Therefore, as through the transgression of one it came upon all men unto condemnation, so also through the justification of one it comes upon all men unto justification of life. This 'transgression of one,' if we attend to imitation, would belong to none but the devil. But since it is manifest that it is spoken of Adam, not of the devil, it remains that we understand not imitation but the propagation of sin. And in what he says of Christ, 'through justification,' he expressed this more forcibly than if he had said 'through the righteousness of one.' For he speaks of that justification by which Christ justifies the ungodly, which he did not set forth as something to be imitated, but which He alone can accomplish. For the Apostle could rightly say, 'Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ,' but he would never say, 'Be justified by me.'
'as I too have been justified by Christ,' since there can be, and are, and have been many righteous men who are to be imitated, but none is righteous and justifying save Christ alone. Whence it is said: 'to him who believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned unto righteousness.' Whoever, therefore, should dare to say, 'I justify you,' it follows that he must also say, 'believe in me' — which no one of the saints could rightly say. 'Believe in God, and believe in me,' so that, because He Himself justifies the ungodly, to him who believes in Him who justifies the ungodly his faith may be reckoned unto righteousness. For if imitation alone makes sinners through Adam, why does not imitation alone also make men righteous through Christ?
'For as,' he says, 'through the transgression of one it came upon all men unto condemnation, so also through the justification of one it comes upon all men unto justification of life.' Accordingly, these 'one' and 'one' ought to have been established not as Adam and Christ, but as Adam and Abel; for since many sinners have gone before us in the time of this life, and those who sinned in a later time imitated them, these men nevertheless will have it that Adam alone is meant, in whom all sinned by imitation, because he himself first of men sinned. And by this reasoning, Abel ought to have been named, in whom, similarly, men are justified by imitation, since he himself first of men lived righteously.
Or if, on account of a certain point of time belonging to the beginning of the New Testament, Christ is set as head of the righteous for the sake of imitation, then Judas his betrayer ought to have been set as head of sinners. Furthermore, if Christ is the one in whom all are justified for this reason — that not His imitation alone makes men righteous, but the grace that regenerates through the Spirit — then for this same reason Adam too is the one in whom all sinned, because not his imitation alone makes men sinners, but the penalty that generates through the flesh. For this cause also it is said 'all' and 'all.' For those who are generated through Adam are not the very same all who are regenerated through Christ;
but this is rightly said, because just as no one's carnal generation is except through Adam, so no one's spiritual generation is except through Christ. For if some could be generated in the flesh not through Adam, and some regenerated in the spirit not through Christ, then neither in the one case nor in the other would 'all' be plainly said. And these same 'all' he afterward calls 'many'; for in some matter all can be those who are few. But carnal generation has many, and spiritual also has many, although this spiritual has not so many as that carnal. Yet nevertheless, just as that has all men, so this has all righteous men, because as no one is a man apart from that, so no one is a righteous man apart from this, and in both there are many.
'For as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one man many shall be made righteous. But the law entered in, that transgression might abound.' This men added to the original by their own will, not through Adam; but this too is loosed and healed through Christ, because 'where sin abounded, grace did much more abound,' so that, just as sin reigned unto death — even that which men did not draw from Adam, but added by their own will — so also grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life. Yet there is no righteousness apart from Christ, as there are some sins apart from Adam. Therefore, when he had said, 'as sin reigned unto death,' here he did not add:
'through one' or 'through Adam,' because above he had spoken also of that sin which abounded when the law entered in, and this is surely not of origin, but already of one's own will. But when he had said, 'so also grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life,' he added, 'through Jesus Christ our Lord,' because, when the flesh generates, that alone is drawn which is original sin, but when the Spirit regenerates, there comes a remission not only of original but also of voluntary sins. Accordingly it can rightly be said that little ones who depart from the body without baptism will be in the mildest condemnation of all. But he greatly deceives and is deceived who declares that they will not be in condemnation, since the Apostle says:
'the judgment came from one transgression unto condemnation,' and a little after: 'through the transgression of one it came upon all men unto condemnation.' When therefore Adam sinned by not obeying God, then his body, although it was animal and mortal, lost the grace by which it in every part obeyed his soul; then arose that shameful bestial motion of which men are ashamed, at which he blushed in his nakedness; then also, by a certain disease conceived from a sudden and pestilent corruption, it came about in them that, having lost the stability of age in which they were created, they should go through the changeableness of the ages unto death. Though therefore they lived many years afterward, yet on that day they began to die, on which they received the law of death, by which they should waste away into old age.
