For it is God, says the apostle, who works in us both to will and to work according to His good will. In this manner, therefore, comes about the spiritual regeneration of all who come to Christ from carnal generation. He Himself opened this, He Himself showed it, when it was asked of Him how these things could be; He left no room in this cause for human argumentation to anyone. Let not infants be estranged from the grace of the remission of sins; there is no other passage to Christ, no one can otherwise be reconciled to God and come to God except through Christ. What shall I say of the very form of the sacrament? I could wish that one of these who hold contrary views would bring me an infant to be baptized. What does my exorcism effect in him, if he is not held in the household of the devil?
He himself, at any rate, was going to answer on behalf of that same little one whom he was carrying, since the child could not answer for himself. How then was he going to declare that the infant renounces the devil, when the devil had no part in him? How that he turns to God, from whom he had not turned away? How that he believes, among other things, in the remission of sins, when no such remission would be granted to him? For my part, if I supposed that he held views contrary to these, I would not even permit him to approach the sacraments together with the little one; but with what face he could carry himself before men, and with what mind before God, in this matter I do not know, nor do I wish to say anything harsher.
That a false or deceptive form of baptism should therefore be handed down to little ones, in which the words seem to sound and the act to be performed, and yet no remission of sins takes place—some of them saw that nothing more execrable and detestable could be said or thought. Accordingly, as concerns the baptism of little ones, in order that it may be necessary for them, they concede that redemption too is needed even by these, as is contained in a very brief pamphlet of a certain one of them—who nevertheless there refused to express more openly the remission of any sin. But just as you yourself have informed me by letter, they now confess, as you say, that even in little ones the remission of sins takes place through baptism. And no wonder; for redemption could not be understood in any other way.
Yet they say the sin is not original, but one that they began to have in their own life after they were born. Wherefore you see how great a distance now separates them from those against whom I have already long and much argued in this work—of whom I have even read a book by one of them containing such views, which I refuted as best I could. Between these, then, as I had begun to say—who maintain that little ones are altogether pure and free from every sin, both original and personal—and those who think that, once born, the infants have contracted personal sins, from which they believe they ought to be cleansed through baptism: you see how great is the difference.
Accordingly these latter, by looking to the Scriptures and the authority of the whole Church and the form of the sacrament itself, rightly saw that through baptism remission of sins takes place in little ones; but that whatever it is that is in them is original, they either refuse to say or are unable to see. Those former ones, however, looking at human nature itself—which is ready at hand for all to consider—rightly saw (which was easy) that that age could not, in its own life, have contracted any sin; but, lest they should confess original sin, they say there is no sin at all in little ones. In these matters, then—in which they each speak true singly—let them first agree among themselves, and it will consequently come about that they dissent from us in no respect.
For if the former grant to the latter that remission of sins takes place in baptized little ones, and the latter grant to the former that little ones—as nature itself cries out in the speechless infants—have as yet contracted no sin belonging to their own life, then let both grant to us that nothing remains except the original sin, which is loosed in little ones through baptism. Or are we really going to inquire into this too, and dispute about it, and spend time upon it, so as to prove and teach how, through their own will—without which there can be no sin of one's own life—infants have committed no evil, they who for this very reason are called innocent by all?
Does not such great weakness of soul and body, such great ignorance of things, so utter an incapacity for any precept, no sense or movement of any law whether natural or written, no use of reason in either direction—does not all this, by a silence more eloquent than any witness, proclaim and declare more than our discourse does? Let the very evidence have some force to persuade itself; for nowhere do I so fail to find what to say as where the matter of which one speaks is more manifest than anything that can be said. Yet I would wish that whoever holds this opinion would tell me what sin he has seen, or supposed, in an infant fresh from the womb—one for whose redemption he confesses baptism is already necessary—what evil it has committed in this its own life through its own soul or body.
If perhaps it be that he cries and is a weariness to his elders—it would be strange if this were to be reckoned to iniquity rather than to unhappiness. Or is it that he is not restrained from that very weeping by any reasoning of his own, nor by anyone's prohibition? But this belongs to the ignorance in which he lies most deeply sunk, by which too he will strike his mother in anger, when after a little while he has grown strong enough, and often the very breasts which he demands when he is hungry. These things are not only borne with, but even loved, in little ones—and with what affection, if not a carnal one, by which even laughter and jest delights, seasoned as it were by the very absurdity even of shrewd men? For if they were felt to be as they really are, those children would now be laughed at not as witty but as foolish.
