On the Virginal Conception, and On Original Sin: Chapter 1
Though I should wish in all things to honor, if I can, your pious will, my brother and dearest son, Boso, I regard myself as most greatly in your debt when I understand that I am the one who instilled such a will in you. Now I am certain that when you read in Cur Deus Homo—a book that you in particular, among others, encouraged me to write, in which I took you as my partner in dialogue—that it seems there can be another explanation, besides the one I offered there, for how God took a sinless human being out of the sinful mass of the human race,1 your eager mind is strongly aroused to investigate what that reason might be. So I fear you would think me unjust if I should conceal from your zealous interest what I believe about that topic. I will therefore speak briefly about my view of this matter, in such a way that I do not repudiate anyone's faithful opinion about it or stubbornly defend my own opinion if it can be shown by reason to conflict with the truth.Nonetheless, I do regard the reason I offered in Cur Deus Homo to be utterly firm and sufficient if one examines it carefully.After all, nothing prohibits there being a plurality of reasons for one and the same thing, any one of which can be sufficient by itself.
Chapter 1 What original and personal justice and injustice are So in order to see in what way God assumed a sinless human being from the sinful mass of the human race, we must first investigate original sin, since that alone gives rise to this question. For if it becomes evident how Christ could not be subject to original sin, it will be clear how the assumption or conception of that human being was free from all sin.
There is no doubt that 'original' is denominated from 'origin'. So if original sin exists only in human beings, it appears to be called 'original' either from the origin of human nature, because it exists from the original beginning of human nature in virtue of being transmitted from the very origin of human nature, or from the origin or beginning of each particular person, because it was transmitted in his origin. But it does not appear that original sin derives from the beginning of human nature, since the origin of human nature was just; for our first parents were created just, without any sin. And so it seems that original sin is so called from the origin of each particular human person.
Now if someone were to say that sin is called 'original' because individual human beings derive it from those from whom their nature has its origin, I will not contradict him, provided that he does not deny that original sin is transmitted in conjunction with the origin of each person. For although in 1 See Cur Deus Homo, Book 2, Chapter 17.