CHAP. 7 [iv.]
■PROOF OF ORIGINAL SIN IN Now, although I may not be able myself to refute the arguments of these men, I yet see how necessary it is to adhere closely to the clearest statements of the Scriptures, in order that the obscure passages may be explained by help of these, or, if the mind be as yet unequal to either perceiving them when explained, or investigating them whilst abstruse, let them be believed without misgiving. But what can be plainer than the many weighty testimonies of the divine declarations, which afford to us the clearest proof possible that without union with Christ there is no man who can attain to eternal life and salvation; and that no man can unjustly be damned, — that is, separated from that life and salvation, — by the judgment of God? The inevitable conclusion from these truths is this, that, as nothing else is effected when infants are baptized except that they are incorporated into the church, in other words, that they are united with the body and members of Christ, unless this benefit has been bestowed upon them, they are manifestly in danger of 5 damnation. Damned, however, they could not be if they really had no sin. Now, since their tender age could not possibly have contracted sin in its own life, it remains for us, even if w-e are as yet unable to understand, at least to believe that infants inherit original sin.
■JESUS IS THE SAMOUR EVEN OF ' Mark xvi. i6. ^ John iii. 5. 3 Matt. XXV. 34. * Matt. XXV. 46.
And therefore, if there is an ambiguity in the apostle's words when he says, " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so it passed upon all men; "^ and if it is possible for them to be drawn aside, and applied to some other sense,. — is there anything ambiguous in this statement: " Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God? " ^ Is this, again, ambiguous: " Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins?"' Is there any doubt of what this means: " The whole need not a physician, but they that are sick?" ^ — that is, Jesus is not needed by those who have no sin, but by those who are to be saved from sin. Is there anything, again, ambiguous in this: " Except men eat the flesh of the Son of man," that is, become partakers of His body, "they shall not have life? "9 By these and similar statements, which I now pass over, — absolutely clear in the light of God, and absolutely certain by His authority, — does not truth proclaim without ambiguity, that unbaptized infants not only cannot enter into the kingdom of God, but cannot have everlasting life, except in the body of Christ, in order that they may be incorporated into which they are washed 5 Pertinere ad.
8 Matt. ix. 12.
9 See John vi. 53.
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in the sacrament of baptism? Does not truth, without any dubiety, testify that for no other reason are they carried by pious hands to Jesus (that is, to Christ, the Saviour and Physician), than that they may be healed of the plague of their sin by the medicine of His sacraments? \\'hy then do we delay so to understand the apostle's very words, of which we perhaps used to have some doubt, that they may agree with these statements of which we can have no manner of doubt?
CHAP. 9. THE AMBIGUrrV OF " ADAM IS THE FIGURE OF HIM TO COME."
To me, however, no doubt presents itself about the whole of this passage, in which the apostle speaks of the condemnation of many through the sin of one, and the justification of many through the righteousness of One, except as to the words, " Adam is the figure of Him that was to come." ' For this phrase in reality not only suits the sense which understands that Adam's posterity were to be born of the same form as himself along with sin, but the words are also capable of being drawn out into several distinct meanings. For we have ourselves perhaps actually contended for various senses from the words in question at different times, ^ and very likely we shall propound yet another view, which, however, will not be incompatible with the sense here mentioned; and even Pelagius has not always expounded the passage in one way. All the rest, however, of the passage in which these doubtful words occur, if its statements are carefully examined and treated, as I have tried my best to do in the first book of this treatise, will not (in spite of the obscurity of style necessarily engendered by the subject itself) fail to show the incompatibility of any other meaning than that which has secured the adhesion of the universal Church from the earliest times — that believing infants have obtained through the baptism of Christ the remission of original sin.
CHAP. 10 [v.] HE SHOWS THAT CYPRIAN HAD NOT DOUBTED THE ORIGINAL SIN OF INFANTS.
Accordingly, it is not without reason that the blessed Cyprian ^ carefully shows how from the very first the Church has held this as a well understood article of faith. When he was asserting the fitness of infants only just born to receive Christ's baptism, on a certain occasion when he was consulted whether this ought to be administered before the eighth day, he endeavoured, as far as he could, to prove that they were per- ' "' Adam fortnam fiitnri;" see Rom. v. 14.
