no sin of its own deliberate choice may be justified through that one man's obedi
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Manichees who, on observing that flesh cannot lust without soul, assumed that the flesh has some kind ofsoul of its own, derived from another nature in opposi tion to God, with which to lust against the spirit. Nor are we obliged to say that there is any soul which is not in need of the grace of Christ, when people say to us: "How has the soul of an infant deserved that leaving the body without having received the sacrament of Christian baptism should mean its final ruin, if it has not committed any sin of its own, and does not come from the soul which first sinned in Adam?"
23. We are not, you see, dealing here with bigger children, whom some people are unwilling to hold responsible for their own personal sins until the age of fourteen, when puberty begins. We would certainly agree with that if there were no sins except those committed with the sexual organs. But would anybody have the nerve to say that stealing, lying, perjury are not sins, unless they wanted to commit such sins with impunity? Well, the age of childhood is full of these sins, though they are not thought to deserve such punishment as they do in adults. That is because one hopes that as they come to the years of discretion in which their powers of reason gain in strength, they will be able to appreciate the commandments of salvation better and to obey them more cheerfully. But now we are not dealing with boys and girls who, if truth and fairness launch an attack on their sensual and puerile appetites of body or spirit,19 will fight back with all the verbal and muscular powers at their command. And for what, exactly, if not for the falsehood and unfairness that will support them in getting hold of what attracts them, or getting out of what irks them?
No, we are talking about infants, and not because they are frequently born of adulterous liaisons. The gifts of nature are not to be blamed for depraved behavior, nor will seed fail to produce a crop merely because it has been sown by the hand of a thief. Or would even their parents find their own wickedness standing against them, if they put themselves right by turning back to God? How much less would it stand against their children, if they lived upright lives!
14. No, the urgent problem this age of infancy raises is how the soul which has no sin of its own deliberate choice may be justified through that one man's obedi ence, if it is not liable or guilty through that other one's disobedience. That is the tune sung by those who would maintain that human souls are created out ofhuman parents—by none other, indeed, than God the creator, but in the same sort of way as bodies are. With these too, after all, it is not the case that parents create them, and not the one who said: Before lformed you in the womb, l knew you (Jer 1 :5).
19. Animi, a word impossible to And a regular English equivalent for; what it should never, or hardly ever, be rendered by is "soul," as if it were just a synonym for anima. The kind of gratifications, and their opposites. to be sought or avoided by the animus, would be things like fame, praise, "the best seats in the synagogues," as against humiliations, mockery, never being noticed.