1. 1. Although amid the great and feverish press of cares and weariness that hold us back on account of sinners who forsake the law of God—even though we charge these very cares too against the deserts of sins—I nevertheless did not wish, my dearest Marcellinus, to remain any longer in debt to your zeal, by which you are the more pleasing and agreeable to me; and, to tell the truth, I could not. For I was compelled, whether by that very love by which in the one unchangeable God we are one, being destined to be changed for the better, or by the fear lest in you I should give offense to God, who has given you such a desire that by serving it I serve him who gave it—so compelled, I say, so led and drawn, was I to resolve, with what little strength I have, the questions you laid upon me by writing, that for a little while this cause prevailed in my mind over others, until I should accomplish something to make it clear that I had served your good will, and that of those to whom these matters are a concern, if not adequately, yet obediently.

2. 2. Those who say, "Adam was created such that he would have died even without the deserving of any sin, not as the penalty of guilt but by the necessity of nature," surely try to refer what is said in the law, On the day you eat of it, you shall die the death (Gen 2:17), not to the death of the body but to the death of the soul, which comes about in sin. It was by this death that the Lord signified the unbelievers to be dead, of whom he said, Let the dead bury their dead (Matt 8:22). What, then, will they answer when we read that God said this to the first man even after the sin, rebuking and condemning him: You are earth, and into earth you shall go (Gen 3:19)?

For it was not according to the soul but, as is plain, according to the body that he was earth, and it was by the death of that same body that he was to go into the earth. For although according to the body he was earth and bore the animal body in which he was created, nevertheless, had he not sinned, he was to be changed into a spiritual body and to pass over, without the danger of death, into that incorruption which is promised to the faithful and the holy. That we have a desire for this we not only feel within ourselves, but also recognize it at the Apostle's prompting, where he says: For in this we groan, longing to be clothed over with our dwelling which is from heaven, if indeed, being clothed, we are not found naked. For we who are in this dwelling groan, being burdened, in that we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed over, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life (2 Cor 5:2-4). Accordingly, had Adam not sinned, he was not to be unclothed of the body but to be clothed over with immortality and incorruption, so that what was mortal might be swallowed up by life—that is, that he might pass from the animal to the spiritual.

3. 3. Nor was there reason to fear that, perhaps, if he lived here longer in an animal body, he might be weighed down by old age and, gradually growing old, come to death. For if God granted to the Israelites that their garments and sandals were not worn out through so many years (Deut 29:5), what wonder if to an obedient man the same power would grant that, having an animal—that is, mortal—body, he might maintain in it a certain condition in which he would be advanced in years without decay, until the time when God willed him to pass from mortality to immortality without an intervening death? For just as this very flesh which we now have is not invulnerable simply because it is not necessary that it be wounded, so that flesh was not immortal merely because it was not necessary that it die. I think that such a constitution, while still in an animal and mortal body, was granted also to those who were taken from here without death. For neither Enoch nor Elijah withered with old age through so long an age, and yet I do not believe that they were already changed into that spiritual quality of body which is promised in the resurrection, the resurrection that first went before us in the Lord—unless perhaps these men have no need even of the foods that restore by their own consumption, but from the time they were taken up they so live that they have a satiety like that of those forty days in which Elijah lived without food from a cup of water and a cake of bread (1 Kgs 19:1-8; see 1 Kgs 19:6-8); or, if they do have need of these supports, then perhaps they are fed in paradise as Adam was before he deserved on account of sin to go out from there. For he had, as I judge, both refreshment against decline from the fruits of the trees and stability against aging from the tree of life.

4. 4. Besides this, that God in punishing said, You are earth, and into earth you shall go (Gen 3:19)—which, except of the death of the body, I do not know how it can be understood—there are also other testimonies by which it appears most evidently that the human race deserved on account of sin the death not only of the spirit but also of the body. The Apostle says to the Romans: But if Christ is in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. If, then, the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you (Rom 8:10-11). I think a statement so clear and open needs no expositor but only a reader. The body, he says, is dead—not on account of earthly frailty, because 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.

5. 5. For before it was changed into that incorruption which is promised in the resurrection of the saints, it could be mortal yet not destined to die, just as this body of ours can, so to speak, be liable to sickness yet not destined to fall sick. For whose flesh is there that cannot fall sick, even if by some chance it should die before it falls sick? So too that body was already mortal; and the change into eternal incorruption would have done away with that mortality, had righteousness, that is, obedience, remained in the man; but that mortal thing did not become dead except on account of sin. But because that change to come in the resurrection will have not only no death—which came about on account of sin—but not even the mortality which the animal body had before sin, he does not say, "He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your dead bodies," though he had said above the body is dead, but he says, he will give life also to your mortal bodies, so that they may now be not only not dead but not even mortal, when the animal will rise into the spiritual and this mortal will put on immortality (1 Cor 15:44, 53), and what is mortal will be swallowed up by life (2 Cor 5:4).

6. 6. It would be strange if anything more transparent than this declaration were sought—unless, perhaps, we must listen to what is alleged against this clarity, namely, that we should understand "the body is dead" here in that sense in which it is said, Put to death your members which are upon the earth (Col 3:5). But in this way the body is put to death on account of righteousness, not on account of sin; for it is in order that we may do righteousness that we put to death 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 so that sin may not be committed"—then what does he mean when, having added but the spirit is life, he went on to say, because of righteousness? For it would have sufficed to add the life of the spirit in such a way that here too "so that sin may not be committed" might be understood, so that we should understand both for the sake of one thing: that the body is dead and that the spirit is life, so that sin may not be committed. And in the same way, even if he had wished to say only because of righteousness, that is, "for the doing of righteousness," both could be referred to this: that the body is dead and that the spirit is life for the doing of righteousness. But as it is, he both said the body is dead because of sin and that the spirit is life because of righteousness, assigning different deserts to different things: to the death of the body indeed 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, then surely, when the body is dead because of sin, what else ought we or can we understand than "by the desert of sin," unless we try to pervert and twist the most evident sense of Scripture according to our own pleasure? To this the light of the following words also is added.

For when, defining the grace of the present time, he had said that the body indeed is dead because of sin—because 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—because, although we are still burdened with the body of this death, yet, with renewal already begun according to the inner man, we breathe again into the righteousness of faith (Rom 7:24);

nevertheless, lest human ignorance should hope for nothing concerning the resurrection of the body, that very body which, on account of the desert of sin, he had called dead in the present age, he says will, in the future, on account of the desert of righteousness, be given life—and not merely so that it become living from dead, but also immortal from mortal.

7. 7. And so, although I am wary lest by expounding a plain matter I should rather obscure it, attend nonetheless to the light of the Apostle's 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 (Rom 8:10). This was said lest men should think that they have either no benefit or only a small one from the grace of Christ, because they are necessarily going to die in the body. For they ought to consider that the body indeed still bears the desert of sin, in that it is bound to the condition of death, but that the spirit has already begun to live because of the righteousness of faith—the spirit which itself too had been extinguished in man by a certain death of unbelief. "Therefore," he says, "do not think that little has been bestowed on you through the fact that Christ is in you, that, while the body is dead because of sin, your spirit already lives because of righteousness; nor on that account despair even of the life of the body itself. For if the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you (Rom 8:11)."

Why 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 too will be given life because of the righteousness on account of which now the spirit is already life, all of which will be brought to completion through the grace of Christ, that is, through his Spirit dwelling in you"; and still they are going to cry out against it! He says also in what way it comes about that life, by putting death to death, turns it into itself. Therefore, he says, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live (Rom 8:12-13). What is this but: "If you live according to death, the whole will die; but if, by living according to life, you put death to death, the whole will live"?

8. 8. Likewise, when he says, By a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:21), of what else can it be understood than of the death of the body, since to say this he was speaking of the resurrection of the body and was urging it with the most insistent and forceful intent? What, then, is this which he says here 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 all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:21-22), but what he also says to the Romans: Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death (Rom 5:12)?

This death they wish to be understood not of the body but of the soul—as though something else were said to the Corinthians by by a man came death, where they are by no means allowed to take it of the death of the soul, because the matter at hand was the resurrection of the body, which is contrary to the death of the body. For this reason, too, only death there is mentioned as brought about by a man, and not also sin, because the matter at hand was not righteousness, which is contrary to sin, but the resurrection of the body, which is contrary to the death of the body.

9. 9. But this apostolic testimony in which he says, Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death (Rom 5:12), you indicated in your letter that they are trying to twist into another, novel opinion; but what that is which they suppose in these words you did not say. As far, however, as I have learned from others, what they hold here is "that this death too, which is mentioned there, is not that of the body—which they refuse to admit that Adam deserved by sinning—but that of the soul, which comes about in sin itself; and that sin itself passed into other men from the first man not by propagation but by imitation." For from this they refuse to believe that even in little ones original sin is loosed through baptism, contending that there is in those being born no sin at all. But if the Apostle had wished to mention that sin which entered into this world not by propagation but by imitation, he would have called its author not Adam but the devil, of whom it is written, The devil sins from the beginning (1 John 3:8); of whom it is also read in the book of Wisdom, But by the envy of the devil death entered into the world (Wis 2:24). For since that death came thus from the devil into men, not because they were propagated from him but because they imitated him, he immediately added, And they imitate him who are of his side (Wis 2:25). Accordingly, when the Apostle was mentioning that sin and death which had passed from one into all by propagation, he set down as its author the one from whom the propagation of the human race took its beginning.

9. 10. They imitate Adam, as many as transgress the commandment of God through disobedience; but one thing is what is an example to those sinning by their own will, another what is the origin for those born with sin. For the saints too imitate Christ in following after righteousness. Hence the same Apostle says, Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ (1 Cor 11:1). But besides this imitation, his grace works our illumination and justification even inwardly, by that work of which the same preacher of his says, Neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase (1 Cor 3:7).

For by this grace he grafts into his body even baptized little ones, who certainly are not yet able to imitate anyone. As, therefore, that one in whom all are made alive—besides offering himself as an example of righteousness to those who imitate him—also gives to the faithful the most hidden grace of his Spirit, which he pours in secretly even into little ones; so too that one in whom all die—besides being to those who transgress the Lord's command by their own will an example for imitation—has also, by the hidden corruption of his carnal concupiscence, corrupted in himself all who were to come of his stock. Hence, and from nowhere else, the Apostle says, Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all men, in whom all sinned (Rom 5:12). If I were to say this, they would resist and cry out that I do not speak rightly and do not think rightly. For they would understand in these words no meaning of any man who said them except that very one which they refuse to understand in the Apostle. But because the words are those of him to whose authority and teaching they submit, they charge us with slowness of understanding, when they try to twist into some other thing the words that have been said so plainly. Through one man, he says, sin entered into the world, and through sin death: this belongs to propagation, not to imitation; for if to imitation, he would have said "through the devil." But—as no one disputes—he means that first man, who was called Adam. And so, he says, it passed into all men.

10. 11. Then what follows, in whom all sinned—how circumspectly, how precisely, how unambiguously it is said! For if you understand the sin which through one man entered into the world, the sin in which all sinned, then surely it is manifest that there are certain sins proper to each, in which only those sin whose sins they are, and another, 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 than this declaration? For surely we read that those who believe in Christ are justified in him on account of the hidden sharing and inbreathing of spiritual grace, by which whoever clings to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17), although his saints also imitate him. Let something of the kind 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 of those whose authority stands out greatly among the people of God; except that we are said to be blessed in Abraham, as it was said to him, In you all nations will be blessed (Gen 12:3), on account of Christ, who was called his seed according to the flesh. This is said more manifestly when the same thing is put thus: In your seed all nations will be blessed (Gen 22:18). But that anyone has been said by the divine oracles to have sinned or to sin in the devil—though all the wicked and the impious imitate him—I do not know whether anyone may find. Yet though the Apostle said this of the first man—in whom all sinned—the propagation of sin is still disputed, and some fog of imitation is set against it.

10. 12. 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 (Rom 5:13)—that is, because not even the law could take away sin, the law which entered in that sin might the more abound (Rom 5:20), whether the natural law, in which everyone who already uses reason begins to add his own sins to original sin, or that very law which was given to the people in writing through Moses. For if a law had been given that could give life, righteousness would indeed be from the law. But Scripture has shut up all things under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe (Gal 3:21-22). But sin was not reckoned, when there was no law (Rom 5:13). What is was not reckoned, but "was unknown and was not thought to be sin"? For it was not held by the Lord God himself as though it were not, since it is written, Whoever have sinned without the law will perish without the law (Rom 2:12).

11. 13. But death reigned, he says, from Adam until Moses (Rom 5:14), that is, from the first man until that very law which was divinely promulgated, because not even the law could take away the reign of death. For he wishes the reign of death to be understood as 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 also to the second death, which is penally eternal.

This reign of death the grace of the Savior alone destroys in any man, the grace which worked also in the ancient saints—whoever, before Christ came in the flesh, belonged nonetheless to his assisting grace and not to the letter of the law, which could only command and 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 death reigned from Adam until Moses who were not helped by the grace of Christ, so that the reign of death might be destroyed in them; 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 proper will as he did, but had drawn original sin from him—who is the form of the one to come (Rom 5:14), because in him was constituted the form of condemnation for the posterity to come who would be created from his propagation, so that from one all should be born unto condemnation, from which nothing frees but 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; and even those who read it so refer it to the same understanding, so that they take to have sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam those who sinned in him, so as to be created like him—as men from a man, so sinners from a sinner, those destined to die from one destined to die, the condemned from one condemned. But the Greek manuscripts, from which the translation was made into the Latin tongue, have, either all or almost all, what was first set down by me.

11. 14. But not, he says, as the trespass, so also the gift; for if by the trespass of one many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift, in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ, abound unto many (Rom 5:15): not "more men," that is, many more men—for no more are justified than are condemned—but it abounded much more. For Adam from his one trespass begot guilty offspring; but Christ by his grace loosed and forgave even the trespasses of their own will that men had added to the original sin in which they were born, as he says more evidently in what follows.

12. 15. But consider more carefully what he says: that on account of the trespass of one many died. For why on account of that one man's, and not rather on account of their own proper trespasses, if imitation and not propagation is to be understood in this place? But attend to what follows: And the gift is not as it was by the one who sinned; for the judgment indeed was from one unto condemnation, but the grace is from many trespasses unto justification (Rom 5:16).

Now let them say where in these words that imitation has a place. From one, he says, unto condemnation: from which one, if not the one trespass? For he makes this plain when he adds, but the grace is from many trespasses unto justification. Why, then, is the judgment from one trespass unto condemnation, but the grace from many trespasses unto justification?

If there is no original trespass, does not the judgment unto condemnation, no less than the grace unto justification, lead men from many trespasses? For grace does not forgive many trespasses without judgment also condemning many trespasses. Or if they are led from one trespass unto condemnation because all the trespasses that are condemned were committed in imitation of that one man, then by the same reasoning they would have to be understood as led also from one trespass unto justification, because all the trespasses that are forgiven to the justified were committed in imitation of that one man. But this, evidently, the Apostle did not understand when he said, The judgment indeed was from one trespass unto condemnation, but the grace from many trespasses unto justification! No—rather let us understand the Apostle, and see that the judgment is said to be from one trespass unto condemnation because it would suffice for condemnation even if there were in men no sin but the original one. For although the condemnation is heavier for those who have joined their own trespasses to the original one, and heavier for each in proportion as each has sinned more grievously, nevertheless even that alone which is drawn from the origin not only separates from the kingdom of God—which they themselves confess that little ones who die without having received the grace of Christ cannot enter—but also makes them strangers to salvation and eternal life, which can be none other than the kingdom of God, into which the fellowship of Christ alone leads.

13. 16. And by this, from Adam, in whom all sinned, we have derived not all our sins but only the original one; from Christ, however, in whom we are all justified, we obtain the forgiveness not only of that original sin but also of the rest of the sins that we ourselves have added. Therefore the gift is not as it was by the one who sinned. For the judgment indeed, from one trespass, that is, the original one, if it is not forgiven, can already lead unto condemnation; but the grace, from many trespasses forgiven—that is, not only that original one but also all the rest—leads on to justification.

13. 17. For if, on account of the trespass of one, death reigned through one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of righteousness reign in life through the one Jesus Christ (Rom 5:17). Why did death reign through one on account of the trespass of one, except that they were held by the bond of death in that one in whom all sinned, even if they added no sins of their own? Otherwise it was not on account of the trespass of one that death reigned through one, but on account of the many trespasses of many through each one who sins. For if the rest died on account of another man's trespass because, following after him who went before in trespassing, they imitated him, then he too, and much more, died on account of another's trespass—the devil, who in trespassing had so gone before him that he even persuaded him to the trespass. But Adam persuaded nothing to his imitators, and many who are called his imitators have either not heard that he existed and committed any such thing, or do not believe it at all.

How much more rightly, then, as I have already said, would the Apostle have set the devil as the author, of whom alone he would say that sin and death passed through all, if in this place he had wished to speak of imitation and not propagation! For Adam is much more reasonably called an imitator of the devil, whom he had as a persuader to sin, if anyone can imitate even one who has persuaded him to nothing of the kind, or whom he does not know at all. And what is those who receive the abundance of grace and of righteousness, except that the grace of forgiveness is given not only for that sin in which all sinned but also for those they have added, and that to those men so great a righteousness is granted that, whereas Adam consented to the one persuading him to sin, these do not yield even to one compelling them?

And what is much more will they reign in life, since the reign of death drags far more men into eternal punishments, unless we understand that the very same men are spoken of in both—those who pass from Adam to Christ, that is, from death to life—because they will reign in eternal life without end, more than death reigned in them temporally and with an end?

13. 18. Therefore, as through the trespass 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 (Rom 5:18). This trespass of one, if we attend to imitation, will be none but the devil's. But because it is plain that it is said of Adam, not of the devil, it remains that not imitation but propagation of sin is to be understood.

14. 18. For what he says of Christ, through the justification of one, he expressed better than if he had said "through the righteousness of one." For he means that justification by which Christ justifies the ungodly, which he did not set forth to be imitated, but he alone can do it. For the Apostle could rightly say, Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ (1 Cor 11:1), but he would never say, "Be justified by me, as I too am justified by Christ," since there can be and are and have been many righteous men, and men to be imitated, but there is none righteous and justifying save Christ. Hence it is said, To one who believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned unto righteousness (Rom 4:5).

Whoever, therefore, has dared to say, "I justify you," it follows that he should also say, "Believe in me." And no one of the saints could rightly say this except the Holy One of holy ones. Believe in God, and believe in me (John 14:1); so that, because he himself justifies the ungodly, to one who believes in him who justifies the ungodly faith is reckoned unto righteousness.

15. 19. For if imitation alone makes men sinners through Adam, why does not imitation alone also make them righteous through Christ? For as, he says, through the trespass 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 (Rom 5:18).

Accordingly, those "one" and "one" should have been set down not as Adam and Christ, but as Adam and Abel, since, although many sinners have gone before us in the time of this life, and those who sinned in later time imitated them, these men nonetheless wish that none but Adam be named, in whom all sinned by imitation, because he himself was the first of men to sin. And by this reasoning Abel should have been named, in whom alone all men are likewise justified by imitation, since he himself was the first of men to live righteously. Or if, on account of a certain point of time pertaining to the beginning of the New Testament, Christ is set down, on account of imitation, as the head of the righteous, then Judas his betrayer should have been set down as the head of sinners. Further, if Christ is the one in whom all are justified for this reason—that not his imitation alone makes men righteous, but grace regenerating through the Spirit—then for the same reason Adam too is the one in whom all sinned, because not his imitation alone makes men sinners, but the penalty generating through the flesh.

For this reason, too, all and all were said. For not the very same all who are begotten through Adam are regenerated through Christ; but this was 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 begotten in the flesh not through Adam and some reborn in the spirit not through Christ, all would not clearly be said either in the one case or in the other. But the same who are all he afterward calls many; for in some matter all may be those who are few; but carnal generation has many, and spiritual generation many too, although this spiritual one not so many as that carnal one. Yet just as the one has all men, so the other has all righteous men, because just as no one is a man apart from the one, so no one is a righteous man apart from the other, and in each there are many. For as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one man many will be made righteous (Rom 5:19).

15. 20. But the law entered in, that the trespass might abound (Rom 5:20). This men added to the original sin now by their own will, not through Adam; but this too is loosed and healed through Christ, because where sin abounded, grace abounded yet more, so that, as sin reigned in 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 (Rom 5:21). Yet there is no righteousness apart from Christ, as there are some sins apart from Adam. Therefore, when he had said, as sin reigned in death, he did not here add "through one" or "through Adam," because he had spoken above also of that sin which abounded with the law entering in—and this surely belongs not to origin but now to 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, with the flesh generating, only that is drawn which is original sin, but with the spirit regenerating, there comes forgiveness not only of original sins but also of voluntary ones.

16. 21. Accordingly it can be rightly said that little ones who go out of 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 from one trespass unto condemnation, and a little after, through the trespass of one upon all men unto condemnation (Rom 5:16, 18). When, therefore, Adam sinned by not obeying God, then his body, although it was animal and mortal, lost the grace by which in every part it obeyed his soul; then there arose that bestial movement, shameful to men, at which he blushed in his nakedness;

then too, by a certain disease conceived from the sudden and pestilent corruption, it came about in them that, the stability of age in which they were created being lost, they should go through the changes of the ages toward death. Although, therefore, they lived many years afterward, yet they began to die on that day on which they received the law of death by which they would grow old into senility. For whatever runs by continual change little by little toward an end that does not perfect but consumes does not stand still even for a point of time, but slips away without interruption. Thus, then, was fulfilled what God had said: On the day you eat of it, you shall die the death (Gen 2:17). From this disobedience of the flesh, therefore, from this law of sin and death, whoever is generated carnally needs to be regenerated spiritually, so that he may not only be led to the kingdom of God but also be freed from the condemnation of sin.

And so men are born in the flesh subject at once to the sin and the death of the first man, and at once, joined to the righteousness and eternal life of the second man, they are reborn in baptism; so it is written also in Ecclesiasticus: From a woman the beginning of sin was made, and through her we all die (Sir 25:24). But 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 one flesh is of both. Hence also that which is written, And the two will be in one flesh (Gen 2:24). Therefore now they are not two, says the Lord, but one flesh (Matt 19:6).

17. 22. Wherefore those who say that little ones are baptized in order that there may be forgiven them what they have contracted as their own in this life, and not what they have derived from Adam, need not be refuted with great effort. For when they themselves have thought about it for a little while, without the zeal for contention, how absurd and unworthy of discussion is what they say, they will at once change their opinion. And if they will not, we must not so despair of human good sense as to fear that they will persuade anyone of it. 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 forgiven to the baptized, and were unwilling to confess that the sin which they admitted is forgiven to infants is drawn from Adam, they were compelled to accuse infancy itself—as though the accuser of infancy became the safer in this, that the accused could not answer him. But these men, as I have said, let us pass over; for there is need neither of discourse nor of proofs by which the innocence of infants may be shown, as far as concerns the life they live in themselves with their recent birth, if human sense does not recognize it without the aid of anyone's argument.

18. 23. But those move us and seem to bring forward something worthy of consideration and discussion who say that little ones, brought forth with their recent life from the wombs of their mothers, receive baptism not for the forgiveness of sin but in order that, having a spiritual procreation, they may be created in Christ and become partakers of his very kingdom of heaven, in the same way sons and heirs of God, but coheirs of Christ (Rom 8:17). Yet when these are asked whether those not baptized and not made coheirs 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 come to eternal salvation if he is not reborn in Christ (John 3:3, 5)—which he willed to come about through baptism at that time, by then, when such a sacrament had to be instituted for those to be regenerated in the hope of eternal salvation (1 Pet 1:3)? Hence the Apostle says, Not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5). Yet he says that this salvation is in hope, while we live here, where he says, For in hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Rom 8:24-25). Who, then, would dare to affirm that little ones can be saved unto eternity without this regeneration, as though Christ had not died for them? For Christ died for the ungodly (Rom 5:6). But if these, who, as is manifest, have committed nothing ungodly in their own life, are not held bound by any bond of ungodliness even originally, how did he die for them, who died for the ungodly? If they are wounded by no sickness of original sin, how is it that, by the pious fear of their kin who run to him, they are carried to the physician Christ, that is, to receive the sacrament of eternal salvation, and it is not said to them in the Church, "Take these innocents away from here; the physician is not needed by the healthy but by the sick; Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners" (Matt 9:12-13)? Never has such a contrivance been said, never is it said, never will it ever be said at all in the Church of Christ.

