This is based mostly on an article by Prof. Elizabeth A. Clark, 
named VITIATED SEEDS AND HOLY VESSELS. It was published in ASCETIC 
PIETY AND WOMEN'S FAITH, Mellen Press, 1986. This same article is 
also available in another collection of essays: IMAGES OF THE 
FEMININE IN GNOSTICISM, Karen King, ed., published at Claremont 
at about the same time. 



ST. AUGUSTINE AND JULIAN OF ECLANUM: 

Manichean influence?
by Yuri Kuchinsky


Augustine (b. 354) was a Manichee for 9 years in his younger years
(although his mother, Monica, raised him as a Christian). He was a
philosopher (a teacher of rhetoric) in Rome and, later, in Milan
during these years. In Milan he came to know St. Ambrose, who was
the Bishop of Milan at the time. Under the influence of Ambrose,
Augustine was baptised a Christian on Easter, 387.

Julian of Eclanum was a generation younger than Augustine. Coming
from an aristocratic Christian Roman family, he served as a Bishop
of Eclanum, in Southern Italy, until about 419, when he was forced
to leave for Asia Minor because of his support for Pelagius, whose
teachings were officially condemned at this time. (Pelagius was a
British monk active in Italy who asserted that men had been endowed
by God with free will, so that they should follow God's law and live
perfect Christian lives. Pelagius also cast doubt on the doctrines
of the Fall from Grace and the Original Sin).

Augustine certainly spent considerable time debating Pelagius and
his ideas earlier in his career. Augustine's debate with Julian came
late in the life of Augustine, as Julian developed further many of
the ideas of Pelagius.

The debate, as we know it, is one-sided, as none of the writings of
Julian survived. Yet the contents of Anti-Julian writings of
Augustine that include large citations of Julian allow us, to a
considerable extent, to reconstruct Julian's arguments. The last
large work of Augustine _Contra secundam Juliani responsionem opus
imperfectum_ was devoted to that controversy.

To be sure, Augustine, himself, devoted a considerable part of his
early writings to refuting the teachings of the Manicheans. Such
writings of his are extensive, are extant, and provide plenty of
material for the analysis of his intellectual evolution. He seemed
to refute thoroughly the teachings of the Manicheans that were quite
pessimistic and negative about the human nature. (The Manicheans, of
course, believed that the Creation was the work of an evil Demiurge,
and that all Creation, including the world of Nature, the human
body, and sexuality, is tainted with sin and the evil.) In his anti-
Manichean polemics, Augustine praised the goodness of God's Creation
and ridiculed some of the contradictions he believed he identified
in the Manichean theology in this area.

It seems rather ironic, therefore, that Augustine, himself, should
have been accused of Manichean leanings after he became the
influential Bishop of Hippo. Such accusations were levelled against
him as early as 400 by the Donatists, an ascetic movement within the
Church. Julian's critique of Augustine came later and on somewhat
different grounds.

It is generally believed that the theology of Augustine evolved
towards a more pessimistic world view as he was getting older. So
one could say, perhaps, that his old Manichean past was catching up
on him as the years went by. Be it as it may, Julian focused on this
growing pessimism of Augustine in his critique.

The debate between Augustine and Julian is analyzed in some detail
in ASCETIC PIETY AND WOMEN'S FAITH, by Elizabeth A. Clark, 1986, in
the article "VITIATED SEEDS AND HOLY VESSELS: Augustine's Manichean
Past". In her article, Clark provides and extensive summary of the
debate between Augustine and Julian as it unfolded over a few years.

The charges that Julian levelled against Augustine can be briefly
summarised as follows:

      "[Julian]...pinpointed some problematic aspects of Augustine's
      theology of reproduction that kindled his suspicions of
      Augustine's orthodoxy: [1] that ideal marriage might not
      involve sexual relations, [2] that sexual intercourse
      transmits original sin, [3] that Jesus does not share all our
      human qualities." (op. cit. p. 306)

The first charge referred to the fact that Augustine, although not
opposing the institution of Christian marriage as such, advocated a
chaste (sexless) marriage to those strong enough in the faith to
endure it. The endorsement of such a marriage was not new, of
course. St. Paul also advocated it, but on completely different
grounds: for Paul it was the expectation of the imminent eschaton
that made marriage without procreation advisable. (There simply
wasn't enough time to worry about kids.) For Augustine, it was his
notion of "concupiscence" that provided the grounds. While Julian
affirmed the sexual desire within marriage as entirely good, for
Augustine, the human sexuality itself was an irredeemable curse. The
Manicheans of course, also strongly advocated asceticism of this
type.

