Now previous to the change into the incorrupti- ble state which is promised in the resurrection of the saints, the body could be mortal (capable of dying), although not destined to die {jnorituncs); just as our body in its present state can, so to speak, be capable of sickness, although not des- tined to be sick. For whose is the flesh which is 7 I Kings xix. 8.
Chap. 7.]
ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS, AND BAPTISM.
^7 incapable of sickness, even if from some acci- dent it die before it ever is siclc? In lilce manner was man's body then mortal; and tiiis mortality was to have been superseded by an eternal incor- ruption, if man had persevered in righteousness, that is to say, obedience: but even what was mortal {morta/e) was not made dead {moriu- II in), except on account of sin. For the change which is to come in at the resurrection is, in truth, not only not to have death incidental to it, which has happened through sin, but neither is it to have mortality, [or the very possibility of death,] which the natural body had before it sinned. He does not say: " He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your dead bodies " (although he had previously said, " the body is dead " '); but his words are: " He shall quicken also your mortal bodies; " ^ so that they are not only no longer dead, but no longer mortal [or capable of dying], since the natural is raised spiritual, and this mortal body shall put on immortality, and mortaUty shall be swallowed up in life.^ CHAP. 6 [VI.] — HOW IT IS THAT THE BODY IS DEAD BECAUSE OF SIN.
One wonders that anything is required clearer than the proof we have given. But we must perhaps be content to hear this clear illustration gainsaid by the contention, that we must under- stand " the dead body " here ' in the sense of the passage where it is said, " IMortify your members .vhich are upon the earth." + But it is because of righteousness and not because of sin that the body Is in this sense mortified; for it is to do the works Df righteousness that we mortify our bodies which ire upon the earth. Or if they suppose that the phrase, " because of sin," is added, not that we should understand " because sin has been com- mitted," but " in order that sin may not be committed " — as if it were said, " The body ndeed is dead, in order to prevent the commis- sion of sin: " what then does he mean in the lext clause by adding the words, " because of ighteousness," to the statement, " The spirit is ife? " ' For it would have been enough simply ;o have adjoined " the spirit is life," to have v.-cured that we should supply here too, "in jrder to prevent the commission of sin; " so that AC should thus understand the two propositions 0 point to one thing — that both " the body is lead," and "the spirit is life," for the one com- non purpose of "preventing the commission of ^in." So likewise if he had merely meant to [ ;ay, "because of righteousness," in the sense of | ' for the purpose of doing righteousness," the t wo clauses might possibly be referred to this ' Rom. viii. lo.
- Rom. viii. ii.
* Col. 111. 5.
one purpose — to the effect, that both " the body is dead," and "the spirit is hfe," "for the purpose of doing righteousness." But as the passage actually stands, it declares that " the body is dead because of sin," and " the spirit is hfe because of righteousness," attributing different merits to different things — the demerit of sin to the death of the body, and the merit of right- eousness to the life of the spirit. Wherefore if, as no one can doubt, " the spirit is hfe because of righteousness," that is, as the desert, of right- eousness; how ought we, or can we, understand by the statement, "The body is dead because of sin," anything else than that the body is dead as the desert of sin, unless indeed we try to pervert or wrest the plainest sense of Scripture to our own arbitrary will? But besides this, additional light is afforded by the words which follow. For it is with limitation to the present time, when he says, that on the one hand " the body is dead because of sin," since, whilst the body is unreno- vated by the resurrection, there remains in it the desert of sin, that is, the necessity of dying; and on the other hand, that " the spirit is life because of righteousness," since, notwithstanding the fact of our being still burdened with " the body of this death," 5 we have already by the renewal which is begun in our inner man, new aspirations '^ after the righteousness of faith. Yet, lest man in his ignorance should fail to entertain hope of the resurrection of the body, he says that the very body which he had just declared to be "dead because of sin " in tips world, will in the next world be made alive " because of righteousness," — and that not only in such a way as to become alive from the dead, but immortal from its mor- tality.
CHAP. 7 [VII.] THE LIFE OF THE BODY THE OBJECT OF HOPE, THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT BEING A PRELUDE TO IT.