19. 24. And lest anyone suppose that little ones ought to be brought to baptism because, just as they are not sinners, so neither are they righteous, then how do certain ones recall that the merit of this age was praised by the Lord, when he said, Let the little ones come to me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 19:14)? For if this was said not on account of the likeness of humility, because humility makes one like little ones, but on account of the praiseworthy life of children, then surely they are also righteous. For it could not otherwise rightly be said, Of such is the kingdom of heaven, since it can belong to none but the righteous.

But perhaps it is not fitting to say that the Lord praised the life of little ones when he said, Of such is the kingdom of heaven, since the true understanding is that he set the likeness of humility in the small age. Yet perhaps this is to be held which I said: that little ones ought for this reason 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 immediately added, but sinners to repentance. And by this reasoning, just as if they are righteous, so also if they are not sinners, he came not to call them who said, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. And therefore they would seem to rush upon his baptism—the baptism of him who does not call them—not only in vain but even wrongly; far be it from us to think this. The physician, therefore, calls them, the physician who is not needed by the healthy but by the sick, and who came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. And therefore, because they are as yet held subject to no sins of their own life, the original sickness in them is healed in the grace of him who saves through the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5).

19. 25. Someone will say, "How, then, are they too called to repentance? Can such tiny ones repent of anything?" To this it is answered: "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 they are rightly called faithful because they in a certain way profess faith through the words of those who carry them, why should they not also be held to be penitents first, when through the words of the same carriers 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 given to the Church."

For the rest, who does not know that, if a baptized little one, coming to the years of reason, does not believe and does not abstain from unlawful desires, it will profit him nothing that he received what he received as a little one? Yet if, having received baptism, he departs from this life, the guilt to which he was originally subject being loosed, he will be perfected in that light of truth which, remaining unchangeably in eternity, illumines the justified by the presence of the Creator. For only sins separate between men and God, and these are loosed by his grace, through whom as mediator we are reconciled, when he justifies the ungodly.

20. 26. But these men are frightened by the saying of the Lord, Unless one is born again, he will not see the kingdom of God—which, when he explained it, he said, Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he will not enter into the kingdom of heaven (John 3:3, 5)—and therefore they try to grant to unbaptized little ones, by the merit of their innocence, salvation and eternal life, but, because they are not baptized, to make them strangers to the kingdom of heaven, by a certain new and astonishing presumption, as though the salvation of eternal life could be eternal apart from the inheritance of Christ, apart from the kingdom of heaven. For they evidently have a place to which to flee and where to hide, because the Lord did not say, If one is not reborn of water and the Spirit, "he will not have life," but he said, he will not enter into the kingdom of God. For if he had said that, no doubt could here arise. Let doubt, then, now be removed; let us hear the Lord, not the suspicions and conjectures of mortals; let us hear the Lord, I say, saying this not indeed of the sacrament of the holy washing, but of the sacrament of his holy table, to which no one rightly comes but the baptized: Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life in you (John 6:54). What more do we seek? What can be answered to this, unless obstinacy strain its contentious sinews against the steadfastness of perspicuous truth?

20. 27. Or will anyone dare to say even this, that this sentence 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, "He who does not eat," as he did of baptism, He who is not reborn, but he said, If you do not eat, as though addressing those who could hear and understand—which little ones surely cannot?

But whoever says this does not attend to the fact that, unless that sentence holds for all—namely, that without the body and blood of the Son of man they cannot have life—then even the older age cares for it in vain. For if you attend not to the will but to the words of the one speaking, it can seem to have been said only to those to whom the Lord was then speaking, because he did not say "he who does not eat," but, If you do not eat. And where is that which in the same place, concerning this very matter, he says: The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world (John 6:51)?

For according to this we understand that that sacrament pertains also to us who were not yet in being 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 would doubt that by the name "world" he signified the men who by being born come into this world? For, as he says elsewhere, The sons of this world beget and are begotten (Luke 20:34). And by this reasoning the flesh that was given for the life of the world was given also for the life of little ones; and if they do not eat the flesh of the Son of man, neither will they have life.

20. 28. From this comes 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 will not have life, but the wrath of God remains upon him (John 3:35-36). In which, then, of these kinds shall we place infants? Among those who believe in the Son, or among those who are unbelieving toward the Son? "In neither," someone says, "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 those who are baptized, on account of the power and celebration of so great a sacrament—although in their own heart and mouth they do not perform what pertains to believing and confessing (Rom 10:10)—are nevertheless counted in the number of believers, then surely those who have lacked the sacrament are to be held among those who do not believe in the Son; and therefore, if they go out of the body empty of this grace, that which has been said will follow them: They will not have life, but the wrath of God remains upon them. And whence is this, when it is clear that they have no sins of their own, if they are not held subject even to original sin?

21. 29. But he well did not say, the wrath of God "will come upon him," but, remains upon him. For from this wrath, under which all are in sin (Rom 3:9; 7:14; Gal 3:22), of which the Apostle says, For we too were once by nature children of wrath, like the rest (Eph 2:3), nothing frees but the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:25). Why this grace comes to one and does not come to another can be a hidden cause; it cannot be an unjust one. For is there injustice with God? By no means (Rom 9:14). But first our necks must be bowed to the authorities of the holy Scriptures, that through faith each may come to understanding.

For it was not said in vain, Your judgments are like a great deep (Ps 36:6 (35:7)). As though terrified at the depth of this deep, the Apostle exclaims, O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God (Rom 11:33)! For he had set before it a saying of wondrous profundity, saying, For God has shut up all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all (Rom 11:32). As though struck by the awe of this profundity, O the depth, he says, of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and his ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, that it should be repaid him? For from him and through him and in him are all things; to him be glory unto the ages of ages. Amen (Rom 11:33-36). We have, therefore, a very small understanding for examining the justice of the judgments of God, for examining the free grace which, with no merits going before, is not unjust, and which moves us not so much when it is given to the unworthy as when it is denied to others equally unworthy.

21. 30. For even these to whom it seems unjust that little ones who go out of the body without the grace of Christ should be deprived not only of the kingdom of God—into which they themselves confess that none can enter unless reborn through baptism—but also of eternal life and salvation: as they ask how it is just that one be loosed from original ungodliness and another not loosed, since the condition of both is the same, let them answer, according to their own opinion, how it is likewise just that to this one baptism be granted, by which he enters into the kingdom of God, and to that one not be granted, since the case of both is equal. For if it moves us why, of these two—since both are equally sinners originally—one is loosed from this bond, to whom baptism is conceded, and another is not loosed, to whom such grace is not conceded, why does it not equally move us that, of two originally innocent, one received baptism by which he could enter into the kingdom of God, and the other did not receive it, so that he could not come to the kingdom of God?

Surely in either case we come back to that exclamation: O the depth of the riches (Rom 11:33)! And then, of these baptized little ones themselves, let it be told me why one is taken away, lest malice change his understanding (Wis 4:11), and another lives who is to be ungodly? Would not both, if both were taken away, enter into the kingdom of heaven? And yet there is no injustice with God. What? Whom would it not move, whom would it not compel to exclaim at such a depth, that some little ones are vexed by an unclean spirit (See Matt 12:43; Mark 1:26; 5:8; 9:25; Luke 9:42), others suffer nothing of the kind, others even in their mothers' wombs (Jer 1:5), like Jeremiah, are sanctified, when all, if there is original sin, are equally guilty, and, if there is none, are equally innocent? Whence comes this so great diversity, except that his judgments are inscrutable and his ways past finding out (Rom 11:33)?

22. 31. Or is perhaps that opinion now to be held which has been hissed off and repudiated—that souls, having sinned beforehand in a heavenly dwelling, come gradually and little by little to bodies suited to their deserts, and, according to the life lived before, are afflicted more or less by corporeal plagues? Although holy Scripture most openly contradicts this opinion, 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 from works but from him who calls, it was said that the elder will serve the younger (Rom 9:11-12), yet not even those who hold this opinion escape the straits of this question, but, hemmed in and stuck in them, are likewise compelled to exclaim, O the depth!

For whence does it come that one man, from his earliest boyhood, is more modest, more gifted, more temperate, in great part a conqueror of his lusts, hating greed, detesting extravagance, and rising up more advanced and apt toward the other virtues, and yet is in a place where the Christian grace cannot be preached to him—for how will they call upon him in whom they have not believed? Or how will they believe him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? (Rom 10:14)—

while another, slow of mind, given over to lusts, covered with shameful deeds and crimes, is so governed that he hears, believes, is baptized, and is taken away, or, if he is kept here, lives praiseworthily? Where did these two contract deserts so different—I do not say so that this one believes and that one does not believe, which is a matter of one's own will, but so that this one hears what he may believe and that one does not hear—for this is not in a man's power—where, I say, did they contract these deserts so different?

If they lived some life in heaven, such that for their acts they were driven down or slipped to the earth and held in corporeal receptacles suited to their previous life, then surely the one who deserved not to be much weighed down by it is to be believed to have lived better before this mortal body, in that he both had a good nature and was pressed by milder concupiscences which he could easily overcome; and yet he did not deserve to have preached to him that grace by which alone he could be freed from the destruction of the second death.

But the other, on account of worse deserts—as they suppose—was entangled in a heavier body and on this account in a dull heart, and, when he was overcome by the most burning desire for the enticements of the flesh and through a most wicked life added worse earthly things to the former sins by which he had deserved to come to this, yet either heard on the cross, Today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43), or clung to some Apostle, by whose preaching he was changed and through the washing of regeneration made whole, so that where sin abounded, grace abounded yet more (Rom 5:20). What they may answer to this I do not see at all—those who, wishing to defend the justice of God by human conjectures and being ignorant of the height of grace, have woven improbable fables.

22. 32. For many things could be said about the wondrous callings of men, whether those we read of or those we have experienced, by which the opinion of those is overturned who believe that the souls of men lived certain lives of their own before these bodies, by which they came to these bodies, destined to experience here, according to the diversity of their deserts, different things, whether good or evil. But the care of bringing this work to an end does not allow me to linger longer on these matters. One thing, however, which among many I have found wonderful, I will not pass over in silence.

Who, according to these men who suppose that souls are weighed down more or less by earthly bodies on account of the deserts of a prior life lived in the heavens before this body, would not affirm that those had sinned more wickedly and monstrously before this life who deserved so to lose the light of mind that they were born with a sense close to the beasts—I do not say the slowest of mind, for this is wont to be said of others, but so witless that, with curled hair, they are put forward to provoke laughter and offer to the sensible the diversions of their foolishness,

whom the common people call by a name derived from the Greek, morions? Yet a certain one of such men was so Christian that, although by a wonderful foolishness he was most patient of all the injuries done to himself, he nevertheless could so not bear an injury to the name of Christ or to the religion with which he had been imbued, even in his own person, that he would not cease to pursue with stones those sensible men who blasphemed—from whom he heard such things, that he might be provoked—nor in that cause would he spare even his masters.

Such men, therefore, I judge to be predestined and created so that those who can may understand that the grace of God and the Spirit, who breathes where he wills (John 3:8), for this reason passes over no kind of natural gift in the sons of mercy, and likewise passes over every kind of natural gift in the sons of Gehenna, so that he who glories may glory in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31).

But those who affirm that souls receive their several earthly bodies according to the deserts of a higher life—bodies by which some are weighed down more, others less—and that human natural gifts are varied according to those same deserts, so that some are sharper and others duller, and that the divine grace too for freeing men is dispensed according to the deserts of that higher life: what will they be able to answer concerning this man? How will they attribute to him both a most foul higher life, so that from this he was born a simpleton, and one so well deserving, so that from this in Christ he was by grace preferred to many of the sharpest minds?

22. 33. Let us yield, therefore, and consent to the authority of holy Scripture, which knows neither to be deceived nor to deceive; and, just as we do not believe that the not-yet-born have done anything good or evil for the distinguishing of their deserts, so let us in no way doubt that all are under the sin which through one man entered into the world and passed through all men (Rom 5:12), from which nothing frees but the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

23. 33. His healing coming is not needed by the healthy but by the sick, because he came not to call the righteous but sinners (Matt 9:12-13); into whose kingdom none will enter but he who has been reborn of water and the Spirit, nor will he possess salvation and eternal life apart from his kingdom, since he who has not eaten his flesh (John 6:54), and he who is unbelieving toward the Son, will not have life, but the wrath of God remains upon him (John 3:36). From this sin, from this sickness, from this wrath of God, of which they are by nature children—who, even if through their age they have no sin of their own, yet draw the original sin—nothing frees but the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29), none but the Physician, who came not for the healthy but for the sick, none but the Savior, of whom it was said to the human race, Today a Savior is born to you (Luke 2:11); none but the Redeemer, by whose blood our debt is blotted out.

For who would dare to say that Christ is not the Savior 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 are not, through the origin of the first man, sold under sin (Rom 7:14)? Let no eternal salvation, then, be promised to infants by our own judgment apart from the baptism of Christ—a salvation which the divine Scripture, to be preferred to all human reasonings, does not promise.

24. 34. The African Christians very well call baptism itself nothing other than salvation, and the sacrament of the body of Christ nothing other than life. From what, except, as I think, from an ancient and apostolic tradition by which they hold it as planted in the Church of Christ that, apart from baptism and partaking of the table of the Lord, no man can come not only to the kingdom of God but not even to salvation and eternal life? For this Scripture too testifies, according to what we said above. For what else do those hold who call baptism by the name of salvation, but what was said: He saved us through the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5); and what Peter says: So baptism too, in a like form, saves you (1 Pet 3:21)? And what else do those too hold who call the sacrament of the Lord's table life, but what was said: I am the living bread, who came down from heaven; and, The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world; and, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you (John 6:51-52, 54)? If, then, as so many and so great divine testimonies agree, 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.

Further, if nothing separates a man from salvation and eternal life except sins, then through these sacraments nothing but the guilt of sin is loosed in little ones; concerning which guilt it is written that no one is clean, not even if his life has been but of one day (Job 14:4). Hence too that saying in the Psalms: For I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother nourished me in the womb (Ps 51:5 (50:7)); for either it is said in the general person of man himself, or, if David says this properly of himself, he was surely born not of fornication but of lawful wedlock. Let us not doubt, then, that the blood was shed even for the baptizing of infants—the blood which, before it was shed, was so given and commended in the sacrament that it was said, This is my blood, which will be shed for many unto the forgiveness of sins (Matt 26:28). For they deny that those are freed who refuse to confess that they are under sin. For whence are they freed, if they are held bound by no slavery of sin?

24. 35. I, he says, have come as light into the world, that everyone who believes in me may not remain in darkness (John 12:46). 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? But whatever else this darkness is understood to be, surely he who does not believe in Christ will remain in it; and it is certainly penal, not, as it were, the nightly darkness necessary for the rest of living things.

25. 35. Accordingly, little ones, if through the sacrament which was divinely instituted for this they do not pass over into the number of believers, will surely remain in this darkness.

25. 36. Although some believe that they are illumined as soon as they are born, understanding thus what is written: It was the true light, which illumines every man coming into this world (John 1:9). But if this is so, it is much to be wondered at how those illumined by the only Son, who in the beginning was the Word, God with God, are not admitted to the kingdom of God, and are not heirs of God and coheirs of Christ. For that this is not granted to them except through baptism, even those who hold this opinion confess. Then, being already illumined, if they are not yet fit to obtain the kingdom of God, they ought at least gladly to receive baptism itself, by which they become fit for this; yet we see them resist it with great weeping, and we make light of that ignorance in that age, so that we complete in them, even resisting, the sacraments which we know to profit them. For why too does the Apostle say, Do not be children in your minds (1 Cor 14:20), if their minds were already illumined by that true light which is the Word of God?

25. 37. And so that which is set down in the Gospel, It was the true light, which illumines every man coming into this world (John 1:9), was said for this reason, because no man is illumined except by that light of truth which is God, lest anyone should think that he is illumined by him from whom he hears something in order to learn it—I do not say if it should fall to him to have some great man, but not even an angel, as a teacher. For the word of truth is applied from without by the ministry of a bodily voice; yet neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase (1 Cor 3:7). For a man hears either a man or an angel speaking; but in order that he may perceive and know that what is said is true, his mind is sprinkled within by that light which remains eternal, which shines even in the darkness. But just as this sun is not comprehended by the blind, although in a certain way it clothes them with its rays, so it is not comprehended by the darkness of folly (John 1:5).

25. 38. But as to why, when he had said, which illumines every man, he added, coming into this world—whence this opinion was born, that he illumines the minds of little ones being born at the very moment of their bodily birth from the mother's womb—although in the Greek it is so set down that it can be understood also as the light itself coming into this world, nevertheless, if "a man coming into this world" must be taken, I think either that it was said simply, as many things are found in the Scriptures which, even if removed, would diminish nothing of the sense, or, if it must be believed to have been added for the sake of some distinction, perhaps this was said to distinguish spiritual illumination from that bodily one, which, whether through the luminaries of heaven or through any fires, illumines the eyes of the flesh—so that he called the inner man one coming into this world, because the outer man is corporeal, like this world, as though he said, "He illumines every man coming into a body," according to that which is written: I obtained a good soul, and I came into an undefiled body (Wis 8:19-20).

Either, then, it was so said, if it was said for the sake of some distinction, He illumines every man coming into this world, as though it were said, "He illumines every inner man," because the inner man, when he truly becomes wise, is illumined by none but that which is the true light; or, if he wished to call illumination that reason itself by which the human soul is called rational—a reason which, as yet, as it were, at rest and as if asleep, yet implanted and in a certain way sown, lies hidden in little ones—as though the creation of the inner eye, then we must not deny that it comes to be when the soul is created, and that this is not absurdly understood as when a man comes into the world.

Yet even this eye, although already created, must remain in darkness if it does not believe in him who said, I have come as light into the world, that everyone who believes in me may not remain in darkness (John 12:46). That this comes about in little ones through the sacrament of baptism Mother Church does not doubt, who furnishes them a maternal heart and mouth, that they may be imbued with the sacred mysteries, because they cannot yet believe with their own heart unto righteousness, nor confess with their own mouth unto salvation (Rom 10:10). Nor does any of the faithful on that account hesitate to call them faithful—a name which surely comes from believing—although it was not they themselves, but others on their behalf, who answered amid the sacraments.

26. 39. It will become too long if we argue in like manner about each testimony. Hence I think it more convenient to heap up together the many that may have come to hand, or that will seem to suffice, by which it may appear that the Lord Jesus Christ came in the flesh and, having taken the form of a servant, became obedient unto the death of the cross (Phil 2:7-8) for no other cause

than that by this dispensation of most merciful grace he might give life to, save, free, redeem, and illumine all those to whom—as to members set in his body—he is the head for the obtaining of the kingdom of heaven; all those who had first been set in the death of sins, in weaknesses, slavery, captivity, darkness, under the power of the devil, the prince of sinners; and so that he might become the mediator of God and men, through whom, after the enmities of our ungodliness were ended by the peace of that grace (Eph 2:16), we might be reconciled to God unto eternal life, snatched from the eternal death which hung over such men.

For when this has appeared more abundantly, it will follow that they cannot pertain to that dispensation of Christ which was made through this his humility who do not need life, salvation, liberation, redemption, illumination. And since baptism, by which they are buried together with Christ (Rom 6:4) so as to be incorporated into him as his members, that is, his faithful, pertains to this dispensation, surely baptism too is not necessary for those who have no need of that benefit of forgiveness and reconciliation which comes about through the mediator. Further, because they concede that little ones are to be baptized—who cannot, without doubt, go against the authority of the universal Church, handed down through the Lord and the Apostles—they must concede that little ones need those benefits of the mediator, so that, washed through the sacrament and the love of the faithful, and thus incorporated into the body of Christ, which is the Church, they may be reconciled to God, that in him they may become living, saved, freed, redeemed, illumined. From what, except from the death, vices, guilt, subjection, darkness of sins? Which, since in that age they have committed none through their own life, original sin remains.

27. 40. This reasoning will then be the stronger when I have heaped up the many testimonies I promised. Already above we set down: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners (Luke 5:32). Likewise, when he had entered Zacchaeus's house: Today, he says, salvation has come to this house, since this man too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and to save what had perished (Luke 19:9-10).

So too of the lost sheep, sought and found when the ninety-nine were left, so too of the coin which had perished out of ten (Luke 15:4-10). Hence, as he says, it was fitting that repentance and the forgiveness of sins be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). Mark too testifies that at the end of his Gospel the Lord said: Going into the whole world, preach the Gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned (Mark 16:15-16).

And who does not know that for infants to believe is to be baptized, and not to believe is not to be baptized? And from the Gospel of John, although we have already set down some passages, attend also to these. John the Baptist says of him: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29); and he himself of himself: Those who are of my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they will not perish forever (John 10:27-28). Since, therefore, little ones do not begin to be of his sheep except through baptism, surely, if they do not receive this, they will perish; for they will not have the eternal life which he will give to his sheep. Likewise in another place: I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me (John 14:6).

27. 41. Taking up this teaching, see with how great an attestation the Apostles declare it. Peter in his first letter: Blessed, he says, is God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to the multitude of his mercy has regenerated us into the hope of eternal life through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, into an immortal and undefiled inheritance, flourishing, kept in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation prepared to be revealed openly in the last time (1 Pet 1:3-5).

And a little after: that you may be found unto the praise and honor of Jesus Christ, whom you did not know, in whom now, not seeing him, you believe; whom, when you see him, you will exult with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the testament of faith, the salvation of your souls (1 Pet 1:7-9). Likewise in another place: But you, he says, are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people in adoption, that you may proclaim the virtues of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Pet 2:9).

And again: Christ, he says, suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God (1 Pet 3:18). Likewise, when he had recalled the eight men saved in Noah's ark: So too, he says, baptism, in a like form, saves you (1 Pet 3:21). From this salvation, then, and from this light little ones are strangers, and they will remain in perdition and darkness, unless through adoption they are joined to the people of God, holding Christ, who suffered, the just for the unjust, that he might bring them to God (1 Pet 3:18).

27. 42. From the letter of John too these passages came to me which seemed necessary to this question. But if we walk in the light, he says, as he too is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son will purify us from every trespass (1 John 1:7). Likewise in another place: If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, because this is the testimony of God, which is greater, in that he has testified concerning his Son. He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. He who does not believe God makes him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony which he testified concerning his Son. And this is the testimony, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son does not have life (1 John 5:9-12). Not only the kingdom of heaven, therefore, but not even life will little ones have if they do not have the Son, whom they cannot have except through his baptism. Likewise in another place: For this, he says, the Son of God was manifested, to loose the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Little ones, then, will not pertain to the grace of the manifestation of the Son of God, if he does not loose in them the works of the devil.

27. 43. Now attend to the testimonies of the apostle Paul on this matter—surely so much more numerous as he wrote more letters and as he took more diligent care to commend the grace of God against those who gloried in works and who, being ignorant of the righteousness of God and wishing to establish their own righteousness, were not subject to the righteousness of God (Rom 10:3). In the letter to the Romans: The righteousness, he says, of God upon all who believe; for there is no distinction. For all have sinned and need the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood, for the showing of his righteousness on account of the passing over of former sins in the forbearance of God, for the showing of his righteousness in this time, that he may be just and the justifier of him who is of the faith of Jesus (Rom 3:22-26).