^ Comp. ahpTe, Book i. c. 13; Ef>ht. 157: De Nupiiis, ii. 44; and Contra Juliauum. vi. 8.
feet,-* lest any one should suppose, from the number of the days (because it was on the eighth day that infants were before circumcised), that they so far lacked perfection. However, after bestowing upon them the full support of his argument, he still confessed that they were not free from original sin; because if he had denied this, he would have removed all reason for the very baptism which he was maintaining their fitness to receive. You can, if you wish, read for yourself the epistle of the illustrious martyr On the Baptism of Little Children; for it cannot fail to be within reach at Carthage. But I have deemed it right to transcribe some few statements of it into this letter of mine, so far as applies to the question before us; and I pray you to mark them carefully. " Now with respect," says he, " to the case of infants, whom you declared it would be improper to baptize if presented within the second and third day after their birth, since that due regard ought to be paid to the law of circumcision of old, so that you thought that the infant should not be baptized and sanctified before the eighth day after its birth, — a far different view has been formed of the question in our council. Not a man there assented to what you thought ought to be done; but the whole of us rather determined that to no one born of men ought God's mercy and grace to be denied.
For since the Lord in His gospel says, 'The Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them,' s so far as in us lies, not a soul I ought, if possible, to be lost." You observe how in these words he supposes that it is fraught with j ruin and death, not only to the flesh, but also to the soul, for one to depart this life without 1 that saving sacrament. Wherefore, if he said j nothing else, it was competent to us to conclude from his words that without sin the soul could not perish. See, however, what (when he shortly afterwards maintains the innocence of infants) he at the same time allows concerning them in the plainest terms: " But if," says he, " anything could hinder men from the attainment of grace, then their heavier sins might rather hinder those who have reached the stages of adults, and advanced life, and old age. Since, however, remis-' sion of sins is given even to the greatest sinners after they have believed, however much they have I previously sinned against God, and since nobody; is forbidden baptism and grace, how much more ought an mfant not to be forbidden who new-I born has done no sin, except that from having been born carnally after Adam he has contracted I from his very birth the contagion of the primeval death! How, too, does this fact contribute in itself the more easily to their reception of the forgiveness- of sins, that the remission which * The word implies " of ripe age; " i.e., for " baptism." 5 LuUe i.\. 56.
Chat. 12.]
72> they have is not of their own sins, but of those of another! " CHAP. 1 1. — THE ANCIENTS ASSUMED ORIGINAL SIN.
You see with what confidence this great man expresses himself after the ancient and undoubted rule of faith. In advancing such very certain statements, his object was by help of these firm conclusions to prove the uncertain point which had been submitted to him by his correspondent, and concerning which he informs him that a decree of a council had been passed, to the effect that, if an infant were brought even before the eighth day after his birth, no one should hesitate to baptize him. Now it was not then determined or confirmed by the council that infants were held bound by original sin as if it were new, or as if it were attacked by the opposition of some one; but when another controversy was being conducted, and the question was discussed, in reference to the law of the circumcision of the flesh, whether they ought to be baptized before the eighth day. None agreed with the person who denied this; because it was not an open question admitting of discussion, but was fixed and unassailable, that the soul would forfeit eternal salvation if it ended this life without obtaining the sacrament of baptism: but at the same time infants fresh from the womb were held to be affected only by the guilt of original sin. On this account, although remission of sins was easier in their case, because the sins were derived from another, it was nevertheless indispensable. It was on sure grounds like these that the uncertain question of the eighth day was solved, and the council decided that after a man was born, not a day ought to be lost in rendering him that succour which should prevent his perishing for ever. When also a reason was given for the circumcision of the flesh as being itself a shadow of what was to be, its purport was not that we should understand that baptism ought to be administered on the eighth day after birth, but rather that we are spiritually circumcised in the resurrection of Christ, who rose from the dead on the third day, indeed, after His passion, but among the days of the week, by which time is counted, on the eighth, that is, on the first day after the Sabbath.
CHAP. 1 2 [vi.] — THE UNIVERSAL CONSENSUS RE- SPECTING ORIGINAL SIN.
