Against the Pelagian heretics, who say that Adam, even if he had not sinned, would have died in body, and that the human race was not corrupted in him (from which it follows that they contend that deaths, deadly diseases, and all the evils that we see even little ones suffer would have existed in paradise too, even if no one had sinned), I wrote a book to Count Valerius, the title of which book is Marriage and Desire; this was because I had learned that it had reached him that the Pelagians were saying that we condemn marriage. And so in that work I distinguished, with such argument as I could, the good of marriage from the evil of carnal desire, which conjugal chastity uses well. When he had received that book, the illustrious man I have mentioned sent me on a small sheet some statements excerpted from a work of Julian, the Pelagian heretic (in which work he thought he had answered, in four books, that one book of mine which I have recalled writing under the title Marriage and Desire), statements that had been sent to him by some person or other who arranged, as he wished, to have them excerpted from Julian's first book; and Valerius asked me to answer them as quickly as possible. And so it came about that I wrote a second book also under the same title, against which Julian, with excessive loquacity, composed eight more. To these I now reply, setting out his words and adding to them my response at each individual point, as the refutation of them seemed best to be supplied; for I had already, after they came into my hands, refuted his earlier four books clearly enough in six books.

I. 1. Julian. Although I have been hindered by great anguish, which the present state of the Churches inspires in me as I look upon it, partly by indignation, partly by pity, I had not yet abandoned the pledge of my promise, namely that, having become a debtor by promising, I should take care also to discharge the debt by paying it. For in the books that I dictated against the writings of Augustine, addressed to our brother Bishop Turbantius, a man conspicuous for the great splendor of his virtues, I promised that, if no setback should arise to obstruct my efforts, I would at once confront all the arguments of those who, following the opinion of the Manichees, defend a transmission of sin, that is, a natural evil; from which task I have hitherto been held back by various and undisguisable necessity.

Augustine. Would that you might imitate Turbantius, after those writings of yours and after these praises of yours, in which you call him a man conspicuous for the great splendor of his virtues, by being set free from your error! But an answer was given to those books of yours, and it was shown to you what catholic lights, most brilliant in their treatment of the holy Scriptures, you are trying to obscure with this reproach, that is, with the name of Manichees.

I. 2. Julian. But as soon as I was allowed to draw breath, my plan was, as far as the very nature of the matter would permit, to fulfill my promises briefly, had you not wished me, most blessed father Florus, to enter once again upon a more laborious field; and since you have such power through the reverence due to your holiness that I would judge it irreligious to obey your commands sluggishly, you easily prevailed upon me to extend the conciseness I had chosen into longer paths. You will therefore favor with your authority the work you have undertaken, whose name I have for this very reason inserted, so that my pen might proceed more securely and more cheerfully under the patronage of so great a command. There was, then, conceived in my mind a not unseasonable plan of brevity; because in those four books the truth of the catholic faith—for which and with which we earn the hatred of a falling world—armed both with unconquerable arguments and with the testimonies of the sacred Law, had ground to pieces nearly everything that the Manichees had invented and that Augustine had uttered against us, and scarcely anything was left, if we had fair judges to deal with.

Augustine. Against those four books of yours six books were written by me. For after the mention of the catholic teachers (whom you make out to be Manichees, charging me with this crime, that they learned and taught in the catholic Church), which I set forth in the first two volumes, I rendered the following four, one against each of yours; refuting the darkness of your heresy with the light of catholic truth, which by deserting you have gone blind and rave, and, like a new heretic, you seek fair judges in a matter about which there has never been any controversy in the Church of Christ; as though any could seem fair judges to you except those whom you have deceived with your error. But what judge will you be able to find better than Ambrose? Of whom your master Pelagius says that not even an enemy has dared to find fault with his faith and his most pure understanding in the Scriptures? Would this man, then, with a most pure understanding in the Scriptures, retain the teaching of the most impure Manichee, saying: We are all born under sin, and our very origin is in fault? Now you yourself judge how impure is the understanding with which you find fault with this catholic teaching, and do not delay to correct yourself with Ambrose as judge.

I. 3. Julian. Yet I had passed over some testimonies of the Scriptures by which they think something can be argued against us, which I had promised I would go on to explain, so that I might teach that whatever ambiguous words of the Law are wont to be taken up by our enemies neither prejudge what is clearly true and are to be understood in accordance with what is established by the most absolute authorities of holy Scripture and by unconquerable reasoning. For indeed by this very thing he shows how unskilled and profane an interpreter of the divine Law he is, whoever thinks that what justice cannot vindicate is defended by its sanction.

Augustine. Rather, what you say cannot be defended by any reasoning of justice. For the misery of the human race, from which we see no human being exempt from birth to death, does not pertain to the just judgment of the Almighty, if there is no original sin.

I. 4. Julian. For if the Law of God is the source and teacher of justice, then by its aids too the equity of God can be assisted, it cannot be assailed. The nature of things therefore allows no support for iniquity to be obtained from the strength of that Scripture, which had this one cause of its promulgation, that by its testimonies, remedies, threats, and punishments iniquity might be destroyed.

Augustine. By its testimonies it is declared that man is made like to vanity, his days pass away like a shadow (Ps 144:4 (143:4)). And that he is born with this vanity is shown not only by the truthful Scripture in which it is lamented, but also by the laborious and toilsome care by which he is educated. In its remedies it is read that, even when a little one has been born, a sacrifice is to be offered for sin (See Lev 12:6-8). In its threats it is read that the soul of a little one would perish if it were not circumcised on the eighth day (See Gen 17:14). In its punishments it is read that even little ones were ordered to be slain, whose parents had provoked God to anger, so that they might be destroyed in the slaughter of war (See Num 16:27-33).

I. 5. Julian. Nothing, then, can be done through the Law of God against God the author of the Law. By this one summary there is indeed excluded whatever those in error are accustomed to object; but in order to teach how rich in truth is the one in whom we believe, we are accustomed to bring the light of exposition also to those passages of the Scriptures that have veiled the understanding of their meaning by an intricacy of expression; so that, once unlocked, they may possess the dignity of their origin and not be separated from the sacred lineage as though illegitimate or degenerate.

Augustine. On the contrary, the lights of the holy Scriptures, shining with sure truth, you are trying to obscure with the intricacy of your crooked arguments. For what is clearer than what I just said: man is made like to vanity, his days pass away like a shadow (Ps 144:4 (143:4))? This certainly would not happen if he remained in the likeness of God in which he was created. What is clearer than what was said: As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Cor 15:22)? What is clearer than what was said: Who is clean from filth? Not even an infant whose life upon the earth is of one day (Job 14:4-5 LXX); and very many other passages, which you contrive to wrap up in your darkness and to twist with empty loquacity into your perverse meaning?

I. 6. Julian. This, then, after my custom, was the only thing I was still planning to carry out, namely to free from the interpretations of the Traducianists those members of the divine Law that lay subject to insult; that is, to show that they were divine by showing that they were just.

Augustine. With an insulting mouth you call Cyprian, Ambrose, Gregory, and their other associates who confess original sin Traducianists. But it is no wonder that new heretics impose a new name on the Catholics from whom they go out; others too have done this, when they went out in like manner.

I. 7. Julian. But because you urgently demanded it, or rather enjoined it by a father's authority, that I should confront the book of the Punic preacher, which Alypius, a home-bred slave of his sins, recently brought to Count Valerius, from this my response has been made longer.

Augustine. This Punic disputant is a great punishment to you; and long before you were born, Cyprian the Punic was prepared as a great punishment for your heresy.

I. 8. Julian. For he has once again given monuments of his talent and his faith, which are understood with the greatest difficulty, expounded with the greatest hardship, scarcely heard without horror; but are refuted most easily, transfixed most sharply, and, for the sake of respect for decency, consigned to oblivion and banished.

Augustine. Those who read do not judge as you wish.

I. 9. Julian. His first book, then, which alone was published before this one, charges that we are new heretics, because we oppose an opinion which, like a whitewashed sepulcher—which, according to the saying of the Gospel, is clothed on the outside with color but within is full of filth and iniquity (See Matt 23:27)—belches forth, under the praise of Baptism, the Manichees' filth and a natural sin, so as to contaminate the hitherto pure Sacraments of the catholic Church.

Augustine. The ancient catholic faith, which you have just now begun to attack, shows that you are new heretics, since it was proclaimed by the most renowned teachers who lived before us. But not everything need be answered—reproaches rather than accusations of yours—which you hurl, with a most shameless brow and a most insolent tongue, not against me only, but also against Ambrose, Hilary, Gregory, Cyprian, and the other most celebrated teachers of the Church.

I. 10. Julian. He also praises a powerful man, because, against our petitions—we who were clamoring for nothing other than that judges be granted for so great a business, so that what was clearly done by underhanded means might be corrected rather than punished by an examination—he stood in the way with the weight of his rank and did not allow time or place for a hearing to be obtained. Whether the man to whom he writes acted so wickedly as that praise testifies, let him see to it himself. We, however, in proportion as we have thought better of him, the mention of his name, inserted honorably into my little work, has made clear. But that book may perhaps contain false things about its patron. Furthermore, it faithfully shows what its writer desires; namely, that contrary to reason, contrary to faith, contrary to all holiness of morals and of doctrines, the fight be waged with savage force and blind violence.

Augustine. Far be it from the Christian powers of the earthly commonwealth to doubt about the ancient catholic faith and on this account to grant place and time of examination to its assailants; rather than, being certain and grounded in it, to impose the discipline of correction on such enemies of it as you are. For what was done on account of the Donatists, their most violent mobs compelled to be done, not knowing what had been transacted before, which ought to have been shown to them; may God turn away from you that you should have such mobs; yet, God being favorable, you do not have them.

I. 11. Julian. After these proceedings, among the first parts of his volume, he advanced to the distinction between marriage and desire, as he had promised by the inscription of the title; and thereafter throughout the whole work he gave proof of his skill and his strength. For, tormented by the utmost necessity between the denial of those who confess and the confession of those who deny, he made public what miseries his foul conscience was suffering.

Augustine. Revile as much as you can; for what reviler cannot do this?

I. 12. Julian. To his earlier work, then, I replied in four little books with such ability as the truth supplied; having stated beforehand, of course, that I would pass over what both appeared to have no weight for his teaching and could convict me of verbosity, had I pursued everything weak and empty. And yet, if it had been permitted to keep this rule, as was fitting—that is, that things should not earn even an attack by their inept presentation—nearly all his inventions would have had to be spurned with public silence. But since, with affairs hastening to the worse (which is a sign of the world bearing down toward its end), folly and baseness have gained mastery even in the Church of God, we discharge an embassy for Christ (2 Cor 5:20), and according to our manly share we bring such help as we can to the defense of the catholic religion; nor does it irk us to commit to writing the remedies that we prepare against the poisons of errors. Augustine: Folly and baseness brought you forth; but if it had gained mastery in the Church, it would certainly have kept you there.

I. 13. Julian. I had certainly testified, as I said, that in the first work I would neither dispute against all the kinds of transmission to be defended, nor repeat everything that book contained; but that I would grapple with those points in which he had placed the sum and force of his teaching. And that I faithfully pledged this, anyone who is a diligent reader of both works—however biased he may be—will recognize. But I, secure in the honesty of my conscience, both exhort and goad our enemy, that if he thinks any argument brought forward by him has been passed over by me, which he himself judges to be of any moment, he should bring it into the open and convict me of fear and deceit.

Augustine. I do not believe that you thought the things you passed over to be of no moment; though even if I grant that you thought this, yet a catholic and intelligent reader, if he has both that one book of mine and your four, and applies diligence, will find that it is not so.

I. 14. Julian. Certain testimonies of the Scriptures I expounded at greater length, certain ones more briefly; because I pledged that I would do this fully in the work that was to follow. And so nothing there of all Augustine's arguments and propositions remained without being exploded, nothing was fulfilled by me otherwise than promised; many things among his inventions I convicted as false, many as stupid, many as sacrilegious.

Augustine. This indeed you say, but it is you who say it; whoever, however, reads and understands, if he is not a Pelagian, does not say this.

I. 15. Julian. By this profession we have no reputation for arrogance to fear; because we confess that the truth was defended not by my talent, but that the weakness of our talent was helped by the strength of the truth.

Augustine. You would have said "crushed," if you had wished to speak the truth.

I. 16. Julian. Since, then, these things, just as I have said, stand accomplished, I cannot sufficiently marvel at the man's shamelessness, who in this recent work of his accuses my books of falsity, which nevertheless he testifies have not yet come into his hands. It is hard indeed that the habit of sinning produces love of the offense; but nothing is harder than that it extinguishes shame; which, although it was established by the practice of wickedness, yet the present dangers have taught more than any of us could have surmised. For when would I have believed that the Numidian's brow had hardened to such a degree that in one work and one line he would confess both that I had spoken false things and that he had not read what I said?

Augustine. If you did not do this, he did it who excerpted from your books the things he thought ought to be sent to Count Valerius. And because I, not believing that he had done so, falsely attributed to the author what I owed to the excerptor. For I had not yet read your books, but I had read what he had excerpted from them. If you considered yourself a human being, when you discerned that this could happen, you would by no means seek so spiteful a calumny against a man on this occasion.

I. 17. Julian. For writing to the one whom he marvels at as being a student of his books, although he is occupied with the toils of military service, he indicates that little sheets were brought to him by Alypius, which were thus superscribed: Chapters from a book of Augustine which he wrote, against which I have excerpted a few things from his books. Here I see that the one who directed those writings to your Excellency wished to excerpt them from I know not what books, for the sake, as I think, of a quicker response, lest he delay your insistence. But when I considered who these books might be, I judged them to be those of which Julian makes mention in the letter that he sent to Rome, a copy of which reached me at the same time. For there he says: They say too that these present marriages were not instituted by God, which is read in the book of Augustine, against which I have just now replied in four little books. And after these words he again adds in his own words: I believe these things were excerpted from these little books; so that it might perhaps have been better for our purpose to labor at refuting and confuting his whole work, which he set forth in four volumes; had not I too been unwilling to delay my response, just as you did not delay the transmission of the writings to which a reply must be made. He shows here, then, most plainly, that he suspects those excerpts to have been gathered hastily from my work, but is ignorant of the whole books, to which nevertheless he dares to say he has been able to reply.

Augustine. Why should I not have dared, when I certainly ought not to have doubted that you had said empty things in them? For you could not speak against true things except empty ones. Nor did my judgment deceive me; for I found those books of yours, when I read them, to be such as I had presumed them to be before I read them.

I. 18. Julian. He also makes mention of a letter which he says was directed by me to Rome; but from the words he set down, we have been unable to recognize what writing he was speaking of. For to Zosimus, once bishop of that city, I sent two letters on these questions; but at that time, when I had not yet begun the books.

Augustine. This letter is not to Zosimus; but for seducing those who at Rome could be seduced by such persuasion. But if you do not acknowledge it, behold, let it not be yours. Would that those books too were not yours, but another's; lest through them you become far estranged from the truth.

I. 19. Julian. Further, let him make use of the evidence of the letter, by which he either received or fabricated that I had set forth in four volumes a response against the new Manichees (since the old one disdains to be seen). Why did he not take care to learn the things we had objected? Why did he not, since he was about to engage, strive to recognize them; but, stirred by most shameful frivolity, advanced into a very great contest with his eyes covered, after the manner of the Andabatae? This deed he defends by such an allegation that he says he wished to imitate, by a headlong response, the haste his patron had in transmitting the documents; as though he could not most honorably have intimated that some time ought to be granted him in which to arrive at reading the published work; that it is a disgrace among the learned to fail in the gravity of writing and, through impatience of deliberation, to attack what one does not know. To this is added that, intending to contrive against us an odium of cunning—as though it had curtailed the sequence of his words—he lent credit to these excerpts, which seem more plausibly to have been composed by his own falsity and malice than by the inexperienced simplicity of any of us. But by whatever mind, by whatever author this came about, it nevertheless supports us in two ways; because it became clear at once how great is the frivolity, and how great the weakness, in the enemy of truth, who showed himself both unable, though he ought not to speak, to keep silent, and, with a few half-full and torn-apart rather than gathered statements, drawn from my first book alone, to have so given way, broken, as to stir up against us the breasts of the common folk with quite womanish cries; which will appear in the course of our disputation.

Augustine. Why are you angry with me, because your books could reach me only rather late; or because, seeking them, I could not quickly find them? Yet I could, and altogether ought, to inspect with plainly open, not covered, eyes the things contained in the little sheet sent to me, whoever's and of whatever sort they were, lest they be thought unconquered, and to refute them without delay; because even if I could never have found your books, it was fitting that I should, as far as I was able, argue against the things which he believed to be of some moment, who judged that they ought to be sent to so great a man, lest anyone reading them be deceived by them. You would not, then, object to me what you objected, unless you were rather speaking, I will not say with extinguished, but at least with closed eyes. But in no way would you say that the breasts of the common folk are stirred by us against you, unless you knew that the catholic faith, which you are trying to overturn, is not hidden from the Christian multitude in both sexes.

I. 20. Julian. Yet here too I give warning, as was done by us in the earlier work, that I will not set down all his words exactly; but those chief points which, once destroyed, the opinion of a natural evil is crushed.

Augustine. The things you pass over will perhaps be gathered up, either by us or by others, so that it may appear why you passed them over.

I. 21. Julian. Although this stands fully accomplished in the first work; yet because he has now proposed for himself certain things from one book of mine only to be refuted, and, as I said before, charges me with having for the most part truncated the chief points of his sayings which I inserted; I will first show that what he reprehends was not done by me, and was practiced most shamelessly by him in this very work. Then I will prove that, by those very concise and brief statements which he interposes from my writings, by which he had been assailed, he has so withstood them with no solid responses that both those things remain unshaken, and here he confesses, more plainly than our work had labored to set forth, things deserving to be detested.

Augustine. I have already answered these things above.

I. 22. Julian. Astonished, then, let us hear what he has written against me. The words—he says—from my book sent to you by me and most well known to you, these he set down, which he tried to refute: "they most spitefully cry out that we are condemners of marriage and of the divine work by which God creates human beings from males and females; because we say that those who are born from such union draw original sin, and that those, from whatever parents they are born, are still under the devil, we do not deny, unless they are reborn in Christ". In these words of mine he passed over the testimony of the Apostle, which I had inserted, by whose great weight he felt himself pressed. For when I had said that human beings draw original sin, I soon added: of which the Apostle says: "through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all human beings, in whom all sinned" (Rom 5:12); which testimony, as we have said, being passed over, he wove together those other things which were recalled above. For he knows how the faithful hearts of catholics are accustomed to take these apostolic words, which he passed over; which words, so right and shining with such great light, the new heretics contrive to obscure and to deprave with dark and tortuous interpretations. Then he subjoined other words of mine, where I said: "they do not consider that the good of marriage cannot be accused on account of the original evil that is drawn from it, just as the evil of adulteries and fornications cannot be excused on account of the natural good that is born from it. For, as sin, whether drawn by little ones from this side or from that, is the work of the devil, so a human being, whether born from this side or from that, is the work of God." Here too he passed over the things in which he feared catholic ears. For, that one might come to these words, it had been said above by us: "because, therefore, we say what is contained in the most ancient and most firm rule of the catholic faith, these assertors of a novel and perverse teaching, who say there is no sin in little ones that is washed away by the laver of regeneration, calumniate, faithlessly or unskillfully, as though we condemn marriage, and as though we say that the work of God, that is, the human being who is born from them, is the work of the devil". These things of ours, then, being passed over, there follow those words of ours which he set down, as is written above. How long will you, who speak these things, persist in mocking the simplicity of religious hearts and inexperienced ears? To what end will unbridled shamelessness vaunt itself? Did nothing, when you wrote these things, move you—neither the censure of learned men, nor reverence for the future judgment, nor the very monuments of letters? Are you now open to your own deceit, and do you not see that, once detected, it is held fast? What you wrote in the first work, what in the second, whom of us do you think ignorant of it? For it pleased me utterly, and it was fitting, to assail you with those manners in which the eloquent consul roared against the public parricide.

Augustine. You do well to indicate to us, lest perhaps we should not recognize it, that you took these things from the invectives of Cicero and turned them about; but we do not fear Julian, when we see that he has become Tullian; rather, we grieve that he is mad, when we see that he has lost his Christian sense. For what is more mad than to forbid the physician Christ to little ones, by saying that there is not in them what he came to heal? Cicero, inveighing against the parricide of his fatherland, was defending that city which its king Romulus founded by gathering sinners from everywhere; but you, so many little ones who die without holy Baptism both cry out that they have no sin, and do not permit them to approach the city of the King, to whose image they were made.

I. 23. Julian. You falsely pretend that I passed over the testimony of the Apostle, which can neither help you, and was not passed over by me; but it was inserted in the order in which it had been placed by you; and as it was faithfully recalled in the first, so it was explained—although cursorily and briefly—in the fourth book of my work. The mention too of the catholic Church, which you had made for this purpose, that those deceived by you might desert the catholic faith and, wretched, rejoice in the catholic name, I did not pass over. And although there was no force of argument in words of this kind, yet the chief point of your sayings was set forth by me no otherwise than it had been arranged by you. Read my published books and, looking at the fidelity of the response which you charge with fraud, pronounce me meanwhile to speak true things; but you, if your custom permits, blush. But now that the inexcusable falsity has been shown—which, though always base, becomes baser when it invades the place of the censor and reproaches its own deformity to another's comeliness—answer: what do either the name of the Church or the words of the Apostle profit the Manichaean meanings, that you should allege them to have been passed over with so great a spite?

Augustine. I have already answered above this calumny of yours, by which you charge me with the falsity of having set down your words less than completely. But what that excerptor did, you would not so gladly attribute to me, if you were not willing to be a deceiver of those who read these things.

I. 24. Julian. This has always been the greatest difference between the Manichees and the Catholics, and a certain very wide boundary by which the teachings of the pious and the impious are mutually separated from each other—rather, a great mass dividing our opinions, as it were, like the heavens from the earth, by its depth—namely, that we ascribe every sin to an evil will, but they to an evil nature; and they, although they follow diverse errors, yet, as though flowing out from the head of this spring, arrive consequently at sacrileges and disgraceful deeds; just as the Catholics, on the opposite side, beginning from a good start, increased by good advances, are carried to the summit of religion, which reason and piety fortify. You, therefore, attempting to assert a natural evil with profane wish but ineffectual intention, have usurped the testimony of the Apostle, whom by this same writing-out I show to have meant nothing such as you try to persuade, since you both, in self-contradictory ways, confess him to be catholic and judge his sayings to support the Manichee.

Augustine. The catholic teachers whom you assert to support the Manichee, who understood in the apostolic words that little ones draw original sin, and did not, in your insane fashion, praise nature as though sound, but rather applied to it, to be healed, the Christian medicine—if you thought with a Christian heart, you would blush, you would tremble, you would fall silent.

I. 25. Julian. Did not the same, Adimantus and Faustus (whom in the books of your Confessions you call your teacher), do this by the tradition of their heresiarch, snatching and corrupting the more obscure statements, whether from the Gospel or from the Epistles of the Apostles, in order to defend a profane teaching by the authority of those names? Yet why do I speak of the Manichees? Absolutely all heresies fortify their inventions, by which they have strayed from piety and faith, with the expressions and statements of the Scriptures.

Augustine. They turned obscure statements to their teaching; you try to obscure clear ones by your very teaching. For what is clearer than what the Apostle says: that sin entered this world through one man, and through sin death, and so it passed into all human beings (See Rom 5:12)? And if the same Apostle were compelled to prove this, he would give as witness the very misery of the human race, which begins from the wailing of little ones and reaches all the way to the groans of the decrepit. For in no way, under the Almighty and just one, would so great a misery be inflicted on human nature, unless in two human beings it had been driven, by the deserving of sin, from all the happiness of paradise into this unhappiness.

I. 26. Julian. Will, then, either the authors of the sacred Book be proved to be authors of errors, or will the dignity of the Scriptures expiate the crimes of those who perish?

Augustine. Say this to yourselves.

I. 27. Julian. Let the lust for undisciplined expositions therefore be extinguished; let the words be believed to do nothing against the manifest justice of God; which words, if they belong to that Person whom it is necessary to venerate, let them be defended by explanations agreeing with the divine equity; but if they were uttered by an author not to be feared, let them be expelled even unrefined. Now, therefore, we are disputing about the judgment of God, of whom it is written: God is faithful, in whom there is no iniquity; just and holy is the Lord God (See Deut 32:4). And again: The Lord is just, and he loved justice, his face beheld equity (Ps 11:7 (10:8)). And again: All your judgments are equity (See Ps 119:160 (118:160)). Numberless are the testimonies by which the divine equity is proclaimed in the sacred Volumes; about which, nevertheless, no one, whether of the Gentiles or of the heretics, except the Manichees and the Traducianists, has doubted.

Augustine. From this equity there is a heavy yoke upon the sons of Adam from the day of their going out from their mother's womb (Sir 40:1); which whoever denies original sin asserts to be altogether unjust.

I. 28. Julian. For it has been so instilled in all generally, by nature's teaching, that God is just, that it is manifest that he is not God who has been established not to be just. A human being, therefore, can also be just; but God cannot be anything but just.

Augustine. Say it to yourself.

I. 29. Julian. Since he is the one true God in whom we believe, and whom we venerate in the Trinity, he is beyond doubt the most just toward all in his manner of judgment.

Augustine. Say it to yourself: and show that he is just, who is born with so manifest a misery, or unto so manifest a misery, by whom no original sin is drawn.

I. 30. Julian. By his laws, then, what is established to be unjust can in no way be proved and vindicated, so that, if this could happen, his whole divinity would become worthless. By the same one, therefore, will it be proved that a teaching of injustice is established from the holy Scriptures, by whom it could be approved that the Trinity, in which we believe, can be deprived of the glory of its divinity.

Augustine. You speak the truth: but say it to yourselves, who endeavor to take away from Christ the glory by which he heals little ones.

I. 31. Julian. And since neither any reason nor any piety sustains this, either teach that a natural sin can either exist or be just to be imputed to anyone; or else depart from the contamination of the holy Scriptures, by whose statements you judge to be sanctioned what you are compelled to confess to be unjust.

Augustine. You are in error: it is rather you who are compelled to confess as unjust the heavy yoke upon little ones; if, just as they have no sin of their own, so they draw no original sin.

I. 32. Julian. But if you will do neither of the two things we have spoken of, and assert that you believe in this God, by whose institutions you judge injustice to be fortified, know that you, the new one, are far worse than the ancient Manichee, in that you have such a God as the Manichee imagined the enemy of his God to be.

Augustine. You rage against little ones worse than the Manichees. For they at least wish the soul, which they think a part of God, to be healed through Christ in the little one; but you do not permit the one whom you say has no evil either in soul or in flesh to be healed through Christ in any part. And you, illustrious preachers, so preach Jesus that you deny him to be the Jesus of little ones. For from where he received this name, read in the Gospel (See Matt 1:21), and do not deny the Savior to little ones who are not saved.

I. 33. Julian. What windings, then, what pillows of lies and follies—which the prophet Ezekiel imputes to fornicating Jerusalem (See Ezek 13:18)—will you here apply to me, on which womanish souls may recline, holding the names of the mysteries, while in their uncovered profanity they have offended against divinity itself? With all the conjurer's tricks removed, and the throngs of the little common folk so often summoned by you, teach that what you try to affirm through the holy Scriptures is just.

Augustine. The throngs of the little common folk, whom you mock, know the catholic faith, which confesses that infants are saved by the Savior; and therefore they detest the error of the Pelagians, who deny this.

I. 34. Julian. Lest, then, my speech be extended into infinite volumes, here, here let the genus, species, difference, mode, and quality of these things we are dealing with be discerned; rather, more anxiously, whether they exist, whence they exist, where they exist, what too they deserve, and from whom. For in this way there will be no long wandering through the windings of disputations, and what ought to be held as certain will appear.

Augustine. You wrote eight books against one book of mine for this reason: that, through your dialectical summaries, you were unwilling to dispute at length.

I. 35. Julian. Here, then, the account of Creator and creature is at issue, that is, of God and the human being; the one judges, the other is judged; and so let it be seen what the nature of justice and of fault is. Justice is—both as it is wont to be defined by the learned, and as we can understand it—the virtue (if it may be permitted, against the Stoics, to prefer one to another) greatest of all virtues, diligently discharging its office to restore to each his own without fraud, without favor.

Augustine. Say, then, by what justice the heavy yoke of so great and manifest a misery has been repaid to little ones; say by what justice that little one is adopted in Baptism, and that one dies without this adoption; why this honor, or estrangement from this honor, is not common to both, when their case, whether good or evil, is common to both. You do not say, because, a Pelagian more than a Christian, you understand neither the grace of God nor the justice of God.

I. 36. Julian. But if Zeno would not allow it to be called the greatest—he who affirms so great a bond and unity of the virtues that, where one has been present, he says all the virtues are present, and where one has not been present, all are absent; and that that is true virtue which is perfected by this fourfold yoking—then too he will furnish us with very great help, when he has taught that neither prudence nor fortitude nor temperance can be maintained without justice; in accordance with which truth Ecclesiastes too declares: he who sins in one thing will lose many good things (Eccl 9:18).

Augustine. Hear the same Ecclesiastes saying: Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity; what abundance has a man in all his labor with which he labors under the sun? (Eccl 1:2-3) And tell me, why is man too made like to vanity (Ps 144:4 (143:4)), who had been made like to truth. Or do you here except little ones, whom we see, by growing and, if they are well educated, by advancing, diminish the great vanity with which they were born; nor are they wholly free of it, until all their days have passed away like a shadow in vanity (See Ps 144:4 (143:4))?

I. 37. Julian. This august virtue, then, the assessor of each one's deserts, shines forth in the works of the image of God, that is, of the human soul, according to the measure and powers of the creature itself; but in God himself, the founder out of nothing of all things that are, it shines back through a measureless and bright orb forever. Its origin is divinity, its age is eternity, and an eternity that knows not, on either side, either to cease or to have begun. As, then, its genus (by which name I wish nothing else to be understood than its origin) is God; so its species appears in the promulgation of laws and in the effects of judgments.

Augustine. If the origin of justice is God, as you confess, why do you not confess that justice is given to a human being by him, and would rather have justice be the choice of the human will than the gift of God; so that you are among those of whom it is said: Being ignorant of the justice of God, and wishing to establish their own, they did not submit to the justice of God (Rom 10:3)? Blush at last, I beseech you, and ask justice from him who is, as you have been compelled to confess, the origin of justice.

I. 38. Julian. Its difference, indeed, we can not absurdly understand to be the varying dispensation according to the opportuneness of the times. For example, in the Old Testament sacrifices of cattle had been commanded. To fulfill that then belonged to reverence for the command; but now the disregard of them, once they have been abolished, serves justice's precept just as the offering then served it. Its mode is its very steadiness, in that it neither enjoins on anyone more than his powers can bear, nor blunts mercy. Its quality, moreover, is understood to be that by which it is sweetly savored by pious minds. There is, then, beyond doubt, a justice without which there is no deity; which, if it did not exist, God would not exist; but God exists, and so without ambiguity justice exists. And it is nothing other than the virtue containing all things and restoring to each his own, without fraud, without favor. And it consists chiefly in the depth of divinity.

Augustine. You defined justice to be the virtue containing all things and restoring to each his own, without fraud, without favor. Accordingly, we see that it restored without fraud the denarius to those who had labored the whole day in the work of the vineyard; for this had been agreed, this had been settled, and they could not deny that they had been hired for this wage (See Matt 20:1-13). But tell me, I beg you, how, without favor, it gave just as much to those who were in that work for one hour? Or had it perhaps lost its justice? Restrain yourself, then, rather. For the divine justice defrauds no one, but grace bestows many things on the undeserving. But why to this one thus, and to that one thus, look at what you go on to add. For you most truly say that it consists chiefly in the depth of divinity. In this depth is the fact that it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy (Rom 9:16). In this depth is the fact that that little one is adopted into honor through the laver of regeneration, and that one is left in dishonor, not to be admitted to the Kingdom; though neither of them has any deserving, in either direction, through the choice of the will.

I. 39. Julian. Its testimony, indeed, just as it deserves from its author, so it deserves also either from the upright or from the wicked, in that it has both rightly advanced the former and rightly condemned the latter. But when, of itself, it permits liberal mercy to those who deserve neither anything good nor anything evil, it feels no injury; because this very thing, that God should be merciful to his own work when he is not driven to severity, is a great part of justice.

Augustine. At least heed the name of mercy, and look at whence it is named. What need, then, is there of mercy where there is no misery? But if you say there is no misery in little ones, you deny that mercy is to be shown them; if you say there is any, you show an evil deserving. For under a just God no one can be wretched unless he deserves it. Behold, two little ones lie here: one of them dies baptized, the other unbaptized; to which of them do you say God was merciful? If to the one, show the evil deserving of the other, you who deny that there is original sin; if to both, show any good deserving of the baptized one, you who deny grace, where there is no respect of persons; and say, if you can, why he was unwilling to adopt both, who certainly created both to his own image. Or is he so just that he is not almighty, if he willed and could not? Where certainly neither of them was unwilling, lest you refer the hindering of the divine power to the deserving of the human will; here certainly God can say to neither of them: I willed, and you were unwilling. Or if the infant is unwilling for the reason that he weeps when he is baptized, then let both be left, for both are unwilling; and yet one is taken up and the other left, because great is the grace of God, and true is the justice of God. But why this one rather than that one: The judgments of God are unsearchable (See Rom 11:33).

I. 40. Julian. For those whom he made because he willed, he does not condemn unless he is spurned; if, when he is not spurned, he should make them better by consecration; he both suffers no detriment to justice and is adorned by the munificence of mercy.

Augustine. You who condemn no one unless spurned, say whether he spurns his own image unless he is spurned. But if you dare not, say whence he spurns those little ones whom he does not adopt, by whom you will not find him spurned, unless you find them in Adam. There you will at once find both that, in order that they be spurned, it is owed to all through justice, and yet that not all are spurned because of ineffable and unsearchable grace.

I. 41. Julian. With these divisions of justice, then, which we have set forth, expounded, let us examine what the definition of sin is. Indeed, the writings both of those who philosophize and of those who were catholics supply me abundantly with what we are seeking; but I fear that you may refuse, and that, if I summon the senate of the philosophers, you will at once inflame against us the workshop laborers and all the common crowd.

Augustine. You are insulting toward the weak things of the world, which God chose in order to confound the strong (See 1 Cor 1:27). Indeed, they themselves confound those who trust in their own strength (See Ps 49:6 (48:7)). Here what shall I say: It is you? Plainly, while I am silent, you appear, since you are not silent.

I. 42. Julian. Crying out with the women, and with all the dogs and tribunes, for whom your colleague Alypius recently brought eighty or more horses fattened from all Africa.

Augustine. Either you calumniate, or you do not know what you are saying; and therefore you say these things either as a liar or as a reckless man. But what is more worthless than you, if you yourself fabricated these things? What more stupid, if you believed those who fabricated them? And now, that you even dared to write it, not fearing that your books might reach those places which received my colleague Alypius as he passed or came by land and sea, where your falsehoods cannot be read most plainly without derision of you, or rather detestation; to what—I will not say shamelessness, but madness—is this to be compared?

I. 43. Julian. That you in no way acquiesce in the opinions of the learned, so that you add that, according to what agrees with your understanding, the Apostle said that God made foolish the wisdom of the world (See 1 Cor 1:20); but that our disputants can be despised by you without fear, because you are pressed by no authority of such men.

Augustine. It is you who despise those who, when they teach original sin, you so resist that you moreover charge them as Manichees, naming me, meaning them.

I. 44. Julian. What, then? Shall I acquiesce in you entirely, and in this place make a loss of all those whose support I could use, and be content with the definition that escaped from the mouth of your honesty, as a sign of a good nature, after the secret of the Manichees? In that book, then, whose title is either The Two Souls or Against the Two Souls, you speak thus: Wait, allow us first to define sin. Sin is the will to commit or to retain what justice forbids, and from which one is free to abstain. Although, if one is not free, it cannot even be called a will; but I preferred to define it more coarsely than too scrupulously (The Two Souls 11.15).

Augustine. Here sin was defined that is sin only, not that which is also the punishment of sin. For this had to be dealt with, when the origin of evil was being sought, such as was committed by the first man before any evil of man. But you either cannot understand, or will not.

I. 45. Julian. O gold shining in dung! What truer, what fuller could have been said by anyone even orthodox? Sin is, you say, the will to commit or to retain what justice forbids, and from which one is free to abstain. Ecclesiasticus shows this: God, he says, made man, and left him in the hand of his own counsel; he set before him life and death, water and fire; whatever shall please him will be given to him (Sir 15:14-17). And through Isaiah God says: If you are willing, he says, and listen to me, you shall eat the good things of the land. If you are unwilling, and do not listen, the sword shall devour you (Isa 1:19-20). And the Apostle: Come to your senses justly, and do not sin (1 Cor 15:34); and again: Do not err; God is not mocked; for whatever a man shall sow, that also shall he reap (Gal 6:7).

Augustine. These testimonies were spoken on account of that will by which each person does what he wills; so that, if it is not had, it may be asked from him who works in us even to will (See Phil 2:13); but if it is had, let the works of justice be done, and to him who worked it let thanks be given.

I. 46. Julian. The will, then, is a motion of the mind, having in its own power whether it should run, more to the left, toward depraved things, or strive, more to the right, toward lofty things.

Augustine. What, then, is the meaning of: Do not turn aside to the right, nor to the left (See Prov 4:27)?

I. 47. Julian. But the motion of the mind of one who, by reason of age, can now use the judgment of reason; to whom, when punishment and glory are shown, or, on the contrary, advantage or pleasure, a help and, as it were, an occasion is offered, not a necessity imposed, of one side or the other. This will, then, which alternates, received the origin of its possibility in free choice; but the existence of the act itself it takes upon itself from itself, nor is it at all a will before it wills, nor can it will before it has also been able not to will; nor does it have both in the realm of sin, that is, to will and not to will, before it attains the use of reason. From which things gathered together, it appears that you defined most truly: Sin is the will to retain or to commit what justice forbids, and from which one is free to abstain. This sin, then, which has become clear to be nothing but the will, is established to have received its genus, that is, its very origin, from one's own appetite. Its species is found in each of those who are called individuals. Its difference, indeed, is both in the variety of faults and in the conditions of the times. Its mode is the very immoderation; for if the mode is to serve him whom you ought, whoever neglects this offends by transgression of the true mode. Here, however, it can be subtly said that there is a mode of sin, because no one offends more than he can; for if one sins beyond his strength, it is sinned with an ineffectual will; this very thing could come about even by the will alone. But quality is ascribed to the fault, by which it is shown what bitterness it carries with it, whether by disgrace or by pain. There is, then, sin, because if there were not, you would not pursue errors; but it is nothing other than the will departing from that path on which it ought to keep, and from which it is free not to swerve. And it comes about from the appetite for forbidden things; and it is nowhere except in that human being who both had an evil will and could have not had it.

Augustine. It is Adam himself whom that definition of ours, which pleased you, had in view, when I said: Sin is the will to retain or to obtain what justice forbids, and from which one is free to abstain. For Adam, when he sinned, had absolutely nothing of evil in himself by which, unwilling, he was driven to work evil, and on account of which he might say: I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I will not, this I do (See Rom 7:19). And through this, in sinning he did what justice forbade, and from which he had been free to abstain. For to him who says: The evil that I will not, this I do, it is not free to abstain from it. And through this, if you distinguish these three things, and know that sin is one thing, the punishment of sin another, and both another—that is, sin in such a way that it is itself also the punishment of sin—you understand which of these three pertains to that definition, where there is the will to do what justice forbids, and from which one is free to abstain. For sin was defined in this way, not the punishment of sin, not both. But these three genera also have their species, about which it is now too long to dispute. If, however, examples of these three genera are sought, the example of the first genus occurs in Adam without any knot of difficulty. For there are many evils that human beings do, from which they are free to abstain; but to none is it so free as it was to him, who stood before his God, by whom he was created upright, depraved by absolutely no fault. But the example of the second genus, where there is only the punishment of sin, is in that evil which one in no part does, but only suffers; as when he who has sinned is, for his crime, killed, or is tortured by any other bodily punishment whatsoever. But the third genus, where it is both sin and the punishment of sin, can be understood in him who says: The evil that I will not, this I do. To this pertain also all the evils that, when they are done through ignorance, are not thought evils, or are even thought goods. For the blindness of the heart, if it were not sin, would be unjustly censured; but it is justly censured, where it is said: Blind Pharisee! (Matt 23:26); and in very many other places of the divine words. And again this same blindness, if it were not the punishment of sin, it would not be said: For their malice blinded them (Wis 2:21); and if it did not come from the judgment of God, we would not read: Let their eyes be darkened that they may not see, and bend down their back always (Ps 69:23 (68:24); Rom 11:10). Now who is blind in heart willingly, since no one wishes to be blind even in body? Accordingly, original sin pertains neither to that which we put in the first place, where there is the will to do evil, from which one is free to abstain; otherwise it would not be in little ones, who do not yet use the choice of the will; nor to that which we mentioned in the second place. For we are now dealing with sin, not with punishment, which is not sin, although it follows by the deserving of sin; which indeed little ones too suffer, because there is in them a body dead because of sin (See Rom 8:10). Yet the death of the body itself is not sin, nor any bodily torments whatsoever; but original sin pertains to this third genus, where it is so sin that it is itself also the punishment of sin; which is indeed in those being born, but begins to appear in them as they grow, when wisdom is necessary to the foolish, and continence to those who desire evil; yet the origin even of this sin descends from the will of the one sinning. For there was Adam, and in him we all were; Adam perished, and in him all perished.

I. 48. Julian. But it deserves both execration from the upright and lawful condemnation from that justice, in which the whole case here is at issue. With all the curtains drawn back, then, bring forth at last openly into the light by what you teach that sin is natural. Surely nothing has been gathered above falsely, either concerning the praise of the divine justice or concerning the definition of fault. Show, then, that these two things can stand in little ones: if there is no sin without the will, if there is no will where liberty has not been unfolded, if there is no liberty where there is no faculty of choice through reason; by what monster is sin found in infants, who do not have the use of reason? Therefore neither the faculty of choosing, and through this neither the will; and these things being irrefutably conceded, neither any sin at all. Pressed, then, by these masses, let us see whither you have burst out. By no sin, you say, are little ones pressed of their own, but they are pressed by another's. It has not yet become clear what evil you hold. For we suspect that you brought these things into the open for the purpose of incurring odium against some human being, whose iniquity, as a Punic orator, you might express. With whom, then, did an external crime burden unpolluted innocence? Who was that one, who would adjudge these guilty—so senseless, so savage, so forgetful of God and of equity, a barbarous foe? We praise your talent entirely; the erudition is apparent; you could not otherwise allege a person worthy of the hatred of the human race, of some judge or other, or rather a tyrant, than by swearing that he not only did not spare those who had sinned in nothing, but even those who could not even have sinned. For with a suspicious mind a good conscience is wont to labor for its own defense, lest perhaps it has offended, because it even could offend; but he is absolutely acquitted of crime who is defended by the very impossibility of the matter. Reveal, then, who is this condemner of the innocent. Answering: God; you have indeed struck the mind, but since so great a sacrilege scarcely deserves belief, let us be in doubt about what you have said. For we know that this name can be used homonymously: For there are many gods and many lords; yet to us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things (1 Cor 8:5-6). Which God, then, do you call into accusation? Here you, most religious priest and most learned rhetorician, exhale something more dismal and more dreadful than either the valley of Amsanctus or the pit of Avernus, rather more wicked than the very worship of idols had committed in these places. God, you say, the very one who commends his love in us, who loved us, and did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us (Rom 5:8; 8:32), he himself thus judges, he himself is the persecutor of those being born, he himself, for an evil will, hands over to eternal fires little ones whom he knows could have had neither a good nor an evil will. After this opinion, then, so monstrous, so sacrilegious, so deadly, if we had sound judges, I ought to report nothing but execration of you. For with just and probable gravity I would judge you unworthy of disputation, who had fled so far from religion, from erudition, from common sense, finally, that, what scarcely any barbarity would, you should think your Lord a criminal.

Augustine. It is no great thing that you see that little ones do not have their own will for choosing good or evil. I would wish you saw what he saw who, writing to the Hebrews, said that the son of Israel, Levi, was in the loins of his father Abraham when the latter was tithed, and that therefore he too was tithed in him (See Heb 7:9-10). To this, if you had a Christian eye, you would discern by faith—if you were not strong in understanding—that in the loins of Adam were all who were going to arise from him through the concupiscence of the flesh; which, after the sin by which his nakedness was announced to him, he felt, beheld, blushed at, covered. Whence Ambrose, my teacher, praised excellently also by the mouth of your teacher, says: What is more serious, then, Adam girded himself with this interpretation, in that place where he ought rather to have girded himself with the fruit of chastity. For in the loins, with which we are girded, certain seeds of generation are said to be. And therefore Adam was ill girded there with useless leaves, where he signified not the future fruit of the generation to come, but certain sins. Deservedly too he says what I mentioned a little before: There was Adam, and in him we all were; Adam perished, and in him all perished. Not seeing this, you, blind, bark at me; but in me, whatever you say, you assuredly say also against him. Would, then, that my reward might be in common with him, just as I hear from you the reviling I have in common with him. What is it that you cry out, and say: If we had sound judges, I ought to report nothing but execration of you? Can I deal with you more generously, more beneficently, more liberally, than to set up between us as judge the very one about whom we already hold the judgment of your teacher Pelagius? Behold, here is present he who, among the writers of the Latin tongue, shone forth as a certain beautiful flower, whose faith and most pure understanding in the Scriptures not even an enemy has dared to find fault with. This Pelagius judged about Ambrose. What, then, did Ambrose judge about this which is at issue between us? I quoted above his statements about original sin, without any obscurity or ambiguity; but if that is too little, hear further: We are all born under sin, and our very origin is in fault. What do you answer to these things? Pelagius said those splendid things about Ambrose; these manifest things Ambrose declared for me against you; find fault with him about whom your master says that not even an enemy has dared to find fault with him; and you who seek sound judges, deny that this man is sound, so that you plainly profess yourself insane. But you, a most pious man, are indignant that little ones not reborn, if they die before the choice of their own will, are said, on account of another's sins, to be condemned by him who commends his love in us, who loved us, and did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us; as though the foolish and unlearned like you did not complain more seriously about him, who say: Why does he create those whom he foreknew would be impious and to be condemned? Why, finally, does he make those live, until they arrive at damnable impiety, whom, before they became such, he could take from this life; if he loves souls, if he commends his love in us, if he did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all? To whom, if it be said: O man, who are you to answer back to God? (Rom 9:20) His judgments are unsearchable (See Rom 11:33); they grow angry rather than gentle. But the Lord knows who are his (2 Tim 2:19). If, then, you wish to use sound judges, hear a sound judge praised singularly by your teacher. There was Adam, he says, and in him we all were; Adam perished, and in him all perished. But, you say, they certainly ought not to have perished by another's sins. They are another's, but they are a father's; and through this, by the right of sowing and germinating, they are ours too. Who frees from this perdition, except him who came to seek what had perished (See Luke 19:10)? In those, then, whom he frees, let us embrace mercy; but in those whom he does not free, let us acknowledge a judgment most hidden indeed, but without any doubt most just.

I. 49. Julian. That the god of light fought with the prince of darkness, the Manichee imagined and believed, and added that his substance is held captive in this world; but he strives to excuse so great an unhappiness with the color of piety, affirming that he fought, as it were, like a good citizen for his fatherland, and therefore exposed his members, lest he lose his kingdoms. You, who had learned these things, see how much you have profited by deserting them even for a time; you say that God did not endure the necessity of war, but admitted the iniquity of judgment; and that he is subject not to dark enemies, but to conspicuous crimes; that finally he did not impart his own substance, but violated eternal justice. Which of you is the worse, I leave to be judged by others. Yet this is clear, that you come back to one and the same wickedness of opinion. For the Manichee too subscribes injustice to his god, when he alleges that he will condemn, on the last day, the members he handed over; and you assert him to be unhappy through this, that he corrupts the glory by which he was renowned, and, by persecuting the innocence he created, lost the justice by which he was most holy. By so much, then, does the god whom your master had imagined excel this God whom you bring forward, as it is more excusable to have been overcome in battle than by fault.

Augustine. If the innocence of little ones pleases you, remove from them, if you can, the heavy yoke that is upon the sons of Adam from the day of their going out from their mother's womb (Sir 40:1). But I think that the Scripture which said this knew better than you what the innocence of the creature was, and what the justice of the Creator. Who, moreover, does not see that, if little ones have such innocence as you preach, there is no justice of God in their heavy yoke? Furthermore, since the divine justice is in their heavy yoke, there is not in them such innocence as you preach. Unless perhaps, for you laboring in this question, a God who is just indeed, but in some way weak, will be able to come to your aid, because he could not aid his own images, lest the innocent be pressed by the misery of a heavy yoke; so that you say he willed indeed, because he is just, but could not, because he is not almighty; and thus you escape from these straits in such a way as to lose the head of the faith, by which faith we first confess in the Creed that we believe in God the Father almighty. Your God, then, in so many and so great evils which little ones suffer, will lose either his justice, or his omnipotence, or his very care for human affairs; but whichever of these you say, see what you will be.

I. 50. Julian. Take yourself away, then, with such a God of yours, from the midst of the Churches; he is not the one in whom the Patriarchs, in whom the Prophets, in whom the Apostles believed, in whom the Church of the firstborn, which is enrolled in the heavens (See Heb 12:23), has hoped and hopes; he is not the one whom the rational creature believes to be its judge; whom the Holy Spirit announces will judge justly. No one of the prudent would ever have poured out his own blood for such a Lord; for he would not have deserved the affection of love, that he should impose the burden of a Passion to be undergone for him. Finally, this one whom you bring forward, if he existed anywhere, would be convicted of being a defendant, not a god; to be judged by my true God, not to judge in God's place. That you may, then, recognize the first foundations of the faith: our God, the God of the catholic Church, is unknown to us in substance, and likewise removed from sight; whom no one of men has seen, nor can see (1 Tim 6:16); as he is eternal without beginning, so he is holy and just without fault; most almighty, most equitable, most merciful, made known by the splendor of his virtues alone; the maker of all things that were not, the dispenser of those that are, the examiner of all who both are and will be and have been, on the last day; about to move the earth, the heaven, and all the elements together; the rouser of ashes, and the restorer of bodies; but for the sake of justice alone he will do all these things which we have said.

Augustine. If you worship the God of the Patriarchs, why do you not believe that the circumcision of the eighth day, which was commanded to Abraham, was a prefiguration of regeneration in Christ? For if you believed this, you would see that the soul of a little one could not justly be exterminated from his people, if he were not circumcised on the eighth day (See Gen 17:14), unless it had been bound by some sin? If you worship the God of the Prophets, why do you not believe that God so often said through them: I will repay the sins of the fathers upon the sons (See Exod 20:5)? If you worship the God of the Apostles, why do you not believe that the body is dead because of sin (Rom 8:10)? If you worship the God in whom the Church of the firstborn, which is enrolled in the heavens, has hoped and hopes, why do you not believe that little ones to be baptized are rescued from the power of darkness (See Col 1:13), since for this reason the Church breathes upon them and exorcizes them, that the power of darkness may be sent out from them? But as for him whom the rational creature, which is in his saints and faithful, hopes will be its judge, read to us what third place, besides the kingdom for the good and punishment for the wicked, he has prepared and promised for your unregenerate innocents. But how do you say that no one of the prudent pours out blood for the Lord whom we worship, when the most glorious Cyprian both worshiped him and poured out his blood for him—Cyprian, who chokes you in this question, saying that a little one born carnally from Adam contracts, at his first birth, the contagion of the ancient death? Do you not see that you are rather the defendant, who blaspheme this God of the holy martyrs? You say that you worship a most almighty, most equitable, most merciful God; but he is most almighty who could beyond doubt take away from the sons of Adam the heavy yoke by which they are pressed from the day of their birth, or rather bring it about that they be weighed down by no such yoke at all; but he is most equitable, who would in no way impose it, or permit it to be imposed, unless he found in them sins with which they were born, the guilt of which the same most merciful one would loose for the reborn. If, then, the divine justice delighted you, you would surely see that it comes from that justice—not unjustly, of course—the human misery known to all, with which this life is carried through, beginning from the first weeping of those being born, all the way to the last breath of those dying; with happiness promised only to the saints and faithful, but in another life.

I. 51. Julian. For this my God, then, whom every creature and the holy Scripture announce to me to be such as I believe, I said I would do more rightly if I did not even think you worthy of contention by books. But since this office has been imposed on me above all by holy men, the confessors of our time, that I should examine what weight and reason your sayings have, it was opportune to show first that you do not believe in that God who has always been preached in the Church of the Catholics and will be preached until the end wherever she shall be.

Augustine. I have rather shown that you have not shown what you say you have shown; and I have taught, if you are not too blind, that I believe in that God who has always been preached by the Church of the Catholics.

I. 52. Julian. But now I will consequently examine by what testimonies you try to affirm this which the faith of the pious assails. But since I have set out to confront your second book, which Alypius brought, lest the sequence of my rejoinder be confused, a few things must still be answered, until the discourse reaches the testimony of the Apostle, by which you seem to yourself to be very much fortified. To those words of yours, then, which I set down above, you add these which follow: In the things, then, which he passed over, he feared this, because it appeals to all the hearts of the catholic Church, and addresses, in a clear voice as it were, the very faith handed down and founded from of old, and most vehemently moves them against those who, as we said, "say there is no sin in little ones that is washed away by the laver of regeneration". For all run to the Church with little ones for no other reason than that the original sin contracted in them by the generation of the first birth may be expiated by the regeneration of the second birth. Then he returns to our earlier words, which I do not know why he repeats: "But those who are born from such union we say draw original sin; and those, from whatever parents they are born, we do not deny are still under the devil, unless they are reborn in Christ". These words of ours he had said a little before too. Then he subjoined what we said about Christ: "Who was unwilling to be born from the same union of both sexes." But here too he passed over what I set down: "That through his grace, rescued from the power of darkness, they may be transferred into the kingdom of him who was unwilling to be born from the same union of both sexes." See, I beseech you, what words of ours he avoided, as an enemy altogether of the grace of God, which came through Jesus Christ our Lord. For he knows that from that statement of the Apostle, in which he said of God the Father: "He rescued us from the power of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love "; little ones are most wickedly and impiously separated; therefore, beyond doubt, he preferred to pass over these words rather than to set them down. Am I an enemy of the grace of God, you most shameless of all men, who in my first book, from which you snatched these things torn from their context, in order to chatter something without reason, condemned with a pure and full profession your mouth dripping with the mysteries of the Manichees and your own?

Augustine. Will you make your case good by reviling? Say whose mouth, like mine, you boast that you have condemned. You will say: the Manichees'; but as a slanderer, not as a truth-teller. For I both detest the Manichees and their helpers, among whom you seek the chief place, and I refute both, with the Lord our God aiding and assisting, by catholic truth. But I will show you who are mine, whom you accuse in me, the more wickedly the more craftily. For in this case, where the question of original sin is at issue, on account of which you think me worthy of the most atrocious reproaches under the name of the Manichees, mine is Cyprian, who, though he said the little one had committed no sin, yet did not keep silent that he had contracted from Adam, at his first birth, the contagion of sin. Mine is Hilary, who, when he expounded what is read in the Psalm: My soul shall live and shall praise you (Ps 119:175 (118:175)): He does not reckon, he says, that he lives in this life; since he had said: "Behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in offenses my mother bore me " (Ps 51:5 (50:7)), he knows that he was born under the origin of sin, and under the law of sin. Mine is Ambrose, praised most excellently by your teacher, who said: We are all human beings born under sin, and our very origin is in fault; as you have read, David saying: "For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in offenses my mother bore me ". Therefore the flesh of Paul was a body of death. Mine is Gregory, who, when he was speaking about Baptism, says: Venerate the birth through which you have been freed from the bonds of earthly birth. Mine is Basil, who, when he was treating of fasting, says: Because we did not fast, we fell from paradise; let us fast that we may return to it. Mine is John of Constantinople, saying: Adam committed that great sin, and condemned the whole human race in common. All these, and their other associates who think the same, whom it is long to recall, are mine; if you acknowledge it, they are yours too; but they are my teachers, your disapprovers. How, then, did you condemn my mouth and that of mine, when you are rather condemned by the most concordant and most truthful mouth of those whom you behold to be mine? Do you dare, against these lights of the city of God, with a most darkened mind, a most shameless brow, a most insolent tongue, to cast the charge of being a Manichee? But if you do not dare, why do you dare it against me for no other reason than that I say what they say against whom you do not dare it?