Likewise in another place: To him who works, he says, the reward is not reckoned according to grace but according to debt; but to him who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned unto righteousness. As David too speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God reckons righteousness without works: blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin. Likewise a little after: But it was not written, he says, on his account alone, that it was reckoned to him, but also on our account, to whom it will be reckoned, who believe in him who raised Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead, who was handed over for our trespasses and rose again for our justification (Rom 4:4-8; Ps 32:1-2 (31:1-2); Rom 4:23-25). And a little after: For if Christ, he says, while we were still weak, in due time died for the ungodly (Rom 5:6). And elsewhere: We know, he says, that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I do, I do not understand; for what I will, this I do not do, but what I hate, that I do. But if I do what I do not will, I consent to the law, that it is good. But now it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me. For I know that there does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh, good. For to will is present with me, but to accomplish the good I do not find. For I do not the good that I will, but the evil that I do not will, this I do. But if I do what I do not will, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me. I find, then, the law for me when I will to do good, that evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and taking me captive in the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:14-25). Let those say, who can, that men are born otherwise than in the body of this death, so that they can also say that the grace of God through Jesus Christ, by which they are freed from the body of this death, is not necessary for them. Likewise a little after: For what was impossible for the law, in that it was weakened through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh (Rom 8:3). Let those say, who dare, that it was fitting for Christ to be born in the likeness of sinful flesh otherwise than because we were born in sinful flesh.

27. 44. Likewise to the Corinthians: For I handed on to you among the first things, he says, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures (1 Cor 15:3).

Likewise to the same Corinthians in the second letter: For the love of Christ compels us, judging this, that one died for all, therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live may no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. Therefore from now on we know no one according to the flesh; and if we knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him no longer. If, then, anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away, behold, they are made new. But all things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. In what way? Because God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and placing in us the word of reconciliation. For Christ, then, we serve as ambassadors, as though God were exhorting through us; we beseech you for Christ, be reconciled to God. Him who knew no sin he made sin for us, that we might be the righteousness of God in him. And as fellow workers we also entreat you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says: In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 5:14-6:2; Isa 49:8). If little ones do not pertain to this reconciliation and salvation, who seeks them for the baptism of Christ?

But if they do pertain to it, they are among the dead men for whom he died, and they cannot be reconciled and saved by him unless he forgive and not reckon their trespasses.

27. 45. Likewise to the Galatians: Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might rescue us from the present evil age (Gal 1:3-4). And in another place: The law was set forth for the sake of transgression, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made, ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator. But a mediator is not of one; yet God is one. Is the law, then, against the promises of God? By no means! For if a law had been given that could give life, righteousness would indeed be from the law. But Scripture has shut up all things under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe (Gal 3:19, 22).

27. 46. To the Ephesians too: And you, when you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the age of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of that spirit who now works in the sons of unbelief, among whom we all too once conducted ourselves in the desires of our flesh, doing the will of the flesh and of the affections, and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest; but God, who is rich in mercy, on account of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, made us alive together with Christ, by whose grace we have been saved (Eph 2:1-6). And a little after: By grace, he says, you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone be lifted up. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared, that we should walk in them (Eph 2:8-10).

And a little after: You who were, he says, at that time without Christ, alienated from the fellowship of Israel and strangers to the covenants and the promise, having no hope and without God in this world; but now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been made near in the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who made both one and, breaking down the dividing wall of the partition, the enmities, in his flesh making void the law of commandments with its decrees, that he might form the two in himself into one new man, making peace, and might reconcile both in one body to God, through the cross slaying the enmities in himself. And coming, he preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near, because through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father (Eph 2:12-18).

Likewise elsewhere: as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off, according to your former manner of life, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of deception; but be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man, who was created according to God in righteousness and the holiness of truth (Eph 4:21-24). And elsewhere: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption (Eph 4:30).

27. 47. To the Colossians too he speaks thus: Giving thanks to the Father, who has made us fit for a share in the lot of the saints in light, who rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have redemption in the forgiveness of sins (Col 1:12-14). And in another place: And you are, he says, filled in him, who is the head of all rule and power, in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made by hand, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, buried together with him in baptism, in which you also rose together through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead; and you, when you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made alive with him, forgiving us all our trespasses, blotting out the bond of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us, taking it out of the way and nailing it to the cross, stripping himself of the flesh; the rulers and powers he made an example, triumphing over them confidently in himself (Col 2:9-15).

27. 48. And to Timothy: The saying is human and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. But for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Christ Jesus might show all his long-suffering, for the instruction of those who are to believe in him unto eternal life (1 Tim 1:15-16). Likewise he says: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a redemption for all (1 Tim 2:5-6). In the second letter too to the same man: Do not, then, he says, be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but labor together for the Gospel according to the power of God, who saves us and calls us with his holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the eternal ages, but is now made manifest through the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has indeed made void death, but has brought to light life and incorruption through the Gospel (2 Tim 1:8-10).

27. 49. To Titus too: Awaiting, he says, that blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and cleanse for himself an abounding people, zealous for good works (Titus 2:13-14). And in another place: But when the kindness and humanity of God our Savior shone forth, not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out most richly upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:4-7).

27. 50. The letter to the Hebrews too—although it is uncertain to some, yet, since I have read certain men who hold views contrary to this our opinion concerning the baptism of little ones wishing to bring even it forward as a witness for some of their opinions, and since the authority of the Eastern Churches, which have it even among the canonical books, weighs more with me—it must be noticed how many testimonies for us it contains. In its very opening it is read: In many parts and in many ways God spoke of old to the fathers through the prophets; last, in these days he has spoken to us through the Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the ages. Who, being the splendor of his glory and the figure of his substance, and bearing all things by the word of his power, having made by himself a purification of sins, sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Heb 1:1-3). And after a few words: For if the word spoken through angels was made firm, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation (Heb 2:2-3)?

And in another place: Therefore, since the children shared in blood and flesh, he too in like manner partook of theirs, that through death he might make void him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were all their life subject to slavery. And a little after: Hence he had, he says, to be made like his brethren in all things, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the things that pertain to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people (Heb 2:14-17). And elsewhere: Let us hold, he says, our confession; for we do not have a priest who cannot be compassionate toward our weaknesses; for he has been tried in all things according to our likeness, without sin (Heb 4:14-15).

And in another place: He has, he says, a priesthood that does not pass away. Hence he is able to save completely those who come through him to God, always living to make intercession for them. For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, just, without malice, undefiled, separated from sinners, made higher than the heavens, not having a daily necessity, like the high priests, to offer sacrifice first for his own sins, then for the people; for this he did once, offering himself (Heb 7:24-27). And in another place: For Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made by hand, which are likenesses of the true, but into heaven itself, to appear before the face of God for us; not so that he might offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the sanctuary once a year with another's blood. Otherwise he would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once, at the end of the ages, he has been manifested for the forgiveness of sins through his own sacrifice. And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this the judgment, so Christ too was offered once to bear the sins of many, and a second time he will appear without sins to those who await him unto salvation (Heb 9:24-28).

27. 51. The Apocalypse of John too testifies that these praises are offered to Christ through a new song: Worthy are you to receive the book and to open its seals, for you were slain and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Rev 5:9).

27. 52. Likewise in the Acts of the Apostles the apostle Peter said that the Lord Jesus is the author of life, rebuking the Jews because they had killed him, speaking thus: But you laid a burden upon the holy and just one and denied him and asked that a man, a murderer, should live and be granted to you; for you killed the author of life (Acts 3:14-15). And in another place: This is the stone rejected by you the builders, which has become the head of the corner. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, in which we must be saved (Acts 4:11-12). And elsewhere: The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you killed by hanging on a tree. Him God exalted by his glory as prince and savior, to give repentance to Israel and the forgiveness of sins in him (Acts 5:30-31). Likewise in another place: To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives the forgiveness of sins through his hand (Acts 10:43). Likewise in the same book the apostle Paul: Let it be known to you, then, he says, men and brethren, that through this man forgiveness of sins is announced to you; from all the things from which you could not be justified in the law of Moses, in him everyone who believes is justified (Acts 13:38-39).

27. 53. By so great a mound of testimonies whose exaltation against the truth of God would not be pressed down? And many others indeed can be found, but the care of finishing this work must not be carelessly disregarded. From the books of the Old Testament too I thought it superfluous to bring many attestations of the divine oracles for this opinion, since indeed what is there hidden under the veil, as it were, of earthly promises, is in the preaching of the New Testament revealed. And the Lord himself briefly demonstrated and defined the usefulness of the old books, saying that what had been written of him in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms had to be fulfilled, and that this very thing was that Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and the forgiveness of sins had to be preached in his name through all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:44-47). And Peter says, as I recalled a little before, that to him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives the forgiveness of sins through his hand (Acts 10:43).

27. 54. Nevertheless it is more convenient to bring forth even from the Old Testament itself a few testimonies, which ought to serve either as a supplement or rather as a culmination. The Lord himself, speaking through the prophet in a psalm, says: To the saints who are in his land he has made wonderful all my wills in them (Ps 16:3 (15:3))—not "their merits," but my wills. For what of theirs is there but what follows? Their infirmities were multiplied, beyond the measure in which they were infirm. To this too the law entered in, that the trespass might abound (Rom 5:20). But what does he add? Afterward they made haste.

When their infirmities were multiplied, that is, when the trespass abounded, they sought the physician more eagerly, so that where sin abounded, grace abounded yet more. Finally: I will not gather their assemblies from bloods, since by the many bloods of sacrifices—when they were formerly gathered into the tabernacle or the temple—they were convicted as sinners rather than cleansed. "No longer, then," he says, "will I gather their assemblies from bloods"; for one blood was given for many, by which they would be truly cleansed. Finally there follows: Nor will I be mindful of their names through my lips, as of the cleansed, as of the renewed. For their names were formerly "sons of the flesh, sons of the age, sons of wrath, sons of the devil, unclean, sinners, ungodly," but afterward "sons of God"—the new name belonging to the new man singing the new song through the New Testament. Let men not be ungrateful to the grace of God, the small with the great (Rev 19:5), from the lesser to the greater (Jonah 3:5). The voice of the whole Church is: I have gone astray like a lost sheep (Ps 119:176 (118:176)); the voice of all the members of Christ is: We have all gone astray like sheep (Isa 53:6), and he himself was handed over for our sins (Isa 53:5).

That whole passage of prophecy in Isaiah, which, when it had been expounded to him by Philip (Acts 8:27-39), made that eunuch of Queen Candace believe in him—see how often it commends this very thing and, as it were, drives it home again and again, as to certain proud or contentious men. A man, he says, in affliction and one who knows how to bear infirmities; for which reason his face was turned away, was treated with injury and not greatly esteemed. He bears our infirmities and is in sorrows for us, and we esteemed him to be in sorrows and in affliction and in punishment. But he was wounded on account of our sins and made weak on account of our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him; by his bruise we are healed. We have all gone astray like sheep, and the Lord handed him over for our sins. And he, because he was ill-treated, did not open his mouth; like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer he was without voice, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away. Who will declare his generation? For his life will be taken from the earth. For the iniquities of my people he was led to death. I will give the wicked for his burial and the rich for his death, because he did no iniquity nor deceit with his mouth. The Lord wills to purify him from affliction. If you give your soul for your trespasses, you will see a seed of the longest life. And the Lord wills to take away his soul from sorrows, to show him light and to form him by understanding, to justify the just one who serves many well, and he himself will bear their sins. Therefore he will inherit many and will divide the spoils of the strong, because his soul was handed over to death and he was reckoned among the wicked, and he himself bore the sins of many and was handed over for their iniquities (Isa 53:3-12). Attend also to that of the same prophet which, having performed even the office of a reader, he himself recited in the synagogue as fulfilled in himself: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for which reason he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach good news to the humble, to bring refreshment to those who are in the affliction of heart, to proclaim to captives release and to the blind sight (Isa 61:1; Luke 4:16-21). Let us all, then, acknowledge him—and let none of those be excepted who wish to cling to his body, to enter through him into his sheepfold, to pertain to the perpetual life and salvation he promised to his own—let us all, I say, acknowledge him who did no sin and bore our sins in his body upon the tree, that, separated from sins, we might live with righteousness; by whose wounds we have been healed, when we were weak, like straying cattle (1 Pet 2:24-25).

28. 55. Since these things are so, sound faith and sound doctrine have never held that any of those who have come to Christ through baptism is excepted from the grace of the forgiveness of sins, or that there can be for anyone an eternal salvation apart from his kingdom. For this salvation is prepared to be revealed in the last time (1 Pet 1:5), that is, in the resurrection of the dead who pertain not to the eternal death, which is called the second death, but to the eternal life which God, who does not lie, promised to his saints and faithful—of which life all who are partakers will not be given life except in Christ, just as in Adam all die (1 Cor 15:22). For just as all who pertain to the generation of the will of the flesh (John 1:13) die only in Adam, in whom all sinned, so of these all who pertain to the regeneration of the will of the spirit are given life only in Christ, in whom all are justified, because just as through one all unto condemnation, so through one all unto justification (Rom 5:18). Nor is there for anyone any middle place, such that he could be anywhere but with the devil, who is not with Christ. Hence the Lord himself, wishing to take from the hearts of those who believe wrongly that I-know-not-what middle state which some try to attribute to little ones who are not baptized—so that, as it were, by the merit of innocence they are in eternal life, but, because they are not baptized, they are not with Christ in his kingdom—uttered a definitive sentence to stop these mouths, where he says: He who is not with me is against me (Matt 12:30). Take, then, any little one you please: if he is already with Christ, why is he baptized?

But if, as the truth holds, he is baptized for this reason, that he may be with Christ, then surely the one not baptized is not with Christ; and because he is not with Christ, he is against Christ; for we ought not and cannot weaken or alter so manifest a sentence of his. Whence, then, is he against Christ, if not from sin? For it is not from body and soul, both of which are creatures of God.

Further, if from sin, what sin in that age but the original and ancient one? For there is one flesh of sin, in which all are born unto condemnation, and there is one flesh in the likeness of the flesh of sin, through which all are freed from condemnation. Nor is "all" so said as though whoever are born in the flesh of sin should be understood to be, all of them, cleansed through the flesh like the flesh of sin—for faith is not of all (2 Thess 3:2)—but all who pertain to the generation of carnal wedlock are born only in the flesh of sin, and all who pertain to the generation of spiritual wedlock are cleansed only through the flesh like the flesh of sin; that is, those through Adam unto condemnation, these through Christ unto justification. As if we should say, for example, "There is one midwife in this city, who receives all, and there is one teacher of letters here, who teaches all," neither there can "all" be understood except those who are born, nor here "all" except those who learn; yet not all who are born learn letters; but it is clear that there too it was rightly said, "She receives all, apart from whose hands no one is born," and here it was rightly said, "He teaches all, apart from whose instruction no one learns."

28. 56. But when all the divine testimonies I have recalled have been considered—whether arguing about each one singly or heaping up many together—or whatever like ones I have not recalled, nothing is found except what the universal Church holds, which must keep watch against all profane novelties (1 Tim 6:20): that every man is separated from God except one who is reconciled to God through the mediator Christ; and that none can be separated except by sins intervening; therefore that none can be reconciled except by the forgiveness of sins through the one grace of the most merciful Savior, through the one victim of the most true priest; and thus that all the sons of the woman who believed the serpent, so as to be corrupted by lust (Gen 3:1-6), are not freed from the body of this death except through the Son of the Virgin who believed the angel, so as to conceive without lust (Luke 1:26-38).

29. 57. The good of marriage, then, is not the heat of concupiscence, but a certain lawful and honorable manner of using that heat for the propagation of offspring, suited not to the satisfying of lust. It is that will, not this pleasure, that is conjugal. That, therefore, which in the members of the body of this death is moved disobediently and tries to draw the whole soul, cast down, to itself, and which neither rises up when the mind wills nor rests when the mind wills—this is the evil of sin, with which every man is born.

But when it is curbed from unlawful corruptions and is permitted only for the ordered propagation of the supplements of the human race, this is the good of marriage, through which by an ordered fellowship a man is born. But no one is reborn in the body of Christ unless he is first born in the body of sin. Now, just as to use a good thing badly is evil, so to use an evil thing well is good. These two, then, good and evil, and the other two, good use and bad use, joined to each other make four differences. He uses a good thing well who dedicates continence to God; he uses a good thing badly who dedicates continence to an idol; he uses an evil thing badly who lets concupiscence loose in adultery; he uses an evil thing well who restrains concupiscence by wedlock.

Just as, then, it is better to use a good thing well than to use an evil thing well, since both are good, so he who gives his virgin in marriage does well, and he who does not give her does better (1 Cor 7:38). On this question I have discussed much more fully and much more sufficiently in two books, one On the Good of Marriage, the other On Holy Virginity, as much as the Lord granted, according to the smallness of my powers.

Let those, therefore, not defend the evil of concupiscence by the good of marriage who exalt the flesh and blood of the transgressor against the flesh and blood of the Redeemer; let them not be lifted up in the pride of another's error, those of whose small age the Lord gave us an example of humility. He alone was born without sin, whom the Virgin conceived without a man's embrace, not by the concupiscence of the flesh but by the obedience of the mind; she alone could bring forth a medicine for our wound, who sent forth the shoot of pious offspring not from the wound of sin.

30. 58. Now let us examine more diligently, as much as the Lord helps, that very chapter of the Gospel where he says: Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he will not enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:5). Were these men not moved by this sentence, they would judge that little ones should not be baptized at all. "But because he did not say," they say, "unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he will not have salvation or eternal life, but only said, he will not enter into the kingdom of God, little ones are to be baptized for this reason, that they may be even with Christ in the kingdom of God, where they will not be if they have not been baptized—although even without baptism, if little ones die, they will have salvation and eternal life, since they are bound by no bond of sin." In saying this, these men first never explain by what justice the image of God, having no sin, should be separated from the kingdom of God.

Then let us see whether the Lord Jesus, the one and only good Teacher (Mark 10:17-18), in this very Gospel reading did not signify and show that it is only through the forgiveness of sins that the baptized come to the kingdom of God—although for those who understand rightly it ought to have sufficed that it was said, Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God; and, Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. For why should he be born again, unless to be renewed? Whence renewed, unless from oldness? From what oldness, unless that in which our old man was crucified together with him, that the body of sin might be made void (Rom 6:6)? Or whence does the image of God not enter into the kingdom of God, unless the impediment of sin prevents it? Nevertheless, as we proposed, let us see, intently, as much as we can, and diligently, the whole context itself of the Gospel reading pertaining to the matter at hand.

30. 59. Now there was a man, he says, of the Pharisees, Nicodemus by name, a ruler of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him: "Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him." Jesus answered and said to him: "Amen, amen I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus says to him: "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter again into his mother's womb and be born?"

For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not judged; but he who does not believe is already judged, because he does not believe in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment, that light came into the world, and men loved darkness more than light; for their works were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works be reproved; but he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in God (John 3:1-21). Thus far the whole connected discourse pertains to the matter about which we are inquiring; thereafter the narrator turns aside to something else.

31. 60. When, therefore, Nicodemus did not understand what was being said, he asked the Lord how these things could come about. Let us see what the Lord answers to this. For surely, if he deigns to answer the question, "How can these things come about?" he is going to say in what way the spiritual regeneration of men coming from carnal generation can come about. And so, having briefly noted the inexperience of one who preferred himself to others in respect of teaching, and having reproved the unbelief of all such men, in that they did not receive the testimony of the truth, he added also that he had told them earthly things and they had not believed, asking, or wondering, how they were going to believe heavenly things.

Yet he goes on and answers—that others will believe, if these do not believe—to that which he was asked, how these things can come about: No one, he says, has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man, who is in heaven. "Thus," he says, "spiritual generation will come about, so that there are heavenly men from earthly ones, which they will not be able to attain unless they are made my members, so that he himself ascends who descended, because no one ascends but he who descended."

Unless, therefore, all who are to be changed and lifted up run together into the unity of Christ, so that Christ, who descended, may himself ascend—reckoning his body, that is, his Church, as nothing other than himself, since of Christ and the Church it is more truly understood, The two will be in one flesh (Gen 2:24), of which he himself said, Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh (Mark 10:8)—they will not be able to ascend at all, because no one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man, who is in heaven.

For although he was made the Son of man on earth, he nevertheless judged his divinity, by which, remaining in heaven, he descended to earth, not unworthy of the name "Son of man," just as he deemed his flesh worthy of the name "Son of God"—lest, as it were, two Christs be taken, one God and the other man, but one and the same God and man: God, because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; man, because the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1, 14). And by this, through the distance of divinity and infirmity, the Son of God remained in heaven and the Son of man walked on earth; but through the unity of the person, by which both substances are one Christ, the Son of God walked on earth, and the same Son of man remained in heaven.

Faith in things more credible, then, comes from things less credible that have been believed. For if the divine substance, far more distant and by an incomparable diversity more sublime, could for our sake so take up the human substance that one person came to be, and so the Son of man, who was on earth through the infirmity of the flesh, was the same one in heaven through the divinity shared with the flesh, how much more credible is it that other men, his holy and faithful ones, become with the man Christ one Christ, so that, with all ascending through this his grace and fellowship, the one Christ himself, who descended from heaven, ascends into heaven! So too the Apostle says: As in one body we have many members, but all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ (1 Cor 12:12). He did not say, "so also are Christ's," that is, the body of Christ or the members of Christ, but so also is Christ, calling the head and the body one Christ.

32. 61. Great and wondrous is this condescension! And because it cannot come about except through the forgiveness of sins, he goes on and says: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. What then happened in the desert we know: many were dying from the bites of serpents. Then the people, confessing their sins, besought the Lord through Moses that he would take this venom away from them. And so Moses, by the command of the Lord, lifted up a bronze serpent in the desert and warned the people that whoever was bitten by a serpent should look upon that one lifted up; doing this, they were immediately healed (Num 21:6-9).

What is the serpent lifted up but the death of Christ, signified in that manner by which what is effected is signified through what effects it? For from the serpent came death, who persuaded man to the sin by which he would deserve to die. But the Lord did not transfer sin into his flesh, like the serpent's venom, yet he did transfer death, so that there might be in the likeness of sinful flesh a punishment without guilt, whence in the flesh of sin both guilt and punishment might be loosed. As, then, in those days whoever looked upon the lifted-up serpent was both healed of the venom and freed from death, so now whoever is conformed to the likeness of the death of Christ (Rom 6:5) through faith and his baptism is freed both from sin through justification and from death through resurrection. For this is what he says: that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. What need is there, then, for a little one to be conformed to the death of Christ through baptism, if he is not at all poisoned by the serpent's bite?

33. 62. Then if—as he goes on to say—God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life, a little one was going to perish and not have eternal life if through the sacrament of baptism he did not believe in the only-begotten Son of God, while meanwhile he came thus, not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him; especially since he goes on and says: He who believes in him is not judged; but he who does not believe is already judged, because he does not believe in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. Where, then, do we place baptized little ones but among the faithful, as the authority of the whole Church everywhere proclaims?

Therefore among those who have believed—for this is acquired for them through the power of the sacrament and the response of those who present them—and by this, those who are not baptized among those who have not believed. Further, if those who are baptized are not judged, then these, because they lack baptism, are judged. But what he adds, And this is the judgment, that light came into the world, and men loved darkness more than light—whence does the light come into the world if not of his own coming that he speaks? Without the sacrament of his coming, how are little ones said to be in the light? Or how do they too not have it in their love of darkness, who, just as they themselves do not believe, so do not judge that their little ones should be baptized, when they fear the death of the body for them?

But he says that the works of the one who comes to the light are done in God, because he understands that his justification pertains not to his own merits but to the grace of God. For it is God, says the Apostle, who works in us both to will and to work according to good will (Phil 2:13). In this way, then, the spiritual regeneration of all who come from carnal generation to Christ comes about. He himself opened this, he himself showed it, when he was asked how these things could come about; he made human argumentation in this matter free to no one. Let not little ones be made strangers to the grace of the forgiveness of sins; there is no other passing over to Christ, no one can otherwise be reconciled to God and come to God except through Christ.

34. 63. What shall I say of the very form of the sacrament? I would wish that one of those who hold the contrary view would bring me a little one to be baptized. What does my exorcism do in him, if he is not held in the family of the devil? He himself was surely going to answer me on behalf of that same little one whom he carried, because the child could not answer for himself. How, then, was he going to say that the child renounces the devil, of whom there was nothing in him?

