書信與論戰集（CSEL） 第 49 章

BOOK ONE. Although in the midst of great and surging seas of cares and weariness, which detain us because of sinners who forsake the law of God — though we ought to impute these very things also to the deserts of our own sins — nevertheless, dearest Marcellinus, I did not wish, out of zeal for you (by which you are the more pleasing and delightful to us), to remain your debtor any longer; and, that you may hear the truth, I could not.

For thus did either that very love compel me — by which, in the one unchangeable God, we are one, to be changed for the better — or the fear lest I should offend God in you, who gave you such a desire, by serving which I may serve him who gave it; thus, I say, it compelled me, thus it led and drew me to resolve, according to my slender strength, the questions which by your writing you laid upon me, so that this matter for a little while overcame others in my mind, until I should accomplish something whereby it might be established that I had served your good will, and the good will of those who care about these things, obediently even if not sufficiently. Those who say 'Adam was so created that he would have died even without the deserving of sin, not by the punishment of fault but by the necessity of nature.' Assuredly that which was said in the law:

'In the day that you eat, you shall die the death,' they try to refer not to the death of the body, but to the death of the soul, which happens in sin. By which death the Lord signified that the unbelievers were dead, of whom he says: 'Let the dead bury their dead.' What then will they answer, when it is read that God said this also to the first man, after the sin, in rebuke and condemnation: 'You are earth, and into earth you shall go'? For it was not according to the soul, but — which is manifest — according to the body that he was earth, and by the death of that same body he was to go into the earth.

For although according to the body he was earth, and bore a natural body in which he was created, nevertheless, if he had not sinned, he was to be changed into a spiritual body and to pass into that incorruption which is promised to the faithful and the saints, without the penalty of death. And that we have a desire for this thing, we not only feel in ourselves, but also recognize at the apostle's prompting, where he says: 'For in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven; if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this dwelling groan, being burdened; wherein we do not wish to be unclothed, but to be clothed over, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.'

Accordingly, if Adam had not sinned, he was not to be stripped of the body, but to be clothed over with immortality and incorruption, so that what is mortal might be swallowed up by life — that is, that he might pass from the natural into the spiritual. Nor indeed was there any need to fear lest, if he lived here longer in a natural body, he might be weighed down by old age and, growing gradually decrepit, arrive at death. For if God provided for the Israelites' garments and shoes that they were not worn out through so many years, what wonder if the same power should be granted to an obedient man, that, having a natural — that is, mortal — body, he might have in it a certain condition whereby without decay he might be full of years, destined at the time God willed to come from mortality to immortality without an intervening death?

For just as this very flesh which we now have is not therefore un-woundable because there is no necessity that it be wounded, so that flesh was not therefore immortal because there was no necessity that it should die. Such a constitution, I think, was granted, still in a natural and mortal body, even to those who were translated from here without death. For neither did Enoch and Elijah wither with old age through so long an age; nor yet do I believe that they have already been changed into that spiritual quality of body which is promised in the resurrection, which first preceded in the Lord;

unless perhaps these men do not even need those foods which by their consumption restore us, but from the time they were translated they so live that they have a satiety like that of those forty days in which Elijah lived without food on a cup of water and a cake of bread; or, if they do have need of these supports, then perhaps they are fed in paradise as Adam was, before he deserved to go out from there on account of sin. For he had, as I reckon, both refreshment against exhaustion from the fruits of the trees, and stability against age from the tree of life. Now besides this, that God said in punishment:

'You are earth, and into earth you shall go,' which I do not know how it could be understood except of the death of the body — there are also other testimonies by which it appears most evidently that the human race deserved, on account of sin, not only the death of the spirit but also of the body. To the Romans the apostle says: 'But if Christ is in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. If therefore the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you.' I think that so clear and plain a statement has need not of an expositor, but only of a reader.

'The body,' he says, 'is dead' — not because of earthly frailty, since it was made from the dust of the earth, but 'because of sin.' What more do we seek? And most watchfully he did not say 'mortal' but 'dead.' For before it should be changed into that incorruption which is promised in the resurrection of the saints, it could be mortal, though not going to die, just as this body of ours can be, so to speak, 'liable to sickness,' though not going to be sick. For whose flesh is it that cannot fall sick, even if by some chance it should perish before it falls sick? So too that body was already mortal. Which mortality the change into eternal incorruption would have consumed, if righteousness, that is, obedience, had remained in the man;

but that very mortal thing did not become dead except because of sin. Yet because that future change in the resurrection will have not only no death — which came about because of sin — but not even the mortality which the natural body had before sin, he did not say 'he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will give life also to your dead bodies,' though he had said above 'the dead body,' but he says: 'he will give life also to your mortal bodies,' so that indeed they may now not only not be dead, but not even mortal, when the natural rises into the spiritual and this mortal puts on immortality and the mortal is swallowed up by life. It would be a wonder if anything were sought more limpid than this manifestation.

Unless perhaps we must listen to what is objected against this clarity, namely that we should here understand 'dead body' in the manner in which it was said: 'Mortify your members which are upon the earth.' But in this way the body is mortified because of righteousness, not because of sin; for in order that we may work righteousness, we mortify our members which are upon the earth. Or if they think that 'because of sin' was added so that we should understand not that sin has been committed, but that sin may not be committed — as though he said: 'the body indeed is dead because of not committing sin' — what then does he mean by having added, when he had joined 'but the spirit is life,' the words 'because of righteousness'?

