To Florus 6.9
For the present, then, we must first expose the dullness of your thinking, and then show—as we have often done already—that you never step even one foot away from the Manichaeans’ hovels and brothels. To begin with, it is utterly mad to think an act of choice was mixed into reproductive seed and the operations of wills took root in conceptions. You abolish the clearest and widest distinction between natures and pursuits, and then say the first humans’ will reproduced itself in their descendants. Everything in existence struggles against this error.
Orators’ sons never brought the elegance of their fathers’ art into their infant cries; actors’ offspring did not stretch their hands in trained gestures to accompany words; warriors’ sons did not demand a trumpet from the crowd. We may pursue examples of every kind on this pattern, all sounding together more clearly than thunder. The whole of things answers that nature has one set of boundaries, will another, and the conditions of reproductive seed cannot be penetrated by the desires of chosen pursuits. It has therefore proved a belief of the dullest, most abject stupidity to think that something admittedly voluntary was transformed into nature.
But your other claim is far, far more disgraceful: you say the capacity to act was consumed when action began. Free will is simply the capacity to sin and not to sin, subject to no compulsion on either side, but able by its own choice to stand on whichever side it wants. Yet you say that once it began to will one side, it lost the ability to choose either.
Latin
Nobis igitur in praesenti convincenda primo est sensus vestri hebetudo; tum ostendendum quod saepe iam fecimus, ne uno quidem pede a Manichaeorum vos gurgustiis meritoriisque discedere. Initio igitur, amentissimum est arbitrii negotium seminibus immixtum putare, et officia voluntatum inolevisse conceptibus; ut ea, quae est clarissima atque vastissima, naturarum et studiorum distinctione sublata, voluntas primorum posteris se ingenuisse dicatur. Cui errori obluctatur quidquid in rebus est. Numquam siquidem filii disertorum venustatem artis paternae in vagitibus attulerunt, aut soboles histrionum doctis motibus ad verba manus tetendit; nec bellatorum filii tubam populo poposcerunt. Licet hac forma, exempla omnium persequi clariora tonitribus concinentia. Respondebit universitas alios esse naturae limites, alios voluntatis; conditionesque seminum studiorum appetitibus pervias esse non posse. Bardissimum itaque et depositae stoliditatis apparuit credere conversum in naturam, quod voluntarium fuisse fateare. Ceterum illud aliud longe longeque deformius, quod possibilitatem operandi initio ais operationis assumptam, id est, ut liberum arbitrium (quod non est aliud quam possibilitas peccandi et non peccandi, nulli partis alterutrae subdita violentiae, sed quae habeat facultatem in quod voluerit latus suopte insistendi arbitratu), postquam coepit alterum velle, utrumque posse perdiderit.
About this text
Julian’s six preserved books to Florus, quoted section by section in Augustine’s unfinished reply. Augustine’s refutations are omitted. Latin of Julian’s words is on each section.
Julian’s own books do not survive as a separate manuscript. English follows his words as Augustine quotes them in the Unfinished Work Against Julian. Augustine’s replies are omitted. We do not restore a Julian text independent of Augustine.
Witnesses
- Copy-text Augustine, Unfinished Work Against Julian (Latin · Julian’s words as quoted, Books 1–6)
- Checked print Augustinus.it Latin of the Unfinished Work (Latin · Same work)
- Checked print Migne PL 45 (Latin · Hard cases)
This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.