Although I am much afraid that so clear a mat- ter may rather be obscured by exposition, I must yet request your attention to the luminous state- ment of the aposde. " But if Christ," says he, " be in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness." ' Now this is said, that men may not suppose that they derive no benefit, or but scant benefit, from the grace of Christ, seeing that they must needs die in the body. For they are bound to remem- ber that, although their body still bears that desert of sin, which is irrevocably bound to the condition of death, yet their spirit has already begun to live because of the righteousness of faith, although it had actually become extinct by the death, as it were, of unbelief. No small gift, therefore, he says, must you suppose to have been conferred S Rom. vii. 24. * Respiramus.
i8 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book I.
upon you, by the circumstance that Christ is in you; inasmuch as in the body, which is dead be- cause of sin, your spirit is even now ahve because of righteousness; so that therefore you should not despair of the Hfe even of your body. " For if the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." ' How is it that fumes of controversy still darken so clear a light? The apostle distinctly tells you, that although the body is dead because of sin within you, yet even your mortal bodies shall be made alive because of righteousness, because of which even now your spirit is life, — the whole of which process is to be perfected by the grace of Christ, that is, by His Spirit dwelling in you: and men still con- tradict! He goes on to tell us how it comes to pass that life converts death into itself by morti- fying it. ''Therefore, brethren," says he, "we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh; for if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live." ^ What else does this mean but this: If ye live according to death, ye shall wholly die; but if by living ac- cording to life ye mortify death, ye shall wholly live?
CHAP. 8 [Vin.] — BODILY DEATH FROM ADAM'S SIN.
SIN.
When to the like purport he says: " By man came death, by man' also t|ie resurrection of the dead," ^ in what other sense can the passage be understood than of the death of the body; for having in view the mention of this, he proceeded to speak of the resurrection of the body, and af- firmed it in a most earnest and solemn discourse? In these words, addressed to the Corinthians: " By man came death, and by man came also the resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive," ■* — what other meaning is indeed conveyed than in the verse in which he says to the Romans, " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin? "5 Now they will have it, that the death here meant is the death, not of the body, but of the soul, on the pretence that another thing is spoken of to the Corinthians, where they are quite unable to understand the death of the soul, because the subject there treated is the resurrec- tion of the body, which is the antithesis of the death of the body. The reason, moreover, why only death is here mentioned as caused by man, and not sin also, is because the point of the dis- course is not about righteousness, which is the ' Rom. viii. ii.
' Rom. viii. ii.
antithesis of sin, but about the resurrection of the body, which is contrasted with the death of the body.
CHAP. 9 [iX.] — SIN PASSES ON TO ALL MEN BY NATURAL DESCENT, AND NOT MERELY BY IMITA- TION.
You tell me in your letter, that they endeavour to twist into some new sense the passage of the apostle, in which he says: " By one man sin en- tered into the world, and death by sin; " s yet you have not informed me what they suppose to-be the meaning of these words. But so far as I have dis- covered from others, they think that the death which is here mentioned is not the death of the body, which they will not allow Adam to have deserved by his sin, but that of the soul, which takes place in actual sin; and that this actual sin has not been transmitted from the first man to Other persons by natural descent, but by imitation. Hence, likewise, they refuse to believe that in infants original sin is remitted through baptism, for they contend that no such original sin exists at all in people by their birth. But if the apostle had wished to assert that sin entered into the world, not by natural descent, but by imitation, he would have mentioned as the first offender, not Adam indeed, but the devil, of whom it is written,*^* that " he sinneth from the beginning; " of whom also we read in the Book of Wisdom: " Nevertheless through the devil's envy death entered into the world." 7 Now, forasmuch as this death came upon men from the devil, not because they were propagated by him, but because they imitated his example, it is immediately added: " And they that do hold of his side do imitate him."^ Accordingly, the apostle, when mentioning sin and death together, which had passed by natural ; descent from one upon all men, set him down as the introducer thereof from whom the propa- gation of the human race took its beginning.
CHAP. 10. THE ANALOGY OF GRACE.
No doubt all they imitate Adam who by dis- obedience transgress the commandment of God; but he is one thing as an example to those who sin because they choose; and another thing as the progenitor of all who are born with sin. All His saints, also, imitate Christ in the pursuit of righteousness; whence the same apostle, whom we have already quoted, says: " Be ye imitators of me, as I am also of Christ." 9 But besides this imitation. His grace works within us our illumi- nation and justification, by that operation con- cerning which the same preacher of His [name] says: " Neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the 6 I John iii. 8.
9 I Cor. xi. I.
Chap. 13.I ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS, AND BAPTISM.