How was he to turn to God, from whom he was not turned away? To believe, among other things, in the forgiveness of sins, none of which was granted to him? Indeed, for my part, if I supposed him to hold contrary to these things, I would not allow him even to enter into the sacraments with the little one; but with what face he would bear himself toward men in this, with what mind toward God, I do not know, nor do I wish to say anything more severe.

That a false or deceitful form of baptism, therefore, would be handed on to little ones—in which it would seem to be uttered and done, and yet no forgiveness of sins would come about—some of them have seen that nothing more execrable and detestable could be said or thought. Accordingly, as far as concerns the baptism of little ones, in order that it be necessary for them, they concede that redemption too is needful for them, as is contained in a very brief booklet of one of them, who nevertheless there refused to express more openly the forgiveness of any sin.

But as you yourself indicated to me in your letter, they now confess, as you say, that even in little ones the forgiveness of sins comes about through baptism. And no wonder; for redemption could not be understood in any other way. "Yet not originally," they say, "but in a life now their own, after they were born, they began to have sin."

34. 64. Wherefore you see how great a distance there now is between those against whom in this work I have already long and much argued—one of whom too I have read a book containing the things I refuted as I could. Between these men, then, as I had begun to say, who maintain that little ones are altogether pure and free from all sin, both original and their own, and these others, who think that, once born, they have contracted sins of their own, from which they believe they ought to be purified 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, had well seen that through baptism the forgiveness of sins comes about in little ones, but that whatever it is that is in them is original, they either will not say or cannot see. The former, however, in human nature itself, which is ready at hand for all to consider, had well seen—which was easy—that that age could in its own life have contracted no sin, but, lest they confess original sin, they say there is no sin at all in little ones. In these matters, then, in which each says something true singly, let them first agree among themselves, and it will follow consequently that they disagree with us in no part. For if the former concede to the latter that to baptized little ones the forgiveness of sins comes about, and the latter concede to the former that little ones—as nature itself cries out in silent infants—have as yet contracted no sin of their own life, both will concede to us that nothing remains but the original sin, which is loosed through baptism in little ones.

35. 65. Or are we indeed going to inquire into this too, and argue about it, and spend time on it, in order 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, who for this reason are called innocent by all? Does not so great a weakness of soul and body, so great an ignorance of things, so utter an incapacity for any precept, no sense or movement of either natural or written law, no use of reason in either direction, proclaim and indicate this by a silence far more attestable than our speech? Let the matter avail something to persuade of itself by its very evidence; for nowhere do I so fail to find what to say as where the thing about which one speaks is more manifest than anything that is said.

35. 66. Yet I would wish that whoever holds this view would say what sin he has seen or supposed in an infant fresh from the womb—for whose redeeming he confesses that baptism is already necessary—what evil he has committed in this his own life through his own soul or body. If perhaps it be that he cries and is a weariness to his elders, it would be strange if this should be charged to iniquity rather than to unhappiness. Or that he cannot be restrained from his very weeping by any reasoning of his own or by anyone's prohibition?

But this belongs to ignorance, in which he lies most deeply sunk—the ignorance by which, when after a little time he is able, in anger he will even strike his mother and often the very breasts which, when he is hungry, he demands. These things are not only borne but even loved in little ones; and by what affection but the carnal, by which even laughter and jest delight us, seasoned, as it were, by the very absurdity of even sharp-witted men? For if it were felt in the way it is said, they would now be laughed at not as witty but as fools. We see fools too, whom the common people call "simpletons," brought in for the diversion of the sensible and, in the appraisal of slaves, held more precious than the sensible: so much does carnal affection avail, even in those not at all foolish, in the delight taken in another's misfortune. For although another's foolishness is pleasant to a man, yet he himself would not have wished to be such;

and if a father foreknew that his own little son—from whose prattling he, glad, awaits and provokes such things—would be such when he grew up, he would in no way doubt that he should be lamented more pitiably than if dead. But while the hope of growth is present and the light of natural ability is believed to be coming with the advance of age, it comes about that the abuses of little ones, even against their parents, are not only not injurious but even welcome and pleasant.

Which indeed no one of the prudent would approve—that from sayings or doings of this kind they should not only not be restrained, when they can already be restrained, but even be incited to them by a zeal for laughter and the vanity of their elders. For very often that age, already recognizing father and mother, dares not curse either of them unless either by one of them or by both it is permitted or commanded. But these things belong to those little ones who already burst forth into words and can now express the movements of their soul by whatever signs of the tongue. Let us rather look at that most profound ignorance of the newly born, from which, by making progress, they have come to that not-to-last stammering foolishness, as though tending toward knowledge and speech.

36. 67. Let us consider, I say, those shadows of the mind—a mind surely rational—in which they are utterly ignorant even of God, to whose sacraments they offer resistance even when they are baptized; into these shadows I ask whence and when they have been submerged. Did they then contract them here, and in this their own life, through excessive negligence, forget God, but live prudent and religious lives, perhaps in their mothers' wombs? Let those say these things who have dared; let those hear who will; let those believe who can. But I, for my part, think that all whose mind is not clouded by the obstinacy of defending their own opinion cannot hold these views.

Or is there no evil of ignorance, and therefore none to be purified? And what does that voice mean: Remember not the sins of my youth and of my ignorance (Ps 25:7 (24:7))? For although the sins more deserving of condemnation are those committed by those who know, yet, if there were no sins of ignorance, we would not read what I have recalled: Remember not the sins of my youth and of my ignorance. Into those, then, the densest shadows of ignorance, where the soul of an infant fresh from the womb—surely the soul of a man, surely a rational soul—lies not only untaught but even unteachable, why or when or whence has it been thrust? If it is the nature of man so to begin, and this nature is not already corrupted, 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 will be called woman; and, Whatever Adam called a living soul, that is its name (Gen 2:23, 19).

But this one, not knowing where he is, what he is, by whom he was created, from whom he was begotten, already guilty of a trespass, not yet capable of a precept, so wrapped and pressed in the deep gloom of ignorance that he can neither, as it were, be roused from sleep so as at least to recognize these things when shown, but the time must be awaited in which he gradually digests this I-know-not-what, as it were, drunkenness—not through a single night, as any heaviest one is wont to be, but through several months and years—until which is done, we tolerate in little ones so many things which in their elders we punish, that they cannot at all be numbered: this so great evil of ignorance and infirmity, if little ones already born in this life have contracted it, where, when, how, by some great impiety committed, were they suddenly wrapped in so great a darkness?

37. 68. Someone will say: "If this nature is not pure but the beginnings of a corrupted nature, because Adam was not created such, why did Christ, far more excellent and certainly without any sin, born of a virgin, nevertheless appear begotten in this same infirmity and age?" To this proposition we answer: Adam was not created such because, with no parent's sin going before, he was not created in sinful flesh; we are such because, with his sin going before, we were born in sinful flesh; Christ is such because, in order to condemn sin from sin, he was born in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom 8:3).

For the question concerning Adam is not what pertains to the size of the body, because he was not made a little one but with the full mass of his members—for it may be said that beasts too were so created, and yet that it was not brought about by their sin that little offspring are born of them, what sort of thing this is we do not now inquire—but the question is about a certain vigor of that mind and use of reason, by which Adam, being teachable, might both grasp the precept of God and the law of the commandment and easily be able to keep it, if he willed. But now man is born so that he is utterly unable to do this, on account of a horrendous ignorance and infirmity not of the flesh but of the mind—since we all confess that in a little one there lives a rational soul not of another but of the same substance as was in the first man. Although even that so great infirmity of the flesh itself shows, as I think, something penal. For it gives one pause whether, if those first men had not sinned, they were going to have such children as would use neither tongue nor hands nor feet. For perhaps, on account of the capacity of the womb, it would have been necessary for little ones to be born; although, since a rib is a small part of the body (Gen 2:22), yet not for this reason did God make a small mate for the man, whom he built up into a woman, whence the omnipotence of the Creator could also have made her children, as soon as they were brought forth, grown at once.

38. 69. But, to omit this, he could certainly have granted what he granted to many beasts too, whose young, although they are little and do not advance in mind even with the increase of body, since they do not have a rational soul, yet even when tiniest both run and recognize their mothers, and are not brought to the suckling of the udders by another's care and aid, but they themselves know them, set in a hidden place of the mother's body, with wonderful ease.

On the contrary, the newborn man has feet not fit for walking, nor hands at least apt for scratching; and unless, by the work of the one nursing, the teat of the udder is put to his motionless lips, he does not feel where they are, and, with the breasts lying beside him, he can rather cry from hunger than suck. Accordingly this infirmity of the body altogether agrees with the infirmity of the mind. Nor would the flesh of Christ have been in the likeness of sinful flesh, unless this were the flesh of sin, by whose weight the rational soul is so weighed down—whether it too be drawn from the parents, or created there, or breathed in from above, which I now defer to inquire into.

39. 70. In little ones, certainly, the grace of God through the baptism of him who came in the likeness of sinful flesh brings it about that the flesh of sin is made void. But it is made void not so that in the very living flesh the concupiscence sprinkled and inborn is suddenly consumed and is no more, but so that what was present in the one born may not harm the one who has died. For if after baptism he lives and is able to come to an age capable of a precept, there he has something with which to fight and which, with God helping, he may overcome, if he has not received his grace in vain (2 Cor 6:1), if he has not wished to be reprobate (1 Cor 9:27).

For neither is this granted to grown people in baptism—except perhaps by the ineffable miracle of the most omnipotent Creator—that the law of sin which is in the members, warring against the law of the mind (Rom 7:22-23), be utterly extinguished and be no more; but that whatever evil has been done, said, or thought by the man, while with subjected mind he was a slave to that same concupiscence, all be 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 destroyed by which it separated man from his Creator, remains in the conflict in which we chastise our body and bring it into subjection (1 Cor 9:27), either to be relaxed for lawful and necessary uses or to be checked by the continent man.

But since by the divine Spirit, who knows all things of the human race—whether past or present or future—far better than we, such a human life has been foreknown and foretold that not every living person is justified in the sight of God (Ps 143:2 (142:2)), it comes about that, through ignorance or infirmity, not exerting against it the whole strength of the will, we yield to that same concupiscence even in some unlawful things, 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 man 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 (John 14:30)—we must argue somewhat more diligently, let this be the measure of this volume, so that we may inquire into that matter from another beginning.

1. 1. Concerning the baptism of little ones, dearest Marcellinus—that it is given to them not only for the kingdom of God but also for the obtaining of salvation and eternal life, which no one can have without the kingdom of God and without the fellowship of Christ the Savior, into which he redeemed us by his blood (See Rev 5:9)—we have, I think, argued sufficiently in the prior book. But in this one, whether anyone lives in this age, or has lived, or will live, without any sin at all, except the one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a redemption for all (1 Tim 2:5-6), I have undertaken to discuss and unravel with as much skill as he himself grants.

And if a question about the sin or baptism of little ones again and again inserts itself into this discussion by some necessity or opportunity, it will be no wonder, nor to be shirked, that in those places we answer, as we are able, all the things that demand our response.

2. 2. But the solution of this question concerning a human life without any creeping in or anticipation of sin is most necessary, on account of our daily prayers too. For there are certain men who presume so much upon the free choice of the human will that they suppose we do not even need to be divinely helped toward not sinning, the free choice of the will having once been granted to our nature. From which it follows consequently that we ought not even to pray that we may not enter into temptation (See Matt 26:41)—that is, that we may not be overcome by temptation, either when it deceives and anticipates the unaware, or when it presses and urges the weak. But how harmful, and how destructive and contrary to our salvation, which is in Christ, and how vehemently opposed to the very religion with which we have been imbued and to the piety by which we worship God it is, that we should not ask the Lord for the receiving of such a benefit, and should think it set down in vain in the Lord's Prayer itself, Lead us not into temptation (Matt 6:13), we cannot explain in words.

3. 3. But they seem to themselves to speak shrewdly, as though any of us were ignorant of this, that if we do not will, we do not sin, and God would not command of man what was impossible for the human will. But this they see less, that for overcoming certain things—whether what are wrongly desired or what are wrongly feared—great and total strength of will is sometimes needed, which he foresaw that we would not perfectly apply in all cases, who willed it to be said truthfully through the Prophet: Not every living person will be justified in your sight (Ps 143:2 (142:2)). Foreknowing, therefore, that we would be such, the Lord deigned to give and to make effective certain salutary remedies against the guilt and bonds of sins even after baptism, namely the works of mercy, when he says: Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you (Luke 6:37-38). For who, with any hope of obtaining eternal salvation, would depart from this life, while that sentence stood—that whoever keeps the whole law but offends in one point is made guilty of all (Jas 2:10)—unless a little after there followed: So speak and so act, as those who are to be judged through the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to him who does not show mercy; but mercy triumphs over judgment (Jas 2:12-13)?

4. 4. Concupiscence, therefore, as a law of sin (See Rom 7:23-24) remaining in the members of the body of this 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; the little ones not baptized it binds as guilty and, as children of wrath (See Eph 2:3), even if the little ones die, it drags to condemnation.

But in grown people who are baptized, in whom—being now of the use of reason—whatever the mind has consented to that same concupiscence for sinning is a matter of their own will: with all their sins blotted out, with even the guilt loosed by which it held them originally bound, it remains for the contest, going to harm not at all those who do not consent to it for unlawful things, until death is swallowed up in victory (See 1 Cor 15:54) and in perfect peace there exists nothing to be overcome. But those who consent to it for unlawful things it holds guilty, and, unless they are healed through the medicine of repentance and the works of mercy, through the heavenly priest interceding for us (See Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25), it leads to the second death and condemnation (See Rev 2:11).

For this reason too the Lord, teaching us to pray, warned us among other things to say: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but free us from evil (Matt 6:12-13). For evil remains in our flesh, not by the nature in which man was divinely created, but by the vice into which he fell by his will, where, his strength being lost, he is not healed with that ease of will by which he was wounded. Of this evil the Apostle says: I know that there does not dwell in my flesh good (Rom 7:18). To which evil he commanded us not to be obedient, when he says: Let not sin, then, reign in your mortal body, so as to obey its desires (Rom 6:12).

If, then, we have consented to these desires of the concupiscence of the flesh by an unlawful inclination of the will, for the healing of this we say, Forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12), applying a remedy from the work of mercy in that we add, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12). But that we may not consent to it, we beseech his help, saying, And lead us not into temptation—or, as some manuscripts have it, Bring us not into temptation—not that God himself tempts anyone with such a temptation, for God is no tempter to evils, and he himself tempts no one (Jas 1:13), but so that, if perhaps we begin to be tempted by our own concupiscence, we may not be forsaken by his help, that in it we may be able to conquer, lest, enticed, we be drawn away (See Jas 1:14). Then we add what will be brought to completion in the end, when what is mortal will be swallowed up by life (See 2 Cor 5:4): But free us from evil (Matt 6:13). For then there will be no such concupiscence with which we are commanded to contend and to which we are commanded not to consent. Thus, then, this whole thing, set in three benefits, can be briefly asked: "Forgive us the things in which we have been drawn away by concupiscence, help us that we be not drawn away by concupiscence, take concupiscence away from us."

5. 5. For toward sinning we are not helped by God; but we cannot do just things or fulfill in every part the precept of righteousness unless we are helped by God. For just as the eye of the body is not helped by light to depart, closed or turned away, from that same light, but is helped by it to see, and cannot do this at all unless that light has helped, so God, who is the light of the inner man, helps the gaze of our mind, that we may work some good thing 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 for unlawful things (See Rom 8:5).

Those who are turned toward him, then, God helps; those turned away he forsakes. But even that we may be turned toward him, he himself helps—which this light surely does not grant to the eyes of the body. When, therefore, he commands us, saying, Turn to me, and I will turn to you (Zech 1:3; Mal 3:7), and we say to him, Turn us, O God of our healings (Ps 85:4 (84:5)), and, O God of hosts, turn us (Ps 80:7 (79:8)), what else do we say but "Give what you command"? When he commands by saying, Understand, then, you who are foolish among the people (Ps 94:8 (93:8)), and we say to him, Give me understanding, that I may learn your commandments (Ps 119:73 (118:73)), what else do we say but "Give what you command"? When he commands by saying, Go not after your concupiscences (Sir 18:30), and we say, We know that no one can be continent unless God grants it (See Wis 8:21), what else do we say but "Give what you command"? When he commands by saying, Do righteousness (Isa 56:1), and we say, Teach me your statutes (Ps 119:12 (118:12)), what else do we say but "Give what you command"? Likewise, when he says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled (Matt 5:6), from whom ought we to ask the food and drink of righteousness but from him who promises its fullness to those who hunger and thirst for it?

5. 6. Let us therefore drive from our ears and minds those who say that, the free choice of the will having once been received, we ought not even to pray that God may help us not to sin. For not even that Pharisee was blinded by such darkness who, although he erred in this—that he thought nothing was to be added to his righteousness and judged himself filled with its fullness—nevertheless gave thanks to God that he was not like the rest of men, unjust, robbers, adulterers, like that tax collector, that he fasted twice on the Sabbath, that he gave tithes of all he possessed. He did not now ask that anything be added to his righteousness, but yet, by giving thanks to God for the things he had, he confessed that he had received all from him.

And yet he was disapproved, both because, as though filled, 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 tax collector who hungered and thirsted for it (See Luke 18:10-14). What, then, will become of those who, even if they confess that they do not have righteousness, or do not have it fully, yet presume that it is to be had from themselves, not to be besought from their Creator, where his storehouse and his fountain are? Nor, however, is the matter on that account to be dealt with by prayers alone, so that the efficacy of our will too is not applied to living well. For God is called our helper (Ps 62:8 (61:9)), and none can be helped but one who also strives somewhat of his own accord, because God does not work our salvation in us as in senseless stones or as in those in whose nature he did not establish reason and will. But why he helps this one and does not help that one, this one so much and that one so much, this one in that way and that one in this way, lies with him, and the reckoning of so secret an equity and the excellence of his power.

6. 7. For those who say that a man can be in this life without sin are not at once to be opposed with incautious rashness. For if we deny that it can be, we shall derogate both from the free choice of man, who in willing this strives after it, and from the power or mercy of God, who by helping brings it about. But one question is whether it can be, another whether it is; another, if it is not, when it can be, why it is not; another, whether one who has never at all had any sin is not only anyone now, but also ever could be or can be.

In this fourfold proposition of questions, if I am asked whether a man can be without sin in this life, I will confess that he can through the grace of God and his free choice—not doubting that free choice itself too pertains to the grace of God, that is, to the gifts of God, not only that it exists but also that it be good, that is, that it be turned to the doing of the Lord's commandments; and thus the grace of God not only shows what is to be done but also helps that what it has shown may be able to be done.

For what do we have that we have not received? Hence Jeremiah too says, I know, Lord, that man's way is not in himself, nor is it for a man to walk and direct his steps (Jer 10:23). Hence too in the Psalms, when one had said to God, You have commanded your commandments to be kept exceedingly (Ps 119:4 (118:4)), he immediately presumed not upon himself but wished that he might keep them: O that, he says, my ways may be directed to the keeping of your statutes! Then I shall not be confounded, while I look upon all your commandments (Ps 119:5-6 (118:5-6)). But who wishes for what he has so in his own power that he needs no help to do it? And from whom he wishes it—since it is not from fortune or fate or any other than God—he shows sufficiently in what follows: Direct, he says, my paths according to your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me (Ps 119:133 (118:133)).

From the slavery of this execrable mistress are freed those to whom the Lord Jesus, when they receive him, has given the power to become sons of God (See John 1:12). They had to be freed from this horrendous dominion to whom he says, If the Son frees you, then you will be truly free (John 8:36). By these and other innumerable testimonies of this kind I cannot doubt either that God has commanded man nothing impossible, or that anything is impossible for God in succoring and helping, so that what he commands may come about. And by this a man can, if he will, be without sin, helped by God.

7. 8. But if it is asked, as I had put in the second place, whether one is, I do not believe that he is. For I rather believe the Scripture which says: Enter not into judgment with your servant, for not every living person will be justified in your sight (Ps 143:2 (142:2)). And therefore there is need of the mercy of God, which triumphs over judgment, which will not be to him who does not show mercy (See Jas 2:13). And there is what the Prophet, when he had said, I said: I will declare against myself my trespass to the Lord, and you forgave the impiety of my heart (Ps 32:5 (31:5)), immediately added: For this every holy one will pray to you in an opportune time (Ps 32:6 (31:6))—not every sinner, then, but every holy one; for it is the voice of the holy: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). Hence in the Apocalypse of the same Apostle those one hundred and forty-four thousand holy ones who did not even defile themselves with women—for they remained virgins—and in whose mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless (Rev 14:4-5); surely they are blameless for this reason, that they truly blamed themselves; and therefore no lie was found in their mouth, because, if they said they had no sin, they would deceive themselves and the truth would not be in them, and surely there would be a lie where there was no truth, since the just man, when at the beginning of his speech he is his own accuser, surely does not lie (See Prov 18:17).

7. 9. And by this, in that it is written, He who is born of God does not sin and cannot sin, because his seed remains in him (1 John 3:9), and if anything else is said in that way, they are much deceived by considering the Scriptures too little. For they do not notice that men become sons of God to the extent that they begin to be in newness of spirit and to be renewed in the inner man according to the image of him who created them (See Rom 7:6; 2 Cor 4:16; Col 3:10). For it is not from the hour in which anyone is baptized that all his old infirmity is consumed; but renewal begins from the forgiveness of all sins and to the extent that anyone is wise in spiritual things—who is now wise—but the rest is done in hope, until it be done also in reality, up to the renewal of the body itself into the better state of immortality and incorruption, with which we shall be clothed in the resurrection of the dead. For the Lord calls even this a regeneration—not, surely, such as comes about through baptism, but that in which what is now begun in spirit will be brought to completion even in the body: In the regeneration, he says, when the Son of man sits on the seat of his majesty, you also will sit upon twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt 19:28).

For although in baptism the forgiveness of sins is made whole and full, nevertheless, if at once the whole and full change of man into eternal newness also came about—I do not say in the body too, which is surely manifestly still tending toward the old corruption and toward death, to be renewed afterward in the end, when there will truly be a whole newness; but, the body excepted, if in the very soul, which is the inner man, a perfect newness came about in baptism—the Apostle would not say, Although our outer man is corrupted, yet the inner is renewed from day to day (2 Cor 4:16). For surely one who is still being renewed from day to day is not yet wholly renewed; and to the extent that he is not yet renewed, to that extent he is still in oldness.

Accordingly, from the fact that they are still in oldness, although already baptized, from this they are still also sons of the age; but from the fact that they are in newness, that is, from the full and perfect forgiveness of sins, and however much that is which they are wise in spiritually and the conduct suited to it which they perform, they are sons of God (See Luke 20:34). For inwardly we put off the old man and put on the new, since there we lay aside falsehood and speak the truth, and the rest by which the Apostle explains what it is to put off the old man and to put on the new, who was created according to God in righteousness and the holiness of truth (Eph 4:24). And that they may do this, he exhorts the already baptized and faithful; and they would not need still to be admonished if this had already been perfectly done in baptism. And yet it was done, just as we have also been saved; for he saved us through the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5). But in another place he says in what way this was done: Not only that, he says, but we ourselves too, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we groan within ourselves, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our body. For in hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he also hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Rom 8:23-25).

8. 10. The full adoption of sons, then, will come about in the redemption of our body too. And so we now have the first fruits of the Spirit, whence we have already in reality been made sons of God; but in the rest we are sons of God in hope, just as we are saved, just as we are renewed—but in reality, because we are not yet saved, therefore not yet fully renewed, not yet even sons of God, but sons of the age.

We advance, then, into renewal and a righteous life through that by which we are sons of God, and through this we cannot sin at all, until the whole be transmuted into this, even that by which we are still sons of the age; for through this we can still sin too (See Rom 9:8; Luke 20:34). So it comes about both that he who is born of God does not sin, and that, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us (See 1 John 1:8; 3:9). That, then, by which we are sons of the flesh and of the age will be consumed, and that by which we are sons of God and reborn in spirit will be brought to completion (See John 3:5).