      "Augustine was gradually abandoning a sexual understanding of
      marriage and stressing more centrally the bond between
      partners. To Julian, this movement betokened "Manicheanism".
      (p. 305)

The third charge against Augustine addressed some areas of
Augustine's theology that put him in troubling proximity to Docetism
that was, again, common amongst both the Gnostics and the
Manicheans. Augustine quoted Romans 8:3:

      "...Jesus did not have our "sinful flesh," but only the
      "likeness of sinful flesh", nor as an infant did he suffer
      "weakness of mind". (p. 293)

      "...since Augustine does not hesitate to assert that Christ's
      body was of a "different purity" from the bodies of other
      humans because of the lack of concupiscence (and hence
      original sin) involved in his conception, Julian suspects him
      of harbouring a Docetic i.e., "Manichean," view of Jesus." (p.
      306)

But it is on the second accusation against Augustine (Augustine's
belief that sexual intercourse transmits original sin) that Clark
focuses the bulk of her article. (This was a complex and prolonged
argument between the two, not easy to summarize. But I'll try.)

The belief at the time held it that conception occurs from the male
and female "seeds". These "human seeds", according to Augustine were
"vitiated" by the Original sin of Adam. Julian disputed this notion
and he believed that by focusing on Augustine's "vitiated seeds" he
identified the source of Augustine's Manichean error.

      "Although the mixing of seeds with evil is given a very
      different--indeed, contrasting--evaluation in Augustine's myth
      of Eden than in the Manichean foundation myth (and thus
      arguably is "anti-Manichean"), the very fact that the mixing
      of seeds with evil is the key to _both_ myths suggests that
      Julian had ferreted out in Augustine's theology of
      reproduction a carry-over from Manicheanism." (p. 292)

      "...Julian claims that he knows Augustine's position, even if
      Augustine doesn't: since Augustine believes that sin becomes
      mixed with the seeds and makes the _conceptus_ guilty, he is
      a Traducian, and Traducians are to be equated with Manicheans.
      Both Traducians and Manicheans asserted that evil contracted
      from some ancient and unfortunate event is passed down by
      reproduction throughout the ages." (p. 308)

Julian refused to believe that sin was inherent in the human
condition. He said:

      "...if, as Augustine claims, sin is a condition of the flesh,
      Christ should have contracted sin from his mother... Augustine
      admits in reply that Mary, by condition of her own birth,
      would have been "submitted to the Devil" (i.e., under the sway
      of original sin) if the grace of regeneration had not loosed
      that condition. This is as close as Augustine comes to
      espousing the later doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of
      Mary, a doctrine necessary if Augustine and others want to
      avoid the conclusion that Mary could have transmitted to
      Christ the sin present in her from her own birth." (pp. 312-
      313)

Clark goes on to this interesting observation:

      "Julian here emerges as an important contributor to the
      development of the argument regarding the Immaculate
      Conception." (p. 313)

Augustine and Julian also discussed the role and importance of
clothing in the Genesis Eden story. Did Adam and Eve first put on
clothing because of the shame they felt?

      "...for Julian, the use of clothing was not related to sin's
      entrance to the world and the desire to cover the unruly
      genitals, as it was in Augustine's interpretation." (p. 307)

Peter Brown in his THE BODY AND SOCIETY, 1988, gives an interesting
sociological angle on this debate between Augustine and Julian:

      "His [Julian's] polemics, written in vivid Latin, assumed an
      upper-class Italian audience whose experiences differed
      markedly from those of Augustine in Africa. In the debate on
      marriage and sexuality between Augustine and Julian, we can
      witness the confrontation of two worlds." (op. cit. p. 409)

      "Sexuality remained unproblematic among such persons [of
      Julian's class]. For a continent aristocrat ... sexual needs
      had proved easy enough to forgo. They may never have bulked
      large in his life." (p. 409)

      "Unlike Augustine, no mighty earthquake on the ocean-bed of
      the self need have accompanied Julian's dignified resolve to
      abandon sex." (p. 410)

Brown also suggests that Julian's stay in Cilicia, close to Asia
Minor and to Syria, where an extremely ascetic Messalian movement
was causing much disquiet (Messalians were often linked with
Manicheans at the time) had given him some important perspective on
the teachings of such sects that Roman audience was not aware of to
the same extent (p. 414).