19 increase." ' For by this grace He engrafts into His body even baptized infants, who certainly have not yet become able to imitate any one. As therefore He, in whom all are made alive, liL'bides offering Himself as an example of right- eousness to those who imitate Him, gives also to those who believe on Him the hidden grace of His Spirit, which He secretly infuses even into infants; so likewise he, m whom all die, besides being an example for imitation to those who wilfully transgress the commandment of the Lord, depraved also in his own person all who come: of his stock by the hidden corruption of his own carnal concupiscence, it is entirely on this ac- count, and for no other reason, that the apostle says: " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so passed upon all men; in which all have sinned." ^ Now if / were to say this, they would raise an objection, and loudly insist that I was incorrect both in expres- sion and sense; for they would perceive no sense in these words when spoken by an ordinary man, except that sense which they refuse to see in the apostle. Since, however, these are the words of him to whose authority and doctrine they submit, they charge us with slowness of understanding, while they endeavour to wrest to some unintel 1 ligible sense words which were written in a clear j and obvious purport. " By one man," says he, "sin entered into the world, and death by sin." This indicates propagation, not imitation; for if imitation were meant, he would have said, " By the devil." But as no one doubts, he refers to that first man who is called Adam: " And so," says he, " it passed upon all men."
CHAP. II [X.] DISTINCTION BETWEEN ACTUAL AND ORIGINAL SIN.3 "^Again, in the clause which follows, " In which all have sinned," how cautiously, rightly, and i unambiguously is the statement expressed! For if you understand that sin to be meant which by one man entered into the world, " In which [sinj all have sinned," it is surely clear enough, that I the sins which are peculiar to every man, which ' they themselves commit and which belong simply \ to them, mean one thing; and that the one s:n, in and by which all have sinned, means another thing; since all were that one man. If, however, it be not the sin, but that one man that is understood, " In which [one manj all have sinned," what again can be plainer than even tliis clear statement? We read, indeed, of those being justified in Christ who believe in Him, by reason of the secret communion and inspiration of that spiritual grace which makes every one who cleaves to the Lord " one spirit " with ' See below, Bool: iii c. vii.; also in the De Nuptiis, c. v.; also Epist 186, and Serin 165.
Him, 4 although His saints also imitate His ex- ample; can I find, however, any similar state- ment made of those who have imitated His saints? Can any man be said to be justified in Paul or in Peter, or in any one whatever of those excellent men whose authority stands high among the people of God? We are no doubt said to be blessed in Abraham, according to the passage in which it was said to him, '• In thee shall all nations be blessed "5 — for Christ's sake, who is his seed according to the flesh; which is still more clearly expressed in the par- allel passage: " In thy seed shall all nations be blessed." I do not believe that any one can find it anywhere stated in the Holy Scriptures, that a man has ever sinned or still sins " in the devil," although all wicked and impious men " imitate " him. The apostle, however, has de- clared concerning the first man, that " in him all have sinned;" - and yet there is still a contest about the propagation of sin, and men oppose to It I know not what nebulous theory of " imi- tation." ^ CHAP. 12, THE LAW COULD NOT TAKE AWAY SIN, Observe also what follows. Having said, " In which all hav^e sinned," he at once added, " For until the law, sin was in the world." ^ This means that sin could not be taken away even by the law, which entered that sin might the more abound,^ whether it be the law of nature, under which every man when arrived at years of dis- cretion only proceeds to add Ws own sins to original sin, or that very law which Moses gave to the people. " For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily right- eousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.^ But sin is not imputed where there is no law." ^ Now what means the phrase " is not impu/ed" but " is ignored,'" or " is not reckoned as sin? " Although the Lord God does not Himself regard it as if it had never been, since it is written: '' As many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law." '° CHAP, 13 [xl] — ME.^NING OF THE APOSTLE'S PHRASE " THE REIGN OF DEATH," "Nevertheless," says he, "death reigned from Adam even unto Moses," " — that is to say, from * I Cor vi. 17.
s Gal iii. 8: comp. Gen. xii. 3, xviii 18, xxii. 18 (> This was the Pelagian term, expressive of their dogma that original sin stands in the following [or " imitation "] of Adam, instead of being the fault and corruption of the nature of ever>' man who is naturally engendered of Adam's offspring; which doctrine is ex- pressed by Augustin's \iax^, propagatio, " propagation."
7 Rom. V. 13.
8 Rom. V. 2o.
" Rom. V 14.
