Chapter 7 [III.]—Augustin Adduces a Passage Selected from the Preface of Julianus. (See “The Unfinished Work,” i. 73.)

Let us now look at those words of ours which he adduced just as it suited him, and to which he would oppose his own. For they are followed by his words; moreover, as the person insinuated who sent you the paper of extracts, he copied something out of a preface, which was no doubt the preface of the books from which he selected a few passages. The paragraph thus copied stands as follows: “The teachers of our day, most holy brother,145    He calls Florus “most holy father” elsewhere (see The Unfinished Work, iv. 5). This man, to whom Julianus dedicated his work, is called a colleague or fellow-bishop of Julianus by Augustin (The Unfinished Work, iii. 187). who are the instigators of the disgraceful faction which is now overheated with its zeal, are determined on compassing the injury and discredit of the men with whose sacred fervour they are set on fire, by nothing less than the ruin of the whole Church; little thinking how much honour they have conferred on those whose renown they have shown to be only capable of being destroyed along with the catholic religion. For, if one should say, either that there is free will in man, or that God is the Creator of those that are born,146    Conditor nascentium, i.e. the Maker of all men’s births. he is at once set down as a Cœlestian and a Pelagian. To avoid being called heretics, they turn Manicheans; and so, whilst shirking a pretended infamy, they incur a real reproach; just like the animals, which in hunting they surround with dyed feathers, in order to scare and drive them into their nets;147    For a description of this curious mode of capture, see Dr. Smith’s Greek and Roman Antiquities, s. v. Rete. the poor brutes are not gifted with reason, and so they are thrust all together by a vain panic into a real destruction.”148    See The Unfinished Work, i. 3.

CAPUT III.

7. Nunc ad ea quae sicut voluit, nostra proposuit, quae sua opposuerit, videamus. Sequuntur enim jam verba ejus; et sicut iste insinuavit qui tibi chartulam misit, prius aliquid de praefatione conscripsit, procul dubio librorum illorum de quibus pauca decerpsit. Id autem ita sese habet: «Doctores,» inquit, «nostri temporis, frater beatissime, et nefariae quae adhuc fervet seditionis auctores, ad hominum, quorum sanctis studiis uruntur, contumelias et exitium decreverunt per ruinam totius Ecclesiae pervenire; non intelligentes quantum his contulerint honoris, quorum ostenderunt gloriam nisi cum catholica religione non potuisse convelli. Nam si quis aut liberum in hominibus arbitrium, aut Deum esse nascentium conditorem dixerit, Coelestianus et Pelagianus vocatur. Ne igitur vocentur haeretici, fiunt Manichaei; et dum falsam verentur infamiam, verum crimen incurrunt: instar ferarum, quae circumdantur pinnis, ut cogantur in retia; quibus quoniam deest ratio, in verum exitium vana formidine contruduntur» .