For it does not stand still even for a point of time, but without intermission there slips away whatever by continual change runs gradually toward an end that does not perfect but consumes. Thus therefore was fulfilled what God had said: 'in the day that you eat, you shall die the death.' From this disobedience of the flesh, then, from this law of sin and death, whoever is carnally generated has need to be spiritually regenerated, so that he may not only be brought to the kingdom of God, but also be freed from the condemnation of sin. So together they are born in the flesh, liable to the sin and death of the first man, and together they are reborn in baptism, joined to the righteousness and eternal life of the second man; as it is also written in Ecclesiasticus:
'From a woman was the beginning of sin, and through her we all die.' Whether it be said 'from a woman' or 'from Adam,' both pertain to the first man, since, as we know, the woman is from the man, and the flesh of both is one. Whence also is that which is written: 'and the two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are no longer two,' says the Lord, 'but one flesh.' Wherefore those who say that little ones are baptized for this reason — that there may be remitted to them what they have contracted as their own in this life, not what they have derived from Adam — are not to be refuted with great effort. For when they themselves have thought a little without the zeal of contention how absurd and unworthy of discussion is what they say, they will straightway change their opinion.
But if they refuse, we need not so far despair of human understanding as to fear that they might persuade anyone of this. For they themselves, in order to say this, were driven, unless I am mistaken, by the prejudice of some other opinion of theirs. And therefore, since they necessarily confessed that sins are remitted to the baptized, and yet were unwilling to confess that the sin was drawn from Adam which they confessed was remitted to infants, they were compelled to accuse infancy itself — as though the accuser of infancy were made the more secure by this, that the accused could not answer him. But let us, as I have said, pass these people by;
for there is no need of discourse or of proofs by which the innocence of infants might be established, as regards the life which they lead in themselves at their recent birth, if human sense does not recognize it, aided by no props of anyone's argument. But those give a warning, and seem to bring forward something worthy of consideration and discussion, who say that little ones, newly brought forth into life from their mothers' wombs, receive baptism not for the sake of remitting sin, but that, having spiritual procreation, they may be created in Christ and become partakers of that very kingdom of heaven, in the same way sons and heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.
Yet when it is asked of them whether those not baptized, and not made joint-heirs of Christ and partakers of the kingdom of heaven, have at least the benefit of eternal salvation in the resurrection of the dead, they labor greatly and find no way out. For what Christian could bear it, when it is said that anyone can attain to eternal salvation if he is not reborn in Christ — which He willed to be done through baptism at that very time when such a sacrament was to be established for those to be regenerated unto the hope of eternal salvation? Whence the Apostle says: 'not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the laver of regeneration.' Yet he says this salvation is in hope, while we live here, when he says:
'For in hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is not hope, for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.' Without this regeneration, then, who would dare to affirm that little ones can be saved unto eternity, as though Christ had not died for them? For indeed 'Christ died for the ungodly.' But these little ones, who, as is manifest, have committed nothing ungodly in their own life — if they are not held bound by any bond of ungodliness even from origin — how did He die for them, who died for the ungodly?
