CHAP. 29 [XV.] — JULIAN OPPOSES THE FAITH OF HIS FRIENDS TO THE OPINIONS OF CATHOLIC BELIEVERS. FIRST OF ALL, OF FREE WILL.
Now therefore let us see, for the rest, in what way — after thinking that he might calumniously object against me what I believe, and feign what I do not believe — he himself professes his own taith or that of the Pelagians. " In opposition to these things," he says, " we daily argue, and we are unwilling to yield our consent to transgressors, because we say that free will is in all by nature, and could not perish by the sin of Adam; which assertion is confirmed by the authority of all Scriptures." If in any degree it is necessary to say this, you should not say it against the grace of God, — you should not give your consent to transgressors, but you should correct your opinion. But about this, as much as I could, and as far as it seemed to be sufficient, I have argued above.
CHAP. 30. — SECONDLY, OF MARRIAGE.
" We say," says he, " that that marriage which is now celebrated throughout the earth was ordained by God, and that married people are not guilty, but that fornicators and adulterers are to be condemned." This is true and catholic doctrine; but what you want to gather from this, to wit, that from the intercourse of male and female those who are born derive no sin to be put away by the laver of regeneration, — this is false and heretical.
CHAP. 31. THIRDLY, OF CONJUGAL INTERCOURSE.
" We say," says he, " that the sexual impulse — that is, that the virility itself, without which there can be no intercourse — is ordained by God." To this I reply that the sexual impulse, and, to make use of his word, virility, without which there can be no intercourse, was so appointed by God that there was in it nothing to be ashamed of. For it was not fit that His creature should blush at the work of his Creator; but by a just punishment the disobedience of the members was the retribution to the disobedience of the first man, for which disobedience they blushed when they covered with fig-leaves those shameful parts which previously were not shameful.
CHAP. 32 [xVL] THE APRONS WHICH ADAM AND EVE WORE.
For they did not use for themselves tunics to cover their whole bodies after their sin, but aprons, 7 which some of the less carefiil of our translators have translated as " coverings." And this indeed is true; but " covering " is a general name, by which may be understood every kind of clothing and veil. And ambiguity ought to be avoided, so that, as the Greek called them Trept^oj/xara, by which only the shameful parts of the body are covered, so also the Latin should either use the Greek word itself, because now ' Gen. iii. 7.
Chap. 35.]
custom has come to use it instead of the Latin, or, as some do, use the word aprons,' or, as others have better named them, wrestUng aprons.^ 1 Because this name is taken from that ancient | Roman custom whereby the youth covered their shameful parts when they were exercised nalced, in the field; whence even at this day they are j called cainpcstrati,^ since they cover those members with the girdle. Although, if those members by wliich sin was committed were to be covered after the sin, men ought not indeed to have been clothed in tunics, but to have covered their hand and mouth, because they sinned by taking and eating. What, then, is the meaning, when the prohibited food was taken, and the transgression of the precept had been committed, of the look turned towards those members? What unknown novelty is felt there, and compels itself to be noticed? And this is signified by the opening of the eyes. For their eyes were not closed, either when Adam gave names to the cattle and birds, or when Eve saw the trees to be beautiful and good; but they were made open — that is, attentive — to consider; as it is written of Agar, the handmaid of Sarah, that she opened her eyes and saw a well,'* although she certainly had not had them closed before. As, therefore, they were so suddenly ashamed of their nakedness, which they were daily in the habit of looking upon and were not confused, that they could now no longer bear those members naked, but immediately took care to cover them; did not they — he in the open, she in the hidden impulse — perceive those members to be disobedient to the choice of their will, which certainly they ought to have ruled like the rest by their voluntary command? And this they deservedly suffered, because ■ they themselves also were not obedient to their Lord. Therefore they blushed that they in such wise had not manifested service to their Creator, that they should deserve to lose dominion over those members by which children were to be procreated.