I. 53. Julian. For there this order of words was set down by me, when I had said that God is the author of heaven and earth, and of all things that are in them, and through this also of human beings, for whose sake all things were made. But it does not escape me—I say—that, when we say these things, this will be spread abroad about us, that we do not think the grace of Christ necessary for little ones. Which laudably and vehemently offends the Christian peoples; if, however, they did not consider us the authors of a saying in itself impious; for in that way they would neither incur a crime by believing false things about their brothers, and would prove themselves zealous about the love of the faith. This part, then, must be fortified by us against the assault of vanity, and the mouth of those who speak against us must be sewn up by a brief confession. We, then, confess the grace of Baptism to be useful to all ages so far that we strike with eternal anathema all those who think it not necessary even for little ones. But this grace we believe to be rich in spiritual gifts, which, fertile with many gifts and venerable for its virtues, according to the kinds of weaknesses and the diversity of human conditions, heals by one and the same power, the bestower both of remedies and of gifts. When it is applied, it is not to be changed according to the cases; for it dispenses its own gifts according to the capacity of those who approach. For just as all the arts, not according to the diversity of the materials which they take up to be worked, themselves also suffer either losses or increases, but, holding themselves always and in one way, are adorned with manifold effect; so too, according to the Apostle: "one faith, one Baptism " (Eph 4:5). And they are multiplied and extended in gifts, nor yet are they changed in the orders of the mysteries. But this grace is not opposed to justice, which washes away the stains of iniquity; nor does it make sins, but purifies them; which absolves the guilty, does not calumniate the innocent. For Christ, who is the redeemer of his own work, increases his benefits toward his own image by continual liberality; and those whom he had made good by founding them, he makes better by renewing and adopting them. This grace, then, through which pardon for the guilty, spiritual illumination, the adoption of the sons of God, citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem, sanctification, and transfer into the members of Christ, and possession of the Kingdom of heaven are given to mortals, whoever thinks must be denied to any, deserves the execration of all good men.

Augustine. In all these gifts of God's grace which you mentioned, that which you put first—that pardon for the guilty is given through it—you do not want to pertain to little ones, who, you deny, draw any guilt from Adam. Why, then, does God deny the rest to many little ones, who die without this grace at that age? Why, I say, is spiritual illumination not given to them, the adoption of the sons of God, citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem, sanctification, and transfer into the members of Christ, and possession of the kingdom of heaven? Would God, in whom is the supreme power, deny these so many gifts, so necessary, to so many of his own images that, according to you, have no sin, when no contrary will of the little ones forbids this benefit from him? You certainly, in order to remove from yourselves this odium, by which you are said to deny the grace of Baptism to little ones, said that whoever thinks that grace must be denied to any deserves the execration of all good men. The equity of God almighty would not, then, deny it to the innumerable little ones who die without it under his omnipotence, if they deserved nothing evil in his hidden judgment. By which judgment, owed to all who come from the stock of Adam, whoever are freed according to grace, not according to debt, let them glory not in their own merits, but in the Lord. You, then, if you wish to be free of the reproach by which you have become detestable to the catholic Church, let Christ be Jesus to little ones. Which will not be at all, if he does not confer on them that for which he received this name, that is, if he does not save them from their sins (See Matt 1:21). Say this, then, about this grace, so that you may be free of the offense to Christians of which you complain, what the learned catholic and teacher Gregory said: Venerate the birth through which you have been freed from the bonds of earthly birth. In no way, then, do you confess that little ones pertain to this grace, as long as you deny that they are freed by the heavenly birth from the bonds of earthly birth.

I. 54. Julian. Since I have fortified these things, as this place meanwhile allowed, let us return to the point from which we digressed; intending to speak more fully about this very matter wherever it shall be opportune. Behold, with how great a light of confession I have reproved both those who would deny Baptism to little ones, and you who, by its prejudgment, dare to stain the justice of God; protesting that I hold nothing other than that the instituted mysteries are to be treated, with the very words in which they were handed down, in absolutely every age, nor ought to be changed according to the variety of cases; but that a sinner is made from evil perfectly good; while the innocent one, who has no evil of his own will, is made from good better, that is, best; so that both indeed pass, consecrated, into the members of Christ; but the one caught in an evil life, the other in a good nature. For the former corrupted by depraved action the innocence which his origin had received; but the latter, without praise, without crime of the will, has this alone, which he received from God his founder, who, happier in his unfeigned newness, could not vitiate the good of his own simplicity, having no merit from his acts, but retaining this alone, which he possessed by the gracious favor of so great a workman.

Augustine. Why, then, is there a heavy yoke upon him from the day of his going out from his mother's womb (See Sir 40:1)? Why so great a corruptibility of the body, that his soul is weighed down by it (See Wis 9:15)? Why so great a dullness of mind, that his slowness is educated even by blows? How long, Julian, are you heavy of heart? How long do you love vanity, and seek a lie (Ps 4:2 (4:3)), by which your heresy may be propped up? Surely, if no one had sinned, if human nature had remained in the goodness in which it was created, would a human being, even in paradise, be born to these miseries, to be silent about others?

I. 55. Julian. That age, then, just as, renewed, it proclaims the mercy of Christ, that is, advanced by the power of the renewing mystery; so, whether accused or weighed down, it convicts the iniquity of the judge, the infamy of justice.

Augustine. From what oldness is that age said to be renewed, since it is new in its origin? These are deceitful lips; if you wish to recognize the oldness from which little ones are renewed by Christian grace, hear faithfully what the man of God, Reticius, bishop of Autun, says, who once sat as judge with Melchiades, the Roman bishop, and condemned Donatus the heretic. For when he was speaking about Christian Baptism: This, then, he says, that it is the principal indulgence in the Church, escapes no one, in which we lay aside the whole weight of the ancient crime, and blot out the old wicked deeds of our ignorance; where we also put off the old man with his inborn crimes. Do you hear: not the deeds perpetrated afterward, but even the inborn crimes of the old man? Was this Reticius a Manichee? How, then, do you not deceitfully say that little ones are renewed in Christian regeneration, you who will not acknowledge in the old man the evils which the weight of the ancient crime engendered? Then, if that age, weighed down, convicts the iniquity of the judge, as you say, is it not so weighed down by the heavy yoke upon the sons of Adam? And yet God is not from this unjust; and through this it is deservedly weighed down. But there is no evil merit of this age, if there is no original sin.

I. 56. Julian. Infancy, then, is shown to be guilty not by the unity of the sacrament, but is approved, by the truth of judgment, to be nothing other than innocent.

Augustine. You think you have found why he is baptized; say why he is breathed upon. Surely the statement of Pelagius, your author, was thought great and unconquerable, where he says: If Adam's sin harmed even those who do not sin, then the justice of Christ too profits even those who do not believe. What, then, do you say about little ones when they are baptized? Do they believe, or do they not believe? If you say: They do not believe, how does the justice of Christ not profit them even though they do not believe, so that they possess the Kingdom of heaven? Or if it profits them, as you are compelled to confess; then Adam's sin so harmed them, who did not yet have a will to sin, as the justice of Christ profits them, who do not yet have a will to believe? But if you say: They believe through others, then they also sinned through another. And since it is true that they believe through others (for on this account they are called faithful throughout the whole Church), they surely pertain to that which the Lord said: But he who will not believe shall be condemned (Mark 16:16). They will, then, be condemned if they do not believe through others, since they cannot believe through themselves; but they could in no way be justly condemned, if they were not born under sin, and through this also under the prince of sin. For this reason, then, they are also breathed upon. Remove from them your deceptive vanity; let the little ones come to Jesus (See Matt 19:14), who saves his people (among whom they certainly are too) from their sins (See Matt 1:21).

I. 57. Julian. Although the sequence of reasoning bids me to linger over explaining the state of little ones—which sequence does not allow things joined by their own law to be divided. Moreover, the loss of those being born would be easier to bear, if majesty itself were not endangered along with them. Excuse God, then, and accuse the little one; let him be taught to do what is just, who without justice cannot be God; and let whatever person you please undergo the punishment. But now, apart from sacrilege, the things you think to be joined together vehemently contend with one another. For you say that, since little ones too are imbued with the same mysteries as idolaters and parricides, all can be convicted as wicked; and you add a thing much more absurd, that by the author of this Sacrament, with which we are dealing, another's sins are imputed to the innocent. This is what I said is at odds, because the nature of things does not admit that at one and the same time God should be both so merciful as to forgive each one confessing his own sins, and so cruel as to charge against the innocent another's. Of these, when you have granted one, you have taken away the other; if he grants pardon to the guilty, he does not calumniate the innocent; if he calumniates the innocent, he never spares the guilty.

Augustine. It is rather you who make God unjust, since it seems to you unjust to repay the sins of the fathers upon the sons, which he both often testifies in words that he does and shows by deeds. You, I say, make God unjust, under whose almighty care, when you see little ones pressed by the heavy yoke of misery, you contend that they have no sin, accusing at once both God and the Church; God indeed, if the undeserving are weighed down and afflicted; but the Church, if those free from the rule of diabolical power are breathed upon. But where did you dream that we equate the original sins of little ones to those of idolaters and parricides? Yet the remission of sins put into the mysteries, in sins both greater and lesser, and more and fewer, and single, is true; but in no sins, such as you say is the case with little ones, it is false. But original sins are another's, on account of no choice of our will in them, in such a way that nevertheless, on account of the contagion of origin, they are found to be ours too. What is it, then, that you cry out, and say that God cannot both forgive their own sins to adults and impute another's to little ones; and you will not attend to this, that he forgives both only to those reborn in Christ, but neither to those not reborn in Christ? For the very sacraments of Christian grace are hidden from the wise and prudent, and revealed to little ones (See Matt 11:25). Among whom, oh, if you were, and did not trust as a great man in your own strength, you would surely understand that the injustice of the first man is so imputed to little ones who are begotten, to undergo punishment, as the justice of the second man is imputed to little ones who are reborn, to obtain the Kingdom of heaven; although by their own will and act neither are they found to have imitated the former in evil, nor the latter in good.

I. 58. Julian. Thus I passed over nothing in your words, compelled, as you say, by fear. For what could I dread in the monuments of so elegant a talent, unless perhaps this alone, that I endure horror at the assault of your obscenity?

Augustine. If you were buying these revilings, I would call you a spendthrift; they lie at hand for you free; why do you not enjoy them, with which you feed your slanderous mind?

I. 59. Julian. Hear, then, against what you have said, briefly: they are not hearts of the catholic Church, which your discourse addresses, if they are at odds with piety and reason. Which both they commit, when they neither think well about the equity of God, nor understand the wisdom and riches of the mysteries which they accuse. This is not the faith handed down and founded from of old, except in the councils of the malignant, inspired by the devil, brought forth by the Manichee, celebrated by Marcion, Faustus, Adimantus, and all their satellites, and now belched forth by you into Italy, which we grievously bemoan.

Augustine. With what mouth, with what brow do you call a council of the malignant the agreement of so many catholics who were teachers of the Churches before us? As though, indeed, if there sat, in a council of bishops which you say ought to be gathered—not wholesomely, but boastfully, on account of your questions—the bishops whom I mentioned above, to omit others, Cyprian, Hilary, Ambrose, Gregory, Basil, John of Constantinople, you would easily find any of those who now remain whom you could equal to them, let alone prefer, in the ecclesiastical doctrine handed down from of old. Since, then, they themselves bring forth against you, concerning original sin, open and clear statements, both those which I set down a little before, and very many others; do you dare to call the agreement of these in catholic truth a council of the malignant? And do you consider what you contradict in them, and not rather where you may flee, if you are unwilling to agree with them? But since you said that I belched forth into Italy what you bemoan, I throw back upon your brow that same bishop of Italy, Ambrose, praised by your teacher. We are all human beings, he says, born under sin, and our very origin is in fault; as you have read, David saying: "Behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in offenses my mother bore me ". Therefore the flesh of Paul was a body of death, as he himself says: "Who will free me from the body of this death? ". But the flesh of Christ condemned sin, which it did not feel by being born, which it crucified by dying, that there might be in our flesh justification through grace, where before there was foulness through fault. This faith, then, I say is handed down and founded from of old; you refuse it, and do not look at whom you struggle against. Will you be able to say that it was inspired in this man by the devil? Is this man a Manichee? Is he Marcion, Faustus, Adimantus? Certainly not, but far unlike them, and far contrary. Let Pelagius at least say who this man is. He, he is the one, whose faith and most pure understanding in the Scriptures not even an enemy has dared to find fault with. What is it, Julian? Where do you see yourself? He whose faith not even an enemy has dared to find fault with had this faith, which you so find fault with that you attribute it to councils of the malignant. Behold, it is not theirs, but it is Ambrose's; because it is true, because it is sound, because, as I said, it is handed down and founded from of old, this faith is mine too. I did not, then, belch this forth into Italy (which you say you bemoan); but rather I received the laver of regeneration from this bishop of Italy who preached and taught it. Since this faith is catholic, and yet is not yours; where, then, are you? See, I beseech you, and return. It is to your advantage to see, not to envy; we desire that you return, not perish.

I. 60. Julian. There is no sin in a human being, if there is nothing of his own will or assent; this race of men, which has even a little understanding, agrees with me without doubt. But you concede that there was nothing of their own will in little ones; not I, but reason concludes: there is, then, no sin in them. In no way, then, are they brought to the Church for this, that they may be defamed, or rather that they may defame God: but they are brought that they may praise God, whom they declare the author both of natural goods and of spiritual gifts.

Augustine. They are not defamed, when they are breathed upon, but are rescued from the power of darkness; nor do they defame God, but by the Creator by whom they were born, by him they need a Savior; and therefore, by being reborn, they are transferred from Adam to Christ. But where you said: There is no sin in a human being, if there is nothing of his own will or assent, you would speak more fully the truth if you added: Or of contagion.

I. 61. Julian. But original sin, if it is contracted by the generation of the first birth, can indeed condemn the marriages instituted by God, but cannot be taken away from little ones; since what is born in remains, until the end of him to whom it has clung from the causes of his beginnings.

Augustine. It neither condemns marriages, because they themselves are not its cause; and it is taken away by that Almighty one, who could even be born a man without it.

I. 62. Julian. We stir up no calumny against you, then, as though you condemn marriage, and as though you say that the human being who is born from it is the work of the devil; nor do we object this faithlessly, nor gather it unskillfully; but we examine carefully and simply what is the effect of the consequent statements. For corporeal marriages are never without union. You say that whoever are born from that union pertain to the devil; beyond doubt you declare that marriages pertain to the right of the demon.

Augustine. Do we say that marriages could have existed in paradise without union of body, if no one had sinned? But there would not be there the evil which conjugal chastity now uses well. But that evil is from the wound which diabolical cunning inflicted. From this the offspring of mortals is held guilty; from this it is that whoever is born is born under the prince of sinners, until he is reborn in Christ, who had absolutely no sin; by whom alone the bond of death is loosed, because he alone was free among the dead (See Ps 88:5 (87:6)).

I. 63. Julian. You say that sin is drawn by the condition of nature, you who want this evil to have come about from the will of the first man. I defer here the response by which you must be convicted of lying without shame. But as for what concerns the present place, I gather, and believe the reasoning of wisdom, that you plainly define nature, without ambiguity, to be diabolical. For if in it or through it is that on account of which a human being is possessed by the devil; it is irrefutably the devil's, that through which he could claim for himself the image of God. Or rather, it is not even the image of God, which through its origin is in the kingdom of the devil.

Augustine. You believe, but with opining folly, not with reasoning wisdom. Allow little ones to be rescued from the power of darkness, that they may be transferred into the kingdom of Christ. For by saying that they do not have the contagion of the ancient offense, and so removing them from the mercy of the Savior, who saves his people from their sins (Matt 1:21), whence he was called Jesus; you accomplish nothing except that the wrath of God remains upon them, of which Job spoke, saying: Man born of woman, of short life, and full of wrath, and like the flower of the field he falls, but flees like a shadow, and does not stand; have you not made account of him too, and made him enter into judgment in your sight? For who will be clean from filth? Not even one, even if his life upon the earth be of one day (Job 14:1-5 LXX). But of course, merciful man that you are, you pity the image of God, that you may not say it is born carnally under sin. O how cruel is this vain mercy of yours, which denies to little ones the mercy of their Savior; who came to seek what had perished (See Luke 19:10)! Through that filth, then, without which the man of God says there is no one, even if his life upon the earth be of one day, the devil claims for himself the image of God, not through the substance which God created. For the nature is vitiated, it is not the vice. But you: It is not even the image of God, you say, which through its origin is in the kingdom of the devil. What if another should say to you: It is not the image of God, which, guilty of no sin, nevertheless does not enter into the kingdom of God? Will you not have what to answer, if you are unwilling to answer empty things? And certainly a human being is the image of God for this reason, that he was made to the likeness of God (See Gen 1:26-27). Why, then, is he also made like to vanity, on account of which his days pass away like a shadow (Ps 144:4 (143:4))? For you will not separate little ones from this vanity, since their days pass away like a shadow. Finally, will you separate them even from the living? Hear, then, him who says in the Psalm: Behold, you have made my days old, and my substance is as nothing before you; yet all is vanity, every living man (Ps 39:5-6 (38:6-7)). Since, then, every living man is the image of God, say whence every living man is also vanity. But what will you say, you who will not acknowledge that one of these is from the condition of God, the other came about from the condition of sin? Permit, we beseech you, that the living man, who was made to the likeness of God, be rescued from the power of darkness, under which he was made like to vanity; let him be rescued now, meanwhile, from the obligation of guilt; but after this corruptible life, from all vanity too.

I. 64. Julian. If, then, you read my work, you will cease to wonder why I returned to your words, which I had set down above. For I had promised that I would prove from your writings that you, between the impiety you had drunk and the odium of it which you fear, had said both alike, both what is wont to be asserted by Catholics and what by Manichees. And so there is set down at your chapter such an order of words, which now, with the brow of a sycophant, you have lyingly said was interpolated. I know I promised great things, that is, that I would approve, from the discourses of my adversary, both that those who deny that human beings are the work of God are justly condemned, and that this same man, who confesses this, does nothing else than confirm that whatever proceeds from the fecundity of marriage is the property of the devil. For by this kind, by the very laws of his own defense, the opinion of the Manichees will be destroyed. But the very openings of his book made this public. For he says that human beings, who are born from marriages, that is, from males and females, are a divine work; by which statement he overturns all that he was going to do, and assents to us who say that those are impious who dare to deny these things. One part, then, is now settled: it remains that I show that he establishes what he had just now assailed. With these things said, I took up part of your chapter, in which you had said: Those who are born from such union we say draw original sin, and those, from whatever parents they are born, we do not deny are still under the devil, unless they are reborn in Christ, and, rescued through his grace from the power of darkness, are transferred into the kingdom of him who was unwilling to be born from the same union of both sexes. Why, then, do you think you can be excused from the error of the Manichees by this, that you dared to insert a statement with which you were struggling with all the powers of your talent; when this is not a defense of your error, but a testimony of singular stupidity, you who think that, in the manner of Calliphon, virtue and vices, justice and iniquity, can be brought into a covenant by your discourse? But as for what the Apostle says: Who rescued us from the power of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love (Col 1:13); read the fourth book of my work, and then what the Teacher of the Gentiles meant will become known to you.

Augustine. Our sixth answered your fourth, and now I rather urge that those who wish to know how far you were there astray from the truth, and by how great a truth you are convicted, should read those books of yours and mine. But about this little sheet, in which certain things excerpted from your books were written out, you are free to impute to me what he did who sent it to the man by whom it was sent to me. For he put in it from your work what he wished, and passed over what he wished; about which I have already answered you above briefly and sufficiently. Why do you try to wrap yourself in your obscurities against the manifest things of the Apostle? He, proclaiming God, says: Who rescued us from the power of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love; and you say this was said by him with little ones excepted. If, then, little ones are not rescued from the power of darkness, they are not dead; if they are not dead, Christ did not die for them; but you confess that Christ died even for them; and the same Apostle says: One died for all; therefore all are dead (2 Cor 5:14). This conclusion of the Apostle is unconquerable; and through this, since he died also for little ones, surely little ones too are dead. Christ, moreover, died, that he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil (Heb 2:14). Allow, then, little ones to be rescued from the power of darkness, that they may live. But what is it, that you object to me the manner, or the error, of Calliphon, in this, that you say I think virtue and vices, justice and iniquity, can be brought into a covenant by my discourse? Far be it from me that I should either hold this in my heart or persuade it in speech; but I congratulate you that you have understood this philosopher so well. For since he thought the good of a human being to be in the virtue of the mind and in the pleasure of the body; you say he wished to join virtues and vices; and through this, as was fitting, you have judged the appetite for bodily pleasure to be a vice; lust, then, which you praise, is a vice. The truth, then, crept somehow into your understanding, so that, deserting a little the cause you had taken up, you said what we say.

I. 65. Julian. I argued, then, and rightly argued, the dejected and feeble variation, by which it had been brought about that you both premised that you do not condemn marriage, and said that, on account of the union of man and woman—which it is clear comes from the condition and nature of marriage, or rather in which alone (so far as concerns our conflict) the truth of marriage is—human beings are transcribed into the rights of the devil.

Augustine. If the truth of marriage is in the union of man and woman alone; then the truth of adulteries is the same as that of marriages, because in both there is this union of both sexes. But if that is most absurd; the truth of marriage is not in the union of male and female alone, as you rave, although without it marriages cannot propagate children; but there are other things properly pertaining to marriage, by which marriages are distinguished from adulteries, such as the fidelity of the conjugal bed, and the care of procreating children in an orderly way, and—which is the greatest difference—the good use of an evil, that is, the good use of the concupiscence of the flesh, which evil adulterers use badly.

I. 66. Julian. Which union you have tried to persuade us is so execrable that you would have it understood that Christ wished to be born of a virgin mother, not on account of the splendor of the sign, but on account of the union of the sexes to be condemned. What, then, could ever have been said by anyone more wickedly or more shamelessly than this, that you separated two kings, as it were, contending for the possession of humanity, by these signs, and their two kingdoms, so as to say that whatever marriage had brought forth was the devil's, but God's only what the Virgin had borne? What is it else than to show the one who made the Virgin fruitful as most destitute by the poverty of his portion, and to deny that he is the founder of those who come forth from the marriages of human beings? Let the diligent reader, then, hold the handwriting of your word, and know that you, the faithful disciple of the Manichees and the chief of the Traducian nation, have condemned nothing other than the union of lawful marriage.

Augustine. You do not have senses exercised to separate good from evil. The nature and substance both of men and of Angels, whether good or evil, subsists with God as Creator; but the vices of natures and substances, which the Manichees say are natures and substances, but which the truth denies, the just and almighty God permits to exist by a judicial ordering; and these are evils, which cannot exist except from good and in good natures. But whatever things are subjected to him, by God's judging, are so in the power of the devil that they cannot be foreign to the power of God, under which the devil himself too has been placed. Since, then, all Angels and all human beings are under the power of God, vain is your loquacity, by which you say that God and the devil have divided between themselves which of them has whom under his own power. But against whom, with a raw breast, you vomit forth these revilings on which you feed, attend a little. Behold, here is Ambrose; about this which you inveigh against, see what he says: How could he alone be just, when all generation went astray, unless, born of a Virgin, he were held least of all by the privilege of a generation subject to guilt? Hear still, hear, and check your insolent tongue by striking your brow: For no virile coition, he says, unsealed the secrets of the virginal womb; but the Holy Spirit poured an immaculate seed into the inviolable womb; for alone among those born of woman, the Lord Jesus is holy in all things, who, by the newness of his immaculate birth, did not feel the contagions of earthly corruption, and by his heavenly majesty drove them away. You see indeed, do you not, who said what I say? You see, whatever you say against me, against whom you say it? For if I am from this a disciple of the Manichee, so too is he. But he who said these things before us is not this; this man, then, is not it, whoever says these things; but whoever contradicts this ancient catholic teaching is a manifest heretic.

I. 67. Julian. But let us now proceed to the rest. Writing about me, then, after those words of yours which I wove in above, you add these which follow: After these things he set down that statement of ours, where we said: For this shameful concupiscence, which is shamelessly praised by the shameless, would be none, unless a human being had first sinned; but marriages would exist, even if no one had sinned; for the sowing of children would come about without this disease. Thus far he set down my words. For he feared what I added: It could come about in the body of that life, without which it now cannot come about in the body of this death. And here, that he might not finish my statement, but as it were lop it off, he dreaded that testimony of the Apostle, where he says: "Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord " (Rom 7:24-25). For there was no body of this death in paradise before sin, on account of which we said: In the body of that life, which was there, the sowing of children could come about without this disease, without which it cannot come about in the body of this death. You indeed keep your custom—and consistently in this work especially—that, since you act against the truth, you say nothing true; but a multitude of corrections scarcely suffices for the numerous sins of your erudition. Therefore here I will now briefly note that you deceive; but me—you will understand, even after this work—to be unaccustomed to lying. To yourself, then, claim the whole possession of this vice, so that you can hear from the Gospel, and not unjustly indeed, that you are from the beginning a liar, like your father (See John 8:44)—whether the one to whose dominion you say you pertained at your birth, or the other, a secondary one, who imbued you with elegant mysteries, which nevertheless cannot be named among honest men. I brought forth, then, all this in my earlier work, which you pretend was passed over; with how great a truth and light of disputation it was refuted, if you read nearly the last parts of my first volume, even you yourself will be able to confess. Not, then, your statement lopped off, but your whole one, was destroyed by a strong response. But now hear briefly: this which the Apostle says: Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord; he referred not to the mortality of our body, which the flesh of animals received from the institution of nature, but to the habit of sinning; from which guilt, after the incarnation of Christ, through the New Testament, whoever migrates to the pursuits of virtue is freed. There, then, speaking under the person of the Jews, who err by the desire of allurements even after the prohibition of the sacred law, he shows that there was one sole help in that time, if they believed in Christ; who so enjoined cautions about the future as to forgive pardon for what was done; nor did he press the guilty under the temptation of punishment, but cherished those who ran with a most liberal bosom; not dismaying those cast down by terror, but restoring those corrected by kindness. Which kindness he himself had already felt, who said: It is a human saying, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first; but therefore I obtained mercy, that in me Christ Jesus might show all patience, for the example of those who shall believe in him unto eternal life (1 Tim 1:15-16). That you might understand this to pertain to an evil life, not to the nature of human beings; lest, through the cause of Christ's coming, you should think that even little ones were declared by him to be sinners, he says: In me he showed all patience. But the patience of God is that of which he speaks to the Romans: Or are you ignorant that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you treasure up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath (Rom 2:4-5). The patience of God is exercised, then, when a human conversion is awaited for no small time. But in little ones patience cannot appear. For if there were sins of nature, which the Savior would ascribe to them; he would falsely indeed be called patient, but most certainly savage. But God cannot be anything but pious and just, which my God Jesus Christ is; whose patience either Paul, long a persecutor, or others under whose person he speaks, experienced; because they were long awaited, though freed late. And through this, by the Apostle the life of human beings, not their nature, is condemned. Commending, then, this grace to the Jews, because the law punishes the wicked, and does not have that efficacy of mercy which Baptism has, in which the offenses of one's acts are purified by a brief confession, he shows that they ought to run to Christ, to implore the help of this indulgence; and to notice that the law of morals threatens by the wounds of vices, but grace heals efficaciously and quickly. He called sins, then, the body of death, not the flesh; for if he had declared this of the misery of the members, which you reckon befell on account of sin, he would more rightly have called it the death of the body than the body of death. But that you may know that, according to the custom of the Scriptures, sins are called members; read to the Colossians, where the same Apostle says: Mortify your members, which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, and avarice, which is the service of idols; on account of which the wrath of God comes upon the sons of unbelief, among whom you too once walked, when you lived in them (Col 3:5-7). Behold how he calls members what he declares to be sins. But the body of sin, here the same to the Romans: Our old man, he says, is crucified together with him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, that we may no longer serve sin (Rom 6:6). In this manner, then, here too he exclaimed, under the person, as we said, of the Jews: Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death? that is: Who will free me from the guilt of my sins, which I committed when I could have avoided them? Which the severity of the law does not forgive, but avenges? Who will be able to vindicate me from these members, that is, from the vices which I gathered by imitating the wicked, so as to build up a body full of sin? Who, I say? And he answered, as if admonished by the very voice of the things: The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The grace of God, which credits the justice of the faithful without works, according to what David says: Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin (Ps 32:1-2 (31:1-2); Rom 4:7-8). He, then, who makes a human being blessed, is himself also blessed, the eternal justice, through which he does not forgive sin, except what he could by right have imputed. But he could not by right have imputed, if the one to whom it is imputed could not also have avoided it. But no one can avoid natural things. Therefore no one at all can have sin by the necessity of nature. Let it suffice to have said these things briefly.

Augustine. You have tried indeed to turn, by disputing, this which the Apostle says: Who will free me from the body of this death? into your meaning; but that you could not do this, he saw better who sent the little sheet to the illustrious man; and therefore, mentioning my words, he passed this over, lest your awaited and brought-forth response be laughed at. For who would not laugh that—I know not whether you could persuade yourselves of it, and yet you thought it should be persuaded to others—the Apostle introduced the person of a Jew, not yet placed under the grace of Christ, and saying: Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Is it really a Jew, and not yet a Christian, who says: The grace of God will free me through Jesus Christ our Lord? But this I pass over; but who could bear that a man should be thought to say, about his past sins: Who will free me from the body of this death? so that they may be remitted to him through the grace of the pardoning Christ; when it appears clearly whence he came to these words? Behold, his words are in our ears; let us see, then, whether he confesses himself wretched from what he does willing, or from what he does unwilling. The man cries out: I do not do what I will, but what I hate, that I do. He cries out: It is now no longer I who work it, but the sin that dwells in me. For I know that there does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh, the good; for to will is present to me, but to accomplish the good I do not find. For I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I will not, this I do (Rom 7:15-19). He does not say: I did, but: I do; he does not say: I worked, but: I work; he does not say: I acted, but: I do; and this: Not what I will, but: what I will not. Finally, he is delighted together with the law of God according to the inner man; but he sees another law in his members, fighting against the law of his mind; by which law certainly he is compelled, not to do the good that he wills, but the evil that he wills not, this to do. On account of this he exclaims: Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death? (See Rom 7:22-24) And you, against the clearest truth, close your eyes, and expound his groan, not as it is plain to all, but as it pleases you, saying: Who will free me from the body of this death? that is: Who will free me from the guilt of my sins which I committed? He says: The evil that I will not, this I do; and you say: Which I committed. Do you so despair of the men who read these things that they would not rather hear him than you, and believe him rather than you? Allow a human being to ask for the grace of God, not only because he has sinned, that he may be absolved, but also that he may not sin, that he may be helped: which is dealt with in this place. For he who says: The evil that I will not, this I do, has no occasion to say: Forgive us our debts, but: Lead us not into temptation (Matt 6:12-13). But each one is tempted, as the apostle James says, drawn and enticed by his own concupiscence (Jas 1:14). This is the evil about which he says: I know that there does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh, the good. This is the evil in the body of this death. This evil was not in paradise before sin; because this flesh was not yet the body of this death; to which it will be said in the end: Where, O death, is your contention? (See 1 Cor 15:55) But it will be said then, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality (See 1 Cor 15:53-54); but now it is a body of death; because the same Apostle said: The body is dead because of sin (Rom 8:10). Hear the catholic interpreters of the Apostle; receive their words, not mine, with which I receive your revilings; hear not Pelagius, but Ambrose. The flesh of Paul too, he says, was a body of death, as he himself says: "Who will free me from the body of this death?". Hear not Caelestius, but Gregory: Within ourselves, he says, we are assailed by our own vices and passions, and day and night we are pressed by the fiery goads of this body of lowliness and body of death, now secretly, now even openly, with the allurements of visible things provoking and irritating us everywhere, this mire of dregs, to which we have clung, exhaling the stench of its own filth through more capacious veins; but also with the law of sin, which is in our members, fighting against the law of the spirit. Barking against these lights of the heavenly city, you say: The body of death he called sins, not the flesh; denying that the Apostle referred this to the mortality of our body: Which the flesh, you say, of animals received from the institution of nature. For you hold this opinion, which Pelagius in the judgment of Palestine condemned with a feigned heart, namely that Adam was made mortal, so that whether he sinned or did not sin, he would die. And so, resisting these men, and other associates of theirs in the sound faith, so many and so great teachers, you are compelled to fill paradise, even if no one had sinned, with the pain of those giving birth, the labor of those being born, the groans of those languishing, the funerals of those dying, the grief of those mourning. What wonder, then, if you are also outside this paradise, which is the Church, you who make that paradise, from which they went out who sent us by sinning into these miseries, such as—I do not say no Christian, but not even any human being—dares to suspect, unless he be insane?

I. 68. Julian. For in the first work these things were disputed at greater length. Although you do not even speak clearly what death you wish to be understood, whose body you say was not in paradise before sin; because in the books which you published to the name of Marcellinus, you professed that Adam was made mortal. But as for what you add, that the business of marriage is a disease, it can be tolerably heard, if you say this only about your own parents. For you can perhaps be conscious of some hidden disease of your mother, whom in the books of your Confessions, to use the very word, you noted to have been called a tippler. But in the wedlock of the saints, and of all honest men, there is absolutely no disease. Because the Apostle did not grant a disease as a remedy, when, through reverence for marriage, he was fortifying the men of the Church against the disease of fornication; which sense, how it has utterly erased both your brow and your teaching, is shown near the last part of my first volume; which has also been explained in the whole body of the response itself, as the opportuneness of the places afforded.

Augustine. Nowhere has your guile so appeared, and your conscience condemned through knowledge. For you know, you know altogether; for it is so open that whoever reads those books cannot fail to know it; you know, I say, that in the books I published to Marcellinus, I argued vehemently against your heresy, already beginning then to rise, that no one should believe that Adam, even if he had not sinned, would have died. But since I have hitherto said that he was mortal, because he could die—for he could sin—you wished, by an insidious deception, if those who have not read those books, and perhaps will not read them, should read these things of yours, to filch from them; as though I had said that Adam was made mortal in such a way that whether he sinned or did not sin, he would die. For this is what is dealt with between us and you, on this the whole question about this matter turns between us, that we say Adam, if he had not sinned, would not have suffered the death of the body; but you say that, whether he had sinned or not sinned, he would die in body. What is it, then, that you pretend not to know, what death I wish to be understood, whose body I say was not in paradise before sin; when you know what I argued in those books, and how openly and clearly I argued, that God would not have said in punishment to the sinner: You are earth, and into earth you shall go (Gen 3:19) (which who does not understand to be said of the death of the body?), if Adam, even with no iniquity committed, were going to go into the earth, that is, to die in body? But as for the fact that you thought even my mother, who has in no way harmed you, nor disputed anything against you, ought to be torn at with reviling, you were overcome by the lust of slandering, not fearing what is written: Nor shall slanderers possess the kingdom of God (See 1 Cor 6:10). But what wonder is it that you show yourself an enemy even of her, when you are an enemy of the grace of God, by which I said she was freed from that girlish vice? But I hold your parents in honor as catholic Christians, and congratulate them that they died before they saw you a heretic. But we do not say that the business of marriage is a disease, which is to lie together for the cause of procreating children, not of sating lust; which lust you deny to be a disease, though you confess that the conjugal remedy was provided against it. For certainly, lest fornication be perpetrated, the lust which you praise is contradicted, resisted, fought against. So that, if it transgresses that limit which is established for procreating children; at least he who yields to it in a spouse sins venially; for the Apostle was speaking to spouses, where, when he had said: Do not defraud one another, except by consent for a time, that you may be free for prayer; and again return to the same, lest Satan tempt you because of your incontinence; he immediately added, and said: But this I say by way of indulgence, not by way of command (1 Cor 7:5-6). Conjugal chastity, then, uses this evil well by the sole intention of propagating offspring; one yields to this evil venially in a spouse, not for the cause of offspring, but only of carnal pleasure; this evil is resisted, lest the damnable appetite of pleasure be satisfied. This evil dwells in the body of this death; on account of whose motion, importunate even when the mind does not consent, it is said: I know that there does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh, the good. This evil was not in the body of that life, where either, with the genital members too serving the will, there was no lust, or it never moved itself at all against the choice of the will. They were ashamed of this evil suddenly arising (See Gen 3:7), who before they sinned were naked, and were not ashamed (See Gen 2:25). You scattered the praises of this evil shamelessly even in those four books of yours, to which I was compelled to reply in my six.

I. 69. Julian. But that the Apostle might come to this mention of human misery and divine grace, he had said above: I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and taking me captive in the law of sin (Rom 7:23); after these words he exclaimed: Who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is established, indeed, that after those premises which you set down, the Apostle subjoined: Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. But we are not asking at present whether the Apostle said this; rather we ask by what faith, in what sense, by what reasoning he said it. For he called the law in the members, rebellious to holy counsels through the practice of disgraceful deeds—yet in the midst of the beginnings of amendment—an evil habit, which is wont to be called by the learned even of the age a second nature. For a little before he had said, addressing those to whom he speaks with reproach: It is a human thing that I say, on account of the weakness of your flesh; for as you presented your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members to serve justice unto sanctification (Rom 6:19). And that he might show that he called flesh abusively, not this body which has its causes in seeds, but vices; after two chapters perhaps he subjoins: When we were in the flesh, the passions of sins which are shown through the law worked in our members, that they might bear fruit unto death (Rom 7:5). He said thus: When we were in the flesh, as if at that time when he was disputing, he were not in the flesh; but whoever knows the Scriptures recognizes this kind of expression. And therefore, where the commonness of words introduces a question, let the rule of reason be applied, to whose level the things that were thought to have deviated may be brought. But Faustus, the bishop of the Manichees, your teacher, relies on this testimony of the Apostle above all against us, saying that by these words—of the law, namely, which dwells in the members fighting against counsel—nothing else than an evil nature was signified by him. Whence nothing ought less to have been done by you than that this passage be understood as it is expounded by them, lest, when you go in along the same lines which Faustus twisted, you seem not to have disputed, but to have repeated what is past.

Augustine. Let there answer you, not Faustus the Manichee, but the learned catholic and teacher Gregory, who did not, in the midst of the beginnings, as you say, of amendment, call the law in the members rebellious to holy counsels through the practice of disgraceful deeds, an evil habit, which is wont to be called by the learned even a second nature; but plainly and openly attributed the law of sin which is in our members fighting against the law of the mind to this mortal and earthly body of ours, saying: That the law of sin which is in our members fights against the law of the spirit, while it strives to lead captive the royal image which is within us, so that there may yield to its spoils whatever it is that flowed into us by the benefit of the divine and primal creation. Whence scarcely anyone, he says, perhaps, governing himself by long and strict philosophy, and little by little recalling the nobility of his soul, calls back and turns to God the nature of the light which is in him, joined to this lowly and dark mire. Or if at least, God being favorable, he acts, he will call both back together; if, however, by long and assiduous meditation he accustoms himself always to look upward, and to lift up by tighter reins the matter that drags downward badly and weighs down, bound to himself. These things the blessed Gregory said, not in the midst of the beginnings of his amendment, but already a bishop, wishing to expound, or rather to admonish of what is known, in how great and what kind of a contest with the interior vices, on account of the body that weighs down the soul, the saints are placed. Which contest certainly would not have been in that place of blessed peace, that is, paradise of holy delights, if no one had sinned. For the body of this death would not be there, by whose corruptibility the soul would be weighed down; but the body of that life, where the flesh would not lust against the spirit, so that it would be necessary for the spirit to lust against the flesh (See Gal 5:17); but by the happy concord of both human nature would rejoice. If, then, you wished to assail, not to assist, the Manichees who introduce another nature and substance of evil; you would surely not deny, with your deceivers, these miseries of human life open to all and beginning from little ones; but you would say, with the catholic faithful and the most illustrious teachers, whence our nature, which was first instituted blessed, has fallen into them.

I. 70. Julian. That what we have done may, then, be gathered: neither did I bring fraud into your sayings, nor did you bring anything that you could either suffuse with even a paler color of piety, much less approve with the Scriptures as witnesses. Neither did the Apostle understand this which you think; nor was there at all in paradise any other condition of union than such as is now carried on in marriages, which God, having instituted them himself, taught thoroughly both by the very condition of the sexes and the quality of the members, and by the blessing he repeated. With these things settled, it is clear that all who are deceived by you are more worthy of wrath than of mercy, since, for the excusing of their crimes, which they commit by an evil will, they defame birth, with you as author, that they may not correct their action.

Augustine. The pious action in this life is to worship God, and by his grace to fight against the interior vices, and not to yield to them when they instigate or compel to unlawful things; and where one yields, to ask for pardon, and, that one may not yield, for the help of God, with the affection of religious piety. But in paradise, if no one had sinned, there would be no action of piety to assail vices; since the persistence of happiness would be to have no vices. But the praise of vices which is shamelessly repeated by you is not a sign of men truly fighting against vices. Was it really so, Julian, that when Ambrose said: We are all human beings born under sin, and our very origin is in fault; he either said it with me as author, or defamed birth, that he might not correct action? Was it really so, that Gregory, when he said: Venerate the birth through which you have been freed from the bonds of earthly birth; or when, speaking of Christ, or of the Holy Spirit, he said: Through him the stains of the first birth are purified, through which we are conceived in iniquities, and in offenses our mothers bore us; or when Hilary said about King David: He knows that he was born under the origin of sin, and under the law of sin; did these men defame birth, that they might not correct action? Will you dare to persuade your heart that the action of the Pelagians is to be preferred to the action of these men? Forgive me—we would never believe that you live a better life than they, not even if you did not so love the concupiscence of the flesh that you wish to place it, such as it now is, lusting against the spirit, even in paradise before sin. For if, as you say: There was no other condition of union in paradise than such as is now carried on in marriages; there was there, even before sin, carnal lust, without which now neither sex can be joined. If, then, you are unwilling that in that blessedness the genital members, not yet shameful, could, to perform their work by which offspring would be sown, serve the will of human beings without lust; I ask still what kind of lust you believe it then to be. Did it certainly follow the will when it was necessary; or even when it was not necessary for propagating children, did it nevertheless goad the mind, and drive it into intercourse either damnable, or venial with a spouse? For if it was such as it now is; it did this without doubt, whether it was resisted through temperance, or yielded to through intemperance. And thus a human being would be compelled either to serve lust by sinning, or to fight against it by an inner war; of which the one you perceive, if you have human sense, does not befit honesty, the other the peace of that happiness. It remains, then, that if lust were there, it was so subject to the will that it would neither draw the upright and quiet mind to offense, nor provoke it to battle; and would compel the spirit, obedient to God and enjoying God, neither to sin nor to fight. Since now it is not such, but itself gapingly, not obediently, desires lawful things; and in unlawful things either casts down the spirit, or lusts against the spirit; acknowledge the evil contracted by the vitiating of nature's integrity; which evil the chastity of spouses uses well in the office of propagating, and from which evil is derived the bond of a generation subject to guilt, to be loosed by regeneration.

I. 71. Julian. But let this be enough about this; now I will seize on what follows. In the body of this death, then, such as certainly was not in paradise before sin, another law in our members fights against the law of the mind; because both when we are unwilling, and when we do not consent, nor present our members to it that it may fulfill what it desires; yet it dwells in them, and solicits the resisting and fighting mind; so that the conflict itself, even if it is not damnable, because it does not accomplish iniquity, is yet wretched, because it does not have peace. That the pleasure of all the senses is natural, we teach by the testimony of the whole world. But that this pleasure and concupiscence was in paradise before sin, that very thing declares, because the way to the offense was through concupiscence, which, when it had incited the eyes with the beauty of the apple, also stirred up the hope of a pleasant taste. This concupiscence could not, then—which, when it does not keep its measure, sins; but when it is kept within the limit of permitted things, is a natural and innocent affection—it could not, I say, be the fruit of sin, which is taught to have been the occasion of sin, not indeed by its own fault, but by that of the will. Read also about this my second book: you will find that this which we say can be persuaded even to your mind. But as for what you set down, somewhat cleverly, that the law of sin is indeed in our members; but that it then has sin, when we consent to it; but that it then only stirs up battle, when we do not consent, and announces misery with peace disturbed; who that is prudent would not perceive that you fight against yourself? For if the law of sin, that is, sin, and the necessity of sin, is inserted in the members naturally; what does it profit not to give consent to it, when, on account of this very thing that it exists, it is necessary to undergo punishment? Or if there is indeed a law of sin, but when I do not consent to it, it does not sin; inestimable is the power of the human will, which (if the absurdity permit it to be said) compels the sin itself not to sin. But it returns to this, that what you say is inconsistent; for if it does not sin, neither is it the law of sin; if it is the law of sin, it sins; but if it sins, solely because it exists, how can it be resisted so that one not sin, which cannot be repelled so that one cease from the work of sin?

Augustine. I have already answered your second book in my fourth, and convicted you of having said empty things; but let those who read see whether one must answer a man who advances into such great insanity that, while he confesses sin to be an evil, he says the concupiscence of sins is good. And yet we are compelled to answer, unwilling to desert the slower talents of men, to whom these writings may have been able to reach. What is it, then, that you say, not knowing what you say? Was there, then, even in paradise, before the poisons of the evilly persuading serpent, before the will was corrupted by sacrilegious speech, already a lust for unlawful food? And—what is said more intolerably—did it provoke to evil, and was not evil? And did those human beings see the fruit of the forbidden tree, and did it desire, but, so that they should not eat, did the concupiscence of the spirit fight against the concupiscence of the flesh; and did they live in that place of so great blessedness not having in themselves the peace of mind and body? You are not so demented as to believe these things; you are not so shameless as to say these things. Understand, then, or do not, with empty loquacity, clamor against those who understand. The evil will went before, by which the cunning serpent was believed; and the evil concupiscence followed, by which the unlawful food was gaped at. Not, then, did some sort of desire there struggle against some sort of will; but rather, depraved, it served the depraved will. And through this, although both were now evil, yet the will led the desire, not the desire the will; it did not go before the will, nor resist the will. Finally, if before the consummation of the sin the will had been turned away from the unlawful work, the unlawful desire would have been quieted without any labor. Speaking of this, the blessed Ambrose says: The flesh, he says, returned to the nature of its own vigor, recognizes its nurse; and, the daring of its obstinacy laid aside, is joined to the moderating choice of the soul; such as it was when it took up the secret places of paradise to be inhabited, before, infected by the poison of the pestiferous serpent, it knew sacrilegious hunger, and, by the zeal of greediness, passed over the memory of the divine precepts that clung to the senses of the soul. From this it is shown that sin flowed, as it were from begetting parents, body and soul; while the nature of the body is tempted, the unsound soul suffers along with it; which, if it had bridled the appetite of the body, the origin of sin would have been extinguished in its very rising. Do you see how the catholic teacher, endowed with Christian wisdom, called the very concupiscence of unlawful food—which you assert to be innocent, if it is not permitted to fulfill what it desires—already a sacrilegious hunger? And yet, if the soul, with the will certainly corrected, had bridled this appetite of the body, the origin of sin, as he says, would have been extinguished in its very rising; but since, the appetite for unlawful food not being repressed, it came to the consummation of sin; the origin of sin was not extinguished, but even flowed into posterity; and so great a dissension of flesh and spirit followed, that, as the same teacher says in another place, it turned into nature through the transgression of the first man. But you, against these things, say that you teach by the testimony of the whole world that the pleasure of all the senses is natural; as if there could not be in the body, not of this death, but of that life, the pleasure of all the senses sufficient for nature in such a way that, with the supreme concord of the virtue of the mind and of the flesh, nothing unlawful would be desired. O how greatly you err, who conjecture the holy delights of paradise and that blessedness from this corruptibility and infirmity of nature which now exists! That immortality was one thing, where a human being could not die; this mortality is another, where a human being cannot but die; the supreme immortality will be another, where a human being will not be able to die. Why do you contend about the contending concupiscence, that is, about the law in the members fighting against the law of the mind? It is called the law of sin, because it persuades sins and, so to speak, commands them; and if it is served by the mind, one sins without excuse. It is called sin, because it was made by sin, and desires to sin. Its guilt has been loosed by regeneration, its conflict has been left for the struggle. It is an evil, that is clear. We resist it not, as you think, by the powers of our will, unless we are divinely helped. This evil must be warred down, not denied; conquered, not defended. Finally, if you consent to it, acknowledge the evil by sinning; if you resist it, acknowledge the evil by fighting.

I. 72. Julian. Or what does the modesty of a thing profit, whose very presence accuses itself? See, then, whither your subtleties are carried. First, that nature sins without the will; which it cannot. Second, that it is sin, and does not sin, that is, it is one thing, and is not. Then, when it disturbs peace, it is wretched, nor is it punished for so great a crime of dissipated quiet; but when it accomplishes iniquity, it is damnable. But the law of sin, as it deserves torment itself, so it excuses the will of the human being. For a law that is both compelling, and natural, and never receding, certainly cannot be overcome by the will; and no one is guilty for this, that he could not avoid it. But neither does the law itself sin, because it could do nothing else. But God ascribes unavoidable things to guilt; nor is he compelled by anyone to do only this much evil; with all, then, absolved, this one alone is found in crime, who with a marvelous brow imputes necessity to others, while he himself offends without necessity. Bravo for your virtue of prudence, most noble disputant, who by the steps of Punic dialectic, in order to commend gifts, overturned judgments; in order to feign grace, undermined justice; in order to defame nature, accused the Founder of human beings; and so accused him that not only by some sinner, but by the very law of sin, your God appears more harmful. And after these things you most profanely revile the catholic priests, so as to say that they deny the grace of Christ, whose equity they uphold; while we indeed praise the clemency of the remedies, but with the justice of the laws remaining.

Augustine. Would that you acknowledged the catholic priests, who, long before you began to exist, said that the concupiscence of the flesh, which lusts against the spirit, although the spirit too lusts against it, which is understood to be the law of sin, resisting the law of the mind after the sin which was perpetrated in paradise, has vitiated human nature; whence now no one is born without it; and the spirit is opposed to it in the saints, that they may live justly, by fighting against it, until, with the salvation of a human being made perfect, and the flesh fully concordant with the spirit, it is no more. Ambrose says that through the transgression of the first man the dissension of flesh and spirit turned into nature; and that dissension Cyprian shows—in whom, a Punic, you do not dare, I think, to mock Punic dialectic, which you dared to do in me: There is, he says, between flesh and spirit a wrestling, and a daily encounter of those disagreeing against each other in turn, so that we do not do the very things we wish, while the spirit seeks heavenly and divine things, the flesh desires earthly and worldly things; and therefore we ask that between these two, by the help and aid of God, concord be made, so that, while the will of God is carried on both in spirit and in flesh, the soul which has been reborn through him may be preserved. Which the Apostle openly and manifestly declares with his own voice: "the flesh, he says, lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other in turn; so that you do not do the things you wish " (Gal 5:17). This concord of flesh and spirit, which Cyprian says we desire and pray for from the Lord, you do not concede to have been even in paradise before sin; or if it was, why do you not confess that it perished through the transgression of the first man, with nature vitiated, and that wretched discord succeeded the blessed peace of soul and body? And you are indignant at us, that we, as it were, revile by our discourse catholic priests, that is, you, because we say that you deny the grace of Christ; when you most shamelessly and most profanely revile those truly catholic priests with these words, which against me, who follow and uphold their faith, you belch forth with undigested fury. The Apostle says: Walk in the spirit, and you will not accomplish the concupiscences of the flesh (Gal 5:16). I ask, why does he name them, if they are none? Why does he forbid them to be accomplished, if they are good? But he goes on to show what kind they are, and says: For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other; so that you do not do the things you wish. To whom was he saying: So that you do not do the things you wish? Surely not to the Jews, according to your wonderful understanding, not yet placed under the grace of Christ; and not to those to whom he had said: From the works of the law did you receive the Spirit, or from the hearing of faith? (Gal 3:2) To faithful Christians, then, he was saying that they do not do the things they wish, with the flesh lusting against the spirit. Why so, unless because they wished their lower part to consent to the higher, that is, the flesh to the spirit, and were not able to accomplish what they wished; and it remained for them not to consent to that vice, but to lust, against the flesh, with the spirit? But even if there was in them what you think, that on account of an evil habit they lived badly even though unwilling; what is it, then, that you say, that nature cannot sin without the will, when you confess that these men sin unwilling? But why the concupiscence of the flesh is called sin, or the law of sin, we have already said above; to which, if it is good not to consent unto unlawful things, surely it is itself an evil, by which unlawful things are desired, even if they are perpetrated by no consent, and by no work. Moreover, you overturn the judgments of God, who say that the miseries of the human race, beginning from little ones, come about without any deserving of sin; nor do you ask the gift of God, that you may not enter into temptation (See Matt 26:41), that is, that you may not sin; for you trust in your own strength, and that you have been noted and condemned in the holy Psalm (See Ps 49:6 (48:7)), either you, being blind, do not see, or, being stupid, you do not grieve.

I. 73. Julian. But let us now proceed to my words too, which, taken from the preface, he proposed for himself to assail: I have, then, sufficiently warned that this man wished so to propose my words to himself as if to be refuted, that in one place, with the middle parts removed, he interrupted statements; in another, by not adding the final parts, he cut them short; and I have shown sufficiently why he did this. Now let us see, in the things which, as he wished, he proposed as ours, what he set down as his own. For his words now follow, and, as this man indicated, who sent you the little sheet, he first wrote out something from the preface, beyond doubt of those books from which he excerpted a few things. But it stands thus: The teachers, he says, of our time, most blessed brother, and the authors of the wicked sedition that still rages, have decreed to arrive, through the ruin of the whole Church, at insults and destruction of the men by whose holy zeal they are burned; not understanding how much honor they have conferred on those whose glory they have shown could not be torn away except along with the catholic religion. For if anyone says that there is either free choice in human beings, or that God is the founder of those being born, he is called a Caelestian and a Pelagian. Lest, then, they be called heretics, they become Manichees; and while they fear a false infamy, they incur a true crime; like wild beasts, which are surrounded with feathers, that they may be driven into nets; into which, since they lack reason, they are thrust by a vain dread into true destruction. I recognize my own sayings, but not brought forth by you with integrity; and although the sum of the contest does not consist in these, because they are from the preface; yet, that your levity may be clear, most blessed brother, was not placed in that spot, but in the very first line of the book. Likewise, when I had said: To the insults and destruction of the men by whose holy zeal they are burned; I added: since no other way lay open, they decreed to arrive through the ruin of the whole Church. After which I also said: Because the confessor of free choice and of God the founder is called a Caelestian and a Pelagian, by which the simple, terrified by an iniquitous speech, in order to be stripped of the odium of the name, desert even the sound faith; about to believe, beyond doubt, that there is neither free choice in human beings, nor that God is the founder of those being born, when they have deserted both of those things, which they had previously affirmed. But all this was passed over by you. After which are those things which you set down, how true indeed, and how impregnable, it will be no difficult work to prove. Neither did I, then, say anything less of your sayings, nor did you report even the first chapter as it had been arranged by me. Which I therefore drive home, that the gravity of the Punic writer may stand out.

Augustine. He who transmitted from your books the things he wished excerpted, to be read by whom he wished, himself did what you impute to me; nor do I think that even you yourself believe otherwise. For in that same book of mine, against which you bark, I did not fail to state beforehand to what little sheet I was compelled to respond; but you seek by reviling what to say, feeling that you say nothing strong by disputing. Although even in these words of mine, which you presently propose to yourself as if to be refuted, you could have noticed what I say; for I would not say: It is not so as you say, whoever you are who said these things; if I were certain that you had said them, not he who sent the writing such as he wished, and to whom he wished, which, sent to me, I had undertaken to refute. But thanks be to God, that I so answered, with the Lord helping, your whole work, from which this man excerpted what he wished, as it pleased him, that I subverted all your contrivances, which, as a new heretic, you had erected against the most ancient catholic faith.

I. 74. Julian. Let us hear, then, what you have written back against these words of mine: It is not so as you say, whoever you are who said these things, it is not so; you are greatly deceived, or you plan to deceive; we do not deny free choice; but: "if the Son shall free you—says the Truth—then you will be truly free " (John 8:36). This Liberator you envy, you who attribute a vain freedom to captives. "For by whom anyone has been overcome—as the Scripture says—to him also he is assigned as a slave " (2 Pet 2:19); nor is anyone loosed from this bond of slavery except through the grace of the Liberator, from which bond no human being is free. "For through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all human beings, in whom all sinned " (Rom 5:12). That the dignity of our business is very great, as the very consideration and weighing of the things which we uphold shows, so too does your terror; you who, fighting against the blood of our people by the pouring out of moneys, by the largesse of inheritances, by the sending of horses, by the sedition of peoples, by the corruption of the powers, both blush to profess your faith, which is assailed by us, and flee for refuge to the words of our statement, from which you have deviated.

Augustine. Either you calumniate knowingly, if you yourself lie these things; or you do not know what you say, since you believe those who lie; but let it now be enough that I have answered these things above to your vanity, or even malice.