For it would have sufficed thus to join 'the life of the spirit,' so that here too there might be understood 'because of not committing sin,' so that we should understand both things on account of one thing: both that the body is dead and that the spirit is life because of not committing sin. For indeed, even if he had wished only to say 'because of righteousness' — that is, 'because of doing righteousness' — both could be referred to this: both that the body is dead and that the spirit is life because of doing righteousness. But now he said both that the body is dead because of sin and that the spirit is life because of righteousness, attributing different deserts to different things: to the death of the body the desert of sin, but to the life of the spirit the desert of righteousness.

Wherefore if, as cannot be doubted, 'the spirit is life because of righteousness' — that is, by the desert of righteousness — surely as for 'the body dead because of sin,' what else ought we or can we understand than by the desert of sin, if we do not attempt at our pleasure to pervert and distort the most manifest sense of Scripture? To this also is added the light of the words that follow. For when, determining the grace of the present time, he had said that the body indeed is dead because of sin, since in it, not yet renewed through the resurrection, the desert of sin remains — that is, the necessity of death — but that the spirit is life

because of righteousness — since, although we are still weighed down by the body of this death, yet according to the inner man, the renewal having been begun, we breathe again into the righteousness of faith — nevertheless, lest human ignorance should hope for nothing concerning the resurrection of the body, that very thing which he had called dead in the present age because of the desert of sin, he says will be made alive in the future because of the desert of righteousness; and this not merely so that from being dead it becomes alive, but even so that from being mortal it becomes immortal. And so, although I fear lest by expounding a manifest matter I should rather obscure it, nevertheless attend to the light of the apostolic statement. 'But if Christ,' he says, 'is in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.'

This was said lest men should for that reason think they had either no benefit or only a small benefit from the grace of Christ, because they must necessarily die in the body. For they ought indeed to consider that the body still bears the desert of sin, being bound by the condition of death, but that the spirit has now begun to live because of the righteousness of faith — the spirit which itself had been extinguished in man by a certain death of unbelief. 'Do not therefore,' he says, 'think that too little a gift has been conferred upon you through the fact that Christ is in you, in that, though the body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit now lives because of righteousness; nor for that reason despair even of the life of the body itself.

For if the Spirit of him who raised up Christ from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you.' Why then is the smoke of contention still cast over so great a light? The apostle cries out: 'The body indeed is dead in you because of sin, but your mortal bodies also will be made alive because of righteousness, on account of which now the spirit is already life; and all this will be brought to completion through the grace of Christ — that is, through his Spirit dwelling in you.' And still there is protest! He says also in what manner it comes about that life, by mortifying death, converts it into itself. 'Therefore, brethren,' he says, 'we are debtors, not to the flesh, that we should live according to the flesh.

For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die; but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live.' What else is this than: 'If you live according to death, the whole will die; but if, by living according to life, you mortify death, the whole will live'? Likewise, as to what he says: 'By a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of the dead,' what else can it be understood of than the death of the body, since, in order to say this, he was speaking about the resurrection of the body and was urging it with the most insistent and keen intention? What then is it that he here says to the Corinthians: 'By a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive,' unless what he also says to the Romans:

'Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death'? This death they want to be understood not of the body but of the soul; as if something different were said to the Corinthians, 'By a man came death,' where they are by no means allowed to take it of the death of the soul, since the matter concerned the resurrection of the body, which is contrary to the death of the body. Therefore too only death is there commemorated as done through a man, not also sin, because the matter did not concern righteousness, which is contrary to sin, but the resurrection of the body, which is contrary to the death of the body. But this apostolic testimony, in which he says:

'Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death' — that they indeed attempt to distort into some new opinion, you have intimated by your letters, but what that thing is which they suppose in these words you passed over in silence. But as far as I have learned from others, they hold this: 'that this death also, which is there commemorated, is not of the body — which they refuse to admit Adam deserved by sinning — but of the soul, which happens in the sin itself; and that sin itself passed to other men from the first man not by propagation but by imitation.' For from this they refuse to believe that even in infants original sin is loosed through baptism, which they contend is altogether none in the newly born.

But if the apostle had wished to commemorate that sin which entered into this world not by propagation but by imitation, he would call its author not Adam but the devil, of whom it is written: 'From the beginning the devil sins,' and of whom it is also read in the book of Wisdom: 'But through the envy of the devil death entered into the world of lands.' For since that death so came from the devil into men — not because they were propagated by him, but because they imitated him — he immediately added: 'But they imitate him who are of his part.' Accordingly the apostle, when he commemorated that sin and death which had passed by propagation from one into all, set as its author him from whom the propagation of the human race took its beginning.

They indeed imitate Adam, as many as by disobedience transgress God's commandment; but one thing is that which is an example to those sinning by their own will, another is that which is an origin to those born with sin. For the saints also imitate Christ in following after righteousness; whence the same apostle says: 'Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ.' But besides this imitation, his grace works our illumination and justification even inwardly, by that work of which the same herald of his says: 'Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.' For by this grace he inserts into his body baptized infants also, who certainly are not yet able to imitate anyone.

