not answer my questions, and that I wished to ask something, behold, I satisfy you, provided you remember that you did not answer what I asked. Why the soul is here in the world wrapped in miseries has been said by me not only now, but a little before, I do not know how many times. The soul sinned, and therefore it is wretched. It received free choice, it used free choice as it wished; it fell, it was cast out from blessedness, it was entangled in miseries. To this end I recited to you the testimony of the Apostle, who says: As by one man came death, so also by one man came the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:21). What more do you seek? Now you answer: to him who could not be harmed, why did he send us here?

Fortunatus said: This cause must be sought: why the soul came here, or why God desires to free the same soul from here, which lives in the midst of evils.

26. Augustine said: This cause I ask of you—that is, if God could not be harmed, why did he send us here?

Fortunatus said: It is asked of us, if evil cannot harm God, why the soul was sent here, or for what reason it was mingled with the world. This is plain in what the Apostle says: Does the thing formed say to him who formed it: Why have you made me thus? (Rom 9:20) If, then, this matter is to be called into question, the one who directed the soul, with no necessity compelling him, must be questioned. But if there was a necessity of sending the soul, then there is rightly also a will to free it.

27. Augustine said: Is God, then, pressed by necessity?

Fortunatus said: Now this is the point: do not stir up resentment over what was said, that we do not make God subject to necessity, but that he sent the soul voluntarily.

28. Augustine said: Recite what was said above.

And it was recited: But if there was a necessity of sending the soul, then there is rightly also a will to free it.

Augustine said: We have heard: But if there was a necessity of sending the soul, then there is rightly also a will to free it. You, then, said that there was a necessity of sending the soul. But if now you wish to speak of will, I add this too: to him to whom nothing could be harmed, it was a cruel will to send the soul to such great miseries. And because I speak for the sake of refutation, I ask pardon from the mercy of that one in whom we have the hope of liberation from all the errors of the heretics.

Fortunatus said: You assert that we say God is cruel in sending the soul; but that God made man, and breathed into him a soul, which he certainly foreknew would be wrapped in future misery, and, by the agency of evils, could not be restored to his inheritance. This belongs either to one who is ignorant, or to one who gives the soul over to these evils mentioned above. I mentioned this, because not long ago you said that God adopted the soul for himself, not that it is from him; for it is one thing to adopt.

29. Augustine said: Concerning our adoption, I remember that I spoke some days ago, according to the testimony of the Apostle, who says that we are called to the adoption of sons (See Eph 1:5). That, then, was not mine, but an apostolic answer. About this matter—that is, about this adoption—let us inquire in its own time, if you please; and about that inbreathing I will answer, when you have answered my objections.

Fortunatus said: I say that there was a going forth of the soul against the contrary nature, which nature could harm nothing to God.

30. Augustine said: What need was there of this going forth, where God had nothing to guard against, to whom nothing could be harmed?

Fortunatus said: Is it established before your conscience that Christ came from God?

31. Augustine said: Are you questioning me again? Answer what is asked.

Fortunatus said: I have received it thus in faith, that by the will of God he himself came here.

32. Augustine said: And I say: almighty God, inviolable, unchangeable, to whom nothing could be harmed, why did he send the soul here to miseries, to error, to these things we suffer?

Fortunatus said: For it was said: I have power to lay down my soul, and power to take it up (John 10:18). Now he said that by the will of God the soul went forth.

33. Augustine said: But I ask the cause, why, since nothing could be harmed to God . . . ?

Fortunatus said: We have already said that nothing could be harmed to God, and we have said that the soul is in the contrary nature, in order that it might set a limit to the contrary nature; and once a limit has been set to the contrary nature, God takes it up again. For he himself said: I have power to lay down my soul, and power to take it up. This power the Father has given me, to lay down my soul and to take it up. Of what soul, then, was God speaking, who spoke in the Son? It is established that it is our soul, which is held in these bodies, that came by his will, and is by his will taken up again.

34. Augustine said: In what sense our Lord said: I have power to lay down my soul, and power I have to take it up, is known to all: because he was going to suffer and to rise again. But I ask you again and again: if nothing could be harmed to God, why did he send souls here?

Fortunatus said: To set a limit to the contrary nature.

35. Augustine said: And did almighty God, merciful and highest of all, in order to set a limit to the contrary nature, will that nature to be kept within measure, so as to make us without measure?

Fortunatus said: But for that reason he calls it back to himself.

36. Augustine said: If he calls it back to himself from being without measure, if from sin, from error, from misery, what need was there for the soul to suffer such great evils for so long a time, until the world is ended, when to God, by whom you say it was sent, nothing could be harmed?

Fortunatus said: What, then, am I to say?

37. Augustine said: And I know that you have nothing to say, and that I too, when I heard you on this question, never found anything to say; and that I was therefore divinely admonished to abandon that error, and to turn—or rather to return—to the Catholic faith, by the indulgence of him who did not allow me to cleave forever to this deception. But if you confess that you have nothing to answer, then, with all hearing and recognizing it, since they are faithful, I will set forth the Catholic faith, if they permit and wish it.

Fortunatus said: Without prejudice to my profession let me say: when I have reviewed with my elders the things that are objected by you, if they answer this question of mine less than fully—the question which is now likewise put to me by you—it will be within my consideration (for I too desire that my soul be freed by a sure faith) to come to the inquiry into this matter, which is put to me by you, and which you promise to demonstrate.

Augustine said: Thanks be to God.