Chapter 526 (continued)
390s, Rufinus authored a work entitled The Book of Faith (Liber de fide), in which he explicitly denies original sin along the lines that Caelestius spoke of. From Rufinus the Syrian, Book of Faith:
(39) They are insane, those who, on account of one human being, Adam, condemn the entire world of injustices and of crimes. People who say this proclaim an unjust God or at least estimate that the devil is stronger than God, implying that the nature which God created good the devil could make evil through the transgression of Adam and Eve. Were it the case that the transgression of the first human being, Adam, and his wife, Eve, made all human beings accountable for the sin, then they certainly ought to acknowledge their [own] lusts for criminal offenses. But inasmuch as they themselves are lovers of pleasure and of the flesh, they should not latch onto others as the cause for things they themselves are seen to be the authors of. Or, should we let those who think themselves prudent and who can neither understand things they are saying nor comprehend things they argue about tell us why Adam and Eve, once they fell the first time, never fell a second time, if their nature, made inwardly sinful by their transgression, had become unable to keep itself away from evils? For nowhere does sacred Scripture remember them as having sinned a second time, while concerning Cain, it did not hesitate to narrate that he sinned a second time, and yet concerning Abel, it also taught that he was a stranger to sins. . . .
(40) But if, as they themselves assert, infants die on account of Adam's sin, let them tell us why those infants who have just been baptized are allowed to taste death, since all who have been baptized and, because of this, have become sons and daughters of God, cannot have any sin. If it were really the case that infants are baptized on account of Adam's sin, then those born of Christian parents should not be baptized at all and should be regarded just as if they too were holy ones because they have been begotten of faith-filled parents, for the blessed Paul teaches this in this way, saying: "Otherwise, your children would be unclean, whereas in fact they are holy" (1 Cor 7:14). In a similar way, blessed John too teaches concerning newborn children that, as soon as they are born, they take in an enlightening sanctification from the only-begotten Word, as he says: "It was the true light who enlightens every person coming into the world" (Jn 1:9). Therefore, infants take in baptism not on account of sins but in order to be created in Christ through baptism, having a spiritual procreation, and so themselves are made partakers in His heavenly kingdom, for the blessed Paul teaches this in this way: "Whoever is in Christ is a new creation" (2 Cor 5:17), and again: "If children, then heirs as well, indeed heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ" (Rom 8:17).44 versy, see Gerald Bonner, "Rufinus the Syrian and African Pelagianism," Augustinian Studies 1 (1970): 31–47; Eugene TeSelle, "Rufinus the Syrian, Caelestius, Pelagius: Explorations in the Pre-History of the Pelagian Controversy," Augustinian Studies 3 (1972): 61–95.
44. Text in Mary W. Miller, ed., Rufini Presbyteri: Liber de Fide: A Critical Text and Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Patristic Studies 96 (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1964), 112–14; my trans.