86. Quoted in c. Jul. imp. 1.48–3.71 (CSEL 85.1:37–403); my trans. (continued)
Against the Pelagians 419 implied that infants needed such an exorcism, just as adults did, to release them from the devil's power. Augustine thus worked from the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi ("what the Church prays is what the Church believes"). In fact, this famous principle was first articulated by Augustine's disciple, Prosper of Aquitaine, precisely in reference to Augustine's appeal to exsufflation.87 From Against Julian, Books 1, 3, and 6:
(1.4.14) The original sin which you deny, to the destruction of other infants, at whatever age you were baptized, was itself remitted for you, or, at any rate, was also remitted. But if it is true, as we have heard, that you were baptized as an infant, then even you, although innocent of personal sins, yet because you were born physically of Adam, contracted the contagion of the ancient death by your first birth, and you were conceived in iniquity and then exorcised and exsufflated so that, rescued from the power of darkness, you might be transferred into the kingdom of Christ. O my son, ill born of Adam but well reborn in Christ, you attempt to take from your Mother the sacraments by which she bore you. . . .
(3.3.9) Without a glance you pass by the evils which befall infants. . . . You pass by, exercising your learned wit and skillful tongue in praise of nature, but that nature, fallen into such great and obvious misery, must necessarily have Christ for its Savior, Liberator, Cleanser, Redeemer—not Julian, not Caelestius, not Pelagius as the singer of its praises. . . .
(6.5.11) [Original sin] has been proclaimed throughout the whole Church and believed from ancient times as the true Catholic faith. The Church would not exorcise nor exsufflate the infants of the faithful if she were not rescuing them from the power of darkness and from the prince of death. I wrote this in my book which you are supposedly refuting,88 but you were afraid to mention it, as though you yourself would be exsufflated by the whole world if you were to contradict this exsufflation by which, even from infants, the prince of this world is cast out. Your meaningless arguments are not against me, but against our common spiritual Mother. You would not have her bring forth children now in the way she brought you forth. You strike her very womb by what you regard as adequately sharp weapons, summoning arguments from the justice of God against the justice of God, from the grace of God against the grace of God. This, then, is the true justice of God: that the heavy yoke
87. Prosper of Aquitaine, Auctoritates 8–9 (PL 51:209–10). Prosper plays a key role in the final phase. See below.
88. "I wrote this in my book": Augustine is referring to De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.20.22, which also discusses this same issue. Augustine had first written this work in response to a letter that Julian had sent Count Valerius, a powerful figure at the imperial court at Ravenna. Julian had first composed his Ad Turbantium against this work of Augustine's, and Augustine challenges Julian for skipping over that passage. Augustine regularly refers to the exsufflatio as evidence of original sin: pecc. mer. 1.34.63; De symbolo ad catechumenos 1.2; ep. 194.46; c. Jul. imp. 3.144.