Hence the same John says: Beloved, we are sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be (1 John 3:2). What is this we are and we shall be, but that we are in hope, we shall be in reality? For it follows and he says: We know that, when it appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Now, then, we have also already begun to be like him, having the first fruits of the Spirit, and we are still unlike through the remnants of oldness. Accordingly, insofar as we are like, so far are we sons of God by the regenerating Spirit, but insofar as we are unlike, so far are we sons of the flesh and of the age. From the one side, then, we cannot sin; but from the other, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves (See 1 John 1:8), until the whole pass over into adoption and there be no sinner and you seek his place and do not find it (Ps 37:10 (36:10)).

9. 11. In vain, then, do some argue even this, saying: If a sinner begot a sinner, so that in his little one the guilt of original sin is loosed in the reception of baptism, then a just man too ought to have begotten a just one. As though anyone begets carnally from the fact that he is just, and not rather from the fact that in his members there is a movement of concupiscence and the law of sin is turned to the use of propagation against the law of the mind (See Rom 7:23).

He begets, then, from that by which he still draws the old among the sons of the age, not from that by which he has advanced into newness among the sons of God. For the sons of this age beget and are begotten (Luke 20:34). Hence too what is born is such, because what is born of the flesh is flesh (See John 3:6). But none are just except the sons of God. And insofar as they are sons of God, they do not beget by the flesh, because they themselves too are born of the Spirit, not of the flesh.

But whoever of them beget, they beget by the flesh from that by which they have not yet changed all the remnants of oldness into perfect newness. Hence whatever son is born of this old and infirm part, it is necessary that he too be old and infirm; therefore it is fitting that he too be renewed in spirit through the forgiveness of sin into another generation.

But if this does not come about in him, a just father will profit him nothing; for he is just by the spirit, by which he did not beget him. But if it does come about, an unjust father too will harm him nothing; for the one made his passage by spiritual grace into the hope of eternal newness, while the other, by a carnal mind, remained wholly in oldness.

10. 12. That testimony, then, in which it is said, He who is born of God does not sin (1 John 3:9), is not contrary to that testimony in which it is said to those already born of God, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). For as long as a man—although already wholly in hope, and even now in reality renewed in part by spiritual regeneration—nevertheless still bears a body which is corrupted and weighs down the soul (See Wis 9:15), what pertains to what and what is said from what must be distinguished, even in one man.

For, as I judge, the Scripture of God does not easily render so great a testimony of righteousness to anyone as to three of his servants, Noah, Daniel, and Job, whom the prophet Ezekiel says could alone be freed from a certain impending wrath of God (See Ezek 14:14), prefiguring surely in those three men three kinds of men to be freed: in Noah, as I judge, the just leaders set over the peoples, on account of the steering of the ark, as of the Church; in Daniel, the just who are continent; in Job, the just who are married—and if there is perhaps some other understanding, into which it is not now necessary to inquire. Yet how greatly these excelled in righteousness, this both by the prophetic testimony and by other divine testimonies appears sufficiently (See Gen 6:9; Sir 44:17; 2 Pet 2:5; Dan 6:22; Job 1:8). Nor on that account would any sober man say that drunkenness is not a sin, which nevertheless crept upon so great a man; for Noah, as we read, was once drunk, although far be it that he was a drunkard (See Gen 9:21).

10. 13. Daniel, after the prayer which he poured out to God, says of himself: When I was praying and confessing my sins and the sins of my people to the Lord my God (Dan 9:20). For this reason, unless I am mistaken, through the above-mentioned Ezekiel it is said to a certain most proud man: Are you wiser than Daniel (Ezek 28:3)? Nor can it here be said—what some argue against the Lord's Prayer—that "although the holy and now perfect Apostles, having no sin at all, prayed it," they say, "yet they said it not for themselves but for the imperfect and as-yet sinners: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12); so that by this," they say, "in that they said our, they might show that they were in one body both with those still having sins and with themselves, who now in every part lacked sin." In Daniel, certainly, this cannot be said, who, as I believe, like a prophet foreseeing that this presumption would one day arise, when in his prayer he had often said we have sinned, did not expound to us why he said this in such a way that we heard from him, When I was praying and confessing the sins of my people to the Lord my God (Dan 9:20), nor with the distinction still confused, so that it would be uncertain on account of the fellowship of one body, had he said, "When I was confessing our sins to the Lord my God," but altogether so distinctly, as though busying himself about the very distinction concerning himself and commending it most strongly and vehemently, he says, my sins and the sins of my people. Who contradicts this evidence, except one whom it pleases more to defend what he holds than to find what ought to be held?

10. 14. But Job, after so great a testimony of righteousness from God concerning him, let us see what he himself says. In truth, he says, I know that it is so. For how will a man be just before the Lord? For if he should wish to contend with him, he could not obey him (Job 9:2-3). And a little after: Who, he says, will oppose his judgment? But if I am just, my mouth will speak impiously (Job 9:19-20). Again a little after: I know, he says, that he does not let me go unpunished. Since I am impious, why am I not dead? But if I am purified with snow and cleansed with clean hands, you have steeped me sufficiently in filth (Job 9:28-31). Likewise in another of his speeches: Because you have written against me evils, he says, and have clothed me with the sins of my youth, and have set my foot in a snare, you have watched all my works and looked into the roots of my feet, who grow old like a wineskin or like a garment eaten by a moth. For a man born of woman is of short time and full of wrath, and, like a flower when it has bloomed and fallen, he has departed; like a shadow he does not remain. Have you not made the care of this one too come into your judgment? For who will be clean from filth? No one, not even if his life has been but of one day (Job 13:26-14:5). And a little after: You have numbered, he says, all my needs, and nothing of my sins has escaped you; you have sealed my sins in a little bag and noted down if I have committed anything unwillingly (Job 14:16-17).

Behold, Job too confesses his sins and says that he knows in truth that no one is just before the Lord. And therefore he knows this in truth, because, if we say that we have no sin, the truth itself is not in us (See 1 John 1:8). Accordingly, according to the measure of human conduct, God renders him so great a testimony of righteousness; but he himself, measuring himself by that rule of righteousness which, as he can, he beholds with God, knows in truth that it is so, and adds: For how will a man be just before the Lord? For if he should wish to contend with him, he could not obey him (Job 9:2-3)—that is, "if, being about to be judged, he should wish to show that there cannot be found in him anything to be condemned, he could not obey him"; for he loses even that obedience by which he could obey the one commanding that sins must be confessed. Hence he rebukes certain ones, saying, Why do you wish to contend with me in judgment (Jer 2:29)? Guarding against this, he says, Enter not into judgment with your servant, for not every living person will be justified in your sight (Ps 143:2 (142:2)). Therefore Job too says: For who will oppose his judgment? But if I am just, my mouth will speak impiously (Job 9:19-20); for this is: "If I call myself just against his judgment, where that perfect rule of righteousness convicts me of being unjust, surely my mouth will speak impiously, because it will speak against the truth of God."

10. 15. Showing also the very frailty—or rather the condemnation—of carnal generation from the transgression of original sin, when he was dealing with his sins, as though rendering their causes, he said that a man born of woman is of short time and full of wrath (See Job 14:1). By what wrath, except that by which all are, as the Apostle says, by nature—that is, originally—children of wrath (Eph 2:3), since they are sons of the concupiscence of the flesh and of the age? That the death of man too pertains to this same wrath he consequently shows.

For when he had said, he is of short time and full of wrath, he added also: and, like a flower when it has bloomed and fallen, he has departed; like a shadow he does not remain. But when he goes on, Have you not made the care of this one too come into your judgment? For who will be clean from filth? No one, not even if his life has been but of one day (Job 14:1-5), he surely says this: "You have made the care of a man of short life come into your judgment.

For however short his life may have been, even if it were of one day, he could not be clean from filth, and therefore he will most justly come into your judgment." But that which he says, You have numbered all my needs, and nothing of my sins has escaped you; you have sealed my sins in a little bag and noted down if I have committed anything unwillingly (Job 14:16-17), did he not sufficiently make plain that even those sins are justly imputed which are committed not by the enticement of delight but for the sake of avoiding some trouble or pain or death? For these too are said to be committed by a certain necessity, when all things ought to be overcome by the love and delight of righteousness. What he said, and noted down if I have committed anything unwillingly (Job 14:17), may also seem to pertain to that voice in which it is said, For I do not the good that I will, but what I hate, this I do (Rom 7:15).

10. 16. What of this, that the Lord himself, who had borne him witness—since even Scripture, that is, the Spirit of God, said that in all the things that befell him he did not sin with his lips before the Lord (Job 1:22)—nevertheless afterward, when he spoke to him, spoke in rebuke, as Job himself is witness, saying: Why am I still judged, being admonished and hearing the rebukes of the Lord (Job 39:34 (40:2))? But no one is justly rebuked except in whom there is something worthy of rebuke.

11. 16. And of what kind is that very rebuke which is understood as from the person of the Lord Christ? He enumerates to him the divine works of his power, rebuking him under this sentence, so that he appears to say: Can you do these so great things which I can? But to what does it tend, except that Job may understand—we believe that this too was divinely inspired in him, that he foreknew that Christ would come to the passion—that he may understand, then, with how even a mind he ought to bear what he endured, if Christ, in whom there was no sin at all, though for our sake he had become man (See John 8:46), and in whom there is so great a power as God, nevertheless by no means refused the obedience of the passion? Understanding this with a purer intention of heart, Job added to his response: I heard you before by the hearing of the ear, and now, behold, my eye sees you. Therefore I have reproached myself and pined away, and I have esteemed myself earth and ashes (Job 42:5-6). Why did he so displease himself in this so great an understanding?

For the work of God by which he was a man could not rightly displease him, since to God himself it is said, Despise not the works of your hands (Ps 138:8 (137:8)). But surely, according to that righteousness by which he had known himself just, he reproached himself and pined away and esteemed himself earth and ashes, beholding in his mind the righteousness of Christ, in whom—not only in his divinity, but neither in his soul nor in his flesh—could there be any sin; according to which righteousness, which is from God, the apostle Paul too esteemed that of his own which, according to the righteousness that is from the law, was without complaint, not only as losses but even as dung (See Phil 3:6-8).

12. 17. That illustrious testimony of God, then, by which Job was praised, is not contrary to that testimony in which it is said, Not every living person will be justified in your sight (Ps 143:2 (142:2)), because it does not at all persuade us that in him there was nothing which might be reproved either by himself truly or by the Lord God rightly, although he was already, and not falsely, called just and a true worshiper of God and abstaining from every evil work. For these are the words of God concerning him: Have you considered my servant Job? For there is no man like him on earth, without complaint, just, a true worshiper of God, abstaining from every evil work (Job 1:8). By the first words he is praised in comparison with the men who are on earth; accordingly he excelled all who then could be just on earth. He did not, therefore, on that account have no sin at all, because in the advance of righteousness he went before the rest. Then is added without complaint, of whose life no one could justly complain; just, who had advanced with so great an uprightness of conduct that none could be made equal to him; a true worshiper of God, being indeed a true and humble confessor even of his own sins; abstaining from every evil work—it would be a wonder if from every evil word and thought too.

How great Job was we do not know; but we know that he was just, we know too that he was great in enduring the horrendous temptations of tribulations; we know that he endured all those things not on account of sins but for the showing of his righteousness. Nevertheless these words by which he is praised by the Lord could be said also of one who delights together in the law of God according to the inner man (See Rom 7:22-23), but sees another law in his members warring against the law of his mind, especially since he says: I do not the good that I will, but the evil that I hate, this I do. But if I do the evil that I hate, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me (Rom 7:19-20). Behold, this man too, according to the inner man, is a stranger to every evil work, because he himself does not do it, but the evil that dwells in his flesh; and yet, since he has that very thing by which he delights together in the law of God only from the grace of God, still needing liberation he cries: Wretched man that I am! Who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:24-25).

13. 18. There are, then, just men on earth; there are great, strong, prudent, continent, patient, pious, merciful men, bearing all temporal evils with an even mind for the sake of righteousness; but if it is true—and it is true—that if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves (1 John 1:8), and, Not every living person will be justified in your sight (Ps 143:2 (142:2)), they are not without sin, nor is any one of them so arrogantly mad as to judge that he has no need of the Lord's Prayer for his own sins, whatever they may be.

13. 19. For of Zechariah and Elizabeth, who are often urged upon us in the discussions of this question, what shall we say, except that Scripture evidently testifies that Zechariah was of eminent righteousness among the leaders of the priests pertaining to the offering of the sacrifices of the Old Testament? But we read in the letter which is written to the Hebrews—a testimony I have already set down in the prior book—that Christ alone is the prince of priests (See Heb 6:20), who would not have the necessity, like those who were called princes of priests, of offering sacrifice first daily for their own sins, then for the people. For it was fitting, he says, that we should have such a high priest, just, without malice, undefiled, separated from sinners, made higher than the heavens, not having a daily necessity, like the princes of priests, to offer sacrifice first for their own sins (Heb 7:26-27). In this number of priests was Zechariah, in it Phinehas, in it Aaron himself, from whom this order took its beginning, and whatever others lived praiseworthily and justly in that priesthood—who nevertheless had the necessity of offering sacrifice first for their own sins, Christ alone existing, whose figure, as the one to come, they bore, who, an undefilable priest, would not have this necessity (See Heb 5:1-3).

13. 20. But what praiseworthy thing was said of Zechariah and Elizabeth that is not comprised in what the Apostle, when he had not yet believed in Christ, professed of himself? For he said that he had been, according to the righteousness that is in the law, without complaint (Phil 3:6). This too is read of them in this way: Now they were both just before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord without complaint (Luke 1:6). Because, then, whatever of righteousness was in them was not feigned toward men, therefore it was said, before God.

But what was written of Zechariah and his wife, in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, this he said briefly: in the law. For there was not one law for them and another for him before the Gospel, but one and the same, which we read was given through Moses to their fathers, according to which Zechariah too was a priest and in his turn offered sacrifice.

And yet the Apostle, who was then endowed with a like righteousness, goes on and says: What were gains to me, these I have counted losses for Christ. Yet I also count all things to be loss because of the surpassing knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord, for whose sake I have considered all things not only as detriments but even esteemed them as dung, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God in faith, to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead (Phil 3:7-11).

So far, then, is it from being the case that on account of those words we should believe Zechariah and Elizabeth to have had a perfect righteousness without any sin, that we judge that not even the Apostle himself was perfected in the summit of that same rule—not only in that righteousness of the law, like to theirs, which he reckons among losses and dung in comparison with the most eminent righteousness which is in faith in Christ, but even in the Gospel itself, where he also earned the headship of so great an apostolate—which I would not dare to say, did I not deem it sinful to disbelieve him.

For where he goes on and adds: Not that I have already received it or am already perfect, but I follow after, that I may lay hold of that for which I was also laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not consider that I myself have laid hold; but one thing, forgetting the things that are behind and stretching out to the things that are before, I follow after, according to my intent, to the prize of the supernal calling of God in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:12-14), he himself confesses that he has not yet received, is not yet perfect in the fullness of the righteousness which he loved to attain in Christ, but that he still follows after, according to his intent, and, forgetting the things behind, stretches out to the things that are before; so that we may know that to him too pertains that which he says: Although our outer man is corrupted, yet the inner is renewed from day to day (2 Cor 4:16), although he was already a perfect traveler, even if he was not yet, by the perfection of the journey itself, one who had arrived.

Finally, he wishes to carry such men along with him as companions in this course, to whom he immediately goes on and says: As many of us, then, as are perfect, let us be of this mind; and if you are of any other mind in anything, this too God will reveal to you; nevertheless, in that to which we have come, in it let us walk (Phil 3:15-16). This walking is carried on not by the feet of the body but by the affections of the mind and the conduct of life, so that those can be perfect possessors of righteousness who, by the right journey of faith advancing from day to day in their renewal, have already been made perfect travelers of that same righteousness (See 2 Cor 4:16).

14. 21. And so all who in this life have been proclaimed by the testimonies of the divine Scriptures for their good will and acts of righteousness, and all who have been such after them, although not proclaimed and praised by those same testimonies, or are even now, or will be afterward—all are great, all just, all truly praiseworthy, but they are not without some sin, since by the testimonies of the Scriptures, by which we believe their praises (See Ps 143:2 (142:2)), we also believe this: that not every living person is justified in the sight of God, and therefore that he is asked not to enter into judgment with his servants, and that the Lord's Prayer, which he handed on to his disciples, is necessary not only for all the faithful universally but even for each one.

15. 22. But indeed the Lord says: Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5:48); which he would not command, they say, if he knew that what he commands could not be done. It is not now asked whether it can be done, if they take that perfection to mean that anyone is without any sin while he lives this life—for we have already answered above that it can be done—but whether anyone does it, this is what we now ask. But that there is no one who wills as much as the matter demands has been foreknown, as the so great testimonies of the Scriptures which I have recalled above declare.

And yet, when anyone's perfection is spoken of, it must be seen in what respect it is spoken of. For I set down a little before a testimony from the Apostle, where he confesses that in the reception of the righteousness which he desires he is not yet perfect, and yet immediately says: As many of us, then, as are perfect, let us be of this mind (Phil 3:12, 15); both of which he would not say, unless he were perfect in one respect and not in another. As, for instance, if anyone is already a perfect hearer of wisdom—which those were not yet to whom he said, I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able, nor indeed are you even now able (1 Cor 3:2); for to them he also says, We speak wisdom among the perfect (1 Cor 2:6), surely wishing perfect hearers to be understood—it can happen, then, as I said, that someone is already a perfect hearer of wisdom whose teacher is not yet perfect; one can be a perfect knower of righteousness, not yet a perfect doer; one can be perfect in loving enemies who is not yet perfect in bearing with them.

And of one who is perfect in this, that he loves all men—seeing that he has come even to the love of enemies—it is asked whether he is now perfect also in that very love, that is, whether he loves those whom he loves as much as that unchangeable rule of truth prescribes that they ought to be loved. When, therefore, anyone's perfection is read of in the Scriptures, in what respect it is spoken of must not be carelessly considered, since one is not on that account understood to be wholly without sin because in some respect he is said to be perfect.

Although even in this it can be so said that it is not because there is now nothing in which he may advance, but because he has advanced in the greatest part, that he is held worthy of this name—just as in the doctrine of the law anyone can be called perfect, even though something still lies hidden from him; just as the Apostle called those perfect to whom nevertheless he says: And if you are of any other mind in anything, this too God will reveal to you; nevertheless, in that to which we have come, in it let us walk (Phil 3:15-16).

16. 23. Nor is it to be denied that God commands this—that we ought to be so perfect in doing righteousness that we have no sin at all. For neither will it be sin, if anything is, if it is not divinely commanded that it be not. "Why, then," they say, "does he command what he knows no man will do?" In this way it can also be asked why he commanded those first men, who were only two, what he knew they would not do. For it is not to be said that he commanded for this reason, that one of us might do it if they did not; for this—that they should not take food from that tree—God commanded none but them alone (See Gen 2:17), because, just as he knew what righteousness they would not do, so he also knew what righteousness he himself would do concerning them. In that way, then, he commands all men that they do no sin, although he foreknows that no one will fulfill this—so that whoever impiously and damnably despise his precepts, he himself may do, in their condemnation, what is just; but whoever, advancing obediently and piously in his precepts, yet not fulfilling all that he commanded, have, just as they wish it forgiven them, so forgiven others their sins, he himself may do, in their cleansing, what is good. For how is it forgiven the one who forgives, through the mercy of God, if it is not sin? Or how is it not forbidden, through the justice of God, if it is sin?

16. 24. "But behold," they say, "the Apostle says: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; there remains for me a crown of righteousness (2 Tim 4:7-8); which he would not say if he had any sin." Nay rather, let them answer how he could say these things, for whom there still remained the so great struggle of the very passion which he had said was now hanging over him, so troublesome and great a contest. Or was there still little lacking to the finishing of his course, when that was lacking in which he was going to face a sharper and crueler enemy? But if for this reason he rejoiced in such words, certain and secure, because he who had already revealed that same passion to be imminent had now made him certain and secure of victory in so great a contest to come, he said these things not in the fullest reality but in the firmest hope, and indicated what he presumed would be as though it had been done. If, then, he had added even this to these words, so as to say, "I now have no sin," we would understand that he said this too not of the perfection of a thing done but of a thing to come. For so it pertained to the finishing of his course to have no sin—which these men suppose was already completed in him while he said these things—just as it pertained to the finishing of his course to overcome his adversary in the contest of the passion, which even they themselves must confess was, when he said these things, still to be completed in him.

This whole thing, then, we say was still to be perfected at the time when, already trusting in advance in the promise of God, he so spoke of it all as though it had been accomplished. For to the finishing of his course there pertained also that he forgave their debts to his debtors and so prayed that they be forgiven him (See Matt 6:12); by which promise of the Lord he was most certain that in that end—which, though still to come, he now by trusting said was fulfilled—he would have no sin. For, to omit other things, I wonder whether, when he said those words by which he seemed to these men to have had no sin, that thorn of the flesh had already been taken from him, concerning the taking away of which he had asked the Lord three times and had received the answer: My grace is sufficient for you; strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). For the perfecting of this so great a man it was necessary that the angel of Satan not be taken from him, by whom he was therefore buffeted, lest he be lifted up by the greatness of the revelations; and does anyone dare even to think or say that anyone set under the burden of this life is clean from all sin whatsoever?

16. 25. Though there be men excelling in so great a righteousness that God speaks to them from the pillar of cloud, such as Moses and Aaron among his priests and Samuel among those who call upon his name (Ps 99:6 (98:6))—whose great praises of piety and innocence the truthful Scripture proclaims from his earliest boyhood, from the time when his mother, fulfilling her vow, set him in the temple of God and dedicated him as a servant to the Lord—yet even of such it is written: You were gracious to them, and taking vengeance on all their doings (Ps 99:8 (98:8)). For on the sons of condemnation he takes vengeance in anger, but on the sons of grace he takes vengeance graciously, while he rebukes him whom he loves and scourges every son whom he receives (See Prov 3:12; Heb 12:6).

But no vengeance, no rebuke, no scourge of God is owed except to sin, except for him who was prepared for scourges (See Ps 38:18 (37:18)), that he might be tried in all things according to our likeness, without sin, that he might be the holy priest of the holy, interceding even for the holy, who not falsely say even of themselves: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12). Hence even those who argue against these things, although they are of chaste life and praiseworthy conduct and do not hesitate to do what the Lord commanded that rich man who sought counsel for the obtaining of eternal life—when he had answered that he had already fulfilled all the commandments of the law, the Lord enjoined that, if he wished to be perfect, he should sell all that he had and give to the poor and transfer his treasure into heaven—yet none of them dares to say that he is without sin (See Matt 19:20-21). And this, as we believe, they say with no deceitful mind; but if they lie, by that very thing they begin either to increase or to have sin.

17. 26. Now, then, let us see what I put in the third place. Since, with the human will helped by divine grace, a man can be without sin in this life, why is he not? I could most easily and most truly answer: Because men do not will it. But if it is asked of me why they do not will it, we go on at length; nevertheless I will say this too briefly, without prejudice to a more diligent inquiry. Men do not will to do what is just, either because it lies hidden whether it is just, or because it does not delight them. For we will each thing the more vehemently the more certainly we know how good it is and the more ardently we delight in it. Ignorance, therefore, and infirmity are vices that hinder the will from being moved to do a good work or to abstain from an evil work.

But that what lay hidden may become known and what did not delight may become sweet belongs to the grace of God, by which he helps the wills of men; and that they are not helped, the cause is likewise in themselves, not in God—whether they are predestined to be condemned on account of the iniquity of pride, or, against their very pride, to be judged and instructed, if they are sons of mercy. Hence Jeremiah, when he had said, I know, Lord, that man's way is not in himself, nor is it for a man to walk and direct his steps, immediately added: Correct me, Lord, but yet in judgment and not in your fury (Jer 10:23-24), as though he said: "I know that it pertains to my correction that I am less helped by you to have my steps perfectly directed; yet do not deal with me in this very thing as though in the fury by which you have determined to condemn the wicked, but as in the judgment by which you teach your own not to be proud." Hence elsewhere it is said: And your judgments will help me (Ps 119:175 (118:175)).