CHAP. T^2)- THE SHAME OF NAKEDNESS. - This kind of shame — this necessity of blushing — is certainly born with every man, and in some measure is commanded by the very laws of nature; so that, in this matter, even virtuous married people are ashamed. Nor can any one go to such an extreme of evil and disgrace, as, because he knows God to be the author of nature and the ordainer of marriage, to have intercourse even with his wife in any one's sight, or not to blush at those impulses and seek secrecy, where * Succinctori'a.
2 Catttpestria, which, as Augustin explains, is derived from " campester" and that from " campus." See On the City of God, XIV. 17.
he can shun the sight not only of strangers, but even of all his own relatives. Therefore let human nature be permitted to acknowledge the evil that happens to it by its own fault, lest it should be compelled either not to blush at its own impulses, which is most shameless, or else to blush at die work of its Creator, which is most ungrateful. Uf this evil, nevertheless, virtuous marriage makes good use for the sake of the benefit of the begetting of children. But to consent to lust for the sake of carnal pleasure alone is sin, although it may be conceded to married people with permission.
CHAP. 34 [XVII.] — WHETHER THERE COULD BE SENSUAL APPETITE IN PARADISE BEFORE THE FALL.
But, while maintaining, ye Pelagians, the honourableness and fruitfulness of marriage, determine, if nobody had sinned, what you would wish to consider the life of those people in Paradise, and choose one of these four things. For beyond a doubt, either as often as ever they pleased they would have had intercourse; or they would bridle lust when intercourse was not necessary; or lust would arise at the summons of will, just at the time when chaste prudence would have perceived beforehand that intercourse was necessary; or, with no lust existing at all, as every other member served for its own work, so for its own work the organs of generation also would obey the commands of those that willed, without any difficulty. Of these four suppositions, choose which you please; but I think you will reject the two former, in which lust is either obeyed or resisted. For the first one would not be in accordance with so great a virtue, and the second not in harmony with so great a happiness.
For be the idea far from us, that the glory of so great a blessedness as that should either be most basely enslaved by always following a preceding lust, or, by resisting it, should not enjoy the most abounding peace. Away, I say, with the thought that that mind should either be gratified by consenting to satisfy the concupiscence of the flesh, arising not opportunely for the sake of procreation, but with unregulated excitement, or that that quiet should find it necessary to restrain it by refusing.
CHAP. 35. — DESIRE IN PARADISE WAS EITHER NONE AT ALL, OR IT WAS OBEDIENT TO THE IMPULSE OF THE WILL.
But whichever you choose of the two other alternatives, there is no necessity for striving against you with any disputation. For even if you should refuse to elect the fourth, in which there is the highest tranquillity of all the obedient members without any lust, since already the urgency of your arguments has made you hostile 3S8 [Book I.
to it; that will doubtless please you which I have put in the third place, that that carnal concupiscence, whose impulse attains to the final pleasure which much delights you, should never arise in Paradise except at the bidding of the will when it would be necessary for procreation. If it is | agreeable to you to arrange this in Paradise, and | if, by means of such a concupiscence of the j flesh which should neither anticipate, nor impede, j nor exceed the bidding of the will, it appears to j you that children could have been begotten, I have no objection. For, as far as I am concerned in this matter, it is enough for me that such a concupiscence of the flesh is not now among men, as you concede there might have been in that place of happiness. For what it now is, the sense of all men certainly confesses, although with modesty; because it both solicits with excessive and importunate uneasiness the chaste, even when they are unwilling and are checking it by moderation, and frequently withdraws itself from the willing and inflicts itself on the unwilling; so that, by its disobedience, it testifies that it is nothing else than the punishment of that first disobedience. Whence, reasonably, both then the first men wlien they covered their nakedness, and now whoever considers iiimself to be a man, every no less modest than immodest person is confounded at it — far be it from us to say by the work of God, but — by the penalty of the first and ancient sin. You, however, not for the sake of religious reasoning, but for excited contention, — not on behalf of human modesty, but for )'our own madness, that even the concupiscence of the flesh itself should not be thought to be currupted, and original sin to be derived from it, — are endeavouring by your argument to recall it absolutely, such as it now is, into Paradise; and to contend that that concupiscence could have been there which would either always be followed by a disgraceful consent, or would sometimes be restrained by a pitial)le refusal. I, however, do not greatly care what it delights you to think of it. Still, whatever of men is born by its means, if he is not born again, without doubt he is damned; and he must be under the dominion of the devil, if he is not delivered thence by Christ.