And now, again, with a strange boldness in new controversy, certain persons are endeavouring to make us uncertain on a point which our forefathers used to bring forward as most certainly fixed, whenever they would solve such questions as seemed uncertain t^ some. AV'hen this controversy, indeed, first began, I am unable to say; but one thing I know, that even the holy Jerome, who is in our own day renowned for great industry and learning in ecclesiastical literature, for the solution of sundry questions treated in his writings, makes use of the same most certain assumption without exhibition of proofs. For instance, in his commentary on the prophet Jonah, when he comes to the passage where the infants were mentioned as chastened by the fast, he says: ' " The greatest age comes first, and then all the rest is per\'aded down to the least.^ For there is no man without sin, whether the span of his age be but that of a single day, or he reckon many years to his life.
For if the very stars are unclean in the sight of God,^ how much more is a worm and corruption, such as are they who are held subject to the sin of the offending Adam?" If, mdeed, we could readily interrogate this most learned man, how many authors who have treated of the divine Scriptures in both languages, •♦ and have written on Christian controversies, would he mention to us, who have never held any other opinion since the Church of Christ was founded, — who neither received any other from their forefathers, nor handed down any other to their posterity? My own reading, indeed, has been far more limited, but yet I do not recollect ever having heard of any other doctrine on this point from Christians, who accept the two Testaments, whether established in the Catholic Church, or in any heretical or schismatic body whatever. I do not remember, I say, that I have at any time found any other doctrine in such writers as have contributed anything to literature of this kind, whether they have followed the canonical Scriptures, or have supposed that they have followed them, or had wished to be so supposed. From what quarter this question has suddenly come upon us I know not. A short time ago, 5 in a passing conversation with certain persons while we were at Carthage, my ears were suddenly offended with such a proposition as this: " That infants are not baptized for the purpose of receiving remission of sin, but that they may be sanctified in Christ."
Although I was much disturbed by so novel an opinion, still, as there was no opportunity afforded me for gainsaying it, and as its propounders were not persons whose influence gave me anxiety, I readily let the subject slip into neglect and oblivion. And lo! it is now maintained with burning zeal against the Church; lo! it is committed to our permanent notice by wTiting; nay, the matter is brought to such a pitch of distracting influence, that we are even consulted on it by ' St. Jerome, on Jon. iii.
2 Ver. 3.
3 Job XXV. 4.
* Or " who have treated of both languages of the divine Scriptures."
5 Probably in the year 41 t, when a conference was held at Carthage wiih the Donatists. Aiigiistin says that he then saw Pclagius; see his work, De Gestis Pela^ii, t. 46.
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our brethren; and we are actually obliged to oppose its progress both by disputation and by \\Titing.
CHAP. 13 [VII.] — THE ERROR OF JOVINIANUS DID NOT EXTEND SO FAR.
A few years ago there lived at Rome one Jovinian,' who is said to have persuaded nuns of even advanced age to marry, — not, indeed, by seduction, as if he wanted to make any of them his wife, but by contending that virgins who dedicated themselves to the ascetic life had no more merit before God than believing wives. It never entered his mind, however, along with this conceit, to venture to affirm that children of men are born without original sin. If, indeed, he had added such an opinion, the women might have more readily consented to marry, to give birth to such pure offspring. When this man's writings (for he dared to \\Tite) were by the brethren forwarded to Jerome to refute, he not only discovered no such error in them, but, while looking out his conceits for refutation, he found among other passages this very clear testimony to the doctrine of man's original sin, from which Jerome indeed felt satisfied of the man's belief of that doctrine.^ These are his words when treating of it: " He who says that he abides in Christ, ought himself also to walk even as He walked. 5 We give our opponent the option to choose which alternative he likes. Does he abide in Christ, or does he not? If he does, then, let him walk like Christ. If, however, it is a rash thing to undertake to resemble the excellences of Christ, he abides not in Christ, because he walks not as Christ did. He did no sin, neither was any guile found in His mouth; •♦ who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; and as a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so He opened not His mouth; s to whom the prince of this world came, and found nothing in Him; ^ whom, though He had done no sin, God made sin for us.^ We, however, according to the Epistle of James, all commit many sins; ^ and none of us is pure from uncleanness, even if his life should be but of one day.^ For who shall boast that he has a clean heart? Or who shall be confident that he is pure from sins? We are held guilty according to the likeness of Adam's transgression. Accordingly David also says: ' Behold, * [This " Christian Epicurus," as he is called by the intemperate zeal of the asceticism of his day, was condemned as a heretic by councils at Rome and JMilan in 390. According to Jerome, who wrote a book against him, he not only opposed asceticism, but also contended for the essential equality of all sins and of the punishments and rewards of the next world, and for the sinlessness of those baptized by the Spirit. — W.]