Therefore just as he in whom all are made alive, besides that he offered himself as an example of righteousness to those imitating him, also gives to the faithful the most hidden grace of his Spirit, which he secretly infuses even into infants, so also he in whom all die, besides that he is an example of imitation to those who by their own will transgress the Lord's commandment, has also, by the hidden corruption of his carnal concupiscence, corrupted in himself all who were to come from his stock. From this and from nowhere else the apostle says: 'Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death; and so it passed unto all men, in whom all sinned.' If I were to say this, they would resist and cry out that I do not speak rightly, do not think rightly.

For in these words they would understand no meaning of any man who might say them, except that very meaning which they refuse to understand in the apostle. But because they are the words of one to whose authority and teaching they submit, they charge us with slowness of understanding, while they attempt to distort into I know not what else the things that were plainly said. 'Through one man,' he says, 'sin entered into the world, and through sin death': this belongs to propagation, not to imitation; for he would say 'through the devil.' But — which no one doubts — he means this first man, who was called Adam. 'And so,' he says, 'it passed unto all men.' Then what follows:

'in whom all sinned' — how circumspectly, how properly, how without ambiguity was it said! For if you understand the sin which through one man entered into the world, in which sin all sinned, surely it is manifest that there are, on the one hand, sins proper to each, in which only those sin whose sins they are, and, on the other hand, this one sin, in which all sinned, when all were that one man. But if it is understood not as the sin but as the one man himself, in which one man all sinned, what could be more manifest even than this manifestation?

Indeed we read that those who believe in Christ are justified in Christ, because of the hidden communication and inspiration of spiritual grace, by which whoever cleaves to the Lord is one spirit, although his saints also imitate him. Let something of the sort be read to me concerning those who have imitated his saints — whether anyone has been said to be justified in Paul or in Peter or in any one of those whose authority stands preeminent among the people of God; except that we are said to be blessed in Abraham, as it was said to him: 'In you shall all nations be blessed,' on account of Christ, who was called his seed according to the flesh. Which is said more manifestly when it is thus put: 'In your seed shall all nations be blessed.'

But that anyone is said in the divine oracles to have sinned or to sin in the devil, when all the wicked and impious imitate him, I do not know whether anyone will find. Yet when the apostle has said this concerning the first man — 'in whom all sinned' — it is still disputed about the propagation of sin, and I know not what cloud of imitation is set against it. Attend also to what follows. For when he had said 'in whom all sinned,' he went on to add: 'for until the law sin was in the world' — that is, because not even the law could take away sin, which entered in besides in order that sin might the more abound, whether the natural law, in which everyone already using reason begins to add his own sins to original sin, or that very law which was given in writing to the people through Moses.

'For if a law had been given which could give life, righteousness would altogether be from the law. But the Scripture concluded all things under sin, that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.' 'But sin was not imputed, when there was no law.' What is 'was not imputed' except 'was ignored and was not thought to be sin'? For it was not held by the Lord God himself as though it did not exist, since it is written: 'Whoever have sinned without the law shall perish without the law.' 'But,' he says, 'death reigned from Adam until Moses' — that is, from the first man even to that very law which was divinely promulgated, because not even it could take away the reign of death.

For he means the reign of death to be understood, when the guilt of sin so dominates in men that it does not allow them to come to eternal life, which is the true life, but drags them even to the second death, which is penally eternal. This reign of death grace alone destroys in any man — the grace of the Savior, which wrought also in the ancient saints, whoever, before Christ came in the flesh, belonged nevertheless to his assisting grace, not to the letter of the law, which could only command, not assist. For this was hidden in the Old Testament, by a most just dispensation of the times, which is now revealed in the New.

Therefore in all men death reigned from Adam until Moses — in all who were not aided by the grace of Christ, so that in them the reign of death might be destroyed — therefore also in those who did not sin after the likeness of the transgression of Adam, that is, who had not yet sinned by their own and proper will as he did, but drew original sin from him, 'who is the figure of him that was to come'; because in him was established the figure of condemnation for future posterity, who should be created by his propagation, so that from one all should be born unto condemnation, from which nothing frees except the grace of the Savior. I know indeed that very many Latin manuscripts have it thus:

'Death reigned from Adam until Moses over those who sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam.' Those who read it thus also refer this itself to the same understanding, so that they take those to have sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam who sinned in him, in such a way that they were created like him — as men from a man, so sinners from a sinner, from one destined to die those destined to die, and from one condemned those condemned. But the Greek manuscripts, from which the translation into the Latin tongue was made, either all or almost all have that which was first set down by me. 'But not,' he says, 'as the offense, so also is the free gift; for if by the offense of one many died, much more the grace of God and the gift in the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many':

not 'more men,' that is, more numerous men — for no more are justified than are condemned — but 'much more abounded.' Adam indeed by his one offense begot guilty ones; but Christ by his grace loosed and freely forgave even those offenses which men added by their own will to the original offense in which they were born — which he says more evidently in what follows. But consider more carefully what he says: 'by the offense of one, many died.' For why 'by the offense of that one,' and not rather 'by their own proper offenses,' if imitation, not propagation, is to be understood in this place? But attend to what follows: 'And not as through one sinning, so also is the gift;'

'for the judgment indeed was by one unto condemnation, but the grace is of many offenses unto justification.' Now let them say where in these words that imitation has place. 'By one,' he says, 'unto condemnation': by what one, except an offense? For this he explains when he adds: 'but the grace is of many offenses unto justification.' Why then is the judgment by one offense unto condemnation, but the grace of many offenses unto justification? Is it not the case that, if there is no original offense, then not only the grace unto justification, but also the judgment unto condemnation, leads men from many offenses? For neither does grace forgive many offenses, without judgment also condemning many offenses.

