Fragments to Turbantius — Book 2

2.1.2The devil creates them, if they are created from the wound the devil inflicted on human nature as it was first made. Marriage is condemned if it is believed to contain something from which people deserving condemnation are born. Nor are all sins forgiven in baptism if some evil remains in baptized married couples, from which evil people are born. And how is God not unjust, if he forgives baptized people their own sins, yet condemns an infant because, when created by him, the infant unknowingly and unwillingly inherited other people’s sins—even from parents whose sins had been forgiven? Nor can virtue, whose opposite is understood to be vice, be thought capable of perfection: it is incredible that inborn faults could be destroyed. Indeed, these should no longer even be counted as faults. Someone who cannot be anything other than what they were created to be is not sinning.

2.2.4Through one Lord Jesus — he says — the salvation to come is declared to the nations: he alone could not be just, though the whole race went astray, unless, born of the Virgin, he was not in the least subject to the claim of the guilty race. “Behold,” he says, “I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother bore me” (Psalm 51:5) — so says he who was thought just above all others. Whom then shall I call just, if not him who is free of these chains, whom the chains of our common nature do not bind? All are under sin; from Adam death reigned over all. Let him come who alone is just in God’s sight, of whom it is now said without exception, “He did not sin with his lips” (Job 2:10) — no, “He committed no sin” (1 Peter 2:22).

Those who are said to sin are not sinning at all, if, whoever created them, they must live according to the way they were created and cannot resist their own nature.

2.5.11work at nothing harder than making myself impossible to understand.

2.8.30I do not turn the filth of people’s conduct into an accusation against nature, or find comfort for its obscenities by insulting the apostles and all the saints.

You undermine the wall of modesty.

2.9.31If God creates human beings, they cannot be born with any evil. If marriage is good, no evil comes from it. If all sins are forgiven in baptism, those born from people who have been born again cannot inherit original sin. If God is just, he cannot condemn parents’ sins in their children when he forgives the parents their own sins. If human nature is capable of perfect righteousness, it cannot have natural faults.

2.10.34He would not find anything to do or anywhere to turn, if pressed by the judges’ authority, if standing with me among learned people, if the trumpet of true reason and the weapons of the listeners standing around rang out.

They have lied to the crowd about us; they frighten people with the names “Caelestians” or “Pelagians,” and force agreement from people through fear.

All judges ought to be free from hatred, friendship, hostility, and anger.

2.10.35If I had been pressed by the judges’ authority, I would have had nothing to do and nowhere to turn, since I could find no answer to your arguments.

Opinions should be weighed, not counted.

A crowd of blind people is no help in discovering anything.

Heaven forbid that I should dare to think, let alone say, of these blind men, that set against you the helpless opinion of an ally and, as though panic-stricken, name my accomplices.

2.10.36When judging a case, the noise of the crowds must be put aside. From every walk of life—whether priests, administrators, or governors—we should choose wisdom, rather than mere titles, for the examination of such questions. We should honor the few whom reason, learning, and independence raise above the rest.

I promised to conduct this case against you, one man for everyone.

It brings you greater glory before God to defend abandoned truth.

2.10.37“The common dregs of sedentary tradesmen,” “stirred up against you.”

“Soldiers”; “students in lecture halls”; “sailors, shopkeepers, fishmongers, cooks, butchers”; “young men who have broken away from the monks.”

“From a crowd of all sorts of clergy,” “because they cannot judge doctrines according to Aristotle’s categories.”

“We are denied an examination and a judgment by bishops.”