2 See Jerome's work Against ypvinian, ii. near the beginning.
3 John ii. 6.
* Isa. liii. 9. S Isa. liii. 7.
I was shapen in inicjuity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.' " '" CHAP. 14. THE OPINIONS OF ALL CONTROVERSIAL- ISTS WHATEVER ARE NOT, HOWEVER, CANONICAL AUTHORrrV; original sin, HOW another's; WE WERE ALL ONE M.AN IN ADAM.
I have not quoted these words as if we might rely upon the opinions of every disputant as on canonical authority; but I have done it, that it may be seen how, from the beginning down to the present age, which has given birth to this novel opinion, the doctrine of original sin has been guarded with the utmost constancy as a part of the Church's faith, so that it is usually adduced as most certain ground whereon to refute other opinions when false, instead of being itself exposed to refutation by any one as false. Moreover, in the sacred books of the canon, the authority of this doctrine is vigorously asserted in the clearest and fullest way. The apostle exclaims: " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so it passed upon all men, in which all have sinned."" Now from these words it cannot certainly be said, that Adam's sin has injured even those who commit no sin, for the Scripture says, "In which all have sinned^ Nor, indeed, are those sins of infancy so said to be another's, as if they did not belong to the infants at all, inasmuch as all then sinned in Adam, when in his nature, by virtue of that innate power whereby he was able to produce them, they were all as yet the one Adam; but they are called another'' s,^^ because as yet they were not living their own lives, but the life of the one man contained whatsoever was in his future posterity.
CH.AP. 15 [VIII.] — WE ALL SINNED ADAM'S SIN.
" It is," they say, "by no means conceded that God who remits to a man his own sins imputes to him another's." He remits, indeed, but it is to those regenerated by the Spirit, not to those generated by the flesh; but He imputes to a man no longer the sins of another, but only his own. They were no doubt the sins of another, whilst as yet they were not in existence who bore them when propagated; but now the sins belong to them by carnal generation, to wdiom they have not yet been remitted by spiritual regeneration.
CHAP. 16. — ORIGIN OF ERRORS; A SIMILE SOUGHT FROM THE FORESKIN OF THE CIRCUMCISED, AND FROM THE CHAFF OF WHEAT.
" But surely," say they, " if baptism cleanses the primeval sin, they who are born of two bap- Chap. 17.]
tized parents ought to be free from this shi; for these could not have transmitted to their children that thing which they did not themselves possess." Now observe whence error usually thrives: it is when persons are able to start subjects which they are not able to understand. P'or before what audience, and in what \Vords, can I explain how it is that sinful mortal beginnings bring no obstacle to those who have inaugurated other, immortal, beginnings, and at the same time j)rove an obstacle to those whom those very persons, against whom it was not an obstacle, have begotten out of the self-same sinful beginnings? How can a man understand these things, whose labouring mind is impeded both by its own prejudiced opinions and by the chain of its own stolid obstinacy? If indeed I had undertaken my cause in opposition to those who either altogether forbid the baptism of infants, or else contend that it is superfluous to baptize them, alleging that as they are born of believing parents, they must needs enjoy the merit of their parents; then it would have been my duty to have roused myself perhaps to greater labour and effort for the purpose of refuting their opinion. In that case, if I encountered a difficulty before obtuse and contentious men in refuting error and inculcating truth, owing to the obscurity which besets the nature of the subject, I should probably resort to such illustrations as were palpable and at hand; and I should in my turn ask them some questions, — how, for instance, if they were puzzled to know in what way sin, after being cleansed by baptism, still remained in those who were begotten of baptized parents, they would explain how it is that the foreskin, after being removed by circumcision, should still remain in the sons of the circumcised? or again, how it happens that the chaff which is winnowed off so carefully by human labour still keeps its place in the grain which springs from the winnowed wheat?
CHAP. I 7 [iX.] — CHRISTUNS DO NOT ALWAYS BE- GET CHRISTIAN, NOR THE PURE, PURE CHILDREN.