But if for this reason they are led from one offense unto condemnation, because all the offenses which are condemned were committed out of imitation of that one man, then it is the same reasoning why they should be understood to be led from one offense also unto justification, because all the offenses which are forgiven to the justified were committed out of imitation of that one man. But this evidently the apostle did not understand when he said: 'the judgment indeed was by one offense unto condemnation, but the grace was of many offenses unto justification'! Nay rather, let us understand the apostle, and see that the judgment was said to be by one offense unto condemnation for this reason, that it would suffice for condemnation even if there were nothing in men except original sin.

For although the condemnation of those who have joined their own offenses also to the original offense is heavier, and for each so much heavier as each has sinned more grievously, nevertheless even that alone which is drawn from origin not only separates from the kingdom of God — which even they themselves confess that infants who have died without receiving the grace of Christ cannot enter — but also makes men aliens from salvation and eternal life, which can be no other than the kingdom of God, into which the fellowship of Christ alone introduces. And through this, from Adam, in whom we all sinned, we have derived not all our sins, but only original sin;

but from Christ, in whom we all are justified, we obtain the remission not of that original sin only, but also of the other sins which we ourselves have added. Therefore 'not as through one sinning, so also is the gift.' For the judgment indeed from one offense, if it is not remitted — that is, original sin — can already lead unto condemnation; but grace, from many offenses remitted — that is, not only from that original one, but also from all the rest — leads unto justification. 'For if by the offense of one, death reigned through one, much more shall they who receive the abundance of grace and of righteousness reign in life through one, Jesus Christ.'

Why did death reign through one because of the offense of one, unless because they were held by the bond of death in that one, in whom all sinned, even if they added no offenses of their own? Otherwise death did not reign through one because of the offense of one, but because of the many offenses of the many, through each one who sinned. For if the rest died because of the offense of another man for the reason that, following him as he went before in offending, they imitated him, then he too, and much more, died because of the offense of another — the devil, who by offending had so preceded him that he even persuaded the offense to him.

But Adam persuaded nothing to those who imitate him; and many who are called his imitators either have not heard that he existed and committed such a thing, or do not believe it at all. How much more rightly, then, as I have already said, would the Apostle have set up the devil as chief, from whom alone he might say that sin and death passed upon all, if in this passage he had wished to teach not propagation but imitation. For Adam is far more reasonably called the imitator of the devil, whom he had as the persuader to sin, if indeed anyone can also imitate that one who persuaded him to no such thing, or whom he does not know at all. But what does it mean:

those who receive the abundance of grace and of righteousness — except that grace of remission is given not only for that one sin in which all sinned, but also for those sins which they themselves added, and to those men so great a righteousness is bestowed, that, whereas Adam consented to the one persuading him to sin, these do not yield even to the one compelling them? And what does this mean: 'much more shall they reign in life,' since the reign of death drags far more into eternal punishments, unless we understand that the very same persons are spoken of in both, namely those who pass from Adam to Christ, that is, from death to life, because in eternal life they shall reign without end, more than death reigned over them temporally and with an end?

Therefore, as through the transgression of one it came upon all men unto condemnation, so also through the justification of one it comes upon all men unto justification of life. This 'transgression of one,' if we attend to imitation, would belong to none but the devil. But since it is manifest that it is spoken of Adam, not of the devil, it remains that we understand not imitation but the propagation of sin. And in what he says of Christ, 'through justification,' he expressed this more forcibly than if he had said 'through the righteousness of one.' For he speaks of that justification by which Christ justifies the ungodly, which he did not set forth as something to be imitated, but which He alone can accomplish. For the Apostle could rightly say, 'Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ,' but he would never say, 'Be justified by me.'

'as I too have been justified by Christ,' since there can be, and are, and have been many righteous men who are to be imitated, but none is righteous and justifying save Christ alone. Whence it is said: 'to him who believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned unto righteousness.' Whoever, therefore, should dare to say, 'I justify you,' it follows that he must also say, 'believe in me' — which no one of the saints could rightly say. 'Believe in God, and believe in me,' so that, because He Himself justifies the ungodly, to him who believes in Him who justifies the ungodly his faith may be reckoned unto righteousness. For if imitation alone makes sinners through Adam, why does not imitation alone also make men righteous through Christ?

'For as,' he says, 'through the transgression of one it came upon all men unto condemnation, so also through the justification of one it comes upon all men unto justification of life.' Accordingly, these 'one' and 'one' ought to have been established not as Adam and Christ, but as Adam and Abel; for since many sinners have gone before us in the time of this life, and those who sinned in a later time imitated them, these men nevertheless will have it that Adam alone is meant, in whom all sinned by imitation, because he himself first of men sinned. And by this reasoning, Abel ought to have been named, in whom, similarly, men are justified by imitation, since he himself first of men lived righteously.