I. 75. Julian. For so wicked is that which the shameful transgression of Babylon has undertaken, that when it is objected by us, it is denied by you; and so holy is that which is believed by us, that you desire to hide under its shadow, though with an adverse mind. For when I was expressing whatever of your disputation was held scattered piecemeal, and was forcing the sum of the question into brevity, so that the cause of the ecclesiastical dissension, how great and of what kind it was, might be set forth without smoke and clouds, I said that free choice is denied by you, and that God is the founder of those being born; furthermore, that both of these are defended by us, and that on this account you stir up an empty din to inexperienced ears about the names of the catholic men who, on account of the apostolic faith which we uphold, labor with us, so that those who feared to be called Caelestians by you might lose the dignity of the heavenly faith; and those who dreaded lest they be called Pelagians by you might be hurled headlong into the sea of the Manichees; and the inexperienced might think that they could not be called Christians, if the Traducianists called them Pelagians; while, on the contrary, the prudent decided that the odium and injury of the names was rather to be borne by themselves than the catholic faith to be abandoned. But lest you should glory that this very kind of reviling was invented by your talent; remember that we are wont to receive diverse names from all heretics indeed; but that in the Synod of Rimini it became more vehemently clear what, among leaden minds, either the ambiguity of a word or the threat of a new name for wickedness can obtain. For when, under an Arian prince, a man of great constancy, of the soundest faith, Athanasius bishop of Alexandria, had withstood the times, with nearly the whole world fallen away from the faith of the Apostles and made impious, and on this account had been driven into exile; of six hundred and fifty bishops, as is reported, scarcely seven were found to whom the precepts of God were dearer than those of the king; namely, that they should neither agree to the condemnation of Athanasius, nor deny the confession of the Trinity. But all that multitude of cast-down hearts, apart from the fear of injuries, was deceived chiefly by this threat of a name, lest it be called Athanasian, or by the cunning of the questioning.

Augustine. The Arians call the Athanasians, or Homoousians, Catholics, but not other heretics too. But you are called Pelagians not only by the Catholics, but even by heretics, those like you and those dissenting from you; just as the Arians are called Arians not only by the Catholic Church, but by the heresies too. But you alone call us Traducianists, as those call us Homoousians, as the Donatists call us Macarians, as the Manichees call us Pharisees, and the other heretics by diverse names.

I. 76. Julian. For when the Arians, who at that time were masters of affairs, proposed: Do you wish to follow the Homoousion, or Christ? they answered at once, as if religious in name, that they followed Christ; they repudiated the homoousion; and so they go out exulting, as those who believed in Christ, whom they had already denied, by denying the homoousion, that is, that he is of one substance with the Father. So, then, even now you fabricators of deceit terrify inexperienced ears, so that, if they are unwilling to be bespattered with the name of the men laboring for the faith, they should deny both free choice and God the founder of human beings. This, then, is established to have been objected by me in that place; and how not falsely, the present disputation will make plain. You answered, then, in this way: We do not deny free choice; and you subjoined nothing else of your own. For it would have been consequent that you fulfill the statement without evasion; and when you had premised that you do not deny the freedom of choice, you should add: But we confess that the freedom of choice given by God remains in the nature of human beings.

Augustine. How does freedom remain in those who, in order to be freed from the slavery by which they are assigned to the conqueror sin, need divine grace, except because they are themselves free too, but free of justice? Whence the Apostle says: When you were slaves of sin, you were free of justice (Rom 6:20).

I. 77. Julian. For you had fulfilled something by this discourse, against which, if you had spoken further, you would have been too shameless; but if you had said it all together, you could appear, even if tardily, more corrected. But now you say that I deceive, who prove what I objected through yourself; and you straightway, in that which you think you have consequently set forth, lie. For you say: We do not deny free choice; and you subjoin the testimony of the Gospel: but "if the Son shall free you—says the Truth—then you will be truly free " (John 8:36). Since it is established that in that place this was not brought forth by our Lord Jesus with respect to free choice, deferring the exposition of which statement a little, let us explain, by definitions and divisions, what each of us thinks. For, according to the discipline of all teachers, the beginning of a disputation ought to be taken from a definition.

Augustine. The Apostles, then, who did not take the beginnings of their disputations from a definition, were not learned? And yet they were teachers of the Gentiles, and despisers of such learned men as you are pleased to be puffed up about. But as for what the Lord says: If the Son shall free you, then you will be truly free, you will try indeed to twist it to your meaning; but how it does not follow you, when you have begun to try, will appear.

I. 78. Julian. For every disputation about some matter that is undertaken by reason, as that one says, ought to set out from a definition, that it may be understood what that is about which it is disputed. So, then, we too, just as we discoursed above about the definition of justice and of sin, let us now also see what definition befits freedom of choice, so that it may be plain which of us agrees with it, which opposes it. The freedom of choice, by which a human being has been emancipated by God, consists in the possibility of committing sin and of abstaining from sin.

Augustine. You say a human being has been emancipated by God: and you do not attend to the fact that this is done to the emancipated one, that he be not in the family of the father.

I. 79. Julian. For he was made a rational animal, mortal, capable of virtue and vice, who could, from the possibility granted to him, either keep the commandments of God, or transgress them, or by natural teaching preserve the right of human society, and have it free to will either part, in which the sum of sin and of justice is. For when one bestows something according to virtue on those in need, either from the founts of mercy, or from the udders of justice; this justice itself now works outwardly, which the holy will within conceived and bore.

Augustine. Whether it conceived justice of its own, this is what is dealt with between us and you, who, being ignorant of the justice of God, wish to establish your own (See Rom 10:3); since the holy will certainly conceives justice by a holy thought, about which it is written: A holy thought will preserve you (See Prov 2:11); but the Apostle says: Not that we are sufficient to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God (2 Cor 3:5). If you understand this, you will understand that a choice praiseworthily free is nothing other than what has been freed by the grace of God.

I. 80. Julian. So too when, on the contrary, one decides to act perversely to another's injury, whether one is unjust or cruel; the activity by which he harms others proceeds outwardly from the wickedness which the evil will within sowed and begot; but when the faculty is lacking, through which the force of the secret will may burst out upon one's neighbors, yet in that will alone, which has accomplished something either of good or of evil, not by a brief impulse, but by thought and appetite, the account either of benignity or of malignity is fulfilled.

Augustine. Just as you understand the will to fulfill, even by thought alone, the account either of benignity or of malignity, if you understand in that way what the Apostle says, speaking of the good and holy thought, that we are not sufficient to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God; you will be able to be corrected, and humble, to receive grace, to which pride made you an enemy, while you wish to be among those who trust in their own strength (See Ps 49:6 (48:7)); not among those who say: I will love you, O Lord, my strength (Ps 18:1 (17:2)).

I. 81. Julian. Both the possibility of good, then, and of evil, is good; since to be able to do good is the hall of virtue; to be able to do evil is the testimony of liberty.

Augustine. God, then, is not free, of whom it was said: He cannot deny himself (2 Tim 2:13); and of whom you yourself also said: God cannot be anything but just; and in another place: But God cannot, you say, be anything but just and pious.

I. 82. Julian. Through this, then, it is granted to a human being to have his own good, through that by which it is in his power to be able to do evil. The whole fullness of the divine judgment, then, has its business so joined with this liberty of human beings that whoever has recognized one of these has known both. Whence it comes about that whoever violates one of these violates both. So, then, let the liberty of human choice be guarded, just as the divine equity is guarded. This is the understanding of free choice, which has subjected to the ecclesiastical truth both the opinion of fates, and the calculation of the Chaldeans, and the phantasies of the Manichees. This is the understanding which, along with those whom we have enumerated, shows that you too are estranged from Christ. The freedom of choice, then, is the possibility either of committing or of avoiding sin, free of compelling necessity, which has it in its own right, as it were, which of the rising parts it should follow, that is, either the steep and rough things of the virtues, or the sunken and marshy things of pleasures.

Augustine. As long as a human being stood in the good will of free choice, he had no need of that grace by which he would be lifted up, when he could not himself rise; but now in his ruin he is free of justice, and a slave of sin, nor can he be a slave of justice, and free from the dominating sin, unless the Son shall free him.

I. 83. Julian. That this may be briefly settled, it is a possibility keeping watch for this alone, that a human being be neither driven into sin by anyone, nor drawn away from sin, with the will captive; which cannot be captured, if it has not itself wished to surrender, fortitude testifies, whose arms in the contempt of pains have shone forth assiduously both through Gentiles and through Christians.

Augustine. This is certainly what your heresy does; for you add the Gentiles for this purpose, lest the work of pious fortitude be believed to have been able to be done, or to have been done, by Christians through the grace of God; which is proper to Christians, not common to Christians and Gentiles. Hear, then, and understand: worldly desire makes the fortitude of the Gentiles, but the love of God makes the fortitude of Christians; which is poured out in our hearts, not through the choice of the will, which is from us, but through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5).

I. 84. Julian. If, then, the freedom of choice is, as reason has shown, the repeller of necessities, so that no one is either good or evil to whom it is not free to be the contrary; how is it that you either confessed free choice, about to use such a testimony as befits captives, or subjoined such a testimony, after you had confessed free choice? For you say: We do not deny free choice; but: "if the Son shall free you—says the Truth—then you will be truly free ". It is manifest that Christ in that place addressed his words to a captive conscience; which he was showing was not free, but liable to that vengeance which condemns sins committed by a free will. Which statement, understanding it badly, that is, not understanding it, or perhaps understanding it in yourself, and dragging it here, its own nature resisting, you placed in that spot where it disagrees, in all its own propriety, from your discourses. For, that we may join the words themselves: What is freed is captive; what is captive is not free; what is free is not captive.

Augustine. One thing is the remission of sins, in those things which have been done badly; another is love, which makes one free for those things which are to be done well. In both ways Christ frees; because he both takes away iniquity by forgiving, and bestows love by inspiring.

I. 85. Julian. Confess here simply whichever you wish, and cease to quibble; either say with us that choice is free, and remove the testimony, which was brought forth fittingly in its own time; or, as in these books which you have now sent through Alypius to Boniface, say that choice is captive, which we say is free, and cease to deny that you are a Manichee.

Augustine. The Manichee, insane, mixes an immutable substance of evil into the nature of his God, and rather makes the same nature of God corruptible, and wants it to be captive under another nature; but the catholic faith says that the creature, good, but yet mutable, was changed for the worse by its will; and through this, with its own nature depraved and vitiated, it is guilty and held in slavery, not under another substance, but under its own sin. And through this, our opinion about the Liberator himself is much different from his. For the Manichee says there is need of a liberator, that he may separate from us another nature; but we, that he may heal and vivify our own. Show, then, that you are not a helper of the Manichee, if you can, you who, since the human race without doubt feels and without doubt agrees that they are born with the miseries of human beings, refuse to attribute these to the sin of our vitiated nature, and so bring it about that he attributes them to another nature mingled with us.

I. 86. Julian. But these two things which you join, free and not free, that is, free and captive, cannot indeed befit the matter about which we are dealing; but they testify that in you there is singular stupidity, new shamelessness, old impiety.

Augustine. We call free, for doing the works of piety, those to whom the Apostle says: But now, freed from sin, and made servants to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, but the end eternal life (Rom 6:22). This fruit unto sanctification, which fruit beyond doubt is love, and its works, we can in no way have from ourselves; but we have it through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. For about this very fruit the Teacher, God, was speaking, when he said to the branches abiding in him: Without me you can do nothing (John 15:5). But you revile us as having singular stupidity, because God is our strength, and we do not trust in our own strength; and new shamelessness, because we do not praise, with your brow, the concupiscence of the flesh, by which the flesh lusts against the spirit; and old impiety, because we defend, with whatever small labor, the ancient catholic teachings, which those taught who ruled the Church of Christ before us in true piety in his grace, against your novel perversity. In yourself, then, acknowledge the stupidity, in yourself the shamelessness, in yourself the impiety, not old indeed, but new.

I. 87. Julian. But it is now time that the statement of the Gospel be discoursed upon. Jesus was saying, says the evangelist John, to the Jews who believed in him: If you abide in my word, you will truly be my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will free you (John 8:31-32). That is, our Lord Jesus was speaking to those who believed in him, that, rejoicing in no nobility of the age, nor claiming glory for themselves from the seed of Abraham, they should strive and be zealous for the virtues, and serve no sins after the knowledge of Christ, so that they might retain true liberty with a rejoicing conscience, and by the hope of sure things, that is, eternal ones, be vindicated from the desire of all the others, which, on account of their fragility, are frequently called vain and false. Then the Jews answered him, not understanding of what liberty Jesus had spoken: We are the seed of Abraham, and we have never served anyone; how do you say: You will be free? (John 8:33) For liberty is wont to be named in many ways, as in this place holiness, as resurrection in the Apostle, where he says the creature is freed from the slavery of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God (Rom 8:21); as the liberty which is better known is said for the distinction from slavery. But by this name the freedom of choice too is named. Let the cases, then, be divided, lest things very distant be confused by the commonness of a name. Here, then, the Lord does not say that the freedom of choice is to be freed; but, with it remaining whole, he addresses the Jews, that, receiving indulgence, they may be freed from their guilt, and may occupy that liberty which is greatest in God's sight, that they may begin to owe nothing to crimes. Finally, the Evangelist continues: Jesus answered them: Amen, amen I say to you, that everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. But the slave does not abide in the house forever; the son, however, abides forever. If, then, the Son shall free you, then you will be truly free (John 8:34-36).

Augustine. Attend to what was said: Everyone who commits sin. For he does not say: Who has committed; but: who commits. And you are unwilling that he free human beings from this evil; you are unwilling that he promise in this place such a liberty by which we may not commit sin; but that he free only for this reason, because we have committed it.

I. 88. Julian. He disclosed of what slavery he was here speaking. Everyone, he says, who commits sin is a slave of sin. But how vehement is this very thing against your error, because he says that no one is a slave of sin except him who has himself committed sin; nor can any sin cling to anyone which the one in question has not committed by himself, either by action, or even by will alone? And how does he show that the whole of the human race cannot now be possessed by the devil, since he makes a distinction between slave and son, that is, just and unjust? For here Christ separated, as himself, so also each of the saints, from the condition of slaves: as there were both before the Old, and in the Old Testament, those whom he declares to abide in the house of his Father, and to rejoice at his table (See Luke 22:30). But this whole kind of exhortation would have been ineptly brought forth, if it did not befit human beings of free choice.

Augustine. It plainly befits those committing sin for this reason, because they are slaves of sin, that, having received the liberty which he promises, they may cease to commit sin. For sin was reigning in their mortal body, so that they obeyed its concupiscences, and presented their members as weapons of iniquity to sin (See Rom 6:12-13). Against this evil, then, by which they committed sin, they needed the liberty which he was promising: For everyone, he says, not who has committed, but who commits sin, is a slave of sin. Why do you try to obscure lucid words with foggy disputations? They break forth altogether, and, though you resist, by their splendor conquer your darkness. Everyone, he says, who commits sin is a slave of sin. You hear: who commits; and you wish not to expound but to substitute: Who has committed. Let those, then, hear to whom he himself opens the sense, that they may understand the Scriptures; let them hear: Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. And let them seek to receive liberty, that they may not commit sin, crying out to him to whom it is said: Direct my steps according to your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me (Ps 119:133 (118:133)). But why do you mock the slow understandings, and so insinuate the words of the Lord, as if he had said that no one is a slave of sin except him who has himself committed sin? You act by fraud, he did not say this; for he does not say: No one is a slave of sin except him who commits sin; but he says: Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. For there are slaves of original sin who do not yet themselves commit sin; and from this bond of slavery they are loosed by regeneration. Not everyone, then, who is a slave of sin commits sin; but everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin; just as not every animal is a horse; but yet every horse is an animal. Where is your dialectic, with which you are wont to puff yourself up? Why do these things escape you, so learned and acute? Or why do you lie in wait for the unlearned and slow, if these things do not escape you? But who of us says that the whole of human beings is possessed by the devil; when there are so many thousands of saints who are not possessed by the devil? But we say that those alone are not possessed by the devil whom the grace of Christ frees; of which grace you are enemies. For if you did not assail this grace, but understood it; without doubt you would see that even before the Old Testament, and in the time of the Old Testament, all the saints, separated from the condition of slaves, were freed by the same grace of Christ.

I. 89. Julian. Finally, that you may understand that he reproaches not their nature, but their life; there follows: I know that you are the sons of Abraham. Behold, of what dignity of origin those men had said they were free; now he shows to what slavery they are liable, saying: You seek to kill me, because my word does not take hold in you. I speak what I have heard with my Father; and you do the things which you have seen with your father (John 8:37-38).

Augustine. What is: My word does not take hold in you, if nature, even such as now needs one who frees it, is already capable of his word, even if his grace does not open the understanding, as it opened it to the Apostles, that they might understand the Scriptures (See Luke 24:45); as it opened it to that woman of Thyatira, a seller of purple, that she might attend to the things which were said by Paul (See Acts 16:14)?

I. 90. Julian. See how diverse is the account of nature and of will. Jesus did not deny that their flesh pertained to the seed of Abraham, but drives home to them that they had migrated to the devil, the father of their will, by the iniquity of their will; who is therefore called their begetter, because he is convicted to be the instructor of their crimes. They answered, he says, and said to him, the Jews: Our father is Abraham. Jesus says to them: If you were the sons of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham; but now you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken to you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do, but you do the works of your father (John 8:39-41). Do you see what divisions of words Wisdom makes? He denies that those are sons of Abraham whom above he had said were sons of Abraham; but since the treatment of nature and of will is diverse, he shows that one is the begetter of innocent flesh, the other the seducer of a wretched will.

Augustine. You speak the truth, unwarily. For in paradise the devil was the seducer of a blessed will, which by seducing he made wretched; but now, as you confess, he is the seducer of a wretched will. From this wretchedness, then (lest through it the will, now seduced more easily than it was then seduced into it, be still seduced by the devil), no one frees it except him to whom daily the whole Church cries out: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (Matt 6:13).

I. 91. Julian. Here, then, where the Lord said: If the Son shall free you, you will be truly free, he promised indulgence to the guilty, who by sinning lost, not the freedom of choice, but the conscience of justice. But free choice even after sins is as full as it was before sins; since by its own work it comes about that very many renounce the hidden things of disgrace (See 2 Cor 4:2), and, with the filth of disgraceful deeds cast off, are adorned with the insignia of the virtues.

Augustine. Hear yourself at least, where you say that, on account of the habit of sins, it was written: I do not do what I will, but what I hate, this I do (See Rom 7:15). How, then, is it free after sins, when, even if not by propagation, because you are unwilling, yet certainly by habit—which alone you concede to this necessity of the overcome and twisted—it has so lost liberty that its groan strikes your ears, and dashes your brow, when you hear: I do not do what I will; and: I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I will not, this I do (Rom 7:19)?

I. 92. Julian. Cease, then, to make yourself impious (if, however, any right or wrong remains to you), by so expounding the words of Christ that he may seem to have denied free choice, without whose integrity the equity of his own judgment cannot stand.

Augustine. Rather, for this reason there is a heavy yoke upon the sons of Adam, from the day of their going out from their mother's womb (Sir 40:1), because the equity of judgment stands; which would be altogether unjust, if they did not draw original sin, through which man is made like to vanity (Ps 144:4 (143:4)).

I. 93. Julian. Hear indeed where he shows the force of human liberty: I came in the name of my Father, and you did not receive me; if another shall come in his own name, him you will receive (John 5:43). And likewise: Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree evil, and its fruit evil (Matt 12:33). And likewise: If you will not believe me, believe the works (See John 10:38). And, more vehemently than all, that he says his intention was hindered by the human will: Jerusalem, he says, Jerusalem, how often I wished to gather your children, as a hen her chicks under her wings, and you would not! (Matt 23:37) After which there does not follow: But, with you unwilling, I gathered; but: Your house will be left to you desolate (Matt 23:38); that he may show that those were indeed justly punished for their evil work, but ought not to have been recalled by any necessity from their own intention. For thus he had spoken also through the Prophet: If you are willing, and listen to me, you will eat the good things of the land; if you are unwilling, and do not listen, the sword will devour you (Isa 1:19-20). How, then, do you not deny free choice, which—not indeed by your discourse, but by the testimony of the Gospel, but by your sense—you have declared not free?

Augustine. You must be forgiven, because in a matter very hidden you, as a human being, are deceived. Far be it that the intention of the Almighty and one who foreknows all things be hindered by a human being. They think too little about so great a matter, or are not sufficient to think it out, who think that almighty God wills something, and, with a weak human being hindering, cannot do it. Just as it is certain that Jerusalem was unwilling that her children be gathered by him, so it is certain that, even with her unwilling, he gathered whomever of them he willed. For God, as his man Ambrose said, calls those whom he deigns, and makes religious whom he wills. But Scripture frequently addresses the will of a human being, that, admonished, he may feel what he does not have, or cannot do; and, being in need, may ask from him from whom are all good things. For if he is heard in that which we have been commanded to say: Lead us not into temptation (Matt 6:13); without doubt he will be deceived by no ignorance, overcome by no desire. For this reason, then, it was said through the Prophet: If you are unwilling, and do not listen to me, the sword will devour you; and other things of this kind; that, when they had found in themselves victorious desires, they might know from whom they ought to ask help to repel the evil. But for this reason it was said: Behold, your house will be left to you desolate; because there were there very many whom he had judged worthy of hardening and desertion, by a hidden judgment, yet a just one. For if, as you say: A human being ought not to be recalled by any necessity from his own intention—certainly an evil one—why was the apostle Paul, still Saul, breathing slaughter and thirsting for blood, recalled from his most wicked intention by a violent blindness of the body, and a terrible voice from above; and, from a prostrated persecutor, raised up to be a more laborious preacher than the rest of that Gospel which he was assailing (See Acts 9:1-22)? Acknowledge grace; God calls one in this way, another in that, whom he deigns; and: The Spirit breathes where it wills (John 3:8).

I. 94. Julian. For in that work which I said above you recently sent to Rome, you have disclosed more boldly what you think. For in the first book, when you had likewise proposed to yourself what we object, that you deny free choice, you discourse thus, a most constant and most subtle disputant. But who of us would say that by the sin of the first man free choice perished from the human race? Liberty indeed perished through sin, but that liberty which was in paradise, of having full justice with immortality; on account of which human nature needs divine grace, the Lord saying in his Gospel: "if the Son shall free you, then you will be truly free ", truly free for living well and justly. For free choice has so far not perished in the sinner, that through it they sin, especially all who sin with delight and love of sin, and to whom what they enjoy is pleasing. Whence the Apostle: "when you were—he says—slaves of sin, you were free of justice ". Behold, it is shown that they could not even sin, except by another liberty. They are not, then, free of justice except by the choice of liberty; but they are not made free of sin except by the grace of the Savior. On account of which the admirable Teacher distinguished even the words themselves: "for when you were—he says—slaves of sin, you were free of justice. What fruit, then, did you have then in those things in which you now blush? For the end of them is death; but now, freed from sin, and made servants of God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, but the end eternal life " (Rom 6:20-22). He said free of justice, not freed; but of sin not free, lest they attribute this to themselves, but most vigilantly he preferred to say freed; referring this to that statement of the Lord: "if the Son shall free you, then you will be truly free ". Since, then, the sons of men do not live well, except made sons of God, what is it that this man wishes to attribute to free choice the power of living well; since this power is not given except by "the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord ", the Gospel saying: "But as many as received him, he gave them power to become sons of God " (John 1:12). And likewise after a little: Power is given, then, you say, that they may become sons of God, who believe in him. Which power, unless it be given by God, can be none from free choice; because that will not be free in good which the Liberator has not freed; but he has free choice for evil, in whom either the hidden or the manifest deceiver has planted the delight of malice, or to whom he has himself persuaded it. Not, then, as some say that we say, and this man dares moreover to write, are all driven into sin, as if unwilling, by the necessity of their flesh; but if they are now at that age that they use the choice of their own mind, both they are held in sin by their own will, and from sin into sin they are hurled headlong by their own will. But this will, which is free in evils, because it is delighted by evils, is therefore not free in goods, because it has not been freed. Nor can a human being will anything good, unless he is helped by him who cannot will evil. In all these words of yours which I have set down, I so see the name of grace woven together with the denial of free choice that the evils of your sense cannot so be vindicated by good names, as the dignity of the names is cheapened by adherence to your teachings. You did not, then, honor yourself by these discourses, but befouled the very ornaments. Yet we separate the things that have been joined by you, so that the divinity of grace, disentangled from your distorted bindings, may neither be shaken by a response, and may be praised with the gravity of Catholics, not with the flattery of Manichees. We confess, then, the grace of Christ to be manifold. His first gift is that we have been made out of nothing. The second, that we excel by sense those that live, so by reason those that have sense; which is impressed on the mind, that the image of the Founder might be taught: to whose dignity the freedom of choice granted equally looks back. To grace itself too we reckon the increases of the benefits which it does not cease to bestow on us. Grace itself sent the law as a help (See Isa 8:20 LXX); it belonged to its office to rouse, by manifold instructions, the light of reason, which the examples of depravity and the habit of vices were blunting, and to cherish it by its own invitation. To the fullness, then, of this grace, that is, of the divine benevolence, which gave a cause to things, it looked that the Word should be made flesh, and dwell among us (See John 1:14). For God, requiring back from his image the return of love, made plain how wholly he had acted toward us with inestimable affection, that even late we might love in return him who, commending his love to us (See Rom 5:8), did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us (Rom 8:32); promising that, if we should henceforth be willing to obey his will, he would grant us to be coheirs of his Only-begotten (See Rom 8:17).

Augustine. Pelagian man, love wills the good, and love is from God; not through the letter of the law, but through the spirit of grace. In this the letter is a help to the predestined, because, by commanding and not helping, it admonishes the weak to flee to the spirit of grace. Thus those use the law lawfully to whom it is good (See 1 Tim 1:8), that is, useful; otherwise, by itself the letter kills (See 2 Cor 3:6); because, by commanding the good and not bestowing love, which alone wills the good, it makes them guilty of transgression.

I. 95. Julian. This grace, then, which in Baptism not only forgives sins, but, along with this benefit of indulgence, both advances, and adopts, and consecrates; this grace, I say, changes the deserving of the guilty, it does not found free choice; which we receive at the time when we are created, but use at the time when we attain the strength of discernment between good and evil. We do not deny, then, that innumerable kinds of divine help are present to a good will; but in such a way that not through the kinds of help is fabricated the freedom of choice that was destroyed, nor, with it ever excluded, is the necessity either of good or of evil to be believed to lie upon anyone; but all help cooperates with free choice.

Augustine. If grace does not go before, that it may work it, but cooperates with a will already existing first, how is it true: God works in you even to will (See Phil 2:13)? How: The will is prepared by the Lord (See Prov 8:35 LXX)? How: Love is from God (1 John 4:7), which alone wills the beatific good? Or if the knowledge of the law and of the words of God works love in us, so that not through the gift of God, but through the choice of our will we love what we recognize, with God teaching, ought to be loved; how is the lesser thing from God for us, and the greater from ourselves? Because without God giving the knowledge, that is, teaching, we cannot know; but without him giving the love which surpasses knowledge (See Eph 3:19), we can love. Thus none think but the new heretics and enemies, far too much, of the grace of God.

I. 96. Julian. This free choice, then, on account of which alone the Teacher of the Gentiles writes that we are made manifest before the tribunal of Christ, that each one may carry back the proper things of the body according as he has done, whether good or evil (See 2 Cor 5:10), just as the Catholics indeed confess; so you deny, not only with the Manichee, but even with Jovinian, whom you dare to thrust upon us, by a diverse kind indeed, but by a similar impiety. That this may be made plainer, let the examination of divisions be applied. We say that by the sin of a human being not the state of nature is changed, but the quality of deserving; that is, that even in the sinner there is this nature of free choice, through which he can cease from sin, which was in him that he could deviate from justice.

Augustine. We know that you say for this reason that by the sin of a human being the state of nature is not changed, because you have deserted the catholic faith, which says that the first man was so made that he did not have the necessity of dying; but that by sin this state of nature was so changed that it is necessary for a human being to die, so far that the Apostle says even to those already regenerated and vivified in spirit: If Christ is in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of justice; if, then, the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you; he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will vivify even your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you (Rom 8:10-11). For this reason certainly he said: He will vivify even your mortal bodies, which we hope for in the resurrection of the flesh, because he had said: The body is dead because of sin; and you are unwilling that the state of nature was changed by sin. Yet when it had been objected to Pelagius in the Palestinian judgment that he said newly born infants are in the state in which Adam was before sin, he denied that he said it, and condemned it (See The Deeds of Pelagius 11.23). And if he had done this with a truthful heart, perhaps your heresy would already have perished; finally, he himself at least would have been healed of that plague. Then I ask whether a sinful nature is free of vice; but if that is most absurd, it has, then, a vice; if it has a vice, without doubt it has been vitiated. How, then, has it not been changed, which, when it had been sound, was vitiated? And through this, even apart from that sin, about which John of Constantinople says: Adam committed that great sin, and condemned all in common; even apart from that, then, from which human nature draws condemnation originally, how can it soberly be said that the state of nature was not changed in a human being who says: The law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin; for what I work, I do not understand; for I do not do what I will (Rom 7:14-15), and other things of this kind; even if he drew this change not in the condition of being born, but, as you wish, contracted it by the habit of sinning? Do you see that it is vain, what you say, that by the sin of a human being not the state of nature is changed, but the quality of deserving? Unless perhaps you say that not nature is changed by sin, but the human being. And what is this, but to deny that a human being is a nature? When would you say these things, if you considered with a sound mind what you say?

I. 97. Julian. The Manichee says that an evil will is inspired by that nature which cannot will good; but a good will is infused by that nature which cannot will evil; thus he certainly imposes a necessity on the natures of individual things, so that their own wills cannot will contrary things. Between us and him there is certainly a great chasm; let us now see how much you have receded from him. You say the will is free, but only to do evil, but that it is not free in this, to cease working evil, unless a necessity of willing good has been imposed on it by that nature which, to use your discourses: cannot will evil. You define, then, the race of human beings, through free choice, to do nothing other than sin, nor to be able to do anything else. By which you absolutely declare that human nature always desires one thing which is evil, and cannot will the contrary; but that the nature of God cannot will evil; and therefore, unless it makes the evil nature of human beings a partaker of its own necessity, there can be no good of action in it. After these things, then, whether you do not love the Manichee much, God will have seen in the secret of your heart; yet, so far as is shown by the kinship of the teachings, you have done absolutely nothing else than that, with the order changed, you establish the same thing which he had affirmed.

Augustine. Would that you destroyed the Manichee strongly, not helped him basely! For he, perverted by too much insanity, does not say that the nature of evil is compelled to do good by another nature of good, which cannot will evil; but that the nature of good is compelled to do evil by that nature of evil, which cannot will good; and through this, marvelously demented, he wants the nature of evil to be immutable, but the nature of good mutable. Accordingly, it is certain that the Manichee says that an evil will is inspired by that nature which cannot will good; but the Manichee does not say that a good will is infused by that nature which cannot will evil, as you more mildly suspect of him; since he in no way believes the nature of good to be immutable, which cannot will evil—the nature into which he believes an evil will is inspired by that nature which cannot will good; and so that it comes about through the nature of evil that the nature of good wills evil, which he wants to be nothing other than the nature of God. You, then, help him, by denying that human nature was vitiated by the sin of the first man, so that he may attribute to the nature of evil, which he invents, whatever of evils he finds in the most manifest misery of little ones. Then, when it displeases you that a human being cannot will good unless he is helped by him who cannot will evil, do you not see that you contradict him who said: Without me you can do nothing (John 15:5); and the Scripture, where it is read: The will is prepared by the Lord (See Prov 8:35 LXX); and where it is read: For it is God who works in us even to will (See Phil 2:13); and where it is read: By the Lord the steps of a man will be directed, and he will will his way (See Ps 37:23 (36:23))? Wherein I wonder at nothing, except why you call yourself a Christian, when you contradict these so many and so clear divine voices.

I. 98. Julian. But with Jovinian you are joined in one part; for he says in the second book of his work that a baptized human being cannot sin; but before Baptism he can both sin and not sin. With you, then, he thinks that from the time of Baptism a necessity of good is imposed on human beings; which is equally false as what you think, that before Baptism there is in human beings a necessity of doing evil. For when you say: A human being cannot will anything good, unless he is helped by him who cannot will evil, you certainly want a human being to attain the possibility of doing good by participation in grace and in a good nature; which you say, however, can happen from the time of Baptism. Midway, then, between impiety and fear, you have fled for refuge to the consortium of Jovinian, but you have not yet left the brothel of the Manichee. Yet Jovinian is more innocent than you, by as much as the Manichee is more profane than Jovinian. For, that what we have done may be gathered still more briefly, the Manichee says: In all human beings the nature of darkness, the inspirer of an evil will, offends, and can do nothing else. You say: In all human beings the nature, infected by the darkness of the first sin, and through this the author of an evil will, offends, and cannot will good. Jovinian says: The will indeed of human beings offends, but up to Baptism; but afterward it cannot will anything but good. The Catholics, that is, we, say that from the beginning to the end, without any compulsion of natural things, the will offends, even before Baptism, in each one—a will which, at that very time when it sins, has the power to recede from evil, and to do good, so that the account of liberty may stand. The truth of the teachings, then, stands for none of you; yet, since you have all gone out from one beginning of error, it would have been less dishonorable, if you admitted what follows, and, because you say with the Manichee that one offends by an evil, that is, maimed, liberty, you should say with the same that it can in no way be cleansed (which indeed you affirm elsewhere); but that you should add what necessarily followed, that therefore there is no need for it of the sacraments of baptism. Or if, with Jovinian, you assert that from the time of receiving the faith good desires are impressed; you should say with the same that nature was good even before Baptism, which, although it had the possibility of evil, yet did not have the necessity, and through this, consecrated, arrived at an undisguisable good. For in this way, although you would contravene reason, yet you would in no way contravene the teachings of those whom you follow.

Augustine. You have forgotten what we say: recall it, I beg you. We are those who say, with you crying out against it, that even to the just, as long as they are in this life, there is not lacking that on account of which in their prayer they may say truthfully of themselves: Forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12). Since, if they say they have no sin, they deceive themselves, and the truth is not in them (See 1 John 1:8). What is it, then, that you vainly say, that I am joined with Jovinian in that part in which he says a baptized human being cannot sin? Far be it that we be so deaf and dumb that we do not hear the voice of those who are baptized, or do not say with them: Forgive us our debts. But from the time a human being begins to use the choice of the will, he can both sin and not sin; but one of these he does not do, unless helped by him who said: Without me you can do nothing (John 15:5); but the other by his own will, whether deceived by himself or seduced by another deceiver, or assigned as a slave to sin. But we know that human beings were helped by the Spirit of God, that they might will the things that are God's, even before Baptism, like Cornelius (See Acts 10); but certain ones not even after Baptism, like Simon Magus (See Acts 8:9-24). For the judgments of God are like a great abyss (Ps 36:6 (35:7)); and his grace is not from works; otherwise grace is now not grace (Rom 11:6). Cease, then, to revile us about the Manichee and Jovinian; for the things for which you revile us, who, following those whom we cannot deny, hold original sin, you would see, if you had eyes, and would be silent, if you had a brow. But you are so calumnious that you say I affirmed elsewhere that a human being cannot be cleansed from sins; when I so say that he can, that he is even led to where, most blessed, he cannot sin.

I. 99. Julian. But now, faithless toward all, you say that a necessity has been made in the nature of the flesh of sin.

Augustine. Deny that the Apostle said: When you were slaves of sin, you were free of justice (Rom 6:20). Or, if you do not deny that this was said by him, refute that he said it rightly. But if you do not dare, deny, if you can, that those to whom he said this had a free will in evils, when they were free of justice; or that they had a free will in goods, when they were slaves of sin; and dare to say that they were freed from this slavery by themselves, not by the grace of God, to whom it is said: But now, freed from sin, you have been made servants of justice (Rom 6:18). But if you say that they were freed by the grace of God from the guilt of past evils, not from the dominion of sin, by which one is not permitted to be just; but that, in order that sin might not have dominion over them, they could do this themselves if they willed, and did not for this need the grace of the Savior; where do you place him who says: I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I will not, this I do (Rom 7:19)? For if he speaks these things placed under the law, not under grace; deny that he groans under the heavy weight of necessity; assert that he is free, by the choice of the will, to live well and to act rightly, while he cries out to you: You lie, or you are deceived; I do not do what I will. But if, as Ambrose better understood, the Apostle says this even of himself; then the just do not have in this life, for accomplishing the good, so great a freedom of their own will as there will be in that life, where it will not be said: I do not do what I will.

I. 100. Julian. So that, with the possession of eternity lost (which indeed it is established it never had by its origin), the will leaned perpetually toward desiring depravity. And you add: The will which is free in evils is not free in goods; with no smaller a profession of stupidity, plainly, than of profanity, you call free that which you say can will nothing but one thing.

Augustine. If nothing is free except what can will two things, that is, both good and evil; God is not free, who cannot will evil, of whom you yourself also said, and said truly: God cannot be anything but just. Do you so praise God as to take from him liberty? Or ought you rather to understand that there is a certain blessed necessity, by which God cannot be unjust?

I. 101. Julian. But although you stand on no side, yet let the prudent reader attend to what you have brought forward. Let us agree that a will can be called free which cannot will good; but this will, you assert, is freed in Baptism. I ask, in what manner is it freed? So that it is compelled always to will good, and cannot will evil? Or so that it can desire either? Here, if you answer: So that it is compelled always to will good; how much of a Jovinianist you are, you yourself even recognize. But if you say: How can a will be free, if it is compelled always to will good? I answer: How was the will called free before, if it was compelled only to will evil? If, then, you answer that after Baptism the will is made free in such a way that it can both sin and not sin; by this very thing you will declare that there was no free choice, when it could not do both. You are shut in on every side by the snares of your own disputation: choice was free before Baptism; it had the faculty of doing good, just as it had the faculty of doing evil; and the whole stage-set of your teaching, by which you persuade a natural evil, collapses.

Augustine. Whoever reads will find that I have already answered you above about the Manichee and Jovinian; but how you say that he, whose will we say is prepared by the Lord, is so made of good will that he is compelled to will good (which far be it that it be said by us), let your splendid understanding have seen. For if he is compelled, he does not will; and what is more absurd than that one should be said to will, unwilling, what is good? See, too, what you hold about the nature of God, you who say that a human being is compelled to will good, if he cannot will evil. For is God compelled to will good, because he cannot will evil, since he is altogether immutable? But human nature, although mutable, is good as far as concerns the fact that it was created; which was not only made without vice, but even when by vice it is evil, is capable of the good by which it may be good. This true opinion overturns the fallacious insanity of the Manichees. But in Baptism all sins are so forgiven in the grace of God—by which a human being is led even to Baptism itself with his will prepared by him—that thereafter, although his spirit lusts against the flesh that it may not consent to iniquity, yet the flesh too lusts against the spirit, so that he too does not do what he wills. For he wills also not to have this concupiscence of the flesh, but he cannot now; on account of which he still groans in himself, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of his body (See Rom 8:23), where he will have flesh in such a way that he can no longer sin. Now, then, not only can he sin after Baptism, but also, because, even fighting well against the concupiscence of the flesh, he is sometimes drawn by it to consent; and, although venial, he commits some sins; he has cause always here to say: Forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12). This too the catholic truth refutes the vanity of Jovinian. But both—that is, both what we say against the Manichee, and what against Jovinian—subverts your heresy and your calumnies.

I. 102. Julian. But if it was not free for good before, and was made so free after Baptism that it cannot do evil; the freedom of choice was indeed never present to it, and it is proved both to have sinned before without guilt, and afterward to possess the glory of holiness without care.

Augustine. Then there is not in God either the freedom of choice, because he cannot do evil, as he cannot deny himself (2 Tim 2:13)—who is going to bestow on us too, by that supreme reward, that we, equal indeed not to God himself, but yet to his Angels, can no longer sin. For this is to be believed to have been granted to them, after the fall of the devil, for the deserving of the good will by which they stood in the truth, that afterward no one should become a new devil through free choice.

I. 103. Julian. From which gathered conclusion you are convicted of utterly contradicting your own teaching; so that you promise that you do not deny free choice, which before by the necessity of evil, afterward by the necessity of good, you overturn.

Augustine. You are going to say, as I see, that God is pressed by necessity, so that he cannot sin; who certainly neither can will, nor wills to be able, to sin. Rather, if it is to be called necessity, by which it is necessary that something either be or come about; this is altogether a most blessed necessity, by which it is necessary to live happily, and in that same life it is necessary not to die, it is necessary not to be changed for the worse. By this necessity, if it is even itself to be called necessity, the holy Angels are not pressed, but enjoy it; but for us it is to come, not present.

I. 104. Julian. Yet it profits the whole destruction of your teaching that we recall also the earlier definitions. If sin is nothing but the will to retain and to commit what justice forbids and from which one is free to abstain, no sin at all is found in things.

Augustine. That definition is of the sin which is only sin, not of that which is also the punishment of sin, by which the liberty of not sinning perished; from which evil no one frees us except him to whom we say not only: Forgive us our debts, but also: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (Matt 6:12-13).

I. 105. Julian. For if justice does not impute except that from which one is free to abstain; and before Baptism there is a necessity of evil, since the will, as you said, is not free for doing good, and through this can do nothing other than evil; it is defended from the infamy of evil by the very necessity which it suffers; since with that justice it cannot be weighed down by its own works, which does not impute evil, except that from which one is free to abstain. But after Baptism, if there is a necessity of good, there can certainly be no sin. See, then, how that which reason demonstrates to be sin cannot be found in the seeds, when, according to your definitions, it is now not even found in morals.

Augustine. You greatly err, who either think there is no necessity of sinning, or do not understand it to be the punishment of that sin which was committed by no necessity. For if there is no necessity of sinning (to omit the force of that evil which is drawn originally; for you want this to be nothing), what, I ask, was he suffering who, according to your understanding, was pressed by so great a mass of evil habit that he said: I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I will not, this I do (Rom 7:19)? Then I judge that you consider with what labor it is learned what is to be desired, what to be avoided in the conduct of life. But those who do not know this suffer the necessity of sinning by the very ignorance of desiring good and avoiding evil. For it is necessary that he sin who, not knowing what he ought to do, does what he ought not. About which kind of evils God is asked, where it is said: Remember not the offenses of my youth and of my ignorance (Ps 25:7 (24:7)). Which kind of offenses, if the just God did not impute, the faithful man would not ask that they be forgiven him. Whence the servant of God, Job, also says: You have sealed up my sins in a bag, and noted if I have committed anything unwillingly (Job 14:17 LXX). You too yourself, in the last book of those four which you published against my one, say, from the affections and passions of the mind: That an affectional quality befalls human beings and so inheres that it is separated either by great efforts, or by none at all. Whoever, then, sins by that fearfulness which cannot be separated from him, what else does he do than sin by necessity? But you concede that these sins come from those sins which were committed by no necessity—at least in him who says: The evil that I will not, this I do. For he who, in order to suffer this necessity, is pressed only by the habit of sinning; without doubt before he sinned, he was not yet pressed by the necessity of habit. And through this, even according to you, the necessity of sinning, from which one is not free to abstain, is the punishment of that sin from which one was free to abstain, when no weight of necessity pressed. Why, then, do you not believe that that ineffably great sin of the first man availed at least so much that by it the whole of human nature was vitiated, as much as a second nature now avails in one human being? For you thought we should be reminded that habit is thus called by the learned. Since, then, we both confess that there are in human beings those sins which are committed not by necessity, but by will, which are only sins, from which they are free to abstain; and that the human race is full of sins coming from the necessity of ignorance or of the affections, which are now not only sins, but also punishments of sins; how do you say that, by our definitions, sin is not found even in morals? But hear what you are unwilling to hear. From all sins, whether original or moral, whether they have been committed, or that they may not be committed, no one frees except the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, in whom we have been regenerated, and from whom we have learned to say in prayer, not only: Forgive us our debts, that is, because we have sinned; but also: Lead us not into temptation (Matt 6:13), that is, that we may not sin.

I. 106. Julian. But with this sum of the disputation sealed in the mind of the prudent reader, let us examine what your Baptism—which you say was provided on account of the mere stirring of the genitals—carries out of the office entrusted to it. It professes that it expiates human beings from sins, but when the case of the will is tried before justice, that is not pronounced guilty which could not will otherwise. But with the odium of guilt vanishing, the pomp of the one indulging vanishes too; because it cannot forgive what it cannot by right impute. And through this, it is frustrated of the effects of its promise; since it neither finds crimes by whose remission it may be praised; nor has it debtors of this benefit, by which the bonds of sins are loosed; because it cannot convict of an evil will those placed in the asylum of necessity; by all of which it is caught out as superfluous. But because the grace which was provided by Christ is not superfluous; let its reasonable munificence be held, through which the guilty will of the sinner is convicted, which certainly could will good as much as it willed evil. The whole fiction of necessity, then, has vanished; and through this, there is no sin from the condition of nature; but free choice perseveres in the nature of human beings; which, as you with the Manichees deny, so we with the Apostles and all Catholics confess.

Augustine. It is necessary that he sin by whom justice is not known; is it for that reason that, when he has come to know justice, the sins are not to be remitted to him which he committed by the necessity of ignorance? Or, because he has now come to know how he ought to live, is he to presume of himself that he live justly, not of him to whom it is said: Lead us not into temptation (Matt 6:13)? There is not, then, a security of impunity in the necessity of sinning, but, that this necessity may not harm, he grants it to whom it is said: Rescue me from my necessities (See Ps 25:17 (24:17)). But he grants it in two ways: both by forgiving past iniquity, and by helping that we may not enter into temptation. But each one is tempted, drawn away and enticed by his own concupiscence (Jas 1:14). Which concupiscence, as you have taken it up, is so pleasing to you that, when anyone is not drawn by it into consent, you think it is to be praised; as though the thing which impels into evil were not an evil, if the one who is impelled does not yield to it, but resists. Although you, even if it is consented to, contend with great empty talk that he who fell, not the thing which impelled; he who was drawn away, not the thing which drew away; he who was enticed, not the thing which enticed, is to be blamed; because, namely, as you define, he used a good badly; for you have so evil a spirit that the concupiscence by which the flesh lusts against the spirit seems to you good. But you think you have elegantly mocked our opinion about Baptism, most lyingly affirming that we say Baptism was provided on account of the mere stirring of the genitals. We do not say this, but we say that—which you try to subvert by a new and heretical perversity—the help of the second spiritual birth was divinely provided, which Christ instituted to come about in himself, because those born carnally according to Adam contract, at the first birth, the contagion of the ancient death. Behold, I have used the words of the Punic bishop Cyprian, against whom you bark even though he is a martyr, when you assail the most firmly founded faith of the Church, for which Church his blood was shed. For just as the apostle Paul said: Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all human beings, in whom all sinned (Rom 5:12); so too the bishop Cyprian, an interpreter of this Apostle, confessed that those born carnally according to Adam contract, at the first birth, the contagion of the ancient death. What is it, then, that you fallaciously join yourself to the Apostles and all Catholics; since you most plainly contradict the Apostle fraudulently, and the catholic bishop and martyr, in what he understood with the Eastern and Western catholic Church?

I. 107. Julian. The exposition, indeed, which you applied to the words of the apostle Paul, would have to be passed over with laughter, did it not terrify those ignorant of the Scriptures. When you were, says the Apostle, slaves of sin, you were free of justice. He certainly could not say: Freed; since this word of liberation is then fittingly and properly introduced, when a human being is freed from harmful things; but those can be called free of the virtues who decide they owe nothing to the virtues. He can, then, be called free both of good and of evil, who, serving one, is zealous to owe nothing to the other; but he cannot be called freed except from evil; because this word of liberation has in itself the indication of that anguish which is repelled. What question, then, could here be made to the Apostle about his words, when he, in the manner of the human race, called those free of good, freed of evil? When, then, he says, you were slaves of sin, you were free of justice; what fruit did you have then in those things in which you now blush? (Rom 6:20-21) But lest you should reckon that we become slaves to sin by nature, hear the Apostle himself speaking in the same passages: Or do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obeying, you are slaves of him whom you obey, whether of sin, or of the obedience of justice? (Rom 6:16) You presented yourselves, he says, as slaves to sin; that you might understand that he imputes sin to the will, not to birth. For this reason alone, then, he said they had been free of justice, because they had refused to keep its precepts.

Augustine. If for this reason alone human beings were said to have been free of justice, because they had refused to keep its precepts; then before they received the precepts of justice, which they refused to keep, were they not free of justice, and slaves of sin? Who would say this? From this necessity of slavery, then, he frees who not only gives precepts through the law; but also bestows, through the spirit, love, by whose delight the delight of sin may be conquered; otherwise it perseveres unconquered, and holds its slave. For by whom anyone has been overcome, to him also he is assigned as a slave (2 Pet 2:19).

I. 108. Julian. Finally, he immediately adds that they are slaves of justice, just as they had been slaves before of sin. Through which you can now, if you please, call them free of sin, when they serve justice; just as they were said by him to be free of justice, when they served the offense. Most ineptly, then, you wished to stir up a calumny against the apostolic simplicity. For he did not, as you think, most vigilantly intimate this which you reckon; but you most drowsily look at what he brought forth. For you argue that he preferred to say freed rather than free, that we might understand that by the liberty of choice one can indeed do evil, but that good cannot be done. But the very order of his words struggles against you. For if he had thought this which you do, that one sins only by liberty, he ought to have said: You were free of sin; not: You were free of justice, so that he might be said to be free for whom liberty itself was working. For if it pleases even to weigh the moments of the cases, he said they were free to this justice, not free from this justice. More consistently, then, we would be helped by this expression, if we too wished to press even such slight matters. But far be it: we understand the sense of the Apostle, and we are content with the office of expressions simply brought forth. The Teacher of the Gentiles said nothing other than: You were free, you did not serve, justice; you were freed, you received the pardon of sins, with the liberty of choice remaining; through which they could both before obey sin, and afterward obey justice.

Augustine. From this heretical sense, by which you say that liberation from sin does not come about through grace, except when pardon is received for the past; but not also that sin may not have dominion, when one is drawn by his own concupiscence into consent to it; you contradict even the prayers of the saints. For why is it said to God: Lead us not into temptation; if, that this may not come about, it is in the power of our free choice, which is naturally implanted in us? Why does the Apostle say: But we pray to God, that you do no evil (2 Cor 13:7); if God does not free from sins, except by giving pardon for past ones?

I. 109. Julian. Finally, he showed what his exhortation held, premising: It is a human thing that I say, on account of the weakness of your flesh; for as you presented your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members to serve justice unto sanctification; for when you were slaves of sin, you were free of justice (Rom 6:19-20). Most orderly, indeed, he says that those were free of justice whom he had addressed, that they should keep their members in all sanctification. But, since we have lingered here not a little, in order to show that it is most certain what I had said—that human beings would deny free choice who had been frightened by your speech, and would be thrust by a vain dread into true destruction; and that you are the chief denier of free choice—let us return to that book which was directed to Valerius, that we may prove first that you denied God the founder; but now, that you deny it in one place, and in another confess it much more wickedly than you had denied it. And indeed, how absolutely you denied in that earlier book of yours that God is the founder of human beings, appeared sufficiently when it was examined; for you said that the devil rightly plucked the human race as the fruit of a shrub, as it were, planted by himself; and many other things which were placed by you in the place of arguments cooperate with this error. But in this second book, although by the whole of your teaching you do the same, yet you strive more perniciously to amend the opinion which you brought forth before.

Augustine. If the Apostle is too little for you, who says: Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all human beings, in whom all sinned; Ambrose certainly—not as a Manichee, by which name you accuse those of such a faith as he was; but as a Catholic—understood the Apostle, and, understanding him, said: We are all human beings born under sin, and our very origin is in fault. Behold from what, as from his own shrub, the devil rightly plucked the fruit; not from the nature which God created, but from the vice which he himself planted. For those who are born under sin cannot be except under the author of sin, if they are not reborn in Christ.

I. 110. Julian. But let us supply briefly the response which is owed to your chapter, which we set down above. Constantly and faithfully, then, I respond that we do not envy human beings the Liberator, the Lord Jesus Christ; whom we address, lest, believing you, they be broken by despair of amendment, and recede from the instruction of Christ, as though commanding things which the nature of mortals cannot grasp, being weighed down, of course, by a congenital evil.

Augustine. But death too is congenital; and yet he frees from it who vivifies whom he wills (John 5:21); to whom they ought to flee who wish to be freed from the congenital evil; and that they may do this, read in the Gospel who draws them.

I. 111. Julian. But let them run to him who cries out: My yoke is sweet, and my burden is light (Matt 11:30); who both bestows pardon on the evil will by inestimable liberality, and makes the innocence which he creates good better by renewing and adopting.

Augustine. These are the very human beings whom you envy the Liberator, whom you deny to have an evil from which they may be freed. How, then, do you constantly and faithfully respond that you do not envy human beings the Liberator, the Lord Jesus Christ; when you rather act pertinaciously and faithlessly, that little ones be not believed to be saved by him, just as he saves his people from their sins (See Matt 1:21); on account of which we have learned, the Gospel speaking, that he was called Jesus? You will not, then, be able to teach that you do not envy human beings the Liberator Christ, because you can in no way show that little ones are not human beings.

I. 112. Julian. I marvel, then, that you dared to set down the testimony by which it is said: For by whom anyone has been overcome, to him also he is assigned as a slave (2 Pet 2:19). Which most manifestly makes for us, who assert that no one can be liable to the devil except him who, after the contest of the will, has been overcome by a degenerate surrender. But it ought not to have been used by you, against whom it vehemently fights, persuading that those being born are in the kingdom of the devil, who without their own will certainly could neither be overcome, nor sin.

Augustine. Those whom you say, being born, could neither be overcome nor contend, draw their origin from him in whom all sinned; who, the man—what is worse—was overcome without a contest. For there was Adam, and in him we all were; Adam perished, and in him all perished. Allow, then, little ones to be found by him who came to seek what had perished (See Luke 19:10); otherwise you utterly envy human beings the Liberator Jesus, since they too are human beings, however much loquacity you believe should be used to cover the cruelty of this your error.

I. 113. Julian. And indeed, seeing that this avails very much against you, as if questioned by the very testimony: Through what, then, are little ones in the kingdom of the adverse power, if the Scripture is believed that each one, when he is overcome, is then a slave of the conqueror, and it is established that infancy, without the use of reason and will, could neither fight nor yield?, you add: "For through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all human beings, in whom all sinned " (Rom 5:12). But God is the founder of those being born in such a way that all from one go into condemnation, of whom he has not been the liberator of those reborn. For he himself was called "a potter, making from the same lump one vessel unto honor according to mercy, another unto dishonor according to judgment " (See Rom 9:21), to whom the Church sings: "Mercy and judgment " (Ps 101:1 (100:1)). This which you say, that through one man sin entered, by which testimony of the Apostle you have nevertheless stirred the breasts of very many of the unlearned, although in the fourth book I have briefly shown how it was to be understood, yet, with Christ helping, we will expound more fully in this work, so that in the second book, with other things passed over, the apostolic passage itself may be discoursed upon most fully in its own context.

Augustine. To that which you say you briefly showed in your fourth book, you have been answered in our sixth; but what you promise in this work, when you have begun to render it, there it will appear how empty a talker you are.

I. 114. Julian. But here I would briefly admonish, since it cannot support you toward the confirmation of that opinion which all erudition, all reason, and the law of God convict as most unjust. Let the diligent reader, then, attend to what you have declared, that God is the maker of evils; and creates such beings as, without any deserving of their own will, all go absolutely into condemnation.

Augustine. This I said: because he makes the nature of human beings, who by the vice of evil are evil, which he himself did not make; and from which he himself does good, even when the human beings whom he makes are evil; because in so far as they are human beings, not in so far as they are evil, he makes them. For they would not become vessels unto dishonor, unless they were evil; who nevertheless, by the nature which God makes, are certainly good; but evil according to the vice which the enemy planted, against nature indeed, but yet in nature; so that from this nature was evil, that is, an evil human being. For there can be no evil except in some good; because there can be none except in some nature; but every nature, in so far as it is a nature, is a good. Attend diligently how those things are said which seem to be said as if contrary to each other, and are not; if, however, you have not utterly lost your eyes in the smoke of proud contention.

I. 115. Julian. And lest we should not know of what time you were speaking; from Adam, whom you say all were as one, to the end, those who are not baptized you declare to be found liable to condemnation and to the devil. In which opinion you strive to heal yourself much more perniciously than you had before wounded yourself. For, in order to remove the odium which was rushing upon you, that you said the devil is the founder of human beings; corrected, you confess God to be the founder, but of such beings as the Manichee ascribes to the prince of darkness.

Augustine. We are all human beings born under sin, and our very origin is in fault. This was said not by the unclean heretic the Manichee, but by the catholic saint Ambrose. Furthermore, the Manichee neither says that every nature, in so far as it is a nature, is good; nor does he say that the nature which he calls evil can in any way be healed and made good; which the catholic faith says about the human nature of the little and the great, both against the Manichees and against the Pelagians, both insane by diverse diseases, but equally.

