The Literal Meaning of Genesis (continued)
BOOK TEN LOIS}
should be baptized so that the union with sinful flesh may not harm his soul. For by reason of this association the soul of an infant cannot be wise according to the spirit.©° Indeed, this condition weighs the soul down even when it leaves the body, unless while in the body it is purified through the one and only Sacrifice of the true Priest.®!
CHAPTER 15
Why is 1t necessary for infants to be baptized?
26. What happens, then, someone will say, if the parents or relatives out of unbelief or negligence fail to have the infant baptized? The same question, indeed, can be asked about adults. For they can die suddenly, or they can be sick in a home where no one will see that they are baptized. But the adults, they say, have also their own personal sins which need forgiveness; and if they are not forgiven, no one can rightly say that they are punished unjustly for the deeds which they wilfully committed during their lives.
But the soul of an infant is a different matter. Its contamination by contact with sinful flesh can in no way be imputed to it if it was not created from the first soul of Adam who sinned. For it was not by any sin but rather by nature that it was so made, and by God's gift that it was given to the body. Why, then, will it be excluded from eternal life if no one will be moved to see that the infant is baptized? Shall we say that the infant will suffer no harm? What, then, is the advantage for the one who is baptized if there is no harm done to the one who is not baptized?
27. I should like to hear what these have to say for their position who take Holy Scripture into account—either finding evidence in it for their opinion or finding that it does not contradict their interpretation—and who try to maintain that new souls not inherited from the parents are given to bodies. I must confess that I have not yet heard or read anywhere their explanation of the problem.