If they are wounded by no sickness of original sin, how are they carried by the pious fear of those who care for them to Christ the Physician — that is, to receive the sacrament of eternal salvation — and why is it not said to them in the church: 'Take these innocents away from here; the healthy have no need of a physician, but those who are ill; Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners'? Never has such a fabrication been said, nor is it said, nor will it ever at all be said in the Church of Christ. And lest anyone suppose that little ones ought therefore to be brought to baptism because, just as they are not sinners, so neither are they righteous — how then do certain persons record that the merit of this age was praised by the Lord, when He says: 'Suffer the little ones to come unto me;
for of such is the kingdom of heaven'? For if this was said not on account of the likeness of humility, because humility makes men little ones, but on account of the praiseworthy life of the children, then assuredly they are righteous. For it could not rightly be said otherwise, 'of such is the kingdom of heaven,' since it can belong to none but the righteous. But perhaps it is not fitly said that the Lord praised the life of little ones by saying 'of such is the kingdom of heaven,' since that is the true understanding — that He placed in the tender age a likeness of humility. Yet perhaps this must be held, which I said, that little ones ought therefore to be baptized because, just as they are not sinners, so neither are they righteous. But when it had been said:
'I came not to call the righteous,' as if it were answered Him, 'Whom then have you come to call?' He straightway added, 'but sinners to repentance.' And thus, just as if they are righteous, so also if they are not sinners, He who said 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners' did not come to call them. And therefore they seem to rush to His baptism — of Him who does not call them — not only in vain, but even wickedly; which God forbid that we should hold. Therefore the Physician calls them, He who is not needed by the healthy but by the sick, and came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. And therefore, because they are not yet held liable to any sins of their own life, the original sickness in them is healed in the grace of Him who saves through the laver of regeneration.
Someone will say: 'How then are they too called to repentance? Can such tiny ones repent of anything?' To this the answer is: 'If they are not to be called penitents because they do not yet have the sense of repenting, neither are they to be called faithful, because they likewise do not yet have the sense of believing. But if for this reason they are rightly called faithful, namely because in a certain manner they profess faith through the words of those who carry them, why are they not also held to be penitents beforehand, since through the words of those same bearers they are shown to renounce the devil and this world? All this is done in hope, by the power of the sacrament and of divine grace,
which the Lord has bestowed on the Church.' As for the rest, who does not know that a baptized little one, if coming to the years of reason he does not believe nor abstain himself from unlawful lusts, will gain nothing from what he received as a little one? Yet nevertheless, if having received baptism he departs from this life, with the guilt loosed to which he was liable from origin, he will be perfected in that light of truth which, remaining unchangeably, illumines forever the justified by the presence of the Creator. For sins alone separate between men and God, and these are loosed by His grace, through whom as Mediator we are reconciled, when He justifies the ungodly. But these people are terrified by the Lord's saying:
'Unless one be born again, he shall not see the kingdom of God' — which, when He explained it, He said: 'Unless one be born again of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven' — and therefore they attempt, by a certain new and marvellous presumption, to grant salvation and eternal life to unbaptized little ones by the merit of innocence, yet, because they are not baptized, to make them strangers from the kingdom of heaven. As though the salvation of eternal life could be eternal apart from Christ's inheritance, apart from the kingdom of heaven! For they have, forsooth, whither they may flee and where they may lurk, because the Lord did not say, 'If one be not born again of water and the Spirit, he shall not have life,' but said, 'he shall not enter into the kingdom of God.'
For if He had said that, no doubt could arise from this. Let doubt therefore now be removed; let us hear the Lord, not the suspicions and conjectures of mortals — let us hear the Lord, I say, not indeed saying this concerning the sacrament of the holy laver, but concerning the sacrament of His holy table, to which no one rightly approaches except the baptized: 'Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you shall not have life in you.' What more do we seek? What can be answered to this, unless obstinacy strain its contentious sinews against the constancy of manifest truth?