I. 116. Julian. Indeed, believing human beings to be evil by the condition of being born, he assigned to them that author through whom the crime of the evil work might be separated from the good God; and since he had erred in the definition of sin, so as to think that to be natural which cannot be except voluntary; he consequently thereafter invented an evil artificer of an evil origin; here more religious toward God, more obstinate toward nature. But you say that human beings are indeed born evil, but that God is the author of the evils; you, more obstinate toward God, more honoring toward nature; for nature is defended by the majesty of its author, but the author is accused by the foulness of the work.

Augustine. Accuse God, then, if you please, by the foulness of the work; since some bodies are born so foul that some of them, by their excessive deformity, are even called monsters. For it is not another god, as the Manichee invents, nor lesser gods, as Plato errs, that are the founders of bodies; but certainly the good and just God works even such bodies; which, if you refer them to the heavy yoke upon the sons of Adam (See Sir 40:1), you will find him neither evil, such as the Manichee employs for fabricating bodies; nor overcome and entangled and mingled with evils, which the Manichee does not fear to believe about the good God; but plainly just on account of original sin, such as the catholic faith knows, from which your error has strayed. For if no one had sinned, foul and monstrous bodies would not be born even in paradise.

I. 117. Julian. You did not fear, most wicked one, to apply to God this which the Manichee, lest he apply it to him, invented another founder; both of you indeed are enemies of truth, but it was thought before you that he could not be surpassed in impiety.

Augustine. Before me was Ambrose, who was not a Manichee; before him Hilary, Gregory; before these Cyprian, and the rest, whom it is long to recall, who were not Manichees. And yet they taught the Church what they learned in the Church, that little ones draw original sin, and are to be breathed upon in the exorcisms, that they may be rescued from the power of darkness, and transferred into the kingdom of their Savior and Lord (See Col 1:13). Since, if Christ died even for them, which you too have been compelled to confess, then all are dead; and he died for all (2 Cor 5:14-15), which the Apostle says; who certainly, if according to your words he too will be a Manichee, what then will you be?

I. 118. Julian. But you have justified, as the Prophet says, your sister Sodom (See Ezek 16:51-52); the Manichee will be thought acquitted, if he is compared with your blasphemies. I had gloried in the first book of my work that I was torn by that mouth by which the Apostles too had endured injury; but now I am terrified at the greatness of my felicity; I am reviled by one who accuses God.

Augustine. You are reviled by one who, with Ambrose and the rest of his associates, proclaims Christ the Liberator even of little ones; whom you not only accuse as a liar, where he says he came to save and to seek what had perished (See Luke 19:10); but even contradict him, that he should not seek little ones to be saved.

I. 119. Julian. Whence did so great a dignity of insult befall me? You could have conferred nothing such upon me by praising. You say that my thoughts are to be reproved, but that the works of God are to be condemned; that I dispute badly; but you declare that God creates wickedly; you cry out that I err; that he rages; you assert that I do not know the law; but that God does not know justice; you proclaim that I am not a Catholic, because I say that Christ summons those whom he saves; but you swear that God creates those whom he condemns, and founds them for no other reason than that all may go into condemnation.

Augustine. This can be said also about the foreknowledge of God, which nevertheless cannot be denied by the faithful, and, I think, not even by you. Either deny that God foreknows that he will condemn many whom he creates, lest he seem to create those whom he condemns; and—what is more marvelous and more unsearchable—that he does not snatch from this life many, lest malice change their understanding (See Wis 4:11), whom he cannot be ignorant will be evil. Give honor to God: let the noisy ruin of your words—as if polished and sharp, but glass—yield to the height of his judgments.

I. 120. Julian. Between you, then, and the Manichee, the begetter of your thoughts, I see that, by the progress of your erudition, a great distance has been made. For he, although he had introduced two authors, yet left a hope of salvation from that part by which he said that the good God is most foreign to iniquity and to cruelty; but you, saying that there is one God indeed, but the same the founder of evils, have utterly taken away both the reverence of divinity and the hope of salvation.

Augustine. The Manichees invent a God cruelly weak, who handed over his own part, his own substance, the members of his own nature to be torn apart and contaminated by enemies, from whom he discerned that devastation threatened him; but you, who do not deny God to be most almighty, wish him to be believed unjust in the heavy yoke of little ones, by denying original sin.

I. 121. Julian. For there is no one to come to the aid of the guilty, when he himself, who is one, by a desire of creating miseries punishes even those in whom he recognizes nothing other than this which he himself made.

Augustine. He recognizes there also what he himself did not make; for sin he himself did not make. But another, vain like you, could say that God, by a desire of creating miseries, creates even those whom he could not be ignorant that he would condemn—incomparably more than those whom he foreknew he would free.

I. 122. Julian. With the abyss of your impiety, then, examined, although nothing more profane could ever be found; yet how this has no force, and what is to be gathered about those things which you had appended, will be shown by a brief disputation. God, who wished to be called by this name, is believed both most almighty and most just; of which, if one is lacking, neither will be present; as he is the most benign founder of human beings, so the most equitable assessor of deservings; everything that he makes is very good (See Gen 1:31). And through this, no one is naturally evil, but whoever is guilty is accused by morals, not by origins.

Augustine. Why, then, is there a heavy yoke upon the origins of little ones, under a God most powerful and most just?

I. 123. Julian. And so evil is not natural, nor can God create the guilty, nor place them in the kingdom of the devil. With these things gathered, both you are shown to be a Manichee, or rather worse than the Manichee; and the entrance of humanity into this world without sin, and the fruit of fecundity under the right of God, not of the devil, and natural innocence have become clear.

Augustine. Then Ambrose too, who said: The little ones who have been baptized are reformed from malice to the beginnings of their nature, is shown to be a Manichee, or worse than the Manichee, as you revile, or you rave.

I. 124. Julian. With this sealed, then, attend to what follows from your progress. It is established that the Prophets and Patriarchs, and all the saints of the Old Testament, were without Baptism, but, founded by God, thereafter shone with their own virtues; under the kingdom of the devil, then, against the testimony of the law, they will be believed to be handed over to eternal punishments; because all from Adam are declared by you to be created unto condemnation.

Augustine. The same grace, against which you have declared war, freed those ancient just ones too; although they used different sacraments according to the time. Since what we believe about Christ, this they believed. For there is one God, and one Mediator of God and human beings, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5), whose coming in humility was foretold to them, but to us announced; but his coming in glory, which will be at the end, was both foretold to them and to us. Both their faith, then, and ours, in this one Mediator, is one, and the same spirit of faith is both in them and in us; whence the Apostle says: But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written: I believed, on which account I have spoken; we too believe, on which account we also speak (2 Cor 4:13). But whence this faith is, lest we glory as though it were from ourselves, let us hear the same Apostle: By grace, he says, you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, but it is the gift of God (Eph 2:8). And in another place: Peace, he says, to the brothers, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph 6:23).

I. 125. Julian. But if you say it, even your patrons will be able to confess how openly you are a Manichee. But if you understand that so great an army of the true King fights against your opinion, and that you can bring no prejudgment against them; acquiesce that what you had built up has been destroyed, and through this that not all go from one into condemnation (See Rom 5:18); but only those who, rebellious to the will of God, without penitence, without correction, are caught at the last end.

Augustine. Add also those begotten, if they have not been regenerated; because in one all sinned (See Rom 5:12).

I. 126. Julian. But as for the fact that God was called a potter, making from the same lump one vessel unto honor, another unto dishonor (See Rom 9:21), it ought not to have been mentioned by you at all; because, as it is consistently expounded by us, so it wholly fights against you; for when some are said to be made unto honor, others unto dishonor, the sense of the Catholics is helped, by which, according to the diversity of the human will, a diverse outcome of the vessels too is proclaimed.

Augustine. Hear Ambrose, who says: We are all human beings born under sin, and our very origin is in fault. For thus he understood, with the rest of his fellow disciples and fellow teachers, without any doubt catholics, what is written about sin and death, that it entered through one, and passed into all human beings (See Rom 5:12). And understand that this is the lump from which the vessels are made, whether those or these. For if the solution of this unsearchable question were that which you hold, according to the deservings of wills; it would be so manifest that the Apostle would be compelled by no difficulty of it to say: O man, who are you to answer back to God? (Rom 9:20) For it was about those not yet born, of whom, not from works, but according to his own purpose, God loved one, hated the other (See Rom 9:11-13); whence it came to these words, that about the same lump and diverse vessels, and about the power of the potter, it was said.

I. 127. Julian. But you, who said above that all go into condemnation, with what brow did you set down a testimony by which it is declared that one goes unto honor, another unto dishonor?

Augustine. But grace frees, from the condemnation of the whole lump, those whom it frees; which, by denying, you are heretics. For as far as concerns the deserving of origin, from one all go into condemnation; but as far as concerns grace, which is given not according to deservings, whoever are freed from this condemnation are called vessels of mercy; but those who are not freed, the wrath of God remains upon them (See John 3:36), coming from the just judgment of God; which is not for that reason blameworthy, because it is unsearchable; and therefore they are called vessels of wrath, because God uses these too well, that he may make known the riches of his glory, upon the vessels of mercy (Rom 9:23). For what, with God judging, is exacted from the rest, this, with him having mercy, is granted to these; which unsearchable ways of the Lord, if you reckon they should be disapproved, hear: O man, who are you to answer back to God? (Rom 9:20)

I. 128. Julian. For nothing is so at odds as to say all, and not all. You say that all are made by God the potter unto condemnation; the Apostle says, not all unto condemnation, nor all unto honor; what dignity it has, I will settle in its own place. Yet in the very pronouncing of the opinion, it is established that there is great discord between you, and that the potter who fashions all things unto condemnation is not the same whom Paul says fabricates others unto honor; nor that you believe him who is proclaimed by the admirable teacher; since your potter fashions all unto condemnation, the Apostle's potter fashions very many unto glory.

Augustine. When all are said to go from one into condemnation, the lump itself is signified, from which the potter makes some vessels unto honor, that is, those taken up into grace, others unto dishonor, that is, those left to pay the debt; so that the sons of grace may know that this is granted to them which, if it were exacted, would not be unjust; and so they may glory not in themselves, but in the Lord (See 1 Cor 1:31).

I. 129. Julian. And these things I would say, that it might at once appear that you are of singular inexperience or shamelessness, who, in place of your own, use contrary things; but piety and reason will explain that my God forms no one unto dishonor.

Augustine. If your God forms no one unto dishonor, he is not the God of the apostle Paul; for he said about the true God: O man, who are you to answer back to God? Does the thing formed say to him who formed it: Why have you made me thus? Or does the potter of the clay not have power, from the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, another unto dishonor? (Rom 9:20-21) But you, of course, a great craftsman, bring forth from the Pelagian workshop a better god, who makes no vessel unto dishonor.

I. 130. Julian. But he founds his own image, that is, all human beings, good, who desires even to reform, by the largesse of remedies, those demolished by the depravity of their pursuits. To him indeed the Church sings mercy and judgment (Ps 101:1 (100:1)); because he is both benign to those who have offended in nothing, and punishes by a just judgment those who, founded good by God, sinned by their own will, and spurned the supports of mercy. This mercy, then, and this judgment the Church of the Catholics sings; but in yours nothing such can resound, which says that God, the founder of evils, without justice, without judgment, without mercy, forms those whom he punishes; and punishes for this, that he himself formed them from Adam.

Augustine. You have already been answered above to all these things; yet hear here too briefly. God does not withhold the good of his forming even from a damned stock; but if it displeases you that God creates those whom he condemns; contradict him, if you can, that he should not create those whom he foreknew would be evil, and would persevere in malignity to the end, and on this account, without doubt, were to be condemned; or suggest to him, if it seems good, that so many thousands of unbaptized little ones, whom he knows will live in ruin, and will go, with him condemning, into eternal fire with the devil, he should snatch from this life, while they are innocent and good; that, if not in his kingdom, at least in some place of a second happiness, which your heresy has built for such, they may hold everlasting life. You have still something to suggest, as a counselor of God, for his sons whom he regenerated, whom he adopted, and yet foresaw would be evil and to be condemned; that, before they come into a guilty life, they be deprived of life itself by being cut short, and pertain to his kingdom, not to eternal punishments. For when you think you say spitefully that God creates those whom he condemns; consider how much more spitefully another, vain in like manner, could say that God regenerates those whom he condemns; since it is in the power of his omnipotence, before they become damnable, to take them away from the temptations of this mortal life. But if you cannot say these things, nor contradict God, nor offer your counsel to that wisdom; for who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? (Rom 11:34), cease to introduce to us another potter, who does not make vessels unto dishonor; and restrain yourself from reprehending this one who makes them, and acknowledge yourself; because, that you may not entangle yourself in this sacrilege, the Apostle says to you: O man, who are you to answer back to God? (Rom 9:20)

I. 131. Julian. But now let the dignity of the apostolic statement be asserted, lest he be thought to have held about some what you reckoned about all. The apostle Paul, then, disputing with the questions of the Jews, who, swelling with the dignity of their race, disdained that the faithful from the Gentiles be made equal to them, commends both the justice of God and his grace, disputing that it pertained to their munificence, both that first the knowledge of the law had ennobled the Jews, and that thereafter the preaching of Christ had adopted the Gentiles too. For there is one founder of both peoples, about to judge both the latter through the law, and the former without law, and the latter in the law (See Rom 2:12); because he was not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles, restoring to each his own without fraud, without favor, that is, without respect of anyone's person (which the name of favor expresses in the definition of justice), so that those coming from the seed of Abraham, when they live wickedly, he justly condemns, and drives out from his inheritance, just as also the Gentiles caught in a like working; and, on the other side, the good wills of both peoples and true faith and uprightness of actions he grants everlasting joys. The Teacher of the Gentiles, then, represses the swelling of the Jews, and shows that the distance is not in the seeds of the human race, but in morals; that they might recognize that, unless they had taken care to be faithful, they were to be vindicated by no prerogative of their circumcised race; since Jacob and Esau, conceived from one seed-emission, and poured forth by one force of the one giving birth, bore very diverse outcomes according to the diversity of their deservings.

Augustine. If you understood according to the Apostle, you would not mention in this place the deservings of Jacob, where he says that Jacob was loved not from works; that he may commend grace, which is given not according to our deservings; otherwise the reward is not imputed, as he himself says, according to grace, but according to debt (Rom 4:4). By which words what does he show, except that grace is not owed, but gratuitous? This, then, he was commending, where he said: For when they were not yet born, nor had done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might remain, not from works, but from him who calls, it was said: The elder shall serve the younger (Rom 9:11-12). They are clear, the things you try to obscure; take away the smoke, attend to the light of the Scriptures. For grace goes before a human being, that he may love God, by which love he may work good things. Which the apostle John too most plainly shows, where he says: Let us love, because he first loved us (1 John 4:19). We are not, then, loved because we have loved; but, because we have been loved, let us love.

I. 132. Julian. For Esau, profane and a fornicator, selling his birthright for one meal, sought the blessing which he had spurned, and did not obtain it, although he had asked for it with tears (See Heb 12:16-17). But Jacob, quiet and mild, obedient to the precepts of his parents, and most desirous of sanctifications, was advanced so far that, as God is called the God of Abraham and Isaac, so also of Jacob, among the holy people (See Exod 3:6). Since, then, it was established by all examples that God, by a just judgment, does not deny his mercy to good minds in whatever nation, but allows evil minds to be defended by no nobility of stock; the Jews should understand that the faith of the Gentiles ought not to be despised by them; because, just as the lineage of the Israelites does not patronize crimes, so also the origin of the Gentiles is no hindrance to virtues. Doing all this, then, in that conflict, the Apostle yet, in certain places, to bend down the arrogance of the circumcised, under the name of grace prejudges only about the power of God.

Augustine. Then, to bend down the arrogance of the circumcised, under the name of grace the Apostle lies, for God chooses from works, not from grace. Who would so think, except a heretic, an enemy of grace, a friend of pride? The Vessel of election cries out, and the preacher of the grace by which he was made such, that Jacob was loved not from works, and you mention the works of Jacob, from which you contend that he was loved; and doing this, you reckon that you contradict me, when you are a new Antichrist, and most plainly contradict him in whom Christ spoke (See 2 Cor 13:3).

I. 133. Julian. So that to those glorying in the observance of ceremonies and sacrifices, and through this reckoning that other nations, consecrated by no rites of the law, could neither suddenly nor ought to be admitted to fellowship with them, he might say that, even if in those observances were the sum of justice, yet God would have in his power to make a certain exchange of peoples, so as to reject whom he would, and take up whom he would. To which sense he answers under the person of the Jews, that nothing ought now to be exacted from the will of a human being; since God has mercy on whom he wills, and hardens whom he wills (Rom 9:18). To which the Apostle replies: O man, who are you to answer back to God? (Rom 9:20) And he brings in the testimony of the prophet Isaiah: Does the thing formed say, he says, to him who formed it: Why have you made me thus? And he adds of his own: Or does the potter of the clay not have power, from the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, another unto dishonor? And the sense is of this kind: Because I commended the will of God, and set forth the authority of his grace, saying that he would show mercy on whomever he had had mercy; you, O Jew, stirred up against me a calumny, as though the commendation brought forth by me of the divine will and power pertained to the destruction of that justice; and because I said: He does what he wills; you argued that nothing now ought to be required of the will of a human being, if God did everything by his own will; whereas the dignity of the person had excluded the place of the question. For if I had said: God does what he owes according to the laws of his justice, which judges about the deservings of individuals; you would certainly not have replied anything such as you now object; but now, because I said: God does what he wills, you thought I had stolen something from the dignity of justice. Both, then, are the same. For when I say of God: He does what he wills, I say nothing other than: He does what he owes; because I know he wills nothing other than he owes. Where, then, the will clings inseparably to equity, whichever of them I shall have named, I have marked both.

Augustine. In whatever way you say that God does what he owes; he owes grace to no one, and to many he does not render the punishment which he owes for their evil works, and bestows the grace which he owes for none of their good works. For what did he owe to that same Paul, when, still Saul, he was persecuting the Church? Was it not punishment? That, then, he prostrated him by a voice sent from heaven, that he blinded him, that he so violently drew him to receive the faith which he was laying waste (See Acts 9:1-22), without doubt he did according to grace, not according to debt, so that he might be among those remnants of the people of Israel, of whom he says: So then, even at this time, a remnant has been made according to the election of grace; but if by grace, then no longer from works; otherwise grace is now not grace (Rom 11:5-6). What did he owe also to those to whom he says: Not for your sake do I do this, house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the Gentiles (See Ezek 36:22), except punishment? He says, then, that he does their good things in them, but for the sake of his name which they profaned, not for the sake of those who profaned it; for if he wished to do it for their sake, he would render them the punishment owed, not bestow grace unowed. For what he says he will do pertains to this, that they may do good things, not because they were good who profaned his holy name. Finally, he says most plainly that they will do good things; but with him bringing it about that they do them; for he says among other things: And I will bring it about that you walk in my justifications, and observe and do my judgments (See Ezek 36:27). To these works certainly the reward is imputed according to debt; for the reward is owed, if they are done; but grace, which is not owed, goes before, that they may be done. The good reward, I say, is owed to the good works of human beings; but grace is not owed, which works the human beings themselves good from evil. Finally, you who said that God does what he owes, and with high neck have aired human deservings, say, I beg you, by what deservings of little ones the kingdom of heaven is owed. You will perhaps say that he owes this to his grace, by whose help they were reborn. For having received this, they now deserve to come into his kingdom; but that very grace, which he shows to those to be regenerated, he owes to none of their deservings at all. For this reason your Pelagius, in the episcopal judgment of Palestine, was compelled, lest he himself be condemned, to condemn those who say that the grace of God is given according to our deservings; where he condemned, without doubt, both yourself and himself, who do not cease to say this (See The Deeds of Pelagius 14.30). This grace, truly grace, that is, gratuitous, and owed to no preceding deservings, the Apostle was commending, when he said: For when they were not yet born, nor had done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might remain. This is the election of which that too is said: A remnant has been made according to the election of grace, but if by grace, then no longer from works; otherwise grace is now not grace. Whence here too, when he had said: That the purpose of God might remain according to election; he immediately added: Not from works, but from him who calls, it was said: The elder shall serve the younger. Against this trumpet of truth you cry out, and say: To bend down the arrogance of the circumcised, under the name of grace the apostle Paul prejudges only about the power of God. Where what do you say other than: To bend down the arrogance of the circumcised, the Apostle lies, saying that Jacob was loved not from works; when he was loved from works, because he was quiet, and mild, obedient to the precepts of his parents, and most desirous of sanctifications? Nor do you understand that he was loved not for the reason that he was such, or was going to be such; but was made such, because he was loved. Blush: the Apostle does not lie; Jacob was loved not from works; for if by grace, then no longer from works, but loved by grace, and it was fitting that, by that same grace bringing it about, he should be strong in good works. Spare your soul, do not be an enemy of this grace.

I. 134. Julian. Therefore that pride, which wished to be idle, and to cloak its sloth on that account with the color of necessity, so as to cry out against the Gospel in the reception of the Gentiles; hears that, even if it were so as you contrive, yet you ought to supplicate God, not to stir up sedition; by which words he beats back the wickedness of the man who, hunting for the ambiguity of an expression, was trying to ascribe to divine necessity the diversity of deservings coming from the quality of the will, so as to assert that one of two things was necessary, that is, either that the Gentiles should not come to fellowship with the promise, or, if this were permitted to God, that the offices of free will should be extinguished. But because that did not suffice for the business; for by such a teacher, as the authority of God was commended, so justice was not to be left undefended; he adds most consequently that the vessels which are made in dishonor and those in honor have this from the wages of their own will. For if God, willing to show wrath, and to make known his power, in much patience, in vessels of wrath, consummated unto perdition; and that he might make known, he says, the riches of his glory in vessels of mercy, which he prepared unto glory, whom also he called, namely us, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles (Rom 9:22-24). Certainly here he settles what the earlier conflict had covered, that wrath is not brought by God except upon those vessels which have been consummated unto perdition; but that glory is given to those which have been prepared for this. But by whom vessels of this kind are prepared for the reception of those things which we have said, the discourse of the Apostle himself made plain. In a great house, he says, there are not only golden and silver vessels, but also wooden and earthen; some indeed unto honor, others unto dishonor. If, then, anyone shall cleanse himself from these, he will be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work (2 Tim 2:20-21).

Augustine. Then the vessels themselves so prepare themselves, that it was said in vain about God: Which he prepared unto glory? For you say this most plainly; nor do you understand that it was said: If anyone shall cleanse himself, so that the work of the human being too through the will might be shown; but, ungrateful man, the will is prepared by the Lord (See Prov 8:35 LXX); therefore both are true, both that God prepares vessels unto glory, and that they prepare themselves. For that a human being may do, God does; because that a human being may love, God first loves. Read the prophet Ezekiel, whence I mentioned above what seemed enough; you will find these words too, that is, that God brings it about that human beings do his precepts, on whom he has mercy, not on account of their deservings, which he mentions there to be evil, but on account of his name; so that, with God bringing it about, without their deservings, that they do his precepts, they may begin to have the deservings of good deeds. This is the grace which you deny—not from works which are done, but that they may be done.

I. 135. Julian. Behold the office of free will: If, he says, anyone shall cleanse himself from the society of base vessels (by which name vices are denoted), he will be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work. These vessels, then, by their own pursuits, are prepared either for wrath or for glory; but God makes known his power in both, either by exerting severity upon the impious, or by bestowing blessing upon the faithful. It appeared, then, that this statement of the excellent teacher both brought no help to Manichaean meanings, and, on the contrary, consistently armed us.

Augustine. Why do you calumniate, why do you falsely accuse, and do not attend to whom, and what kind of teachers of the Church, you accuse? Not with the words of any Manichee, but of holy Ambrose, I answer you: God calls those whom he deigns, and makes religious whom he wills. This he does in truth, this Ambrose understood in the truth of the divine Scriptures; but the judgment, when he makes some, and does not make others, is hidden. On account of which it is said to a human being through a human being, but not from a human being: O man, who are you to answer back to God? Does the thing formed say to him who formed it: Why have you made me thus? Or does the potter of the clay not have power, from the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, another unto dishonor? (Rom 9:20-21) Take away your fogs from the serenity of these words, by which the judgment of God indeed is signified as hidden; but they are themselves so clear that they do not allow themselves to be overshadowed and obscured by your mist.

I. 136. Julian. And through this it is vehemently set against you too, saying that not all are fashioned unto condemnation, into which you declare all go. But you are wont to argue most absurdly, so as to say: But these are not fashioned unto condemnation, who are afterward freed; whereas not even thus can even the surface of the apostolic discourse befit you. For when you say: All are created unto condemnation by the law of being born, but some thence, though very few, are freed by the mysteries; you do not assert this which he does, who proclaims not only that some are freed of the condemned, but that not all are fashioned unto condemnation, but some unto dishonor, others unto honor.

Augustine. Where the Apostle said: From one all unto condemnation; he showed that very lump, which flowed wholly vitiated from Adam; but where he says that from it are made vessels unto honor, he commends grace, by which God even frees the human beings whom he creates; but where he says that from it are made vessels unto dishonor, he shows the judgment, by which, although he creates human beings, he yet does not free them. Which even you are compelled to confess about little ones, of all of whom you certainly cannot deny that there is one lump, of whatever kind you think it; from which, however, you confess that some are adopted into the kingdom of God, whom without doubt you concede to be vessels made unto honor; but that others are not adopted, whom, made vessels unto dishonor, unless you intelligently consent, you shamelessly deny. For even if this is not the punishment of damnation, as you wish, will it not at least be a dishonor of the image of God, to be separated from the kingdom of God? But if you perseveringly deny that grace, you will show that you pertain to this judgment; which certainly would be unjust in little ones, if there were no original sin.

I. 137. Julian. And as it became clear that the Apostle spoke about morals, so it appears with how great a lack of testimonies of the Law you labor, who from these statements seek help against the thunderbolts of reason—statements which disdain, or rather by their own nature cannot, come to your aid.

Augustine. Against the Apostle saying that from the same lump God makes one vessel unto honor, another unto dishonor; and not saying, another neither unto honor nor unto dishonor, which he would certainly say, if he believed this about little ones which you do; against him, then, divinely thundering, your reason is not thunderous, but smoky.

I. 138. Julian. And these things indeed have been disputed as far as concerns the testimony of the Apostle. But in Isaiah, whence Paul took the statement itself, so far is God from deterring the rational creature from the consideration of his judgment, that, just as through the same Prophet he had said: Cease to act perversely, learn to do well, come to the aid of the oppressed; and come, accuse me, says the Lord (See Isa 1:16-18); so also here, lest he seem to have done anything by power alone, not justice, he deigns to open the reason of his dispensations. For he announces to the people of the Jews afflicted in captivity that the time of redemption is drawing near, in which they would return to their own land; and he discloses the cause both of the preceding anguish and of the imminent joys. Let the heaven feast from above, and let the clouds scatter justice; let mercy arise from the earth, and let justice arise together. I am the Lord God who created you, making you better; I prepared you like the clay of the potter. Will he who plows, plow the earth all day? Does the clay say to the potter: What are you doing, because you do not work, because you have no hands? Does the thing formed say to him who formed it: You have formed me wisely? Or who says to a father: What will you beget? And to a mother: What will you bring forth? Because thus says the Lord, the holy God of Israel, who made the things to come: Ask me concerning my sons and daughters, and concerning the works of my hands give command to me. I made the earth and the man upon it; I with my hand established the heaven; I gave command to all the stars; I raised up a king with justice, and all his ways are right; he will build my city, and will lead back the captivity of my people, not with reward, nor with gifts, said the Lord of Hosts (Isa 45:8-13 LXX).

Augustine. If you understood the words of the Prophet, you would understand that the king there, of whom it was said: I raised up a king with justice, and all his ways are right, is the Mediator of God and human beings, the man Christ Jesus; but you would understand as he is to be understood. For you will not dare to say that he was made the Son of God by preceding deservings of works, from the beginning, that is, from the Virgin's womb. By what grace, then, that man was made good from the beginning, by the same grace human beings who are his members are made good from evil. For you do not find what you may say about Christ according to the man, that is, according to that by which the Word was made flesh; that he who was God both remained God and was made man; that that man himself never was man in such a way that he was not the only-begotten Son of God, on account of the only-begotten Word. For he did not acquire this by the deservings of his own morals coming from his own will; but, as Ambrose truly said, as though born of the Spirit, he abstained from offense. Otherwise, according to you, many would be such, if they had wished to be; and that he was the only such one, was in the power of human beings who were unwilling to be such; which, if you attend with how great impiety they are said, or even believed by silent thought; just as you acknowledge the nature of the Only-begotten, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1); acknowledge also the grace, that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14). He, then, calls those whom he deigns, and makes religious whom he wills, who made the man whom he willed, one, without any preceding deservings of human will, the Mediator of God and human beings.

I. 139. Julian. In this place, then, this sense, as far as concerns the history, is contained, that God speaks to the people: Because I neither handed you over into captivity out of hatred, nor now have taken you from the bonds of the Babylonian captivity out of forgetfulness of judgment; but I, as far as is in me, ready to cherish you with continual benevolence, owed it nevertheless to my justice both to hand over the offenders to enemies, and to refresh and free the vexed. For just as one skilled in farming does not always press upon one work, so as to cleave the fields only with plowshares; but composes the lands by a diverse kind for the wished-for fertility; so I too vary the turns of my dispensations, that, now by pressures, now by consolations, I may be able to fit your will to the crops of justice. Finally, that you may understand with how great equity I act with you, I could by my power despise your mutterings, so that, as the thing formed cannot say to the potter: What have you done? so I too might impose on you the weight of silence; yet, against these examples I summon you, that you may ask me concerning my sons and daughters, that is, concerning yourselves and the works of my hands, and learn that I did everything justly, and never did anything cruelly.

Augustine. You say what you wish, not what Isaiah said; he speaks of grace, against which you speak.

I. 140. Julian. Both by the Prophet, then, and by the Apostle, the potter was brought forward as an example, about to furnish nothing other than the office of comparison; not, however, that human beings be shown to be as cheap in God's sight as clay is in the furnace and on the wheel of potters. With this exposition which we premised settled, we note that, according to the recent interpretation, in the same place something else shines out. Drop down dew, you heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just one; let the earth be opened, and let it bring forth the Savior, and let justice arise together; I the Lord have created him. Woe to him who contradicts his fashioner, a potsherd of the earthen vessels of Samos; does the clay say to its potter: What are you doing? And your work is without hands? (Isa 45:8-9) By which words, although according to the history King Cyrus, yet according to the prophecy the incarnation of the Savior is expressed; who, since he was to be born of a Virgin, the obstinacy of the Jews and of all unbelievers is addressed, lest they be foes to the faithful signs. For when he had premised: Let the earth be opened, and let it bring forth the Savior, and let justice arise together. I the Lord, he says, have created him.

Augustine. Tell me by what works the man Christ Jesus deserved this; and by what justice of God he alone deserved this, dare to chatter; or if you do not dare, at last confess grace without deservings, not only remitting sins to a human being, but also working justice in human nature by the Holy Spirit. For did grace either dismiss sins to the man Christ too, or did grace not make him such that from the beginning he was always good, as from the beginning he was always the Son of God? Plainly, just as those who in the desert were being lethally vexed by the bites of serpents were admonished to attend to him who had been lifted up on the standard, lest they perish (See Num 21:8-9; John 3:14-15); so are those to be admonished who are poisoned by your disputations, that they attend to Christ, and in the justice of that man, the mediator, see grace without deservings, whence they may shut out from themselves the venom of your mouth. Finally, in the words of the Prophet, even according to the recent interpretation which you mentioned, where Christ was more evidently prophesied, you took thence nothing to dispute from, except that he was born of a Virgin, because it was said: Let the earth be opened, and let it bring forth the Savior; but about his justice, which here was likewise foretold, you wished to say nothing; although you yourself set down the prophetic words, where he says: Drop down dew, you heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just one; let the earth be opened, and let it bring forth the Savior, and let justice arise together. Tell me what just one the clouds rained, except that the Prophets and Apostles proclaimed Christ, who was born with justice from the very womb of the Virgin? Whence, when it had been said: Let the earth be opened, and let it bring forth the Savior; it was soon added: and let justice arise together. And through this, by that grace human beings who are reborn in Christ become just, by which grace Christ was born a just man. As, then, he is an example of life, that by imitating him we may act justly; so he is also an example of grace, that by believing in him we may hope to be made just thence by him, whence he himself was made, who was made for us wisdom from God, and justice and sanctification and redemption; that, as it is written: He who glories, let him glory in the Lord (1 Cor 1:30-31). Whomever, then, you have bitten with your deadly tooth, let them gaze upon this just one, and they will be healed; that is, let them believe that they receive justice thence, whence justice was inborn to Christ; and therefore let them glory not in their own choice, nor in their own deserving, but in the Lord.

I. 141. Julian. The earth is opened into a sprout before the work of the cultivator receives the seed; which is approved in the childbearing of the virgin, who by the gift of a mother forestalled and shut out the office of a wife. What, then, was not in use, that almighty God promises he will do; and adds, foreseeing the multitude of unbelievers: Woe to him who contradicts his fashioner, a potsherd of the earthen vessels of Samos. That is: Woe to those who, with God promising, contend that a virgin could not become pregnant; and although they themselves, though from seeds instituted by God, yet with the power of God intervening, are fashioned in the maternal viscera, with stubborn zeal affirm that flesh could not be fabricated from the flesh of a virgin without the ministry of a man. Such, then, is it that you, O obstinate ones, do not think that I could do this, and prescribe to me from the difficulty of the matter, when it is established that you yourselves were made by my hands; as if the clay should say to its potter, when it is handled by him: You have no hands; by which it was then being formed into some vessel. So, then, you too, who inquire who gave a son to the virgin without the seed of a man, recognize that he is the same who made you from seed. But now, since the exposition of the holy Scriptures may be various, yet each one is pious and religious in harmony, let the first book be ended; yet warning by its very ending that God be believed the maker of those being born, the guardian of the innocent, the rewarder of Catholics, and the condemner of the Manichees.

Augustine. That those who read intelligently may know how you tried to becloud the clear apostolic words, and to pervert the right ones, I must answer this disputation of yours from that same disputation of the Apostle. The blessed Paul, then, wishing to show that the things which God promised, he is able also to do; where grace is especially commended, of which you are enemies; for it is not in the power of human beings that God fulfill what he promised, and not in the power of him who promised; wishing, then, to show this: The word of God cannot fail, he says; for not all who are from Israel are Israel; nor because they are the seed of Abraham are all his sons; but in Isaac shall a seed be called for you; that is, not those who are sons of the flesh, these are the sons of God; but the sons of the promise are reckoned as seed. For the word of the promise is this: At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son (Rom 9:6-9). Hold in mind the sons of the promise, since he who promised is able also to do (See Rom 4:21). And not only this, he says, but also Rebecca, having Isaac of one intercourse, our father. For when they were not yet born, nor had done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might remain, not from works, but from him who calls, it was said: The elder shall serve the younger (Rom 9:10-12). And here hold in mind the election not from works, which the later Prophet in a certain way expounded; which the Apostle, subjoining, says: As it is written: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated (Rom 9:13). Here occurs a question, which could disturb those not understanding the height of grace; and proposing it to himself, he says: What then shall we say? Is there injustice with God? Far be it! (Rom 9:14) And to teach what he said: Far be it! For Moses, he says, says: I will have mercy on whom I have had mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I have been merciful. Therefore it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy (Rom 9:15-16). If you attended to this, you would not exalt against grace the deservings of the will; where you hear: It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. God, then, did not have mercy because Jacob willed and ran; but Jacob willed and ran because God had mercy. For the will is prepared by the Lord (See Prov 8:35 LXX); and by the Lord the steps of a man are directed, and he will will his way (See Ps 37:23 (36:23)). Then, because this general statement was said on account of Jacob: It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy; an example is given also about Pharaoh, on account of what was said: But Esau I hated; and it is subjoined: For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: For this I have raised you up, that I may show in you my power, and that my name may be announced in all the earth (Rom 9:17). After these things it is concluded as to both: Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and hardens whom he wills (Rom 9:18); but he has mercy certainly according to grace, which is given freely, not rendered to deservings; but he hardens according to judgment, which is rendered to deservings. For from a damned lump to make a vessel unto honor is manifest grace; but to make from it a vessel unto dishonor is just judgment. Hence now, subjoining the words of those to whom this displeases, he says: You say, then, to me: Why does he still complain? For who resists his will? And restraining them: O man, he says, who are you to answer back to God? Does the thing formed say to him who formed it: Why have you made me thus? Or does the potter of the clay not have power, from the same lump, to make one vessel indeed unto honor, another unto dishonor? (Rom 9:19-21) See whether it does not accord with his earlier words, and dissents from yours; you who think this was said according to the deservings of wills, against what he himself says: For when they were not yet born, nor had done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might remain, not from works, but from him who calls it was said: The elder shall serve the younger; and against what he himself says: Therefore it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. And not only against these things which preceded, but also against those which follow. For he calls vessels of wrath those which are perfected unto perdition; which would be unjust, unless the lump were already damned, with all coming from one into condemnation; and he calls vessels of mercy those which he prepared unto glory; for it pertains to gratuitous, not owed mercy, to prepare from a damned lump vessels unto glory: Not only from the Jews, as he says, but also from the Gentiles, on account of which he sets down the testimony from the prophet Hosea: I have called not my people, my people (Rom 9:25; Hos 2:23); and from Isaiah: On account of Israel a remnant shall be saved (Rom 9:27; Isa 10:22). But that there should be these remnants, he teaches, by the testimony following, came about by the grace of God, through the same Prophet saying: Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us a seed (Rom 9:29; Isa 1:9). Then he shows that the Gentiles laid hold of justice from faith; but that Israel for this reason did not lay hold of it, because it was not from faith, but as it were from works. For faith holds what he afterward says at some point: That everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Rom 10:13; Joel 2:32). To which salvation it pertains that works should be good and that justice should be for us from God, not from ourselves. On account of which, about those who, not from faith, but as it were from works, stumbled on the stone of stumbling, he continues and says: Brothers, the good will indeed of my heart, and my prayer to God for them, is for their salvation; for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the justice of God and seeking to establish their own justice, they did not submit to the justice of God (Rom 10:1-3). Which you too altogether do; for you wish to establish your own justice, to which God renders grace according to deservings; nor do you wish the grace of God to go before, which makes you have justice. Then, with the series of disputation connected with itself, he arrives at that where he says: I say, then: Has God rejected his people? Far be it! For I too am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin; God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? Lord, they have killed your prophets, and dug up your altars, and I am left alone, and they seek my soul. But what does the divine response say to him? I have left myself seven thousand men, who have not bent the knee before Baal. So, then, even at this time a remnant has been made according to the election of grace. But if by grace, then no longer from works; otherwise grace is now not grace (Rom 11:1-6). Then see what he adds. What then? he says, that which Israel was seeking, this it did not obtain; but the election obtained it (Rom 11:7). But look above what kind of election, where he says: A remnant has been made according to the election of grace; but if by grace, then no longer from works. And he refers this to that from which this disputation set out: For when they were not yet born, nor had done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might remain; not from works. This is the election of grace, not from works, by which vessels are made unto honor, that they may do good works; because good works follow grace, do not precede it; since the grace of God brings it about that we do them; and that we do not establish our own justice, but that the justice of God be in us, that is, which God grants us. But the rest were blinded (Rom 11:7); this is the judgment, by which vessels are made unto dishonor; from which judgment it was said: But Esau I hated. From which judgment it was said also to Pharaoh: For this I have raised you up. Whence it appears that you, so understanding, or rather not understanding the Apostle, wish to glory from works against grace, and, wishing to establish your own justice, are not subject to the justice of God. But we indeed proclaim God the maker of little ones; but from the same lump a middle place for vessels, where they are made neither unto honor nor unto dishonor, which the Apostle did not give, we do not give; which, by doing, you would escape the judgment of God, if you could show him the condemner only of the Manichees, and not of all heretics.

II. 1. Julian. It would be dealt with conveniently for us, if either the faculty were given to defend the cause of truth before learned judges, or, because this is meanwhile denied, we were at least beaten by no tumult of the inexperienced.

Augustine. You certainly seek such learned judges that, unless they have been cultivated and adorned with the liberal disciplines, and have not been ignorant of what even the philosophers of this world thought, they cannot judge about your sayings. Such a one here was Ambrose, whom, if you do not flee as judge, you ought not to doubt that you have been most justly condemned. For he said: We are all human beings born under sin, and our very origin is in fault; that by these words of his he might show the Savior Christ, that is, Jesus, necessary to little ones; whom, since you contradict, you must confess that you so wish to have learned judges that you are unwilling to have catholic Christian judges.

II. 2. Julian. And because we endure the losses of a trophy to be raised for the salvation of the Churches—which the prudence of those examining would have conferred on a good cause by marvelous votes; or at least the assent of the crowd would avail nothing toward our insults. Of these parts of men, then, which I have mentioned, one would profit us, the other would do no harm, if either that one obtained power, or this one shame. But because there is great confusion of affairs, and the greatest multitude of the stupid; the helms of reason are snatched from the Church, so that, with horn raised, popular teaching sails.

Augustine. If this which we assert is popular teaching, then this which you assail among the Christian peoples with a ruined mind is not the teaching of the Manichees. For you deservedly despise the dementia of the Manichees in their few; but you have your own too, by which, under the name of the Manichees, you try to render hostile to us those peoples whom you flee as judges; as if peoples deceived by your loquacity could call Ambrose a Manichee, call Cyprian a Manichee, who, for the salvation even of little ones, taught that there is original sin. But Ambrose did not make, but found such peoples; he did not make, but Cyprian himself too found them; such peoples your father too found in the Church, when you were baptized, as is said, a little one; such catholic peoples, finally, you too found. Check yourselves; we confess that our teaching is popular; because we are the people of him who was for this reason called Jesus, because he saves his people from their sins (See Matt 1:21); from which people, when you wish to separate little ones, you rather separate yourselves.

II. 3. Julian. So, since with the prudent little is permitted, but with the base whatever pleases is even permitted, the censure of the virtues has been excluded from the Churches by a decree of seditions; and this hinders us among the men of the crowd, that we refuse to be an accession to error; of the crowd, I say, who, weighing the merit of an opinion by prosperities, reckon that truer which they have seen please more.

Augustine. Does the Manichee please more? Are they not, like parricides, both few and most wicked? Do not, then, glory in fewness, and—what is more vain—say that our teaching pleases more, and object to us the teaching of a detestable few.

II. 4. Julian. And what Tullius says against Epicurus, that it is a manifest argument that those things are not said subtly, because men of every kind everywhere profess that they are pleased by them. This these men, as in all things, by their perverse manner, think pertains to the testimony of wisdom.

Augustine. But Tullius was overcome and refuted in this opinion by him who says: Praise the Lord, all you nations; praise him, all you peoples (Ps 117:1 (116:1)). Whom you seek, not to teach truthfully, but to deceive subtly some of them, and add to your fewness, by proclaiming the subtlety of a few secular philosophers, and reprehending us because our things are not said subtly, and therefore men of every kind everywhere profess that they are pleased by them. Yet you said several times that I do nothing more than make myself not understood; how, then, does what I defend please the multitude, except because this multitude is catholic, to which your heresy deservedly displeases?

II. 5. Julian. For it delights utterly to defame the rutting souls, whatever of the saints there ever and anywhere was, lest they be chastised by the examples of illustrious works.

Augustine. Rutting souls, then, run rather after you, who praise lust; for chaste souls, by blaming, accuse what, by being assailed, you praise.

II. 6. Julian. It delights utterly and affects deeply to plead the weakness of nature, to say that the flesh is subject to congenital sins, and to place the effect of amendment not in the will of a human being, but to call the crimes of pursuits the offices of the members; that this is the catholic faith, to confess free choice, but that through which a human being is compelled to do evil, and cannot will good.

Augustine. Why are you angry with us, who seek the effect of amendment so much the more surely, the more faithfully we ask it from the Lord? In vain you spread your inflated tongue with a proud voice; we are utterly unwilling, unwilling to be numbered among those who trust in their own strength (See Ps 49:6 (48:7)). Our soul thirsts for God (See Ps 42:2 (41:3)), to whom it says: I will love you, O Lord, my strength (Ps 18:1 (17:2)). For a human being can will good; but the will is prepared by the Lord (See Prov 8:35 LXX); but toward evil, vitiated, it willingly inclines, on account of which nature is to be healed.

II. 7. Julian. But that the discourses of men, and heretical ones, which assert that the just God founded a human being free for good work, and that it is in the power of each one to recede from evil, and to shine with the pursuits of virtue, so that into those who refer disgraceful deeds to the necessity of the flesh the goad of anxieties and fears may be driven.

Augustine. We do not say that the discourses of men, and heretical ones, are those which assert that the just God founded a human being free for good work. For such he founded Adam, in whom we all were; but by sinning he ruined himself, and all in himself. Whence now it is not in the power of the sons of man to be freed from evil, unless the grace of God give the power to become sons of God (See John 1:12). On account of this, not into those who, as you say, refer disgraceful deeds to the necessity of the flesh; but into those who pour out prayers to God that they may not be led into the temptations of disgraceful deeds, the goad of anxiety and fear is driven, lest they consent to your most proud and most ungrateful-to-God disputations.

II. 8. Julian. Finally, that in the Churches which possess great honor and a great people, it is preached that there is so great a force of sin that, before the form of the members, before the beginning and the coming of the soul, hovering over the seeds once cast, it invades the secret place of the mother, and makes guilty those about to be born, and the fault, older than the very origin, awaits the substance; which law of sin, dwelling thereafter in the members, compels the captive human being to serve crimes, more worthy, in his disgraceful deeds, not of chastisement but of mercy; since what we say to be the vices of a depraved will, this in the Church is named, by men and women and great pontiffs, an original passion.

Augustine. The great pontiff Ambrose, praised excellently by the mouth of your heresiarch, answers you, and says: Eve gave birth badly, so that the birth might leave to women an inheritance, and each one, concreted by the pleasure of concupiscence, and poured into the genital viscera, and curdled in blood, wrapped in swaddling clothes, would undergo the contagion of offenses before he drew the gift of the life-giving spirit. Human nature, then, Julian, is to be healed, with God having mercy; not, while you vainly declaim, to be praised as though sound.

II. 9. Julian. These harlots of the Manichees, then, pander to the ears with their most impure teachings.

Augustine. Accuse Ambrose, if you dare, of being a Manichee. Attend to whom you say what you wish to seem to say against me; and if you have any fear of God, or human shame, be silent. It befits me to hear your revilings, along with such men, not only patiently, but even gladly; but you ought, in tearing at such men, both to blush at human judgments and to dread the divine.

II. 10. Julian. This nettle has stirred up our enemies placed in both sexes, which, once indeed biting by the vice of an evil habit, was nevertheless cured, as by certain ointments, by salutary exhortations.

Augustine. He itches at the stinging nettle who praises lust. But if, on account of an evil habit, as you hold, a human being cries out: I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I will not, this I do (See Rom 7:19); certainly even in this one you confess that the human will has lost the strength for good works, to whom, unless the help of divine grace come to his aid, what does the copious and adorned eloquence of any exhorter profit?

II. 11. Julian. But now, after it began to be offered in place of a medicine, and authority was added to delight, so that, by the consent of nearly the world, that member-mighty queen of minds, the assailer of honesty, and the unconquered captivator of all souls, baseness, runs riot; the cause of defending the truth has become, the more honorable, the harder for us. Because against headlong peoples, hostile to their own remedies, the rarity of those healing by speech does not avail much. What then? In view of these, ought we to sound the retreat, and avenge our insults by silence, and from the harbor of conscience laugh at the shipwrecks of others? But against this hatred there contradicts, first, the benignity which we owe to the human race; then the hope and faith which we have in God, who, besides that he has frequently lifted up the despaired ruins of the times, has yet, by an eternal reward, granted the constancy which he wished to be exercised up to the hour of death, even if no result followed at present.

Augustine. How does God lift up the ruins of evil wills (by which certainly the times are blamed, when they are rightly blamed), except by working good wills in the hearts of human beings? Or if they can, let them lift themselves up, as you, by holding a most demented opinion, have become a great ruin. Whence we pray for you to him, and would that he might deign to hear us about you as well, just as about your brother Turbantius.

II. 12. Julian. Rejoicing, then, in this consolation of faith, let us press on with the work begun, and render the promises of our disputations; not doubting that this very thing is the greatest part of the reward, that we have stood firm in the citadel of that teaching which, although the envy of so many, but the error of more, assails it; yet has so escaped above the doubtful chances that it is renowned by the possession of an invincible victory.

Augustine. You give yourself the palm against so many bishops of God, who, before us, learned and taught in the Church of Christ the things you assail, drinking and ministering from the founts of Israel (See Ps 68:26 (67:27)). This which you do, then, is not to be renowned by the possession of victory, but to flow deformedly 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, who try to pollute catholic teachings, ancient and unconquered?

II. 13. Julian. For if, as both the earlier discourse made plain, and the one to follow will teach, whatever is reason, whatever erudition, whatever justice, whatever piety, whatever of the sacred testimonies, supports this teaching which we uphold; our enemies obtain by their whole effort nothing other than that they be proved, to all the learned, most shameless; to the saints, most obstinate; toward God, most profane.

Augustine. But you speak false things: for neither reason, nor sound erudition, nor justice, nor piety, nor the sacred Testimonies support your teaching; rather, all these, as those who understand rightly judge, subvert your teaching. For reason discerns that it can scarcely arrive at anything true, with the slowness of nature hindering; erudition has the punishment of labor in that same slowness of nature; justice cries out that it does not pertain to it that the sons of Adam be pressed by a heavy yoke from the day of their going out from their mother's womb (See Sir 40:1), without any deserving of sins; piety asks the divine help against this evil; the sacred Testimonies admonish the human mind that this may come about.

II. 14. Julian. And indeed, how nothing the Traducianists have to oppose to the force by which they are crushed, the force of reason, both their other writings testify, and so do these little books against which we are dealing, which, directed to a military man (which he himself too can profess), occupied with other affairs rather than with letters, beg the help of violence against us, and on their own behalf commend up and down the decrees of the little common folk, or the rural, or the theatrical people, by what counsel they were promulgated no history records.

Augustine. We do not beg the help of violence against you; but rather, on your behalf, that you may be restrained from your sacrilegious daring, we praise the office of Christian power. See indeed how you call rural and theatrical men Cyprian, and Ambrose, and so many scribes learned in the kingdom of God, their associates.

II. 15. Julian. Yet this we can in no way deny, that it pleases the crowds very much, as I said, to impute to nature the offenses of the will of muddy men, and to vindicate the petulance of morals by defaming the seeds; so that no one ever tries to amend what he hopes another perpetrates in himself.

Augustine. Who told you that another perpetrates anyone's sin? Since even he who says: It is now no longer I who work it, but the sin that dwells in me; immediately subjoining: For I know that there does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh, the good (Rom 7:17-18); shows that, whatever it is, it is his own; because the flesh itself too pertains to him who consists of flesh and spirit. And yet you are unwilling to think with Ambrose that this evil, by which the flesh lusts against the spirit, turned into nature through the transgression of the first man. But you too, since you are wont to say that in these apostolic words the violence of an evil habit is expressed, what is it that you just now wished to say: So that no one ever tries to amend what he knows another perpetrates in himself? When you certainly wish him to amend himself who says: It is not I who work it; and wish this to be done by the powers of his own will; when you see how weak is the will of him who says: I do not do what I will (Rom 7:15). This one at least, I beg, allow to ask the divine help, in whom you discern that the choice of his own will has failed.

II. 16. Julian. But the feeble patronage of a blind opinion multiplies sins, does not lessen them. This itch, then, of the wretched and of those falling 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 some passages of the Scriptures, and especially by the discourses of the apostle Paul, the exposition of which I deferred to the second volume, and the time has come for rendering it; first I will briefly distinguish (that the reader may be made more instructed) both what has been done and what is to be done. It has been shown, then, that nothing can be proved through the holy Scriptures which justice cannot uphold; because if in the law of God is the perfect form of justice, nothing is allowed through it to its adversary, that is, injustice, to acquire of virtue; and through this, what reason convicts, authority cannot vindicate. Then it has been proved that God is known to us by his virtues; that his justice, then, like his omnipotence, must be confessed; whose destruction, if it be admitted, the whole majesty will begin to totter; because God is so just that, if he were proved not to be just, he would be convicted not to be God; and it was concluded that we venerate a most equitable God in the Trinity; and it appeared irrefutably that another's sin cannot be imputed by him to little ones.

Augustine. Why do you not confess that a heavy yoke upon the sons of Adam from the day of their going out from their mother's womb could not have been established by the almighty just one without any deserving of sin?

II. 17. Julian. But as about the definition of justice, so also about the condition of sin it was discoursed, that sin appeared to be nothing other than an evil will, to which it was free to abstain from that which it had depravedly desired.

Augustine. This is altogether the sin of the first man, whence the origin of evil descended into human beings. For to him it was very free to abstain from that which he had depravedly desired; because there was not yet the vice by which the flesh lusts against the spirit; he did not yet say: I do not do what I will (Rom 7:15); not yet placed in the flesh of sin, he had no necessary help from the likeness of the flesh of sin.

II. 18. Julian. And through this it was thoroughly taught, by a most illustrious testimony, that in those being born there is no sin, since the use of the will could not be found in them.

Augustine. And whence the heavy yoke, except because they so do not have the use of the will that they nevertheless have the bond of a guilty origin?

II. 19. Julian. But that free choice is denied by those who say that sins are natural, was shown by a lucid disputation. Which indeed the Punic man denied, not by his own discourse, lest it have less weight, but by the testimony of the Gospel, as if more authoritatively; which we, by expounding, restored to evangelical dignity. The testimony of the apostle Paul too we took from the snares of the calumniator, and showed, with the Prophet as witness, that our God, the potter of good vessels, is the founder of all.

Augustine. There you were answered, and it was shown how far you wandered from the truth.

II. 20. Julian. These things, then, having been chiefly done in the first book—of which any one alone abundantly suffices for the victory of truth—out of abundance indeed, it yet remains that we dispute the statement of the Teacher of the Gentiles, by which he said that through one man sin entered the world (See Rom 5:12); both to be helped by the definitions which we premised, when it shall be necessary; and about to prove that reason lied in nothing; but that it is a crime of injustice to impute the pursuits of some to the origins of others; and that this very thing which is unjust—although no one ought to doubt about it—yet displeases God, and is forbidden by him, we will teach by the testimonies of the law, either 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 those being born guilty; and through this, that free choice is as whole as the nature, harmless in each one before the use of his own will.

Augustine. Say, let us see, what you are going to say about the testimony of the Apostle, as emptily as you have said the earlier things.

II. 21. Julian. But the Manichees, rebels both to piety and to 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 against, is unjust; and to defame the holy Pages, by whose monuments they allege the crime of divinity is proved; since of these three nothing can be shown by reason, that is, neither sin without will, nor injustice in God, nor perversity in the law—let them alone be shown stupid, shameless, and impious.

Augustine. Blush: Ambrose was not a Manichee, when he said that a human being undergoes the contagion of offenses before he draws the gift of the life-giving spirit; but these offenses too came forth only from the will, whence they draw their origin; and therefore there is neither injustice in God, who on account of this set a heavy yoke upon those being born; nor perversity in the law, in which this is learned to be most true; which you yourselves too would see, unless you rather had perverse eyes.

II. 22. Julian. Let this, then, cling especially to the mind of the prudent reader, that in all the sacred Scriptures only that is contained which the Catholics understand to the honor of God, as is illustrated by the light of frequent statements; and if anywhere a harder expression has raised a question, it is indeed certain that the author of that passage did not there understand that which is unjust; but that it ought to be understood according to that which both clear reason, and the splendor of other passages, in which there is no ambiguity, has disclosed. Now, then, let us set down the words of him with whom we are dealing. Indeed, in that chapter of his sayings, which he had carried as far as the potter, God of sinners, against which we contended in the earlier book, he said slightly that through one man sin entered the world; but he did not linger over the exposition of the passage itself. But after he had discoursed in many words against those excerpts which he asserts were sent to him, he came to some passage of my sayings, which he objected to himself as if about to assail it; but, replying nothing according to that by which he had been struck, he flew to this statement of the Apostle, in which he says that through one man sin entered the world; and according to his own teaching he tried to expound the context of the passage itself; on account of which I, with other things passed over, hastened to that part, so that, because I had promised that I would solve this question in the second volume, I might both fulfill the faith of the promise and show what his argumentation was, lest I be thought to have committed fraud, if, with his exposition suppressed, I introduced that which we confess to be catholic.

Augustine. You are about to introduce the Pelagian, not the catholic. The catholic is that which shows God just in so many and so great punishments and torments of little ones; which none of them would feel in paradise by any equity, if human nature were not vitiated by sin, and deservedly damned.

II. 23. Julian. Treating, then, in my first work, of his statement, by which he had said: For as sin, whether drawn from this side or from that by little ones, is the work of the devil; so a human being, whether born from this side or from that, is the work of God; it is here reported by me now thus, as it is contained in my work, from which this man had stolen the greatest part.