We see also that fools—those whom people commonly call idiots—are employed for the delight of the sensible, and in the valuation of slaves are held more precious than the sensible: so much does carnal affection avail, even among those who are by no means fools, in taking delight in another's misfortune. For while another's folly is pleasant to a man, yet he himself would not have wished to be such; and if he foresaw that his own little son—from whom, prattling, the father joyfully expects and provokes such things—was going to be like that when he grew up, he would in no way doubt that he ought to be mourned more pitiably than if he had died.
But while the hope of growth is present, and it is believed that the light of understanding will come with the advance of age, it comes about that the little ones' abusive words, even against their parents, are not only not injurious, but even welcome and pleasant. This indeed no prudent person would approve—that from such words or deeds they should not only not be restrained, when they can already be restrained, but even be incited to them by the elders' zeal for laughter and vanity. For very often that age, already recognizing father and mother, does not dare to speak ill of either of them unless permitted or bidden by one of the two, or by both. But these are the doings of those little ones who already burst out into words and can now express the movements of their soul by whatever signs of speech they may.
Let us rather look at that most profound ignorance of the newly born, out of which, advancing toward that not-to-remain stammering foolishness as toward knowledge and speech, they came by making progress. Let us consider, I say, those shadows of a mind that is indeed rational, in which they are wholly ignorant even of God, whose sacraments they resist even when they are being baptized. Into these shadows I ask whence and when they were plunged. Did they really contract them here, and in this their own already-personal life, through excessive negligence forget God, whereas they had lived prudently and religiously either in their mothers' wombs? Let them say these things who dare, let them hear them who will, let them believe them who can;
but I for my part think that all those whose mind the obstinacy of defending their own opinion does not cloud cannot hold such views. Or is there no evil of ignorance, and therefore none to be purged? And what does that voice mean: 'Remember not the offenses of my youth and of my ignorance'? For although the sins that are committed by those who know are more damnable, yet if the sins of ignorance were nothing, we would not read what I have quoted: 'Remember not the offenses of my youth and of my ignorance.' Into those densest shadows of ignorance, then, where the soul of an infant fresh from the womb lies—the soul, assuredly, of a human being, assuredly a rational soul, not only untaught but even unteachable—why, or when, or whence has it been thrust down?
If it belongs to man's nature so to begin, and this nature is not already vitiated, why was Adam not created such? Why was he capable of a precept and able to impose names on his wife and on all the animals? For of her too he said: 'She shall be called woman'; and 'whatever Adam called each living soul, that is its name.'
But this one, not knowing where he is, what he is, by whom he was created, of whom he was begotten, is already guilty of an offense, not yet capable of a precept, enveloped and pressed down by so deep a fog of ignorance that he cannot even be aroused as if from sleep, so that he might at least recognize these things when shown to him; but a time must be awaited in which he may gradually digest this—I know not what—drunkenness, as it were, not through a single night, as any most severe intoxication usually is slept off, but through a good many months and years. And until this happens, we tolerate in little ones so many things which we punish in older people that they cannot be counted at all. If, then, little ones already born in this life have contracted this so great an evil of ignorance and weakness, where, when, how were they, by the commission of some great impiety, suddenly wrapped in such shadows?
Someone will say: 'If these are not the beginnings of a pure nature but of a vitiated one, because Adam was not created such, why did Christ—far more excellent, and certainly born of a virgin without any sin—nonetheless appear brought forth in this same weakness and age?' To this proposition we reply: Adam was created not such because, with no parent's sin preceding, he was not created in the flesh of sin; we are such because, with his sin preceding, we are born in the flesh of sin; Christ is such because, in order that from sin he might condemn sin, he was born in the likeness of the flesh of sin.