Or if, on account of a certain point of time belonging to the beginning of the New Testament, Christ is set as head of the righteous for the sake of imitation, then Judas his betrayer ought to have been set as head of sinners. Furthermore, if Christ is the one in whom all are justified for this reason — that not His imitation alone makes men righteous, but the grace that regenerates through the Spirit — then for this same reason Adam too is the one in whom all sinned, because not his imitation alone makes men sinners, but the penalty that generates through the flesh. For this cause also it is said 'all' and 'all.' For those who are generated through Adam are not the very same all who are regenerated through Christ;

but this is rightly said, because just as no one's carnal generation is except through Adam, so no one's spiritual generation is except through Christ. For if some could be generated in the flesh not through Adam, and some regenerated in the spirit not through Christ, then neither in the one case nor in the other would 'all' be plainly said. And these same 'all' he afterward calls 'many'; for in some matter all can be those who are few. But carnal generation has many, and spiritual also has many, although this spiritual has not so many as that carnal. Yet nevertheless, just as that has all men, so this has all righteous men, because as no one is a man apart from that, so no one is a righteous man apart from this, and in both there are many.

'For as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one man many shall be made righteous. But the law entered in, that transgression might abound.' This men added to the original by their own will, not through Adam; but this too is loosed and healed through Christ, because 'where sin abounded, grace did much more abound,' so that, just as sin reigned unto death — even that which men did not draw from Adam, but added by their own will — so also grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life. Yet there is no righteousness apart from Christ, as there are some sins apart from Adam. Therefore, when he had said, 'as sin reigned unto death,' here he did not add:

'through one' or 'through Adam,' because above he had spoken also of that sin which abounded when the law entered in, and this is surely not of origin, but already of one's own will. But when he had said, 'so also grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life,' he added, 'through Jesus Christ our Lord,' because, when the flesh generates, that alone is drawn which is original sin, but when the Spirit regenerates, there comes a remission not only of original but also of voluntary sins. Accordingly it can rightly be said that little ones who depart from the body without baptism will be in the mildest condemnation of all. But he greatly deceives and is deceived who declares that they will not be in condemnation, since the Apostle says:

'the judgment came from one transgression unto condemnation,' and a little after: 'through the transgression of one it came upon all men unto condemnation.' When therefore Adam sinned by not obeying God, then his body, although it was animal and mortal, lost the grace by which it in every part obeyed his soul; then arose that shameful bestial motion of which men are ashamed, at which he blushed in his nakedness; then also, by a certain disease conceived from a sudden and pestilent corruption, it came about in them that, having lost the stability of age in which they were created, they should go through the changeableness of the ages unto death. Though therefore they lived many years afterward, yet on that day they began to die, on which they received the law of death, by which they should waste away into old age.

For it does not stand still even for a point of time, but without intermission there slips away whatever by continual change runs gradually toward an end that does not perfect but consumes. Thus therefore was fulfilled what God had said: 'in the day that you eat, you shall die the death.' From this disobedience of the flesh, then, from this law of sin and death, whoever is carnally generated has need to be spiritually regenerated, so that he may not only be brought to the kingdom of God, but also be freed from the condemnation of sin. So together they are born in the flesh, liable to the sin and death of the first man, and together they are reborn in baptism, joined to the righteousness and eternal life of the second man; as it is also written in Ecclesiasticus:

'From a woman was the beginning of sin, and through her we all die.' Whether it be said 'from a woman' or 'from Adam,' both pertain to the first man, since, as we know, the woman is from the man, and the flesh of both is one. Whence also is that which is written: 'and the two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are no longer two,' says the Lord, 'but one flesh.' Wherefore those who say that little ones are baptized for this reason — that there may be remitted to them what they have contracted as their own in this life, not what they have derived from Adam — are not to be refuted with great effort. For when they themselves have thought a little without the zeal of contention how absurd and unworthy of discussion is what they say, they will straightway change their opinion.

But if they refuse, we need not so far despair of human understanding as to fear that they might persuade anyone of this. For they themselves, in order to say this, were driven, unless I am mistaken, by the prejudice of some other opinion of theirs. And therefore, since they necessarily confessed that sins are remitted to the baptized, and yet were unwilling to confess that the sin was drawn from Adam which they confessed was remitted to infants, they were compelled to accuse infancy itself — as though the accuser of infancy were made the more secure by this, that the accused could not answer him. But let us, as I have said, pass these people by;

for there is no need of discourse or of proofs by which the innocence of infants might be established, as regards the life which they lead in themselves at their recent birth, if human sense does not recognize it, aided by no props of anyone's argument. But those give a warning, and seem to bring forward something worthy of consideration and discussion, who say that little ones, newly brought forth into life from their mothers' wombs, receive baptism not for the sake of remitting sin, but that, having spiritual procreation, they may be created in Christ and become partakers of that very kingdom of heaven, in the same way sons and heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.

Yet when it is asked of them whether those not baptized, and not made joint-heirs of Christ and partakers of the kingdom of heaven, have at least the benefit of eternal salvation in the resurrection of the dead, they labor greatly and find no way out. For what Christian could bear it, when it is said that anyone can attain to eternal salvation if he is not reborn in Christ — which He willed to be done through baptism at that very time when such a sacrament was to be established for those to be regenerated unto the hope of eternal salvation? Whence the Apostle says: 'not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the laver of regeneration.' Yet he says this salvation is in hope, while we live here, when he says:

'For in hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is not hope, for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.' Without this regeneration, then, who would dare to affirm that little ones can be saved unto eternity, as though Christ had not died for them? For indeed 'Christ died for the ungodly.' But these little ones, who, as is manifest, have committed nothing ungodly in their own life — if they are not held bound by any bond of ungodliness even from origin — how did He die for them, who died for the ungodly?

