On the Virginal Conception, and On Original Sin: Chapter 15/Chapter 16
ON THE VIRGINAL CONCEPTION, AND ON ORIGINAL SIN
way contradicts our argument, which claims that the seed received from the Virgin is clean, even though it is from the sinful mass.
Chapter 15 How the sinful mass is not wholly sinful Just as blindness is not in every part of a human being,even though the human being is called blind, but is only in the eye, where sight ought to be—for blindness is not in a hand or foot—and deafness is only in the ear, even though the human being is called deaf, so too, even though the mass of the human race is called sinful, there is not sin in every part of it, but only (as I have said30) in the will; and as we know, no seed has a will at the moment of its conception. Therefore, if the things I have said are examined carefully, we can now freely conclude—with no sound or plausible argument to contradict us—that no reasoning, no truth, no understanding allows that any share of the sin of the sinful mass either could have or should have affected the human being who was conceived by the Virgin alone, even though he was taken out of that sinful mass;and this would have been the case even if he were not God.
Chapter 16 Why John, and others who likewise were miraculously conceived, are not of themselves free of sin Someone might bring up the cases of John the Baptist and others who were propagated from those who were sterile and in those whose reproductive nature was dead because of old age, objecting that by a similar argument they too should have been born without sin and the punishment for sin, since they were miraculously conceived. But it must be understood that such cases are far removed from the argument that shows that the virginal conception was free from all necessity of sin. For it is one thing for God to do something unheard-of, unexpected, and unknown to nature, and quite another for him to heal a nature that has been weakened by age or infirmity and call it back to its proper work. After all, if Adam had not sinned, he would not have grown weak from age, or indeed from any cause; thus, no fall would have impeded the working of the reproductive nature created in him, the exercise of which was subjected to his power (as has been said31). So what we find with John and similar cases is not something new given to Adam's nature, as was granted in the son of the Virgin, but the restoration of what had been enfeebled by its
30 See Chapter 3.
31 See Chapter 11.