For the matter at issue concerning Adam is not what pertains to the size of the body—since he was not made a little one, but with a perfect bulk of limbs (for it may be said that even beasts were created thus, and yet it was not by their sin that it came about that from them small young are born—which, of what nature it may be, we do not now inquire)—but the matter concerns a certain vigor of that mind and use of reason, by which the docile Adam might grasp the precept of God and the law of the command, and could easily keep it if he willed. Now, however, man is so born that he cannot do this at all, on account of the dreadful ignorance and weakness not of the flesh but of the mind—since we all confess that in the little one there dwells a rational soul, not of another substance, but of the same as that which was in the first man.
Although even that so great weakness of the flesh itself demonstrates something—as much as I judge—of a penal character. For it stirs the question: if those first human beings had not sinned, whether they were going to have such children as would use neither tongue nor hands nor feet. For on account of the capacity of the womb it may perhaps have been necessary for little ones to be born—although, since a rib is a small part of the body, it was not on that account that God made for the man a tiny consort, whom he built up into a woman. Whence too the Creator's omnipotence could have made his children, once brought forth, immediately full-grown. But, to pass this over, He certainly could have done what He granted also to many beasts, whose young—
although they are little and do not advance in mind even as their bodily size increases (since they do not have a rational soul), yet even the very tiniest both run and recognize their mothers, nor are they brought to the sucking of the udders by another's care and aid, but they themselves know these, placed in a hidden spot of the mother's body, with a marvelous ease. On the contrary, for a human being once born, the feet are not fit even for walking, nor the hands even suited for scratching; and unless, by the labor of the one nursing, the nipple of the breast is put to his motionless lips, he does not even feel where they are, and though the breasts lie close beside him, when hungry he can weep rather than suck. Accordingly, this weakness of body altogether accords with the weakness of mind.
Nor would the flesh of Christ have been in the likeness of the flesh of sin, unless this were the flesh of sin, by whose weight the rational soul is thus burdened—whether it too be drawn from the parents, or created there, or breathed in from above, which question I now defer to inquire into. In little ones, certainly, the grace of God, through the baptism of Him who came in the likeness of the flesh of sin, brings it about that the flesh of sin is emptied of power. And it is emptied, not so that in the living flesh itself the concupiscence sprinkled and inborn is suddenly consumed and ceases to be, but so that what was present in the one born may not harm him when dead.
For if he lives on after baptism and is able to reach the age capable of a precept, there he has that with which he may fight and, with God's help, may overcome it—if he has not received God's grace in vain, if he has not chosen to be reprobate.
For not even to grown people is this granted in baptism—unless perhaps by some ineffable miracle of the all-powerful Creator—that the law of sin, which is in the members warring against the law of the mind, should be utterly extinguished and cease to be; but rather that whatever evil has been done, said, or thought by the man while he served with a mind subjected to that same concupiscence, should be wholly abolished and held as though it had not been done; while concupiscence itself, the bond of guilt being loosed by which through it the devil held the soul, and the barrier being destroyed by which it separated man from his Creator, remains for the contest by which we chastise our body and bring it into subjection—whether it is to be relaxed for lawful and necessary uses, or to be restrained by continence.
But since by the divine Spirit—who knows all things, past, present, or future, of the human race far better than we—such a human life was foreknown and foretold that 'no living person shall be justified in the sight of God,' it comes about that, through ignorance or weakness, not exerting against it all the full forces of the will, we yield to it in some unlawful things as well—the more and the more often the worse we are, the less and the more rarely the better we are. But since concerning this question—in which it is asked whether a human being can be, or is, or has been, or will be without sin in this life, except for Him who said:
'Behold, the prince of the world comes, and in me he will find nothing'—since this must be discussed somewhat more diligently, let this be the limit of this volume, so that we may seek that discussion from another beginning. BOOK TWO. Concerning the baptism of little ones, most beloved Marcellinus—that it is given to them not only for the kingdom of God, but also for obtaining salvation and eternal life, which no one can have apart from God's kingdom and apart from the fellowship of Christ the Savior, into which He redeemed us by His own blood—we have, as I think, sufficiently argued in the former book.
But in this book I have undertaken to discuss and unravel, with as much diligence and ability as He Himself grants, whether anyone lives, or has lived, or will live in this age without any sin at all, except the one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a redemption for all. And if into this discussion there should now and again, by some necessity or opportunity, insert itself the question about the sin or baptism of little ones, it will be no cause for wonder, nor is it to be shunned, so that on those points we may answer, as best we are able, all the things that demand our response. But the solution of this question, concerning a human life without any stealthy encroachment or forestalling by sin, is most necessary on account of our daily prayers as well.