If they are wounded by no sickness of original sin, how are they carried by the pious fear of those who care for them to Christ the Physician — that is, to receive the sacrament of eternal salvation — and why is it not said to them in the church: 'Take these innocents away from here; the healthy have no need of a physician, but those who are ill; Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners'? Never has such a fabrication been said, nor is it said, nor will it ever at all be said in the Church of Christ. And lest anyone suppose that little ones ought therefore to be brought to baptism because, just as they are not sinners, so neither are they righteous — how then do certain persons record that the merit of this age was praised by the Lord, when He says: 'Suffer the little ones to come unto me;

for of such is the kingdom of heaven'? For if this was said not on account of the likeness of humility, because humility makes men little ones, but on account of the praiseworthy life of the children, then assuredly they are righteous. For it could not rightly be said otherwise, 'of such is the kingdom of heaven,' since it can belong to none but the righteous. But perhaps it is not fitly said that the Lord praised the life of little ones by saying 'of such is the kingdom of heaven,' since that is the true understanding — that He placed in the tender age a likeness of humility. Yet perhaps this must be held, which I said, that little ones ought therefore to be baptized because, just as they are not sinners, so neither are they righteous. But when it had been said:

'I came not to call the righteous,' as if it were answered Him, 'Whom then have you come to call?' He straightway added, 'but sinners to repentance.' And thus, just as if they are righteous, so also if they are not sinners, He who said 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners' did not come to call them. And therefore they seem to rush to His baptism — of Him who does not call them — not only in vain, but even wickedly; which God forbid that we should hold. Therefore the Physician calls them, He who is not needed by the healthy but by the sick, and came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. And therefore, because they are not yet held liable to any sins of their own life, the original sickness in them is healed in the grace of Him who saves through the laver of regeneration.

Someone will say: 'How then are they too called to repentance? Can such tiny ones repent of anything?' To this the answer is: 'If they are not to be called penitents because they do not yet have the sense of repenting, neither are they to be called faithful, because they likewise do not yet have the sense of believing. But if for this reason they are rightly called faithful, namely because in a certain manner they profess faith through the words of those who carry them, why are they not also held to be penitents beforehand, since through the words of those same bearers they are shown to renounce the devil and this world? All this is done in hope, by the power of the sacrament and of divine grace,

which the Lord has bestowed on the Church.' As for the rest, who does not know that a baptized little one, if coming to the years of reason he does not believe nor abstain himself from unlawful lusts, will gain nothing from what he received as a little one? Yet nevertheless, if having received baptism he departs from this life, with the guilt loosed to which he was liable from origin, he will be perfected in that light of truth which, remaining unchangeably, illumines forever the justified by the presence of the Creator. For sins alone separate between men and God, and these are loosed by His grace, through whom as Mediator we are reconciled, when He justifies the ungodly. But these people are terrified by the Lord's saying:

'Unless one be born again, he shall not see the kingdom of God' — which, when He explained it, He said: 'Unless one be born again of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven' — and therefore they attempt, by a certain new and marvellous presumption, to grant salvation and eternal life to unbaptized little ones by the merit of innocence, yet, because they are not baptized, to make them strangers from the kingdom of heaven. As though the salvation of eternal life could be eternal apart from Christ's inheritance, apart from the kingdom of heaven! For they have, forsooth, whither they may flee and where they may lurk, because the Lord did not say, 'If one be not born again of water and the Spirit, he shall not have life,' but said, 'he shall not enter into the kingdom of God.'

For if He had said that, no doubt could arise from this. Let doubt therefore now be removed; let us hear the Lord, not the suspicions and conjectures of mortals — let us hear the Lord, I say, not indeed saying this concerning the sacrament of the holy laver, but concerning the sacrament of His holy table, to which no one rightly approaches except the baptized: 'Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you shall not have life in you.' What more do we seek? What can be answered to this, unless obstinacy strain its contentious sinews against the constancy of manifest truth?

Or will anyone dare even to say this — that this saying does not pertain to little ones, and that they can have life in themselves without partaking of this body and blood, because He did not say 'whoever does not eat,' as concerning baptism, 'whoever is not born again,' but said, 'if you do not eat,' as though addressing those who could hear and understand, which little ones surely cannot? But he who says this does not consider that unless this saying holds all — that they cannot have life without the body and blood of the Son of Man — then in vain does even the older age concern itself with it. For it can, if you attend not to the will but to the words of the speaker, seem to have been said to those alone,

to whom the Lord was then speaking, because He did not say 'whoever does not eat,' but 'if you do not eat.' And where is that which in the same place He says on this very matter: 'The bread which I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world'? For according to this we understand that this sacrament pertains also to us, who did not yet exist when He said these things, because we cannot say that we do not pertain to the world, for whose life Christ gave His flesh. And who could doubt that by the name 'world' He signified the men who by being born come into this world? For, as He says elsewhere, 'the children of this world beget and are begotten.' And by this the flesh was given also for the life of little ones, which was given for the life of the world;

and if they do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man, neither shall they too have life. Hence is also that saying: 'The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who is unbelieving toward the Son shall not have life, but the wrath of God abides upon him.' In which of these classes, then, shall we place infants? Among those who believe in the Son, or among those who are unbelieving toward the Son? 'In neither,' says someone, 'because, since they cannot yet believe, neither are they to be reckoned unbelieving.' But the ecclesiastical rule does not indicate this, which joins baptized infants to the number of the faithful.