With these and such like palpable arguments, should I endeavour, as I best could, to convince those persons who believed that sacraments of cleansing were superfluously applied to the children of the cleansed, how right is the judgment of baptizing the infants of baptized parents, and how it may happen that to a man who has within him the twofold seed — of death in the flesh, and of immortality in the spirit — that may prove no obstacle, regenerated as he is by the Spirit, which is an obstacle to his son, who is generated by the flesh; and that that may be cleansed in the one by remission, which in the other still requires cleansing by like remission, just as in the case supposed of circumcision, and as in the case of the winnowing and thrashing.
But now, when we are contending with those who allow that the children of the baptized ought to be baptized, we may much more conveniently conduct our discussion, and can say: You who a.ssert that the children of such persons as have been cleansed from the pollution of sin ought to have been born without sin, why do you not perceive that by the same rule you might just as well say that the children of Christian parents ought to have been born Christians? \Vhy, therefore, do you rather maintain that they ought to become Christians? Was there not in their parents, to whom it is said, " Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?" ' a Christian body? Perhaps you suppose that a Christian body may be born of Christian parents, without having received a Christian soul? Well, this would render the case much more wonderful still. For you would think of the soul one of two things as you pleased, — because, of course, you hold with the apostle, that before birth it had done nothing good or evil: ^ — either that it was derived by transmission, and just as the body of Christians is Christian, so should also their soul be Christian; or else that it was created by Christ, either in the Christian body, or for the sake of the Christian body, and it ought therefore to have been created or given in a Christian condition. Unless perchance you shall pretend that, although Christian parents had it in their power to beget a Christian body, yet Christ Himself was not able to produce a Christian soul. Believe then the truth, and see that, as it has been possible (as you yourselves admit) for one who is not a Christian to be born of Christian parents, for one who is not a member of Christ to be born of members of Christ, and (that we may answer all, who, however falsely, are yet in some sense possessed with a sense of religion) for a man who is not consecrated to be born of parents who are consecrated; so also it is quite possible for one who is not cleansed to be born of parents who are cleansed. Now what account will you give us, of why from Christian parents is born one who is not a Christian, unless it be that not generation, but regeneration makes Christians?
Resolve therefore your own question with a like reason, that cleansing from sin comes to no one by being born, but to all by being born again. And thus any child who is born of parents who are cleansed, because born again, must himself be born again, in order that he too may be cleansed. For it has been quite possible for parents to transmit to their children that which they did not possess themselves, — thus resembling not only the wheat which yielded the chaff, and the circumcised the foreskin, but also the ' I Cor. vi. 15. ' Rom. ix. II.
1^ [Book III.
instance which you yourselves adduce, even that of believers who convey unbelief to their posterity; which, however, does not accrue to the faithful as regenerated by the Spirit, but it is owing to the fault of the mortal seed by which they have been, born of the flesh. For in respect of the infants whom you judge it necessary to make believers by the sacrament of tlie faithful, you do not deny that they were born in unbelief, although of believing parents.
CHAP. 1 8 [x.] — IS THE SOUL DERIVED BY NATUR.A.L PROPAGATION?
Well, but " if the soul is not propagated, but the flesh alone, then the latter alone has propagation of sin, and it alone deserves punishment: " this is what they thinly, saying " that it is unjust that the soul which is only recently produced, and that not out of Adam's substance, should bear the sin of another committed so long ago." Now observe, I pray you, how the circumspect Pelagius felt the question about the soul to be a very difficult one, and acted accordingly, — for the words which I have just quoted are copied from his book. He does not say absolutely, " Because the soul is not propagated," but hypothetically. If the soul is not propagated, rightly determining on so obscure a subject (on which we can find in Holy Scriptures no certain and obvious testimonies, or with very great difficulty discover any) to speak with hesitation rather than with confidence. Wherefore I too, on my side, answer this proposition with no hasty assertion: If the soul is not propagated, where is the justice that, what has been but recently created and is quite free from the contagion of sin, should be compelled in infants to endure the passions and other torments of the flesh, and, what is more terrible still, even the attacks of evil spirits? For never does the flesh so suffer anything of this kind that the living and feeling soul does not rather undergo the punishment. If this, indeed, is shown to be just, it may be shown, on the same terms, with what justice original sin comes to exist in our sinful flesh, to be subsequently cleansed by the sacrament of baptism and God's gracious mercy. If the former point cannot be shown, I imagine that the latter point is equally incapable of demonstration. We must therefore either bear with both positions in silence, and remember