For there are certain persons who so presume upon the free choice of the human will that they suppose we do not need to be divinely aided toward not sinning, once the free choice of the will has been granted, once for all, to our nature. From this it follows that we ought not even to pray that we may not enter into temptation—that is, that we may not be overcome by temptation, whether when it deceives and forestalls us unawares, or when it presses and urges the weak. But how harmful this is, and to our salvation, which is in Christ, how pernicious and contrary, and to the very religion in which we have been instructed, and to the piety by which we worship God, how vehemently opposed—that we should not ask the Lord for the receiving of such a benefit, and in the Lord's Prayer itself:
'Lead us not into temptation'—that we should reckon it placed there in vain—we cannot unfold in words. But they think they speak shrewdly. As if any of us were ignorant of this: that 'if we are unwilling, we do not sin, nor would God command a man what was impossible to the human will.' But this they see less: that for overcoming certain things—whether those that are wrongly desired or those that are wrongly feared—there is need sometimes of great and total forces of the will, which He foresaw we would not perfectly apply in all cases—He who willed it to be said truthfully through the prophet: 'No living person shall be justified in Thy sight.'
Foreknowing therefore that we would be such, the Lord deigned to give, and to make effective, certain wholesome remedies against the guilt and bonds of sins even after baptism—namely, works of mercy—when He says: 'Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you; give, and it shall be given you.' For who would depart from this life with any hope of attaining eternal salvation, while that sentence stood: 'whoever keeps the whole law, but offends in one point, is made guilty of all,' unless a little after there followed: 'so speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment without mercy to him who does not show mercy; but mercy exults over judgment'?
Concupiscence, therefore, as the law of sin remaining in the members of this body of death, is born with little ones; in baptized little ones it is loosed from guilt, is left for the contest, and pursues with no condemnation those who die before the contest; it entangles unbaptized little ones as guilty and, as children of wrath, even if the little ones die, drags them to condemnation. But in baptized grown people, in whom now, as those using reason, whatever the mind has consented to for sinning at that same concupiscence's prompting, belongs to their own will;
once all sins are blotted out, and even the guilt loosed by which it held them bound in their origin, it remains meanwhile for the contest, in no way about to harm those who do not consent to it toward unlawful things—until death is swallowed up in victory and, in perfect peace, there exists nothing that may be overcome. But those who consent to it toward unlawful things it holds as guilty and, unless they are healed through the medicine of penance and works of mercy, by the heavenly Priest who intercedes for us, it leads to the second death and condemnation. On this account too the Lord, teaching us to pray, among other things admonished us to say: 'Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.'
For evil remains in our flesh, not by nature—in which man was divinely created—but by the vice by which he fell through the will, where, his strength being lost, he is not healed with that same ease of will by which he was wounded. Of this evil the Apostle says: 'I know that in my flesh dwells no good thing.' To this evil He commanded us not to be obedient, when He says: 'Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires.' If, then, by an unlawful inclination of the will we have consented to these desires of the concupiscence of the flesh, to heal this we say: 'Forgive us our debts,' applying the remedy from the work of mercy in that which we add: 'as we also forgive our debtors.'
But that we may not consent to it, we implore aid, saying: 'And lead us not into temptation'—or, as some codices have it, 'do not bring us into temptation'—not that God Himself tempts anyone with such temptation (for God is untempted by evils, and He Himself tempts no one), but that, if perhaps we begin to be tempted by our own concupiscence, we may not be abandoned by His help, so that in it we may be able to conquer, lest, being enticed, we be dragged away. Then we add what will be perfected in the end, when the mortal shall be swallowed up by life: 'but deliver us from evil.' For then there will be no such concupiscence, with which we are bidden to strive and not to consent. So, then, this whole matter, placed in three benefits, can be briefly asked for:
'Pardon us those things in which we have been drawn away by concupiscence; help us, that we be not drawn away by concupiscence; take from us concupiscence.' For toward sinning we are not aided by God; but to do just things, or to fulfill the precept of righteousness in every part, we cannot, unless we are aided by God. For just as the eye of the body is not aided by light in order to withdraw shut or turned away from that same light, but is aided by it in order to see, and cannot do this at all unless it aid—so God, who is the light of the inner man, aids the gaze of our mind, that we may work some good not according to our own, but according to His righteousness.
