Chapter 4 [II.]—The Calumny of Julian,—That the Catholics Teach that Free Will is Taken Away by Adam’s Sin.

Let us now, therefore, reply to Julian’s letter. “Those Manicheans say,” says he, “with whom now we do not communicate,—that is, the whole of them with whom we differ,—that by the sin of the first man, that is, of Adam, free will perished: and that no one has now the power of living well, but that all are constrained into sin by the necessity of their flesh.” He calls the catholics Manicheans, after the manner of that Jovinian who a few years ago, as a new heretic, destroyed the virginity of the blessed Mary, and placed the marriage of the faithful on the same level with her sacred virginity. And he did not object this to the catholics on any other ground than that he wished them to seem to be either accusers or condemners of marriage.

CAPUT II.

4. Julianum impugnat asserentem liberum 0552 arbitrium peccato Adae periisse. Jam itaque Juliani respondeamus Epistolae. «Dicunt,» inquit, «illi Manichaei, quibus modo non communicamus, id est, toti isti cum quibus dissentimus, quia primi hominis peccato, id est, Adae, liberum arbitrium perierit, et nemo jam potestatem habeat bene vivendi, sed omnes in peccatum carnis suae necessitate cogantur.» Manichaeos appellat Catholicos, more illius Joviniani, qui ante paucos annos haereticus novus, virginitatem sanctae Mariae destruebat, et virginitati sacrae nuptias fidelium coaequabat. Nec ob aliud hoc objiciebat Catholicis, nisi quia eos videri volebat accusatores vel damnatores esse nuptiarum.