CHAP. 36 [xviii.] — Julian's fourth objection, THAT MAN IS GOD'S WORK, AND IS NOT CON- STR.AINEE) TO EVIL OR GOOD BY HIS POWER.
" We maintain," says he, " that men are the work of God, and that no one is forced unwillingly by His power either into evil or good, but that man does either good or ill of his own will; but that in a good work he is always assisted by God's grace, while in evil he is incited by the suggestions of the devil." To this I answer, that men, in so far as they are men, are the work of God; but in so far as they are sinners, they are under the devil, unless they are plucked from thence by Him who became the Mediator between God and man, for no other reason than because He could not be a sinner from men. And that no one is forced by God's power unwillingly either into evil or good, but that when God forsakes a man, he deservedly goes to evil, and that when God assists, without deserving he is converted to good. For a man is not good if he is unwilling, but by the grace of God he is even assisted to the point of being willing; because it is not vainly written, " For it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do for His good pleasure," ' and, " The will is prepared by God."^ CHAP. 37 [XIX.] — THE BEGINNING OF A GOOD WILL IS THE GIFT OF GRACE.
But you think that a man is so aided by the grace of God in a good work, that in stirring up his will to that very good work you believe that grace does nothing; for this your own words sufficiently declare. For w'hy have you not said that a man is incited by God's grace to a good work, as vou have said that he is incited to evil by the suggestions of the devil, but have said that in a good work he is always aided by God's grace? — as if by his own will, and without any grace of God, he undertook a good work, and were then divinely assisted in the work itself, for the sake, that is to say, of the merits of his good will; so that grace is rendered as due, — not given as not due, — and thus grace is made no more grace.^ But this is what, in the Palestinian judgment, Pelagius with a deceitful heart condemned, — that the grace of God, namely, is given according to our merits. Tell me, I beseech you, what good, Paul, while he was as yet Saul, willed, and not rather great evils, when breathing out slaughter he went, in horrible darkness of mind and madness, to lay waste the Christians? •♦ For what merits of a good will did God convert him by a marvellous and sudden calling from those evils to good things? What shall I say, when he himself cries, " Not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us"?5 What is that which I have already mentioned ^ as having been said by the Lord, " No one can come to me," — which is understood as "believe on me," — unless it were given him of my Father"?7 Whether is this given to him who is already willing to believe, for the sake of the merits of a good will? or rather is the will itself, as in the case of Saul, stirred up from above, that he may believe, even although he is so averse from the > Phil. ii. 13. < Acts ix. I. 7 John vi. 66.
2 Prov. viii. 35. 5 Tit. iii. 5.
3 Rom. xi. 6.
^ See above, ch. 6.
Chap. 39.]
AGAINST TWO LETTERS OF THE TELAGIANS.
faith as even to persecute the believers? For how has the Lord commanded us to pray for those who persecute us? Do we pray thus that the grace of God may be recompensed them for the sake of their good will, and not rather that the evil will itself may be changed into a good one? Just as we believe that at that time the saints whom he was persecuting did not pray for Saul in vain, that his will might be converted to the faith which he was destroying. And indeed that his conversion was effected from above, appeared even by a manifest miracle. But how many enemies of Christ are at the present day suddenly drawn by Cjod's secret grace to Christ! And if I had not set down this word from the gospel, what things would that man have said in this behalf concerning me, since even now he is stirrmg, not against me, but against Him who cries, " No man can come to me, except the Father who hath sent me draw him "! ' For He does not say, " except He lead him," so that we can thus in any way understand that his will precedes. For who is " drawn," if he was already willing? And yet no man comes unless he is willing. Therefore he is drawn in wondrous ways to will, by Him who knows how to work within the verv hearts of men. Not that men who are unwilling should believe, which cannot be, but that they should be made willing from being unwilling.