Augustine. You dispute as truly as it is true that I stole those things; when rather he to whom the little sheet was sent to me transferred what he wished and as he wished, from your work, by his own choice and judgment.

II. 24. Julian. I answered, then, there: You indeed (I will say it with the peace of your magisterium) shuffle, but understand that the truth has taken from you the license to roam about. For behold, we too agree 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 corporeal seed, which is created new by God. Through marriage? But this pertains to the work of the parents, whom you had premised did not sin in this act; but if you had not truly conceded this, as the course of your discourse indicates, they themselves are to be execrated, who made the cause of the evil. But they have no substance of their own; but by their name indicate the work of persons; the parents, then, who by their union made the cause of sin, are by right damnable. It can, then, no longer be doubted that spouses are handed over to eternal punishment, by whose labor it was brought about that the devil came to exercise dominion over human beings. But if you concede this; you will lose all that you seemed before to have held, that is, that you had said a human being is the work of God. For it necessarily follows that, since through the union of bodies there is an origin for those begotten, if through origin there is evil in human beings, through evil the right of the devil over human beings, the devil is the author of human beings, by whom is the origin of those being born. After which I again repeated his words: For as sin, whether drawn from this side or from that, is the work of the devil; so a human being, whether born from this side or from that, is the work of God. And straightway I rose up in this manner: When I consider that voice of your fear, by which you say that marriage is not an evil, I cannot consider these other discourses of yours without laughter. For if you believe that human beings are made by God, and that spouses are innocent, see how it cannot stand that original sin is drawn from them. Certainly this one who is born does not sin, that one who begot does not sin, that one who founded does not sin; through what cracks, among so many defenses of innocence, do you imagine sin has entered?

Augustine. It is enough that I have already answered these words of yours, even when I had read your very books. But here too I admonish that the Apostle is rather to be heard than you, who showed not a hidden crack, but a most open door, by which sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all human beings, in whom all sinned (Rom 5:12); which words of his, when you have begun to expound according to yourselves, not according to him, then it will appear against what rectitude of truth you struggle with most tortuous loquacity.

II. 25. Julian. This context, then, from my earlier work, he proposed to himself in this second book of his, though with interpolation. For both the formation of the body mentioned by me, and the entrance of the soul—which both reason and the authority of the sacred law and of the catholic Church confirms to be created new in each one by God—he passed over, as I hope, by artifice.

Augustine. Whoever reads my six books, by which I refuted your four—from the first of which that man excerpted what he wished, and as he wished, to whom I responded in this book, which you now try in vain to refute with most loquacious vanity—will find that I so answered you in my third that he may see that I did not by artifice pass over what you say; but rather that he, to whose little sheet I was responding, was unwilling to transfer this from your work, either out of zeal for brevity, or because he did not think it pertained to the case.

II. 26. Julian. Now the rest, though varied by some discourses, he wove together. Against these objections of mine, then, he devised nothing by which he might strike me back; but, confessing by his lack of arguing that I had gathered the truth, he says that to all these things the Apostle ought to answer me, who declares that through one man sin entered this world. In which place, what learned man would think that he 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 reply to my objections, to whose confirmation he might join the words of the Apostle?

Augustine. But you are better refuted by the apostolic words than by mine, nor yet do you yield even to the apostolic ones; but you prefer to pervert these too, rather than correct yourself.

II. 27. Julian. I asked, then, most consistently, that all erudition might recognize it with me, through what the sin—which is called the work of an evil will, and the work of the devil—was found in a little one: if through the will; but that there was none in him, even this man with whom we deal confesses; if through marriage; but that this pertains to the work of the parents, no one doubts, whom he had premised did not sin in this union; or, if the disputant repented of this concession, as the course of the work indicated; he should profess that the parents are 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 disputations, that through original sin the devil is defined as the author of bodies; because if through origin there is evil in human beings, through evil the right of the devil over human beings; the devil is the author of human beings, by whom is the origin of those being born. Which, since it had caught the Traducianists to be shut up in the cave of the Manichees; I turned the key, that I might furnish an escape to the captives, and I admonished that, if he truly believed that human beings are made by God, and purely confessed that spouses are innocent, he should understand that original sin cannot be drawn from them. Certainly, I said, this one who is born does not sin, that one who begot does not sin, that one who founded does not sin; through what cracks, among so many defenses of innocence, do you imagine sin has entered? What, I ask, could be composed more holy, what more true, what more lucid, what more brief and firm, than that, after the three premises which I had taken up, with my enemy conceding, I should infer a fourth, in which was the sum conclusion? For since sometimes, with one or two premises, a third is necessarily gathered, by what law would it not be permitted me, after three conceded, to infer a fourth which clings to these? And this indeed in the second disputation; but in the earlier, five or more are conceded to me, after which the lawful and unconquered conclusion is made.

Augustine. See how through how many things you wander, fearing lest the words of the Apostle, heard without your prejudgments, condemn you, as they have already condemned you with the catholic Church judging. But run wherever you will, delay as much as you will, multiply your circlings whithersoever you will; whenever the ship of your fallacies arrives at the same words of truth, without doubt you will be shipwrecked.

II. 28. Julian. Now, then, let us turn to him. You had granted me that sin is the work of the will; I could at once say consequently: But there is no will in little ones that may sin; sin, then, is not in little ones. But that you might be pressed by more witnesses, I asked step by step, through what this sin was found in a little one; perhaps through the will? After which, with you conniving, I took it that there was in him no consciousness of will; I added, lest he had drawn the lineaments of the members through the first fault. But you had conceded that these are formed by God, and through this are good. I asked, third, whether you thought guilt was brought in through the entrance of the soul. But it was established that this is new, that it owes nothing to the seeds. I brought in thereafter (because nothing remained for you to be accused of from these), lest you should call marriage, that is, the union of bodies, the work of the devil? But I showed, with you too assenting, that this pertains to the work of the parents. With all those things, then, which we said above, settled, your transmission handed over to the devil the spouses who had been the cause of 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 ascribed the work of the union, 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 wretched with such opinions, and the Catholics unconquered even by the support of your fear. For, you granting that human beings are made by God, and that spouses are innocent, and that little ones do nothing of themselves; with these three taken up, it was irrefutably inferred that, since he who is born does not sin, he who begot does not sin, he who founded does not sin, no crack remained through which sin may be taught to have entered. To you, then, if what was gathered displeases; deny what you granted, and say either that he who begot sinned, or he who founded, or he who was born; of which one is insane, another Manichaean, the third beyond the Manichees; insane, if you say little ones offend; Manichaean, if you accuse spouses; beyond the Manichees, if you reckon God the author of sin. But if all these are so foreign to the truth that you still fear to confess them freely; with what shamelessness, most senseless of all men, do you persist in denying this which was inferred by us?

Augustine. When you have come to the words of the Apostle, there you will find not a crack, but a most open door, by which sin entered the world; which you will try indeed to close, but, out of the mouth of infants and sucklings, who seek the Savior Christ rather than you, their praiser, and attest their misery much more surely, not by tortuous disputations, but by mute weepings (which they certainly could in no way have had in paradise, if the rectitude and blessedness of the first man had remained), you will be conquered with all your loquacity.

II. 29. Julian. Here the case of four persons is at issue: of God the maker, of the two parents from whom material is furnished to the worker, and of the little one who is born. You say that sin dwells in this choir; I ask, by whom it is made: is it 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, that what none of these four admits cannot be among these four?

Augustine. Whatever you wish to say: you will at some point come to the words of the Apostle; and whoever recalls them through each of these argumentations of yours, which we are unwilling to repeat assiduously on account of the reader's distaste, by his very recalling answers you.

II. 30. Julian. For persuading what, then, will you reread the Scriptures, or name witnesses, you who cannot yet define what you hold? What does it profit you to teach that Adam offended, which I do not at all refute? We ask, with Adam dead so many ages ago, through what the sin, by which the image of God is transcribed into the right of the devil, is found in a little one.

Augustine. Why do you too not admit into the kingdom of God the image of God, having, according to you, no deserving of sin? Why is blood ministered, which was poured out from the likeness of the flesh of sin unto the remission of sins, that the little one may drink it, so that he can have life, if he came to death from the origin of no sin? If this displeases you, openly deny the little ones' Christ, openly deny that he died for little ones, who one died for all; whence it is gathered what the Apostle says: Therefore all are dead, and he died for all (2 Cor 5:14-15). Say openly: Little ones are not dead, who have no sin; they have no need of the death of Christ for themselves, in which they may be baptized. Now say evidently what you secretly think, since you sufficiently betray by your disputation what you think; say, I say, that little ones are made Christians in vain; but see whether you ought to say that you yourself are a Christian.

II. 31. Julian. If through the union of the parents, condemn by profession the marriages which you condemn by argumentation; and take from us the labor by which we have convicted you of being a Manichee. But if you do not dare to say this, and, obstinate against reason, you incline toward those lying together, so as to say, through portents of arguments hitherto unheard, that lust is diabolical, and that it, placed in the sense of those copulating, pertains to the pleasure of the parents, to the guilt of those being born; you indeed betray your senselessness and baseness; but I pray that you not arrogate so much to yourself as to think that it is not free for us to behold, with the honor of God, the innocence of those being born; when it is permitted and pleasing to you, with the accusation of God, to purify the members of those lusting from the guilt which you say is of lust.

Augustine. With whatever itch you praise lust, that is, the concupiscence of the flesh, the apostle John says that it is not from the Father, but is from the world (See 1 John 2:16); on account of which the devil is rightly called the prince of the world (See John 12:31). For we know that God made the world. This evil of the concupiscence of the flesh, then, conjugal chastity uses well; and the guilt of this evil, drawn from those being born, spiritual regeneration looses. As long as you do not understand this, you will be, not a Catholic, but a Pelagian; and you will contradict the holy Scriptures, however much you seem to yourself to defend them. But as often as you call me, on account of this which you contradict, a Manichee; you certainly call him too a Manichee, who says that a human being, poured into the genital members, and concreted by the pleasure of concupiscence, takes up the contagion of offenses before he draws the gift of the life-giving spirit. This is Ambrose, Julian; you call Ambrose a Manichee, insane man!

II. 32. Julian. For when you declare that the concupiscence of the flesh was planted in a human being by the prince of darkness, and that it is the shrub of the devil, bringing forth from itself the human race as its own apples; you indeed absolutely betray that you say, not God, but the devil, is the founder of human beings; by which most impious teaching both the business of marriages, that is, the genital union, and all flesh is condemned.

Augustine. It is not condemned: but it is not to be praised by you as though sound, so that, even with you confessing, it may be healed by its own Founder and Savior. For in those in whom this does not come about, it will without any doubt be condemned.

II. 33. Julian. But when after this sacrilege you add, and say, that you profess that the pleasure of the begetting spouses is indeed diabolical, the stirring of the genitals diabolical; but yet that the members themselves which are moved, and the spouses who are affected by pleasure, are not guilty; but that, in place of all these, you accuse the new human beings, that is, the raw work of the deity in those being born; you indeed lay aside nothing of the impiety of the Manichees; but you show so monstrous a fury of a deranged head that it would more consistently be judged to be cherished than amputated, did not your will and zeal in this matter, and the overthrow of many, and your obstinacy, and the multiplying of Scriptures, speak.

Augustine. I ought not to hear these revilings with indignation, since I hear them along with those teachers of the Church who understand that through one man sin entered the world as the right Apostle speaks, not as Julian most perversely opines. Among these are, to be silent about others, the African Cyprian, the Gaul Hilary, the Italian Ambrose, the Greek Gregory; by which most learned and most prudent judges—such as you complain, by vain presumption, that you cannot find—your heresy was condemned before it was born.

II. 34. Julian. Read about this too the fourth book of my work: and you will understand how much you flatter the devil, whom you call your father, and lust, your mother, under the appearance of accusing.

Augustine. I read your fourth too, and answered all of it for you in my sixth; but which of us has conquered, let the pious reader of both judge.

II. 35. Julian. But now let us see the words of the Apostle, who you said answers me to all the things which I set down above: To all these the Apostle answers this man, who neither accuses the will of the little one, which is not yet his own for sinning; nor marriages, in so far as they are marriages, which have from God not only institution, but also blessing; nor parents, in so far as they are parents, lawfully and legitimately joined to each other for procreating children; but: "Through one man—he says—sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all human beings, in whom all sinned " (Rom 5:12). Which, if these men perceived with catholic ears and minds, they would not have minds rebellious against the faith and grace of Christ, nor would they try in vain to turn these so lucid and so manifest apostolic words to their own heretical sense, asserting that this was said for the reason that Adam sinned first, in whom thereafter, whoever wished to sin, found an example of sinning; so that sin, namely, passed from that one to all human beings not by generation, but by the imitation of that one; whereas certainly, if the Apostle had wished imitation to be understood here, he would have said that sin entered this world, and passed through all human beings, not through one man, but rather through the devil. For about the devil it is written: "They imitate him, who are of his part " (Wis 2:24-25). But for this reason he said "through one man "—from whom certainly the generation of human beings began—that through generation he might teach that original sin went through all.

Augustine. You have said the words of my book; say now how those words of the Apostle which I set down there are to be received; that you may more and more be made manifest a heretic, by substituting yourself as a praiser, in order to take from little ones the Savior.

II. 36. Julian. That you abuse the inexperience of those who favor you, and lurk under the ambiguity of words, whoever shall have been a learned reader of our works understands. But the rest of the crowd, about which the Prophet speaks to God: You have reckoned human beings like the fishes of the sea (See Hab 1:14); is deceived by a mutual precedence, and, ignorant of salutary distinction, thinks that everything can be joined in things which it has seen to be associated in words. But what is consequent, what is contradictory, and, with which things conceded, what the impregnable and venerable law of discourse compels to be inferred, none but a most learned and most attentive man judges.

Augustine. You still go around seeking dialecticians, and avoiding ecclesiastical judges. Say now how it is to be received: Through one man sin entered the world; understanding this better, of course, than he who said: All die in Adam, because "through one man sin entered this world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all human beings, in whom all sinned ". His fault, then, is the death of all. And the same man elsewhere: There was Adam, and in him we all were; Adam perished, and in him all perished. This is Ambrose, not anyone of the crowd, whose inexperienced multitude, not able to judge of your disputations, you despise with too high a neck and an insolent brow; it is Ambrose, I say, whom you in no part equal even in those secular letters about which you are much inflated; but in ecclesiastical matters who he is, hear or read your teacher Pelagius, and do not love an understanding foreign to the understanding of this so great a teacher.

II. 37. Julian. And this is on account of which especially, pitying the ruins of the Churches, we appeal to the examination of men illustrious in prudence, that not what is said, but what is consequently said, may appear. For if it were disputed under such a council, it would certainly not be permitted you either to infer what you had denied, or to deny what you had affirmed; but in your book, which no censure of shame chastises, you confidently heap together both what the Catholics say and what the Manichees, content with this opinion alone, if you are said to have answered; but what weight your discourse has, what consistency, you think it inept even to consider.

Augustine. I ask, say now how it is to be understood: Through one man sin entered the world; why do you still calumniate, revile, shuffle? If in the council whose judgment you seem to desire there sat 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 teachings, they themselves condemn your writings by their writings; what more do you seek? This I have already taught sufficiently in the first and second of my books, which I, against your four, published as six; but behold, I am still prepared to hear you; say now how it is to be received, that through one man sin entered the world.

II. 38. Julian. Finally, granting without delay what I asked, and looking at what was made up from these, you profess that you are too weak for that which we have built up; that the apostle Paul confronts all those things which we said; whom yet you introduce conceding the same things which you had granted. For you say: The Apostle neither accuses the will of the little one, which is not yet his own for sinning; which being granted, it is now convicted both that there cannot be in him any sin, of which there is no other condition, even according to your definition, than the will to commit what justice forbids, and from which one is free to abstain.

Augustine. This is the definition of the sin which is not also the punishment of sin. For where you contend that these are the words of an evil habit, and so choke the words of your teaching, say, if you dare, how it is free to the will of a human being to abstain from evil, where you hear: I do not do what I will, or deny that it is an evil, where you hear: I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I will not, this I do (Rom 7:19). But we certainly acknowledge that this sin is the punishment of sin; and therefore it is to be distinguished from that definition of sin, where the will commits this from which it is free to abstain. Understand what I say; and say now, I beg, how it is to be received: Through one man sin entered the world.

II. 39. Julian. Therefore, if the Apostle does not accuse in him his own will, which he understands could not even have been; he certainly declares that not even a sign of crime appears in him, with that justice especially judging, which does not impute sin, except that from which one is free to abstain. But not content to have granted this alone, you add: Neither does the Apostle accuse marriages, in so far as marriages are, which have from God not only institution, but also blessing. Which by itself alone could equally suffice to assail natural sin; because, if the Apostle knows, as he knows, that marriages are not to be accused, to whose conciliation and ministry and instrument belongs the union of the sexes with pleasure, instituted and blessed by God; from these no diabolical possession can sprout, nor is their fruit guilty, especially with that justice which does not impute sin, except that from which one is free to abstain.

Augustine. Do not, I beseech you, imagine the union of spouses in paradise with such pleasure as lust now makes, which does not rise at the nod of the will, which solicits even the minds of the saints—to be restrained indeed, but yet importunate. Far be it that such a pleasure of paradise, such a peace and happiness, be conceived by the faithful and prudent.

II. 40. Julian. Let us consider the third also, by which your benignity may be discerned in the ease of acquiescing. Neither does the Apostle accuse parents, in so far as they are parents, lawfully and legitimately joined to each other for procreating children. Weigh what you have said, that parents are not accused by the Apostle, in so far as they are parents. Therefore he declares that they, in so far as they are parents, cannot bear fruit for the devil, nor that anything of them, in so far as they are parents, pertains to the devil; but children pertain to parents only in so far as they are parents; therefore they are proved neither guilty, nor under the kingdom of the devil, nor to be accused by the devil. For, that what we have said may become clear by repetition: the union of the sexes shares in offspring only in so far as those who are spouses become parents; but if they wish to do something more petulant between themselves, or to stray through the unlawful intercourse of adulteries, this cannot attain 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 petulance of union? Behold what that beautiful thing you have taken up does; for this does not happen except when it is yielded to, when it impels even spouses joined for the cause of procreating children to a petulance—which you too reprehend—by no necessity of sowing offspring; of which you wished to be so great a praiser that no one believes you would dare to be even its assailer; since you did not blush so to praise it that it should be free to you, nor would you be ashamed, to place it even in the blessedness of paradise.

II. 41. Julian. Therefore to those being born are conveyed, not the disgraceful deeds, but the seeds of those begetting; but the force of the seeds God instituted, and, as you are compelled to confess, blessed.

Augustine. God instituted the seeds, but those who can in a vitiated nature so distinguish his good from its evil that they neither think nature an evil, nor the vice a nature, they themselves can distinguish which of these two pertains to God to create, which to heal. But this you cannot, as long as you are Pelagians, not Catholics. Say now, I ask, say now, how it is to be received, that through one man sin entered the world.

II. 42. Julian. Children, then, are not guilty even when their parents sin in their generation; because they pertain to their children only in so far as they are parents; therefore children too pertain to parents only in so far as they are children. For it is established that those begetting communicate the germs of nature, not of fault. But if, as reason demonstrates, you declare that the Apostle too confirms thus; deservedly we, with him teaching, defend that the sins of parents cannot pertain to children; since both the Apostle, bright with the Holy Spirit, and we, instructed by the light of reason, and you, oppressed by the weight of the truth assailed by you, may commonly and truly confess that parents, in so far as they are parents, are not guilty; but pertain to children only in so far as they are parents; therefore children, in so far 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, which pertains to the institution of God, and both could come about 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 be none at all, and without it the genital members would so serve those begetting 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 assails such motions of it, both in the married, lest they either lasciviate indecently between themselves, or slip into adulteries, and in any continent persons, lest, by consenting to it, they be cast down. Behold from what original sin is drawn; behold through what he was unwilling to be born, who came not to bear his own, but to take away our sin.

II. 43. Julian. Let the talents of Manichaean reasoning now go, and contrive everything they can, let them suffer as long toils of thoughts as they wish; not arrogantly, but religiously I promise that this structure can never be shaken.

Augustine. What you call a structure is a ruin to you, which so pressed you that it compelled you to praise what you assail; if, however, there is in you any chastity of whatever kind, which makes you assail what you praise.

II. 44. Julian. With what brow, then, do you subjoin: But "through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all human beings, in whom all sinned "? Which you interpret in this way, that the Apostle says sin was transmitted by that one to posterity by generation. Above you had conceded that the Teacher of the Gentiles accuses in nothing the marriages which God had blessed; that there is no will for sinning in the one being born; that parents, in so far as they are parents, are joined to each other lawfully and legitimately for procreating children; and you add at once, as if asleep when you said the earlier things, that the crime is transmitted to posterity by generation. For if they beget only in so far as they are parents; but in so far as they are parents they are joined to each other 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 brow do you confirm that this generation is a cause of guilt, the root of crimes, a slave of the devil?

Augustine. I no longer know 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 the vices from the goodness of nature; and, repeating the same things through the same to a hateful tedium, you do not yet say how it is to be received, that through one man sin entered the world.

II. 45. Julian. It does not, then, deserve to be accused by the Apostle and is possessed by the devil; it is instituted by God, and is the fount of crimes; it is finally, as you confess, blessed by God, and is accused by you as a diabolical shrub.

Augustine. God blessed marriages, not the concupiscence of the flesh resisting the spirit, which was not before sin; but God did not bless sin, just as neither that concupiscence which resists the spirit. But the marriages which he blessed, if the sin had not been committed by which nature was vitiated, would either so use the genital members as we use the others, with no lust, obedient to the will; or shameful lust would not be there, since it would never resist the will, such as it certainly is not now; which surely even you perceive, when you dissent from it as it solicits and entices. Yet marriages are praiseworthy even now; because they neither institute this evil in human beings, but find it; and use that evil well by the intention of begetting, although those who are begotten draw thence original sin, on account of which they are to be regenerated.

II. 46. Julian. How you have accomplished nothing with me, the erudition of all letters testifies; but how you struggle against the Apostle, and rave against God, the conflict of your own statements demonstrates. But now that it has been shown that these things cannot be joined which the nature of things dissociates; let us ask the Apostle too, lest that barbarity be thought to be in his senses which has been proved to be in your statements.

Augustine. Say now at last what you were deferring by so many windings.

II. 47. Julian. I hear, then, Paul declaring that: Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all human beings, in whom all sinned. Which you confirm was said not on account of the example of sin, but on account of generation; and you call us heretics, who refer it to examples; and you reckon that you are helped by this argument: Certainly if the Apostle, you say, had wished imitation to be understood, he would have said that sin entered, and passed through all human beings, not "through one man ", but through the devil. For about the devil it is written: "But they imitate him, who are of his part ". But for this reason he said "through one man "—from whom certainly the generation of human beings began—that through generation he might teach that original sin went through all. But I see that the Apostle brought forth nothing that would look to the defaming of human generation, nothing that would look to the condemnation of natural innocence, nothing that would look to the crime of the divine work.

Augustine. For a long time you say: Nothing, and when you have ceased to repeat this word, you are going to say nothing. For who would not laugh at you trying to persuade that what the Apostle says: Through one man sin entered the world does not pertain to generation; when that man himself was not begotten by anyone, from whom the rest would be begotten; but you say it pertains to example, when the example of sin, which the later would imitate, did not enter the world, except through him who sinned by imitating no one? For he sinned first. But that this is 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?

II. 48. Julian. Finally, that which the words themselves had not indicated, you, trying to gather it by argumentation, subjoin, that if he were speaking about imitation, he ought to have mentioned the devil; but because he wished it to be understood about generation, he preferred to say a man rather than a demon. I ask, then, what was the occasion of this opinion for you. For what? Do you deny that one offends by the imitation of human beings? And although the matter, being settled, needs no attestation of the Scriptures, yet hear David: Do not emulate among the malignant, nor be envious of those doing iniquity; do not emulate him who prospers in his way (Ps 37:1, 7 (36:1, 7)). Then all the Scriptures of the Old Testament admonish Israel not to imitate the rite of a profane nation. What necessity, then, compelled this, that the Apostle, if he wished imitation to be understood, should name the devil rather than a man, since he knew that one offends by the imitation both of human beings and of the devil? Either, then, prove that one cannot sin by the imitation of human beings, and that this is nowhere contained in the law, and so assert that a place is prepared for your suspicion; or certainly, if it is manifest that by nothing more than the imitation of vices have sins grown strong, you have gathered, with great inexperience, that the Apostle would certainly have spoken about the devil, if he had wished imitation to be understood.

Augustine. Did I not say before that you would say nothing, you who most loquaciously speak by saying nothing? There are indeed sins of imitation in the world, when human beings follow the examples of sinning human beings, yet not through those human beings whom anyone imitates did the sin which the sinning imitate enter the world; but through him who first sinned by imitating no one; 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 the world through him who first begot a human being. You have said nothing, then, and only to deceive certain readers, to weary certain readers, you were unwilling to be silent.

II. 49. Julian. Since, then, it is clear that the imitation of evil human beings is said not only consequently, but also necessarily; it is meanwhile evident that this argument of yours lies prostrate. But as for what you add, that it is written about the devil: They imitate him, who are of his part; I too assent that it was said prudently by him, whoever is the author of that book; but it does not profit you that some are written to sin by the imitation of the devil, unless you teach that one cannot offend by the imitation of human beings.

Augustine. The question here is not whether one sins by the imitation of human beings; for who does not know that one sins even by the imitation of human beings? But the question is, what kind of sin entered the world through one man; whether that which would be committed by imitating, or that which would be drawn by being born. Because that first one, that is, that which would be committed by imitating, entered the world only through him who first, imitating no one, introduced to the rest who would imitate the example of sinning, that is, the devil; but this other, that is, that which would be drawn by being born, entered the world only through him who first, begotten by no one, brought in the beginning of origin to the rest who would be begotten; this is Adam. About the imitation of Angels and human beings, then, understand that you say nothing pertaining to the case; but only that you were unwilling to be silent. For we are disputing, not about any sinner whatsoever, who at any time sinned in the world, but about him through whom sin entered the world; where, if the example of imitation is sought, the devil is found; if the contagion of generation, Adam. Accordingly, the Apostle, saying: Through one man sin entered the world, wished the sin of generation to be understood. For the sin of imitation entered the world not through one man, but through the devil.

II. 50. Julian. For since both are said by custom—sometimes that one, imitating the devil, envies; sometimes that one, emulating a man, is smeared either with envy or with the filth of the disgraceful—this name of imitation too can befit either person, that is, both when it is said of a man, and when it is said of the devil; you wished, most ridiculously, to play the fool, that Adam could not be shown through the understanding of imitation.

Augustine. Did sin enter the world through any human being whom another imitates by sinning? Say, if you can, what it is: Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all human beings, whether death, or sin, or rather sin with death. For the sin by whose imitation one sins entered the world only through the devil, who first, by not imitating, did what others would do by imitating.

II. 51. Julian. The discourse hastens to the rest, but the passage must still be pressed, that, by divisions as brief as we can, both the understanding of the matter and its memory may be furnished to the reader. In almost all things indeed the condition of homonyms, which we call equivocals, is found.

Augustine. You had promised that you would furnish understanding to the reader, and you speak of homonyms and equivocals; how, then, will even the Pelagians themselves understand you, unless they are first sent to the schools of the dialecticians, wherever in the world they can be found, to learn these things? Or will you perhaps yourself read out to them even the Categories of Aristotle, before they read your books, expounding it to them? Why do you not do this too, most ingenious man, since you are fed in idleness by deceived wretches?

II. 52. Julian. But that our discourse may now be about present matters, generation is properly imputed to the sexes, but imitation is always of minds. This affection of the mind, then, which the one imitating could possibly have willed, either accuses or advances a human being according to the diversity of causes; so it comes about that in good one is said to imitate both God, and the Angels, and the Apostles; God: Be perfect, as your Father is perfect (Matt 5:48); the Angels: Your will be done, as in heaven and on earth (Matt 6:10); the Apostles: Be imitators of me, as I too am of Christ (1 Cor 11:1). But in evil one imitates the devil, as it is said: They imitate him, who are of his part; one imitates human beings: Do not be sad like the hypocrites, who disfigure their faces (See Matt 6:16); one imitates animals, when it is commanded: Do not become like the horse and the mule, in which there is no understanding (Ps 32:9 (31:9)). By these words, then, both exhorting and deterring, the affection of imitation is shown, which certainly, if it could not be, would not be enjoined to be guarded against.

Augustine. But the sin of imitation, that is, that which is done by imitation, entered the world only through him who, that there might be sin by imitation, sinned without imitation; and this certainly is not Adam, but the devil. For he who said: It entered the world, showed the beginning of this sin; which beginning is manifest to have been made not through a man, but through the devil; if we wish to attend to the sin which the sinning imitate. It remains, then, that the sin which entered the world through one man can rightly be attributed not to imitation, but to generation. We give thanks indeed to God, since, speaking against your error, you have confessed, as though the truth flashed upon you, that the good will, by which we imitate the good, is to be attributed not to the powers of our free choice, but to the help of God; since you showed that, in order that we may imitate the Angels, it is not to be presumed by us, but to be asked from the Lord, thus expounding what we pray and say: Your will be done, as in heaven and on earth.

II. 53. Julian. But as the word of imitation is manifest to befit commonly diverse things; so generation truly and properly indicates the begetting substance; but not properly, but abusively, it is applied to pursuits. And yet, because this is now the usage of speaking, both what it indicates is recognized, and it is not allowed to bring prejudgment to the proper meanings. The devil, then, is said to beget those sinning, according to what the Lord says in the Gospel: You, he says, are from the devil your father (John 8:44). By which discourse he called him the father of the criminal, whose malignity they were convicted of imitating; and yet the understanding is settled, that by this name, namely of father, neither a sex is ascribed to the devil, nor an airy substance to those human beings. Now, then, let what we wished to be made up here appear. If a man were never properly judged to imitate a man, and the Apostle had said that all sinned through Adam; I would freely prescribe that the Apostle is to be vindicated by the usage of the Scriptures, so that, as the Lord had called the devil a father, who could not beget by substance; so the Apostle had written a man imitable, lest he be believed to have taught anything against clear reason.

Augustine. Was Adam imitable in sin earlier, so that it might deservedly be said that through him this kind of sin entered the world? Was not the devil earlier imitable in sin? Through him, then, the Apostle would say sin entered the world, if he wished the sin which others would do by imitating to be understood in that place.

II. 54. Julian. But now, if I gather the things which are brought forth abusively in the Gospel, they do not bear it; much more the apostle Paul offered no occasion for error, who said nothing improper, if he declared that the first man, a sinner, was an example to the sinners following.

Augustine. He ought not, then, to have proposed these two, one for sin, the other for justice, namely Adam and Christ. For if he had set down Adam as the first sinner, on account of the sin which the rest imitated; he would certainly set down as the first just one, on account of the justice to be imitated by the rest, not Christ, but Abel; for Abel first, imitating no human being, but to be imitated by the rest, was just. But knowing what he was speaking, the Apostle set down Adam for sin, Christ for justice; because he knew the former the author of generation, the latter of regeneration.

II. 55. Julian. And through this you have argued most dully, that if the apostle Paul had wished it to be understood that sin passed through imitation, he would have named the devil rather than Adam; when it is clear that the evil both of a man and of the devil could pass only by imitation. But now that what you had built up is scattered, not so much by my hands as by the hands of reason itself, attend to what is now brought forward by us.

Augustine. That you did not scatter what I had built, and that you brought in upon our structure, in vain, the hands not of sound reason, but of your vain opinion, those who read the words of each of us will judge.

II. 56. Julian. The Apostle showed that it was not said by him that sin passed by generation, when, naming a man, he added: one; for one is the beginning of number; and he, explaining through whom he said sin entered, not only named him, but even numbered him: Through one, he says, man sin entered this world. But this one suffices for furnishing imitation, but does not suffice for fulfilling generation. But sin passed, but through one. It is manifest that imitation here, not generation, is convicted, which cannot come about except through two. Either, then, show that generation came about through Adam alone without the woman; for not even this is foreign to the elegance of your talent; or certainly, since you see that generation cannot stand except through two, assent at least late, that the work of two was not accused by the number one. Through one, he says, man sin entered the world; he who said through one was unwilling that it be understood through two. What, I ask, was the number seeking among these teachings, that the Apostle with so great care should name not only a man, but one man? But the cautious discourse of an august counsel appears, which, with the Holy Spirit revealing, forestalled and disarmed the errors of our times; for, lest he be thought to have said anything to the defaming either of marriage instituted by God or of blessed fecundity; when the case demanded that he repeat the beginnings of sin, he said that sin passed through that number which could not befit offspring. And certainly the first human beings had both offended, who both are deservedly called to have been a form of sin to posterity; why, then, did the Apostle not say that sin passed through two; which would also accord more with the faith of the history? But nothing could be done by him more prudently; for he saw that, if he had named two, who had furnished the beginning and example to the transgression, and had affirmed that through them sin passed, an occasion would lie open for error, that he might be thought to have condemned, through the names of two, union and fecundity. And therefore most prudently he preferred to name one, who, not sufficing for the indication of generation, would abound for the sign of an example; and, being accused, would burden imitation, but, being numbered, would not accuse fecundity. And that what we have done may be gathered briefly, the fecundity instituted in the first human beings cannot be carried on except through two; but the Apostle declares that sin entered, but through one.

Augustine. I had foretold that you would say nothing; and that it is so is clear to anyone, however slow. For do not the sinning imitate Eve, or did not the sin of the human race rather take its beginning from her? From a woman was the beginning of sin, and on account of her, as it is written, we all die (Sir 25:24). Why, then, do you not wish to attend that the Apostle for this reason rather said one man, through whom sin entered the world, because he wished not imitation, but generation, to be understood? For just as from a woman was the beginning of sin, so the beginning of generation is from the man; for the man first sows, that the woman may bear; therefore through one man sin entered the world, because it entered through the seed of generation, which the woman, receiving from the man, conceived; in which manner he was unwilling to be born, who alone was born of a woman without sin.

II. 57. Julian. It has been irrefutably made up, that that sin is shown by the Apostle to have been conveyed to posterity by morals, not by seeds. Behold, then, how great a falsity has flowed from your mouth: But for this reason the Apostle said "through one man "—from whom certainly the generation of human beings began—that through generation he might teach that original sin went through all; when for this reason the Apostle said through one man, lest original sin be thought to have gone through all. You play the fool so that I can scarcely hold back a laugh, you who say that generation began from one man; when both the diversity of the sexes and the divine reading testify that generation could not have been, unless two human beings, that is, a man and a woman, had first existed.

Augustine. Those who read this, let them read again my earlier response; or, if they remember it well, let them laugh at the ravings of this man. Although I could say that for this reason the Apostle said not two, but one man, through whom sin entered the world, because it is written: They shall be two in one flesh (Gen 2:24); whence the Lord says: Therefore they are now no longer two, but one flesh (Matt 19:6); especially when the man clings to his wife, and intercourse is entered upon. But from intercourse offspring is begotten, drawing original sin, with vice propagating vice, with God creating the nature; which nature spouses, even using the vice well, cannot nevertheless so beget that it can be without the vice; which he who was born without that vice empties out in little ones, even with Julian unwilling.

II. 58. Julian. Or if perhaps (since your teaching cannot otherwise stand) you answer that Adam conceived and gave birth from himself; that the Apostle did not mean this, no one doubts; but you will show what you wished to happen to your own sex.

Augustine. Do you not dread what is written: Nor shall slanderers possess the kingdom of God (See 1 Cor 6:10)? For you would not speak such foul revilings, which help you nothing, except by the lust of slandering.

II. 59. Julian. But let us pass these things over, and grind down by the powers of reason that which appears can be brought forward by you in this place. If, then, you say that it is written about this union that two become one flesh, and that according to this manner the Apostle said through one man, so as to signify the clinging members of those begetting; I will answer that this too avails against your impiety. For it was not said: There will be two human beings in one human being; but: They will be two in one flesh (Gen 2:24); by which name of union that pleasure of those copulating, and the lust which, affecting the sense, prostrates the members and, as that prudent man understood, strives to make one flesh, would be taught to have been instituted by God and inserted into bodies before sin.

Augustine. If only lust could bring it about that there be two in one flesh (which, as you have taken it up, is exactly such as is now both praised and assailed by you, which you confess to be shameful and yet without shame so love that you dare even to endow it with the possession of paradise); it could in no way be understood also of Christ and the Church: They will be two in one flesh. For you do not stray so far from the way of truth that you would dare to bring this lust even into the union of Christ and the Church. Furthermore, if Christ and the Church can be two in one flesh without it, the man and the wife too could, if no one had sinned, be joined not by shameful lust—at which even he blushes who does not blush to praise it—but by deservedly praiseworthy love, and for the cause of procreating children be two in one flesh. Whence the Lord, when he says: Therefore they are now no longer two, but one flesh (Matt 19:6); does not say: There are not two, but one flesh. What, then, are they not two, except human beings? Just as Christ and the Church together are not two Christs, but one Christ; whence it was said to us too: Therefore you are the seed of Abraham (Gal 3:29); since it was said about Abraham: And to your seed, which is Christ (Gal 3:16).

II. 60. Julian. And through this the devil can claim nothing for himself either of its pleasantness or of its shame.

Augustine. What is it that you say: of its shame? Or are you ashamed to name confusion? And yet you say that shameful lust existed even before sin in those of whom Scripture says: They were naked, and were not confounded (Gen 2:25).

II. 61. Julian. Yet here, if the Apostle had meant anything such, he would have said that sin entered through one flesh, not through one man. But by generation only the substance of the flesh shares in the offspring; because not soul is drawn from soul, but flesh from flesh; but in the name of man both the mind properly is judged and the body, and through this the Apostle, by naming one man, neither showed the business of fecundity, in which he knew that nothing but the substance of the flesh is imparted; nor wished two to be understood, who drove home one, that he might teach that sin passed by imitation, not by generation.

Augustine. What is it, then: They are now no longer two, but one flesh, except: They are not two human beings, on account of the one flesh? Since flesh itself too can be called a man, the whole from a part; just as: The Word was made flesh (John 1:14); because he was made a man, of whom it was said. The Apostle too, where he says: The outer man is corrupted (2 Cor 4:16); I think wished the flesh to be understood. On account of which we rightly speak, when we say: A man's tomb; although only the flesh is buried there. Nor did she err who said: They have taken away my Lord from the monument (John 20:13); although only the flesh had been placed there. With the most obscure question about the soul remaining, then, it could be said: Through one man sin entered the world; even if only the flesh pertains to the propagation. Attend, then, to these things, and see how you have said nothing.

II. 62. Julian. Here, although truth has now played its part, yet, that the reader may be attentive, I give warning. I have, then, laid down very much of my own right in this conflict, and, following whither the rashness of my adversary had provoked, I so defended the decrees of the sound faith that, even if they were the words of the Teacher of the Gentiles which the Traducianist thought he used; it would yet be clear that he meant nothing about natural sin, who, by naming a man, but one, certainly blamed not the generation of crime, but examples.

Augustine. You have given an example, but of vanity in yourself, because, if the Apostle set down an example of sin from the first sinner man, that is, Adam; he would certainly set down an example of justice from the first just man, that is, Abel.

II. 63. Julian. But it is established that the order of the apostolic words is not that which our enemy thought. For he argues in this way: If the Apostle, he says, had wished imitation to be understood, he would have said that sin entered, and passed through all human beings, not "through one man ", but through the devil. For about the devil it is written: "They imitate him, who are of his part ". But for this reason he said "through one man "—from whom certainly the generation of human beings began—that through generation he might teach that original sin went through all. In this, then, he lies, that he affirms the blessed Paul declared that through one man sin entered the world, and so passed into all human beings; this, I say, is not held in the discourses of the Teacher of the Gentiles; for he did not say that sin passed, but death. The order of the words, then, is: As through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all human beings, in whom all sinned (Rom 5:12). The sublime instructor of the Church weighed what was to be said by him: Through one, he says, man sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all human beings. He had already named death and sin; what was the need that, in that which he said passed, he should separate death from the fellowship of sin, so as significantly to show that into this world indeed through one man sin entered, and through sin death; but that into all human beings not sin passed, but death, certainly brought in by the severity of judgment, the avenger of transgression, pursuing not the seeds of bodies, but the vices of morals; unless because he took care to commend and forearm, lest he be thought to have aided your teaching in anything?

Augustine. In that place indeed, where it was said: Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all human beings; whether sin, or death, or both, is said to have passed into all human beings, seems ambiguous; but which of these it is, the matter itself, so open, demonstrates. For if sin had not passed, not every human being would be born with the law of sin which is in the members; if death had not passed, not all human beings, as far as concerns this condition of mortals, would die. But as for what the Apostle says: In whom all sinned; in whom, is understood as none other than in Adam, in whom he says they also die; because it was not just that punishment pass without crime. Wherever you turn, in no way will you subvert the foundations of the catholic faith; especially because you yourself too are at odds with yourself, who now say that not sin passed, but death; when above you said that the Apostle for this reason drove home not two human beings, but one, that he might teach that sin passed by imitation, not by generation. Sin passed, then, with death; what is it that you now say, that not sin passed, but death?

II. 64. Julian. See, then, how far you stand from Paul. He says: Through one man; you: Through two, that is, through generation. He declares that in the first man there were both sin and death, but that to posterity death alone passed; you assert, on the contrary, that both sin and destruction ran to all.

Augustine. It has already been answered: let those who wish reread the things we said above, lest we superfluously repeat the same things again and again.

II. 65. Julian. Shamelessly, then, do you lurk under the shadow of his name, since you say things too diverse and contrary. For he accuses the work of human beings, you the work of God; he the pursuits of offenders, you the innocence and life of those being born; he the will of human beings, you nature.

Augustine. Above, to all these things it has been answered; whence now he who remembers laughs at you; but he who does not remember, if he rereads those things, will surely, when he has laughed at these vain things of yours, grieve over you.

II. 66. Julian. Through one man, then, according to the Apostle, sin entered this world, and through sin death, since the world beheld him both guilty and destined to the condemnation of perpetual death. But into all human beings death passed, because one form of judgment comprehended any transgressors even of the remaining age; which death, however, is not permitted to rage either against the saints or against any innocent ones, but invades those whom it has seen to have emulated the transgression.

Augustine. You speak that which was objected to your heresiarch Pelagius in the episcopal judgment of Palestine, that Adam was so made that, whether he sinned or did not sin, he would die. For this death, by which we all die, of which it was said: From a woman was the beginning of sin, and on account of her we all die (Sir 25:24), you are unwilling that it made its passage from sin into all originally, lest you be compelled to confess that sin too passed originally at the same time; for you perceive how unjust it is that punishment passed without deserving. Yet so catholic is that which you try to assail, that, unless that man to whom, as I said, it was objected had condemned it, he would certainly have gone out condemned from that judgment. Death, then, both this by which the spirit is separated from the body, and that which is called the second, by which the spirit will be tormented with the body, as far as concerns the deserving of the human race, passed into all human beings; but the grace of God, through him who came that by dying he might take away the kingdom of death, by that resurrection, the example of which went before in him, did not allow death to reign. This the catholic faith holds, this the judges hold whom Pelagius dreaded, this the heretics do not hold whom Pelagius sowed.

II. 67. Julian. Which transgression, although it did not become natural, was yet a form of sin, and on this account, although it does not weigh down those being born, yet accuses those imitating.

Augustine. And if you have forgotten the heavy yoke which weighs down those being born, we do not cease to remind you of it.

II. 68. Julian. But judicial death passed in him in whom all sinned, but by free will; by which word, that is, all, according to the custom of the Scriptures, a multitude, not the totality, is indicated.

Augustine. In vain you try to twist right words and obscure clear ones: in him all sinned, in whom all die. It is Adam himself, in whom, if little ones do not die, surely neither will they be vivified in Christ; but since, as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Cor 15:22), therefore those who wish to pervert these words are themselves overturned, while they remain.

II. 69. Julian. But let us now proceed to the rest, that, with what teaching the Apostle is in harmony, as has become clear in great part, he may show by the progress of the sacred discourse. But what else do the following apostolic words too indicate? For when he had said this, he added: "Until the law sin was in the world ", that is, because not even the law could take away sin; "but sin was not imputed, when there was no law " (Rom 5:13). It was, then, but was not imputed, because it was not shown that it might be imputed; for, as he says elsewhere: "Through the law the knowledge of sin " (Rom 3:20), but death—he says—reigned from Adam until Moses " (Rom 5:14), that is, what he had said above: "until the law "; not until Moses, that thereafter there should be no sin, but because not even the law given through Moses could take away the kingdom of death, which certainly reigns only through sin. But its reign is to hurl mortal man even into the second death, which is everlasting. "But it reigned ". In whom? "Even in those—he says—who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a form of the future one " (Rom 5:14). Of what future one except Christ? And what kind of form except from the contrary? Which he says elsewhere too: "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive " (1 Cor 15:22). As in the one that, so in the other this; this is the form. But this form is not in every part conformable; whence the Apostle here, continuing, added: "But not as the offense, so also the gift; for if by the offense of one many have died, much more the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ has abounded unto many " (Rom 5:15). What is: "much more it abounded "? Because all who are freed through Christ die temporally on account of Adam, but on account of Christ himself will live without end. You professed that nothing else is indicated by the Apostle's following discourses than original sin; which we have shown was not shown by him at its very beginning, because he had signified that sin passed through one, not through two.

Augustine. It has already been answered, and still you speak vain things, nor is this a wonder; for you do not yet know what I have answered. Then you will be more shameless, when you have known, if, leaving the vain things, you are unwilling to hold the true.

II. 70. Julian. Yet whether it intimates even now that which it had passed over, must be weighed. Until the law—he says—sin was in the world. You say that the Apostle wished this sin to be understood as natural; I ask, then, if it was until the law, why did it cease to be after the law. For I do not acquiesce that I should understand until the law as until its end rather than until its beginning; the propriety of the word makes with me: what he says, that it was until the law, shows that it is not after the law; and whatever is taken away in time was not natural. What, then, the censure of the law broke and, by breaking, in great part extinguished, appears to have been taken up by imitation, not by generation.

Augustine. O what an understanding—what else shall I call it than heretical! If, then, the law took away sin, because you want until the law so to be understood, then justice was through the law. If justice through the law, then Christ died for nothing (Gal 2:21). But if the law did not take away sin, so that it should not be—which you had said before it did, and soon repented—but yet the law broke sin, as you afterward corrected, and in great part extinguished it, he lied who said: The law entered in, that the offense might abound (Rom 5:20); but because he spoke the truth, you say nothing, and yet, by saying nothing, with heretical pertinacity you contradict.

II. 71. Julian. But lest I seem here to deal too tenaciously with you, let us acquiesce that until the law can be understood as until Christ; you concede, then, that this sin which you call original is not after Christ. And how do you say that in the members of the Apostles, and in all the baptized, and even today, after so many ages of the coming of Christ, the work of the devil, the shrub of the adverse power, and the law of sin remains, flourishes, lives?

Augustine. I do not say this; you say nothing. Sin is one thing, the concupiscence of sin another, to which he does not consent who through the grace of God does not sin, although the concupiscence of sin itself too is called sin, because it was made by sin, just as any writing is called the hand of him by whose hand it was made. But about him of whom it was said: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29), he himself dissolves by regeneration the guilt of the sin which is drawn by generation; he himself, by giving the spirit, brings it about that sin does not reign in our mortal body to obey its concupiscences (See Rom 6:12); he himself, by daily indulgence, on account of which we daily say: Forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12), mercifully blots out whatever the concupiscence of sin has ill-persuaded even those striving and resisting well; he himself raises up, repenting, those dashed down by a grave ruin; he himself, where one cannot sin at all, will lead and establish those reigning, when it will be said: Where, O death, is your contention? Where, O death, is your sting? But the sting of death is sin (1 Cor 15:55-56). Behold how that Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world, which the law could not take away.

II. 72. Julian. But let us see the rest too. But sin was not imputed, says the Apostle, when there was no law; after which you subjoin: It was, then, but was not imputed, as he says elsewhere: "Through the law the knowledge of sin ". If, then, through the law the knowledge of sin was made, and the sin of your transmission was not imputed before the law, show that this was imputed under the law. For if through the law there is the knowledge of sin, before the law the ignorance of sin, it cannot be doubted that this was the greatest cause of promulgating the law, that what before lay hidden might be brought forth and guarded against.

Augustine. That it might be brought forth, you speak the truth, this we too say; but that it might be guarded against, not the law but grace, not the letter but the spirit brought about; for the law entered in, not that it might be guarded against, but that sin might abound and grace superabound, by which both the sin done might be blotted out and, that it might not be done, guarded against.

II. 73. Julian. Let this, then, be the sum of the contest: either show that original sin was imputed to anyone under the law, show that it was shown, and I will agree that the Apostle spoke about this sin.

Augustine. I show indeed what you challenge me to show; but what if you close your eyes to the things which you are unwilling to see, and, lest they be seen by others, spread fogs of contention? Circumcision of the flesh was commanded by the law (See Gen 17:10-14), by which it could not better be signified that original sin is taken away through Christ, the author of regeneration. For every human being is born with a foreskin, just as with original sin, and the law commanded the flesh to be circumcised on the eighth day, because Christ rose on the Lord's day, which is the eighth after the seventh of the sabbath; and the circumcised begets one with a foreskin, transmitting into him that which he himself now lacks, just as the baptized transmits into the son whom he begets in the flesh the guilt of origin, from which he himself has been absolved. Finally, in the law is written the Psalm: I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother nourished me in the womb (Ps 51:5 (50:7)). Which you would surely see, nor would you dare to contradict anything, if you had eyes of faith like those of Cyprian and Ambrose and the rest of such teachers of the Church.

II. 74. Julian. Or certainly, because this cannot be found in the law, acquiesce, most shameless one, that the Apostle speaks about that sin which is drawn by imitation, committed by will, convicted by reason, shown by the law, punished by equity.

Augustine. About every sin which is taken away through Christ it was said: Until the law sin was in the world, since by the law it is not taken away, whether original or added, whether that which was even before the law, or that which even with the law entering in abounded. But when you say that the Apostle speaks about that sin which is punished by equity, wake up and see that there too is original sin; for otherwise the equity of God would not impose a heavy yoke on the very beginnings of little ones too, which yoke our care often mentions, that it may, if it does not bend your neck, break it. For I have shown that this sin too is shown by the law in the precept of circumcision; which if you deny, teach by what sin of his own, if he were not circumcised, the soul of a little one would perish from his people (See Gen 17:14). I know, you do not teach, but, wishing to weary us, you are not silent either.

II. 75. Julian. But, as for what you invent, original sin cannot even be transmitted through one, since generation is carried on through two.

Augustine. It has already been answered: read the things which have been said by me on this, and you will find that you have said vain things.

II. 76. Julian. Nor could it ever have been, if it can at some time not be, because natural things persevere from the beginning of the substance to its end.

Augustine. This you could say also about death, for we are born even with it. For the body is dead because of sin (Rom 8:10); but even if not because of sin, as you foolishly hold, we are yet born without doubt mortal, and yet death and mortality will not be there when we live immortally. As, then, death is original and yet could be, it can not be, with our nature better remaining, so original sin both could be, drawn by generation, and can not be, taken away by regeneration.

II. 77. Julian. Nor was it shown by the law, or could be shown, because never would a legislator come to such madness as to command anyone: Do not be born thus or thus; and what it was not fitting to be admonished of, that it might be corrected, it cannot be just that it be punished.

Augustine. It is not commanded a human being how he should be born, but it was commanded how that one should live, and he violated the precept; from which parent original sin is derived. It is also commanded that the infant be circumcised, to be condemned unless he is circumcised, to whom yet not only is something else not commanded, but not even circumcision itself; and through this, it is not indeed commanded a human being how he should be born, yet not even an infant, whose life upon the earth is of one day (See Job 14:4-5 LXX), is clean from the filth of sin. Read the words of holy Job, and you will find that you are a liar, with him speaking whom God said to be truthful.

II. 78. Julian. And what is until the law is shown not to be after the law, is shown finally not to be after Christ.

Augustine. Thus the guilt of this sin is shown not to be after the abolition of sins, as death after the resurrection of the flesh.

II. 79. Julian. And through this, according to your argumentation too, it does not exist at some time; according to the testimony of truth, it never existed.

Augustine. O if only you did not exist, who against the testimony of truth both speak and moreover write your false testimony!

II. 80. Julian. And that what we have done may be driven home to the reader's memory: you once defined sin, and most excellently, to be nothing other than the will to commit what justice forbids and from which one is free to abstain.

Augustine. It has already been answered, that this is the definition of the sin which is not also the punishment of sin.

II. 81. Julian. Which definition opened the way also to understanding the justice of God, so that we judged that the equity of the divine judgment in no way stands, unless it had imputed as sin that from which it knew it was free for him, who on account of this is afflicted, to abstain.

Augustine. On account of what, then, are little ones afflicted, if they have no sin at all? Or could the almighty and just God not forbid unjust punishments from so many innocents?

II. 82. Julian. But that the Teacher of the Gentiles, arming reason with the privilege of authority, declared that through one man fault passed into this world, by which name he separated the works of marriage, which cannot be without the business of two, and we commended that for this reason one was named by him, lest anyone dare to understand two.

Augustine. It has already been answered; you are assiduously delighted to chatter vain things.

II. 83. Julian. And in truth, much more consistently do I assert the one, whom the Apostle calls one, as one, to teach that it was a vice of imitation, not of generation, than the Traducianist who, by the name of the one, who is said to have been the vestibule of sin, applies to the seeds a matter of the will, which the nature of things does not admit.

Augustine. Cease to repeat what we have already refuted. Why do you compel us still to say the same things again and again against so great a wisdom of yours, by which you think that for this reason generation is not signified, where it was said: Through one man sin entered the world, because generation comes about through two, not through one, as if that sin, which you wish to have passed not by generation but by imitation, one man committed? Since, then, it too was committed by two, why was it said: Through one man sin entered the world, except because the beginning of generation is not from the woman conceiving and bearing, but from the man sowing; or because they are now no longer two, when through intercourse one flesh is made?

II. 84. Julian. Afterward too the discourse came to the law, up to whose time the Apostle wrote that sin flourished, unshown; which time you tried to prolong up to the end of the law, not understanding that you argued to no purpose, since you would be bound by us to prove that this sin, about which you lie that Paul spoke, and which you assert reigned up to the abolition of the Old Testament, was either imputed or could have been imputed under the law; or certainly you would acquiesce that it does not reign after Christ, so that the statement of the Apostle, violently bent, might at least be in harmony with your senses. But none of these can be rendered by you; the purity of our faith, then, is placed on solid ground, with which both the institutions of reason and the dignity of justice and the decrees of the Apostle in all things agree.

Augustine. That you say nothing, both what we have answered shows, and you yourself. As for what the Apostle says: Until the law sin was in the world (Rom 5:13), he wished not only original, but every sin to be understood, and therefore it was until the law, because not even the law could take away sin. For until the law was said so that this statement might include even the law itself, just as it was said in the Gospel: All the generations, then, from Abraham until David are fourteen (See Matt 1:17); for not with David excepted, but with him too counted, is this number completed. As, then, when we hear fourteen generations until David, we do not except David, but count him too, so when we hear: Until the law sin was in the world, we ought not to except the law, but to count even it, because, just as David is not outside the number which was said up to him, so the law is not outside the persistence of sin, which was said to have been up to it; and through this no one takes away the sin which not even the law, although holy and just and good, could take away, except him of whom it was said: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). But he takes it away both by forgiving what has been done, where the original is included too, and by helping that they not be done, and by leading to the life where they can in no way be done.

II. 85. Julian. But let us see the rest too. After you said, then: This form is not in every part conformable, you add: Whence the Apostle here, continuing, added: "But not as the offense, so also the gift; for if by the offense of one many have died, much more the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ has abounded unto more " (Rom 5:15). Which statement you expound in this way: What is: "much more it abounded ", except that all who are freed through Christ die temporally on account of Adam, but on account of Christ himself will live without end? The Apostle certainly declared—about whose opinion is our contest—that the grace of the Savior works more efficaciously and more copiously toward the bestowal of salvation than the sin of Adam, that he might show that Christ profited much more vehemently, and profited more men, whose grace, to use his very word: abounded unto more, than the transgression of the first man harmed, whom you say bound sin to the seeds.

Augustine. Much more it abounded he said, not: Into more many, that is, not: Into more men. For who does not see that there are more men in the human race into whom it did not abound, that from the more it might be shown what was owed to the whole lump by a just judgment, unless the Spirit breathed where it would, and God called those whom he deigned, and made religious whom he would?

II. 86. Julian. Prove, then, that this which the Apostle understood coheres with your teachings.

Augustine. Let his words be read without the perversity of those reading, such as is in you, and no other proof will be required.

II. 87. Julian. For if Adam, as you say, by natural sin begot all unto condemnation, and poured forth so great a venom from his viscera into his offspring that he disturbed in the nature of man all the institutions of God.

