On the Virginal Conception, and On Original Sin: Chapter 22
ON THE VIRGINAL CONCEPTION, AND ON ORIGINAL SIN
human being from the sinful mass,as something unleavened from what is leavened. If someone shows it to me, I will accept it gladly; and I will not hold on to my own reasons if they can be shown to contradict the truth—though I do not think they can.
Chapter 22 On the magnitude of original sin Moreover, original sin can be neither greater nor less than I have said, since once an infant becomes rational, human nature in him does not have the justice that it received in Adam and that it ought always to have; and as I explained earlier,37 the fact that it lacks the power to have justice does not excuse it for not having justice.Yet I do not think that original sin is in every respect as grave as I made it out to be earlier. For, since my aim was to show that original sin did not belong to the human being who was conceived by the Virgin,
I stipulated that original sin was such that no one could add to it, so that (as I remarked) I would not appear to be making light of it for the sake of my inquiry. But now I will say explicitly what I think about this topic.
I do not think Adam's sin passes to infants in such a way that they ought to be punished for it in just the same way as if they themselves as individuals had personally committed it, like Adam himself. But on account of that sin it has come to pass that no infant can be born without sin, from which damnation follows. For when the Apostle says that "death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam's transgression,"38 he seems to signify expressly that neither Adam's transgression itself nor anything as great is imputed to them personally, even though in his writings he describes all the children of Adam, except for the Virgin's son, as "sinners"39 and "children of wrath."40 For when he says,"even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam's transgression,"this can be understood as if he said,"even over those who did not sin as much as Adam sinned by transgressing." And when he says,"the law came in so that sin might be abundant,"41 we should understand either that before the law the sin of "those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam's transgression" was less than the sin of Adam, or else, if it was not less than Adam's, that after the law sin was abundant in them over 37 In Chapter 2.
38 Romans 5:14.
39 Romans 5:8.
40 Ephesians 2:3.
41 Romans 5:20.