20 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Book I.
the first man even to the very law which was promulged by the divine authority, because even it was unable to abolish the reign of death. Now death must be understood " to reign," whenever the guilt of sin ' so dominates in men that it prevents their attainment of that eternal life which is the only true life, and drags them down even to the second death which is penally eternal. 'J'his reign of death is only destroyed in any man by the Saviour's grace, which wrought e\-en in the saints of the olden time, all of whom, though previous to the coming of Christ in the flesh, yet lived in relation to His assisting grace, not to the letter of the law. which onlv knew how to command, but not to help them. In the Old Testament, indeed, that was hidden (con- formably to the perfectly just dispensation of the times) which is now revealed in the New Testa- ment. Therefore " death reigned from Adam unto Moses," in all who were not assisted by the grace of Christ, that in them the kingdom of death might be destroyed, " even in those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression," ^ that is, who had not yet sinned of their own individual will, as Adam did, but had drawn from him original sin, " who is the figure of him that was to come," ^ because in him was constituted the form of condemnation to his future progeny, who should spring from him by natural descent; so that from one all men were born to a condemnation, from which there is no deliverance but in the Saviour's grace. I am quite aware, indeed, that several Latin copies of the Scriptures read the passage thus: " Death reigned from Adam to Moses over them who have sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression; " 3 but even this version is re- ferred by those who so read it to the very same purport, for they understood those who have sinned in him to have sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression; so that they are cre- ated in his likeness, not only as men born of a man, but as sinners born of a sinner, dying ones of a dying one, and condemned ones to a con- demned one. However, the Greek copies from which the Latin version was made, have all, without exception or nearly so, the reading which I first adduced.
CHAP. 14. — SUPERABUNDANCE OF GRACE.
" But," says he, " not as the offence so also is the free gift. For if, through the offence of one, many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by One Man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many." * ■ Reatus />eccati.
^ Rom. V. 14.
3 Comp. E/>isi. 157, n. 19. [Some few Greek copies have come down to us (e.g. 67**) which omit the "not," but no Latin copy (unless d* be an exception), although other Latin writers (e.g. Am- brosiaster) testify to their former existence. — VV.]
* Rom. V. 15.
Not many more, that is, many more men, for there are not more persons justified than con- demned; but it runs, iniuh more hath abound- ed; inasmuch as, while Adam produced sinners from his one sin, Christ has by His grace pro- cured free forgiveness even for the sins which men have of their own accord added by actual transgression to the original sin in which they were born. This he states more clearly still in the sequel.
CHAP. 15 [xIl] — THE ONE SIN COMMON TO ALL MEN.
But observe more Attentively what he says, that " through the offence of one, many are dead." For why should it be on account of the sin of one, and not rather on account of their own sins, if this passage is to be under- stood of imitation, and not of propagation? s But mark what follows: " And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift; for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the grace is of many offences unto justification." ^ Now let them tell us, where there is room in these words for imitation. "By one," says he, "to condem- nation." By one what except one sin? This, indeed, he clearly implies in the words which he adds: " But the grace is of many offences unto justification." Why, indeed, is the judg- ment from one offence to condemnation, while the grace is from many offences to justification? If original sin is a nullity, would it not follow, that not only grace withdraws men from many offences to justification, but judgment leads them to condemnation from many offences like- wise? For assuredly grace does not condone many offences, without judgment in like manner having many offences to condemn. Else, if men are involved in condemnation because of one offence, on the ground that all the offences which are condemned were committed in imita- tion of that one offence; there is the same reason why men should also be regarded as withdrawn from one offence unto justification, inasmuch as all the offences which are remitted to the justified were committed in imitation of that one offence. But this most certainly was not the apostle's meaning, when he said: "The judgment, indeed, was from one offence unto condemnation, but the grace was from many offences unto justification." We on our side, indeed, can understand the apostle, and see that judgment is predicated of one offence unto condemnation entirely on the ground that, even if there were in men nothing but original sin, it would be sufficient for their condemnation. For however much hea\ier will be their con- demnation who have added their own sins to 5 See note to last word of ch. 11. *" Rom. V. 16.
Chap. i8.]
ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS, AND BAPTISM.
21 the original offence (and it will be the more severe in individual cases, in proportion to the sins of individuals); still, even that sin alone which was originally derived unto men not only excludes from the kingdom of God, which in- fants are unable to enter (as they themselves allow), unless they have received the grace of Christ before they die, but also alienates from isalvation and everlasting life, which cannot be anything else than the kingdom of God, to which fellowship with Christ alone introduces us.
CHAP. 1 6 [XIII.] HOW DEATH IS BY ONE AND LIFE BY ONE.
And from this we gather that we have derived from Adam, in whom we all have sinned, not all Dur actual sins, but only original sin; whereas from Christ, in whom we are all justified, we ob- Uiin the remission not merely of that original sin, but of the rest of our sins also, which we have idded. Hence it runs: " Not as by the one :hat sinned, so also is the free gift." For the uilgment, certainly, from one sin, if it is not re- mitted— and that the original sin — is capable Df drawing us into condemnation; whilst grace :onducts us to justification from the remission )f many sins, — that is to say, not simply from ;he original sin, but from all others also what- ioever.
CHAP. 17. WHOM SINNERS IMITATE.