CHAP. 38 [XX.] — THE POWER OF GOD'S GRACE IS PROVED.
That this is true we do not surmise by human conjecture, but we discern by the most evident authority of the divine Scriptures. It is read in the books of the Chronicles: " Also in J,udah, the, hand of God was made to give them one heart, to do the commandment of the king and of the princes in the word of the Lord." - Also by Ezekiel the prophet the Lord says, " I will give them another heart, and a new spirit will I give them; and I will take away their stony heart out of their flesh, and I will give them an heart of flesh, that they may walk in my commandments and observe my judgments and do them." 3 And what is that which Esther the queen prays when she says, " Give me eloquent speech in my mouth, and enlighten my words in the sight of the lion, and turn his heart to hatred of him that fighteth against us "? •♦ How does she say such things as these in her prayer to God, if God does not work His will in men's hearts? But perchance the woman was foolish in praying thus. Let us see, then, whether the desire of the petitioner was vainly sent on in advance, and whether the result did not follow as of one who heard. Lo, she goes in to the king. \\'e need not say much. And because she did not a|)proach him in her own order, under the compulsion of her great necessity, "he looked upon her," as it is written, "like a bull in the impulse of his indignation. And the queen feared, and her colour was changed through faintness, and she bowed herself ujjon the head of her maid, who went before her. And God changed him, and converted his indignation into mildness." 5 Now what need is there to relate wliat follows, where the divine Scripture testifies that God fulfilled what she had asked for by working in the heart of the king nothing other than the will by which he commanded, and it was done as the queen had asked of him? And now God had heard her that it should be done, who changed the heart of the king by a most secret and efficacious power before he had heard the address of the woman beseeching him, and moulded it from indignation to mildness, — that is, from the will to hurt, to the will to favour, — according to that word of the apostle, " God worketh in you to will also." Did the men of God who wrote these things — nay, did the Spirit of God Himself, under whose guidance such things were written by them — assail the free will of man? Away with the notion! But He has commended both the most righteous judgment and the most merciful aid of the Omnipotent in all cases.
For it is enough for man to know that there is no unrighteousness with God. But how He dispenses those benefits, making some deservedly vessels of wrath, others graciously vessels of mercy, — who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counsellor? If, then, we attain to the honour of grace, let us not be ungrateful by attributing to ourselves what we have received. " For what have we which we have not received? " ^ CHAP. 39 [xxi.] — Julian's fifth objection CONCERNING THE SAINTS OF THE OLD TESTA- MENT.
" We say," says he, " that the saints of tlie Old Testament, their righteousness being perfected here, passed to eternal life, — that is, that by the love of virtue they departed from all sins; because those whom we read of as having committed any sin, we nevertheless know to have amended themselves." Of whatever virtue }ou may declare that the ancient righteous men were possessed, nothing saved them but the belief in the Mediator who shed His blood for the remission of their sins. For their own word is, " I believed, and therefore I spoke."? Whence the Apostle Paul also says, " And we having the same Spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed.
' John vi. 44.
5 Esther XV. 5 ff.
' I Cor. iv. 7.
' Ps. cxvi. 10.
[Book I.
and therefore have I spoken; we also beheve, and therefore speak." ' What is " the same Spirit," but that Spirit wlioni these righteous men also had who saitl such things? The Apostle Peter also says, " Why do ye wisli to put a yoke upon the heathen, which neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? But, b\" the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we believe that we shall be saved, even as they." - You who are enemies to this grace do not wish this, that the ancients sliould be believed to have been saved by the same grace of Jesus Christ; but you distribute the times according to Pelagius,3 in whose books this is read, and you say that before the law men were saved by nature, then by the law, lastly by Christ, as if to men of the two former times, that is to say, before the law and under the law, the blood of Clirist iiad not been necessary; making void what is said: " For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." •* CHAP. 40 [XXII.] THE SIXTH OBJECTION, CON- CERNING THE NECESSITY OF GRACE FOR ALL, AND CONCERNING THE B.\FriSM OF INFANTS.
