Against Julian

Description

In Contra Iulianum (Against Julian) Augustine stresses in the first two books the traditional teachings of the Church found in the Fathers and contrasts their teaching with the rationalism of the Pelagians.

St. Augustine's last, maturest views on sexuality, sexual pleasure, concupiscence, marriage, and propagation of original sin.

See §"Augustine and Sexual Pleasure" on pp. 144-145 (PDF pp. 175-178) of Msgr. Cormac Burke's The Theology of Marriage, where he discusses St. Augustine's writings to the Pelagian bishop Julian of Eclanum. (It still wasn't clear to me what reasons someone would give for confusing sexual pleasure with concupiscence.)

Vatican II's (unfortunately rejected) "On defending intact the deposit of faith" preparatory document ch. 8 on original sin, fn. 8, cites Contra Iulianum , I, 5,15 (PL 44, 649). It notes that the original sin was central to the Pelagian controversy.

Bishop Julian of Eclanum and his wife Titia were childless (or lived in a continent or virginal marriage); cf. PDF pp. 68-9 of Elliott. Perhaps that distorted his views on marriage, sexuality, and the propagation of original sin?

"How can marriage be good if it is instrumental in propagating original sin?" seems to be Julian's struggle.

How to refute this?:

1. The sin of scandal is to induce another into sin.
2. Procreation induces another into original sin.
3. Therefore, procreation is a sin.

I think St. Thomas denies the minor in S.T. II-II q. 153 a. 2 arg./ad 3:

Praeterea, causa potior est quam effectus. Sed peccatum originale in parvulis trahitur a concupiscentia, sine qua actus venereus esse non potest, ut patet per Augustinum, in libro de nuptiis et Concup. Ergo nullus actus venereus potest esse sine peccato.

…

Ad tertium dicendum quod, sicut Augustinus ibidem dicit, quod ex concupiscentia carnis, quae regeneratis non imputatur in peccatum, tanquam ex filia peccati, proles nascitur originali obligata peccato. Unde non sequitur quod actus ille sit peccatum, sed quod in illo actu sit aliquid poenale a peccato primo derivatum.

Is he saying that a parent's very first act in procreating a child is "a sort of punishment" ("aliquid pœnale ") of the conceived child and not a cause of his incurring original sin?

I never knew that the Augustine–Julian/Pelagian controversy (cf. Contra Iulianum, St. Augustine's maturest views on marriage, sexuality, and original sin) was really about marriage as much as it was about original sin. The Pelagian Julian tried to defend marriage to such a degree that he ended up denying that marriage could be instrumental in propagating original sin and thus effectively denied original sin itself.

What St. Augustine writes in Contra Iulianum reminds me very much of the 5th Session of the Council of Trent, especially it's last anathematization:

Manere autem in baptizatis concupiscentiam vel fomitem, hæc sancta synodus fatetur et sentit: quæ cum ad agonem relicta sit, nocere non consentientibus, sed viriliter per Christi Iesu gratiam repugnantibus non valet : quinimmo qui legitime certaverit, coronabitur [2 Tim 2:5]. Hanc concupiscentiam, quam aliquando apostolus peccatum appellat [Rom. 6:12; 7:8], sancta synodus declarat, ecclesiam catholicam nunquam intellexisse peccatum appellari, quod vere et proprie in renatis peccatum sit, sed quia ex peccato est et ad peccatum inclinat. Si quis autem contrarium senserit, anathema sit.

Another answer to my question of "Why contribute to propagating original sin?" is given beautifully in John 9, where the disciples think the parents of the blind son (certainly his blindness represents original sin!) must have sinned because their son had sin. Jesus's response (v. 3): "Neque hic peccavit [i.e., he committed no actual sin] , neque parentes ejus: sed ut manifestentur opera Dei in illo."!

I read this chapters of John shortly after St. Thomas's feast during Lent, and I was astounded both by the increasingly amazing miracles Jesus performed (healing the blind min and then raising Lazarus!) and by the Pharisees' increasingly hardening hearts (like Pharaoh's!) to the point of even doubting the blind man's empirical-scientific account of how Jesus healed his blindness (v. 27: "Dixi vobis [stulti!] jam, et audistis: quod iterum vultis audire?").