Commonitorium against the heresy of Pelagius and Caelestius and the writings of Julian, with Subnotations on Augustine's Unfinished Work against Julian
Commonitorium aduersum haeresim Pelagii et Caelestii uel etiam scripta Iuliani
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Contents
Only the Commonitorium and subnotations (ACO I.5 units 3-14) of Mercator are on the site so far.
- 3Marius Mercator traces the denial of original sin from Theodore of Mopsuestia through Rufinus the Syrian to Pelagius, Caelestius, and Julian of Eclanum, whom Augustine refuted.
- 4Marius explains that he has gathered his notes on Julian's books at Pientius's request, and answers Julian's 'making new' with Scripture's language of renewal and regeneration, which includes infants.
- 5Marius distinguishes original from natural sin against Julian, and answers Julian's claim that reason must judge Scripture by pointing to the virgin birth and the incarnation.
- 7Answering a coarse jibe of Julian, Marius attacks his obscene language and his character, contrasting him with his parents, Bishop Memor and Juliana.
- 8Against Julian's defence of sexual desire as God-given, Marius holds that desire in Adam and Eve served procreation but has since been vitiated, so that offspring need Christ.
- 9Marius argues that Julian's view, that only death and not sin passes to Adam's descendants, makes God unjust, especially toward infants, who die though sinless on Julian's view.
- 10Julian's claim that only death passed to all contradicts his defence of Caelestius and makes him a traducian himself; his distinction of two deaths repeats the condemned theses of Pelagius and Caelestius.
- 11Marius quotes Julian's earlier letter to Pope Zosimus, in which he condemned the Pelagian theses on Adam's death, original sin, and infants, and shows that Julian meant them in a sense of his own.
- 12Marius turns Julian's own argument that sin, not being a substance, cannot be transmitted against his claim that death, also not a substance, passes to Adam's imitators.
- 14Marius argues that Julian's denial of original sin empties infant baptism of meaning, since every title of Christ (Saviour, Redeemer, Reconciler, Regenerator, Life) presupposes sin; he defends the twofold death from Adam with 1 Corinthians 15 and closes with Augustine's authority.