Or will anyone dare even to say this — that this saying does not pertain to little ones, and that they can have life in themselves without partaking of this body and blood, because He did not say 'whoever does not eat,' as concerning baptism, 'whoever is not born again,' but said, 'if you do not eat,' as though addressing those who could hear and understand, which little ones surely cannot? But he who says this does not consider that unless this saying holds all — that they cannot have life without the body and blood of the Son of Man — then in vain does even the older age concern itself with it. For it can, if you attend not to the will but to the words of the speaker, seem to have been said to those alone,
to whom the Lord was then speaking, because He did not say 'whoever does not eat,' but 'if you do not eat.' And where is that which in the same place He says on this very matter: 'The bread which I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world'? For according to this we understand that this sacrament pertains also to us, who did not yet exist when He said these things, because we cannot say that we do not pertain to the world, for whose life Christ gave His flesh. And who could doubt that by the name 'world' He signified the men who by being born come into this world? For, as He says elsewhere, 'the children of this world beget and are begotten.' And by this the flesh was given also for the life of little ones, which was given for the life of the world;
and if they do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man, neither shall they too have life. Hence is also that saying: 'The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who is unbelieving toward the Son shall not have life, but the wrath of God abides upon him.' In which of these classes, then, shall we place infants? Among those who believe in the Son, or among those who are unbelieving toward the Son? 'In neither,' says someone, 'because, since they cannot yet believe, neither are they to be reckoned unbelieving.' But the ecclesiastical rule does not indicate this, which joins baptized infants to the number of the faithful.
Further, if these who are baptized are, on account of the power and celebration of so great a sacrament, reckoned in the number of believers — although in their own heart and mouth they do not perform what pertains to believing and confessing — then assuredly those to whom the sacrament was lacking must be counted among those who do not believe in the Son; and therefore, if they depart from the body empty of this grace, there will follow them what is said: 'They shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon them.' And whence is this so, when it is clear that they have no sins of their own, if they are not also held liable to original sin? And well did He not say, 'the wrath of God shall come upon him,' but 'abides upon him.' For from this wrath, under which all are set under sin, of which the Apostle says:
'For we too were once by nature children of wrath, even as the rest' — nothing sets free except the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Why this grace comes to one and does not come to another — the cause may be hidden, but it cannot be unjust. For is there injustice with God? God forbid. But first our necks must be submitted to the authorities of the holy Scriptures, that each one may come through faith to understanding. For not in vain was it said: 'Your judgments are like a great deep.' As if trembling at the depth of this abyss, the Apostle cries out: 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!' For he had premised a sentence of wondrous profundity, saying: 'For God has shut up all under unbelief, that He may have mercy upon all.'
As if struck with dread at the horror of this profundity, he says: 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been His counsellor? Or who has first given to Him, and it shall be repaid to him? For of Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things; to Him be glory forever and ever. Amen.' Very small, therefore, is the understanding we have for examining the justice of the judgments of God, for examining the freely-given grace which, with no merits going before, is not unjust — which moves us not so much when it is bestowed on the unworthy as when it is denied to others equally unworthy.
For even those to whom it seems unjust that little ones departing from the body without the grace of Christ should be deprived not only of the kingdom of God — into which, as they themselves confess, none can enter save those reborn through baptism — but even of eternal life and salvation; who ask how it can be just that one should be loosed from original ungodliness and another not loosed, when the condition of both is the same — let these people themselves answer, according to their own opinion, how it is likewise just that baptism should be granted to this one, whereby he may enter into the kingdom of God, and not granted to that one, when the case of both is equal.
For if it moves them why, of these two, since both are equally sinners from origin, one is loosed from this bond, to whom baptism is granted, and another is not loosed, to whom such grace is not granted — why does it not likewise move them that, of two equally innocent from origin, one received baptism whereby he could enter into the kingdom of God, and another did not receive it, so that he could not approach the kingdom of God? Surely in both cases we come back to that exclamation: 'O the depth of the riches!' Next, of the very baptized little ones let it be told me why one is snatched away, lest malice change his understanding, and another lives who is to be ungodly. Would they not both, if both were snatched away, enter into the kingdom of heaven? And yet there is no injustice with God. What of this?
Whom would that not move — whom would it not compel to cry out in such a depth — that some little ones are vexed by an unclean spirit, while others suffer no such thing; that some are even sanctified in their mothers' wombs, like Jeremiah — when all, if there is original sin, are equally guilty, and if there is none, are equally innocent? Whence comes so great a diversity, save that 'His judgments are unsearchable, and His ways past finding out'? Or perhaps we must now regard as exploded and repudiated that opinion — that souls, having first sinned in a heavenly habitation, come by degrees and little by little to the bodies suited to their merits, and are afflicted more or less by bodily plagues according to their previously conducted life? — an opinion which holy Scripture most openly contradicts,
which, in commending grace, says: 'when they were not yet born, nor had done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand — not of works, but of Him who calls — it was said that the elder shall serve the younger.' Nor yet do even those who hold this opinion escape the straits of this question, but, hemmed in and stuck fast in them, they too are likewise compelled to cry out, 'O the depth!' For whence comes it that a man from earliest boyhood more modest, more talented, more temperate, in great part a victor over lusts, who hates avarice, detests luxury, and rises to the other virtues more advanced and more apt — and yet is placed in such a spot where Christian grace cannot be preached to him? For 'how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?'