They say, " We confess that the grace of Christ is necessary to all, Both to grown-up people and to infants; and we anathematize those who say that a child born of two baptized people ought not to be baptized." I know in what sense you say such things as these — not according to the Apostle Paul, but according to the heretic Pelagius; — to wit, that baptism is necessary for infants, not for the sake of the remission of sins, but only for the sake of the kingdom of heaven; for you give them outside the kingdom of heaven a place of salvation and life eternal, even if they have not been baptized. Nor do you regard what is written, " Whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he who believeth not shall be condemned." 5 For which reason, in the Church of the Saviour, infants believe by means of other people, even as they have derived those sins which are remitted them in baptism from other people. Nor do you think thus, that they cannot have life who have been without the body and blood of Christ, although He said Himself, " Unless ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, ye shall have no life in you." ^ Or if you are forced by the words of the gospel to confess that infants departing from the body cannot have either life or salvation unless they have been baptized, ask why those who are not baptized are compelled • 2 Cor. iv. 13.
• 2 Cor. iv. 13.
3 See above, Ou Original Sin, 30. s Mark xvi. 16.
^ Acts XV. 10, II. * 1 Tim. ii. 5. *> John vi. 34.
to undergo the judgment of the second death, by the judgment of Him who condemns nobody undeservingly, and you will find what you do not want, — original sin!
CH.AP. 41 [XXIII.] THE SEVENTH OBJECTION, OF THE EFFECr OF BAPTISM.
" We condemn," says he, " those who affirm that baptism does not do away alj sins, because we know that full cleansing is conferred by these mysteries." W-e also say this; but you do not say that infants are also by those same mysteries freed from the bonds of their first birth and of their hateful descent. On which account it behoves you, like other heretics also, to be separated from the Church of Christ, which holds this of old time.
CHAP. 43 [XXIV.J — HE REBUTS THE CONCLUSION OF juli.^n's LETFER.
But now the manner in which he concludes the letter bv saving. " Let no one therefore seduce you, nor let the wicked deny that they think these things. But if they speak the truth, either let a hearing be given, or let those very bishops who now disagree with me condemn what I have above said that they hold with the Manicheans, as we condemn those things which they declare concerning us, and a full agreement shall be made; but if they will not, know ye that they are Manicheans, and abstain from their company; " — this is rather to be despised than rebuked. For which of us hesitates to pronounce an anathema against the Manicheans, who say that from the good God neither proceed men, nor was ordained marriage, nor was given the Ici^w, whicli was ministered to the Hebrew people by Moses! But against the Pelagians also, not without reason, we pronounce an anathema, for that they are so hostile to God's grace, which comes through Jesus Christ our Lord, as to say that it is given not freely, but according to our merits, and thus grace is no more grace; '' and place so much in free will by which man is plunged into the abyss, as to say that by making good use of it man deserves grace, — although no man can make good use of it except by grace, which is not repaid according to debt, but is given freely by God's mercy. And they so contend that infants are already saved, that they dare deny that they are to be saved by the Saviour. And holding and disseminating these execrable dogmas, they still over and above constantly demand a hearing, when, as condemned, they ought to repent.