Further, if these who are baptized are, on account of the power and celebration of so great a sacrament, reckoned in the number of believers — although in their own heart and mouth they do not perform what pertains to believing and confessing — then assuredly those to whom the sacrament was lacking must be counted among those who do not believe in the Son; and therefore, if they depart from the body empty of this grace, there will follow them what is said: 'They shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon them.' And whence is this so, when it is clear that they have no sins of their own, if they are not also held liable to original sin? And well did He not say, 'the wrath of God shall come upon him,' but 'abides upon him.' For from this wrath, under which all are set under sin, of which the Apostle says:

'For we too were once by nature children of wrath, even as the rest' — nothing sets free except the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Why this grace comes to one and does not come to another — the cause may be hidden, but it cannot be unjust. For is there injustice with God? God forbid. But first our necks must be submitted to the authorities of the holy Scriptures, that each one may come through faith to understanding. For not in vain was it said: 'Your judgments are like a great deep.' As if trembling at the depth of this abyss, the Apostle cries out: 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!' For he had premised a sentence of wondrous profundity, saying: 'For God has shut up all under unbelief, that He may have mercy upon all.'

As if struck with dread at the horror of this profundity, he says: 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been His counsellor? Or who has first given to Him, and it shall be repaid to him? For of Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things; to Him be glory forever and ever. Amen.' Very small, therefore, is the understanding we have for examining the justice of the judgments of God, for examining the freely-given grace which, with no merits going before, is not unjust — which moves us not so much when it is bestowed on the unworthy as when it is denied to others equally unworthy.

For even those to whom it seems unjust that little ones departing from the body without the grace of Christ should be deprived not only of the kingdom of God — into which, as they themselves confess, none can enter save those reborn through baptism — but even of eternal life and salvation; who ask how it can be just that one should be loosed from original ungodliness and another not loosed, when the condition of both is the same — let these people themselves answer, according to their own opinion, how it is likewise just that baptism should be granted to this one, whereby he may enter into the kingdom of God, and not granted to that one, when the case of both is equal.

For if it moves them why, of these two, since both are equally sinners from origin, one is loosed from this bond, to whom baptism is granted, and another is not loosed, to whom such grace is not granted — why does it not likewise move them that, of two equally innocent from origin, one received baptism whereby he could enter into the kingdom of God, and another did not receive it, so that he could not approach the kingdom of God? Surely in both cases we come back to that exclamation: 'O the depth of the riches!' Next, of the very baptized little ones let it be told me why one is snatched away, lest malice change his understanding, and another lives who is to be ungodly. Would they not both, if both were snatched away, enter into the kingdom of heaven? And yet there is no injustice with God. What of this?

Whom would that not move — whom would it not compel to cry out in such a depth — that some little ones are vexed by an unclean spirit, while others suffer no such thing; that some are even sanctified in their mothers' wombs, like Jeremiah — when all, if there is original sin, are equally guilty, and if there is none, are equally innocent? Whence comes so great a diversity, save that 'His judgments are unsearchable, and His ways past finding out'? Or perhaps we must now regard as exploded and repudiated that opinion — that souls, having first sinned in a heavenly habitation, come by degrees and little by little to the bodies suited to their merits, and are afflicted more or less by bodily plagues according to their previously conducted life? — an opinion which holy Scripture most openly contradicts,

which, in commending grace, says: 'when they were not yet born, nor had done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand — not of works, but of Him who calls — it was said that the elder shall serve the younger.' Nor yet do even those who hold this opinion escape the straits of this question, but, hemmed in and stuck fast in them, they too are likewise compelled to cry out, 'O the depth!' For whence comes it that a man from earliest boyhood more modest, more talented, more temperate, in great part a victor over lusts, who hates avarice, detests luxury, and rises to the other virtues more advanced and more apt — and yet is placed in such a spot where Christian grace cannot be preached to him? For 'how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?'

'Or how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?' — while another, dull of wit, given over to lusts, covered with disgraces and crimes, is so guided that he hears, believes, is baptized, and is snatched away, or, if he is kept here, lives praiseworthily? Where did these two contract merits so diverse — I do not say that this one should believe and that one not believe, which belongs to one's own will, but that this one should hear what he may believe, and that one not hear — for this is not in a man's power — where, I say, did they contract these so diverse merits?

If they conducted some life in heaven, so that for their deeds they were driven or slipped down to the earth and were held in bodily receptacles suited to their previously conducted life, then surely he must be believed to have lived better before this mortal body who deserved not to be much weighed down by it — so that he had both a good disposition and was pressed by his milder concupiscences, which he could easily overcome — and yet did not deserve that grace to be preached to him, by which alone he could be freed from the ruin of the second death;

but the other, on account of his worse merits (as they think), being entangled in a heavier body and on this account of dulled heart, when he was overcome by the enticements of the flesh with most burning desire and, through a most wicked life, added worse earthly deeds to his former sins by which he had deserved to come to this — yet either on the cross heard, 'Today you shall be with me in Paradise,' or clung to some apostle by whose preaching he was changed and, through the laver of regeneration, was made whole, so that 'where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.' What they can answer to this I do not at all see — those who, unwilling to defend the justice of God by human conjectures and ignorant of the depth of grace, have woven improbable fables.