'Or how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?' — while another, dull of wit, given over to lusts, covered with disgraces and crimes, is so guided that he hears, believes, is baptized, and is snatched away, or, if he is kept here, lives praiseworthily? Where did these two contract merits so diverse — I do not say that this one should believe and that one not believe, which belongs to one's own will, but that this one should hear what he may believe, and that one not hear — for this is not in a man's power — where, I say, did they contract these so diverse merits?
If they conducted some life in heaven, so that for their deeds they were driven or slipped down to the earth and were held in bodily receptacles suited to their previously conducted life, then surely he must be believed to have lived better before this mortal body who deserved not to be much weighed down by it — so that he had both a good disposition and was pressed by his milder concupiscences, which he could easily overcome — and yet did not deserve that grace to be preached to him, by which alone he could be freed from the ruin of the second death;
but the other, on account of his worse merits (as they think), being entangled in a heavier body and on this account of dulled heart, when he was overcome by the enticements of the flesh with most burning desire and, through a most wicked life, added worse earthly deeds to his former sins by which he had deserved to come to this — yet either on the cross heard, 'Today you shall be with me in Paradise,' or clung to some apostle by whose preaching he was changed and, through the laver of regeneration, was made whole, so that 'where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.' What they can answer to this I do not at all see — those who, unwilling to defend the justice of God by human conjectures and ignorant of the depth of grace, have woven improbable fables.
For many things can be said about the wondrous callings of men — whether those we read of or those we have experienced — by which the opinion of those may be overthrown who believe that the souls of men, before these their bodies, lived certain lives of their own, according to the diversity of whose merits they came to these bodies to experience here diverse things, either good or evil. But the care of bringing this work to an end does not permit me to linger longer on these matters. Yet one thing which, among many, I have found marvellous, I shall not pass over in silence.
Who, according to these men — who suppose that souls are more or less weighed down in earthly bodies according to the merits of a prior life led in the heavenly places before this body — would not affirm that those had sinned before this life more wickedly and monstrously, who deserved so to lose the light of the mind that they were born with a sense akin to the beasts? — I do not say the most dull of wit (for this is wont to be said of others), but so witless that even, with curled locks, they display to the sensible, for the moving of laughter, the delights of foolishness; whom the common people, by a name derived from the Greek, call 'morons.' Yet a certain one of such was so a Christian that, though by wondrous foolishness he was most patient of all his own injuries, yet an injury of the name of Christ, or of the religion
with which he had been imbued, he could not bear, so that he would not cease to pursue with stones those sensible men who blasphemed — from whom he heard such things as would provoke him — nor in that cause would he spare even his masters. Such persons, therefore, I judge to be predestined and created, so that those who are able may understand the grace of God and the Spirit, 'who breathes where He wills,' and that on this account no kind of native ability is passed over among the children of mercy, and likewise every kind of native ability is passed over among the children of Gehenna, so that 'he who glories may glory in the Lord.'
But those who affirm that souls, according to the merits of a higher life, receive various earthly bodies by which some are more, some less weighed down, and that according to the same merits human abilities are varied — so that some are sharper and others duller — and that according to the merits of that same higher life divine grace too is dispensed for the freeing of men: what will they be able to answer concerning this man? How will they attribute to him both a most foul higher life, so that he was born a fool, and one so well-deserving, so that from this he was, in the grace of Christ, preferred to many of the sharpest wit? Let us therefore yield and consent to the authority of holy Scripture, which knows not to be deceived nor to deceive; and, as concerning those not yet born, to discern their merits — anything…