7 Rom. xi. 6.
HE UNDERTAKES TO EXAMINE THE SECOND LETTER OF THE PELAGIANS, FILLED, LIKE THE FIRST, WITH CALUMNIES AGAINST THE CATHOLICS A LETTER THAT WAS SENT BY THEM TO THESSALONICA IN THE NAME OF EIGHTEEN lilSIIOPS; AND, FIRST OF ALL, HE SHOWS, BY THE COMPARISON OF THE HERETICAL WRITINGS WITH ONE ANOTHER, THAT THE CATHOLICS ARE BY NO MEANS FALLING INTO THE ERRORS OF THE MANICHEANS IN DETESTING THE DOGMAS OF THE PELAGIANS. HE REPELS THE CALUMNY OF PREVARICATION INCURRED BY THE ROMAN CLERGY IN THE LATTER CONDEMNATION OF PELAGIUS AND CCELESTIUS BY ZOSIMUS, SHOWING THAT THE PELAGIAN DOGMAS WERE NEVER APPROVED AT ROME, ALTHOUGH FOR SOME TIME, BY THE CLEMENCY OF ZOSIMUS, CCELESTIUS WAS MERCIFULLY DEALT WITH, WITH A VIEW TO LEADING HIM TO THE CORRECTION OF HIS ERRORS. HE SHOWS THAT, UNDER THE NAME OF GRACE, CATHOLICS NEITHER ASSERT A DOCTRINE OF FATE, NOR ATTRIBUTE RESPECT OF PERSONS TO GOD; ALTHOUGH THEY TRULY SAY THAT GOd's GRACE IS NOT GIVEN ACCORD-ING TO HUMAN MERITS, AND THAT THE FIRST DESIRE OF GOOD IS INSPIRED BY god; so that a man does not at all MAKE A BEGINNING OF A CHANGE FROM BAD TO GOOD, UNLESS THE UNBOUGHT AND GRATUITOUS MERCY OF GOD EFFECTS THAT BEGINNING IN HIM.
CHAP. I. — INTRODUCTION; THE PELAGIANS IM- PEACH CATHOLICS AS MANICHEANS.
Let me now consider a second letter, not of Julian's alone, but common to him with several bishops, which they sent to Thessalonica; and let me answer it, with God's help, as I best can. And lest this work of mine become longer than the necessity of the subject itself requires, what need is there to refute those things which do not contain the insidious poison of their doctrine, but seem only to plead for the acquiescence of the Eastern bishops for their assistance, or, on behalf of the catholic faith, against the profanity, as they say, of the Manicheans; with no other view except, a horrible heresy being presented to them, whose adversaries they profess themselves to be, to lie hid as the enemies of grace in praise of nature? For who at any time has stirred any question of these matters against them? or what catholic is displeased because they condemn those whom the apostle foretold as departing from the faith, having their conscience seared, forbidding to marry, abstaining from meats that they think unclean, not thinking that all things were created by Ood? ' ^Vho at any time constrained them to deny that every creature of God is good, and there is no substance which the supreme God has not made, except God Him- ' I Tim. iv. ff.
' I Tim. iv. ff.
self, who was not made by any? It is not such things as these, which it is plain are catholic truths, that are rebuked and condemned in them; because not alone the catholic faith holds in detestation the Manichean impiety as exceedingly foolish and misciiievous, but also all heretics who are not Manicheans. Whence even these Pelagians do well to utter an anathema against the Manicheans, and to speak against their errors. But they do two evil things, for which they themselves must also be anathematized — one, that they impeach catholics under the name of Manicheans, the other, that they themselves also are introducing the heresy of a new error. For they are not therefore sound in the faith because they are not labouring under the disease of the Manicheans. The kind of pestilence is not always one and the same — as in the bodies, so also in the minds. As, therefore, the physician of the body would not have pronounced a man free from peril of death whom he might have declared free from dropsy, if he had seen him to be sick of some other mortal disease; so truth is not acknowledged in their case because they are not Maniclieans, if they are raving in some other kind of perversity. Wherefore what we anathematize with them is one thing, what we anathematize in them is another. For we hold in abhorrence with them what is rightly offensive to them also; just as, nevertheless, we hold in ;92 [Book IL ;92 [Book IL abhorrence in them that for which they themselves are rightly offensive.
CHAP. 2 [ll.] THE HERESIES OF THE MANI- CHEANS AND PELAGIANS ARE MUTUALLY OPPOSED, AND ARE ALIKE REPROBATED BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
The INIanicheans say tliat the good God is not the Creator of all natures; the Pelagians say that God is not the Purifier, the Saviour, the Deliverer of all ages among men. The catholic Church condemns both; as well maintaining God's creation against the Manicheans, that no nature may be denied to be framed by Him, as maintaining against the Pelagians that in all ages human nature must be sought after as ruined. The Manicheans rebuke the concupiscence of