17. 27. Refer, then, the cause of no human fault to God. For the cause of all human vices is pride. To convict and take this away, such a medicine came from heaven: to man, lifted up through pride, God came down humble through mercy, commending a clear and manifest grace in that very man whom he took up with so great a love beyond his fellows. For he himself too, so joined to the Word of God that by that conjunction he became one Son of God, and the same one Son of man, did not do this by any merits of his own will going before. For it was fitting that he be one; but there would be even two and three and more, if this could come about, not through the proper gift of God, but through the free choice of man. This, then, is especially commended; this, in the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ, is, as far as I dare to judge, especially taught and learned (See Heb 1:9; Col 2:3).

Therefore each of us now knows, now does not know, how to take up, carry out, and fulfill a good work; now delights in it, now does not delight—so that he may know that it is not of his own ability but of the divine gift, either that he knows or that he delights; and thus he may be healed of the vanity of self-exaltation and may know how truly it was said—not of this earth, but spiritually: The Lord will give sweetness, and our earth will give its fruit (Ps 85:12 (84:13)). But a good work delights the more, the more God is loved, the highest and unchangeable good and the author of all goods of whatever kind. But that God may be loved, his love is poured out in our hearts, not through ourselves, but through the Holy Spirit, who was given to us (Rom 5:5).

18. 28. But men labor to find in our will what good is our own, which is not to us from God; and how it can be found I do not know. For apart from what the Apostle says, when he was speaking of the goods of men—For what do you have that you have not received? But if you have received, why do you boast, as though you had not received (1 Cor 4:7)?—the very reasoning that can be entered into about these matters by such as we are vehemently presses any of us inquiring, lest we so defend grace that we seem to take away free choice, and again, lest we so assert free choice that we be judged ungrateful for the grace of God by a proud impiety.

18. 29. For that saying of the Apostle which I recalled some have wished to defend in such a way as to say that whatever of good will a man has is therefore to be attributed to God, because this too could not be in him if the man himself did not exist; but since, that he be something and be a man, he has it only from God, why should there not be attributed to God the author even whatever of good will is in him, which would not be unless there were something in which it could be? But in this way it can also be said that an evil will too is to be attributed to God the author, because neither could it be in a man unless there were a man in whom it could be. But that there be a man, God is the author; thus too the author of his evil will, which could not at all be unless it had a man in whom to be, must be referred to God the author. Which it is sinful to say.

18. 30. Wherefore, unless we maintain that not only the choice of the will—which is freely bent this way and that, and is among those natural goods which even an evil man can use badly—but also a good will, which is now among those goods whose use cannot be bad, cannot be to us except from God, I do not know how we may defend what was said: For what do you have that you have not received (1 Cor 4:7)? For if some free will is to us from God, which can still be either good or evil, but a good will is from ourselves, then what is from ourselves is better than what is from him. But if it is most absurd to say this, we must confess that we obtain even a good will divinely. Although it would be a wonder if the will could so stand in a certain middle that it be neither good nor evil. For either we love righteousness, and it is good, and, if we love it more, it is more good, if less, less good; or, if we do not love it at all, it is not good. But who would doubt to say that a will in no way loving righteousness is not only an evil will but even a most evil one? If, then, the will is either good or evil, and surely we do not have the evil one from God, it remains that we have a good will from God; otherwise I do not know, when we are justified by him, by what other gift of his we ought to rejoice. And from this, I think, it is written: The will is prepared by the Lord (Prov 8:35). And in the Psalms: By the Lord the steps of a man are directed, and he will choose his way (Ps 37:23 (36:23)). And what the Apostle says: For it is God who works in you both to will and to work according to good will (Phil 2:13).

18. 31. Wherefore, since the fact that we turn away from God is our own—and this is the evil will—but the fact that we turn toward God we cannot do unless he himself arouses and helps us—and this is the good will—what do we have that we have not received (See 1 Cor 4:7)? But if we have received, why do we boast as though we had not received? And by this, that he who boasts may boast in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31; 2 Cor 10:17), that God has willed to grant this to those to whom he has willed belongs to his mercy, not to their merit; but that he has not willed it for those for whom he has not willed it belongs to truth. For a just penalty is owed to sinners, since the Lord God loves mercy and truth (Ps 84:12 (83:12)); and, mercy and truth have met each other (Ps 85:11 (84:11)); and, all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth (Ps 25:10 (24:10)). And who could unfold how often divine Scripture recalls these two joined together? Sometimes even with the names changed, so that grace is put for mercy—whence comes: And we saw his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14)—sometimes judgment for truth, as it is: Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, O Lord (Ps 101:1 (100:1)).

18. 32. But why he wills to turn these and to punish those for turning away—since in granting the benefit no one would justly reprove the merciful one, and in exercising vengeance no one would justly reprove the truthful one, just as in those Gospel laborers no one would justly blame him who rendered to some the agreed wage (See Matt 20:9-10) and lavished on others even what was not agreed—the counsel of a more hidden justice nevertheless lies with him.

19. 32. Let us, as far as is granted, be wise and understand, if we can, that the good Lord God therefore sometimes does not grant even to his holy ones either a certain knowledge of some just work or a victorious delight in it, so that they may know that the light by which their darkness is illumined, and the sweetness by which he gives their earth to yield its fruit, are not from themselves but from him (See Luke 1:79; Ps 85:12 (84:13)).

19. 33. But when we beseech from him his help to do and perfect righteousness, what else do we beseech but that he open what lay hidden and make sweet what did not delight? For by his grace we have learned that this too is to be besought from him, while before it lay hidden; by his grace we have loved it, while before it did not delight—so that he who boasts may boast not in himself but in the Lord (See 1 Cor 1:31). For to be lifted up into the pride of one's own will is of men, not of the work of God; for God does not compel or help them to this. There goes before, then, in the will of man a certain appetite of his own power, so that he becomes disobedient through pride. But even if this appetite were not present, it would be nothing troublesome; and when a man willed it, he would without difficulty have refused it; but, by a due and just penalty, there followed such a vice that it was now troublesome to obey righteousness.

Unless this vice be overcome with the help of grace, no one is turned toward righteousness; unless he be healed by the working of grace, no one fully enjoys the peace of righteousness. But by whose grace is he overcome and healed, except his to whom it is said: Turn us, O God of our healings, and turn away your wrath from us (Ps 85:4 (84:5))? And if he does this, he does it by mercy, so that it is said: He has not done to us according to our sins, nor repaid us according to our iniquities (Ps 103:10 (102:10)). And for those for whom he does not do it, he does not do it by judgment. And who will say to him, "Why have you done this?"—to him to whom mercy and judgment are sung with the pious mind of the holy (See Ps 101:1 (100:1))? For this reason he heals even his holy and faithful ones more slowly in certain vices, so that in these the good delights them less than suffices for fulfilling righteousness in every part—whether when it lies hidden or when it is even manifest—so that, as far as pertains to the most perfect rule of his truth, not every living person is justified in his sight (See Ps 143:2 (142:2)).

Nor in this very thing does he wish us to be deserving of condemnation, but humble, commending to us his same grace, lest, having obtained ease in all things, we suppose to be ours what is his—an error much contrary to religion and piety. Nor on that account, however, let us suppose that we must remain in those same vices, but, against pride above all—on account of which we are humbled in them—let us both vigilantly strive and ardently beseech him, understanding at the same time that we have both this striving and this praying by his gift, so that in all things, not looking to ourselves but having our hearts on high, we may give thanks to the Lord our God and, when we boast, may boast in him (See 1 Cor 1:31).

20. 34. Now there remains that fourth point, with which unraveled—as much as the Lord helps—this so lengthy discourse too may at last take its end: whether one who has never at all had any sin, or will have any, is not only anyone of men born, but also could ever have been or can be. That there is, was, or will be no such one except the one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (See 1 Tim 2:5), is most certain. On this we have already said many things concerning the baptism of little ones, who, if they have no sin, then not only are there innumerable men without sin, but also have been and will be. Further, if that has been truly established—of which we treated in the second place—that no one is without sin, then surely not even little ones are without sin. From which it is concluded that, even if anyone in this life could have been who was so perfected in virtue that he came to so great a fullness of righteousness as to have no sin at all, it is nevertheless not to be doubted that he was previously a sinner, from which he was turned toward this newness of life.

For in that second place one thing was asked, and in this fourth another is proposed. For in that one it was inquired whether anyone in this life comes, through the grace of God by the zeal of his will, to the perfect life which is wholly without any sin; but in this fourth it is asked whether there is among the sons of men, or could have been, or can be, one who comes not from sin to the most perfect righteousness, but is bound by no sin at all ever. Therefore, if those things are true which we have said so many of concerning little ones, there is no such one among the sons of men, nor was, nor will be, except the one Mediator, in whom the propitiation and justification for us is set (See Rom 3:25), through which, the enmities of sins being ended, we are reconciled to God (See Rom 5:10). It is therefore not beside the point, as far as seems to suffice for the present cause, to repeat a few things from the very beginning of the human race, by which the reader's mind may be formed against certain things that might disturb it.

21. 35. After those first men, one man Adam and from him Eve his wife, having received the precept of God, refused to keep obedience, a just and due penalty followed them. For the Lord had threatened that on the day on which they ate the forbidden food they would die the death (See Gen 2:17). Accordingly, because they had received the power of using for food every tree that was in paradise—in which God had also planted the tree of life—but he had forbidden them only that one which he called of the knowledge of good and evil, by which name the consequence of experience would be signified, and what good they would feel by keeping and what evil by transgressing the prohibition, they are surely rightly understood to have, before the malign persuasion of the devil, abstained from the forbidden food and used the things granted, and by this both the rest and especially the tree of life (See Gen 2:9, 16-17).

For what more absurd than that they should be believed to have taken nourishment from the other trees, but not also from that one, which both had been likewise permitted and, by a special usefulness, did not allow the bodies—animal though they were—to be changed through the decay of the ages and to grow old into death, granting this benefit to the human body from its own body, and showing by a mystical signification what is conferred through wisdom, whose figure it bore, upon the rational soul, so that, vivified by its nourishment, it might by no means be turned into the decay and death of wickedness? For deservedly it is said of it: It is a tree of life to those who embrace it (Prov 3:18).

As this tree was in the bodily paradise, so that one was in the spiritual paradise—the one offering vigor to the senses of the outer man, the other to those of the inner man, a vital vigor without any change for the worse by time. They served God, then, by the piety of obedience strongly commended to them, by which alone God is worshiped. How great this is in itself, and how it alone suffices to keep the rational creature under the Creator, could not be more excellently intimated than that they were forbidden a tree that was not evil.

For far be it that the Creator of good things, who made all things and behold, they were very good (Gen 1:31), should plant anything evil even in the fertility of that bodily paradise.

But that it might be shown to man—for whom under such a Lord servitude was most useful—how great was the good of obedience alone, which alone he had required of his servant, for whom it was expedient to obey not on account of that one's dominion but rather on account of the usefulness of the one serving, they were forbidden that tree, by which, had they used it unforbidden, they would have suffered no evil at all, so that what they suffered by using it after the prohibition might be sufficiently understood—namely, that this tree, perilous by a harmful food, did not bring it upon them, but only the obedience violated.

22. 36. Before they had violated this, then, they were pleasing to God and God was pleasing to them, and although they bore an animal body, they felt nothing disobedient moved in it against themselves. For the order of justice brought it about that, because their soul had received the body as a servant from the Lord, just as the soul itself obeyed its Lord, so its body should obey it and render to it a servitude suited to that life without any resistance. Hence too they were naked and were not ashamed (See Gen 2:25).

For the rational soul is now ashamed, by a natural shame, that in the flesh, into whose servitude it received the right of power, it cannot, by some infirmity, bring it about that the members are not moved when it does not will and are moved when it does. For this reason these members are in any chaste person deservedly called shameful, in that they are aroused against the mind, their mistress, as it were of their own power, as it pleases them, and the reins of virtue have only this much right over them—that they not allow them to come to unclean and unlawful corruptions.

This disobedience of the flesh, then, which is in the very movement, even if it is not allowed to have its effect, was not in those first men then, when they were naked and were not ashamed. For the rational soul, the mistress of the flesh, had not yet stood out disobedient to its Lord, so that by a reciprocal penalty it would experience its servant the flesh disobedient, with a certain sense of confusion and of its own trouble—a sense which surely it itself, by its own disobedience, did not bring upon God. For it is nothing shameful or troublesome to God if we do not obey him, whose supreme power over us we can in no way diminish; but it is shameful to us that the flesh does not serve our command, because this comes about through the infirmity which by sinning we deserved, and it is called the sin dwelling in our members (See Rom 7:17, 23).

But this sin is such that it is the penalty of sin. Finally, after that transgression was committed and the disobedient soul was turned away from the law of its Lord, its servant—that is, its body—began to have against it a law of disobedience, and those men were ashamed of their nakedness, the movement they had not before felt being noticed in themselves; which noticing was called the opening of the eyes (See Gen 3:7); for they did not wander among those trees with closed eyes. So too it is written of Hagar: Her eyes were opened, and she saw a well (See Gen 21:19). Then those men covered the shameful parts, which God had made members for them, but they themselves made shameful.

23. 37. From this law of sin is born the flesh of sin, to be expiated through the sacrament of him who came in the likeness of sinful flesh (See Rom 8:3), that the body of sin might be made void—which he also calls the body of this death (See Rom 6:6)—from which nothing frees the wretched man but the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (See Rom 7:24-25). For this law, the beginning of death, passed from them into their posterity in the same way as the toil by which all men toil on the earth, in the same way as the bearing of children with pains in women (See Gen 3:16). For these things, when they were convicted of sin, they deserved by the sentence of God, which we see fulfilled not in them alone but also in their successors, in some more, in others less, yet in all.

And so, since the first righteousness of those first men was to obey God and not to have in their members this law of concupiscence against the law of their mind (See Rom 7:23), now, after their sin, our flesh of sin being born from them, it is held a great thing by those who obey God not to obey the desires of that same concupiscence (See Rom 6:12) and to crucify in themselves the flesh with its passions and concupiscences, that they may be Jesus Christ's, who figured this on his cross, to whom by his grace he gave the power to become sons of God. For he did not give this to all men, but to as many as received him, that they who had been born in the flesh to the age might be reborn to God in spirit (See John 3:5). For thus it was said of them: But as many as received him, he gave them the power to become sons of God, who were born not of flesh, not of blood, not of the will of man nor of the will of the flesh, but of God (John 1:12-13).

24. 38. But going on he added: And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14); as though saying: This indeed was a great thing done in them, that they who had first been born of flesh to the age—though created by God himself—should be born to God of God; but a far more wonderful thing was done, in that, although it belonged to nature for these men to be born of flesh, but to a benefit to be born of God, in order to impart this benefit, he who was naturally born of God deigned mercifully to be born also of flesh.

For this is: And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Through this, he says, it came about that we, born of flesh and flesh, afterward, by being born of the Spirit, might be spirit and might dwell in God, because God too, born of God, afterward, by being born of flesh, was made flesh and dwelt among us. For the Word, which was made flesh, was in the beginning, and with God was God (See John 1:14, 1).

Nevertheless that very participation of him in our lower things, that ours might be in his higher things, held a certain middle even in the nativity of the flesh, so that we indeed were born in the flesh of sin (See Rom 8:3), but he in the likeness of sinful flesh; we not only of flesh and blood (See John 1:13), but also of the will of man and the will of the flesh; but he was born only of flesh and blood, not of the will of man nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. And therefore we are born unto death on account of sin, he unto death for our sake without sin. But just as his lower things, by which he descended to us, are not in every way made equal to our lower things, in which he found us here (See Rom 5:6, 9; 1 Cor 15:3; 2 Cor 5:15), so too our higher things, by which we ascend to him, will not be made equal to his higher things, in which we are going to find him there. For we, by his grace, will have been made sons of God; he was always by nature the Son of God; we, once turned, will cling to him, unequal to God; he, never turned away, remains equal to God (See Phil 2:6); we are partakers of eternal life, he is eternal life. He alone, therefore, even when made man, remaining God, never had any sin, nor took up the flesh of sin, although from the maternal flesh of sin. For what of flesh he took up from there, he surely either cleansed before taking it up, or cleansed by taking it up. Therefore he created a virgin mother conceiving not by the law of the flesh of sin—that is, not by the movement of carnal concupiscence—but by pious faith earning that the holy shoot should come to be in her; whom he chose, of whom he would be created; he chose her of whom he would be created. How much more, then, must the flesh of sin be baptized for the escaping of judgment, if the flesh without sin was baptized for an example of imitation!

25. 39. But what we answered above against those who say If a sinner begot a sinner, a just man too ought to have begotten a just one, this we answer also to those who say that one born of a baptized man ought already to be held as baptized. "For why," they say, "could he not have been baptized in the loins of his father, if, according to the letter that is written to the Hebrews, Levi could be tithed in the loins of Abraham (See Heb 7:9)?" Let those who say this attend that Levi was not tithed afterward, not because he had already been tithed in the loins of Abraham, but because he was so ordained in the honor of the priesthood that he received tithes, not gave them; otherwise neither would the rest of his brothers, who gave to him, be tithed, because they too had already been tithed in the loins of Abraham by Melchizedek (See Heb 7:10).

25. 40. But lest anyone say that the sons of Abraham could rightly be tithed, although they had already been tithed in the loins of their father, because tithing was such a thing as had often to be done in each man—just as the Israelites every year, indeed from all their fruits, were wont their whole life to give frequent tithes to the Levites—but that baptism is such a sacrament as is given once, and that, if anyone had already received this when he was in his father, he ought to be reckoned as nothing but baptized when one who had been baptized begot him: whoever says this, that I may not argue long, let him look to circumcision, which was done once and yet was done in individuals individually. As, then, in the time of that sacrament one who was born of a circumcised man had to be circumcised, so now one who is born of a baptized man must be baptized.

25. 41. "But the Apostle says: Your children would be unclean, but now they are holy (1 Cor 7:14); and therefore," they say, "the children of the faithful ought by no means already to be baptized." I wonder that those say this who deny that sin is drawn originally from Adam. For if they take this saying of the Apostle in such a way as to believe that sanctified children are born of the faithful, why do they themselves not doubt that these too ought to be baptized? Why, finally, are they unwilling to confess that some sin is drawn originally from a sinful parent, if some holiness is drawn from a holy one? And it is indeed not against our assertion, even if holy children are propagated from the faithful, that we say that, if they are not baptized, they go on to condemnation—those to whom they themselves too bar the kingdom of heaven, although they say that they have no sin, either their own or original. Or if it seems to them unworthy that the holy be condemned, how will it be worthy that the holy be separated from the kingdom of God?

Let them rather attend to how some sin is not drawn from sinful parents, if some holiness is drawn from holy ones and uncleanness from the unclean. For he said both who said: Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. Let them also explain how it is just that the holy, born of the faithful, and the unclean, born of unbelievers, are nevertheless equally, if they have not been baptized, not permitted to enter the kingdom of God. What, then, does this holiness profit them?

For if they confessed that the unclean born of unbelievers are condemned, but that the holy children of the faithful cannot enter into the kingdom of God unless they have been baptized, yet are not condemned, because they are holy, there would be some sort of distinction; but as it is, they say that those born of the holy are holy and those born of the unclean are unclean equally, and that, because they have no sin, they are not condemned, and that, because they do not have baptism, they are separated from the kingdom of God. Who would believe that such minds do not see this absurdity?

25. 42. But how little contrary to our opinion—nay, to the Apostle's own, who said, From one all unto condemnation, and, from one all unto justification of life (Rom 5:16, 18)—is what he says, when he was dealing with another matter, Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy (1 Cor 7:14), attend a little.

26. Sanctification is not of one kind; for I think that catechumens too are in a certain way of their own sanctified, through the sign of Christ and the prayer of the laying on of hands, and that what they receive, although it is not the body of Christ, is nevertheless holy, and holier than the foods by which we are nourished, since it is a sacrament (See Augustine, De catech. rud. 26, 50; Confess. 1, 11). But the same Apostle said that even the foods themselves, which we use for the necessity of sustaining this life, are sanctified (See 1 Tim 4:5) through the word of God and prayer, by which we surely pray when we are about to refresh our little bodies. As, then, this sanctification of foods does not bring it about that what has entered the mouth does not go into the belly and is not cast out into the privy through the corruption (See Matt 15:17) by which all earthly things are dissolved—whence the Lord too exhorts us to another food, which is not corrupted (See John 6:27)—so the sanctification of a catechumen, if he has not been baptized, does not avail him for entering the kingdom of heaven or for the forgiveness of sins. And by this, that sanctification too, of whatever kind it is, which the Apostle said is in the children of the faithful, does not pertain at all to this question concerning baptism and the origin or forgiveness of sin. For he says that unbelieving spouses too are sanctified in believing spouses, speaking thus in that very place: For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving woman is sanctified in the brother; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy (1 Cor 7:14). No one, I suppose, understands so unbelievingly—whatever he understands in these words—as on this account to judge that a husband who is not a Christian, because his wife was a Christian, both no longer needs to be baptized, and has already come to the forgiveness of sins, and is going to enter into the kingdom of heaven, because he was said to be sanctified in his wife.

27. 43. But whoever is still disturbed as to why those who are now born of the baptized are baptized, let him briefly receive this. Just as the generation of the flesh of sin through the one Adam draws unto condemnation all who are generated in that way, so the regeneration of the spirit of grace through the one Jesus Christ leads unto justification of eternal life all who, predestined, are regenerated in that way (See Rom 5:18). But the sacrament of baptism is surely the sacrament of regeneration. Wherefore, just as a man who has not lived cannot die, and one who has not died cannot rise again (See Titus 3:5), so one who has not been born cannot be reborn. From which it is concluded that no one could have been reborn in his parent, not having been born. But it is fitting that, if he has been born, he be reborn, because unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). It is fitting, therefore, that even the little one be imbued with the sacrament of regeneration, lest without it he go ill out of this life; which is done only for the forgiveness of sins. Which Christ also showed in that very place, when, asked how these things could come about, he recalled what Moses did in the lifting up of the serpent (See John 3:14). Since, then, through the sacrament of baptism infants are conformed to the death of Christ, it must be confessed that they are freed from the serpent's bite, if we do not wish to stray from the rule of Christian faith. Which bite, nevertheless, they received not in their own life but in him on whom it was first inflicted.

27. 44. Nor let this deceive anyone, that a parent's own sins, after his conversion, do not harm him; "for how much more," they say, "can they not harm his son!" But those who hold this do not attend that, just as a parent's own sins do not harm him through the fact that he was reborn in spirit (See John 3:5), so the things drawn from a parent will harm one who is born of him unless he is reborn in that way, because even renewed parents beget carnally not from the first fruits of newness but from the remnants of oldness, and the children, propagated wholly old in the flesh of sin from the remaining oldness of their parents, escape the condemnation owed to the old man through the sacrament of spiritual regeneration and renewal (See Titus 3:5).

For this we ought especially to attend and remember, on account of the questions that have been raised on this matter or can still be raised: that only the full and perfect forgiveness of all sins comes about by baptism (See Col 2:13), but that the quality of the man himself is not all at once wholly changed; rather, the spiritual first fruits, in those advancing well, with newness growing from day to day, change in themselves what is carnally old, until the whole be so renewed (See 2 Cor 4:16) that even the animal infirmity of the body comes to spiritual firmness and incorruption.

28. 45. But this law of sin—which the Apostle also calls sin, when he says, Let not sin, then, reign in your mortal body, so as to obey its desires (Rom 6:12)—does not so remain in the members of those who have been reborn of water and the Spirit (See Rom 7:23; John 3:5) as though forgiveness of it had not been made, where there comes about an altogether full and perfect forgiveness of sins, all the enmities being slain (See Eph 2:16) by which we were separated from God (See Isa 59:2); but it remains in the oldness of the flesh as overcome and slain, if it does not in a certain way revive through unlawful consentings and is recalled into its own reign and dominion.

But from this oldness of the flesh, in which is that law of sin, or sin now forgiven, the life of the spirit—in whose newness the baptized are reborn through the grace of God—is so distinguished that it was too little for the Apostle to say (See Rom 7:6) that such men are not in sin, unless he also said that they are not in the flesh itself, before they depart from this mortal life. For those who are in the flesh, he says, cannot please God; but you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you (Rom 8:8-9).