Augustine. When an unclean spirit vexes a little one and afflicts his soul and body, perverts his sense and health, is not the whole nature of him which God instituted disturbed? Nor do you, denying original sin, find any deserving at all for so great an evil. For why do you not here attend that in the nature of man, through the venom of the devil, all the institutions of God are disturbed? Say the cause of the little one, say his guilt, to whom, newly born, these things befall, you who are unwilling so to receive the apostolic words as the catholic Church, from the time it was instituted, receives them, and as nature itself confesses by its own so manifest evils. And yet, if we consider well, the institutions of God are in no way disturbed, since, foreknowing things to come, he established all things, nor does he render to individuals the whole that the apostate creature deserves, but, disposing all things in measure and number and weight (See Wis 11:20), he allows no one to suffer any evil which he does not deserve, although each individual does not suffer as much as is owed to the whole lump.

II. 88. Julian. So that without the gift of the devil, to which you say the lust of the sexes pertains, the marriages which God had created could not exist; rather, with those which he had ordained flying away from the honor of his institution, these, whose order remained, with the stirring of the genitals, with the shame of those copulating, with the heat and prostration of the members, with the pleasantness of the senses, with the iniquity of those being born, he would compel and convince to be the work of the devil, not of God.

Augustine. If you distinguished the evil of the vices, which cannot be except in some good, from the goodness of the natures, you would neither excuse the devil nor accuse God, nor excuse the evil of lust nor accuse the good of marriage.

II. 89. Julian. He would finally undermine the very freedom of choice by the impulse of one sin, so that no one thereafter would have it in his power to spurn old crimes by the choice of virtue, but all would be snatched into condemnation by one torrent of overthrown humanity.

Augustine. Why do you not rather marvel at so great a misery of the whole human race from the beginning of birth, that no one becomes blessed except from being wretched, nor lacks all evils except after this life, to whom, through the grace of God, it is granted that he lack them? By marveling at this you will correct yourself, and will recognize the just judgment of God, since through one man sin entered the world, in the not unjust affliction of the human race.

II. 90. Julian. If, I say, the iniquity of the first man brought all these things into the image of God, it is manifest that the grace of Christ is too feeble in its gifts, which found nothing to heal these so many beam-like evils; or, if it found, affirm it. For let us now compare individual things with individual things. If Adam, besides the works of his will, subverted the institutions of nature itself, Christ ought to owe nothing more than to repair the things which had been shattered by him, by those very footsteps, namely, by which he had undermined them.

Augustine. This he does, but not in the way you wish. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? (Rom 11:34)

II. 91. Julian. That is, that in the marriages of the baptized lust would in no way be felt, nor would the genitals be moved in the same way as in the rest of the nations too.

Augustine. The baptized women ought not, then, to give birth with groaning, since this—which you cannot deny—is the punishment of the sinning woman.

II. 92. Julian. Finally, after the gift of grace the shame of those copulating would recede, nor would the imitation of quiet go through the members, nor would the senses suffer the burdens of sweetness, and finally free choice would be restored to the baptized, so that, by the correction of nature, with the law of sin expelled, you would confess it as possible for mortals to gleam with the splendor of the virtues as to shudder at the filth of vices; or rather, those who are imbued with the sacraments ought not to be mortal at all.

Augustine. And yet, Julian, you are not ashamed to set up such marriages in paradise, where you confess the shame of those copulating. Was there, then, anything to be ashamed of, where the Founder, who is to be praised above all things, had instituted nothing but what is to be praised? But who can think this and say it, except one who is not ashamed to praise that of which he is ashamed?

II. 93. Julian. For if medicine fights with the wound, and death is said to have befallen on account of sin, the removal of sin ought to work the removal of death.

Augustine. You still say that Adam was so made that, whether he sinned or did not sin, he would die; but in saying these things you have already been condemned by your teacher Pelagius himself in the episcopal judgment of Palestine—and not without himself, because he did not correct himself. But God does not make his own blessed in this evil age, to whom he here forgives sins, and imparts the pledge of the spirit of grace. Therefore to those who, even with the evils of this age, whether delightful or savage and harsh, partly do not use them, partly use them well, he has promised a future age, in which they will suffer no evils, where marriages would be such as in that paradise, if no one had sinned, they could have been, in which there would be nothing to be ashamed of; but they will not even be such, since, with the number of the blessed completed, for whom marriages would be necessary, generation itself will not be.

II. 94. Julian. But since it is established that none of these things which we have said befall the bodies of the baptized, but that the whole could not have been done otherwise, that is, ought not to have been done, than by these modes of medicine, truth clearer than the sun shows; you must confess either that those things which we enumerated before did not befall by sin, and therefore there were no wounds of nature, that the account of grace may stand, through which it is manifest that those things were not moved from their orders; or certainly you must deny that there is anything of medicine in the mysteries of Christ, which, of so many diseases, according to you, could not heal even one.

Augustine. Rather, from this you ought to acknowledge, if you lived with a sober mind, how great that sin was which entered the world through one man and with death passed into all human beings, since from the evils of this age, with which human beings are born, not even the baptized, now with their guilt taken away, are all rescued except after this life, in which it behooves us to be exercised, even with goods promised, still by evils. For if the reward of faith were rendered immediately, faith itself would no longer be, which, seeing present evils, for that reason piously bears them, because, not seeing the goods promised, it faithfully and patiently awaits them.

II. 95. Julian. Thus far I have acted as if the Apostle had reckoned the force of the gifts and of the wounds, though in contrary effects, yet equal; but the sublimity of the sound faith which we uphold grows beyond doubt, when it is considered that Paul not only did not prefer the sickness of faults to the remedies of grace, but even judged the benefits more copious than the losses.

Augustine. It is true; for the losses of the regenerated are temporal, but the benefits will without doubt be everlasting; but the losses which those being born attest by weeping, say by what deserving, under a most just and most almighty judge, they are inflicted on them, if they draw no sin.

II. 96. Julian. What, then, this disputation too has gathered, let the prudent reader attend. The Apostle said that the gift of Christ abounded unto more men, unto salvation, than the fault of Adam had harmed.

Augustine. He did not say this, but: Much more grace abounded unto many (See Rom 5:15), that is: It abounded more, not into more many, that is, not into more men, as has already been answered.

II. 97. Julian. By which fault you say those disasters befell nature which we enumerated above, of which it is established that not even one is healed in those who arrive at the sacraments of Christ; and through this you assert that the iniquity of the first man had much more force for harming than the grace of Christ obtains for healing; from which gathered conclusion it is shown that there is as great a discord between you and the apostle Paul as between the Catholics and the Manichees.

Augustine. The grace of Christ takes away the guilt of original sin, but takes away an invisible thing invisibly; it also forgives all the sins which human beings have moreover added by living badly. For judgment is from one offense unto condemnation, because even that one which is drawn by those being born draws unto eternal condemnation, if it be not remitted; nor yet does grace forgive this alone, otherwise it would avail only as much, but with it forgives the rest too; therefore it avails more, on account of which it was said: Judgment indeed from one unto condemnation, but grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16). Grace also grants that against the concupiscence of the flesh the spirit may lust; and, if ever a faithful human being is venially overcome in this contest, it forgives his debts as he prays, and, when he is damnably overcome, it gives a humbler penitence, to which it may grant indulgence; it grants finally eternal life both to soul and to body, where what kind and how great the goods are, who could think? How, then, did the iniquity of the first man harm more than the goodness of the second man, that is, Christ, profited, since he harmed temporally, but Christ both temporally helps and frees and beatifies eternally? Since these things are so, our opinion is catholic, not Manichaean, and therefore is not Pelagian either, because it is catholic.

II. 98. Julian. I would indeed by best right despise your frivolous exposition in this place, and pass it by unstruck, as too clinging to the ground, did I not fear that it would be credited to cunning rather than to constancy. You speak, then, in this way: What is: "Much more it abounded ", except that all who are freed through Christ die temporally on account of Adam, but on account of Christ himself will live without end? By which discourse, if you attended what was consequently said, you would confess that your whole citadel, that is, transmission, has fallen; for you say that the grace of Christ abounded much more because through it eternal life is conferred, while through the sin of Adam temporal corruption must be undergone. If, then, Adam brought in nothing else than the death of the body, against whom Christ conferred, by a more copious benefit, life enduring without end, it appears that not the sin of Adam passed to posterity, but death.

Augustine. It appears that you mocked what I said, or rather feigned to mock, for this reason, that you might seem, to those who do not understand you, to say something, when you said nothing; first because I said that Adam harmed by temporal death those whom the grace of Christ frees; for those whom by the truth of a hidden indeed, but just judgment he does not free, even if they die as little ones, are punished by eternal death. How, then, from this does it appear that not the sin of Adam passed to posterity, but death, except because you wish that to be thought which your words clamor, not that which follows my words? For we say that both passed, and we cry out that both are taken away by Christ, namely the guilt of sin by the most full remission of sins, but death by the most blessed resurrection of the saints, which for this reason is not given immediately to the regenerated, that faith may be exercised, by which what is not seen is hoped for; for the faithful, when they hope this both in themselves and in their little ones, are certainly faithful. Behold what we say, behold which catholic truth you contradict; but you speak more against yourselves than against it, whatever you say in heretical disputations.

II. 99. Julian. But it will be established most consistently that perpetual death, that is, everlasting punishment, was not transmitted to us, and through this that there cannot be a sin of transmission. For that it may briefly appear what is established to be held; by the Apostle the gifts of Christ are preferred to the sin of the first man; do you, through this sin of yours, that is, of transmission, say that one death or two passed? If one, and corporeal, as here you have confessed, it is established that the grace of Christ excels the sin of the first man, and now no one is born a sinner, because, if, as you said above, the reign of sin is that a human being be hurled into the second death, that is, into perpetual punishment, and you say that through Adam only the death of the body was conveyed, neither sin through Adam nor eternal death is transmitted to posterity.

Augustine. It has already been answered: you say nothing. For the reign of sin hurls even into eternal death, unless it be remitted through the grace of Christ; yet this temporal death too would be none, unless Adam had lost the possibility of not dying by the deserving of sin; for this God announced to the sinner, saying: You are earth, and into earth you shall go (Gen 3:19). This, without the deserving of sin, Christ deigned to undergo, that through it indeed, by dying, he might go into the earth, but, by rising, might lift the earth into heaven, and so, with eternal death destroyed, might for this reason not take away the temporal from the faithful, that against it the faith of resurrection might contend in the struggle of this life.

II. 100. Julian. But if you say that through the sin of Adam iniquity became natural, and that two deaths befell, one eternal, the other temporal, but that through the grace of Christ one is meanwhile taken away from the person, not from the nature, that is, the perpetual, but the temporal remains, the Apostle is convicted of falsity, who said that grace profited much more than sin harmed; but the Apostle cannot be accused; you, then, are by right reproved.

Augustine. I said that by the one resurrection of the blessed both deaths are taken away, both this one, that the soul be not without its body, and that one, that the soul be not weighed down or afflicted even by its body. But this is so left to the faithful for a time that faith may have a help through it, just as it is afterward taken away from the guilty, so that, in that they do not depart from their body, it may be an increase of misery. And through this, to those who are regenerated in Christ and go out from this evil age as his elect, it is manifest that grace profits more than sin harmed, which entered the world through one man and with death passed through all human beings. The Apostle, then, cannot be refuted, because he spoke the truth; but you either do not understand, or, against what you understand, try with heretical contention to assert what is false.

II. 101. Julian. The Apostle said that the grace of Christ abounded more than the fault of Adam; not, then, is nature accused by him, not generation, not fecundity, but the will, the choice of evil, the depravity of morals.

Augustine. If generation harmed nothing, regeneration bestows nothing; if nature is not vitiated, little ones do not have Christ as Savior; if the evil and good deserving of individuals is in their own will, by what deserving does Christ confer the kingdom of God on little ones, who have used their will in neither direction? Finally, since the Apostle set down two, one for sin, not the devil but Adam, and one for justice, not Abel but Christ, that not imitation might be referred to examples, but regeneration to generation, if Adam does not transmit sin into the human beings begotten, Christ does not grant justice to the little ones regenerated, because neither the begotten nor the regenerated little ones have used their own liberty. Go now, if you wish, and cry out, if you dare, that justice is not granted to little ones, nor will they have justice, when they will dwell in that kingdom where there will be, as it is written, new heavens and a new earth, in which justice dwells (See 2 Pet 3:13); or, from your most undiluted teaching, with which you are inebriated, rave that in that kingdom little ones will indeed have justice, but by the deservings of their own will, not by the largesse of divine grace. But if you dare not say this (for you confess that here deservings are gained, but there rewards are rendered), why do you doubt, or are unwilling, to confess that they could so have sin from Adam without the deservings of their own evil will, just as they will receive justice from Christ without their own preceding deservings of a good will?

II. 102. Julian. And through this, if truth has any place in matters still human, and the whole world has not been utterly deafened by the din of iniquity, anyone will confess, having been thoroughly taught by reason, disputation, and the faith of the Apostle and his very statement as witness, that there is as great a difference between the Traducianists and the Catholics as between Paul and the Manichee, as between wisdom and folly, as between reason and insanity, as between consistency of words and that fluctuation which you endure with a new foulness, so that in almost the same lines you deny what you have said, you affirm what you have denied.

Augustine. It has already been answered. I ask you, if you cannot say anything, be silent, if you can; but, what is worse, you cannot even do this.

II. 103. Julian. And not—he says—as through one sinning, so also is the gift; for judgment is from one unto condemnation, but grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16). To which words of the Apostle you apply your exposition standing thus: "From one ", then, what—you say—except offense? Because there follows: "But grace from many offenses ". Let these men say how it is from one offense unto condemnation, except because even one original sin, which passed into all human beings, suffices for condemnation; but grace is for this reason from many offenses unto justification, because it looses not only that one which is drawn originally, but also the rest, which are added in each human being by the motion of his own will. "For if by the offense of one death reigned through one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of justice will reign in life through one Jesus Christ. And so, as through the offense of one unto all human beings unto condemnation, so also through the justice of one unto all human beings unto justification of life " (Rom 5:17-18). After which words of the Apostle, as if you had accomplished something, you speak about us by insulting: Let these still remain in the vanity of their mind, and say that one man did not transmit propagation, but furnished an example of sin. How, then: "through the offense of one unto all human beings unto condemnation ", and not rather through the many offenses of each one, except because, even if that one alone exists, it is fit to lead unto condemnation even with none of the rest added, just as it leads the dying little ones who are born of Adam, if they be not reborn in Christ? What, then, does this man ask of us which he is unwilling to hear from the Apostle, through what sin is found in a little one; whether through the will or through marriage or through the parents? Behold, let him hear through what, let him hear and be silent, through what sin is found in a little one. The Apostle: "Through the offense of one—he says—unto all human beings unto condemnation ". We know that you fear nothing more than a questioning that searches out your mind and your teaching; thence it is that with all your resources you procure from the powers of the world the denial of an examination; for you understand that you must act by force, when you are abandoned by the help of reason.

Augustine. Do you wish not to fear the power? Do good (Rom 13:3). But it is not good to put forth against the apostolic sense, and to assert, a heretical sense. Why do you still seek an examination, which has already been made before the Apostolic See, which finally has already been made in the episcopal judgment of Palestine, where Pelagius, the author of your error, would without doubt have been condemned, had he not condemned those teachings of yours which you defend? A heresy condemned by the bishops, then, is not still to be examined, but to be restrained by the Christian powers.

II. 104. Julian. But your opinion will not avail so much among the prudent that, since you are the head of these and the cause of evils, you should withdraw yourself from the midst of the conflict by the objection of the Apostle, and think that he must be struck on your behalf, by whom especially we are armed against you as our teacher and chief. That you may, then, consequently recognize what is to be said to you; if between me and you there were no dissension over this, that the Apostle confirmed the teaching of the Manichees by natural sin, then you would constantly set him against me as I sought your head; but now, since the dignity of the Teacher of the Gentiles remains inviolable with me, and I will not allow his words to be harmed by your exposition—which words, according to the rule of reason brought forth, I assert to fight against your stupid, impure, and impious teaching, and convict that he said nothing in favor of natural sin—with what shamelessness do you press that he should answer me even on your behalf, who is not questioned, since neither is his wisdom doubted; or you cry out that I am unwilling to hear from the Apostle what, in you, by the soundness of understanding handed down to us by the Apostle, I detest?

Augustine. After the words of the Apostle interposed by me, ought you not to have done anything other than be silent? And yet, saying nothing against them and saying nothing according to them, you are not silent with me, and you boast among other things that I am the head of these and the cause of evils, as if I first either believed or disputed that there is original sin. For you believe that those will read these things of yours who are so inexperienced that they do not know how many teachers of the Church, illustrious and before us, so understood and expounded these words of the Apostle as the whole catholic Church, from its very beginning, understands or believes; whose words of the teachers, if they are evil, as you do not fear to say, how am I, I ask you, the head of these and the cause of evils, except because you are the head of these calumnies which, raging, you press upon me? For if with a sound brain you considered the miseries of human life from the first weeping of infants to the last groans of the dying, you would surely see that neither I nor you, but that Adam was the head of these and the cause of evils; which, unwilling to see, with closed eyes you cry out both that the judgment of God is just and that there is no original sin. How contrary these two are to each other you would without doubt discern—I do not say if you were not the head of these evils, because you certainly are not, but if you had a sound head, which you could have, if, by following the catholic teachers, you did not have Pelagius as your head.

II. 105. Julian. Let the force of your arguments, then, be expressed. After Paul said that the grace of the Savior abounded much more for healing than the transgression of the first man for harming, there follows: And not as through one sinning, so also is the gift; for judgment is from one unto condemnation, but grace from many offenses unto justification. Which one offense, sufficient for condemnation, you contend is original, passing namely into all human beings; but that grace is for this reason said to be from many offenses unto justification, because it looses not only that one which is drawn originally, but also the rest which are added in each human being by the motion of his own will. To confirm which you argue a little after that, if the Apostle had said this one offense, sufficient for condemnation, was taken up by imitation, he ought to have added that all human beings go unto condemnation not through one offense, but through their many offenses committed by their own will. In which places, since the discourse of the Apostle must be unsnared from the nets of the Manichees, I admonish that the reader be attentive. You say, then, according to our sense, by which it is asserted that the first fault furnished a form to those sinning, that the Apostle ought, just as he said grace works justification from many offenses, so to say that death reigned from many sins. But by this argument you struggle altogether against yourself; for I convict the Apostle of declaring, according to your teaching, inconsistently: But grace from many offenses unto justification, who had said: From one sin judgment unto condemnation. For, that going out from our boundaries we may dwell in your region: if the freedom of choice was first overthrown by sin and thereafter remained in the whole race of human beings so maimed that it is not possible for it to do anything but evil, but it does not have in its faculty the choice of the other part, that is, to recede from evil and do good, but, oppressed by the necessity of iniquity, is compelled to obey the appetite of crimes; if, with every law of justice broken through, those things became natural which had been voluntary; if the law of sin dwells in the members, which has obtained tyranny over the image and work of God by the shame and pleasantness of marriage; if the shrub of the devil is planted in the viscera before the soul, and grows up with the natural increments, puts forth leaves, and grows heavy with a pestiferous fruit; if, I say, one fault of the first man begot these things, as you say, it is more consistently said that the race of mortals goes from one offense unto condemnation than that grace frees from many offenses, so that it may more properly be understood that this grace can be said to free from one offense those whom it frees. For no others are added by the motion of one's own will, if the seed-infecting fault of the first begetter works every evil, with the freedom of choice broken, with the honesty of desire excluded.

Augustine. Whence can it come about that you, a man who try to pervert apostolic words, can speak except perversely? For certainly, when the use of the will, which little ones do not have, has been added to that offense which generation draws, the tree of many sins sprouts into many and various desires; which, before it came about, even that one was drawing unto damnation, if the little one ended this life before the use of the will. For not because a greater damnation is owed to an evil now great and multiplied, was therefore none owed to one small and not yet multiplied. How, then, does regeneration, which takes away the evil multiplied through the use of the will, not bestow more than generation harmed, which drew the beginning—not yet increased and not yet multiplied—of this evil, however great and manifold, which alone would remain without any sprouting, if no use of the will, by which it might be increased and multiplied, were added? But the will, before it is restored to good liberty for working true justice, with the grace of God coming to its aid, is moved to sinning, or is not moved, also by many other causes besides the vice of origin; whence it comes about that the impious themselves, to whom either grace has not yet come to aid, or never will come, which justifies the impious, sin some more, some less. Judgment, then, from one unto condemnation, because even those are damned who drew that one by generation; but grace from many offenses unto justification, because it takes away not only that with which a human being is born, but whatever else of offenses the use of the will has added to that evil. This is the catholic truth of the apostolic words, which you deprave by no heretical loquacity, however great a prolixity of vanity and loquacity you exercise us with.

II. 106. Julian. And through this, if natural sin is the author of so great evils, the grace of Christ in no way works justification by forgiving many offenses, but carries out the business of benignity by indulging one sin; which, when it promises that it will do, it will make good its promises, if it has healed these things which are said to be brought in by the wound of sin; but if even after the remedies which it brought the same series of diabolical diseases nevertheless perseveres, gratitude is owed to its wish, pardon to its presumption, because for healing the inborn plagues power, not will, was lacking to it.

Augustine. It has already been answered; understand and be silent. In one way grace makes one contend and helps him, in another way it keeps the victor, without any enemy either external or internal, in eternal peace; this is the laborious warfare in the present age, that the blessed rest in the future. But if you do not wage war against the carnal vices in yourself, blush; if you do, fall silent.

II. 107. Julian. What, then, has been accomplished by this disputation? That your sense and the Apostle, namely, do not agree. For the Apostle says that many offenses are forgiven by the liberality of grace; but your teaching asserts that one natural sin, which you call the law of sin, fashions the desires of iniquity in all human beings. It is settled, then, that by you nature, which is the work of God, but by him the will, is accused. But he ought to have spoken in no other way at all than he spoke, that is, that condemnation can come about from one sin, because both that first man furnished, by one sin, an example of offending, and, just as for him one transgression abounded unto condemnation, so also for the rest one fault can suffice unto guilt. On account of which Ecclesiastes: He who sins in one thing will lose many good things (Eccl 9:18); and James: If you observe the whole law, but offend in one, you have become guilty of all (Jas 2:10).

Augustine. Then did the sin of Adam harm only himself, and not the human race too? For you will not be so absurd as to say that human beings were harmed or are harmed by his sin while not knowing or not believing whether it happened and what it did; because, even if human beings imitate something while not knowing it, yet to be harmed by that sin, and to be made sinners, which they do not know happened thousands of years ago, you say too foolishly, unless you confess that this sin passed to all generations. But those saying that the sin of Adam harmed only himself and not the human race—unless Pelagius condemned this, he would be condemned by those judges who certainly are not Manichees.

II. 108. Julian. But the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ was not given in such a way that it would provide individual remedies of forgiveness for individual sins, as if for individual wounds, and grant pardon for the various sins through various baptisms; rather, in accord with the power of a most efficacious medicine, which is applied to crimes—that is, to the works of an evil will—it comes to our aid in a common way, so that it washes away the different kinds of guilt by the single force of a consecration.

Augustine. However you may describe the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ as given, you separate the little ones from it, for you deny that they are saved by it. The result is that, since you divide the very names as you please, Christ seems to pertain to the little ones on account of the kingdom of God, which you grant that only the baptized can enter, while Jesus is utterly foreign to them, since he does not work in them that for which he is so named. For it is written, You shall call his name Jesus (Matt 1:21), and immediately the cause is added why he is called Jesus: for he will save, it says, his people from their sins (Matt 1:21). Denying that this happens in the little ones, you separate them both from the name of Jesus and from his people, and you dare to be indignant that you yourselves are rather separated from that same people. Now as far as voluntary offenses are concerned, just as judgment comes from many unto condemnation, so grace comes from many unto justification. Why, then, was it said, The judgment came from one offense unto condemnation, but grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16), unless because in this passage it is not will that is set against will, nor imitation against imitation, but regeneration against generation? For just as generation has judgment from one unto condemnation, so regeneration has grace from many offenses unto justification. What the Apostle meant to be understood is clear; if you would open submissive ears, you would close your contentious mouths.

II. 109. Julian. Prudently, then, when he spoke of Adam, he named the one sin, which he wanted understood to have been the pattern of transgression; he mentioned one, I say, and not many, because he knew that only one sin of Adam is contained in the history of the law. But he praised those imbued with grace for sending it forth from many offenses unto justification, lest the suspicion arise of a meager benefit; and if he had said, 'Grace from one unto justification,' he would not seem so much to abolish everything as to abolish individual things. So in setting down one sin first, he kept faith with history; in adding, 'From many offenses grace unto justification,' he commended the bountifulness and abundance of the mystery.

Augustine. But what need was there for him to speak of Adam when he was commending the grace of Christ, unless because through the one comes generation and through the other regeneration?

II. 110. Julian. This exposition, just as it agrees with reason, so it destroys you; for by this very point you are forced to admit that in all the preceding words the Apostle was not speaking of the sin of your Manichean transmission, since in his account of grace he showed that many sins are absolved.

Augustine. You are the one who helps the Manicheans, to whom you give occasion for bringing in another, evil nature by denying that in original evil there is a cause for the misery of little ones—a misery they would surely not have in paradise, if they were born there with the uprightness and happiness of human nature continuing.

II. 111. Julian. For it is from the class of these sins, which he commended as being many and as all being forgiven through grace, that he showed he had spoken above of that one sin as well; and you agree that these many sins are the ones committed by each individual person by a movement of his own will; therefore that one sin too belongs to the same class.

Augustine. I say that there are many together with that one, not apart from that one; and it can also rightly be said to be of the same class, if it is referred to its origin, because it too flowed from the will of the first man, when his sin entered into the world and passed through all human beings.

II. 112. Julian. So that it may be understood to have been drawn in by each one through a movement of his own will; and now it is not the fruitfulness of the seeds but the depravity of pursuits that will be charged. Otherwise, if he had wanted that one original sin understood, he would surely not have spoken in what follows of many sins, which he attests are forgiven through grace.

Augustine. Why would he not have spoken so, unless because this is what the Pelagians want? But the truth does not want it—the truth by which Pelagian novelty is refuted and its emptiness overcome. For the many offenses from which grace leads unto justification are many together with that one; and from that one offense, even if no others are added, judgment leads unto condemnation. Thus, then, Adam was able to implant one offense in those generated, while Christ was able to forgive many to those regenerated, since the latter is shown to have helped more than the former harmed.

II. 113. Julian. And although what has been done abounds for the defense of the truth, nevertheless I urge that the reader be attentive to what we bring forward. For it will appear irrefutably that in these passages the apostle Paul argued nothing about nature, but about the conduct of mortals; for setting the force of the grace of Christ and of the first sin over against each other and comparing the effects of both, he labored to show that the mystery of Christ profited more than the sin of the first man harmed. But we have taught that this cannot stand in the sense of transmission; so, just as he wanted the many sins he enumerated to pertain to the praise of grace, so he especially wanted this to do so, where he says: The judgment from one unto condemnation, but grace from many offenses unto justification of life (Rom 5:16, 18). This the assertor of natural evil expounded in this way: Therefore, he says, "from one unto condemnation," because that one sin, which is drawn in by origin, is sufficient to lead unto condemnation, as it leads the little ones who are born of Adam, if they are not reborn in Christ, even if there are no other sins. "But grace from many offenses unto justification," because it forgives not only that which is drawn in by origin, but also the rest, which are added by each one through a movement of his own will. See, you have professed—albeit with Manichean impiety—that there is indeed a natural sin, yet one only, on account of which you say the newborn must be condemned.

Augustine. He who said, We are all born under sin, was not a Manichean; but you—answer, what are you, who separate so many images of God from the kingdom of God without the merit of any sin, who deny that they are condemned by the judgment of God, and who make two eternal happinesses, one within the kingdom of God, the other outside the kingdom of God? Tell me, I beg you: in that happiness which will be outside the kingdom of God, will anyone reign, or no one? If no one, then that happiness will doubtless be freer, without any king; but if anyone will reign in it, who will be the king of the images of God, who will not be God? Further, if he will be God, then you are bringing in another god—and you call me a Manichean? But if God himself, whose images they are, will reign there, then those images of his will also be happy in the kingdom of their true God. And where then will be the saying, Unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:5)? Yet at last you admit that unborn little ones will be unhappy outside the kingdom of God. Tell us, then, the desert of this unhappiness, you wordy and contentious men who deny original sin.

II. 114. Julian. Prove, then, that in them is fulfilled what the apostle Paul ascribed to the grace of Christ, namely that it works justification from many offenses—that is, that it bestows the righteousness of many sins by one single remission. Either, then, teach that the little ones are liable to many crimes, so that you may persuade us that this too applies to them, in which the Apostle placed the praise of Christ's bountifulness, namely that it is established they have been freed from many sins; or confess that Paul argued nothing in these passages about little ones, nothing about the nature of human beings, when he attested that those things are forgiven by the liberality of grace which—with your agreement too—cannot be found in the newborn.

Augustine. What is it you are saying, what is this most garrulous emptiness that clamors against you, so that the most manifest truth may not enter your ears? Surely Jesus, who saves his people from many offenses, does not pass over even the individual original sins of little ones, because in those same 'many' these too are included.

II. 115. Julian. Grace, he says, from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16); but you say the little ones are liable to no more than one sin. You see, then, that in their case the praise of grace limps, because it does not find the many sins by whose remission it might be praised; and so what the apostle Paul said, But grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16), is shown to be utterly false in the condition of little ones. Where, then, will you try to leap out from here? Doubtless you will say—for your earlier discourse has laid bare this view of yours—that what the Apostle says, But grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16), is fulfilled in people of mature age, who are convicted of being liable to many offenses through a movement of their own will, but that in little ones justification comes not from many but from one offense.

Augustine. It would not have been difficult for you to understand that it is rather you who withdraw the little ones from this justification, which the Savior confers on his own from the remission of many offenses—you who contend that no sin can be forgiven them—and not we, who, when we say that through one sinner all were sent into condemnation, exclude no age, because even people of greater age have this offense; and likewise, when we say that grace justifies from many offenses, we nonetheless exclude no age, since he who forgives many sins—and under the name of 'many' all are certainly understood—surely passes over none, that is, neither the more numerous sins of the worst, nor the fewer sins of some, nor the single sins of little ones. To see this, then, would not have been difficult, were it not that you begrudge the little ones Christ their physician and absolutely refuse that he should be Jesus to them, with horrible impiety, astonishing blindness, and blasphemous garrulity. And what is more insane than to want the grace of Christ to pertain only to those whose sins are many? For by this reasoning, or rather by this blinding of the mind, you withdraw from this grace not only the little ones, whom you suppose to draw no guilt from their origin, but absolutely everyone who does not have many sins, since you think the Apostle's saying, But grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16), is to be so understood that no one pertains to this grace except one to whom many sins are forgiven. And on this account, since (as you suppose) a little one has no sin, surely when he has grown up and has already begun to sin—I do not say if he has committed few sins, but even if he should perhaps have committed but one—and has come to Christ for baptism, he will in no way pertain to this grace, because he is not sent unto justification from many offenses, but from one. I think the deafness of heart does not so far prevail in you that this great absurdity does not force you to blush. Furthermore, if even one to whom one sin has been forgiven does pertain to this grace, then the Apostle said, Grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16), in such a way that he wanted the sins of the whole people who are justified through it to be understood—some there having more, some fewer, some even single sins, all of which are certainly many.

II. 116. Julian. But by such an exposition—by which you will be able neither to pervert the sense nor to escape—you have nevertheless destroyed not only your tricks but also the figment of that envy which you were inflaming against us. For you boasted that we had grievously offended against the faith, we who say that the grace of Christ must indeed be handed on uniformly, and that his words and institutions must not be shaken, but that it confers equally on all who are imbued by it the gifts of adoption, sanctification, and advancement—yet that it does not find all who approach it in the same state of guilt, but frees from guilt and makes good out of evil those indeed who have sinned by their own will (without whose working there can be no sin), while it pronounces the innocent, happy in their undefiled first beginning, guilty for no work of an evil will, of which it knows there has been no experience in them.

Augustine. O singular madness! Is this to argue, or to rave? When the little ones bear witness by their weeping that they are born into misery—the little ones whom you do not want to have Christ as Jesus—you even call them happy, though you do not admit them into his kingdom; and if you loved that kingdom with Christian love, you would judge it a great misery to be separated from it.

II. 117. Julian. But it makes better out of the good; and it raises all whom it receives to one and the same hill of sanctification, yet does not find all in the same swamp of vices, but finds some in the state of the innocent, others in the pursuits of the guilty. Since, then, we say this—which is fortified by soundness of faith, by the safeguard of reason, and by the dutifulness of understanding, through which the grace of Christ is rightly praised and no guilt is attributed to God—you say that the authority of the sacrament wavers, and with a pestle blunter than any bluntness you assert that the authority of grace is taken away unless the disgrace of calumny is ascribed to it, unless it has perverted the institutions of justice, unless it has fastened the crime of another's conscience on those who have no knowledge of it—in short, that it accomplishes nothing unless it is proclaimed to work uniformly in all.

Augustine. Why have you thought that the acumen—not mine, but that of all the catholic disputants with whom I hold, unshaken, what you try in vain to overthrow—must be compared to a pestle? Or have you begun to feel that it grinds you fragile men to pieces? And yet you, who strive as it were in defense of the justice of God to overthrow what the whole Church of Christ holds concerning the condemnation of unregenerate little ones, will never be able to say why the heavy yoke (See Sir 40:1) upon the little ones is just, if they do not draw original sin; nor do you notice that it is rather you who pervert the institutions of justice—and this of almighty God, by whom or under whom you say this punishment is inflicted, without any merit, on countless thousands of all human beings, that is, of images of God, from the day of their coming forth from their mother's womb. Finally, you will never be able to say why it is just that little ones who die without baptism—through no fault of their own, and very often through no fault even of their own people—should be separated by faithful parents and kinsfolk and not admitted to the kingdom of God, nor counted among the vessels made for honor, like other baptized little ones, but among the vessels made for dishonor (since there is no third kind of vessel (See Rom 9:21)), without any evil merits. For it displeases your heretical prudence that the catholic faith believes that, after all went from the one into condemnation, in some the mercy of grace is shown, and in others the judgment of truth abides, through the unsearchable ways of the Lord, which are all mercy and truth (See Ps 25:10 (24:10)).

II. 118. Julian. All of this, then, by which you were deceiving minds sordid with folly, is manifestly shown to have vanished by your own exposition.

Augustine. It is you who have vanished—you who are unwilling to see or to confess that the remission of sins pertains also to those who have one sin; the little ones do not pertain to this medicinal grace if they have none, the little ones whom you impiously kill, because you deny them the Savior.

II. 119. Julian. For when the Apostle declares, But grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16), and you say that this cannot hold in little ones, but is fulfilled only in those who are already of mature age, because they have added to that one others as well through a movement of their own will, you confess without doubt that the working of grace is different according to the difference of those who come. For in those who use a movement of their own will, it has matter for glorying, because it leads those it has adopted from many crimes unto justification; but in little ones, according to you, more meagerly, more narrowly, more thinly—with no great power, no suitable medicine, no integrity preserved, no security of honor—it promises to take away that one sin, which it ought not even to have imputed, and from this one it tries to send forth unto justification those whom it frees.

Augustine. It has already been answered; you say the same things at length because you cannot find anything to say. When you say that no sin is to be imputed to little ones, you make God unjust, who has laid a heavy yoke upon them from the day of their coming forth from their mother's womb (See Sir 40:1); and even if Scripture did not say this, who is so blind in mind that he does not see that the misery of the human race begins with the weeping of little ones? You also make unjust the law of God, which condemns the soul of an infant not circumcised on the eighth day (See Gen 17:14); and you judge to be vain the precept where a sacrifice for sin is commanded to be offered for a newborn infant (See Lev 12:6-8). But if this guilt of origin is both revealed by holy Scripture and reveals itself, then this sin too is among those many sins from which grace justifies—grace which makes even little ones blessed from this misery, and this not in this present age, which God willed to be wholly penal for human beings ever since he sent the first human beings forth from the happiness of paradise, but in the eternity to come, whence Christ now imparts to his members the pledge of the Holy Spirit (See 2 Cor 1:22).

II. 120. Julian. You have confessed, then, that grace works one way in the greater, another way in the lesser. And do not think any room is left for your reply if you bring in that there is indeed a great difference, but a difference in the remission of sins, so that, even if there is one sin, it nevertheless finds something to remit. But you accomplish nothing by this argument; for it makes no difference in what manner you confess the various effects of one grace, provided you confess that they can be various.

Augustine. It is one thing to speak of the various effects of grace, because holy Scripture too calls the grace of God manifold (See 1 Pet 4:10), and another thing to deny to little ones the grace of the remission of sins, and to contend that in the Church of truth they are exorcized and breathed upon falsely—if they are not rescued from the power of darkness—with great injury to the Creator, if they have no need of the help of the Savior to be rescued from the power of the deceiver.

II. 121. Julian. For I am content with this, which you have been compelled to grant me: that what the Apostle proclaimed in the liberality of grace cannot apply equally to all ages. If you bring forward anything by which you would confirm that remission carries through even in the first age of the newborn, you have nevertheless not adduced this—that there is not fulfilled in little ones that for which the Apostle proclaimed the grace of Christ to be praiseworthy. For when he set the medicine of the mystery before the sin of the first man, whom he taught to be a pattern for those who followed, he said: The judgment from one offense unto condemnation, but grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16). That, then, by which he preferred grace—namely that it works justification from many offenses—does not, even according to you, hold in little ones; and to this, however you resisted, you were drawn: to confess that grace operates unequally in the different ages.

Augustine. It has already been answered; you speak empty things. The grace of God is glorious even when it forgives the single sins of any persons, because those single sins too belong to that multitude of sins from which it justifies people—the grace which saves his people from their sins (Matt 1:21); and you most deservedly do not belong to that people, because you are unwilling that the little ones should belong to it.

II. 122. Julian. And when this was accepted by you, it became apparent that there was no necessity to stir up a calumny against human nature solely for this reason—lest the grace of baptism should rather be said to have various effects according to ages. With this pretext of persuasion removed, if you have any sinews, any talent, any virtue, strive to prove a natural sin, which you see destroyed by reason, by authority, and by equity. For by what view were you deceived, so that you would call the joining of bodies, which God instituted, and the procurer of that very joining—the pleasure of the sexes, which flourishes in human beings as much as in cattle and points to its author as him whom it shows to be the founder of bodies—a work and offshoot of the devil?

Augustine. Blush! You are that praiser of lust. Blush, I say. This lust, which pleases you so much, against which one must fight who does not want, by consenting to its enticement, to commit sin, was not in paradise before sin; either, then, it was not there at all, or it neither preceded nor exceeded the will of the mind. It is not such now; every human being feels this in himself, and you are a human being. Restrain your zeal for resisting and acknowledge the defect from which original sin is drawn. Marriage found this in human beings who are propagated; it did not make it; it uses this by necessity, it uses it well by chastity, and therefore marriages are by no means to be blamed; in cattle this is not an evil, because in them the flesh does not lust against the spirit (See Gal 5:17)—this evil which in human beings must be healed by divine goodness, not praised by human vanity.

II. 123. Julian. But what reason was there for you first to wound innocence with another's crime, and then to try to mingle a matter of pursuits with the seeds?

Augustine. You say the same things by the same things; but without doubt the things you say are empty. The seeds are good by nature, but the seeds too are corrupted, and when they are corrupted, the defects are propagated along with them. Let the form of bodies at least teach you: though their maker is supremely good and corrupted by no defect, nevertheless many defective things are born; and surely, if no one had sinned, no such things would be born in paradise.

II. 124. Julian. Was it to take away from baptism the truth of its proper operation? Was it to ascribe to God, who is wholly equity, who cannot be God without justice, the crime of manifest iniquity?

Augustine. It is rather you who do this, since, if little ones are weighed down by a heavy yoke without the merit of any sin, God is unjust; but because he is not unjust, you are slanderous and blind.

II. 125. Julian. So manifest, I say, that he himself has condemned by the authority of his own law this very form of injustice which you falsely allege clings to his judgments.

Augustine. In his law it is written that the soul of a little one, if it is not circumcised on the eighth day, shall perish from its people (See Gen 17:14); by what merit? Say, if you can; but you cannot at all, and yet by denying original sin you do not keep silent.

II. 126. Julian. What necessity was there, then, for so many blasphemies, if even that which you were embracing did not exist? For though it had no weight, it nevertheless seemed like a kind of plank to which you might cling in so great a shipwreck—a plank you have let go from your defeated arms, late though it be. For (that the matter may grow clear by repetition) you were believed to be a Manichean to be tolerated by certain foolish people, lest the grace of Christ should not seem to have one efficacy in all; to this end you have now, without any compulsion from us, in the course of your own exposition, brought in the claim that the Apostle's sentence, which says, But grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16), can be fulfilled in people of greater age but cannot be fulfilled in little ones, but that there is in little ones something else, briefer, thinner, more needy—which, though you devise it, you nevertheless confess the Apostle by no means said.

Augustine. Let what has been answered to you be read again, that it may be understood that you say nothing and yet cannot keep silent, you glib-tongued man. Grace sends from many offenses unto justification when Jesus saves his people from their sins (See Matt 1:21). In those same 'many' it finds also the single sins of little ones, just as, even if there were no original sins, in those same 'many' it would find also the single sins of older people beginning to sin—to whom, when they come to the baptism of Christ, it would in no way be said: You cannot now be baptized, because you do not yet have many offenses; for grace sends from many offenses unto justification. For they would most truly answer: In the multitude of offenses from which grace justifies, our single offenses too are included, where some have more, some fewer, which together with our single ones are all many.

II. 127. Julian. Therefore, even according to you, in adoption the effect of grace is indeed equal through all ages; but in the remission of sins there is not one and the same measure in all. But thus far I have acted all too sparingly and patiently.

Augustine. If you speak so many things while speaking sparingly—so that you pursue one book of mine, and not even the whole of it, with your eight books—then your sparingness is exceedingly lavish and luxuriant. But if thus far you have acted sparingly, why, in crying out so much against the truth, have you not spared your own soul?

II. 128. Julian. Having sent ahead my argument, that is, content to prove that you too—you who were stirring up the greatest sedition against us by this means—say that the remission of sins does not have one and the same account in all; so that, even if you could persuade us of this one natural sin, it would nevertheless necessarily be clear that the state of those approaching grace is not always one, and that this saying of the Apostle, From many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16), is fulfilled only in the adult age and not also in the first age.

Augustine. According to your empty talk it is not fulfilled even in the adult age, since many adults have single sins—even if, according to you, they do not have original ones—who happen to come to baptism when they have begun to sin; and some have even very few, yet not many; therefore they will not pertain to this grace of Christ, since it justifies from many offenses, which these do not have. And if anyone holds this view, he is ineffably out of his mind. Acknowledge Christ justifying from many offenses and saving his people, and understanding that in those same 'many' the few and the single sins of any persons can be reckoned, do not withdraw the lot of the little ones from this people; believe that Jesus is necessary even to them—he who is not so called except because he saves his people (See Matt 1:21), among whom certainly are the little ones too, from their sins.

II. 129. Julian. But now I assert, in consequence, that the Apostle suspected nothing of the Manichean transmission; for he showed that it would amount to a grave injury to the mysteries if they were compared in every respect to sins—that is, if grace did not profit more efficaciously than the pattern of fault had harmed. The Teacher of the Gentiles, then, placed the greatest dignity of the Christian faith in this, that he affirmed it surpasses offenses; for this reason it was his concern to set the effect of the medicine before the old diseases.

Augustine. This medicine you deny to little ones, whom by a false and hostile defense you contend to be saved; but their God, who out of the mouth of infants and sucklings perfects the praise (See Ps 8:2 (8:3); Matt 21:16) of his medicine, surely destroys you as well, who apply to them a hostile defense, since he destroys the enemy and the defender (See Ps 8:2 (8:3)).

II. 130. Julian. Thence he showed grace to be praiseworthy, if there agreed with it in every respect what he said: The judgment from one unto condemnation, but grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16). By what license, then, will you defraud the grace of Christ of that praise by which the Apostle wanted it proclaimed, so as to cast down the title of dignity by which alone the vessel of election (See Acts 9:15) wanted his honor to be acknowledged?

Augustine. This does not reach the little ones, if according to you they are bound by no offense; but because they are bound, surely grace—justifying the multitude of its faithful from many offenses—reaches also to the healing of their one offense, so that out of the mouth of infants it may destroy the mouths of the deceiving enemies and defenders.

II. 131. Julian. He said, Grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16); he set the abundance of the medicine before the efficacy of sin; and this sense agrees with the teaching of the catholics, who understand that in those the remission of sins takes place in whom many sins can be detected—that is, sins drawn in by a movement of their own will—but in those in whom this movement of their own will does not exist, that is, in little ones, there are no fewer sins than there are many.

Augustine. No medicine of the Savior, then, pertains to them, and Christ is not Jesus to them; and you, who say this, dare to be called a Christian. Then, if (as you define it) the remission of sins takes place in those in whom many sins can be detected—since you so understand what the Apostle says, Grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16)—do those not pertain to the remission of sins who, according to you, not having original sin, come to the washing of regeneration with single or few sins? See what you say, and do you not blush, do you not shudder, do you not keep silent? But if people who are beginning to sin and do not yet have many offenses nevertheless receive grace that justifies from many offenses, why are you unwilling to reckon in those same 'many' also the single sins of any persons—for no other reason than to separate the little ones impiously from it, so that the ruin of the worst iniquity falls upon you, since you say that even older people, first beginning to sin and not yet having many but only single or few sins, are estranged from it?

II. 132. Julian. The Apostle, then, where he set grace before sin, fortifies our teaching.

Augustine. On the contrary, he overturns your teaching, because this grace, which he set before sin, justifies from many offenses and therefore, pertaining to the little ones along with the great, passes over none of the little ones, since it forgives all the sins of all its own—that is, of the little ones and the great.

II. 133. Julian. Now you produce the place where he made grace equal to sin, so that, since your faith cannot grasp the remedies as set before the wounds, it may at least grasp them reduced within the narrow limits of a comparison they do not exceed; but if you should find this written anywhere, it will nevertheless be established that Paul shrinks from such a view; and, that the Apostle's whole meaning may shine forth in brief, he says: Grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16). But not even according to you do the little ones have many offenses, who according to the Apostle have none.

Augustine. Not even according to you do those have many offenses who have just begun to sin; and yet you cannot deny that they pertain to this grace, which justifies from many offenses, when they come to baptism. The many offenses, then, are those of the whole people, among whom are the little ones too; and when grace, justifying from many offenses, comes to this people of the city of God, it finds there both the many offenses of some, and the few of others, and the single offenses of the little ones—which together are certainly all many, and by their multitude refute your many and empty words. But if, according to the Apostle (as you suppose), the little ones have no offense, whence then are they, according to the Apostle, dead? For even according to you Christ died for them too: For one died for all; therefore all have died, and he died for all (2 Cor 5:14-15). Julian, it is not Augustine who said this, but the Apostle—nay, Christ himself through his Apostle; restrain yourself from empty talk, yield to God.

II. 134. Julian. It is established here, therefore, that the Teacher of the Gentiles was not arguing about the newborn, but about those who already use a movement of their own will.

Augustine. Sleep off the drunkenness of contention, wake up, and understand both the offense of one and the one offense, of which it is said, For if by the offense of one many have died (Rom 5:15); for these 'many' are the very 'all' of whom he says in another place, As in Adam all die (1 Cor 15:22); and there you will see the little ones too, because, even by your own confession, Christ died for them as well. Surely, when the Apostle had said that one died for all, he immediately showed what necessarily followed, saying: Therefore all have died, and he died for all (2 Cor 5:14-15).

II. 135. Julian. And now what the Apostle added—As through the offense of one upon all unto condemnation, so also through the righteousness of one upon all human beings unto justification (Rom 5:18)—bestows as much help on us as it works crashing ruin on your teaching. For setting all on opposite sides, between which words there can be no conjunction, he refers us to the custom of the Scriptures, so that we may understand that all is wont to be said for 'many.' For at the very front of the words there is a great barbarity; for how do all come unto justification, if all have gone on unto condemnation? Or how all unto punishment, if all are caught up unto glory? The universality of one side excludes the place of the other.

Augustine. Then where it is said, in whom all have sinned (Rom 5:12), are 'many' to be understood: 'not all'? But if this is so, you are forced to say that not all sinners sinned by imitating that one man, but many; and if you say that for this reason not all but many sinned by imitating him—because many, not all, sinned—wishing those who did not sin to be understood as the little ones, you will be answered that then neither did the little ones die in him, and on this account Christ did not die for them, because he died only for the dead, as the Apostle proclaims; and so you will both come against your own self and utterly separate from the grace of Christ the little ones for whom you are going to say Christ did not die. Consequently you will also deny that they are to be baptized in Christ. For whoever of us have been baptized in Christ, as the same Apostle says, have been baptized in his death (Rom 6:3); but those are baptized in the death of Christ for whom Christ died. In no way, then, will you estrange the little ones from original sin, unless you at the same time make them estranged from the grace of the baptism of Christ. But in that these two things seem to you to be contrary to each other—that all go into condemnation through Adam and all again into justification through Christ—you are altogether mistaken; for no human being is drawn to the damnation from which men are freed through the washing of regeneration except through Adam, and no human being is freed from this damnation except through Christ; therefore on both sides all are spoken of, because no one comes to the damnation of generation except through the one, and no one to the life of regeneration except through the other. And on this account the universality of one side does not exclude the place of the other, because from those very ones who die universally in Adam, Christ gives life to whom he wills. These things, then, will not seem to you contrary to each other, if you are not contrary to yourself.

II. 136. Julian. But that here too you may notice how strongly we are fortified, understand the place of the one who wounds from the place of the one who heals. If Christ saved all, let Adam too be supposed to have harmed all.

Augustine. Surely it is not the case that, because Christ frees from this damnation whom he wills, therefore not all are sent into damnation through Adam? Christ too is said to free all for this reason, because no one frees anyone except him, just as he is said to enlighten every human being (See John 1:9), because no one enlightens anyone if he does not.

II. 137. Julian. If Christ changed the functions of the genitals, let Adam be believed to have perverted them; if Christ corrected anything in the senses of the flesh, let it be reckoned that Adam's fault disturbed them; if Christ made his medicine pass through the line of descent, let it be said that Adam transmitted the offense through generation.

Augustine. This has already been answered; but hear briefly even now. If you were a catholic Christian, it would be apparent to you both that Adam transmits the offense by generating and that Christ forgives it by regenerating; Adam generates carnally, Christ regenerates spiritually; do not, then, look in both for a line of descent of the flesh—a line of descent which, if you do not contend but attend, does not pertain to spiritual regeneration. Against the weakness of the flesh the grace of Christ now establishes a contest; afterward it will perfect its healing, of which future and perpetual healing it has now given the Holy Spirit as a pledge (See 2 Cor 1:22), through whom love is poured out in our hearts (See Rom 5:5), so that meanwhile the weakness of the flesh left for the struggle may not conquer us.

II. 138. Julian. But if, with all these things abiding in that order which they receive from nature, the will is drawn to faith by exhortations, signs, examples, and the promise of rewards or punishments, without the inducement of necessity, and is healed through institutions, through mysteries, through gifts—not oppressed but awaited, but free, but called forth—then it is apparent, even if the whole world with one spirit, whether roaring or raging, resists, that it was the will of each individual, not his birth, that was stained by the imitation of sin.

Augustine. Whichever way you turn, you will not estrange the little ones from original sin unless you deny that they are dead; and if you do this, you will at the same time deny that Christ died for them; but if, lest you deny this, you confess that the little ones are dead, then surely you will not deny that they died in Adam—or if not there, say where.

II. 139. Julian. Although I have dealt all too gently; for even if, from the time he came, Christ were teaching all human beings that he had both blocked the road of death and bestowed perpetual life, so that absolutely no one, from the day on which the Word was made flesh (John 1:14), would either slip into sin or fear punishment for sin, nevertheless that condition of the first iniquity would not be one that the liberality of the latest age would teach, since God can and is wont to come to the aid of those who do not deserve it, with the praise of his clemency, but cannot punish those who do not sin without the overthrow of justice.

Augustine. Because, then, the little ones are punished with a heavy yoke from the day of their coming forth from their mother's womb (See Sir 40:1), acknowledge the just judge and confess original sin. For to punish those who have the merit of no sin, as you yourself confess, cannot be done without the overthrow of justice.

II. 140. Julian. Consider, then, what the whole argument has accomplished. If the grace of Christ and the fault of Adam were to be reckoned equal in their diverse effects, so that they were at least equal in the number of their operations though they differed in the kind of operation, it would have to be taught that grace profited as many as the fault had harmed, so that the equity and the weights of that balancing by which they were weighed might hold. The medicine, then, ought to have come to the aid of absolutely those very places and those very parts in which the disease had lodged—that is, if the ancient crime had brought about anything in the movements of the genitals, in the senses of those who couple, in the obscenity of the members, in the unhappiness of the newborn, it should have conferred its remedies by the alteration of these things we have named; otherwise it is a great proof of a feeble art, profiting nothing, both not to have found the seat of the disease and to have applied inert poultices to wills that were languishing and to natural powers that were overthrown.

Augustine. It has already been answered, when we spoke of the distinction between the present age and the age to come. For here we receive, through the pledge of the Spirit, the strength both to fight and to conquer; but there we will enjoy ineffable and everlasting peace, without any enemy external or internal. Whoever, then, wants to have here all the things that are to be had there, shows that he does not have faith.

II. 141. Julian. But the truth has shown amid these things that, even if the medicine poured out in a general way profited movements and mortals—even those who had merited it by no zeal and no intention—nevertheless fault would not forthwith harm the newborn, who could bring no assent to it. And on this account, even if the reckoning of grace and of sin were equal, it was nevertheless clear that not even then would a balancing of this kind hold to the point that anyone should be proved guilty by being born.

Augustine. In that heavy yoke by which even the little ones are weighed down, how is God just, if no one is born guilty?

II. 142. Julian. But now, since the Apostle not only did not set grace after fault but even set it before, saying that the benefits abounded unto far more than the losses crept in upon, while according to the opinion of transmission it would be established that the sins harmed far more than grace profited, it has been irrefutably proved that the apostle Paul thought nothing of transmission, but that by his sentence the Traducianists, along with the Manichean masters, were equally destroyed.

Augustine. The apostle Paul did not say, 'The benefits abounded unto far more than the losses crept in upon'; he did not say this; you are utterly deceived, if you yourself do not deceive. For he said that grace abounded far more unto many—not unto more, but abounded more. For in comparison with those who perish, few are those who are saved; but without comparison with those who perish, even these few are many. But why those should be more than these is something the counsel of God wills to be known by many, yet to be known by only very few human beings, or by none at all. For the Almighty could refrain from creating those whom, as foreknowing all things, he could not be ignorant would be evil, were it not that the supremely good one could make the best use even of the many evil; whereby the Apostle taught us something, namely, that he might show his wrath and his power in those whom, in much patience, he brought as vessels of wrath, and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon the vessels of mercy (See Rom 9:22-23). But the Pelagians are unwilling to believe that in one man the whole mass was corrupted and the whole condemned; from which corruption and condemnation grace alone heals and frees. For why will the righteous man scarcely be saved (See 1 Pet 4:18)? Is it labor for God to free the righteous? God forbid! But that it may be shown by what merit the nature was condemned, not even the Almighty himself wills to free easily from so great an evil; on which account both sins are downhill and righteousness laborious, except to those who love; but the love that makes these to be lovers is from God (See 1 John 4:7).

II. 143. Julian. But, because I have been rather long here, let us proceed to the rest.

Augustine. You say this as though you were going to be shorter elsewhere, when most garrulously you inquire how you may heap clouds of emptiness upon the most manifest words of the Apostle.

II. 144. Julian. But he said all unto condemnation through Adam, and all unto justification of life through Jesus Christ, although Christ certainly does not transfer to life all those who die in Adam, but he said 'all' and 'all' because, just as without Adam none come to death, so without Christ none come to life. As we say of a teacher of letters, if he is the only one in a city: 'This man teaches all here their letters'—not because all learn, but because none learn except from him. And those whom he had called 'all' he afterward called 'many,' signifying nevertheless the same ones as both all and many. For just as through the disobedience of one many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one many will be made righteous (Rom 5:19). Let him still ask through what sin is found in a little one; the holy Pages answer him: Through one man sin entered into the world (Rom 5:12). We confess indeed that the pages of the Apostle are holy, for no other reason than because, agreeing with reason, piety, and faith, they instruct us both to believe God to be of inviolable equity, and to defend his works as good and honorable, and to vindicate for his precepts moderation, prudence, and justice.

Augustine. The very equity of God in the little ones convicts you, since it is a great iniquity if even the little ones are weighed down by a heavy yoke without any merit and bond of sin.