For many things can be said about the wondrous callings of men — whether those we read of or those we have experienced — by which the opinion of those may be overthrown who believe that the souls of men, before these their bodies, lived certain lives of their own, according to the diversity of whose merits they came to these bodies to experience here diverse things, either good or evil. But the care of bringing this work to an end does not permit me to linger longer on these matters. Yet one thing which, among many, I have found marvellous, I shall not pass over in silence.

Who, according to these men — who suppose that souls are more or less weighed down in earthly bodies according to the merits of a prior life led in the heavenly places before this body — would not affirm that those had sinned before this life more wickedly and monstrously, who deserved so to lose the light of the mind that they were born with a sense akin to the beasts? — I do not say the most dull of wit (for this is wont to be said of others), but so witless that even, with curled locks, they display to the sensible, for the moving of laughter, the delights of foolishness; whom the common people, by a name derived from the Greek, call 'morons.' Yet a certain one of such was so a Christian that, though by wondrous foolishness he was most patient of all his own injuries, yet an injury of the name of Christ, or of the religion

with which he had been imbued, he could not bear, so that he would not cease to pursue with stones those sensible men who blasphemed — from whom he heard such things as would provoke him — nor in that cause would he spare even his masters. Such persons, therefore, I judge to be predestined and created, so that those who are able may understand the grace of God and the Spirit, 'who breathes where He wills,' and that on this account no kind of native ability is passed over among the children of mercy, and likewise every kind of native ability is passed over among the children of Gehenna, so that 'he who glories may glory in the Lord.'

But those who affirm that souls, according to the merits of a higher life, receive various earthly bodies by which some are more, some less weighed down, and that according to the same merits human abilities are varied — so that some are sharper and others duller — and that according to the merits of that same higher life divine grace too is dispensed for the freeing of men: what will they be able to answer concerning this man? How will they attribute to him both a most foul higher life, so that he was born a fool, and one so well-deserving, so that from this he was, in the grace of Christ, preferred to many of the sharpest wit? Let us therefore yield and consent to the authority of holy Scripture, which knows not to be deceived nor to deceive; and, as concerning those not yet born, to discern their merits — anything…

we do not believe to have acted either well or ill; so also let us in no way doubt that all are under sin, which entered into the world through one man and passed through unto all men, and from which none sets free save the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. His healing advent is no work for the healthy, but for the sick, since He came not to call the righteous, but sinners; into whose kingdom none shall enter but he who has been born again of water and the Spirit, nor shall anyone possess salvation and eternal life apart from His kingdom, since he who has not eaten His flesh, and he who is unbelieving toward the Son, shall not have life, but the wrath of God abides upon him.

From this sin, from this sickness, from this wrath of God—of which they are by nature children, who, even though by reason of their age they have no sin of their own, nevertheless drag along original sin—none sets free save the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world; none save the Physician who came not for the healthy, but for the sick; none save the Saviour, of whom it was said to the human race: 'This day is born to you a Saviour'; none save the Redeemer, by whose blood our debt is blotted out. For who would dare to say that Christ is not the Saviour and Redeemer of infants? But whence does He save them, if there is in them no original sickness of sin? Whence does He redeem them, if they have not, through the origin of the first man, been sold under sin?

Therefore let no eternal salvation, out of our own opinion, be promised to infants apart from the baptism of Christ—a salvation which the divine Scripture, to be preferred above all human ingenuities, does not promise them. The Punic Christians very rightly call baptism itself nothing else than 'salvation,' and the sacrament of Christ's body nothing else than 'life.' Whence comes this, save from an ancient—as I judge—and apostolic tradition, by which the churches of Christ hold it implanted that, apart from baptism and participation in the Lord's table, no man can attain not only to the kingdom of God, but not even to salvation and eternal life? For this too Scripture attests, according to what we said above. For what else do they hold who call baptism by the name of salvation, but that which was said:

'He saved us by the washing of regeneration'; and what Peter says: 'so also does baptism in like fashion save you'? What else too do they hold who call the sacrament of the Lord's table 'life,' but that which was said: 'I am the living bread, who came down from heaven; the bread which I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world'; 'unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you'? If therefore, as so many and so great divine testimonies concord, neither salvation nor eternal life is to be hoped for by anyone without baptism and the body and blood of the Lord, in vain is it promised to little ones without these.

Furthermore, if nothing separates a man from salvation and eternal life except sins, then through these sacraments nothing else is loosed in little ones but the guilt of sin; concerning which guilt it is written that no one is clean, not even if his life be of a single day. Whence too is that in the Psalms: 'For I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother nourish me in the womb.' For this is either spoken from the general person of man himself, or, if David says this properly of himself, he was certainly born not of fornication, but of lawful wedlock. Let us therefore not doubt that the blood was poured out even for infants to be baptized—blood which, before it was poured out, was so given and commended in the sacrament that it was said:

'This is my blood, which shall be poured out for many unto the remission of sins.' For they deny that those are set free, who refuse to confess that they are under sin. For whence are they set free, if they are held bound by no servitude of sin? 'I,' He says, 'came as light into the world, that everyone who believes in me may not remain in darkness.' By this saying, what does He show, but that everyone who does not believe in Him is in darkness, and that by believing he brings it about that he does not remain in darkness? What do we understand this darkness to be, but sins? Yet whatever else this darkness be understood to mean, surely he who does not believe in Christ shall remain in it, and it is assuredly penal, not as it were the nocturnal darkness necessary for the rest of living creatures.