Nevertheless, just as those use the flesh itself well, corruptible though it is, who turn its members to good works—and they are not in this flesh, because they are not wise according to it nor live according to it—just as, finally, they use even death, which is the penalty of the first sin, well who expend it bravely and patiently for their brethren, for the faith, for any true and holy righteousness, so the faithful married too use well even that law of sin which, now forgiven, remains in the oldness of the flesh: who, from the fact that they are in the newness of Christ, by no means suffer lust to have dominion over them, but, from the fact that they still draw the oldness of Adam, mortally beget children to be immortally regenerated, with that propagation of sin by which those who have been reborn are not held bound and by which those who are born are loosed by being reborn (See Rom 7:23).

As long, then, as the law remains by way of concupiscence in the members, while it itself remains, its guilt is loosed; but it is loosed for one who has received the sacrament of regeneration and has now begun to be renewed. But what is born of that remaining oldness of concupiscence needs to be reborn, that it may be healed, because faithful parents, both born carnally and reborn spiritually, begot their children carnally; but the children, before they were born, how could they be reborn?

28. 46. Nor wonder that I said that, while the law of sin remains by way of concupiscence, its guilt is loosed through the grace of the sacrament. For just as wicked deeds and words and thoughts, as far as concerns the very movements of soul and body, have already passed away and are not, yet, though they have passed away and no longer exist, their guilt remains unless it is loosed by the forgiveness of sins, so, on the contrary, in this law of concupiscence, not now past but still remaining, its guilt is loosed and will be no more, when the full forgiveness of sins comes about in baptism. Finally, if departure from this life follows at once, there will be nothing at all to hold the man bound, all the things that held him being loosed. As, then, it is no wonder that the guilt of past deeds, thoughts, and words remains before the forgiveness of sins, so, on the contrary, it ought to be no wonder that the guilt of remaining concupiscence passes away after the forgiveness of sins.

29. 47. Since these things are so, from the time when through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death, and so it passed into all men (See Rom 5:12) until the end of this carnal generation and corruptible age, whose sons beget and are begotten (See Luke 20:34), there being no man of whom, set in this life, it could be truly said that he has no sin at all, except the one Mediator (See 1 Tim 2:5; Rom 5:10), who reconciles us to our Creator through the forgiveness of sins, that same our Lord did not in any times of the human race, before the last judgment still to come, deny this his remedy to those whom by a most certain foreknowledge and most just beneficence he predestined to reign with him unto eternal life. For before the birth of his flesh and the infirmity of his passion and the power of his resurrection, he formed those who then were, by faith in those future things, unto the inheritance of eternal salvation—those things by faith in whose present reality he formed those who were present while they were being done and saw the things foretold being fulfilled; and by faith in those same things, now past, he does not cease to form those who came afterward, both ourselves and those who will be hereafter. There is, then, one faith which saves all (See Luke 8:48) who are saved by being reborn from carnal generation into spiritual (See John 3:5), terminated in him who came to be judged and to die for us, the judge of the living and the dead. But the sacraments of this one faith, according to the opportunity of signification, have been varied through various times.

29. 48. The same, therefore, is the Savior of little ones and of the older, of whom the angels said, Today a Savior is born to you (Luke 2:11), and of whom it was said to the Virgin Mary, You will call his name Jesus; for he will save his people from their sins (Matt 1:21), where it was openly shown that he is named with this name, by which he was called Jesus, on account of the salvation which he grants us; for Jesus in Latin is "Savior." Who, then, is there who would dare to say that the Lord Christ is Jesus only to the older and not also to little ones? He who came in the likeness of sinful flesh (See Rom 8:3), that he might make void the body of sin (See Rom 6:6), in which—most weak, with infantile members suited or fit for no use—the rational soul is weighed down by a pitiable ignorance.

Which ignorance, plainly, I would in no way believe to have been in that infant in whom the Word was made flesh, that he might dwell among us (See John 1:14); nor would I have suspected in the little Christ that infirmity of soul which we see in little ones. For through this, when they are disturbed by irrational movements, they are restrained by no reasoning, by no command, but sometimes by pain or by the fear of pain, so that you may see them altogether to be sons of that disobedience which is moved in the members, warring against the law of the mind (See Rom 7:23), and does not rest when reason wills; but it itself too is often checked, as it were by a beating, by bodily pain, or by being frightened, or by some such movement of the soul, yet not with the will commanding. But because there was in him the likeness of sinful flesh, he willed to undergo the changes of the ages, beginning from infancy itself, so that that flesh seems to have been able to come to death even by growing old, had he not been slain as a young man. Which death, nevertheless, in the flesh of sin is rendered as owed to disobedience, but in the likeness of sinful flesh was taken up by the will of obedience. For, about to go to it and to suffer it, he says this: Behold, the prince of this world comes, and in me he will find nothing; but that all may know that I do the will of my Father, rise, let us go hence (John 14:30-31). Having said these things, he went on to a death not owed, made obedient unto death (See Phil 2:8).

30. 49. Wherefore those who say, If by the sin of the first man it came about that we die, by the coming of Christ it ought to come about that, believing in him, we do not die, and add, as it were a reason, saying, For the transgression of the transgressor did not harm us more than the incarnation or redemption of the Savior profited us—why do they not rather attend to this, hear this, believe this without dispute, which the Apostle spoke without ambiguity: Since by a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:21-22)? For he was speaking of nothing other than the resurrection of the body. He said, then, that the death of the body of all came about through one man, and he promised that the resurrection of the body of all unto eternal life would come about through the one Christ. How, then, did that one harm us more by sinning than this one profited by redeeming, when through that one's sin we die temporally, but through this one's redemption we rise again not to a temporal life but to a perpetual one? Our body, then, is dead on account of sin, but the body of Christ alone is dead without sin, so that, by the shedding of blood without guilt, the bonds of all guilts might be blotted out (See Col 2:14), by which the debtors who believe in him were before held by the devil. Therefore: This is my blood, which will be shed for many unto the forgiveness of sins (Matt 26:28).

31. 50. But he could have granted this too to believers, that they should not experience the death even of this body; but if he had done this, a certain felicity would be added to the flesh, but the fortitude of faith would be diminished. For men so fear this death that they would call Christians happy for no other reason than that they could not die at all. And by this no one, on account of that life which after this death is to be blessed, would hasten to the grace of Christ through the virtue even of despising that death, but men would believe in Christ more daintily, for the removing of the trouble of death.

He bestowed, then, more grace; he granted, without doubt, more to his faithful. For what great thing was it, seeing that those who believed did not die, to believe oneself not going to die? How much greater is it, how much braver, how much more praiseworthy, so to believe that, about to die, one hopes to live without end! Finally, this he will grant to some at the end, that they will not feel this death by a sudden transformation, but, together with those rising, will be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so will always live with the Lord (See 1 Thess 4:16-17).

And rightly for them, because there will be no posterity, who for this reason believe not by hoping for what they do not see but by loving what they see. Such a faith is nerveless and weak and not to be called faith at all, since faith has been thus defined: Faith is the substance of those who hope, the conviction of things that are not seen (Heb 11:1).

Hence too in the same letter to the Hebrews, where this too is written, when he had consequently enumerated certain men who pleased God by faith, he says: According to faith all these died, not having received the promises, but seeing them far off and saluting them and confessing that they are guests and pilgrims upon the earth (Heb 11:13). And a little after he thus concluded the same praise of faith: And all these, he says, having obtained testimony through faith, did not receive the promises of God; for God provided something better for us, that they should not be perfected without us (Heb 11:39-40). This praise of faith would not be, nor would there be faith at all, as I have already said, if men in believing pursued visible rewards—that is, if the reward of immortality were rendered to the faithful in this age.

31. 51. Hence the Lord himself too willed to die, that, as it is written of him, through death he might make void him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were all their life subject to slavery (Heb 2:14-15). By this testimony that too is sufficiently shown: that this death of the body came about with the devil as prince and author—that is, from the sin which he persuaded; for not otherwise would he be most truly said to have the power of death.

Hence he who was dying without any sin, either original or his own, said what I recalled a little before: Behold, the prince of the world comes—that is, the devil, who has the power of death—and in me he will find nothing (Jn 14:30-31), that is, of sin, on account of which he has made men die. And as though it were said to him, "Why, then, do you die?"—But that all may know, he says, that I do the will of my Father, rise, let us go hence; that is, "that I may die, having no cause of death from sin under the author of sin, but, from obedience and righteousness, made obedient unto death" (See Phil 2:8). By that testimony, then, this too was shown: that the fact that the faithful conquer the fear of death pertains to the contest of faith itself—which surely would have been lacking, if immortality had at once attended those who believed.

32. 52. And so, although the Lord did many visible miracles, whence faith itself might, as it were from certain milky beginnings, germinate and from that tenderness grow together into its own strength—for it is the stronger the more it now does not seek these things—nevertheless he willed that what we hope is promised should be awaited invisibly, that the just man might live by faith (See Rom 1:17); to such a degree that he himself, who rose on the third day, did not will to be among men, but, having shown in his flesh the example of resurrection to those whom he deigned to have as witnesses of this matter (See Mk 16:7; Lk 24:48), ascended into heaven, withdrawing himself even from their eyes and granting to no one's flesh anything such as he had shown in his own flesh, so that they too might live by faith and might now, in the meantime, await invisibly, through patience, the reward of that righteousness in which one lives by faith—a reward that will afterward be visible.

To this understanding I believe that too is to be referred which he says of the Holy Spirit: He cannot come unless I go away (Jn 16:7). For this was to say: "You will not be able to live justly by faith—which you will have from my gift, that is, from the Holy Spirit—unless I take from your eyes this which you gaze upon, so that your heart may advance spiritually by believing the invisible."

This righteousness from faith he commends, again speaking of the Holy Spirit, thus: He, he says, will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, of judgment: of sin indeed, because they did not believe in me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father and you will no longer see me (Jn 16:8-10). What is this righteousness, by which they would not see him, except that the just man should live by faith (See Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11), and that, looking not to the things that are seen but to the things that are not seen, we should by the spirit await from faith the hope of righteousness?

33. 53. But those who say, If this death of the body had come about by sin, surely we would not die after the forgiveness of sins which the Redeemer grants us, do not understand how things whose guilt God looses—lest they harm after this life—he nevertheless allows to remain for the contest of faith, so that through them those advancing may be instructed and exercised in the struggle of righteousness. For another, not understanding this, could also say: "If on account of sin God said to man, In the sweat of your face you will eat your bread, and the earth will bring forth thorns and thistles for you (Gen 3:18-19), why does this toil too remain after the forgiveness of sins, and the earth bring forth these hard and rough things even for the faithful?

Likewise, if on account of sin it was said to the woman, In groaning you will bring forth (Gen 3:16), why even after the forgiveness of sins do faithful women suffer those same pains in childbearing? And yet it is established that on account of the sin they had committed those first men heard these things from God and deserved them; nor does anyone resist these words of the divine book, which I have set down concerning the toil of man and the childbearing of woman, except one who, altogether a stranger to the catholic faith, opposes those same writings.

34. 54. But because such men too are not lacking, just as we answer them, when this question is proposed, by saying that those things are before forgiveness the punishments of sins, but after forgiveness the contests and exercises of the just, so also to those whom the death of the body likewise disturbs we ought to answer, so as both to confess that it came about by sin, and not to disdain that, after the forgiveness of sins, it has been left to us for the contest, that its great fear may be overcome by those advancing. For if the virtue of faith, which works through love (See Gal 5:6), were a small thing, to overcome the fear of death would not be so great a glory of the martyrs, nor would the Lord say: No one has greater love than this, that he lay down his soul for his friends (Jn 15:13). Which John in his letter says thus: As he laid down his soul for us, so we too ought to lay down our soul for the brethren (1 Jn 3:16). By no means, then, would a special patience be praised in undergoing or despising death for righteousness, if death were not a great and very hard trouble. He who overcomes its fear by faith gains a great glory for that faith itself and a just reward. Hence it is no wonder both that the death of the body would not have befallen man unless sin had gone before—whose penalty too this would be—and that after the forgiveness of sins it befalls the faithful, so that in overcoming its fear the fortitude of righteousness may be exercised.

34. 55. For the flesh which was first made was not the flesh of sin, in which man refused, amid the delights of paradise, to keep righteousness. Hence God determined that, after his sin, the propagated flesh of sin should strive, by toils and troubles, to receive righteousness. For this reason too Adam, dismissed from paradise, dwelt over against Eden (See Gen 3:23)—that is, over against the seat of delights—to signify that the flesh of sin, which in delights did not keep obedience before it was the flesh of sin, was to be instructed in toils, which are contrary to delights. As, then, those first men, by living justly afterward—whence they are deservedly believed to have been freed by the blood of the Lord from the uttermost punishment—nevertheless did not in that life deserve to be recalled to paradise, so too the flesh of sin, even if a man, his sins forgiven, has lived justly in it, does not at once deserve not to undergo that death which it drew from the propagation of sin.

34. 56. Something of this kind is intimated to us concerning the patriarch David in the book of Kings, to whom, when the prophet had been sent and threatened him, on account of the sin he had committed, with evils to come from the wrath of God, he deserved pardon by the confession of his sin, the prophet answering (See 2 Sam 12:13) that that disgrace and crime was forgiven him; and yet the things God had threatened followed, so that he was humbled by his son. Why is it not here too said, "If God had threatened on account of that sin, why, the sin being forgiven, did he fulfill what he had threatened?" Unless because it will most rightly be answered, if it is said, that that forgiveness of sin was made lest the man be hindered from receiving eternal life, but that the effect of that threat followed, so that the man's piety might be exercised and proved in that humility? So too God both inflicted the death of the body on man on account of sin, and, after the forgiveness of sins, did not take it away, for the exercising of righteousness.

35. 57. Let us, then, hold the undeviating confession of faith. There is one alone who was born without sin in the likeness of sinful flesh, lived without sin amid the sins of others, died without sin for our sins. Let us not turn aside to the right or the left (See Prov 4:27); for to turn aside to the right is to deceive oneself by saying that one is without sin, but to the left is, by some perverse and crooked security, to give oneself over to sins as though with impunity. For the ways that are on the right the Lord knows (Prov 4:27), who alone is without sin and can blot out our sins; but perverse are those on the left (Prov 4:27), friendships with sins. Such a figure of the new people too those young men of twenty years prefigured who entered into the land of promise (See Num 14:29), who were said to have turned aside neither to the right nor to the left (See Josh 23:6). For the age of twenty years is not to be compared to the innocence of little ones; but, unless I am mistaken, this number shadows forth and resounds something mystical. For the Old Testament excels in the five books of Moses, but the New shines forth with the authority of the four Gospels. These numbers, multiplied by each other, come to twenty; for four times five, or five times four, is twenty. Such a people, as I have foretold, instructed in the kingdom of heaven through the two Testaments, the Old and the New, not turning aside to the right by a proud presumption of righteousness nor to the left by a secure love of sin, will enter into the land of that promise, where we may now neither wish further sins to be forgiven us nor fear sins to be punished in us, freed by that Redeemer who, not sold under sin, redeemed Israel from all its iniquities—whether committed in anyone's own life or drawn originally.

36. 58. For they yielded not a little to the authority and truth of the divine Scriptures who, although they refused to express openly in their writings that forgiveness of sins is necessary for little ones, nevertheless confessed that redemption is needful for them. For by another word—itself too drawn from Christian teaching—they said nothing else at all. Nor is it to be doubted by those who faithfully read, faithfully hear, faithfully hold the divine writings, that from that flesh which first, by the will of sin, became the flesh of sin, the flesh of sin has thereafter been propagated, the proscription of iniquity and death passing through all by succession—except the one likeness of sinful flesh, which nevertheless would not be unless there were the flesh of sin.

36. 59. But concerning the soul—whether it too, propagated in the same way, is bound by a guilt which is forgiven it (for we cannot say that only the flesh of a little one, and not also the soul, needs the help of the Savior and Redeemer, or that the soul is a stranger to that thanksgiving which is in the Psalms, where we read and say: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his recompenses, who is gracious to all your iniquities, who heals all your weaknesses, who redeems your life from corruption (Ps 103:2-4 (102:2-4)))—or whether, even though not propagated, by the very fact that it is mingled with the flesh of sin to be weighed down, it now needs the forgiveness of that sin and its own redemption, God by his supreme foreknowledge judging which little ones do not deserve to be absolved from this guilt, even those who, not yet born (See Rom 9:11), have done nothing anywhere in their own life, whether good or evil; and how God, even if he does not create souls by transmission, is nevertheless not the author of that same guilt, on account of which the redemption of the sacrament is necessary for the soul of a little one—this is a great question and demands another discussion, tempered nevertheless, as I judge, with such moderation that a cautious inquiry be praised rather than a hasty assertion be reproved. For where a most obscure matter is discussed, without the certain and clear documents of the divine authorities helping, human presumption ought to restrain itself, doing nothing by turning aside to either side. For even if I am ignorant how any of these things can be demonstrated and explained, yet I believe this: that on this point too there would be the clearest authority of the divine oracles, if a man could not be ignorant of it without the loss of the promised salvation.

You have, worked out as far as my powers allowed—would that it were as convenient as it is lengthy!—a work whose length I would perhaps defend, did I not fear to do so by defending it at greater length.

To his dearest son Marcellinus, Augustine, bishop, servant of Christ and of the servants of Christ, greeting in the Lord.

1. 1. Concerning the questions which you had proposed to me, that I should write you something against those who say that Adam, even if he had not sinned, would have died, and that nothing passed from his sin to his posterity by propagation—especially on account of the baptism of little ones, which by a most pious and motherly custom the universal Church frequents—and against those who say that there are, have been, and will be in this life sons of men having no sin at all, I had already finished two lengthy books. By these I seemed to myself indeed not to have met all the disturbances of all minds in this cause—which I do not know whether it can be done by me or by anyone; nay, I do not doubt that it cannot be done—but yet to have accomplished something by which the defenders of the faith handed down by our forefathers concerning these matters might stand not everywhere unarmed against the novelties of those who think otherwise. But after very few days I read certain writings of Pelagius—a holy man, as I hear, and a Christian of no small advancement—which contained very brief expositions on the letters of the apostle Paul; and there I found, when he had come to that place where the Apostle says that through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death (See Rom 5:12), and so passed into all men, a certain argument of those who deny that little ones bear original sin, which, I confess, I did not refute in those so long volumes of mine, because it had not at all come into my mind that anyone could think or say such things. Wherefore, since I did not wish to add anything to that work, which I had already closed with a definite end, I thought it should be inserted into this letter—both the argument itself, in the same words in which I read it, and what seems to me against it.

2. 2. The argument, then, was set down thus: But those, he says, who are against the transmission of sin try to assail it thus: If, they say, Adam's sin harmed even those who do not sin, then Christ's righteousness too profits even those who do not believe, since he says that in like manner—nay, even more—are saved through one than perished through one before. To this argument, then, as I said, in those two books which I wrote to you I answered nothing, nor did I at all set it before myself to be refuted. Now, then, first attend to how, when they say, If Adam's sin harms even those who do not sin, then Christ's righteousness too profits even those who do not believe, they surely judge it most absurd and most false that Christ's righteousness should profit even those who do not believe. Whence they think it is concluded that neither could the sin of the first man have harmed the little ones who do not sin, just as Christ's righteousness cannot profit any who do not believe.

Let them say, therefore, what Christ's righteousness profits baptized little ones; let them say altogether what they will. For surely, if they remember that they are Christians, they do not doubt that it profits something. Whatever, then, it profits, it cannot profit those who do not believe, as they themselves too assert.

Hence they are compelled to reckon baptized little ones in the number of believers and to consent to the authority of the holy Church everywhere, which does not deem them unworthy of the name of the faithful—those to whom Christ's righteousness, even according to these men, could profit only if they believe.

As, then, the spirit of righteousness of those through whom they are reborn transfers into them by its response the faith which they could not yet have by their own will, so the flesh of sin of those through whom they are born transfers into them the harm which they have not yet contracted by their own life.

And as the spirit of life regenerates them faithful in Christ, so the body of death had generated them sinners in Adam; for the one is a carnal generation, the other spiritual; the one makes sons of the flesh, the other sons of the spirit; the one sons of death, the other sons of resurrection; the one sons of the age, the other sons of God; the one sons of wrath, the other sons of mercy; and by this the one makes them bound by original sin, the other makes them freed from the bond of all sin.

2. 3. Finally, as to what we are unable to attain by the most penetrating understanding, let us be compelled to consent by divine authority. It is good that they themselves admonish us that Christ's righteousness cannot profit any but believers, and confess that it profits little ones something. Hence, as we have said, it is necessary that they set the baptized in the number of believers without any evasion. Consequently, then, if they are not baptized, they will be among those who do not believe, and by this they will not have life, but the wrath of God remains upon them, since he who does not believe in the Son will not have life, but the wrath of God remains upon him (Jn 3:36); and they are judged, since he who does not believe is already judged (Jn 3:18); and they will be condemned, since he who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned (Mk 16:16). Now, then, let these men see by what justice they try or attempt to assert that men who are without sin pertain not to eternal life but to the wrath of God, and are divinely judged and condemned, if, just as there is no proper sin in them, so there is also no original sin.

2. 4. To the rest of the things which Pelagius intimates that those say who argue against original sin I have, I think, answered sufficiently and clearly enough in those two books of my lengthy work. And if to some it will seem either too little or too obscure, let them grant pardon and settle the matter with those who perhaps reprove it not because it is too little but because it is too much; and let those who do not yet understand the things that I think were said clearly, according to the nature of the questions, not slander me for negligence or for a lack of my ability, but rather beseech God for the receiving of understanding.

3. 5. Nevertheless we ought not negligently to notice that this man—a good and praiseworthy man, as those who know him speak of him—brought forward this argument against the propagation of sin not from his own person, but intimated what those say who do not approve it; and not only this which I just now set forth and answered, but also the rest, to which I recalled that I had already answered in those books. For when he had said, If, they say, Adam's sin harmed even those who do not sin, then Christ's righteousness too profits even those who do not believe—which, in the things I answered, you see how it not only does not assail what we say, but even admonishes us what to say—he went on and added: Then they say: If baptism cleanses that ancient trespass, those who are born of two baptized persons ought to be free of this sin; for they could not transmit to their posterity what they themselves did not have at all. This too is added, he says, that, if the soul is not from transmission but only the flesh, then it alone has the transmission of sin and it alone deserves the penalty, saying that it is unjust that a soul born today, not from the mass of Adam, should bear so ancient a sin of another. They say also, he says, that it is by no reason conceded that God, who forgives proper sins, should impute another's.

3. 6. Do you see, I beseech you, how Pelagius set all this in his writings not from his own person but from that of others—so far knowing that this is some I-know-not-what novelty, which has now begun to sound against the ancient opinion planted in the Church, that he himself was either ashamed or afraid to confess it?

And perhaps he himself does not hold this—that a man is born without sin, for whom he confesses baptism to be necessary, in which the forgiveness of sins comes about; that a man is condemned without sin, whom, if unbaptized, it is necessary to reckon among those who do not believe, since surely the Gospel Scripture cannot deceive, in which it is most openly read: He who does not believe will be condemned (Mk 16:16); finally, that without sin the image of God is not admitted to the kingdom of God, since unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (Jn 3:5); and thus is either cast headlong into eternal death without sin, or—what is more absurd—has eternal life outside the kingdom of God, although the Lord, foretelling what he will say to his own at the end, Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which was prepared for you from the beginning of the world (Mt 25:34), made manifest also what that very kingdom was of which he spoke, concluding thus: So those will go into eternal burning, but the just into eternal life (Mt 25:46).

These things, then, and others which follow from this error, very perverse and repugnant to Christian truth, I believe that so eminently Christian a man does not hold at all. But it can be that he is still perhaps so moved even by the arguments of those who hold against the transmission of sin that he awaits to hear or learn what is said against them; and therefore he was both unwilling to be silent about what those who hold against the transmission of sin say, that the question might be intimated for discussion, and removed it from his own person, lest he too should be judged to hold this.