II. 145. Julian. And on this account, to deny that anyone can be condemned for another's sin, to deny that any sin passes to posterity by the condition of nature, and to believe and assert that a human being, begotten of the fruitfulness instituted by God, is dealt with by the just laws of free choice, so that he may avoid all that is evil and practice all that is good, and not (as you suppose) reckon that the love and necessity of crimes have clung to the causes of his substance, that is, to the seeds themselves, and not accept that so foolish, so insane, so impious a sentence is contained—to the disgrace, that is, of nature, of reason, and of God—in the volume of the Apostle, because he said that through one man sin entered into this world and death passed to all human beings (Rom 5:12), since he did not let this remain long in darkness, adding that those whom he had called 'all' must be understood as 'many,' who had sinned by imitation, not by generation (See Rom 5:19).

Augustine. Can you say that not all the nations were promised to the seed of Abraham, where it is said, In your seed shall all the nations be blessed (Gen 22:18), because he called the same nations also 'many,' where it is read, I have made you a father of many nations (Gen 17:5)? Can you, I say, say this, and even in that passage of Scripture foretelling what we see fulfilled in the facts themselves, contradict it with your empty talk and forbid us to understand, where all the nations are promised, anything other than all the nations? For by your dialectic you teach that all is set down and to be understood not for 'all' but for 'many,' which are not all. But if, where 'many' are spoken of, not all can indeed be understood, yet, where 'all' are spoken of and truly are all, they are rightly also called 'many,' lest those very 'all' be understood as few—as those holy men whom the burning fire was forbidden to scorch were 'all' praising God amid the harmless flames, and yet those very 'all' were few, since they were three (See Dan 3:23-24)—what force has your argument, by which you are unwilling for 'all' to be understood as all, because those same ones are called 'many'? Since those who truly are all are sometimes called 'many' as well, so that they may be distinguished from those who are 'all' in such a way that they are nevertheless few. For a person's hairs, being all, are also many; but his fingers, even being all, are few.

II. 146. Julian. Finally he unraveled the whole of what he had done, saying: For just as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one many will be made righteous (Rom 5:19), so that, just as no one merits the rewards of virtue except one who has striven after them—after the incarnation of Christ, however—by imitation of his holiness, so no one is held a transgressor in Adam except one who has offended, by imitation of the first man, in the transgression of the law, by which the knowledge of sin was made.

Augustine. This is the hidden and horrible venom of your heresy, that you want the grace of Christ to be in his example, not in his gift, saying that people become righteous by imitating him, not by being drawn, through the supply of the Holy Spirit, to imitate him—the Spirit whom he most richly poured out upon his own; and, as if watchfully, you add, after his incarnation, however, on account, that is, of the ancients, whom you say were righteous without his grace, for the reason that they did not have his example. What, then, if even after the incarnation of Christ some people, not yet having heard the Gospel, set before themselves the examples of earlier righteous men and lived righteously? What do you do? Where do you find yourselves? Do these, then, really not merit the rewards of virtue? If, then, righteousness comes from the imitation of the righteous, Christ died in vain (See Gal 2:21), because there were righteous men even before him whom those who wished to be righteous could imitate. And what of the fact that the Apostle does not say, 'Be imitators of Christ, as I also am,' but says, Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ (1 Cor 11:1)? Did he, then, want himself to be to them in place of Christ? Do you see what evils follow you, when, the Apostle setting forth Adam and Christ, you want to oppose imitation to imitation, not regeneration to generation?

II. 147. Julian. But the grace of Christ reaches even to the innocent, to whom the fault of Adam did not reach, on account of which he watchfully impressed: Much more the grace of God and the gift of one man, Jesus Christ, abounded unto more (Rom 5:15), so that that earlier equating may indicate imitation in the opposing pursuits of that age which uses reason, while this preferring, in the bounty of grace, may approve the innocent as consecrated and advanced. Since this is so, perceive that the Apostle stands in your way, not mine; recognize that he bears arms against you, the Apostle who, by this one point alone, if the rest were lacking, would vehemently overturn your teaching and that of your teacher Faustus, by whom you were dyed as if by a first hand, because he says that through the disobedience of one many, not all, were made sinners, and that through the obedience of one not all but many were made righteous. For, that it may be diligently suggested to the reader's understanding how this saying opposes you, the Apostle declares that not all were made sinners through Adam; you say that absolutely all pertain through Adam, by natural sin, to the right of the devil; it cannot be doubted that there is a great battle between you and the Apostle.

Augustine. He says 'all' and the same 'many'; in saying 'many' he does not deny 'all,' lest he be contrary to himself, as either your wickedness deceives or your blindness is deceived. For since the Apostle said both, both 'all' and 'many,' I have shown that these two do not battle each other, because those very 'all' are for that reason also called 'many,' since 'all' are sometimes also called 'few'; but you, by saying 'not all' of those whom the Apostle called 'all,' are without doubt convicted of being contrary to the Apostle.

II. 148. Julian. For when you and Mani say, 'All are by nature sinners,' while the Apostle says, 'Many, not all, are sinners,' he removes the accusation from the seeds—an accusation that is armed against morals—and destroys original sin. And, to press this very point we have made: the Apostle prescribes that 'many' must be understood as made sinners through the disobedience of Adam, and 'many' made righteous through the obedience of Christ, showing surely that those who are righteous are distinguished from those who are guilty; do you, because with shamelessness you strive to argue, prove a natural sin from these sayings? For when you say that all are born guilty through Adam and on this account pertain to the devil, but that afterward some are freed from there through Christ, you do not hold what the Apostle holds, who says that not all were made sinners through Adam, but many.

Augustine. Since it is not contrary, as we have already shown, that the same be 'many' who are 'all,' therefore the Apostle calls those whom he calls 'many' the same as 'all'; but it is not the Apostle who says 'not all,' but you, and on this account you contradict the Apostle. But what the Apostle says is true; therefore what you say is false. And as to what you said above—that the Apostle watchfully impressed, Much more the grace of God and the gift of one man, Jesus Christ, abounded unto more, wanting it understood that 'more' was said for the reason that his grace reaches to the little ones, to whom the imitation of the first man does not pertain—either a faulty manuscript has lied to you, or you yourself are lying, or you have been deceived by some false or deceiving man, or by forgetfulness. For the Apostle does not say 'more' but many (Rom 5:15). Look at the Greek manuscript and you will find pollous, not pleionas. He said, then, that grace abounded much more unto many—not unto more, that is, not unto more numerous, as we have already shown—since, if he had said 'more,' on account of the little ones whom grace holds though the imitation of the first man does not hold them, he would have said something false and would be like you. For if all the imitators of Christ after his incarnation, with the regenerated little ones added, are compared with the sinners whom you want all, on account of free choice, to pertain to the imitation of the first man—sinning by will from Adam himself to the end of the age—it plainly appears which of them are the more numerous by far, so that you are conquered even by your own falsehood.

II. 149. Julian. For if he had thought anything such as you, he ought surely to have said: Through the disobedience of one all were made sinners, but through the obedience of Christ some of these returned to righteousness. For he would have had to speak in just this way, if he had wanted understood what you invent. Yet with this sentence he could not have asserted that other thing—that the grace of Christ profited far more than the iniquity of Adam had injured. Even, therefore, if we were utterly ignorant of the custom by which through the disobedience of one man many were said to be made sinners, it would nevertheless remain firm that this does not pertain to original sin, which the Apostle had impressed as applying to many, not to all.

Augustine. About 'many' and 'all' it has already been answered. And what wonder is it that the Apostle did not speak in the way you say he ought to have spoken if he were saying what we say? Since even, according to you, if the Apostle had said that through the offense of one so many were made sinners that those same 'many' could not be understood as all, but only those who sinned by their own will in imitation of the first man, he did not say that through the obedience of Christ some of these were justified—which, however, is true. What, then, is this that you say—that if the Apostle had thought anything such as we do, he ought to have said: Through the disobedience of one all were made sinners, but through the obedience of Christ some of these returned to righteousness? As though you denied that some of the transgressors of the law—and you contend that only such sinners pertain to the likeness of Adam's transgression—were converted to righteousness through the obedience of Christ. We too, then, can say to you: If the Apostle had thought anything such as you, he ought surely to have said: Through the disobedience of one many indeed, not all, were made sinners, but even of these some returned to righteousness through the obedience of Christ; or he would speak even much more openly, if he had thought anything such, so as to say: Many indeed of the Jews were made sinners through the disobedience of one man, who, having received the law, sinned by a like transgression, but even some of these the obedience of Christ justified. But if his not speaking thus—as I said he ought to have spoken if he thought what you do—did not prejudice your case, then surely it ought not to prejudice mine either that he did not speak in the way you say he ought to have spoken if he thought what I do. Since, then, the Apostle spoke as he judged he ought to speak, it must be seen which of us agrees with him: whether I, who say that what he says is true—Through the offense of one upon all human beings unto condemnation (Rom 5:18)—and that what he says is true—Through the disobedience of one many were made sinners (Rom 5:19)—since it is not contradictory that those who are many should be all, and those who are all should be many; or you, who say: Where he says 'many,' they are many; where he says 'all,' they are not all.

II. 150. Julian. Your inexperience or your shamelessness, then, being laid bare—which either does not care or is not able to set forth what is said—and it being shown, by the light of that very truth which Christ called himself to be (See John 14:6), that nothing of the apostle Paul's sayings coheres with the Manichean, that is, your, madness, let us now give our effort to the exposition, so that, as it has been shown how Paul cannot be understood, so it may become clear how he both ought and can be understood.

Augustine. So forsaken are you by the truth, and so unable to find what to say against the manifest words of the Apostle, that what so many holy and illustrious Doctors understood in them—who learned and taught this in the catholic Church (for, having a sound understanding, they could not understand anything else in such manifest words)—you say is the Manicheans', which you are forced to confess those men were not, however much you rave with the venom of the Pelagian plague.

II. 151. Julian. And so, writing to the Romans at that time when the intermingling of the Gentiles had begun and therefore the Churches were being filled both from Jews and from Gentiles, he composes the disturbance of both peoples, impressing that the Gentiles cannot wash away their impiety—by which they had changed the glory of God into the likeness of the image of man and of birds and of four-footed beasts and of serpents—by ignorance of the law, since by the force of inborn reason they could, even if not the rite of the Jewish ceremonies, yet recognize God, who becomes known by his works though secret in the depth of his substance, from the things that were made by him. The standard of the law, moreover, as far as it regards uprightness of life, each one's own affection suggested to him, namely that he should bring nothing of such a kind upon his neighbor as he would not wish to suffer; and therefore he convicts the profanity of the Gentiles of being able to be charged by the best right, even if not through the law, yet through that justice which founded the law, and by whose judgment those who sinned without the law will also perish without the law. But the Jews, whose concern it was the more, since they were swelling most of all in contempt of the Gentiles—claiming for themselves honor from the purifications of the law and on this account reckoning that the grace of Christ, forgiving sins, had not profited them as it had the Gentiles, since they had avoided those sins by that institution of the law—he shatters with the great force of his disputations, alleging that so much the more was conferred on them through forgiveness, the more they had sinned after the admonition of the law without any ignorance; whereby he proves that they were guilty and could vehemently have been condemned in the examination of justice, before whom those who sinned in the law will be judged through the law: For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified (Rom 2:13). Setting forth this purpose, then, and disputing throughout the whole book, he both represses the pride of the Jews and takes away from the Gentiles the excuse of vanity, so as to teach that the medicine of Christ profited both peoples equally.

Augustine. This medicine you deny to the little ones, whom the law itself commanded to be circumcised on the eighth day, prefiguring his grace, whose resurrection the Lord's day—that is, the eighth day after the seventh, the Sabbath—displayed; and you are neither able nor willing to attend to the fact that a little one dying without the grace of Christ will perish in just the way it was said that the soul of an uncircumcised little one perishes from its people (See Gen 17:14)—a perishing whose merit you cannot find, so long as you say that the little ones do not draw the sin of origin.

II. 152. Julian. He both forgave the crimes of the will, from which they had been free to abstain, and bestowed the glory of blessed eternity on those corrected by the imitation of himself, who was the pattern and standard of the virtues. Since, then, he addresses both nations according to the occasion and right of his volume, nevertheless in these passages of which the question treats he engages hand to hand altogether with the Israelites, who dared so far to despise those coming from the stock of the uncircumcised as to affirm that they could not, even by the suffrage of faith, pass over into their fellowship; against which haughtiness he unfolds the beginnings of the Jewish people and, in the very root of circumcision, shows that the foreskin is not of such moment that either its retention makes men unjust or its removal makes them just.

Augustine. When the Apostle was saying these things, he was treating not of circumcision or the foreskin, but of the precepts of the law, among which is also You shall not covet (Rom 7:7; Exod 20:17), which he himself also recalled. Why do you turn your back? You ruin the skilled while you spread darkness over the unskilled.

II. 153. Julian. Not through the law, therefore, was the promise to Abraham, that he should be heir of the world, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, the promise is destroyed. For the law works wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there transgression. Therefore it is of faith, that according to grace the promise may be firm to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written: For I have made you a father of many nations, before God whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which are not, as those which are; who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was said: So shall your seed be; and being not weak in faith, he did not consider his own body now dead, when he was nearly a hundred years old, nor the dead womb of Sarah; in the promise of God also he did not hesitate through distrust, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, most fully knowing that whatever he has promised he is able also to do; on which account it was also reckoned to him unto righteousness (Rom 4:13-22).

Augustine. Are you not ashamed to recall these things, you who attack the grace by which these promises are fulfilled? For you speak against God when you say: We do what he promised he himself would do. For in Isaac, who was promised to Abraham as a son, those were prefigured—not those who make themselves righteous, but those whom God himself was going to make. Whence he says to the whole Church through the Prophet: For I am the Lord who makes you (See Isa 43:15). On which account they are also called sons of the promise, the Apostle saying most openly: But the word of God cannot fail; for not all who are of Israel, these are Israel, nor because they are the seed of Abraham are all sons, but: In Isaac shall your seed be called; that is: Not they who are the sons of the flesh, these are the sons of God, but the sons of the promise are reckoned as the seed (Rom 9:6-8). What, therefore, God promised, God does. This whole matter, then, just as it builds up those whose hope is in God, so it overthrows those who trust in their own power (See Ps 49:6 (48:7)); and on this account, just as it builds up the catholic faith, so it overthrows the Pelagian error.

II. 154. Julian. How wholly hostile this passage is to your opinion was both argued in the first work and, if anything must be recalled from there, will be discussed. But now let it be noticed that the promise which was made to Abraham on account of the reward of his faith—in which it is said that he was made the father of many nations—showed that he must not be defended as the begetter of one people only, who is foretold as the father of many nations, and that he did not so receive the reward of his belief that he should be thought to exclude others who likewise believe from the fellowship of the reward. It is not written, he says, only on account of him, that it was reckoned to him, but also on account of us, to whom it will be reckoned, who believe in him who raised Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead, who was handed over on account of our offenses and rose again on account of our justification (Rom 4:23-25).

Augustine. Tell us, O empty men—not defenders, but inflaters, of free choice—you who, being ignorant of the righteousness of God and wishing to establish your own, have not been subject to the righteousness of God (See Rom 10:3); tell us, I say: If the nations had been unwilling to believe and to live righteously, would the promise that was made to Abraham have been made void? No, you will say. Therefore, that Abraham might obtain the enlargement of his seed as the wage of his faith, the will of the nations was prepared by the Lord, and that they should be willing—what they could also have been unwilling—was brought about by him who is able to do what he promised.

II. 155. Julian. Since, then, he was declared a witness of faith while still in the foreskin, and on account of his wage obtained the enlargement of his seed, by what rule, he says, do you, O Jew, think that the Gentiles do not pertain to the fellowship of righteousness, who restore the faith of Abraham by believing the like things concerning the powers of God?

Augustine. You speak well against yourselves, because surely, if they believe concerning the powers of God, they do not, like you, trust in their own power to be justified—that is, to be made righteous—but in the power of him who justifies the ungodly (See Rom 4:5).

II. 156. Julian. Why do you think, he says, that the nations cannot be led to the lineage of Abraham without the consecrations of the law, since it is established that the promise which was made to Abraham was earlier than the law, and that it was bestowed not by ablutions but by morals?

Augustine. These morals, which without doubt you want understood as good—if, as you suppose, a man makes them for himself—God, foreknowing, ought to have foretold, not promised, so that it should not be said of him in this matter, What he has promised he is able also to do, but: What he foreknew, he is able also to foretell, or: He is able also to show. But when men say, 'What God promised, we do,' they make themselves powerful by their importunity, and him a liar by their arrogance.

II. 157. Julian. For if they who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, the promise is destroyed (Rom 4:14). This saying, unless it is understood, raises the greatest question; for without doubt he says that those are 'of the law' whom he had above called 'of circumcision,' who, he knew, so arrogated to themselves that they thought no one besides themselves was taken up to the dignity of Abraham's seed; and this he had gathered by his disputation, namely that, since not only those of the circumcision but also those of the foreskin who wished to follow the footsteps of Abraham's faith were not undeservedly reckoned sons of Abraham.

Augustine. What if they had been unwilling—would the promise be made void? I urge that you understand to what grace you are enemies by denying that God works the wills in the minds of human beings—not so that those who are unwilling believe, which is most absurdly said, but so that from unwilling they become willing—not as a human teacher does, by teaching and exhorting, by threatening and promising in the word of God, which is done in vain unless God works within and to will, by his unsearchable ways. For when a teacher plants and waters with words, we can say: Perhaps the hearer believes, perhaps he does not believe; but when God gives the increase (See 1 Cor 3:6-7), without doubt he believes and makes progress. See what difference there is between the law and the promise, between the letter and the spirit.

II. 158. Julian. Since, then, he had above accomplished this—that we should understand the Gentiles could not be excluded from the fellowship of righteousness, but are numbered, through the same faith, with the sons of circumcision in the stock of Abraham—he now brought in that no one of the circumcision pertains to that promise which was given to Abraham; but this, unless it is rightly understood, is self-contradictory. So when he says, For if they who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is destroyed (Rom 4:14), he did not declare this so as to mean that no one of the Jews is believed to become an heir of the ancient promise through faith; rather, a word is lacking whose place understanding fills—that those who are of the law are not the only heirs—as if it had been said in this way: For if they who are of the law are the only heirs, faith is made void. For the foreskin would truly seem to be excluded, if the inheritance of blessing reached none except those who were of the circumcision. The custom of the Scriptures, therefore, must be understood, that what is not said is not thereby straightway denied, so that by the work of understanding the gaps in the words are filled in.

Augustine. Thus do those understand who do not understand. Why do you not attend, I ask, to the fact that they are not heirs from the law for this reason—because the law works wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there transgression (Rom 4:15)—but heirs from the promise for this reason, because what God promises, he himself does? For one who thinks he fulfills the precepts of the law by the choice of his own will, without the spirit of grace, wants to establish his own righteousness, not to receive the righteousness of God. For why does the same Apostle say, That I may be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of faith, the righteousness which is from God (Phil 3:9)? Why does he call his own the righteousness which is of the law, and reprove that righteousness, but call not his own, but from God, the righteousness which is of faith? Is the law not from God? Who but an unbeliever would say this? But he calls his own that righteousness of the law in which a man thinks the law sufficient for himself to do the divine commands, trusting in his own power. But he says that the righteousness of faith is from God for this reason, because God apportions to each one a measure of faith (See Rom 12:3); and it pertains to faith to believe that God works in us both to will (See Phil 2:13), as he was working in that seller of purple, whose understanding he had opened so that she might attend to the things spoken by Paul (See Acts 16:14). And on this account not even the Jews themselves who believed in Christ—among whom Paul too was—are to be called heirs from the law at all, but rather from the promise. For it was said for this reason, In Isaac shall your seed be called, because not they who are the sons of the flesh, these are the sons of God, but the sons of the promise are reckoned as the seed (Rom 9:7-8).

II. 159. Julian. And so the Apostle gathered his argument in this way: If there were no heirs of the blessing except those who are of the law, so that the foreskin was established as excluded, then it followed that no one who was of the law would be deprived of the blessing—that is, if circumcision were of such force that without it faith would be of no force, then, just as it was clear the Gentiles were rejected, so it was proved that no one of the Jews could ever go to perdition.

Augustine. How did it follow, O gross dialectician? How did it follow, if there were no heirs of the blessing except those who are of the law, that no one who was of the law would be deprived of the blessing? Surely, because no one is an heir unless he is baptized, are all who are baptized therefore heirs? But I have said this not because the question debated between us lies there, but to show how acute you yourself are, who say that I am blunter than a pestle.

II. 160. Julian. But now, since you confess that transgressors in the law are not heirs of the blessing, because the law works wrath for such, it is established that that promise applies not to circumcision but to faith. The promise, moreover, would be destroyed if no one were righteous apart from the law, since the law, brought in four hundred and thirty years after the promise (See Gal 3:17), would show that Abraham himself, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the saints in the interval were without the blessing, which could not have been conferred on anyone apart from the law.

Augustine. On the contrary, the promise would be destroyed if anyone were righteous from the law. For if they who are of the law are heirs, faith is emptied, the promise is made void; for the law works wrath (Rom 4:14-15)—to this end, surely, that the grace of God may be sought to escape his wrath.

II. 161. Julian. Since this is manifestly false—for under the law sinners merited punishment, and before the law righteousness and faith were not deprived of the fruits of their reward—it is established that the glory of that promise pertains not to flesh cut by the knife but to minds illustrious by uprightness; and there follows a sentence like lightning against transmission: For the law, he says, works wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there transgression (Rom 4:15). Persuade us, then, that the law was given to those conceived, that the law can be given to the newborn, so that it can convict them as guilty of transgression. But we believe with the Apostle, whom we defend as having thought nothing against reason, that there is no transgression in that age in which the law could not exist, because where there is no law, neither is there transgression—the law which works wrath not by its own fault, but by the iniquity of those who set sins before virtues.

Augustine. Is not this the law of Christ: Unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:5)? This law you see pertains even to the little ones. But you, rather, say: a little one whose soul perished from its people if it was not circumcised on the eighth day (See Gen 17:14)—of what transgression was it convicted, that it should be punished with such a penalty? Unless, sinning nothing in himself, he was held guilty in the likeness of Adam's transgression, in whom all have sinned (Rom 5:14, 12). These apostolic words, so clear, you try to obscure; these, so straight, you try to bend, with great but empty labor.

II. 162. Julian. The Apostle, then, proved that it was written not only on account of Abraham, that it was reckoned to him unto righteousness, but also on account of us, to whom without doubt it is reckoned when we believe in God, who raised Jesus Christ from the dead, who was handed over, he says, on account of our offenses and rose again on account of our justification (Rom 4:24-25).

Augustine. From this grace you separate the little ones, whom you contend to have no offense drawn from their origin; whence it follows that the benefit by which Christ was handed over on account of our offenses does not pertain to them; and, holding and teaching these things, you dare to call yourselves catholic Christians!

II. 163. Julian. How vehemently he impresses that before God the just judge the sins of others do not harm others—he who, commending the death of Christ, watchfully declares that Christ underwent death on account of our offenses, which were both many and ours, not on account of one and another's, the death of a man long since dead?

Augustine. The disobedience of one man is indeed, not absurdly, called another's offense, because not yet born we had not yet done anything of our own, whether good or evil; but because in him who did this, when he did it, we all were, and so great and such was the offense that by it the whole of human nature was corrupted—which the very misery of the human race, so manifest, sufficiently indicates—this other's offense becomes ours by liable succession. On which account it was said by a catholic Doctor who rightly understood the Apostle: We are all born under sin, whose very origin is in fault (See Ambrose, Defense of the Prophet David 11.56). If you are willing to follow his understanding, and that of the others, his associates in catholic truth, you will not be forced to estrange the little ones from the benefit of his death, who was handed over on account of our offenses (Rom 4:25) and one died for all; where the Apostle cries out what follows: Therefore all have died, and he died for all (2 Cor 5:14-15)—and you cry back: The little ones have not died; cry out also what follows: Therefore he did not die for them, and see whether you yourselves do not lie dead, who deny the death of Christ to the dead, lest they be given life; because, as you suppose, the sin of one man, long since dead, ought not to be imputed to them. Nor do you attend that the first man Adam was so long since dead that nevertheless after him the second man is Christ, although so many thousands of human beings were born between that one and this one. And therefore it is manifest that to that one pertains everyone who is born of him by the succession of descent, just as to this one pertains everyone who is reborn in him by the bounty of grace; whence it comes about that the whole human race is, in a manner, two men, the first and the second.

II. 164. Julian. He, then, who says 'many offenses' suspects nothing of the one offense of the Manicheans, that is, of transmission.

Augustine. But surely, you contentious man, there would be many offenses, which many would have—even single offenses of single persons, offenses of their own will—if they came to the washing of regeneration when they had just begun to sin; and all of these, according to that distortion of yours (not reason), you make estranged from this grace, which justifies from many offenses, since you are unwilling that any persons whose offenses are single should be partakers of it. How much more, then, are they 'many' when there are added those that others have, some more, some fewer—from all of which, nevertheless, this grace frees, of which it is said, From many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16). For there was Adam, and in him we all were; Adam perished, and in him all perished (See Ambrose, On Death as a Good 2.6). Ambrose said this; you slanderously call him a Manichean—he was not a Manichean. Cyprian said that the little ones contract the contagion of the ancient death by their first birth (See Cyprian, Letter 64.5); slanderously—he was not a Manichean. Hilary said that all sinned in the one Adam (See Hilary, Commentary on Matthew 18.6); slanderously—he was not a Manichean; the Church in which these men learned these things, slanderously—it was not Manichean; and because it was catholic and perseveres as catholic, therefore it could not bear you who think and contend against these things; and that it might remain catholic, it fortified the weakness of its little ones by your condemnation.

II. 165. Julian. Being justified, therefore, by faith, let us have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have access into this grace in which we stand, and we glory in the hope of the glory of God (Rom 5:1-2). You who see, he says, that justification has been conferred through the pardon of sins, hold firm concord and with equal minds praise the gifts of the Mediator, by whose gift it has been conferred on us that we should have entrance into this grace; and those whom justice held guilty—since it was not nature that made us guilty, but will—he restored to freedom and snatched from vengeance, and granted that we who were hoping for eternal punishments should now glory in the hope of the glory of God.

Augustine. This justification is not conferred through the remission of sins alone, except on your account. For God justifies the ungodly not only by forgiving the evils he does, but also by giving love, so that he may turn away from evil and do good through the Holy Spirit (See Rom 5:5; Ps 34:14 (33:15)), whose continual supply the Apostle asked for those to whom he said: But we pray to God that you may do no evil (2 Cor 13:7). Against this grace you wage war, so that you may not defend free choice of the will by your discourse, but deceive it by presumption.

II. 166. Julian. But that the power and security of this teaching might be the more expressed—what Christian philosophy confers on the faithful—he continues: And not only so, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience trial, and trial hope, and hope does not confound, because the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:3-5). That is: They have not only conferred these benefits on us, so that we may someday rejoice in the abundance of the gifts, but already at present, set in the midst of the heats of anguish, we are lively in the possession of virtue itself, and we laugh at the cruelty of the impious from the fury of our persecutors, judging it an instruction in patience rather than a disturbance of joy, so that we not only do not sin on account of rewards, but reckon this very not-sinning to be a reward.

Augustine. If not to sin is a reward, who gives this reward? I think you are not going to say: A man gives it to himself—although the perversity of your heresy forces you to say this. If, then, God gives this reward, that a man should not sin, I see it must be called a gift rather than a reward, lest any merits seem to have gone before, since even Pelagius himself condemned those who say that the grace of God is given according to our merits (See The Proceedings of Pelagius 14.30). And how this gift—that is, not to sin—is given, you yourself said a little before, recalling the words of the Apostle: Because the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5). And on this account, in Christian philosophy, that we should glory in tribulations is not from ourselves, because this too we have received; otherwise to a man glorying as of something gained by himself from himself for himself it is said: For what have you that you have not received? But if you have also received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it? (1 Cor 4:7) And yet we glory, not as if we had not received, but we glory in him who gave it, that he who glories may glory in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31). This is the grace which the catholic faith proclaims; why, I ask, does your error attack it, when it convicts you even by your own mouth?

II. 167. Julian. Then, since in the Testaments we see those things being done which were promised, we count all the goods and evils of the present life altogether among trifles, estimating the faith of God's promise from the greatness of his love toward us. For the frustration of eternal advantages will not refute our hope, since we hold the love of God as the surety of future blessedness, which has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5)—that is, through the gifts of the Holy Spirit God has proved his love toward the human race.

Augustine. You are unwilling that not-sinning should be among these gifts; but, trusting in your own power (See Ps 49:6 (48:7)), you want to give this to yourself by yourself. Do not be angry, I beg; cursed is everyone who has hope in man (Jer 17:5).

II. 168. Julian. He will, then, faithfully restore the whole that he promised to the faithful.

Augustine. He will plainly restore even this very thing—that they be faithful—because he promised Abraham the faith of the nations, and a certain great faithful man says: I obtained mercy, that I might be faithful (1 Cor 7:25).

II. 169. Julian. For he who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all, through whom he consecrated us by the working of the Holy Spirit, without doubt gave us all things with him (Rom 8:32). For why, when we were yet weak, did Christ, according to the time, die for the ungodly? (Rom 5:6)

Augustine. You recall divine testimonies by which your error is overturned; for it was not said: Christ died even for the ungodly, but: he died, he says, for the ungodly (Rom 5:6). But as you yourself confessed elsewhere, he died for the little ones too; and yet—with what face I do not know—you deny that the impiety of the first man passed into them by origin. How, then, do they pertain to him who died for the ungodly?

II. 170. Julian. For scarcely for a righteous man does one die; for perhaps for a good man one might dare to die. But God commends his love in us, because if, when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, much more, being now justified in his blood, shall we be saved through him from wrath. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved in his life. And not only so, but we also glory in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation (Rom 5:7-11). He disclosed with how great love Christ had done the whole—he who deigned to die for those who merited no good.

Augustine. These words of yours are so framed that they seem to touch even the little ones, since you grant that they too merited no good, whom you confess to have done no good; but the Apostle did not speak thus, who said that Christ died for the ungodly and for sinners. In vain, then, did you think the great mercy of Christ should be diminished; for he died for the ill-deserving, from which great benefit of the Savior you separate the little ones, since you call them saved; but he says: The healthy have no need of a physician (Matt 9:12); the little ones, then, have no need of Christ, to whom, according to you, he is surely not Jesus; but those who have need of him, to these without doubt he is Jesus. But depart, you malignant ones; the little ones have need. He, then, saves them too from their sins, since for that reason he received such a name, when the angel said: You shall call his name Jesus; for he will save his people from their sins (Matt 1:21).

II. 171. Julian. Namely those who had trampled reason and the law by their love of crimes, going after their own desires, which conscience itself, whose force is greatest, was chastising. But since it was established that the Prophets too had often shone forth in contempt of death on account of righteousness, and that very many had run to destruction with untroubled mind for various great matters and for the brilliance of an inborn dignity glittering, lest the singularity of Christ's virtue should not be the more clearly distinguished by such examples, the Apostle brought in something by which he might show that his love and fortitude tower at a unique height. I too assent that, though rarely, though scarcely, some have nevertheless chosen to die for just and good causes. But for those, the dignity of the affairs—that is, the renown of the very matters for which they had contended—tempered the pain of their perils; but Christ had nothing he could love in the pursuits of the impious, and he did not disdain to be spent for those who were deformed by their own will; it appears that he excels all in virtue, because, even if in endurance he can have few partners, in cause he can have none. Let us, therefore, despair of nothing concerning his bountifulness, because, if he died for us when we were yet sinners, much more, being now justified in his blood, shall we be saved through him from wrath.

Augustine. Do not, then, take the little ones out of the number of sinners, because you confess that Christ died for them too.

II. 172. Julian. And after the reconciliation which we have merited to have with God—through the works, that is, of the Mediator—we ought to receive in our mind everlasting joys, and not only to hope for salvation, but also for glory.

Augustine. I ask you, attend to what the Apostle says, on account of which it came about that he spoke of the first man. He was treating of the reconciliation which you too grant was made through the mediator Christ, out of the enmities we had with God. See, look at the words of the Apostle: Being justified, therefore, by faith, he says, let us have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 5:1); and a little after: For if Christ, when we were weak, according to the time died for the ungodly (Rom 5:6); again a little after: But God commends his love in us, he says, because, when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; much more now, being justified in his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him (Rom 5:8-9). Attend still: For if, when we were enemies, he says, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved in his life (Rom 5:10). This reconciliation, which he so often commended, he set down even at the last, saying: through whom we have now received reconciliation (Rom 5:11); and then he brought in: For this reason, as through one man sin entered into the world (Rom 5:12). As, then, through this one came the enmities, so through the one Christ came the reconciliation. Whoever, then, says that the little ones are free from the sin in which the enmities were made, surely denies that they pertain to this reconciliation on account of which Christ was made mediator; accordingly he separates them also from the justification which takes place in the blood of Christ—for the shedding of which, when he commended it to be drunk, no cause was stated except for the remission of sins (See Matt 26:28). Whence it follows that to little ones not having sins the death of Christ profits nothing at all; for through this we were reconciled to God when we were enemies, which the little ones, according to you, were not. For that we might die, on account of this reconciliation, to the sin in which the enmities were, whoever of us have been baptized in Christ, as the same Apostle says, have been baptized into his death (Rom 6:3). And that he might come to these words: For if we have died, he says, to sin, how shall we yet live in it? (Rom 6:2); and at once, to show that we have died to sin: Or do you not know, he says, that whoever of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? (Rom 6:3) Where is the freedom and fortitude of your mind? Why do you fear to say what you do not fear to believe—that the little ones ought not to be baptized in Christ, who, you say, have no sin to which they may die?

II. 173. Julian. Therefore, as through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death, and so death passed to all human beings, in whom all have sinned (Rom 5:12). To tame the pride of the Jews, who reckoned that the pardon of sins was not as necessary for themselves as for the Gentiles—vindicating sanctity to their own race by the prerogative of the law—he attacks the disease of human conduct and seeks back the multitude of offenders, so that, however much dominion iniquity has seized in this world, the authority of antiquity itself may betray it, and that he might show how many and inveterate crimes, handed down from the obscenity of those who went before to posterity by the hands of mutual imitation, the grace of Christ had taken away. And on this account he makes mention of the first man—not the one with whom sin had begun, for it is established that the woman first offended, but the one who, by the privilege of his sex, had seized the mastery of the offense. Through this one, then, sin entered, and through sin death—without doubt that death which is promised to sinners, that is, eternal death—and so, he says, death passed to all human beings, in whom all have sinned. He disclosed plainly how this death had passed to posterity, namely by imitation, not by generation.

Augustine. It has already indeed been answered to you why he did not name the woman, from whom was the beginning of sin, but one man: either that she too might be understood in him on account of the one flesh, or because generation begins from the man, through whom he wanted to show that sin entered into the world. But, you men who say that the death which is in sin passed to posterity by imitation, not by generation, why do you not openly say that the little ones ought not to be baptized in Christ Jesus? For if they are to be baptized in Christ, since whoever are baptized in Christ are baptized into his death, then without doubt they too die to sin. For from this the Apostle proved that we are dead to sin—because we have been baptized into the death of Christ; for when he had said, If we have died to sin, how shall we yet live in it? (Rom 6:2), then, to show that we are dead to sin: Or do you not know, he says, that whoever of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? (Rom 6:3) Whoever, then, has no sin, has nothing to which he may die in baptism; but whoever, when he is baptized, does not die to sin, is not baptized into the death of Christ, and on this account is not baptized in Christ. Why do you turn your back? Freely open your nether world, freely let them enter to you who are unwilling that their little ones, dead in offense, be given life in baptism.

II. 174. Julian. For after he had said, It passed to all human beings, he at once added, in whom all have sinned; this, in whom all have sinned, indicates nothing other than: Because all have sinned, according to that saying of David: In what does the younger man correct his way? That is: How does he correct his way? By keeping your words (Ps 119:9 (118:9)). He is said, then, to be corrected 'in' that by which he is also corrected. So too the Apostle said that death passed 'in' that—in the sense that in it all sinned by their own will—not that this in whom should seem to point to either Adam or sin, but should be understood to express in that, all sinning.

Augustine. Open your eyes: in Adam all die (See 1 Cor 15:22); and if the little ones have not died in him, neither are they given life in Christ. Why then do you run with them to the baptism of the giver of life and the savior, with a damnable pretense—the little ones whom, while crying out that they are alive and healthy, you are unwilling to have given life and healed?

II. 175. Julian. That 'all' is put for 'many' countless examples of the Scriptures attest, according to that saying: All have turned aside, together they have become unprofitable (Ps 14:3 (13:3)), and a little after: Who devour, he says, my people as the food of bread (Ps 14:4 (13:4)), showing that this people was distinguished from all those whom he had declared to work evil. In the Gospel it is reported: And all the people cried out: Crucify, crucify! (See Luke 23:21; John 19:6) And yet by the universality of this word the Apostles, or Nicodemus, or the holy women are by no means included. This very Apostle calls those whom he now called 'all' a little after 'many.'

Augustine. To this it has already been answered that 'many' is not contrary to 'all,' because those very 'all' are not few but many; and what you recalled from the Psalm, All have turned aside, together they have become unprofitable, is wholly true; for he distinguished the sons of men, who all turned aside, from the sons of God, whom, not turning aside, they were devouring; for God looked down upon the sons of men (See Ps 14:2 (13:2)); these all turned aside, for from them the sons of God were excepted. From these turning-aside sons of men, then, was also that whole people who cried out: Crucify, crucify! For to this people those who had already believed in Christ in no way belonged. From this extricate yourself, if you can—that one died for all—and dare to say that not all are dead for whom Christ died, when at once the Apostle grips your throat and stifles your most audacious utterance, showing what followed and saying: Therefore all have died. Do not praise the Apostle in such a way; do not expound in such a way, as to be unwilling to hear: If one died for all, therefore all have died (2 Cor 5:14). Upon these all, death with sin passed through that one in whom all die. There the little ones too are, because Christ died for them too—who for that reason died for all, because all have died. Whatever you may argue, whatever you may evade, whatever apostolic words you may try to overthrow or pervert, you do not show the little ones to be immune from the death which is in sin, because you dare not deny that Christ died for them too.

II. 176. Julian. Let what we have accomplished appear: the Apostle said 'all' for 'very many,' whom he says are liable to death for this reason—because they sinned by their own will. He accuses, therefore, not an original but a voluntary crime; and in truth the words indicate nothing else, if their good faith and proper sense be weighed. For if he believed that sin had passed to posterity by generation—that is, that it had been hurled by that one upon those who had not been there—he would most falsely declare that all had sinned.

Augustine. I could say to you: How did posterity follow the example of the sinning Adam, who were not there and neither saw nor heard nor believed the sin itself? But I do not say this. For there was Adam, and in him we all were; Adam perished, and in him all perished (See Ambrose, On Death as a Good 2.6), on which account in him all die. Hear the Apostle speaking most openly, not yourself chattering most tortuously.

II. 177. Julian. For what one does and directs toward others, all are not truly said to have done; for either it passed to them and they did not sin, or they themselves sinned, by which word the matter of an operation is expressed, and it did not pass to them except by imitation alone.

Augustine. If someone by intemperance brings gout upon himself and transmits it to his children, which often happens, is it not rightly said both that this defect passed into them from the parent, and that they too made this in the parent, since, when he made it, they were in him? And thus they and he were as yet one; they made it, then, not by the action of men, but already by the ratio of the seeds. What, therefore, is sometimes found in diseases of the body, this he knew had been done in that ancient and great sin of the one first begetter, by which the whole of human nature was corrupted—he who, in that most luminous utterance which you try to darken, said: Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all human beings, in whom all have sinned (Rom 5:12). For he had intended to commend the grace of Christ, setting up a pattern from the contrary and opposing the prince of regeneration to the prince of generation.

II. 178. Julian. But that which you believed you could set against us—whether in this book to which I now reply, or in those you had written to Marcellinus—that sin passed at the time when all human beings, to use your words, were that one (See The Punishment and Forgiveness of Sins 1.10.11), the truth wears away without difficulty and exposes to the mockery of any prudent man. For by such an argument nothing else is indicated than your impiety—an impiety, I say, by which you believe there is a transmission of souls, condemned long ago in the profanity of Tertullian and of Mani, just as there is also a transmission of bodies; which is so nefarious that, when it was objected against you by us in that letter we sent to the East, you, in those books you recently sent to Boniface, try to fend it off from yourself by denying it. For you say: They say that we confess a transmission of souls; in whose books they have read this, I do not know (See Answer to the Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.4.5), so as to swear that nothing of the kind is said by you. Furthermore, that your falsehood may be betrayed by the comparison of your own words, how do you say that the transmission of souls—an opinion in truth profane—is not held by your views, when you profess that all human beings were that one? For if you do not believe a part of the soul to be bound up with the seeds, with what mouth do you write that all human beings were Adam alone, since a man surely cannot exist except as soul and body together?

Augustine. Do you think a man's body alone cannot be called a man, when you know that the only Son of God himself, our Lord Jesus Christ, was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried, as his whole Church confesses, and many heresies, among which is yours too; and yet only the body of Christ was buried? Then, according to you, Jesus Christ the only Son of God, our Lord, ought not to be said to have been buried, since Christ the only Son of God, our Lord, is not from the body alone, but from the Word of God and a rational soul and a body; but when the confession had come to these words, 'He was crucified under Pontius Pilate,' there ought to have been added: and his body was buried. Nor, concerning the first man himself, of whom we treat, ought Scripture to have said: God formed man, the dust of the earth (Gen 2:7), because only man's body is from the earth. Finally, cry out that God himself erred, who, threatening death, said to man: You are earth, and into the earth you shall go (Gen 3:19), when rather, according to your teaching, he ought to have said: Your body is earth, and into the earth it shall go. Because, then, there was Adam, and in him we all were—which the catholic Doctors before us learned and taught according to the holy Scriptures in the holy Church—therefore I said, All were that one, because those two also, male and female, were no longer two, but one flesh (See Gen 2:24). And I spoke of all who are begotten, since, when the sin was committed, all were that one; for not yet had anyone thence been transfused into a mother by sowing, and surely children are transfused from men into women. From whatever part, then, and however great a part, all who were born of him were that one—whether according to the body alone or according to both parts of man, which I confess I do not know, nor am I ashamed, as you are, to confess that I do not know what I do not know; nor yet do I therefore not know that it is written of every man: Man has been made like unto vanity; his days pass away like a shadow (Ps 144:4 (143:4)), since the same holy Scripture also says elsewhere: Yet truly every living man is wholly vanity (Ps 39:5 (38:6)), which, with a just God creating, would not happen if there were no original sin.

II. 179. Julian. Then, even if you refer this only to the flesh, not even thus can this fatuity of your understanding be excused, by which you say, All were that one, when at the time Adam sinned there were already two human beings, not one—that is, himself and his wife—from whose substance, not fault, the human race, according as God had instituted, sprang up.

Augustine. I have already said it, and behold I say it again: I spoke of those All were that one whom Adam was going to sow, that is, to generate; from that one, then, who begot, the newborn were going principally to draw original sin; but she, with whom, joined, the two were, conceived afterward what she received and bore, although the prior one had sinned. Whence holy Scripture also says that the sons of Levi were in the loins of their father Abraham, and that in him they were tithed by the priest Melchizedek (See Heb 7:9-10). Read the Epistle to the Hebrews and correct your tongue.

II. 180. Julian. Finally, that his parents' sin harmed Abel the son nothing, his sanctity, celebrated in all the Scriptures, attests.

Augustine. Why, then, did the Apostle not set him forth to be imitated, who was the first righteous man, but, when he was treating of two men—one of whom would send into condemnation, the other into justification—did he name Adam and Christ? But if Abel did not have a law in his members fighting against the law of his mind (See Rom 7:23), which, as a righteous man, he was warring down by an inner contest, and if his flesh did not lust against the spirit (See Gal 5:17), then his parents' sin harmed him nothing. But whoever says that Abel was such, let him say that he did not have flesh of sin, since without doubt the Lord Christ would not have had the likeness of the flesh of sin (See Rom 8:3), unless the flesh of all other human beings were flesh of sin.

II. 181. Julian. On the opposite side Cain, envious, a parricide, begotten of the same nature, advanced by not the same will, is laid waste by a trembling that tortures his mind. The Apostle, therefore, said that sin entered into this world through one, and through sin death, and so death passed to all human beings, who sinned. This sentence, agreeing with catholic teaching, lends you no help.

Augustine. The Apostle showed that death passed with sin by saying: And so it passed to all human beings (Rom 5:12). On account of this, infants too, when they are baptized, are rescued from the power of darkness; otherwise, with great injury to God, as we have already said and must often say, the image of God is exorcized and breathed upon, if there is not exorcized and breathed upon in him the prince of the world (See John 12:31), who is cast out, that there may be there the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. But the crime that Cain committed does not pertain to the cause of origin, since it was committed by will.

II. 182. Julian. For it is ordered with these words, by which the preceding example and the following zeal of the imitator are shown.

Augustine. It has already been said to you: Abel, then, ought to have been set against him on the contrary side, not Christ.

II. 183. Julian. But if he had wanted to show that generation was either infected with sin or liable to it, he would not have said that sin entered through one man, but through two.

Augustine. It has already been answered. You say nothing, and yet you say it and say it, since you cannot find anything right to say.

II. 184. Julian. Nor would he have said, In that one death passed, in whom all have sinned (Rom 5:12), but: In that they flowed from the diabolical pleasure and flesh of the first man and the first woman; and if he had declared this, the Apostle would not have confirmed your teaching but would have undermined all his own sentences. Therefore he accuses the will of those who sin and the example of sin; and on this account both reason and Paul battle against you.

Augustine. Therefore he ought to have set in Abel, the first righteous man, the example of justification, just as you suppose the example of sin is set in Adam, the first sinner. For why should it irk me to answer you the same things, when you are not ashamed to repeat the same things so many times in vain?

II. 185. Julian. For until the law sin was in this world; but sin was not imputed when there was no law; yet death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is the pattern of him who was to come (Rom 5:13-14). He distinguishes the quality of sin by a variety of appellations, so that he may show that sin is one thing and transgression another; and in this passage at least he wants every transgression to be seen as sin, but not every sin as transgression, so that through the word 'transgression' the odium of sin may grow, and those may seem more guilty who have transgressed precepts than those who have offended without the admonition of the law, by dissimulation of inborn reason. Before that law, then, which was given through Moses and consigned to letters—by whose sanction a pattern of acts was prescribed, which it was not permitted for the people living under it to be ignorant of—the Apostle accuses the mortals of that middle time, between Adam and Moses, polluted by the varied depravity of their pursuits, of sin, not of transgression.

Augustine. What, then, is this: Death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam? For however you may punctuate it, the Apostle is found to have spoken against you. For if you punctuate it, Death reigned even over those who did not sin—how is this just except on account of original sin? And therefore, as though it were asked why death reigned even over those who did not sin, the answer is given: in the likeness of the transgression of Adam—that is, not on account of their own proper sins, but because the transgressor Adam begot those like himself, as even the catholic Doctors who were before us expounded these words. For although that first and one sin, which through one man entered into the world, is common to all—on account of which it is said, in whom all have sinned—nevertheless the little ones do not have their own proper sins. And therefore even of them it could truly be said that they did not sin, but death reigned over them in the likeness, as it is said, of the transgression of Adam. But if you punctuate it, Death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam—that is, even over those who did indeed sin, but did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam—you find no one, according to you, because you contend that all who sinned sinned in his likeness, that is, followed his example. The fox's den, then, is closed on both sides; there is no way for it to enter and hide, or, if it was already hiding there, no way for it to go out and escape.

II. 186. Julian. So that those to whom the law was not given may be understood not to have transgressed precepts, yet may be convicted as guilty, since, neglecting the reason which each one's own affections proclaim within him, they violated the rights either of human society or of decency; and therefore they are said to have sinned indeed by mutual imitation, yet not by transgression of the law, which had not yet been promulgated. Until the law, then, there was sin, not transgression; but after the law, not only sin but also transgression. But eternal death reigned, which God had promised he would charge to Adam if he sinned. Therefore that death due to sin, the penal death, reigned both before the law over those who sinned—as over the Sodomites and over those who in the time of the flood were consumed on account of iniquity, voluntary nonetheless, or were of various ages—and reigned after the law over those whom it found guilty of transgression.

Augustine. Since you are unwilling that any death but eternal death be penal: if the death which separates the soul from the body is not penal, why does nature fear it—nature which you so praise that you deny it is corrupted? What is the reason that an infant, when it has begun to advance a little out of infancy, already dreads being killed? Why is the sense not as inclined to death as to sleep? Why are those who do not fear death held to be great, and these so rare? Why does even the very man who said he had a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ (See Phil 1:23) nevertheless not want to be stripped, but to be further clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life (See 2 Cor 5:4)? Why was it said to Peter, of his very glorious end, Another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish (John 21:18)? If, then, death is feared in vain, the fear of it is itself a punishment; but if the soul naturally does not wish to be separated from the body, death itself is a punishment, although divine grace turns it to a good use.

II. 187. Julian. Since, by the judgment of that justice which does not impute sin except to one who is free to abstain from it, those who sinned without the law will be judged without the law, and those who sinned in the law will be judged through the law (See Rom 2:12). But as for what the Apostle says, But death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam (Rom 5:14), he made shine through what he had thought, that is, defining that the Jews sinning under the law had transgressed in like manner as Adam, because to the first man too the law of abstaining from the taste of the tree had been commended—if not by books, yet by his ears—in which there was a test of obedience, by eating against which precept he incurred the crime of transgression. Therefore even after the law was given through the ministry of Moses, the sinning people is convicted of having offended in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, because they sinned just as he did, by transgression of the law; but those who sinned in the middle age of the two laws—the first given, not written, the second both promulgated and handed down in letters—are shown not to be free of sin, but are reported to have erred not in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, because they had not received the law.

Augustine. Where you deny the likeness of the transgression of Adam, you convict yourself, namely that those who sinned without the law are not guilty by the example of the first man; it is not imitation, then, but generation, by which through sin death passed to all human beings. For if this death, which through the sin of the first man entered into the world, had leaped over the long times before the law, and began to creep from the Jews, who were made transgressors of the law, so as to preserve the likeness of the transgression of Adam, it would not be said of it: Through one man it entered and passed to all human beings (Rom 5:12). For whom—I do not say foolish, but fatuous—will you persuade that death entered through one man and passed to all human beings, when you say that it passed over so many nations and so many ages and reached those who had received the law, the rest untouched, while you also say that death reigned even over those who sinned not in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, but without transgression, because without law? There is plainly nothing from which you may correct your error, unless you return to the catholic faith, which opposes to the first man, the prince of generation, the second man, the prince of regeneration.

II. 188. Julian. Adam is called the pattern of him who was to come, that is, of Christ—but a pattern by contrast, so that, just as he is believed to be the pattern of sin, so the other is the pattern of righteousness; but just as the incarnation of Christ was the pattern of righteousness—not the first, but the greatest, because even before the Word became flesh, virtues shone forth, from that faith which was in God, both in the Prophets and in many other saints—yet when the fullness of times came, the perfected standard of righteousness shone again in Christ, and he who had been foretold as the father of the age to come stood forth as the rewarder both of the saints who preceded and of those who followed.

Augustine. We recognize your heresy; for Pelagius defined that the ancient righteous men did not live from faith in the incarnation of Christ, since (he says) Christ had not yet come in the flesh—when surely they would not have foretold that this would be unless they had first indeed believed; but you fell into this absurdity while defending that there could be righteousness through nature and the law; and whichever of these is true, then Christ died in vain (Gal 2:21).

II. 189. Julian. So too on the contrary side Adam is called the pattern of sin, not the first, but the greatest.

Augustine. Whence, then, not the first, but the greatest? Since, on account of the beginning of the human race, you do not deny that he was the first, nor do you find why you should call him the greatest, unless you confess that Adam sinned the more gravely the greater there was the ease of not sinning, where nature was not yet corrupted nor did the law of sin in the members fight against the law of the mind. With which punishment every human being is born, to perish eternally unless he is reborn, and lost unless he is found by being sought by him who came to seek what had perished (See Luke 19:10).

II. 190. Julian. But I say 'greatest' not because I deny that the devil was more guilty, but because, when the reason of the institution was sought, the Apostle more fittingly made mention of the man, on whom the succession of humanity chiefly looked, than of the airy substance. But in humanity itself it was established that the first woman offended; yet because in all things the authority of fathers is more efficacious and greater, he said that he was the pattern of sin—not the one with whom the offense began, but the one who, by the power of the male sex, is proved to have been the more imitable. You see surely how the consequence of the sense attests that truth is in it.

Augustine. The very pattern of Christ demonstrates that the Apostle opposed not imitation to imitation, but regeneration to generation—Christ who, as the second man, is opposed to the first man. If, then, those who are reborn do not pertain to the righteousness of Christ, those who are born do not pertain to the sin of Adam, and Christ is not a pattern by contrast; but because he is a pattern, then without doubt, just as the reborn pass to the righteousness of Christ—even the little ones, though unable to work righteousness—so with the passing of sin they were born or are born of Adam, though they are not yet able to work sin either. Acknowledge the pattern, and do not be deformed by contradiction.

II. 191. Julian. Now consider how much—as the rest of the same passage, so those words—differ from your exposition, by which the Apostle declares that death reigned even over those who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is the pattern of him who was to come (Rom 5:14). For if he were treating of natural sin, of which (as it seems to you) he had said, in whom all have sinned, who would those be whom he at once declares to be found liable not only to the transgression of Adam, but not even to the likeness of that fault?

Augustine. But so do you understand, who do not understand; the Apostle, however, gave the reason why death reigned even over those who did not sin, by adding and saying, in the likeness of the transgression of Adam—that is, showing that death reigned even over those who did not sin for this reason, because they drew a certain pattern of likeness from the transgression of Adam. For those who are born put on Adam, just as those who are reborn put on Christ.

II. 192. Julian. Death, he says, reigned even over those who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam. You see that he made a clear distinction between those who had erred in like manner as Adam and those who had erred in unlike manner.

Augustine. If they had erred in unlike manner, where then is the example of imitation? Render regeneration to generation, not imitation to imitation, and you will find the pattern which the Apostle of truth commended, not the one which Pelagius invented, the author of your error.

II. 193. Julian. This division cannot fit natural sin, which, if it existed, would bind absolutely all equally; there would then be no one in whom this evil was not, and none would be found of whom it could truly be said that he had not offended in the likeness of that sin in whose reality all had sinned.

Augustine. What you cry out in resisting is true and is against you: original sin has bound absolutely all equally; there would be no one in whom this evil was not, unless divine grace profited through Christ. For over those who did not sin—that is, who did not make their own proper sins—the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is the pattern of him who was to come, that is, of Christ, merited that death should reign; for as those who are born are clothed with the first man, so those who are reborn are clothed with the second man.

II. 194. Julian. But the Apostle gathers and declares that there are some who sinned like Adam, and others whom not even the likeness of the ancient transgression sprinkled; absolutely, then, it is clear that the crimes are of morals, not of seeds. And to repeat briefly what has been done: the Apostle says that sin entered through one man. Reason shows that this agrees with imitation, not with generation, which is the work of two.

Augustine. How much you say the same things and say nothing, nor do you see that, if the sin of imitation begun by the human race were signified in this passage, it would rather be said to have entered into the world through one woman than through one man—she who so first sinned that her husband too imitated her. But because he wanted generation understood, not imitation, Through one, he says, man sin entered into the world (Rom 5:12), either including both in the singular number—on account of which it is said, Therefore they are now no longer two (Matt 19:6)—or recalling especially the one from whom is the beginning of begetting, when the sowing starts, that conception may follow. These things we have already often said, but to your repetitions we too, though more rarely, nevertheless by repeating do not yield.

II. 195. Julian. He continued: And so death passed to all human beings (Rom 5:12).

Augustine. What is so it passed, except in the way it entered—that is, with sin, or through sin?

II. 196. Julian. He made the distinction lest anyone should think that sin had passed, so that death, which ran ahead, might be proved—by the judgment of justice—to have followed the materials of vengeance which it had found in each sinner from the pursuit of an evil will. He showed, therefore, that not nature is to be accused, but pursuits.

Augustine. In vain do you turn yourself this way and that. Look at Adam and Christ: that one is the pattern of him who was to come; therefore this one is not conformed by contrast, who passes his righteousness into the reborn little ones, if that one does not pass sin into the born.

II. 197. Julian. He added that death reigned in that one, in whom all have sinned, by which word not the ruin of one being born, but the works of one acting, were expressed. He proved, therefore, that he was charging depravity and not wounding innocence.

Augustine. In that one all have sinned, in whom all die; whose pattern by contrast is the one in whom all are given life. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:22). Which was said for this reason, because, as no one inclines to death except through Adam, so no one rises to life except through Christ. O man, who can say nothing, could you at least keep silent?

