Chapter Xxvii
^3 them/. Therefore, although there is sin in infants as a result of Adam's sin,, there is no additional sin in them as a result of the iniquities of their other ancestors.
CHAPTER XXVII
What Original Sin Is, and That It Is of Equal Magnitude in All Human Beings Therefore, I think that original sin is only that sin which is in an infant at the moment he has a rational soul. And I think this, regardless of any corruption that was in his body, or its members, before it received a soul, and regardless of anything that might happen to either his body or to his soul after the moment in which the body receives a soul. And I have presented arguments to explain why original sin is of equal magnitude in all infants who are propagated in accordance with the natural order, and why all who die in this sin alone are equally condemned. Whatever sin accrues to a man above and beyond original sin is personal sin; for as a human person is bora sinful because of his nature, so human nature can be made more sinful because of the person--for when any human person sins, he sins as a man.
I am unable to understand original sin in infants as anything other than the loss of required justice which occurred through the disobedience of Adam.
Through Adam's disobedience we are all children of wrath, since the voluntary desertion of justice accuses the human nature which acted in Adam, and the inability to recover justice in no way excuses the persons who are made having
Adam's nature. The utter lack of happiness also accompanies the desertion of justice, so that all human persons are bora lacking not only justice, but also happiness. In the exile of this life, these two deprivations leave all men defenseless and exposed to sins and miseries which constantly befall them, attacking them on every side (except insofar as they are protected by divine providence).