4. 7. But even if I am unable to refute the arguments of these men, I see nevertheless that we must cling to the things that are most open in the Scriptures, that from them the obscure may be revealed, or, if the mind is not yet fit to be able either to discern them when demonstrated or to track them down when hidden, they may be believed without any hesitation. But what is more open than so many and so great testimonies of the divine oracles, by which it appears most clearly both that no man can come to eternal life and salvation apart from the fellowship of Christ, and that no one can be unjustly condemned by the divine judgment—that is, separated from that life and salvation? Whence it follows that, since nothing else is done when little ones are baptized but that they are incorporated into the Church, that is, joined to the body and members of Christ (See Eph 1:23), it is manifest that they pertain to condemnation unless this has been conferred on them. But they could not be condemned if they surely had no sin. Because this age could contract none in its own life, it remains to understand—or, if we cannot yet do this, at least to believe—that little ones draw original sin.

4. 8. And by this, if the apostolic words have anything ambiguous in which he says, Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed into all men (Rom 5:12), and can be led and transferred to another meaning, is that too ambiguous: Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (Jn 3:5)? Is that too: You will call his name Jesus; for he will save his people from their sins (Mt 1:21)? Is even that, that the physician is not needed by the healthy but by the sick (Mt 9:12)—that is, that Jesus is not necessary for those who have no sin, but for those who are to be saved from sin? Is even that, that unless men eat his flesh (See Jn 6:54)—that is, are made partakers of his body—they will not have life?

By these and other testimonies of this kind, which I now pass over—most clear with the divine light, most certain with the divine authority—does not the truth proclaim, without any ambiguity, not only that unbaptized little ones cannot enter into the kingdom of God, but also that they cannot have eternal life apart from the body of Christ, into which, that they may be incorporated, they are imbued with the sacrament of baptism?

Does not the truth testify, without any doubt, that they are brought to Jesus—that is, to Christ the Savior and physician—by the pious hands of those carrying them for no other reason than that, through the medicine of his sacraments, they may be healed of the plague of sin? Why, then, do we delay to understand even the words of the Apostle, about which perhaps we were doubting, in such a way that they agree with those testimonies about which we cannot doubt?

4. 9. Although in that whole place, where the Apostle speaks of the condemnation of many through the sin of one and the justification of many through the righteousness of one (See Rom 5:18), nothing seems to me ambiguous, except that he says Adam is the form of the one to come (See Rom 5:14). For this in truth not only fits this meaning, by which it is understood that his future posterity were generated from the same form with sin, but these words can also be drawn into various other understandings. For we too have at some time said one thing from it, and will perhaps say another, which nevertheless is not opposed to this understanding; and Pelagius himself expounded it in more than one way. But the rest of the things that are said there, if they are diligently noticed and treated—as in the first of those two books I attempted, as best I could—even if, by the necessity of the matters themselves, they bring forth an obscure discourse, will nevertheless be unable to have any other sense than that through which it came about that from antiquity the universal Church held that faithful little ones obtain, through the baptism of Christ, the forgiveness of original sin.

5. 10. Hence not undeservedly the blessed Cyprian sufficiently shows how the Church keeps this as believed and understood from the beginning. When he asserted that little ones, most recently from the maternal womb, were already fit to receive the baptism of Christ—since he had been consulted whether this ought to be done before the eighth day—he tried, as much as he could, to show them perfect, lest anyone should suppose, as it were on account of the number of days, that they were still to be made perfect, because formerly infants were circumcised on the eighth day. But although he had furnished them so great a patronage of defense, he nevertheless confessed that they were not free from original sin, because, if he denied this, he would take away the very cause of that baptism for whose receiving he was defending them. You can read the letter of the said martyr On Baptizing Little Ones (Cyprian, Letter 64 to Fidus), if you wish; for it cannot be lacking at Carthage. But into this our work too, as far as seemed sufficient for the present question, I thought a few things from it should be transferred, which attend to prudently: But as far as pertains to the case of infants, he says, whom you said ought not to be baptized within the second or third day on which they are born, and that the law of the ancient circumcision should be considered, so that you thought that one who has been born should not be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day, a far different thing seemed good in our council. For in this which you thought ought to be done no one consented; but we all rather judged that the mercy and grace of God is to be denied to no man born. For since the Lord in his Gospel says, 'The Son of man came not to lose the souls of men but to save them' (Lk 9:56), as far as is in us, if it can be done, no soul is to be lost. Do you notice what he says, how he holds it to be deadly and death-bearing, not only to the flesh but also to the soul of an infant, to go out of this life without that saving sacrament?

Hence, even if he said nothing else, it was for us to understand that the soul cannot perish without sin. But see a little after, while defending the innocence of little ones, what he nevertheless most openly confesses of them: But if anything could hinder men from the obtaining of grace, he says, graver sins could rather hinder the adult and the advanced and those greater in age. Further, if even to the gravest offenders and to those who have sinned much against God before, when they have afterward believed, the forgiveness of sins is given, and no one is forbidden from baptism and grace, how much more ought an infant not to be forbidden, who, newly born, has sinned nothing, except that, born carnally according to Adam, he has at his first birth contracted the contagion of the ancient death! Who approaches the more easily to receiving the forgiveness of sins by this very thing, that what is forgiven him are not his own sins, but another's.

5. 11. You see with how great a confidence, from the ancient and undoubted rule of faith, so great a man says these things. He brought forth these most certain documents in order that what was uncertain—about which the one to whom he writes back had consulted him, and about which he recalls that a decree of the council was established, namely that even before the eighth day from the day on which an infant was born, no one should doubt to baptize him if he were brought—might be proved by these supports.

For it was not then being decreed or confirmed in the council as something new or as something assailed by anyone's contradiction, that infants were held bound by original sin; but while that consultation was being turned over and discussed there—on account of the law of carnal circumcision, whether they ought to be baptized even before the eighth day—therefore no one consented to him who denied this, because it was now held not a matter for consulting or disputing, but firm and certain, that a soul would perish from eternal salvation if it ended this life without the obtaining of that sacrament, although little ones most recently from the womb were bound by the guilt of original sin alone; wherefore for them, even though much easier, because of another's, the forgiveness of sins was nevertheless necessary. By these certain things that uncertain question about the eighth day was resolved, and it was judged in the council that it is permitted to succor a man born on any day, lest he perish forever—a reason being given even for that carnal circumcision itself, that it was a shadow of the future; not that we should understand that baptism too ought to be given on the eighth day from that on which a man is born, but that we are spiritually circumcised in the resurrection of Christ, who indeed rose from the dead on the third day after the passion, yet, in the days of the weeks by which the times roll on, on the eighth day—that is, on the first day after the Sabbath.

6. 12. And now, by the boldness of I know not what new disputation, certain men try to make us keep silent as uncertain what our forefathers brought forward as most certain for resolving certain things that seemed to some uncertain. For when this first began to be disputed I do not know; but this I know, that even St. Jerome—who today too is occupied in ecclesiastical letters with the fame and labor of so excellent a learning—employs this too, for resolving certain questions in his books, as a most certain document without any dispute. For in what he wrote on the prophet Jonah, when he had come to that place where even little ones are recalled as chastened by fasting, he says: The greater age begins, and it comes down even to the lesser. For no one is without sin, not even if his life has been but of one day and the years of his life are numbered. For if the stars are not clean in the sight of God, how much more a worm and rottenness, and those who are held bound by the sin of the offending Adam (Jerome, Comm. on Jonah 3; see Job 14:4-5; 25:5-6)! If we could easily question this most learned man, how many treaters of the divine Scriptures in both tongues and writers of Christian disputations would he recall, who, from the time the Church of Christ was established, held nothing else, received nothing else from their forefathers, handed down nothing else to their posterity! For my part, although I have read far fewer, I do not remember to have heard anything else from Christians who accept both Testaments—not only those set in the catholic Church, but even in any heresy or schism whatever—I do not remember to have read anything else among those whom I could read writing something on these matters who followed the canonical Scriptures, or believed they followed them, or would have wished to believe so.

Whence this business suddenly emerged for us I do not know. For a little while ago my ears were brushed in passing by certain men conversing cursorily, when we were there at Carthage, that little ones are baptized not in order to receive the forgiveness of sins, but to be sanctified in Christ (See De gestis Pelag. 22, 46). Moved by this novelty, both because it was not opportune that I should say anything against it, and because they were not such men about whose authority I was anxious, I easily held it among things settled and abolished. And behold, now it is defended with a flaming zeal; behold, it is even committed to memory by writing; behold, the matter is brought to this crisis, that we are even consulted by the brethren on it; behold, we are compelled to argue and write against it!

7. 13. A few years ago there appeared at Rome a certain Jovinian, who is said to have persuaded even consecrated women, now of advanced age, to marry—not by enticing them, that he might wish to take any of them to wife, but by arguing that virgins dedicated to holiness have nothing more of merit with God than the faithful married.

Yet this contrivance never came into his mind, that he should try to assert that the sons of men are born without original sin. And surely, if he had built this up, women would much more readily wish to marry, being about to bring forth most clean offspring. When the brethren had sent his writings—for he dared even to write—to Jerome to be refuted, he not only found nothing of the kind in them, but even, for refuting certain vain things of his, brought forth this, as most certain, concerning the original sin of man—about which surely he believed not even that man doubted—among his many documents (See Jerome, Against Jovinian 2).

These are the words of one doing this: He who says, he says, that he abides in Christ ought himself to walk as he walked (1 Jn 2:6). Let the adversary choose of two what he will; we give him the option. Does he abide in Christ or not abide? If he abides, then let him walk as Christ. But if it is rash to promise the likeness of the Lord's virtues, he does not abide in Christ, because he does not go as Christ. He did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth (See Isa 53:7-9; 1 Pet 2:22-23); who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return, and like a lamb before its shearer so he did not open his mouth; to whom the prince of this world came and found nothing in him (See Jn 14:30); who, when he had done no sin, God made sin for us (See 2 Cor 5:21). But we, according to the letter of James, 'all sin in many things' (Jas 3:2) and 'no one is clean from sins, not even if his life has been but of one day' (Job 14:4-5). 'For who will boast that he has a chaste heart? Or who will be confident that he is clean from sins?' (Prov 20:9). And we are held guilty in the likeness of the transgression of Adam (See Rom 5:14). Hence David too: 'Behold,' he says, 'I was conceived in iniquities, and in trespasses my mother conceived me' (Ps 51:5 (50:7)).

7. 14. I have recalled these things not because we rely on the opinions of any disputants as on canonical authority, but that it may appear that from the beginning until the present time, in which this novelty has arisen, this concerning original sin has been guarded in the faith of the Church with so great a constancy that by those who treated the dominical oracles it was brought forward as most certain for refuting other false things, rather than that it was attempted by anyone to be refuted as though it were false.

But in the holy canonical books the clearest and fullest authority of this opinion is in force. The Apostle cries out: Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed into all men, in whom all sinned (Rom 5:12). Hence neither can it be clearly said that the sin of Adam harmed even those who do not sin, since the Scripture says, in whom all sinned. Nor are these called another's sins as though they pertained not at all to little ones—since indeed all then sinned in Adam, when in his nature, by that implanted power by which he could beget them, all were still that one man—but they are called another's, because they themselves were not yet living their own lives, but the life of one man contained whatever was in the future progeny.

8. 15. It is by no reason conceded, they say, that God, who forgives proper sins, should impute another's. He forgives, but to those regenerated by the spirit, not generated by the flesh; but he imputes not now another's, but their own. For they were another's when those who would bear them propagated were not yet; but now, by carnal generation, they are already the sins of those to whom, not yet by spiritual regeneration, they have been forgiven.

8. 16. But if baptism, they say, cleanses that ancient trespass, those who are born of two baptized persons ought to be free of this sin. For they could not transmit to their posterity what they themselves did not have at all. Behold whence error usually grows strong, when men are fit to ask these questions which they are not fit to understand.

For to what hearer, or in what words, may I explain how mortal, corrupted beginnings do not harm those who have been begun with other, immortal beginnings, and yet harm those whom those same persons—to whom they no longer harm—have generated from those same corrupted beginnings? How is a man to understand this, whose somewhat slow mind is hindered also by the prejudice of his own opinion and by the heaviest bond of obstinacy? Nevertheless, if I had undertaken this cause against those who altogether forbade little ones to be baptized, or contended that they were baptized superfluously—saying that, born of the faithful, they necessarily obtain the merit of their parents—then I ought perhaps to be stirred more laboriously and toilsomely to convict this opinion; then, if before dull and contentious men a difficulty of refuting falsehoods and persuading truths resisted me, on account of the obscurity of the nature of things, I would perhaps flee to those examples that are in common use and ready at hand, and in turn ask, so that—because it moved them how a sin which is cleansed through baptism remains in those whom the baptized have begotten—they themselves might explain how the foreskin which is taken away through circumcision remains in those whom the circumcised have begotten, how also the chaff which by human labor is separated with so great diligence remains in the fruit which is born of the cleansed wheat.

9. 17. By these and such examples I would perhaps somehow try to persuade men who believed that the sacraments of cleansing were applied superfluously to the children of the cleansed, by what right counsel the little ones of the baptized are baptized, and how it can come about that a man who has both seeds—of death in the flesh and of immortality in the spirit—is not harmed, having been regenerated through the spirit, by what harms his son generated through the flesh, and that there is in this man, cleansed by forgiveness, what is also in that one, to be cleansed by a like forgiveness—as by circumcision, as by threshing and winnowing.

But as it is, since indeed we deal with those who confess that the children of the baptized are to be baptized, how much better do we deal with them thus, by saying: "You who assert that of men cleansed from the stain of sin children ought to have been born without sin, why do you not attend that in the same way it can be said to you that of Christian parents Christian children ought to have been born? Why, then, do you judge that they ought to be made Christians? Was not the body Christian in their parents, to whom it was said: Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ (1 Cor 6:15)?

Or was the body indeed born Christian of Christian parents, but did not receive a Christian soul? But this is much more wonderful; for, whichever you hold concerning the soul—since surely with the Apostle you do not believe that it did anything good or evil before it was born (See Rom 9:11)—either it was drawn by transmission, and, like the body Christian of Christians, the soul too ought to have been Christian; or, created by Christ, whether in a Christian body or on account of a Christian body, it ought to be either created or sent Christian.

Unless perhaps you will say that Christian men could beget a Christian body, but that Christ himself could not procreate a Christian soul. Yield, therefore, to the truth, and see that, just as it could come about—which you too confess—that of Christians a non-Christian, of members of Christ a non-member of Christ, and (that we may meet also all who, though falsely, are nevertheless held by the name of some religion) of the consecrated a non-consecrated is born, so it also comes about that of the cleansed an uncleansed is born. What will you answer as to why of Christians a non-Christian is born, except that it is not generation but regeneration that makes Christians?

Render us, then, this reason: that likewise no one is cleansed from sins by being born, but all by being reborn. And by this, of men cleansed because reborn, the man who is born is reborn, that he too may be cleansed.

For parents could transmit to their posterity what they themselves did not have at all—not only as grain transmits chaff and the circumcised the foreskin, but also, as you yourselves say, the faithful transmit unbelief into their posterity; which is no longer of them, regenerated through the spirit, but the vice of mortal seed, by which they were generated in the flesh. For surely those little ones whom you judge are to be made faithful through the sacrament of the faithful, you do not deny were born unbelieving of faithful parents."

10. 18. But indeed: If the soul is not from transmission, but only the flesh, then it alone has the transmission of sin, and it alone deserves the penalty—for this they hold—saying that it is unjust that a soul born today, not from the mass of Adam, should bear so ancient a sin of another. Attend, I beseech you, how the circumspect Pelagius—for from his book I transcribed these words which I just now set down—felt how difficult a question concerning the soul he was engaged in. For he does not say "because the soul is not from transmission," but if the soul is not from transmission, doing most rightly, concerning a matter so obscure—of which we can find in the holy Scriptures no certain and open testimonies, or can only with the greatest difficulty—to speak hesitantly rather than confidently.

Wherefore I too answer this proposition not by a hasty assertion: "If the soul is not from transmission, then what justice is this, that, newly created and altogether free from every trespass, utterly free from every contagion of sin, it should be compelled to bear in little ones the passions of the flesh and various tortures and—what is more horrible—even the assaults of demons? For the flesh suffers none of these things in such a way that the soul, which lives and feels, does not rather there pay the penalties. For if this is shown to be just, then it can likewise be shown by what justice it undergoes, even in the flesh of sin, the original sin to be cleansed by the sacrament of baptism and the compassion of grace. But if that cannot be shown, neither, I think, can this. Either, then, let us bear both as hidden and remember that we are men, or let us by arguing attempt, with sober caution, some other work concerning the soul, if it shall seem necessary."

11. 19. Now, however, let us so take that which the Apostle says, Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed into all men, in whom all sinned (Rom 5:12), that we may not be judged to resist, too foolishly and unhappily, so many and so great most open testimonies of the divine Scriptures, by which we are taught that, apart from the fellowship of Christ—which comes about in him and with him, when we are imbued with his sacraments and incorporated into his members—no one can obtain eternal life and salvation. For it was said to the Romans, Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed into all men (Rom 5:12), in no other sense than that in which it was said 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 all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:21-22). For no one doubts that this was said there of the death of the body, since the question, with the Apostle's great intent, was turning upon the resurrection of the body. And therefore he seems there to have been silent about sin, because there was no question about righteousness; but here, to the Romans, he set down both and commended both at great length: sin in Adam, righteousness in Christ; and death in Adam, life in Christ. All these words of the apostolic discourse, as far as I could and as far as seemed sufficient, I searched out and opened, as I have already said, in the first of those two books.

11. 20. Although even there to the Corinthians he so concluded, at the end, that very place concerning the resurrection, long treated, that he did not allow us to doubt that the death of the body too came about by the desert of sin. For when he had said: This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this corruptible has put on incorruption and this mortal immortality, then will come about, he says, the word that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?—then he added: But the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law (1 Cor 15:53-56).

Since, then, as the Apostle's most open words declare, death will be swallowed up in victory by the same means by which this corruptible and mortal will put on incorruption and immortality (See Rom 8:11)—that is, by which God will give life even to our mortal bodies, on account of his Spirit dwelling in us—it is manifest that the sting of this death of the body too, which is contrary to the resurrection of the body, was sin: the sting, that is, by which death was caused, not which death caused; for we die by sin, we do not sin by death.

And so the "sting of death" was said in the way "the tree of life" (See Gen 2:9) was—not what man's life would cause, but by which man's life would come about—and in the way "the tree of knowledge," through which man's knowledge would come about, not which man caused by his own knowledge. So, then, also the sting of death: by which death was caused, not which death caused. For so we say also "the cup of death," by which someone has died or could die, not which the dying or dead man made. The sting of death, then, is sin; by the prick of sin the human race was put to death.

Why do we still ask, of what death—whether of the soul or of the body? Whether of the first, by which we now all die, or of the second, by which the ungodly will then die (See Rev 2:11)? There is no cause for stirring up the question, no place for evasion; the Apostle's words, with which he was doing this, answer when questioned. When this mortal, he says, has put on immortality, then will come about the word that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? But the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law (1 Cor 15:54-56). He was dealing with the resurrection of the body, that death will be swallowed up in victory when this mortal has put on immortality. Then death itself will be insulted, which will be swallowed up in victory by the resurrection of the body. Then it will be said to it: Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? To the death of the body, then, this will be said. For this is what victorious immortality will swallow up, when this mortal is clothed with immortality. To the death of the body, I say, it will then be said: Where, O death, is your victory?—by which here you had so conquered all that even the Son of God contended with you and overcame you not by avoiding but by taking you up? You conquered in those dying, you were conquered in those rising. Your victory, by which you had swallowed up the bodies of the dying, was temporal; our victory, by which in the bodies of the rising you are swallowed up, will stand eternal.

Where is your sting?—that is, sin, by which we were pricked and poisoned, that you should come to be even in our bodies and possess them through so long an age? But the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law (1 Cor 15:56). We sinned in one, all of us, that we might die in one, all of us; we received the law, not that by amendment we might end sin, but that by transgression we might increase it. For the law entered in, that sin might abound; and, Scripture has shut up all things under sin. But thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:57), so that, where sin abounded, grace abounded yet more (Rom 5:20), and that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe (Gal 3:22), and we might conquer death by an immortal resurrection, and its sting, sin, by a free justification.

12. 21. Let no one, then, be deceived about this matter or deceive others. This manifest sense of holy Scripture removes and takes away all ambiguities. As death is drawn from the origin in the body of this death, so sin too was drawn from the origin in this flesh of sin (See Rom 7:24); for the healing of which—both drawn by propagation and increased by the will—and for the raising again of the very flesh, the physician came in the likeness of sinful flesh, who is not needed by the healthy but by the sick, and came not to call the just but sinners (See Mk 2:17).

Accordingly, what the Apostle says, when he admonished the faithful not to separate themselves from unbelieving spouses—For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving woman is sanctified in the brother; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy (1 Cor 7:14)—is either to be taken as we too elsewhere (See Augustine, De serm. Dom. 1, 45) and Pelagius, when he treated the same letter to the Corinthians, expounded it,

namely, that examples had already gone before—both of husbands whom their wives, and of women whom their husbands, had gained for Christ, and of little ones for whose making into Christians the Christian will even of one parent had prevailed—or, if (which the Apostle's words rather seem to sound and in a certain way to compel) some sanctification is to be understood there, by which an unbelieving husband or wife was sanctified in a believing spouse, and by which the children of the faithful were born holy, whether because, whoever, man or woman, had learned this in the law, abstained from intercourse during the woman's menstrual flow

—for this Ezekiel places among those precepts that are not to be taken figuratively (See Ezek 18:6)—or on account of any other sprinkling of holiness, not openly set down there, from the very bond of marriages and children: this nevertheless must be held without doubt, that, whatever that sanctification is, it does not avail to make Christians and to forgive sins, unless they are made faithful by Christian and ecclesiastical institution and the sacraments. For neither are unbelieving spouses, however much they cling to holy and just spouses, cleansed from the iniquity which drives those separated from the kingdom of God to come into condemnation; nor are little ones procreated of any holy and just persons absolved from the guilt of original sin, unless they have been baptized in Christ—for whom we ought to speak the more earnestly the less they themselves can speak for themselves.

13. 22. For this is what that disputation does, against whose novelty we must strive by the ancient truth: it makes it seem that infants are baptized altogether superfluously. But this is not said openly, lest a custom of the Church so wholesomely established be unable to bear its violators. But if we are commanded to bring help to orphans, how much more ought we to labor for these, who will remain more destitute and more wretched than orphans, even under their parents, if the grace of Christ is denied them—which they cannot demand for themselves!

13. 23. But as for what they say, that some men, already using the reason of their own will, have lived or live in this age without any sin, it is to be wished that it may come about, to be striven for that it may come about, to be prayed for that it may come about; yet it is not to be confessed as though it had come about. For to those wishing and striving and beseeching with worthy supplication, whatever of sins remains is daily loosed through this, that we truly say in prayer: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Mt 6:12). Whoever says that this prayer was not necessary in this life for anyone—even a holy man, knowing and doing the will of God—except the one Holy One of holy ones, errs greatly and cannot at all please the very one whom he praises; but if he thinks himself such a one, he deceives himself and the truth is not in him, for no other reason than that he thinks what is false (See 1 Jn 1:8).

That physician, then, who is not needed by the healthy but by the sick (See Mt 9:12), knows how by healing to perfect us unto eternal salvation—he who both does not take away in this age, from those to whom he forgives sins, even that death itself, although it was inflicted by the desert of sin, so that, by overcoming the fear of it too, they may undertake the contest for the sincerity of faith; and in certain things does not help even his just ones—since they can still be lifted up—to perfect righteousness, so that, while not every living person is justified in his sight (See Ps 143:2 (142:2)), we may always owe the giving of thanks to his indulgence, and thus be healed, by holy humility, of that first cause of all vices, that is, of the swelling of pride. While my plan was bringing forth this letter as a short one, a lengthy book was born—would that it were as perfect as it is at last at length finished!