II. 198. Julian. But after this he brought in that sin reigned until the law, showing that the reign of sin fell when the law was promulgated.

Augustine. If the reign of sin fell when the law was promulgated, then righteousness is through the law. If righteousness is through the law, then Christ died in vain (Gal 2:21). That is the Apostle's utterance, not mine. Now break out into the open, you enemies of the cross of Christ. Why do you fear the great people of Christ and not fear the great judgment of Christ? Say openly: We could be justified by nature, we could be justified by the law; Christ died in vain. But, dreading the Christian multitude, you substitute the Pelagian word, and to those who ask you why Christ died, if nature or the law makes men righteous, you answer: That this very thing might be done more easily—as though it could be done, though more difficultly, yet done, whether through nature or through the law. O Christ, answer, conquer, and convict; cry out, Without me you can do nothing (John 15:5), that those may be silent who cry: Even if more difficultly, yet we could do it even without you. Or if they cannot be silent, let them lead themselves into some hiding places, that they may not seduce others. Why, then, does the Apostle say, For until the law sin was in the world (Rom 5:13), except because not even the promulgated law could take away sin, but he of whom it is said: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29)?

II. 199. Julian. But generation, which began from Adam, remains even after the law; and if it were the fount of sins and the offshoot of the devil, as you argue, this crime would surely flourish not only until the law, but also after the law and after Christ. And so the sin of which the Apostle declares that it was until the law and could not remain after the law is convicted of being of action, not of birth.

Augustine. See, you openly say that the Apostle said, Until the law sin was in the world, not because the law could not take away sin, but because sin could not remain after the law. And do you not shudder at the voice of God, through the man of God, pointing to Christ and saying: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29)? Why are you out of your senses? Why do you rave? Not nature, not the law, but behold him who takes away the sin of the world. And do you dare to say that the reign of sin fell when the law was promulgated, and that after the law sin could not remain? When the Apostle says: If righteousness is through the law, then Christ died in vain (Gal 2:21); when the Apostle says: Because in the law no one is justified (Gal 3:11); when the Apostle says: The law entered in, that the offense might abound (Rom 5:20); when the Apostle says: If a law had been given which could give life, righteousness would be wholly from the law; but the Scripture has shut up all things under sin, that the promise, by faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe (Gal 3:21-22). If you have ears, now close your mouths; if you want to open your mouths rightly, first open your ears to the divine words. Be sure to remember that you said generation began from Adam—you who are wont to say that generation begins only from two, and that therefore the Apostle did not want it understood in that sin which he said entered into the world through one man. Who would believe you could forget what you had so often said falsely? But yet you forgot, so that for once you might say what is true. Wake up, hear even yourself: from Adam generation began, and on this account through generation entered the sin which through one man entered into the world. For you yourself said: But generation, which began from Adam, remains even after the law. Fittingly, therefore, the Apostle set down one man, from whom sin entered into the world, which would be drawn by generation—not the devil, from whom entered into the world that sin which imitation would follow.

II. 200. Julian. But sin, he says, is not imputed when there is no law (Rom 5:13); by which sentence, as by all his other sayings, he destroyed the opinion of transmission.

Augustine. Plainly, when there is no law, sin is not imputed—but by men, who do not know the unsearchable judgments of God. For if God does not impute sin when there is no law, then by what justice of God will those who sinned without the law perish without the law (Rom 2:12)?

II. 201. Julian. For if before the law the transmission of sin was not imputed, but after the law it did not exist, then the venom never at all gained the means by which it might harm the human race. For before the law natural sin was not imputed; under the law it was not imputed, because in no place of the law is it taught either to be shown or to be imputed. It appears, therefore, that the Apostle charges sin before the law to free will, and after the law transgression likewise to free will.

Augustine. If in the law original sin is not shown, why then is the soul of a little one not circumcised on the eighth day said in the law to perish from its people (See Gen 17:14)? Why was a sacrifice for sin offered for a newborn infant (See Lev 12:6-8)? Now, I beg, keep silent; attend to the infant, and imitate the one who does not speak.

II. 202. Julian. And on this account it is established that he said nothing of the sin of transmission; and although these arguments were copious for proving that the Apostle thought nothing of a natural sin—which cannot exist and is invented by the Manicheans—nevertheless out of abundance he impressed also a distinction: that not absolutely all were polluted by the transgression of Adam, since even among those over whom destruction reigned for their iniquity, very many would be found who are taught to be free of the transgression of Adam.

Augustine. Slanderously, glib-tongued one: he who said, We are all born under sin, whose very origin is in fault (See Ambrose, Defense of the Prophet David 11.56), was not a Manichean, but, as he is praised by the mouth of your own teacher, shone forth among the ecclesiastical writers as a kind of beautiful flower. But how do you say that not all were polluted by the transgression of Adam and—what is worse—impute to the Apostle what you unwisely think you know? When he says: Death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin—wanting the little ones understood, who made no proper sins—and adds: in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, showing why death reigned over them, which we have already sufficiently dealt with above. For how did through one man sin enter into the world and through sin death (Rom 5:12), if death nevertheless reigned over some not pertaining to the sin of this one man? For those over whom death reigned pertain to the sin through which it entered; but those who do not pertain to the sin through which death entered—by what just judgment do they pertain to death? Now those who did not sin in the likeness of that transgression, as you yourself said, do not pertain to the sin which through one man entered into the world; therefore death did not reign over them. What, then, is this: Death reigned even over those who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, except that death reigned even over those who did not sin, since they committed no proper sins? But it reigned in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, because, although they themselves committed no proper sins, they nevertheless pertain to the sin through which death entered into the world, drawing the likeness of the transgression—not by perpetrating transgression by a proper sin, but by being born of the transgressor, through whom the whole of human nature was corrupted.

II. 203. Julian. See, then, whether what we say ought still to be doubtful even to you—namely, that the innocent, before the use of their own will, the raw work of God, did not sin in Adam—when, on the Apostle's testimony, even among the wicked very many are taught to be those who did not offend in the likeness of the transgression of Adam.

Augustine. It has already been answered. It is necessary that you keep silent; for you can say nothing but perverse things in trying to pervert the words of the Apostle. For he said that death reigned even over those who did not sin—that is, the little ones not having proper sins—nevertheless in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is the pattern of him who was to come, because Christ so passes righteousness into them as Adam passes sin; so Christ passes life, as Adam death. Otherwise they will be foreign to the pattern of Christ and will not be Christians; which indeed you hold, but you dread to say it openly.

II. 204. Julian. But let us see the rest as well. But the gift is not as the offense; for if by the offense of one many have died, much more the grace of God and the gift, in the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many (Rom 5:15). He says that the evil of the offense is overcome by the abundance of grace, and he sets the number of those who are saved before those whom he asserts to have perished by transgression.

Augustine. We have already often said: he does not say 'more,' but many, nor 'more numerous,' but has abounded more, since those into whom the life of Christ has passed are going to live for eternity, while the death passing into them through Adam harmed them for a time; see how grace abounded over them much more than sin.

II. 205. Julian. If you vindicate truth for the words of the Apostle, and do not think that he shamelessly lied, teach how, when he is speaking of natural sin, this sentence does not strike him with the shame of public falsehood. For if there were an original sin which made absolutely all the nature of human beings pertain to the right of the devil, what room was there for matching the number of the parts—namely of those who are saved and of those who perish? In the Gospel the Lord, when he showed the rarity of the blessed, said: How strait and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it! How broad and spacious is the way that leads to perdition, and many are those who enter through it! (Matt 7:13-14)

Augustine. This is the very thing by which that view of yours is overturned, since few are those who are saved in comparison with those who perish; for without comparison with those, even these themselves are many; for the Apocalypse says that no one can number their multitude (See Rev 7:9). Therefore, if Paul had said not 'many' but 'more,' we could not call them fewer; for 'more' is a word of comparison, which word you substitute, not the Apostle. But not even so will your reasoning hold; for that imitation of yours, which you seem to yourselves to have cleverly invented against the most clear truth of the apostolic words—so that all sinners are believed to pertain to the sin of the first man not by generation but by imitation—affirms that far more perish by the offense of one, or on account of the offense of one, than are freed by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ. For who does not see that sinners are more numerous than the righteous? Whom—not some sinners, but all—you say pertain to the offense of the one, not indeed by generation, but yet by imitation. But even if you say that not all sinners, but only the transgressors of the law, are bound to the sin of the first man by the bond of imitation, even so, from the time the law of God is preached among many nations, how broad and spacious is the way that leads to destruction, and many transgressors enter through it! How strait and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it (Matt 7:13-14)—in comparison surely with the many who perish, even if to the few who are freed are added the little ones who die baptized. How, then, would the Apostle say: Much more the grace of God has abounded unto more? What you say, he did not say; but he said: Much more it has abounded unto many, because even those who are saved, as has already been said, are few in comparison with those who perish, but without comparison with them are so many that no one can number them. But grace abounds over them much more, because temporally they live miserably and mortally through Adam, but through Christ they are going to live most blessedly and without end. Your invention is in confusion; let your intention at last be corrected.

II. 206. Julian. This very thing, which you call 'many' and 'few,' pertains to infinite quantity, since in mutual comparison either a multitude or a fewness is found; and so the Lord, comparing those who are to be saved with the multitude of those who perish, called them few; and here the Apostle, comparing those whom the grace of Christ saves with those who had sinned like Adam, declares them to be far more numerous.

Augustine. He does not declare them 'more,' but 'many.' He spoke in Greek: he said pollous, not pleionas; read, and keep silent.

II. 207. Julian. Assert, then, that this fits the sin of the Manicheans, that is, transmission.

Augustine. It was the catholic Doctors, not the Manichean deceivers, who said that all sinned in Adam; those said this who understood the Apostle, which you deny against the Apostle. Therefore you too are deceivers; for you too, like the Manicheans, though with a different disease, are insane.

II. 208. Julian. For if natural sin transferred to the reign of the devil the whole that human fruitfulness brought forth, and thence, in the last age of the world, some are thought to be freed through Christ, what truth is there, or what authority of that Teacher, who against so clear a testimony of the whole world says that righteousness abounded unto more than fault did? What, then, is believed of him when he discourses on involved doctrines, if he lies about things so plain? And since to hold this is sacrilege, but your teaching has compelled this to be said, let the vileness of the Manicheans be crushed by the honor of the Apostle.

Augustine. It is rather you who contend to cloud over the plain things, not only by not understanding what the Apostle said, but even by changing and substituting what he did not say; for he did not say 'more,' but 'many,' who nevertheless, though many, are found to be few when they are compared with those who perish. Slanderously, brazenly, wordily—the Apostle said what Ambrose understood, who was not a Manichean: We are all born under sin, whose very origin is in fault (See Ambrose, Defense of the Prophet David 11.56). Hear—as your teacher praised him—the beautiful flower, and pluck out of your heart that deformity of thorns, that is, the foul sharp points of wicked contention.

II. 209. Julian. The Apostle does not lie; therefore the grace of Christ abounded unto more than the fault of Adam, by whose imitation those are said to have sinned who sinned under the law; but under the law, until Christ, only the Jews offended. Compare, then, the Jewish nation alone—set under the law at least at the age of maturity, and thereby sinning in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who sinned having received a law—with the thousands, out of the multitude of the called Gentiles, who through the preaching of the Gospel are saved by the liberality of grace, and then you will understand that the apostle Paul truly declared that the grace of God and the gift of Jesus Christ reached more than the fellowship of the ancient transgression did.

Augustine. Since the Apostle is found to have said not 'more' but 'many,' the whole machine of this argument of yours is overthrown—although not the Jews alone, as it pleases you, but all are found to be transgressors who, by transgressing the law that is preached together with the Gospel itself, become the more damnable; with such transgressors, along with the Jews, the world is so full that, in comparison with them all, few are those who are freed, even when the baptized little ones too are added—which I also covered in my earlier reply. The Teacher of the Gentiles plainly cries out against you: As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:22)—which 'all' are not few, but many. And on this account many die in Adam, many will be made alive in Christ, but more die in Adam than will be made alive in Christ; more therefore pertain to the death of the former, while to the life of the latter pertain fewer in comparison with them—but even of these themselves there is, in themselves, such a multitude that no one can number them. What, then, is all will be made alive in Christ, except that no one will be made alive except in him? A likeness of which thing I set forth from a teacher of letters: if there be one in a city, all there are said to learn their letters from him, not because all learn, but because none learn except from him. Which manner of speaking you did not even try to refute, because you saw it was most correct and known to all.

II. 210. Julian. Having set forth the liberality of grace in the abundance of the men who are saved, he compares the gift and the sin, and most learnedly applies to the praise of the gift the fact that it heals many wounds by one power: And not as through one, he says, sin, so also is the gift.

Augustine. He said through one who sinned, not: Through one sin, so that what he then says, The judgment from one offense unto condemnation (Rom 5:16), can be understood only of the offense of that one who sinned—which indeed you do not want; but what will you do, since the Apostle said this even against your will? Be corrected, then; for here you have nothing else that you ought to do.

II. 211. Julian. For the judgment from one unto condemnation, but grace from many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16)—that is: sins indeed which are grave, even single ones, can suffice for the accusation and condemnation of the guilty.

Augustine. Why did you say 'grave,' which the Apostle did not say, except because you saw that, if one offense were light, it would not suffice for the condemnation of which he was speaking? This judgment, then, is not from any one offense whatever of anyone whatever, but from that one offense which was committed through one who sinned, that is, Adam—the judgment is unto condemnation. And do you still want to pervert the straight words of the Apostle, rather than correct your own, which are perverse?

II. 212. Julian. But grace is not conferred in the same way, so as to be often repeated, applied equally to single sins; rather, poured in once, it wipes out diverse and very many crimes by one impetus and compendium of its power. Therefore he says: From many offenses unto justification (Rom 5:16)—that is, it leads men, freed from many offenses, to the glory of the justification granted. He does not, then, here understand the one sin of Adam, as you suspect, but applied the number of one and of more only to this end—that he might look to the praise of grace, because grace was not repeated as often as sin had been committed by each mortal, as though single baptisms could heal nothing but single sins.

Augustine. You speak this as though the Apostle had said: But grace once from many offenses unto justification; he did not say this. Attend to what he said, and correct what you said. Grace, he says, from many offenses unto justification. What does it pertain to this, that all sins are forgiven to each one at once and together in baptism? Is not that condemnation too, to which the last judgment leads, without doubt done once, of all the sins that have not been remitted? And that very damnation is done once rather than the remission of sins through the grace of Christ is done once, since, if anyone sins after baptism, they are not the same sins, but are remitted to those who sin through the same grace—not once nor seven times, but even seventy times seven (See Matt 18:22). The same grace daily forgives to those who pray even their daily sins, when they say, Forgive us our debts, truly adding, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12). Grace, then, from many offenses—whether it finds single sins in single persons, or in some few, in others very many, whether those committed before baptism or those committed afterward and healed by repenting, praying, and giving alms—sends unto justification those whom it frees from damnation; for all these are themselves the 'many' from which grace justifies. And if this grace does not come to the aid, then surely even from the one offense—not the one each commits as his own, for in this passage the Apostle was not speaking of that, but the one which through one who sinned entered into the world—one goes into damnation; for this the Apostle most evidently expressed. For he does not say, as you do: Not as through one sin, as if wanting the single sin of each understood, but he says: Not as through one who sinned. Open your eyes and read, and do not, as though to the blind, want to substitute one thing for another.

II. 213. Julian. But he took care to express this: When, he says, single sins had wounded their own guilty ones mortally, this grace, by one power handed on once, saved men pierced through innumerable times.

Augustine. He said through one who sinned, where Adam is understood, not through one sin, where you, with the word changed and substituted, want the single sins of single persons understood.

II. 214. Julian. For if by the offense of one death reigned through one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ (Rom 5:17). He consequently affirms what he began; for he set down two sentences, wanting what he subjoined at the end to fit both. For he declares that through one—who was the pattern of sin and in whose likeness those sinning under the law transgress—death reigns, and that through one all who have obtained the abundance of grace reign in life, which grace profits those who imitate virtue. There remained, then, no question about the 'one,' because what is subjoined—namely, that those reign in life who have received the abundance of grace—settles also that first point, namely, that no one is forced into death except one who has fallen in love with the example of the one who sinned.

Augustine. Whose example, the example of which sinner, has he fallen in love with? Surely the first man's; for you say this man is the pattern of sin on account of imitation, not on account of generation; accordingly, just as you say, No one is forced into death except one who has fallen in love with the example of this sinner, then those are not forced into death who did not sin in the likeness of his transgression, as you reckon. How, then, do you say that death reigned even over those who sinned indeed by free choice, but not in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, because they sinned without the law? They did not sin, then, by his example, since those not sinning in the likeness of his transgression did not love the example of the one who sinned; for as far as they are foreign from this likeness of this sinner, so far are they foreign from the imitation of this example. Since, then, death reigned even over them, what is this that you say: That no one is forced into death except one who has fallen in love with the example of the one who sinned—of him, namely, whom on account of imitation you want to have been the pattern of sin? See, those who did not sin in the likeness of his transgression did not love the example of the one who sinned, and yet death reigned even over them. Or do you want to return to catholic truth, so as to confess that death reigned even over those who did not sin by not making proper sins, but underwent the reign of death in the likeness of the transgression of him from whose stock they are born, as if by a hereditary right of misery? For thus did the Doctors of the Church understand these apostolic words, who saw that they cannot be rightly understood unless in them the origin of sin by liable succession is understood; on which account they said that the little ones, born carnally according to Adam, contract by their first birth the contagion of the ancient death—nor were they Manicheans, but they condemned you Pelagians by the Spirit of God, who spoke through them.

II. 215. Julian. But the life in which the saints are to reign is shown to be eternal; therefore let the death too, which follows voluntary iniquity, be believed eternal. And so, as through the offense of one upon all human beings unto condemnation, so also through the righteousness of one upon all human beings unto justification of life. For as through the disobedience of one many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one many will be made righteous (Rom 5:18-19). All the perplexity is solved; the calumny about universality is shamelessly stirred up; most ineptly is a knot sought in a bulrush. The Apostle declares that they are not all, but many, who had learned sins through the disobedience of the first man, and that they are many, not all, who had attained righteousness through the obedience of the other. Nothing here is treated of the rise of humanity; morals are made public in their diverse pursuits; disobedience and obedience show the work of pursuits, not of generation. Surely, where would the Apostle more opportunely declare—if he thought anything according to you—that all go to condemnation by being born, but few to life by believing, than in this passage, where the summit of the disputation was to be completed? For he ought to have said: As through the disobedience of one man all were made sinners—nay, not through disobedience, but as through the generation of the first man all were born sinners, so also through the obedience of one many will be made righteous.

Augustine. Rather he ought to have said: As through his own disobedience many were made sinners, so through his own obedience many will be made righteous; or, if he had wanted to commend in this passage that imitation which you—set in great straits and hemmed in by the pursuing truth—think you have invented as a way out, he ought to have said: As through the imitation of the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also through the imitation of the obedience of one man many will be made righteous. See, I too have said how the Apostle ought to have spoken if he wanted to say what you say; lest you think it any great thing to compose words according to our own will, instead of setting forth the author's will in his words. He said, then, that through the disobedience of one man, whom he knew to be the prince of generation, many were made sinners, since by that disobedience human nature was corrupted, and that through the obedience of one man, who is the prince of regeneration, many were made righteous, because by his obedience human nature is healed—he who was made obedient unto the death of the cross (See Phil 2:8)—so that they may be made righteous through his grace, even those who could not be righteous here by their own conduct, like those who breathe their last immediately after the washing of regeneration, whether of greater or of infant age. Whence he chose rather to set down a verb of the future tense and to say will be made, not 'have been made,' since they are going to live, by that righteousness which will be without any sin, in the eternity of the age to come. But when, concerning sinners, he did not say 'will be made' but have been made, he expressed by a verb of the past tense this age, which passes away, where human nature is already corrupted. Now indeed, about the 'many,' because they themselves are all, you have been answered enough; but you could not expound those whom the Apostle called 'all' except by contradicting and saying: They are not all—to which no necessity would force you, if you had preferred to hold the catholic sense rather than the Pelagian; for 'all' are also for this reason called 'many,' that they may be distinguished from those who, though they are all, are nevertheless few.

II. 216. Julian. But if he had brought it in thus, the sentence would be shown to be no less impious than inept, by which the very comparison, in the diverse proposing of persons, would be shown most stupid, since unlike things would come to be compared—namely nature and will—so that on the side of evil the necessity of seeds would be set, but on the side of good only the freedom of pursuit—nay, no longer freedom, since the faculty of choosing the good and avoiding the evil would not be at hand, if there were a natural guilt. The Apostle, then—a wise and learned Doctor of the Church—says that through disobedience sin came into being and passed over, and that righteousness is multiplied.

Augustine. Where is what you had said, that not sin but death passed over? See, now you say that through disobedience, which was recalled as the disobedience of one man, sin not only came into being but also passed over; or have you perhaps forgotten what you said before? We must be thankful for your forgetfulness, by which you are compelled to say what is true. For as to what seems to you—that in the comparison of contrary sides the necessity of seed ought not to be set on one side and the pursuit of the will on the other—you would find it stupid if you saw that on the evil side those who pertain to the first man drew the contagion of sin by the connection of generation, without the pursuit of their own will, in just the way that those little ones who pertain to the second man are made partakers of righteousness, without the pursuit of their own will, through the peace of regeneration. But if you demand seed on both sides—just as through Adam the carnal seed was corrupted, so through Christ the spiritual seed flourishes; which seed the apostle John intimated to us, saying: And he cannot sin, because his seed remains in him (1 John 3:9). Which will rather appear in the good age to come, where those who will be there will not be able to sin—not in this malignant age, where even those who pertain to the age that will have no sins have something for which they daily beg pardon of their sins from the Father.

II. 217. Julian. And on this account he destroys the opinion of a natural sin and teaches that the causes of substance are one thing, those of will another; and lest this understanding be imputed to our own talent rather than to apostolic teaching, let us hear what he added to this passage: But the law entered in, he says, that the offense might abound; but where sin abounded, grace superabounded, so that, as sin reigned unto death, so grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 5:20-21). Assert, then, how your sin—that is, the sin of transmission—began to abound after the law, which received increases after the ministry of Moses.

Augustine. Rather, you assert how—as you said above—the reign of sin fell when the law was promulgated, when the Apostle says that when the law was promulgated sin abounded. But I assert what I said, because, even if I did not assert it, it is clear. For original sin existed even before the law, because through one man sin entered into the world, and with it death passed to all human beings (Rom 5:12). There was voluntary sin too, since those who sinned without the law will perish without the law (Rom 2:12). But the law entered in, that sin might abound (Rom 5:20), because to those kinds of sins which existed before the law there was added also that which is named transgression. For where there is no law, neither is there transgression (Rom 4:15). Where, then, in all these kinds of sins sin abounded, grace superabounded, because in those who pertain to it, it wipes out the guilt of all these kinds and furthermore gives the gift that the delight of sin may be conquered by the delight of righteousness, and that afterward one may come to that life where there will be no sin at all. How, then, ought unlike things not to come into comparison, as you said a little before, when this comparison is made from contraries—and on one side generation is set, on the other regeneration; on one the reign of death, on the other the reign of life; on one abundance of sins, on the other the remission of sins; on one the delight of sin, through the defect of nature, even unto the evil of habit; on the other the battle against the concupiscence of the flesh, through the help of the Holy Spirit, even unto the peace of victory, which will suffer no enemy within and none without? Hold these things, if you want to be sound, and do not rave against these things which pertain to sound doctrine.

II. 218. Julian. Surely in these passages you contend that the Apostle discoursed of a natural sin. To this end he had said above that it was until the law, so that it might be understood to have ceased after the law; but now he says of the same sin that it began to grow and abound after the law. We have shown that both of these fit the catholic understanding which we follow; but with what shamelessness is it vindicated for your teaching, that one and the same sin should be said both to have failed above when the law was promulgated and now to have grown? How, then, did natural sin abound after the law? Did the genitals begin to be stirred more sharply, so that from the increases and novelty of the movements power might seem added to your sin? Or was a law given to the newborn, so that those who had been begotten of the lust which you say is diabolical and the root and fruit of sin might be admonished to amend what they had been made, and to correct the act they had had when their parents begot them? Should, finally, what had been done be compelled to be undone—so that they, refusing, namely, to hear this, might incur the crime of disobedience? But this could be imputed by none of the foolish, much less by the law which God gave.

Augustine. Did we anywhere say that original sin grew after the law? Or do we want this understood in what the Apostle says: The law entered in, that the offense might abound (Rom 5:20)? For it abounded, not because that kind grew which had already existed before, but because another kind of sin was added, which did not exist without the law, that is, transgression, as we showed a little before. But the concupiscence of the flesh and the lust of the genitals, against which the chastity of the saints fights—this lust, which pleases you so much, since with its very own battle (which even conjugal modesty resists, using it well only for begetting children, but resisting its other movements)—this lust, then, with this battle of its own, because you try to admit or to introduce it even into the peace of paradise, you yourself do not dispose to enter paradise. But with however great a defense it may be fortified by you, and adorned with praises, it is either a defect or has been corrupted, and not undeservedly is it hateful to the soldiers of Christ, by whom it is warred down; with which you yourself play, so that you both say you fight it and are not ashamed to praise it. Through this, the human flesh that is born is the flesh of sin; on account of which he, who was born in the likeness of the flesh of sin (See Rom 8:3), did not want to be born through it; and on this account, though in true flesh, yet not in the flesh of sin. From this concupiscence of yours, received indeed as too beautiful to you, but foul to all the saints, the bond of original sin is drawn by generation, to be loosed only by regeneration. That was done through Adam, this is done through Christ; that through him by whom sin entered into the world, this through him who takes away the sin of the world (See John 1:29). So does he acknowledge Adam and Christ who has passed from Adam to Christ.

II. 219. Julian. What, then, was added after the law to natural sin, which indeed is proved in the law neither to be prohibited or condemned, nor even lightly censured or faintly shown?

Augustine. It is shown even in the law—but only if the veil is taken away from you (See 2 Cor 3:14-16); for what else is shown by the condemnation of the soul of him who is not circumcised on the eighth day (See Gen 17:14)? What else is shown when a sacrifice for sin is commanded to be offered for a newborn infant (See Lev 12:6-8), which I have already recalled above?

II. 220. Julian. Surely not even you are so out of your senses as to say that the transmission of sin was made greater after circumcision was instituted; how, then, did it abound after the law, when it is neither charged in the law nor betrayed? But see how this agrees with the sound understanding which sets sin in the will of the offender alone. The Apostle says that until the law there was sin, so that after the law there might be understood to be transgression, namely transgressing the precepts now promulgated; and by this kind sin abounded when the law entered in, since the odium of its guilt grew from transgression, and the work of an evil will—as before the law it was sin, so after the law it began to be transgression—although God did not bring the law with this purpose, that mortals should be made worse by its sanction. For the law is not sin, nor the cause of sin, but a commandment holy and just and good (Rom 7:12). But because the depravity of offenders wounded itself with that very iron by which it ought to have been cured, and resisted the counsel of God, so that it was endangered by that from which it ought to have been healed, the Apostle says that, by the outcome of things, the estimate of the divine counsel by which the law had been given suffered injury; and because the outcome of human amendment was not such as the giver of the law had intended, but in very many the contraries befell, he says that the pursuits of sinners so far advanced that the law seemed to be given for no other reason than that the wicked should become more wicked and transgression should be joined to sin.

Augustine. You say these things, you who do not yourself savor the counsel of God in giving the law, which the apostle Paul showed, and who dash yourself against these blasphemies, so as to say that the estimate of the divine counsel by which the law had been given suffered injury, as though something other was done than God had reckoned would be, and that, when the law was promulgated, the outcome the giver of the law had intended did not come about. According to your wisdom, then, his intention deceived God, who foreknows all future things; do you not attend to what is written: Many are the thoughts in the heart of a man, but the counsel of the Lord abides forever (Prov 19:21)? If, then, you want to know—as far as is permitted to man—with what counsel of God almighty and foreknowing all things the law was given, look at what the Apostle says: For if a law had been given which could give life, righteousness would be wholly from the law (Gal 3:21). And, as though we said: Why then was it given? But the Scripture, he says, has shut up all things under sin, that the promise, by faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe (Gal 3:22). Behold what is the counsel of the law being given. But who does not know that sin abounded when the law entered in, by the fault not of the law but of men? But this fault—by which prohibited things give more delight, and the law is made the power of sin (See 1 Cor 15:56)—is healed only by the life-giving spirit, not the letter that kills; which letter was nevertheless useful for this, that, while it killed by transgression, with the desire of sinning growing through the prohibition, it made the life-giving Spirit be sought, and compelled man, trusting mortally in his own power, to ask the help of the grace of God—man being, under the law (though holy and just and good), nevertheless deficient and unable to come to his own aid by his own powers to work the things that are holy, just, and good.

II. 221. Julian. Rightly, therefore, the offense is said to have abounded by this kind, which the will of each one committed both before the law and after the law—but before the law a sinner, after the law also a transgressor. Then, therefore, something grows and abounds when it gathers increases in its own kind, just as to the sin of free will a heap of transgression was added after Moses; for it was of the same kind, though at a different time—that is, of the evil will, which both before the law and after the law offended not by insuperable compulsion but by blameworthy pursuit. Since this is so, nothing of the apostolic words can fit you; for it is not taught that the sin of transmission was made either more copious or greater when the law entered in; nor is that rightly said to abound by sins of the will which is shown in no way to pertain to the will of the newborn. It did not abound after the law, then, what the law could neither prohibit nor punish. But where sin abounded, grace superabounded, so that, as sin reigned unto death, so grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life (Rom 5:20-21).

Augustine. Original sin did not indeed grow after the law, but nevertheless the law found even it—whose abolition it would signify by the circumcision of the infant—just as it also found the sins of ignorance, which did not themselves grow when the law was given, since rather that ignorance was diminished, because the knowledge of the law was added; but the sin without which no one is born grew by the addition of will, with original concupiscence drawing the assent of the sinner. But sin abounded—that is, grew too much—after, through the law, the knowledge of sin was made and one began to sin even by transgression (See Rom 7:7; 3:20). And if you would be willing to notice this and to acquiesce in the truth, you would be forced by no necessity openly to contradict the Apostle crying out: Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all human beings (Rom 5:12); for when he says it passed to all, while you say it did not pass to all, what else do you do but contradict the Apostle? And if the Apostle, then surely Christ. Why, then, do you wonder that the Church of Christ abominates you, who try by your deadly sentences to withdraw the weak little ones from the healthful medicines of Christ?

II. 222. Julian. The Apostle discloses himself more clearly as he proceeds, and teaches that, in the perdition of human salvation, God, admonished by the abundance of his own compassion, brought to desperate affairs a medicine more efficacious than usual, so that those whom he had not corrected by precepts he might bind by benefits, and so exact devotion for the future, so as not to impute what was done; and that men might thereafter be zealous to keep the righteousness which they had attained by the compendium of belief. The abundance, therefore, of preceding sins exacted the help of so abounding a mercy, since, unless there had been so great an abundance of the one forgiving, no other discipline would come to the aid of such grave diseases. But in this commendation of the divine benefit the Apostle saw that room lay open for the objection of those who could say: If we rightly estimate the merits of causes from their effects, then the abundance of sins obtained that the mercy of God should overflow; we must persist in sins, that the richness of grace may not be lacking. Meeting, then, an opinion of this kind: What then shall we say?, he says; shall we remain in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid! For we who have died to sin, how shall we yet live in it? Or do you not know that whoever of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? We have been buried, then, with him through baptism into death, so that, as Christ rose in the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life (Rom 6:1-4).

Augustine. Do these apostolic words not choke you for this reason—because you too recall them—lest we forget how firm the foundations of the house of God are that you try to tear down? Insane man, when the Apostle had said, If we have died to sin, how shall we live in it?, for this reason he added, Or do you not know that whoever of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death?, that he might prove those baptized in Christ to be dead to sin. Are you so deaf that you do not hear these things? So blind that you do not see them? Confess, then, that the baptized little ones are dead to sin; confess at last original sin; for they had nothing else to which they might die; or say openly that they ought not to be baptized, or that, when they are baptized, they are not baptized in Christ Jesus, or are not baptized into his death—and erase, if you can, the words of the Apostle saying: Whoever of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death. Furthermore, if you cannot erase these words, as you cannot, then, when you hear whoever, do not wish to separate the little ones from it; permit Christ to be Jesus to the little ones too, since he saves his people from their sins not with them excepted, but with them included, on account of which it was said by the angel: You shall call his name Jesus (Matt 1:21).

II. 223. Julian. He says we are dead to sin at that time when, in order to receive the gift of forgiveness, we professed to renounce the world and all sins, and that therefore, mindful of the gift, we ought so to live that we may be taught to have been buried with Christ, and may bear his resurrection by a conspicuous holiness, and that, as he, after he rose from the dead, suffers no infirmities of the body, no scourges, so we too may strive to be invulnerable to all sins and vices. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in that of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man has been at the same time fastened to the cross, that the body of sin may be destroyed, that we may no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died has been justified from sin (Rom 6:5-7). He binds the faithful by a clear reasoning: if you wish, he says, to become partakers of his resurrection, imitate also the power of his death, so that, dead to vices, you may live in virtue; for then you will be consorts in that happiness, if you bear the image of his death by dying to sins; for our old man ought to be fastened to his cross, to be taught to destroy the body of sin, namely by the fortitude of the passion. But by 'the body of sin' Paul, by his custom, calls vices, not the substance of the flesh; for so it follows: That the body of sin may be destroyed, that we may no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died has been justified from sin.

Augustine. However you interpret the body of sin, you will not deny that the little ones baptized in Christ Jesus are dead to sin, lest you most openly deny that they are baptized into the death of Christ Jesus, and on this account deny that they are baptized in Christ Jesus. For whoever of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death (Rom 6:3). Say, then, to what sin they die when the little ones are baptized in Christ Jesus? But you will utterly have nothing to say, unless you understand and answer with the whole Church of Christ: Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all human beings, in whom all have sinned (Rom 5:12). Behold the sin to which they die when the little ones are baptized into the death of Christ Jesus. I beg you: Do not be like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding (Ps 32:9 (31:9)). Hear: If we have died to sin, how shall we live in it? Or do you not know that whoever of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? (Rom 6:2-3) Whoever of us, then, have been baptized in Christ Jesus are dead to sin, because we have been baptized into his death. Hear: Whoever of us have been baptized; for it is not the little ones and not the older, or indeed the older and not the little ones, but whoever—that is, whether little ones or older—have been baptized in Christ Jesus, have been baptized into his death, and on this account are dead to sin. Either, then, say openly that the baptism of Christ is not necessary for the little ones, or say what is the sin to which they die when they are baptized in Christ—the sin of the little ones—or, because you can find no other, at last at some time acknowledge original sin.

II. 224. Julian. Surely he was speaking with the living, and saying to these that righteousness had been conferred through the mysteries. How, then, does he say that one was justified whom he called dead, except because he shows, without any ambiguity, that here he calls death 'renunciation,' and that for this reason the name of death is assumed by him, that he may show that the faithful ought to cease from sins just as the dead from acts?

Augustine. Contentious man, if in this passage of the apostolic words death is called 'renunciation,' so that one who renounces sin dies to sin, recall how in the Church of Christ, in which you were baptized, the mysteries of baptism are celebrated, and you will find that even the little ones renounce through the mouths of those who carry them, just as they believe through the mouths of those who carry them—which among you perhaps no longer happens; for you have so advanced for the worse, yourselves erring and sending others into error, that those who agree with you say a little one to be baptized ought not to renounce, because he has not drawn original sin; or, if he ought to renounce sin, say what sin, and at some time correct your error.

II. 225. Julian. For if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Christ, knowing that Christ, raised from the dead, dies now no more; death will no longer have dominion over him; for in that he died to sin, he died once; but in that he lives, he lives to God. So also do you reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but living to God in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:8-11). As Christ, he says, who died to sin once—that is, died once on account of our sins—dies no more, but lives in the glory of God, so do you too reckon yourselves dead to sin, to live and to be slaves to the virtues alone.

Augustine. O wondrous exposition! The Apostle says Christ died to sin, and you say, that is, on account of our sins; therefore what he says, So also do you reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, is he to be thought to say: Reckon yourselves to be dead on account of your sins? Surely he does not say this in this passage, nor do you so understand it, but you confess that they are dead to sin, that they might not live to sin. Show, then, that Christ too died to sin, lest the Apostle have unfittingly said so also do you; for he died to take away our sins, but nevertheless he died to sin—and this how, since he had no sin at all, neither original nor proper, except because the likeness, of which thing it was the likeness, received its name? For we know that Christ came in the likeness of the flesh of sin (See Rom 8:3), since he came in true flesh, but not, like other men, in the flesh of sin; he died, then, to the likeness of sin, which he bore in his mortal flesh, and so fulfilled the mystery of our salvation, that we might die to sin, of which he bore the likeness. Therefore we are baptized into his death, because, just as in him a true death was made, so in us a true remission of sins is made. But here the little ones too are: for whoever of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death (Rom 6:3). For men are not so baptized in Christ that some are baptized into his death and some not into his death; but, as he says, in whom Christ himself was speaking: Whoever are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized into his death, and on this account, whoever are baptized in Christ Jesus die to sin; if whoever, then surely the little ones too. But to what sin do the little ones die? At last, I beg, let generation confess, lest regeneration lie; let the flesh of sin in the little ones be confessed, that the likeness of the flesh of sin, dead even for the little ones, may not be denied.

II. 226. Julian. Where here, then, is nature accused? Where are the beginnings of human substance blamed? Where is the movement of the one begetting charged? It is clearer than light that the will alone is addressed by the Teacher of the Gentiles, that it may renounce the hidden things of shame (See 2 Cor 4:2) and advance to a better life by the correction of acts. But now let our exposition take a compendium, and not persist in interpreting the sayings of the Apostle in these passages; let us hear him discoursing on his own meanings. At the end of his disputation it will appear to whose teaching and faith he assents. We, indeed, say that the Apostle spoke of the sin of the human will, which is in each one who sins; but you, of that which you believe, with Faustus, to be transmitted by generation and received by all without will. Let our contentions, then, if you please, cease; and, to deal moderately, let us pass over the dignity of the Apostle, by which it could be prescribed that, even if his words agreed with you in everything, nevertheless he, for the splendor of his office, thought nothing so deformed—that there is an ambiguity of expressions, not a depravity of meanings; let this alone be granted to him in the present matter, that a man of an undisturbed mind is to be believed to have understood his own writings better than you. Let not sin, then, he says, reign in your mortal body, to obey it (Rom 6:12). I could now say here that, by the testimony of exhortation, it is proved that he is treating of sins of the will, because evils, if they were natural, could be defended by justice, or at last lamented by mercy, but in no way would they be admonished to be avoided. For greater than any natural evil—if any could exist—was this evil of the madness with which anyone was held who exacted devotion in avoiding natural things. But the Apostle sanctioned nothing that could rightly be reproved; therefore he showed a sin of the will, which he impresses ought to be avoided.

Augustine. Who is ignorant that the Apostle does not speak to the little ones, but to those who can understand the words of the speaker and, with the grace of God helping, obey the precepts? But surely they deal even with their own children, so that, as the use of reason grows in them, so the fruit of obedience may be put forth, lest they receive the grace of God in vain, when they were regenerated without knowing it. Nevertheless, that beautiful received thing of yours, which is deformed to all who war it down—I mean the concupiscence of the flesh, through which and with which man is born—this concupiscence of the flesh, then, the Apostle commands to be restrained (See Rom 6:12) and does not permit to reign, and he calls it by the name of sin, because it both draws its origin from the first sin and because whoever consents to its movements toward illicit things sins—which will then be no longer in us when we have an immortal body; and therefore, when he could say, Let not sin reign in your body, why did he add a word and say, in your mortal body (Rom 6:12), except that we might hope that this concupiscence, which he calls sin, will not exist when we no longer have a mortal body? For you, tell us, why he did not say, Let not sin be in your mortal body, but said, Let it not reign—except because this concupiscence, which cannot but be in mortal flesh, reigns in those who consent to its desires for perpetrating evils, and are dragged off by it, conquered, wherever it entices, with greater impetus, because they are prohibited by the law if they are not helped by grace; but in those who, by God's gift, do what is commanded—that is, do not obey it when it is stirred and pressing, nor furnish their members to it as arms—it is indeed present, but does not reign. And it is proved to be present, while evils are coveted, and proved not to reign, while, with the delight of righteousness conquering, they are not done. For how are we commanded not to obey it, except as commanding or persuading? And how can it do this, if it is not present?

II. 227. Julian. Neither present your members as arms of iniquity unto sin, but present yourselves to God, as those living from the dead, and your members as arms of righteousness unto God. For sin will not have dominion in you; for you are not under the law, but under grace (Rom 6:13-14). You ought, he says, to serve God the more faithfully the more liberally too; for sin had dominion over you when the vengeance of guilt was impending; but after you obtained the benefits of the grace of God and, the weights of guilt laid aside, drew breath again, you ought, admonished by an honorable shame, to return thanks to the one who heals.

Augustine. You, in your manner, which descends from your error, do not acknowledge grace except in the remission of sins, so that thereafter, by free choice, the man himself may fashion himself righteous. But the Church does not say this, which cries out, whole, what it learned from the good Teacher: Bring us not into temptation (Matt 6:13); this is not said by him who says: But we pray to God that you may do no evil (2 Cor 13:7); this is not said by him who says: I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail (Luke 22:32). For in this way grace brings it about that we do not sin; it does not wash away only the sins we have committed; for in both ways grace helps, both by forgiving the evils we have done and by aiding us to turn away from evils and do good.

II. 228. Julian. But because the occasion of the same question he had expounded above arose—namely, that it might be objected that those freed from the law, which threatened wrath, could safely sin under the kindness of God's grace—he at once subjoined: What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid! Or do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as slaves to obey, you are the slaves of him whom you obey, whether of sin or of the obedience of righteousness? (Rom 6:15-16) Do we now believe him, of whose condition of sin he has thus far discoursed? To whom, he says, you present yourselves as slaves to obey, you are the slaves of him, whether of sin or of righteousness. Where here, then, is that sin indicated by the Apostle which is feigned to have flown over upon the seeds themselves, before the times of the will, before the pursuit of the obedient, before the age of knowledge and conscience? Which surely can be found nowhere except in the books of the Manicheans.

Augustine. They are not the books of the Manicheans where it is read: For we too were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest (Eph 2:3)—which you, in a novel manner but with a most shameless mouth, interpret from the Greek, so that the Apostle may seem to have said not by nature but 'utterly,' that is: We were utterly children of wrath; and perhaps you will dare to emend this in your manuscripts, for you are unwilling to acquiesce in the fact that, unless this faith were as true as it is ancient, all the Latin manuscripts would not have it. Nor yet for that reason ought the Apostle not to have admonished that we must obey righteousness, not sin, because we are all born under sin, whose very origin is in fault (See Ambrose, Defense of the Prophet David 11.56). For when the guilt of generation has been absolved by the indulgence of regeneration, we must obey the spirit of righteousness, to which we must consent, and not obey the concupiscence of the flesh, against which we must contend—yet so, indeed, that we remember that the pious obedience itself too is a gift of God, which he promised through the Prophet, saying: I will give them a heart to know me, and ears to hear (See Jer 24:7; Deut 29:4); which is nothing other than obedient.

II. 229. Julian. Furthermore, the Apostle shows—if at any rate he obtains any belief from men in this storm—that he calls no one slaves of sin except those who, it is established, obeyed sin by their own will, by the change of which—that is, of the will—they began to serve righteousness; he set obedience, then, in the middle, and imputed to it the fact that they were zealous either to obey vices first or afterward virtues.

Augustine. Those who trust in their own power (See Ps 49:6 (48:7)) are empty, like you, and will be destroyed, like you.

II. 230. Julian. But thanks be to God, he says, that you were slaves of sin; but you have obeyed from the heart that form of teaching into which you were handed over; and, being freed from sin, you have been made slaves of righteousness (Rom 6:17-18).

Augustine. Deaf man, hear the Apostle giving thanks to God that they obeyed his teaching from the heart, since he did not say: Thanks to God because his teaching was preached to you, but: because you obeyed. For not all obey the Gospel (Rom 10:16), but those to whom it is given to obey, just as: To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven, says the Lord, but to them it is not given (Matt 13:11). They would not, then, have obeyed from the heart—that is, from the will—if the will were not prepared by the Lord; otherwise the Apostle gives him thanks falsely about this matter, if he himself did not do it.

II. 231. Julian. The change of obedience made from the heart, he says, freed you from sin and made you cleave to holiness.

Augustine. But this change is of the right hand of the Most High; hear the man of God confessing this grace in the Psalm, and learn who changes the will of man for the better: And I said, he says, Now I have begun; this is the change of the right hand of the Most High (Ps 77:10 (76:11)).

II. 232. Julian. I speak after the manner of men, on account of the infirmity of your flesh; for as you presented your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now present your members to serve righteousness unto sanctification (Rom 6:19). O teacher full of the Spirit of God, truly a golden vessel and a trumpet sounding not with broken shrieks but with clear utterances! He wins authority for his discourse by the kindness of exhortation.

Augustine. O you deceiver, full of a heretical spirit, giving the whole to the will of man against him who says: For what have you that you have not received? (1 Cor 4:7) Pelagian man, the Apostle was saying these things by planting and watering; but, knowing that neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase (1 Cor 3:7), he not only commanded but also prayed to God that those to whom he preached his words might not do evil. For he openly says elsewhere: But we pray to God that you may do no evil (2 Cor 13:7).

II. 233. Julian. For lest he seem to command man anything arduous and inaccessible, he borrowed a word from common usage, so as to say human, that is, easily manageable and something that grows mild by the comparison of causes. I do not, he says, demand of you an intensity equal to lofty matters, nor do I set down for you precepts as novel as the resources of the virtues are great, so that you may take hold of them; I bring in nothing fierce, I command nothing that can scarcely be borne—lest, if for the splendor of righteousness I should command anything of the sort, you, complaining of the infirmity of the flesh, should allege that you cannot bear continual labor. Now, therefore, I meet you with this moderation, that you apply to the virtues such zeal as you applied before to crimes; and although it is an injury to honorable things if they are sought with such a purpose as is spent on deformed things, nevertheless for this discipline in which you are, it suffices if you pursue righteousness with at least such intensity as you pursued iniquity and uncleanness.

Augustine. Yet they will not do this unless they resist, by the strength of love, that beautiful received concupiscence of the flesh of yours; with which law of the members, going to fight against the law of the mind, every human being is born, and by the bond of which he is guilty if he is not reborn—which mortals do not conquer by their own spirit, if they are not led by the Spirit of God: For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God (Rom 8:14). Go now, and against this Christian and apostolic truth cast down free choice by exalting it, and trust in your own power, not by rising up but by falling.

II. 234. Julian. Let us, then, believe the Teacher of the Gentiles and render him the testimony of his own truth. For truly, as he said, what he commanded is human, that the correction of the will might amend the defects of the will.

Augustine. But this human correction does not come about except by divine help. For who corrects the will of a man except him to whom it is said, God of hosts, convert us (Ps 80:7 (79:8)), and, O God, you will convert us and give us life (Ps 85:6 (84:7))? For by the Lord are the steps of a man directed, and he will will his way (Ps 37:23 (36:23)). But if they are not directed by him, a man will not will the way of God, even if the law commands him to will it.

II. 235. Julian. But just as this is human, so that other thing—if he had supposed it—would be not only inhuman, not only fierce, but even unjust; not only unjust, but even insane: namely, that if he knew sin to be inborn, he should reproach the men of his own age with the vices of an ancient birth and command them to abstain from what he believed to be inborn, and with a threat prescribe that I ought to lay aside what I had begun to have before the soul entered into my body, and the body into this world.

Augustine. Then either the concupiscence of the flesh is not inborn, or it is not from this that he commands abstinence, who says: Restrain yourself (See Sir 18:30), and: Flee youthful desires (2 Tim 2:22). Why did he not say: Flee voluntary desires? Youth, surely, is the name of an age, and ages nature has, not will; and that concupiscence is kindled most of all from the youthful age, whose force in the infant is surely dormant, like that of reason, like that of the will itself. But the Christian eye, not the Pelagian, discerns what nature takes up or contracts from the institution of the Creator, and what from the contamination of defect—proclaiming its Founder by its good, and by the same, on account of the evil with which it is corrupted, needing a Savior; for concerning the guilt with which a man is born, there is nothing that can be commanded him except that he be reborn.

II. 236. Julian. He would more justly be admonished by those whom he was zealous to amend, to weigh how much he commanded and to know that the first step of constant counsel is to keep measure in commanding; for that teaching is stripped of authority which equity does not protect, and that is full of authority which the scale of justice commends. And on this account it is established that the Apostle, the venerable instructor of the churches, rendering the reason of his teaching by counsel, equity, and humanity, thought nothing of a natural sin, but impressed, as the matter was, both that we were slaves of vices only through the will, and that we can serve righteousness by the same will, if it is corrected. But since I have thus far been occupied in the exposition of this passage, to show that through the words of the apostle Paul the Manicheans can defend nothing, and the truth has lain open by the context of his discourse, which he pursues through the whole body of his sayings, let this be the end of the second book—by which, however, we necessarily admonish that nothing has remained to the Traducianists but shamelessness, since, while they confessed that they had no support in reason, they vindicated for themselves all their solace from the sayings of the Apostle which have been expounded; and since it has become clear that nothing deformed, nothing not agreeing with holiness and reason, was prescribed in these, it appears that the opinion has fallen which both reason, with many authorities of the Scriptures, and the religion of the catholics, which is in God, have cast down, and which the meaning of this passage no longer protects.

Augustine. It appears to all who read these things with a sound head and intelligently that, while you said many things of yours against the words—not so much mine as the blessed Apostle's—you found nothing to say, and acted with the tortuous din of garrulity, so that to those who do not understand you might seem to have said something. Whether you will or not: Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all human beings (Rom 5:12). What is so, except through sin, not without sin? For death would not pass except with sin leading; for death follows sin, it does not precede it. Hence are all the miseries of mortals from the day of their coming forth from their mother's womb (See Sir 40:1), as it is written. Which miseries, when you say they befall the little ones without any sin, you truly make God unjust, and you horribly help the Manicheans. For they, lest they make God unjust, attribute these miseries, from the birth of mortals, to an immutable nature of evil and to a substance of darkness coming from another principle. Both these impious men and you yourselves the catholic faith conquers, which attributes all these things to that sin which entered into the world from the will of the first man—which sin even this death followed, the death which, putting the soul to flight, destroys the body, and which you say would have come naturally to man even if he had not sinned. Whence it follows that you say that not only that imperious lust, in which you delight too much, but even the most troublesome fever and the other innumerable diseases by which we see the little ones afflicted and dying, would have existed in paradise even if no one had sinned, because you say the little ones suffer these things without the merit of any sin. Restrain yourselves, I beg, with your false and harmful praises; restrain yourselves from the infants and sucklings, whom by a cruel error you praise as having nothing evil; let the little ones come to Christ the liberator to be freed; conquered and corrected, permit the second man to heal the wretched nature which the first man corrupted.

III. 1. Julian. It ought indeed to have been the case that among the human race a reverence for all the virtues should flourish; it ought to have been the case that crimes should always be resisted by a wise mind, and the favor of the Creator earned by good pursuits; finally, it was worthy that—since here the first and happier step of continual devotion seems both rare and exceedingly arduous—at least vices long cherished should be spat out, and a return made to the safeguard of amendment and penance. It ought certainly, at least in this, that an inviolable reverence for God should remain, that it should not be necessary for us to vindicate the divine law with so great a contest; but because the fury of sinners has reached the point that with the greatest labors we must teach that God is just, presuming on the help of that very justice whose cause is pleaded, let us render what we promised in the preceding book.

Augustine. You seek the help of God that your empty books may be completed, and you do not seek that your perverse meanings may be corrected. Yet I could wish you would say for what you ask the help of God in this work, since it is in your free choice either to do this or not to do it. Or is it that those things may be at hand for you which are not in your power and without which this cannot be accomplished—as are, to omit others, food itself and leisure? But these God supplies to us almost always through the wills of others. You see, then, that what you ask of almighty God, when you ask help in order to complete your books, is that he work in the wills of men what helps you and what does not hinder you. For if men should be unwilling to supply you food and fitting means, if finally they should be unwilling to cease from disquieting and hindering you, you will not be able to write or dictate these things. You hope, then, that by the help of God the wills of the men among whom you live are so dealt with that nothing necessary is lacking to you. For—what you do not believe—the will is prepared by the Lord (See Prov 8:35 (LXX)). Either, then, now correct your teaching, or cease to ask divine help for defending it.

III. 2. Julian. Since in the first volume it had been established by clear definitions that God is so just that, if it could be proved that he is not just, it would be proved that he is not God, and since on this no doubt had remained, it became clear also that justice is nothing other than the virtue that never judges anything iniquitously, does nothing iniquitously, but renders to each his own without fraud, without favor—that is, without partiality of persons.

Augustine. Without fraud you say truly, lest the undeserving be punished; but without favor—if this were the justice of God, Christ would never have died for the ungodly, that is, for those who merited nothing good and much evil; finally, he would never have adopted into his kingdom the little ones, whose good works and will did not go before, nor, in the same case, would he have defrauded other little ones of participation in the same kingdom—he who never judges iniquitously, does nothing iniquitously, and renders to each his own without fraud. Acknowledge, then, the little ones who are taken up into the kingdom of God to be vessels for honor through grace, and the other little ones who are not taken up into that honor to be vessels for dishonor through judgment, and at last at some time, lest you make God unjust, confess original sin.

III. 3. Julian. But the reason of that virtue holds then, if he punished none of his subjects except for those offenses which it was established were committed by free will.

Augustine. That too was committed by free will—the will of him in whom human nature was condemned, from which men are born liable to condemnation, unless they are reborn in him who was not born liable. This Christian teaching you want overthrown, but, while it stands, you are overthrown.

III. 4. Julian. Nor would he command men things which he knew could not be kept through their nature, nor would he judge anyone guilty for natural things.

Augustine. But there was Adam, and in him we all were, when he so sinned as to ruin in himself all, except those whom he would free from there—he who came to seek what had perished (See Luke 19:10).

III. 5. Julian. Nor would he impute the sins of some to others, and on this account would not adjudge to eternal punishments innocent children on account of their parents' iniquities—children who had done nothing of themselves, whether good or evil, by which they could be taught to have imitated their parents' crimes. From which gathered points it is established that God both is and is just—whom it had become clear would, if he did anything unjust, undergo in his divinity as great a loss as he had suffered in equity.

Augustine. You say truly, and on this account he does nothing unjust when he weighs down the sons of Adam with a heavy yoke from the day of their coming forth from their mother's womb (See Sir 40:1)—which would surely be unjust if there were no original sin.

III. 6. Julian. And yet—O the unhappiness of human error! For weighing the very reason of our conflict, I am shaken with excessive grief—could this have come into doubt, and could this cause have needed assertion? Could it, I say, be doubted in the churches which professed to believe in Christ, whether God judges justly, that is, reasonably!

Augustine. Because this is not doubted, therefore it is written that there is a heavy yoke upon the sons of Adam from the day of their coming forth from their mother's womb (See Sir 40:1); for Pelagian wisdom is not better than ecclesiastical wisdom.

III. 7. Julian. But I have too much forgotten, in my very reverence for the matters, the contention that is at issue. For I wonder that it could be in doubt concerning the equity of God, when it is established that in the synagogues of the Traducianists nothing is doubted concerning his iniquity.

Augustine. Because there is no doubt concerning the equity of God, therefore the heavy yoke upon the little one is believed to be just; and because this is believed to be just, therefore the little one is not believed to be without original sin. Accordingly, in the catholic Church, from which the Pelagians went out from us, it is not, as you say, nothing concerning the iniquity of God, but rather nothing concerning his equity that is doubted—where even an infant, whose life upon the earth is of one day, is taught and said not to be without the stain of sin (See Job 14:4-5 (LXX)), and therefore in the evils which he suffers, God is acknowledged not unjust, but just.

III. 8. Julian. Which is certainly so much the worse, by how much the pursuit of evils is graver than the neglect of goods, by how much an intention toward profanity is more pernicious than a doubting of the truth, by how much, finally, it is more wicked to dare to accuse God than to be unwilling to venerate him.

Augustine. But it is you who accuse God, while you deny that the little ones, whom you discern to be weighed down by his judgment with a heavy yoke, have any sin at all.

III. 9. Julian. The fool indeed had said, as the prophet David is witness, in his heart, that there is no God (Ps 14:1 (13:1)); yet he had not said: There is indeed a God, but nevertheless an unjust one; so harmoniously did the voice of all nature resound that justice cleaves inseparably to God, that one would more easily be found who denied his substance than one who denied his equity; there could exist one who thought that not to be which he did not see, but none had been found who called iniquitous what he believed to be divine.