But if we are turned away from Him, it is our own doing, and then we are wise according to the flesh, then we consent to the concupiscence of the flesh toward unlawful things. God therefore aids those who are turned toward Him; those turned away He forsakes. But that we may even be turned, He Himself aids—which assuredly this bodily light does not furnish to the eyes of the body. When therefore He bids us, saying: 'Turn to me, and I will turn to you,' and we say to Him: 'Turn us, O God of our salvation,' and: 'O God of hosts, turn us,' what else do we say but: 'Give what Thou commandest'? When He bids, saying: 'Understand, therefore, you who are foolish among the people,' and we say to Him: 'Give me understanding, that I may learn Thy commandments,' what else do we say but: 'Give what Thou commandest'? When He bids, saying:
'Do not go after your concupiscences,' and we say: 'We know that no one can be continent unless God grant it,' what else do we say but: 'Give what Thou commandest'? When He bids, saying: 'Do righteousness,' and likewise says: 'Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled,' from whom ought we to seek the food and drink of righteousness but from Him who promises its fullness to those hungering and thirsting for it? Let us therefore repel from our ears and minds those who say that, the free choice of the will having been received once for all, we need not even pray that God aid us, lest we sin.
For not even that Pharisee was blinded by such shadows—who, although he erred in this, that he thought nothing was to be added to himself for righteousness and judged himself sated with its fullness, nevertheless gave thanks to God that he was not as the rest of men, unjust, robbers, adulterers, like that publican, that he fasted twice on the sabbath, that he gave tithes of all he possessed. He no longer asked that anything be added to himself for righteousness; but nevertheless, giving thanks to God for those things he had, he confessed that he had received all from Him. And yet he was disapproved—both because, as though sated, he no longer asked to receive anything of the nourishments of righteousness, and because he was eager, as though insulting, to prefer himself to the hungering and thirsting publican in respect of it.
What then shall become of those who, even if they confess that they do not have righteousness, or do not have it in full, nevertheless presume that it is to be had from themselves, not to be implored from their Creator, where His storehouse and His fountain are? Nor, however, is this matter to be dealt with by vows alone, so that the efficacy of our will as well be not brought to bear on living well. For our God is called a helper, and none can be helped except one who also of his own accord attempts something; for God works our salvation in us not as in senseless stones, nor as in those in whose nature He did not establish reason and will.
But why He aids this one, and does not aid that one; this one so much, and that one only so much; this one in that way, that one in this way—that lies within His own power, both the reason of an equity so secret and the excellence of His power. For those who say that a man can be without sin in this life are not to be opposed at once with incautious rashness. For if we deny that he can be, we shall detract both from the free will of man, who by willing desires this, and from the power or mercy of God, who by aiding brings this about. But it is one question whether he can be, another whether he is; another, if he is not, though he can be, why he is not; another, whether anyone who has never at all had any sin not only exists, but even could at some time exist, or can.
In this fourfold proposition of questions, if it be asked of me whether a man can be without sin in this life, I will confess that he can, through the grace of God and his own free choice—not doubting that free choice itself pertains to the grace of God, that is, to the gifts of God, not only that it may be, but even that it may be good, that is, that it may be turned to doing the commands of the Lord; and thus that the grace of God not only shows what is to be done, but also aids, so that what it has shown may be able to be done. For what have we that we have not received? Whence Jeremiah too says: 'I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not his own, nor is it of a man to walk and direct his steps.' Hence too in the Psalms, when a certain one had said to God:
'Thou hast commanded that Thy commandments be kept most diligently,' he immediately did not presume upon himself, but wished that he might do it: 'O that,' he says, 'my ways may be directed to keep Thy statutes! Then shall I not be confounded, while I look into all Thy commandments.' But who wishes for what he has so within his own power that he needs no aid for doing it? And from whom he wishes it—for not from fortune, nor from fate, nor from any other beside God—he sufficiently shows in what follows: 'Direct my steps,' he says, 'according to Thy word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me.' From the servitude of this accursed mistress are freed those to whom the Lord Jesus, when they received Him, gave power to become sons of God.