CHAPTER I
ON THE VIRGIN CONCEPTION AND ORIGINAL SIN
Prologue Since I am willing to accommodate your religious desire on all matters insofar as I am able, brother and most beloved son Boso, then I certainly count myself especially indebted when I understand that such a desire is aroused in you by me. You have read in the Cur Deus Homo (which you above all others urged me to write and in which I have cast you as my fellow dis putant ) that there is yet another argument which can be given to show the way in which God took from among the sinful mass of the human race a man who had no sin. (CDH, Bk. 2, Ch. 27) Now, when you read this I am sure that your alert mind was in no small degree aroused to ask what the argument is. For this reason I fear that I may seem unjust to you if I conceal from you, my dear friend, what thoughts I have on this matter. So I shall briefly present my views in order that I may not reject the right opinion of anyone on this topic or uncritically maintain my own opinion if it can be shown to be opposed to the truth. Still, I think that the argument presented in the Cur Deus Homo is altogether valid and sufficient if one attends to it. For nothing pre vents there being several different arguments, any one of which is sufficient to establish the same conclusion.
CHAPTER I
What Original and Personal Justice and Injustice Are In order to see, therefore, how God assumed from out of the sinful mass of the human race a man who had no sin it is necessary first to inquire about original sin, because the former question arises from the latter. For if we see that Christ could not be subject to original sin, then it will be clear how His assumption, or conception, was free from all sin.
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There is no doubt that 'original' is derived from the word 'origin.' If, therefore, original sin exists only in man, it seems to get this name either
(l) from the origin, or beginning, of human nature, on the ground that it is contracted at the very origin of human nature] or else (2) such a sin gets its name from the origin, or beginning, of each person, on the ground that it is contracted at the origin of each person. However, original sin does not seem to be something which derives from the beginning of human nature, since human nature was just in its origin when the first parents were created just and without any sin. Hence, original sin seems to be called 'original' from its origin in each human person. Yet if anyone says this sin is called 'original' on the ground that individuals derive it from their first parents, in whom human nature originated, I shall not contradict him--provided he does not deny that original sin is contracted at the origin of each person. Now in each man are found together both the nature by which he is a man like other men, and the person by which he is distinguished from other men--as when he is called
'this one' or 'that one,' or when he is called by his own name (e.g., 'Adam' or 'Abel' ). The sin of every human being is in both his nature and his person, for the sin of Adam was in Adam the man (i.e., in his nature) and in the man
'Adam' (i.e., in his person). Yet although each man is both a nature and a person, there is a difference between the sin he contracts at the very origin of his nature and the sin which he commits after he is a person distinct from other persons. To be sure, that sin which is contracted at the origin of his nature is called 'original,' though it can also be called 'natural'--not be cause it is from the essence of his nature, but because it is received to gether with his nature on account of the nature's corruption. But the sin which each man commits after he is a person can be called 'personal,' because
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