Clark notes that

      "Despite the fact that Augustine won the controversy in terms
      of the later course of Catholic theology, it is not so clear
      that he won the debate with Julian. Had Julian responded to
      the _Contra Julianum_ and the _Opus imperfectum_, we suspect
      he would have faulted Augustine for becoming progressively
      more "Manichean" as the controversy unfolded." (p. 314)

She looks at the question of how well was Julian acquainted with the
Manichean writings in general, and comes to the conclusion that he
knew only a limited number of Manichean texts. One Manichean myth
that Julian didn't seem to know was the myth of the "seduction of
the archons". (p. 315) Clark believes that this myth could have come
in very handy for Julian because it provides a very interesting
parallel to Augustine's theories:

      "Although it was _against_ this myth--and its real-life
      consequences--that Augustine had constructed his sexual and
      marital ethics, yet, I posit, it was this myth that gave
      Augustine his first explanation of how seeds became
      corrupted." (p. 315)

At this point, Clark goes into a discussion of the somewhat unusual
sexual practices of the Manicheans which Augustine, himself,
described extensively (although in a somewhat veiled language) in
his critique of the Manicheans. They, apparently, defined two types
of sexual behaviour. For the Elect elite, total abstinence was
required. For the Auditors, to which Augustine belonged, sex was
allowed, but procreation was discouraged. Hence, the Manicheans
advocated the use of birth-control methods. This prompted
accusations of libertinism from Augustine (and from others). I will
not go into the analysis of the "seduction of the archons" myth here
(Clark does). Suffice it to say that this myth seemed to have been
the basis for some sacramental rituals of the Manicheans that may
have involved sexual acts. Also, this myth provided a parallel for
"seeds" "getting mixed up with Evil".

In conclusion, Clark writes:

      "...we could assert that the half-century from 380 to 430 A.D.
      was of world-historical importance not only because of the
      battle of the Frigidus or the sack of Rome, but also because
      in those years were firmed up the doctrines that for twelve
      centuries and more would ensure an ambiguous theological
      evaluation of reproduction, the "career" followed by the vast
      majority of women." (p. 325)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

[The following addition was in response to a discussion of this matter
on the Early Church history academic discussion list. I omit the name of
the contributor.]

Here are a couple of quotations from Clark in reply to an objection
raised against an earlier post of mine (a couple of days ago) 
by Prof. xxx.

On Tue, 9 Apr 1996, xxx wrote:

> ... Augustine finally came to the view that prelapsarian man, that is,
> human nature as originally intended by God, was created male and female
> and would have procreated through sexual intercourse.  This means that
> human sexuality [for Augustine] has a meaning that transcends the 
> fallen historical order which is conditioned by the ubiquity of 
> death and sin.

It is true that Augustine said that God planned some kind of a "perfect"
sexual reproduction in Paradise (but that was thwarted by "man's
disobedience"). But the point that Clark makes is that that was the
position that Augustine was _forced_ to adapt under pressure from Julian.

      "Although in the face of Julian's assault, Augustine
      grudgingly and belatedly allowed that there _might_ have been
      sexual desire in a sinless Eden (albeit very different from
      the raging lust we now feel), his attempt to explain his
      theory of vitiated seeds succeeded only in leaving him more
      liable to charges of "Manicheanism."" (p. 296)

      "Julian has forced Augustine to make plain the anti-sexual and
      anti-scientific roots of his theology of sin. Yet Augustine
      has conceded only one point: that in a sinless Eden, there
      might have been _libido_, although one controlled by the will,
      not the unruly and disobedient _libido_ we know today." (p. 313)

Best wishes to all,

Yuri.