Commonitorium against the heresy of Pelagius and Caelestius and the writings of Julian, with Subnotations on Augustine's Unfinished Work against Julian 12

So that neither anyone nor you yourself may say that I have slandered you, as though you did not afterwards hold these definitions, hear again what is contained in your own words in your book which we are discussing, chapter 65: 'Sin, then, according to the apostle, entered through one man into this world, and through sin death, since the world saw him both guilty and destined for the condemnation of perpetual death.' Before, you denied that sin entered this world through that one man, whereas now you confess that it entered. 'But death,' you say, 'passed through to all men, because one form of judgment includes all transgressors of every later age. Yet this death,' you say, 'is not permitted to rage against the saints or any innocent, but pervades only those whom it sees to have emulated the transgression; which transgression, though it was not made natural, was yet the pattern of sin, and therefore, though it does not weigh on those who are born, it accuses those who imitate. Judicial death passes in that in which all sinned, but by free will.' To this: If that by which Adam was punished is judicial death, and it is the one which passed and passes to the descendants, not to all without exception, as you say, but only to imitators, what, or of what kind, will that other death be which separates the soul from the body? Here, hard pressed, you will say: natural, since Adam would have died whether he sinned or not. Behold the Christian pedigree! Behold the ancient tradition of the church! But surely you see how in your words, contrary to yourself, you tear yourself like a viper, since you spend an empty zeal on the rattles of words rather than on any real argument. I should like, however, to question you more closely about what you think of death of either kind, you who allow at least one of them to pass on. Tell me, then: what is the death which in your judgment passes on? Is it a substance or nature, or some accidental thing? For we remember that at the time when you were present in the city of Rome, sifting the church among some simpler folk together with the sharers of this most insane error of yours, you used to ask: 'What is sin,' you would say, 'something evil or good?' 'Evil, of course,' they answered you. To this you added: 'Is God the author and maker of this evil?' 'Far be it, far be it,' they cried to you; 'far, far be this madness; not even the most impious Manichee dared to profess this, who neither thinks nor professes that God is the author of evil, but most wickedly insists that evil has from eternity its own principle, its own essence, and its own nature.' Then you used at once to say that it must be asked whether sin was a substance or a nature or some accidental thing. When Christian simplicity hesitated a little, you inferred thus: that sin can in no way be a substance or nature, since in that case it would have God as its maker and author, for there is no nature which God did not create; but since it was established above that he is not the author of evil, sin, which was most plainly shown to be evil, is not a substance or nature; and what is not a substance, you said, must by no right and no reason be believed to pass into the substance or nature which a man is. And you concluded: 'Wrongly and foolishly, then, is sin believed to be passed on from Adam.' As I said above, then, allow me too to question you in this way and along the same lines of argument, so that you may teach us by answering. This death at least, which is according to the soul and is eternal, and which Adam the transgressor received and, you say, transmitted to his descendants, though you define it as passing only to a very few imitators (for of that other death, which separates the soul from the body, you make no mention): is it some substance or nature, or something accidental to substance? If you still have any light in you, you will answer that it happened to nature or substance and cannot be called a substance, since it was given as a penalty to the first transgressor and thereafter to the human race; and no prudent person, you will say, would call a penalty a substance or nature. Here at once you are caught in your own nets. You transmit it to the descendants, at least to the imitators of Adam, as though it had been shown that it can pass from substance into the substance or nature which a man is. What are you, excellent master of the lost and dialectical disputer? Do you see where you have fallen? Do you perceive now at least how far you have strayed from the path of truth? But for the present, if there is any shame in you, let these things suffice. If God grants a lease of life and allows time for re-examining these excellent books of yours and re-reading that most wise letter of yours, we shall meanwhile bring forward other things of yours too, which we avoid with great execration; and when the Lord wills, we shall answer you again.